star trek timelines time portal

Time Portals

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Time Portals are unstable openings between alternate and parallel dimensions. Through these Time Portals, characters across every time and dimension of the Star Trek Multiverse have converged within Star Trek Timelines .

Time Portals--as an item--are single-use and can be purchased for Credits and Dilithium , or obtained from Daily Rewards . "Opening" a Time Portal rewards the Captain with an Item or Crew member.

Basic Portals

Single Gain 1 item or Crew of Basic or Common Rarity.

Pack of 10 Gain 10 items and/or Crew, at least one reward will be Uncommon or better.

Premium Portals

Single Gain 1 item or Crew of Rare or better Rarity.

Pack of 10 Gain a ★★★★ Crew, plus 9 items and/or Crew.

An example of a Behold! choice.

On rare occasions, a Crew result from a Premium Time Portal will offer the Captain a choice of three Crew members. The stats of each Crew can be viewed by tap-and-holding on each Crew.

Promotional Portals

• ↑ Best of the Best only rewards Crew. A single pull from this Pack is the same price as 10 Premium Portals, awarding just the ★★★★ Crew without the other 9 randomly selected rewards. Crew may be duplicated in the 10-pack.
• ↑ Elusive Treasures only awards Crew. A single pull from this Pack is the same price as 10 Premium Portals, awarding just the Crew without the other 9 randomly selected rewards. Crew may be duplicated in the 10-pack.
• 1 Star Trek Timelines
• 2 The Art of War
• 3 Factions/Bajoran

Game Interface After completing the tutorial, this is the screen you'll see after each Away Mission, Starship Battle, and story moment:

 1, 2, 3 - Credits, Merits, & Dilithium (currency)  4 - Game Menus  5 - Notifications  6 - Galaxy Map  7 - Time Portal (store)  8 - Faction Missions  9 - Scan (collect salvage)  10 - Crew Management  11 - Daily Missions  12 - Player Chat  13 - Profile Management & Current Level

A breakdown of each feature found in the game menus.

Build & Change Ship Swap your active starship using this screen. You can also see how many ship schematics you own and how many are required to build a new starship. Acquire starship schematics via the Time Portal, Faction Centers, and by completing Away Missions and Starship Battles.

Friends You can add or remove in-game friends and contacts via the Friends panel.

Fleets Fleets are groups of fellow players that you can join up with. For now, Fleets are a place for you to chat about the game. As we continue to develop new features for STAR TREK TIMELINES, Fleets will become an essential and important part of playing.

Messages When you need to read messages from Disruptor Beam, such as communications with Customer Support, you'll find them under messages.

Video (iOS 9 Only) Press this button to activate built-in screen recording on any iOS 9 device, and save some of your most impressive moments while playing STAR TREK TIMELINES.

Settings Adjust basic game settings via the Settings panel, such as game audio volume and your Disruptor Beam account login.

Contact Support Get in touch with Disruptor Beam's dedicated support team using the Contact Support panel.

Whenever an important piece of game info is available, a circle icon appears on the right side of your screen.

Sometimes there will be a character, like Captain Picard, who wants to speak with you. Tapping the icon brings up a dialog box with that character.

Tap the Galaxy Map icon to switch to a view of the galaxy, various missions, and the current story Episode. (When in Galaxy Map view, tap the same icon to return to a view of your ship – called "System View".)

Two-finger pinching and pulling gestures will zoom your galaxy map in or out. You can drag and tap around the galaxy map to explore star systems and points of interest like space stations and planetary bodies. You can also explore each story Episode on the galaxy map.

This screen gives you access to the Guardian of Forever, a living time portal capable of sending and receiving any person or object through space and time.

Use the Time Portal to acquire new crew, equipment, and even schematics to build starships. You can also spin the Dabo Wheel for a random chance at equipment, starship schematics, and more. Check the Time Portal regularly, as you can find daily and weekly offers plus deals on ships, items, characters.

A Faction represents one of the various political organizations, empires, federations, and groups from the galaxy and across all different universes. For example, the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance exists alongside the United Federation of Planets, the Terran Empire of the "Mirror, Mirror" universe, and the Cardassian Union.

With all of the different factions, it's no surprise many of them have frequent ideological and political disputes. As you become involved with various Factions through Episode storylines, you'll need to decide which sides to favor. Furthermore, each side will provide unique rewards upon reaching the maximum level of influence with them.

The Scan function of your starship allows for occasional daily scans to collect free salvage, which are items that can be used to progress your game in various ways. Rewards may include Faction Mission tokens and additional credits.

In STAR TREK TIMELINES, you assemble a dream team from Star Trek, including the original series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise. As a Captain, you'll direct the action and choose crewmembers to tackle any given dangerous or tense situation.

As a roleplaying game, STAR TREK TIMELINES features characters with Skills [1], Levels [2], and Equipment [3]. However, your crew also have stats like Star Rating [4], Details [5], and level-cap advancement [6].

Star Rating [4] reflects the rarity of a particular crew member in STAR TREK TIMELINES, and roughly equates to their ultimate skill potential. More stars means overall higher skills, like Enterprise-D Picard's skills in Command, Diplomacy, and Science.

Each crew member has four Equipment [3] slots. Giving your crew the appropriate Equipment will raise their Skills [1] and capabilities in both Away Missions and Starship Battles. Once all four equipment slots are full, a crew can be Advanced [6], which raises their level-cap and opens up four new equipment slots. By improving crew equipment, you're able to increase their stats and overcome even more difficult challenges.

Your Daily Missions reset once per day, and include currency and item rewards for simply playing STAR TREK TIMELINES. They're also a good way to jump around game activities during quick play sessions.

You can chat with other players, send private messages, or talk with your fleet from anywhere in the game. Making new friends and talking with other players is a great way to earn more rewards and even learn some tips and tricks.

You can choose your name and portrait at an early Captain level. A small number of portraits are available to begin. It's possible to earn a crew member's portrait as your own Captain portrait by leveling-up that crew member.

Captain Experience & Levels Gain Captain experience and rise in levels to unlock new game features. You’ll unlock new game features like additional Captain portraits, access to Fleets (player guilds), and additional battle stations for your starships.

New Crew & Equipment To get new crew and equipment, you can buy and spend dilithium as well as earn and spend credits. Almost everything in STAR TREK TIMELINES can be earned by spending credits on crew and item packs, but dilithium packs have a better chance of dropping rare items, crew, and starships schematics. Captains earn credits by completing conflicts, fighting in ship battles and completing shuttle missions.

In addition, special "themed" packs have higher chances of dropping specific types of items — for instance, a Klingon or Romulan crew and item pack.

You can also complete Episodes to earn new crew and equipment. If you conclude an Episode in favor of a particular faction, you can recruit a crew member associated with that faction, like Worf (Klingon) or Bones (Federation).

• Gray (Common): 1-star maximum
• Green (Uncommon): 2-star maximum
• Blue (Rare): 3-star maximum
• Purple (Super Rare): 4-star maximum
• Gold (Legendary): 5-star maximum

Crew Advancement & Item Rarity Just like crew, items also have rarity. An item’s rarity is expressed by the number of stars on the item’s bottom border. For example, look at Picard’s favorite variety of tea, Earl Grey:

Each new crew member joins your starship with one star, at level one, and with an starting level-cap of 10. So where does item rarity come in? Let’s take a look at Enterprise-D Picard.

Advancing crew, like Enterprise-D Picard, requires all four items, which are consumed when the crew is advanced:

At each level of advancement, Enterprise-D Picard will either need a more rare Earl Grey tea or even a new item altogether. This is true of any crew in STAR TREK TIMELINES, and so you’ll often have several Earl Grey teas or Type 2 Phasers in your inventory.

Many of the most common items in the game are combined to make rarer items as well, which is another reason you’ll sometimes earn (or even want) several duplicate items. It can take quite a combinations of items to make a 3- or 5-star Earl Grey.

Starship Battles are real-time conflicts between two starships and their respective crew. Before each battle, as Captain, you assign battle stations from your pool of crew. Each crew, when placed in a battle station, is able to temporarily increase the tactical capabilities of your starship. Currently, this is represented by three core stats: Damage, Accuracy, and Evasion.

To be victorious, Captains must choose the right crew for each respective battle, and that can change depending on whether you're battling a Borg Cube or a Klingon Bird of Prey. Sometimes, your starship may need more damage for the heavily armored starships. And other times you may require incredible accuracy to hit more nimble vessels.

Winning a Starship Battle earns you Captain and Crew experience, including credits to spend on upgrading crew or purchasing packs from the Time Portal.

Each Away Mission and Starship Battle also has three difficulty levels: Normal, Elite, and Epic. Each difficulty will increase both your challenge and rewards, and can only be unlocked by achieving 3-stars on the previous difficulty. You can earn 3-stars on Away Missions by earning all Rare Rewards. And to earn 3-stars on Starship Battles, you typically must win without losing shields or by defeating your opponent with a specific amount of time.

New Starships Looking for a new starship? Captains need the appropriate number of schematics unique to constructing each starship. Each vessel will have a required total number of schematics, varied by the ship's rarity and overall battle power. Schematics can be obtained in item packs at the Time Portal, and also by completing various missions from Episodes.

Each crew member can have up to 3 skills from the six areas of expertise: Science, Diplomacy, Engineering, Command, Medical, and Security. As Captain, you must assign three crew members to overcome each Away Mission's skill challenge nodes [1] and successfully complete your mission.

Structurally, an Away Mission is like a branching storyline where each challenge node [1] is both a decision and barrier your crew must overcome:

As you build your Away Team, any skills they posses that are required for the chosen Away Mission will cause any corresponding nodes [1] to be highlighted gold.

Each challenge node [1] has an associated skill (Diplomacy, Science, etc.) By default, crew with higher skill values will increase your chances at success. However, each sequential challenge will wear down a crew member, reducing their effectiveness in subsequent challenges until they rest one turn.

If you fail the challenge on any node other than the final one, it will cause your final skill challenge to be more difficult. Overall success or failure on an Away Mission is determined at the final challenge, so try to save your best officers for the final challenge.

Every Away Mission has a selection of Suggested Traits [2]. Each crew member has their own unique collection of Traits reflecting their personality and background. These include racial associations (e.g. the Klingon Trait) as well as Traits associated with particular jobs like Pilot or Astrophysicist, and even attitudes like Innovator.

Traits provide boosts on certain nodes [1], typically ones with Rare Rewards as noted by the star symbol [3] below a node. For a chance at earning a Rare Reward, your crew must have a high enough skill to achieve a critical success on the node. Once you've earned a Rare Reward the star symbol will disappear, noting the reward has been acquired.

Aside from Rare Rewards, completing Away Missions can earn you credits, experience, equipment, and training items. Moreover, earning all of the Rare Rewards available on a specific Away Mission will result in an award of 3 stars. As you progress through STAR TREK TIMELINES it will only become more important to balance the progression of your crew with the growing challenges of each new Episode, whether it's Starship Battles or Away Missions.

Upon winning an Away Mission you'll often receive equipment for your crew, Captain and crew experience, Training Programs to further level-up your crew, and credits. Other rewards can include Starship Schematics and Transmissions to complete faction missions, which themselves can give the above items.

There are three difficulty levels for Away Missions: Normal, Elite, and Epic. Each level presents higher skill node challenges and also better rewards. To unlock Elite and Epic difficulties, replay an Away Mission to unlock all Rare Rewards.

Warp 1 & Warp 10 Once you’ve earned 3-stars on an Away Mission or Starship Battle, you can return to them in the Episode screen via the Galaxy Map and use the Warp 1 and Warp 10 buttons. You can also use the Crew Management screen to tap on any empty and unlocked item slots for a list of away missions, starship battles, and faction missions that give said item as a reward.

Warp 1 will instantly play through a 3-star Away Mission or Starship Battle one time, as if you had successfully played through it. Warping costs chronitons, but in exchange you will acquire Captain experience, items, and credits. Warping will not earn your crew members any experience points, however.

Warp 10 is similar to Warp 1, except it automatically plays through the Away Mission or Starship Battle ten times successfully in the background. Be careful, however, as Warp 10 also costs 10x the amount of chronitons that Warp 1 does.

STAR TREK TIMELINES is the ultimate Star Trek™ strategy role-playing game.

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Interactive timeline [ ]

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3 ways star trek: discovery showed how dangerous temporal wars were.

Introduced in Star Trek: Enterprise, the Temporal Wars took place across Federation history. Here's what Discovery has revealed about the conflict.

• The Temporal Wars revealed in Star Trek: Discovery had lasting impacts on key events in the Star Trek universe.
• Time bugs like the Krenim chronophage from Voyager can trap starships in loops, impacting future conflicts.
• The Guardian of Forever was a key weapon in the Temporal Wars, with implications for characters like Georgiou.

Star Trek: Discovery has demonstrated how dangerous the Temporal Wars were, by revealing three things about its lasting impact on the Star Trek universe. Introduced in Star Trek: Enterprise , the Temporal Wars were a major conflict between various powers, including the Federation, that took place across the entire Star Trek timeline . In Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 4, "Face the Strange", written by Sean Cochran and directed by Lee Rose, Captain Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and the crew of the USS Discovery become victims of a Krenim chronophage, a deadly weapon left over from the Temporal Wars .

The " time bug " from Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 4 isn't the first time that the modern franchise has explored the ramifications of the Temporal Wars. In Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2, episode 3, "Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow", Lt. La'an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong) faced off against a Romulan time agent, Sera (Adelaide Kane). During their confrontation, Sera revealed that the Temporal Wars have changed the dates of key Star Trek events like the Eugenics Wars and World War 3 . Set roughly 200 years after the Temporal Wars ended, Star Trek: Discovery has revealed even more information about the dangers of this space-time conflict.

Star Trek: Discovery Reveals A Voyager Enemy Played A Big Role In The Temporal Wars

Crossing over between star trek universes is fatal.

In Star Trek: Discovery season 3, episode 9, "Terra Firma, Part 1", it was revealed that time soldiers fighting in the Temporal Wars had to contend with a horrific metaphysical affliction. When former Terran Emperor Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) began breaking down on a molecular level, Dr. Hugh Culber (Wilson Cruz) sought answers. Federation scientist Dr. Kovich (David Cronenberg) revealed that Georgiou wasn't the first person to experience this condition. During the Temporal Wars, a time soldier called Yorg from the Kelvin Timeline became trapped in the prime Star Trek universe after traveling forward from the 24th century .

Although it's just a hologram, Yor is currently the only character from the Kelvin Timeline's 24th century that's been seen on screen.

Yor and Georgiou were breaking down because the molecules in their body were fighting to return to the correct universe and time period . The only known cure was to return Yor to his own universe, but this was prohibited by the Interdimensional Displacement Restriction, a key tenet of the Temporal Accords. Starfleet fought the wars to uphold the Federation's Temporal Accords, and so refused to break them by returning Yor, and Georgiou to their own universes. Instead, other alternatives had to be pursued to cure Georgiou of her condition, so that she wasn't euthanized like the tragic Yor.

Temporal Wars Wanted To Use The Guardian Of Forever As A Weapon

To cure Georgiou of her condition, she and Burnham had to bargain with the Guardian of Forever, first seen in Star Trek: The Original Series . In "City on the Edge of Forever", Captain James T. KIrk (William Shatner) discovers the Guardian on a planet where the timelines of the Milky Way galaxy converge. The Guardian was a sentient time portal, constructed by an unknown alien race, but described itself as neither machine nor being . In Star Trek: The Animated Series season 1, episode 2, "Yesteryear", the Guardian allows Federation scientists to use it to observe their own history.

Scotty actor James Doohan voiced the Guardian of Forever in Star Trek: The Animated Series ' "Yesteryear"

By the 32nd century, however, the Guardian of Forever was forced to relocate due to the Temporal Wars. Given that it allowed access to the entire course of history, the various powers involved in the Temporal Wars wanted to weaponize the Guardian's abilities against their enemies. The Guardian therefore transported itself to the planet Dannus V, where it remained in hiding until it was discovered by Burnham and Georgiou in Star Trek: Discovery season 3. Now able to assume the humanoid form of Carl (Paul Guilfoyle), the Guardian of Forever was more reluctant to help visitors, forcing Georgiou to prove herself to him by returning to the Mirror Universe to show how much she'd changed .

Star Trek: Voyager’s Krenim Time Bugs Can Trap Starships In Loops

Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 4, "Face the Strange" confirmed that the Krenim Imperium, introduced in Star Trek: Voyager, played a role in the Temporal Wars. Moll (Eve Harlow) and L'ak (Elias Toufexis) planted a Krenim chronophage aboard the USS Discovery by pinning it to the uniform of Ensign Adira Tal (Blu del Barrio). Once the chronophage was aboard, it burrowed itself into Discovery's engineering and trapped the ship in a random cycle of their own past and future . While the USS Discovery was trapped in a time loop, Moll and L'ak could get a head start on the next clue in the hunt for the Progenitors' technology.

Commander Rayner (Callum Keith Rennie) confirmed that this weapon was left over from the Temporal Wars, where it had been used against various enemy ships. Unable to break out of the loop, a starship could find itself in a completely changed battlefield once the time bug ran out of juice. In the case of the USS Discovery, their time bug nearly led to an inevitable conflict with Star Trek: DS9 's Breen . It's a typically tricksy time weapon from the masters of temporal technology, the Krenim, who once built a weapon that could remove entire species from the space-time continuum.

Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) destroyed the Krenim time ship, negating the timeline where it was built, however it's clear that this didn't stop the species from experimenting with temporal weaponry.

The confirmation that Star Trek: Voyager 's Krenim Imperium were involved in the Temporal Wars further heightens the stakes of a conflict that is technically still ongoing. While the Temporal Wars may be over in Star Trek: Discovery 's 32nd century, there are still battles taking place elsewhere in the Star Trek timeline. This means that starship crews from Star Trek: Strange New Worlds to Star Trek: Lower Decks could find themselves embroiled in the devastating temporal conflict first started in Star Trek: Enterprise .

Star Trek: Discovery streams Thursdays on Paramount+.

Star Trek: Discovery

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Star Trek: Discovery is an entry in the legendary Sci-Fi franchise, set ten years before the original Star Trek series events. The show centers around Commander Michael Burnham, assigned to the USS Discovery, where the crew attempts to prevent a Klingon war while traveling through the vast reaches of space.

Star Trek: Enterprise

Star Trek: Enterprise acts as a prequel to Star Trek: The Original Series, detailing the voyages of the original crew of the Starship Enterprise in the 22nd century, a hundred years before Captain Kirk commanded the ship. Enterprise was the sixth series in the Star Trek franchise overall, and the final series before a twelve-year hiatus until the premiere of Star Trek: Discovery in 2017. The series stars Scott Bakula as Captain Jonathan Archer, with an ensemble cast that includes John Billingsley, Jolene Blalock, Dominic Keating, Anthony Montgomery, Linda Park, and Connor Trinneer.

Star Trek: The Original Series

Star Trek: The Original Series follows the exploits of the crew of the USS Enterprise. On a five-year mission to explore uncharted space, Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) must trust his crew - Spock (Leonard Nimoy), Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy (Forest DeKelley), Montgomery "Scotty" Scott (James Doohan), Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), Chekov (Walter Koenig) and Sulu (George Takei) - with his life. Facing previously undiscovered life forms and civilizations and representing humanity among the stars on behalf of Starfleet and the United Federation of Planets, the Enterprise regularly comes up against impossible odds and diplomatic dilemmas.

Star Trek: Voyager

The fifth entry in the Star Trek franchise, Star Trek: Voyager, is a sci-fi series that sees the crew of the USS Voyager on a long journey back to their home after finding themselves stranded at the far ends of the Milky Way Galaxy. Led by Captain Kathryn Janeway, the series follows the crew as they embark through truly uncharted areas of space, with new species, friends, foes, and mysteries to solve as they wrestle with the politics of a crew in a situation they've never faced before. 

How Do Star Trek Stardates Actually Work?

There are few handier delivery mechanisms for "Star Trek" exposition than a Captain's log entry, crucial Starfleet records that mark time with "stardates" — an enigmatic calendar system integrating decimals into each date. Although based on a real-world astronomical dating system, the Starfleet version doesn't make a ton of sense because it was never meant to, which is why  the "Star Trek" timeline can seem confusing  the deeper you dig into it.

As outlined in a  1967 "Star Trek" writer and director's guide, "The progression of stardates in your script should remain constant but don't worry about whether or not there is a progression from other scripts." Still, understanding the Julian date system can be a good starting point for those who care to try.

Speaking with The Space Review  in 2019, "Star Trek: The Original Series" technical advisor Kellam de Forest explained that the futuristic calendar system was inspired by the Julian day — the solar day measurement used in the 365-day Julian solar dating system that predated the Gregorian calendar. Because the Julian day system creates a continued count of dates from the beginning of the Julian period, the ease of calculation between two dates without breaks has made it the preferred calendar for many scientific applications, including astronomical software. Julian dates are calculated by adding the Julian day — that is, the solar day since the beginning of the Julian calendar — and then adding a decimal point to indicate the fraction of the day that has passed since noon in Universal Time Code (UTC). Although the Julian date calculates days running into the millions, only the final five digits are commonly used by astronomers — and just four are used in "Star Trek."

Stardates are intentionally difficult to calculate

According to the "Star Trek" writer's guide, the Starfleet calendar system was invented to deemphasize the in-universe date. As the guide puts it, "We invented 'Stardate' to avoid continually mentioning Star Trek's century (actually, about two hundred years from now), and getting into arguments about whether this or that would have developed by then."

Speaking on the 1988 documentary  "Inside Star Trek: The Real Story," de Forest emphasized that this almost wasn't the case since the original script contained dates from the Gregorian calendar. Upon reviewing the script, de Forest felt this didn't feel right for the future spacefaring society. As a solution, he pitched the Julian-inspired concept, which the tech advisor felt had a futuristic vibe thanks to its use of decimals.

While  "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry  liked the concept as a jumping-off point, his version was always meant to be a little esoteric, as Samuel A. Peeples, who wrote the second pilot for "Star Trek: The Original Series," recounted in  "Gene Roddenberry: The Myth and Man Behind Star Trek."  According to Peeples, "We tried to set up a system that would be unidentifiable unless you knew how we did it." Conceptualizing the revised stardate system over drinks, Roddenberry and Peeples took into account the weirdness of space and relative time, ultimately concluding that any  date-related continuity errors in "Star Trek"  could be chalked up to these issues. Or as the "Star Trek" writer's guide put it, "Stardates are a mathematical formula which varies depending on location in the galaxy, velocity of travel, and other factors, can vary widely from episode to episode." In other words, don't think too hard about it.

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Published Apr 24, 2024

Stuck in a Loop: The Best of Star Trek's Time-Jumping Episodes

From The Next Generation to Discovery, going around and around is sometimes very revealing.

StarTrek.com

In the Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 episode, " Face the Strange ," Captain Burnham and Commander Rayner find themselves both stuck in a loop, but also, jumping all around the timeline of the titular starship. From the point before the U.S.S. Discovery was launched, to pivotal moments in Season 4, Season 3, Season 2 and even very early in Season 1, Rayner notes at one point that, "We’ve gone back in time to when you went forward to the future. That’s a little confusing."

Throughout all of Star Trek 's history, time travel has been just as propulsive to the narratives as space travel. But, within the various time travel stories of Trek , there is a special kind of time-skipping episode — the time loop story. Discovery has recently shaken-up this formula with "Face the Strange," but many elements of this episode pay homage to a proud Star Trek tradition. Here’s the history of the best time loop, and time-jumping episodes across the entire Final Frontier.

" Cause and Effect ," Star Trek: The Next Generation (Season 5, Episode 18)

"Cause and Effect"

Perhaps one of the greatest science fiction episodes of all time, The Next Generation set the gold-standard for how to do time loop episodes.

When the Enterprise collides with another starship in the first scene, this episode poses one question right off the bat: What happens after you blow up the ship — and everyone on it — before the credits roll? The answer is mostly connected to whether or not we can even remember when we're stuck in a loop. Without actually spoiling this classic episode, let's just say thank the stars for Dr. Crusher and Data.

The brilliance of "Cause and Effect" cannot be overstated, but the 21st Century legacy of this episode is utterly appropriate. When Geordi reveals how the time loop works, Riker says, "You mean we could have come into this room, sat at this table and had this conversation a dozen times already?" This scene has become a popular meme format across various social media platforms, satirizing the time loop of some aspects of the internet experience.

" Parallels ," Star Trek: The Next Generation (Season 7, Episode 11)

"Parallels"

Arguably, when Worf starts slipping between realities in "Parallels," the story is more focused on other dimensions, rather than a true time loop. But, each time he pops into a new reality, Worf does tend to reply to his own personal log, which is what began the episode.

Obviously, in each new timeline, Worf's personal log is different, and because he checks it so often in the episode, this gives "Parallels" the feeling of a time loop story, even though Worf is technically moving both forward in time, and also, side-to-side.

On top of all of this, "Parallels" feels time-loopy because so many ideas and plot points from previous seasons of The Next Generation are revisited here. From references to " The Best of Both Worlds ," to the return of Wesley Crusher, "Parallels" brings all the good things of TNG back around again for another look, from a different point of view.

" All Good Things... ," Star Trek: The Next Generation (Season 7, Episode 25)

"All Good Things..."

Speaking of the best of The Next Generation , the immortal series finale is, from a certain point of view, one big time loop. As Jean-Luc Picard shifts between past, present, and future, the biggest mystery of "All Good Things…" is what caused the anomaly in the Devron system? Eventually, we learn that the ending and the beginning of this story are inextricably connected, a paradox that creates a kind of loop that must be broken.

Twenty-nine years later, in the Star Trek: Picard episode, " Imposters ," Captain Liam Shaw references this moment, and notes that Picard and Riker have a "real chicken and egg thing going on." It doesn’t get any more time-loopy than that!

" Visionary ," Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (Season 3, Episode 17)

"Visionary"

When O'Brien starts seeing another version of himself appearing randomly throughout the station, Dr. Bashir briefly floats the idea that he's just having really boring hallucinations. But, as the episode goes on, it becomes clear that O'Brien is actually seeing brief moments in the future, and then, catching up to those moments in the present.

"Visionary" messes with what we expect from a time loop episode, because in all instances of future occurrences, there are literally two O'Briens present, and, when the past O'Brien catches up to the future moment, the duplication effect happens again, creating a kind of visual loop for the audience. The funny thing is, in several instances, the future doesn't play out exactly the way past O'Brien saw the first time, making this one of the wobblier time loops in all of Star Trek .

" Relativity ," Star Trek: Voyager (Season 5, Episode 24)

"Relativity"

In a move very similar to Discovery 's "Face the Strange," this unforgettable episode of Voyager briefly takes us back to a point before the series even begins, showing us Janeway's first moments on Voyager before the ship left the Utopia Planitia Shipyards on Mars. (In "Face the Strange," Burnham and Rayner see Discovery in a drydock on Earth well before the events of Season 1.)

But, Voyager 's jaunt into its own prehistory is just the beginning of a very specific type of time jumping episode. Here, Seven of Nine isn't exactly repeating a loop, but, making several attempts at different times, to prevent a bomb from destroying Voyager . As Tuvok aptly puts it when encountering one version of Seven from the future, "Like many time paradoxes, it's improbable, but not necessarily illogical." Because this episode features multiple versions of Seven, and leaps to various eras of Voyager , it pairs very nicely with Burnham and Rayner's similar jumps in "Face the Strange." Especially the moment where Seven meets herself.

" Shattered ," Star Trek: Voyager (Season 7, Episode 11)

"Shattered"

Does Voyager have the best timey-wimey episodes in all of the Trek franchise? It's hard to say, but if there's another Trek episode that feels like an older sibling of Discovery 's "Face the Strange," it's almost certainly "Shattered," a fan-favorite episode from Voyager 's final season. Here, the captain and the first officer — Janeway and Chakotay — find themselves on a version of the ship that has been split into different time periods.

"Shattered" is one of Star Trek 's greatest retrospective episodes, touching on moments across all of Voyager 's story, and teaming past versions of characters with ones closer to the present. It's a touching story, and, structurally, it's wonderfully homaged in Discovery .

" Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad ," Star Trek: Discovery (Season 1, Episode 7)

"Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad"

One of Discovery 's stand-out moments from Season 1 fully set the stage for "Face the Strange" in Season 5. In "Magic to Make The Sanest Man Go Mad," Harry Mudd sets the ship on a true time loop, in which only Stamets can truly remember what is going on. Like in "Face the Strange," Stamets has a perception that exists outside of time, thanks to taking on the Tardigrade DNA in "Choose Your Pain."

This detail comes in handy in "Face the Strange," where Burnham and Stamets again have to re-team to get Discovery out of a time loop caused by nefarious enemies using time travel technology as a weapon. In Season 1, Burnham and Stamets barely knew each other, much like Burnham and Rayner's relationship in Season 5. But, if there's one thing a time loop or time-jumping episode can do, it’s make people who are just colleagues into best friends for life.

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Ryan Britt is the author of the nonfiction books Phasers on Stun! How the Making and Remaking of Star Trek Changed the World (2022), The Spice Must Flow: The Journey of Dune from Cult Novels to Visionary Sci-Fi Movies (2023), and the essay collection Luke Skywalker Can’t Read (2015). He is a longtime contributor to Star Trek.com and his writing regularly appears with Inverse, Den of Geek!, Esquire and elsewhere. He lives in Portland, Maine with his family.

Star Trek: Discovery Seasons 1-4 are streaming exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S., the UK, Canada, Switzerland, South Korea, Latin America, Germany, France, Italy, Australia and Austria. Seasons 2 and 3 also are available on the Pluto TV “Star Trek” channel in Switzerland, Germany and Austria. The series streams on Super Drama in Japan, TVNZ in New Zealand, and SkyShowtime in Spain, Portugal, Poland, The Nordics, The Netherlands, and Central and Eastern Europe and also airs on Cosmote TV in Greece. The series is distributed by Paramount Global Content Distribution.