Star Trek Confirms Major Change to Its Timeline

Star Trek confirmed a change to its timeline and how that timeline works. SPOILERS follow for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2, Episode 3, “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.” As the title hints, the third episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds‘ second season involves time travel. La’an Noonien Singh (Christina Chong) gets caught up in a Department of Temporal Affairs mission gone awry. Soon, she’s walking the streets of 21st-century Toronto with Captain James T. Kirk (Paul Wesley) of the USS Enterprise from an altered timeline. Toronto is notably not in ruins, a reasonable expectation since Star Trek’s timeline suggests that Earth should be recovering from the deadly Eugenics Wars caused by La’an’s ancestor, Khan Noonien Singh, and his genetically enhanced peers.

That is at the crux of the changes cemented by “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.” Star Trek is supposed to occur in our future, but the Eugenics Wars were meant to begin in the early 1990s. That hasn’t taken place in the real world and previous Star Trek episodes involving time travel — including Star Trek: Voyager‘s trip to the 1990s “Future’s End” and almost the entirety of Star Trek: Picard Season 2 occurring the 21st century, even referencing Khan in its finale — show no evidence of worldwide war, suggesting they didn’t take place on time there either.

Previously, these inconsistencies have been hand-waved with suggestions of inaccurate records due to the destruction caused by the war or that perhaps the locales shown in these episodes weren’t on the front line of the conflict. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds takes a much more direct and deliberate approach to Star Trek’s future history.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Changes the Star Trek Timeline

“Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” reveals that the specific dates of Star Trek’s timeline are continuously altered by time travel, including conflicts like the Temporal Cold War introduced in Star Trek: Enterprise. Agents go back in time to try to prevent the United Federation of Planets from ever forming by preventing the events leading to it from occurring. Yet, those events — including Khan’s rise to power — keep “reinserting” themselves into the timeline, as if time is fixing itself. The result is events happening at a delayed rate, which raises several questions about things like the butterfly effect, but does keep the Eugenics War indefinitely in Star Trek’s past and Star Trek in our future, at least until reality reaches the 22nd century.

Speaking to CinemaBlend, Star Trek; Strange New Worlds co-showrunner Akiva Goldsman confirmed the change to Star Trek’s timeline and explained why. “This is a correction. Because otherwise, it’s silly, or Star Trek ceases to be in our universe,” he said. “By the way, this happened in Season 1, so this is not a Season 2 [issue]. It’s a pilot issue. We want Star Trek to be an aspirational future. We want to be able to dream our way into the Federation as a Starfleet. I think that is the fun of it, in part. And so, in order to keep Star Trek in our timeline, we continue to push dates forward. At a certain point, we won’t be able to. But obviously, if you start saying that the Eugenics Wars were in the 90s, you’re kind of fucked for aspirational in terms of the real world.”

How to watch Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds stars Anson Mount as Christopher Pike, Rebecca Romijn as Una Chin-Riley, Ethan Peck as Spock, Jess Bush as Christine Chapel, Christina Chong as La’An Noonien-Singh, Celia Rose Gooding as Nyota Uhura, Melissa Navia as Erica Ortegas and Babs Olusanmokun as Joseph M’Benga. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 also brings back special guest star Paul Wesley as James T. Kirk and adds Carol Kane in the recurring role of Pelia.

CBS Studios, Secret Hideout, and Roddenberry Entertainment produced Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2. Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers are co-showrunners. Alex Kurtzman, Akiva Goldsman, Jenny Lumet, Henry Alonso Myers, Aaron Baiers, Heather Kadin, Frank Siracusa, John Weber, Rod Roddenberry, and Trevor Roth serve as executive producers.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 debuts new episodes on Thursdays on Paramount+ in the United States, the U.K., Australia, Latin America, Brazil, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. The second season will stream on Paramount+ in South Korea, with a premiere date still to be announced. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds airs on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel and streams on Crave in Canada and SkyShowtime in the Nordics, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, and Central and Eastern Europe.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 1 is also streaming on Paramount+. It is also available as home media on Blu-ray, DVD, and 4k UHD.