#RePerception: @TheOrville (like #TheButterflyEffect, #DoctorWho etc.) shows us Why the 'If I Could Go Back in Time'-Fantasies are often Wrong @Hulu #TemporalPrimeDirective @StarTrek @STVoyagerGroup #Temporal #TemporalMechanics #Tempo #Temporary #TimeTravel #TemporalLobe #TemporalParadox #TemporalAnomaly
The last two episodes of season-2 of THE ORVILLE (on HULU), ...
... Commander Kelly–who we know is Captain Ed's ex-wife who got him the position on The Orville partly-because she felt guilty for driving him into a depression that nearly ended his 'Starfleet'- (or 'Union fleet')-career–is put in a time-travel situation where she can avoid the whole heartbreak-&-regret situation by not marrying Ed in the first place.
Smart.
Kelly then finds out that–because she did not have Ed on The Orville to keep an alien race from using it to start a conquest of The Universe (much like STAR TREK's Borg would have done)–her 'smart' decision not to get involved with Ed ended up thrusting The Universe into a dark season of cybernetic-tyranny (much like TERMINATOR's SkyNet would've started).
Luckily–through additional timey-wimey wibbley wobbling–they manage to go back again, completely erase the time-traveling Kelly's memory of the future, and let the new timeline dissolve as she makes all the same old mistakes.
But it does make us think ... various things—but first,
The word “|Temporality|”—Etymonline says it means "Temporal Power," which I assume means 'the Power to Travel through Time,' but might also mean 'the Power to |Make Time Move Quickly-or-Slowly or to |Stop Time.' Or–thinking about it–it might mean 'any Power one Only has |Briefly'---although that's actually "Temporary Power."
The word "|Temporal|" is built on words that mean “to Stretch” (Measure of a Stretch-of-Time, |Season, Moment, |Temporary; Worldly, |Secular).
When did 'temporal' start to mean "involving time-travel" more than "the temporary state of being"? It's probably a shift from the meaning 'having to do with time' (e.g. "Temporal Lobe"—the section of the brain that ... organizes memories chronologically?), but I would tie it to STAR TREK: VOYAGER, where I first heard of "the Temporal Prime Directive (the Starfleet-rule that tells one not to give foreknowledge of future events to people you visit in the past, and not to change past-events intentionally)."
Know anything else interesting about that? Comment!
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