The Vulcan Science Directorate has determined that time travel isn’t fair
Every Star Trek episode and movie I’ve watched has involved a clear line of causality from beginning to end, with a narrative structure that proceeded in a direct order start-to-finish.
The hyper-intelligent Vulcan mind perceives the logical truth through the haze of self-deception and misinformation. One must orient oneself from the perspective of an objective outside observer to see it, but time is - in fact - linear and deterministic. Traveling backwards through an episode is impossible.
Watch me hit the rewind button! ⏪
Nothing from within is traveling from B to A. Time stays linear regardless what slice you observe.
“Cause and Effect” returns to the beginning of the episode several times! (A dozen, a hundred, it’s impossible to tell. But actually 3-4 I think)
there we go, that’s the next ep I should watch to entertain myself while I still have access to spanish language netflix/star trek.
But
spoiler
the crew experiences déjà vu at increasing frequency and intensity through the length of the episode, culminating in Krusher using Data’s positronic subprocessors to leave a coded message for the final iteration.
thus, we experience a linear repetition of events, but with minor distinctive differences, ultimately concluding in an escape from the episode via its conclusion.
That’s only true if the person watching doesn’t rewind it…
ah! but what if a second observer, a Berman if you will, were to fuck things up for what we posit are A: shits and B: giggles?
