Does Pelia Know? ‘Star Trek,’ Time Travel, and Ancient Beings
If a typical mortal on Star Trek travels in time and causes a tree to fall in the woods, do nigh immortal beings like Pelia hear it?
Star Trek loves a time travel story. The ’60s, the ’80s, the ’90s, and everywhere in between–those sneaky Starfleet officers have seen and traveled to it all. Sometimes that means altering the timeline and sometimes it means ensuring the timeline remains as it must. The classic example “City on the Edge of Forever” postulates that, unless Kirk ensures Edith Keeler dies in a car wreck, Starfleet will not exist.
We’ll never know why one change to the timeline has such a drastic impact over another (other than for the drama, of course). But here’s a fun question: who’s keeping score? Who in the Star Trek universe knows when the timeline changes and who doesn’t?
It’s safe to say that the Guardian of Forever, the sentient gateway which sends Bones, Kirk, and Spock back in time in “City on the Edge of Forever” sees the whole of time, including everything that can be. And we can assume the same of a god-like being such as Q. In both “Tapestry” and “All Good Things…” Q shows Picard what can be. Q frequently calls himself omnipotent and who are we to argue with an entity?
However, not every long-lived being is a god. And since Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has both time travel AND an ancient being on the show, it’s worth asking: will Pelia (and others like her) know when time changes?
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Pelia and Tomorrow (and Tomorrow and Tomorrow)
A quick primer. In the episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” La’an Noonien-Singh finds herself in an alternate timeline. Someone changes the past and she has to go back and fix it. But before La’an does the time warp, the ship’s engineer Pelia casually mentions that she has a place in Vermont and has had it for centuries. Because you see, Pelia is a Lanthanite–and they allegedly live for thousands of years.
There’s a lot going on, including an alt-universe Captain Kirk, a romantic subplot with said alt-Kirk, and also an explanation for why Khan Noonien-Singh isn’t from the ’90s anymore. But we’re leaving that aside. Doesn’t matter. This is about Pelia. And the fact is that when La’an travels back in time she hangs with Pelia. More than that, La’an basically tells Pelia to be an engineer.
We have questions. Will Pelia become an engineer with or without La’an? Does Pelia tell La’an about her 21st-century home in Vermont on purpose? Is this a “fulfilling the timeline” situation? Does Pelia at least remember La’an after the time-traveling is complete?
This is more complex than you think it is.
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Argument: Of Course Pelia Knows
At the very least, Pelia has to know by the end of “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” that La’an did a little time traveling. The bare minimum we can say that this version of events includes Pelia meeting La’an in the 21st century. The time agency saying “don’t tell anyone” be damned–Pelia has to know that much.
But the larger question is: does Pelia know at the beginning of the episode? She does smile very widely at La’an when she tells her that she used to work at The Archaeology Department. And there’s no reason for Pelia to mention that she used to live in Vermont in this context. And wouldn’t you know it–Pelia gives La’an a grin when she says that part, too. Huh! Weird!
Weird, that is, unless Pelia knows all along that La’an is going to travel in time. It’s possible that she knows! We don’t know much of anything about Lanthanites. So we have no idea how they process time.
We do however know a thing or two about a very similar race of beings–the El-Aurians.
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Guinan and the El-Aurians
We’re talking a lot about a character who is not Pelia, I know! The reason is that there’s not a lot to go on with Pelia or the Lanthanites. So we’re starting with the closest analog Star Trek has. The El-Aurians.
Much like the Lanthanites, the El-Aurians are long-lived humanoids. The Lanthanites live in secret on Earth for thousands of years. And there’s at least one El-Aurian who basically does the same thing–Guinan.
Guinan explains to Jean-Luc Picard on Star Trek: The Next Generation that the El-Aurians are a race of listeners. They <dramatic pause> listen. And Guinan usually uses her listening powers to be a bartender. Good use of skills!
However, there’s listening and there’s El-Aurian listening. And there are a lot of other ways Guinan’s listening works beyond being an outer space Sam Mallone. She’s more than a little bit psychic. And relevant to our Pelia conundrum, Guinan has the ability to sense when time shifts around her.
For example, in the TNG episode “Yesterday’s Enterprise” when time changes Guinan knows the timeline she finds herself in is wrong. She doesn’t know why exactly, but she knows more than enough to tell Tasha Yar that in the “correct” timeline she suffers an empty death.
That information is enough to cause the “Yesterday’s Enterprise” version of Yar to travel back in time. And that yields a whole new person–alt Tasha’s half-Romulan daughter Sela. Keep Sela in the back of your mind because we’re coming back to her in a little while.
For know what we need to factor in is that Guinan can sense when time changes–but it’s more complicated.
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Time’s Arrow
Guinan tells acting Captain Will Riker that her relationship with Picard is “closer than friendship, closer than family”. This conversation takes place during the events of “Best of Both Worlds” where Picard is Locutus, the Borg. She tells Riker that she has let go of Picard despite their closeness and that he must do the same. And that means accepting that Picard will probably die.
Here’s why that’s such a big deal: Guinan and Picard meet out of order. Picard first meets Guinan in the 24th century, but Guinan first meets a future version of Picard in the 19th century in the TNG story “Time’s Arrow”–because of time travel. During the events of that episode, Picard saves Guinan’s life.
In other words, if Picard dies as Locutus, he will never live long enough to the moment when he travels back in time and saves Guinan. This suggests that, although Guinan does not know how things will work out during “Best of Both Worlds”, she knows that they will work out. Otherwise, she won’t exist. This is another way that Guinan’s understanding of time is non-linear.
But wait, there’s more!
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Picard Season 2 Ruins Everything
Do you remember way up at the top we mentioned Q, the omnipotent trickster god who sometimes messes with Picard? Well, he’s about to become very relevant to understanding Pelia, Guinan, Lanthanites, and El-Aurians.
In Star Trek: Picard season two Q sends Picard and his crew to an alternate, fascistic timeline. It turns out that Q altered the past and so Picard and his team have to travel back in time to the 21st century to fix things. Before the timeline shifts, though, Picard has a conversation with someone–Guinan.
Guinan puts Picard on the path to wind up traveling back in time–so a younger Guinan meets Picard in the 21st century. It’s almost like a “Time’s Arrow” sequel. Younger Guinan even experiences Af-kelt time sickness–a condition where an El-Aurian senses changes to the timeline. So far, so good.
Except there’s one problem–21st-century Guinan doesn’t know Picard. She should know Picard, though, right? Because she already met him in the 19th century!
Now we can argue that Q’s altering of the timeline explains why Guinan does not know Picard in the 21st century. However, when Picard ultimately gets back to his own time, Guinan confirms that she remembers this version of events. And that means Picard has to have met Guinan in the 19th century otherwise should wouldn’t be alive in the 21st century, let alone the 24th.
The glib answer is that the Picard writers messed up. But for the purposes of this discussion, we have to factor it in. And what that means is this: it is possible for events in the timeline to change and for someone like Guinan to not know the change has occurred.
And with that in mind…
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Better Argument: Pelia Doesn’t Know Jack
It is entirely possible that Lanthanites are a little bit psychic. Live long enough, you’re bound to see patterns other people simply can’t. On the other hand, if you live long enough you can forget anything. And I would argue that Pelia probably doesn’t remember La’an traveling in time even by the end of “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow”.
Pelia doesn’t need to see outside of time for everything to work out. The Department of Temporal Investigations knows and they are the ones after all who send La’an back. There’s no reason to assume they don’t do so with the foreknowledge that she is both related to Khan and has had a relevant conversation with Pelia which will allow her to protect Khan and the timeline. But they never call it predestination. And they sure don’t say “don’t tell anyone except Pelia because she’s cool.”
Yes, in the final version of events, La’an may play some part in putting Pelia on the path to be an engineer. But Pelia is basically immortal–there are a lot of reasons she probably becomes an engineer, with or without La’an.
Pelia first meets La’an in the 21st century, but that’s 200-plus years before they meet again. Who is to say that Pelia remembers La’an at all? I don’t know about you but I barely remember what happened last week! And Pelia may be very old, but she’s not an El-Aurian. She doesn’t need Af-kelt time sickness to help La’an–just a desire in the moment to take a risk.
And even if Pelia is just like Guinan, even if the El-Aurians and the Lanthanites turn out to be the same species–there are timelines even Guinan does not recall. So until someone tells us otherwise, we’re calling it:
Pelia does not know La’an travels in time before it happens.
