6

Guinan's race can see the 'correct' state of the universe.

Succinctly, do others of Guinan's race race exist in alternate universes (such as the ones we see in Parallels), and do they hold that their universe is the correct one also? Or do they consider 'our' universe to be correct?

I'm accepting answers from any medium (film, cartoon, comic, TV etc.).

4
  • 3
    I think this depends on whether an alternate timeline (eg Yesterday's Enterprise) counts as an alternate universe or the same universe, since it is the only example we having of an El-Aurian sensing the state of the universe. If the former, then 'our's is correct. If the latter, then unknown.
    – Xantec
    Commented Feb 20, 2014 at 13:04
  • @xantac, thats essentially what I'm try to figure out...wherein lies the difference?
    – AncientSwordRage
    Commented Feb 20, 2014 at 13:15
  • @Pureferret The difference is probably Guinan's age. She was born hundreds of years before the timeline shift in Yesterday's Enterprise.
    – Izkata
    Commented Feb 20, 2014 at 13:28
  • 2
    The "Parallels" universes don't seem to have been created by time travel; they were just always there (or maybe branched off on their own). I'd like to think that somewhere in the Abramsverse, a somewhat-younger version of Guinan is very disturbed.
    – Micah
    Commented Feb 20, 2014 at 17:51

1 Answer 1

8

El-Aurians have something similar to an eidetic memory. They are widely known for being able to recall with absolute clarity something that happened hundreds of years ago. It's possible that this ability allowed Guinan to perceive the differences in the timeline during "Yesterday's Enterprise", but there's an alternate explanation as well.

An unused scene in the ST:G script explained that the El-Aurians who had been trapped in the Nexus - including Guinan and Soran - had a unique perception of time afterwards. This is also alluded to in the TNG novel "The Buried Age."

The TV episode was filmed far in advance of the movie, however, so at that point the writers had no idea that Guinan was ever trapped in the Nexus, or even that the Nexus ribbon existed. There's no explanation given within the episode itself, but this is the closest we have:

GEORDI: How could Guinan know that history has been altered... if she's been altered along with the rest of us?

DATA: Perhaps her species has a perception that goes beyond linear time.

Then, later we get this statement from Guinan herself:

GUINAN: I don't have alternate biographies of the crew, Tasha. I told the captain... it's just a feeling.

So, without hearing from the writers themselves, we are left to assume that the original intent was for El-Aurians to have a "sixth sense" that made this possible. This was later going to be retconned so that only the El-Aurians trapped in the Nexus had this ability, due to their Nexus exposure. Since that scene was not included in the final movie, it probably isn't considered canon, however.

To answer your original question, all of this leads us to believe that - regardless of which circumstance or ability allowed Guinan to "feel" the difference - this ability would only extend to the individual El-Aurian's specific universe/dimension/timeline. So, essentially, each "version" of Guinan would feel that her own version was the correct one, and she would only sense changes done to THAT version.

5
  • The final paragraph is not correct. There can be no distinction between alternate realities. The one that Guinan felt was incorrect was THAT Guinan's native universe.
    – DampeS8N
    Commented Feb 20, 2014 at 21:11
  • 1
    @DampeS8N Star Trek has a few different styles of alternate realities. Four pop into mind immediately: Altered-timeline induced, mirror universe, antimatter universe, and quantum realities (what we saw in TNG Parallels). As far as I recall, it is unknown if the mirror universe falls into one of the other categories (which would drop the "styles" down to 3).
    – Izkata
    Commented Feb 21, 2014 at 0:04
  • @Izkata Sure, but regardless of the method it was not the Enterpise D that traveled between universes. Guinan is a native of the 'alternate' universe. If anything the entire future of Star Trek is an altered universe where Tasha-prime invades a universe where she died and went on to mother a half-Romulan who goes on to plague the Enterprise once more.
    – DampeS8N
    Commented Feb 21, 2014 at 2:30
  • 1
    @DampeS8N: Not precisely - it wasn't an alternate universe or parallel dimension, so Guinan herself was the same Guinan, not an alternate version. It was only the timeline of THAT reality that changed. And as she alluded to with Tasha, she didn't have the memories of both timelines, just a strong feeling that events weren't what they should be. Without knowing more about how the El-Aurian perception thing works, it's really just guesswork anyway.
    – Omegacron
    Commented Feb 21, 2014 at 4:08
  • @Omegacron I see no reason why the way an alternate universe comes to exist should change the reality that the people in that universe who didn't come from outside it are in fact native to that universe.
    – DampeS8N
    Commented Feb 21, 2014 at 17:28

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.