Time travel is a common and popular trope in Star Trek, but one particular method invented in Star Trek: The Original Series is the standout means of traveling backward or forward in time. Nearly every Star Trek series and two of the most popular movies, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and Star Trek: First Contact, feature time travel. Star Trek: Discovery even left its 23rd-century origin point after season 2 for a new permanent berth exploring the 32nd century. In Star Trek: Prodigy, Captain Chakotay (Robert Beltran) is now a prisoner in the 25th century thanks to the USS Protostar's accidental time travel.

Each Star Trek has found novel means to send characters throughout time, in accordance with whatever sci-fi gimmick that is entailed (temporal mechanics in Star Trek be damned.) Star Trek: The Original Series' most celebrated episode, "The City on the Edge of Forever," introduced the time portal called the Guardian of Forever. Star Trek: Discovery season 3 brought the Guardian of Forever (Paul Guilfoyle) back and revealed it can pose as a human. Other means of time travel in Star Trek include the Nexus in Star Trek Generations, the Bajoran Orb of Time in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and the Borg have their own means of time travel as well. But Star Trek: TOS' innovation is the best method of traveling through time.

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The Slingshot Effect Is Star Trek's Best Time Travel

Star Trek Slingshot Effect

The slingshot effect is Star Trek's best and coolest method of time travel. Also known as the light-speed breakaway factor, the slingshot effect is performed by traveling at extremely high warp towards a star or another stellar object with massive gravitational pull. In TOS' case, the Enterprise would create a whiplash effect by breaking away from the star's gravity which would send it into a time warp. The Enterprise used the slingshot effect twice in TOS and, most famously, in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Star Trek: Picard season 2 also used the slingshot effect to send Admiral Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and his crew to 2024 Los Angeles.

The slingshot effect has been used sparingly in Star Trek, but it's such a standout because it allows the Starfleet heroes control over their time travel. Often, characters are sent through time against their will, but the slingshot effect is a proactive means for the Enterprise (or Star Trek: Picard's La Sirena) to own their time warp. The slingshot effect also showcases how important Spock (Leonard Nimoy) is because, without his higher Vulcan intellect, the Enterprise could never perform the necessary calculations to survive a time warp. Star Trek: Picard season 2 substituted the Borg Queen (Annie Wersching) for Spock.

Why Star Trek Does Time Travel Stories So Well

Star Trek - Enterprise crew arrives in San Francisco

The slingshot effect was used in the Star Trek: The Original Series episodes "Tomorrow is Yesterday" and "Assignment: Earth." Along with "The City on the Edge of Forever," Star Trek established early on that it excelled at time travel stories, and that has proven true as the franchise continued with multiple TV series. Star Trek's brand of science fiction is extremely versatile and allows for all manner of genres, drama, and even comedy. Time travel is a reliable and effective means of telling stories about the human condition beyond Star Trek's future setting.

There's also the undeniable fun of seeing Star Trek's futuristic heroes as fish out of water and completely out of their element. Whether it's DS9's Ferengi landing in Roswell, New Mexico, Captain Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and the crew of Star Trek: Discovery making the year 3189 their new, permanent home, or Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and his Enterprise crew looking for humpback whales in 1986, time travel is one of Star Trek's best trump cards. But it's extra exciting when the Enterprise decides to take matters into its own hands and time travel via the slingshot effect.

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