A research dossier · after Kyle Sullivan / Trekspertise
Sixty years of time travel left the franchise a continuity nightmare. One theory with eight rules untangles it, and something unexpected falls out: a geography of the entire multiverse, drawn as one strange, new life form.
Every universe, realm, and divergence in one living chart. The painting is traced line for line into vectors, so nothing pixelates no matter how far you zoom. Hover any line or realm to identify it; click to pin its story. Drag to pan, scroll or pinch to zoom, or switch to the original painting.
Built on Christopher L. Bennett's Watching the Clock, amended episode by episode against every time travel story Trek ever told. The Bennett-Sullivan Rules, if you'll allow it.
The Temporal Causality Index measures how much causal information from another point in time has been introduced into a segment of history. An untouched timeline sits at 0. A time traveler's knowledge, actions, technology, even their presence, raises it.
The author's analogy is a causal gravity score. A timeline with more causal information has more weight, and time travelers naturally fall toward the heaviest one. The theory never asks which timeline is real, because every timeline is real. It asks which one has the most causal weight.
Here are the rules in motion. Send a traveler through time and watch history split, entangle, and, if left alone long enough, harden into whole new universes.
The Prime timeline flows undisturbed. TCI 0. Try a one-way trip into the past.
Everything the franchise ever placed beyond the Prime Universe: every universe, every realm outside time, and every tear in the fabric that connects them.
Every known temporal incident across the franchise, event by lettered event. This is the raw evidence the theory was tested against. QP = Quantum Projection · DTO = Daniels Temporal Observatory · SBR = Sphere-Builder Realm · IPR = Interspatial Parasite Realm · ⟳ = loop
Years of studies and sketches, all aimed at producing a single map. The current standard sits alongside abandoned concepts. In the author's words: “everything here is wrong by current standards. However, there are some nice ideas in here. Borrow and steal, if you are adventurous enough.”