question about "synchronic displacement" in TNG 'Times Arrow' - eviltoast

So in this episode they go into a cave, and can read some sort of energy field, as well as Troi having a sense that there are lifeforms present. Geordie explains that the people must be displaced in time, but only by a few milliseconds. If that’s true, how is there not overlap? Say the people are a few milliseconds ahead of the enterprise when they arrive, shouldn’t they appear a few milliseconds later, as they still would have had to be ‘present’ during that time? I don’t understand how they would be consistently invisible if time is a dimension like space that can be traveled through. Some past (or future) version of them would be present regardless of the desynchronization would they not?

Please if anyone could help me understand or shed some light on this I’d appreciate it.

  • emeralddawn45@discuss.tchncs.deOP
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    1 year ago

    There’s a lot of made up nonsense in star trek, sure, but there’s also a reason they call it ‘science’ fiction. I guess my question had two points. Firstly to see if anyone more knowledgeable than ne could either confirm that it’s nonsense or give me a way that it’s actually potentially possible based on some legitimate scientific theory, or secondly, like the other person said, just to see how people could use their creativity to explain away the inconsistency in universe.

    • rah@feddit.uk
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      1 year ago

      if anyone more knowledgeable than ne could either confirm that it’s nonsense or give me a way that it’s actually potentially possible based on some legitimate scientific theory

      Ah, an actual answer.