Talk:Cause and Effect (episode)

Bozeman loop length?
I was under the impression that the Bozeman and their crew had travelled 90 years into the future, not that they had been stuck in the loop for 90 years as the article states. It doesn't make sense that they were in the loop for so long because it was the collision with the Enterprise that caused the loop to keep resetting, and the Enterprise had only been there for 17 days. --Nadrek 09:09, 5 May 2006 (UTC)


 * You may be right but I too was under the impression that they were simply stuck there for 90 years. What explanation do you have to offer that they just spontaneiously travelled 90 years to the future?68.161.201.175 01:40, 17 May 2006 (UTC)


 * How do we know that it wasn't something else causing their loop, and that the Enterprise by breaking out of it skipped them out of their own loop as well? -- Sulfur 02:25, 17 May 2006 (UTC)


 * The only thing I don't get is how can a space farring vessel witihn Starfleet simply dissapear? Was there no effort to go looking for it, etc.? Its the equivalent of losing several billion dollars and not even thinking twice about it. 150.210.226.6 15:20, 17 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Who is to say that the explosion of the Enterprise-D couldn't have caused the temporal anomaly in the first place. Time travel, more specifically temporal causality, state that effect can preceed cause (hence the title of the episode).---Willie 08:56, 16 October 2006 (UTC)


 * While I agree that the end of episode somewhat implied the Bozeman was in the loop for 90 years, I don't think the rest of the episode supports it.  We know that the Enterprise-D was in the loop for 17 days and their levels of deja vu (nlb'poH!) got worse and worse.  I can't imagine that 90 years of that would have left Captain Frasier nearly so calm.


 * About the 'how can they disappear' comment.. there have been a handful of episodes about lost Federation vessels, not to mention an entire series.  If Starfleet sent rescue missions after each and every one of them, they wouldn't have time for anything else.  Space is big. 72.15.95.101 01:42, 15 October 2007 (UTC)


 * As I believe I've stated elsewhere on the page, it would be fairly simple for the Bozeman to return to her own time via a stellar slingshot. The crew could either have their memories wiped, or swear never to speak of what happened to them.  However, this is idle speculation and the name is mentioned again in Generations (although it is impossible to say whether this is the same ship, the same crew, both or neither).


 * The fact that the Bozeman just seemed to appear when we see them suggests to me that their loop has just been restarted so they've been placed back where they started it. If that's the case then they probably wouldn't yet have noticed déjà vu (even if pretty quickly you'd expect them to start getting agitated by it all).CleverAndKnowsIt 13:35, September 13, 2009 (UTC)

how can both rumors have ever been true at the same time?

 * 1) The female bridge officer .. was originally intended to be Saavik
 * 2) Originally, the USS Bozeman was going to be a television-era Constitution class starship
 * If it was going to be a ship from the TOS era, then obviously it couldn't have had Saavik in it, same for the inverse. SO how could both rumors have been true at the same time?--64.12.116.72 21:07, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
 * They could have been true at different times, in different drafts of the scripts. Also, I am not sure on the TOS era Constitution, I thought the rumor was for a refit connie. --OuroborosCobra talk |undefined  21:15, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I always assumed that the Bozeman was NOT in the casulity loop. It simply went through some sort of spacetime distortion that put it in the future on a collision course with the Enterprise. The collision then cause the loop to occur. So, the Enterprise really did get destroyed, but thanks to the Typhon Expanse, it was able to change the outcome.
 * That is interesting, except that it is stated in dialogue by Captain Picard that the Bozeman was in the loop. --OuroborosCobra talk |undefined  16:23, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't think so, Captain Picard's dialogue was "... and I suspect that something similar may have happened to you." He suspects that they have been in the loop, so one can't be sure. --72.75.55.29 01:07, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Song that Crusher hums?
Does anyone know what that little tune is that Beverly hums while she is cutting the flowers? Thanks! 70.56.17.206 01:32, 26 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't know the answer to this, but I do know that I've seen lyrics for it displayed in the closed captioning. I've always thought what happened was that she was supposed to sing it, but that humming worked better.  I'm actually surprised that's not mentioned here already.  SatoYamada 13:15, May 5, 2011 (UTC)

Cheers/Frasier info

 * Kirstie Alley, who played Grammer's Cheers co-star Rebecca Howe, was originally intended to reprise her role as Saavik as the female bridge officer standing next to Captain Bateson on the USS Bozeman, but her asking price was too high. It was also considered that Bebe Neuwirth could have played the officer; however, it was decided against.

This information has gone uncited for 10 months. If a citation can be found, it can go back. It would be likely to require more than one citation. --OuroborosCobra talk 04:27, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
 * The first part is from the TNG Companion, sort of. It states that the reason it didn't work out was a scheduling conflict, not Alley's asking price. It doesn't say anything about Neuwirth being approached to appear in her place. I'll restore the first part with the necessary modification and citation of the source. - Bridge 04:36, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

The Bozeman's Alternate Fate?
If the temporal causality loop hadn't reset after the Enterprise exploded, what might've happened to the Bozeman afterwards? She didn't appear to suffer as much damage, colliding nacelle-to-nacelle with the Enterprise. But, taking the respective ships' masses into account, the collision doesn't quite make sense to me. Would a refit-Constitution/Miranda/Soyuz-class nacelle slice a Galaxy-class nacelle like a knife through cheese? Or, wouldn't the Bozeman's nacelle just shear off instead, leaving both ships heavily damaged? The Reliant lost a nacelle without suffering a warp core breach, certainly the Bozeman could as well. And, if the direct collision didn't destroy the Bozeman, then quite possibly being that close to a much larger ship's core breach would. Things that occur off-screen, but not out of mind...

My apologizes if this seems more jumbled than a game of Kal-toh, but it's just how my brain works in the wee hours of the AM. 72.12.78.51 13:50, 1 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I have to point this out, a Galaxy core breach makes a pretty big bang, not to mention the antimatter pods and photon torpedoes cooking off. Any ship nearby will be in real trouble, especially if shields are down and power is out (as happened to the E-D).  However, a really interesting question would be 'Did the breach cause the event that captured the Bozeman in the first place?'  As a result, the consequences of the loop caused the event that created the loop, a complete paradox.  Regrettably, we cannot answer that one, any more than we can find out if the Bozeman's captain sent his ship back to her own time by a stellar slingshot.  I know that the name comes up again in Generations, but that proves nothing either way.--Indefatigable 21:59, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Keeping Track of Enterprise's Destruction
Why is it relevant to keep track (in the background/continuity sections) of all the times the Enterprise or a Galaxy-class starship has been destroyed? I have noticed now in several episodes that in the background section it is mentioned that "this is third/fourth... time we see the Enterprise being destroyed on screen" etc. Why is that relevant and what kind of a value does that add? I think it should be removed. – Distantlycharmed 21:29, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I think it would be relevant on the Enterprise's page, but not on the episode page.--31dot 13:20, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Cheers

 * The year Bateson believed it to be may also be a Cheers reference. In a 1990 Cheers episode called "Woody Interruptus," Grammer's character Dr. Frasier Crane mentions in a discussion about cryonics how interesting it would be to wake up in the year 2278.

Interesting. Needs proof. &mdash; Morder 09:43, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Last sentence of the plot summary
"Bateson agrees with a very concerned look on his face." -- this ain't right, the last thing seen after Picard speaks is the two ships flying side by side. -- SaganamiFan 00:47, March 4, 2010 (UTC)

Common Cold
"When La Forge and Dr. Crusher check the medical logs for previous occurrences of his VISOR-related illness, a previous entry reads Minor Headache: Common Cold however, the common cold has supposedly been cured by the 24th century."

Just because the Common Cold has been cured doesn't meen it has been eradicated from existance. You can still cacth it, but unlike today, Doctors can eradicate it from your system, rather than just treat the symptoms. --Looq 16:29, July 29, 2010 (UTC)


 * I'll be bold and get rid of this. Muzer 18:38, April 13, 2011 (UTC)

Removed

 * Though the Bozeman strikes the starboard nacelle of the Enterprise, the port nacelle explodes in each timeline.

Removed as a nitpick.--31dot 20:00, August 2, 2010 (UTC)

Data hearing over 1000 voices?
This may be a nitpick, but on the other hand it may be a continuity flub.

Near the end of act 3, Crusher records the "voices" in her quarters on her tricorder. Data, Geordi and Beverly then listen to the recording in engineering. Data asks for a continuous playback of the recording and listens to it, and discerns that there are "over one thousand" voices in the recording, all from the Enterprise crew.

However, earlier in the season (in "A Matter of Time" specifically) when Rasmussen visits Data's quarters and finds him listening to 4 different pieces of classical music, Data states that he is capable of distinguishing over 150 simultaneous compositions from each other, but he finds that he can study the nuances better with a lower number.

So the question I'm posing is...how is Data able to detect over one thousand voices?

(I'm disregarding the rather oddly non-specific number of "over one thousand" coming from Data. But maybe that is the answer.)

Maybe I'm over thinking it. Yep, I'm sure I am. -Phenomenaut 04:44, January 4, 2011 (UTC)


 * Though not something which can be added to the article, this is easy to explain. Data doesn't actually have to be able to distinguish between every conversation at once (as he would with a musical composition). He simply has to recognise each time he hears a voice which he hasn't heard before (in which case he's really just distinguishing between two things; the voice and everything that's left). It's the equivalent of not being able to distinguish between two songs played at once, but being able to recognise the first time you hear the sound of a cymbal.


 * Besides, he wouldn't even have to recognise every voice at once. He could just identify 150 of them and then mentally filter those voices out when the message next looped, and then repeat. CleverAndKnowsIt 05:13, January 4, 2011 (UTC)

Picard Uniform Inconsistency
In the 5th act, Picard is on the couch reading a book wearing the gray and black duty uniform and no rank insignia on his collar, but after Doctor Crusher calls him to the sick bay, he now has his rank insignia on the collar. --jimnms 19:41, June 15, 2011 (UTC)


 * That would be a nitpick, which are not permitted in articles.--31dot 20:49, June 15, 2011 (UTC)


 * As Picard is also wearing his jacket when he arrives in sickbay, it is possible he took a moment on his way out to complete his uniform before leaving his quarters. --Theinfinity42 23:33, July 9, 2011 (UTC)

Removed

 * Less than a year after this episode first aired, the movie Groundhog Day was released, revolving around a similar "time loop" premise and starring Bill Murray.
 * The 1987 novel Replay chronicles the time loop experienced by main character Jeff Winston. He dies at age 43 in 1998 and returns as his earlier 18-year-old self in 1963. He meets Pamela Phillips, also experiencing a time loop, and together they discover how to leave cryptic messages to assist relocating each other as their lives loop. Each loop begins at a point farther in the future than the previous.

Removed unless there is citeable evidence that these other works directly had something to do with this episode.--31dot 10:10, August 27, 2011 (UTC)