Here's what I don't understand. They went through the Singularity to the future because that was the only place the Control AI wouldn't be able to find them, right? Except Control was already destroyed before they went through the Singularity!
I've never even been able to start season 3 because I just can't get past the stupidity of not reversing the engines away from the Singularity the moment Control was eliminated as a threat.
Except Control was already destroyed before they went through the Singularity!
They didn't know that for sure, and the debriefings with Pike, Spock, and the gang at the end establish that they took some time afterward to confirm that Control had been completely eliminated.
Well, that's where I think their plan falls apart a bit. My interpretation was always that they were going to try to stay in the wormhole, effectively removing themselves from the timestream - hence the episode title "Perpetual Infinity". I don't have access to episode transcripts right now, but Memory Alpha seems to support this:
Burnham speculates that perhaps instead of fighting against time, they flow with it, and try to merge the Sphere into the "river of time" itself – sending it so far into the future that it would not be able to harm them. Stamets' examination of the Red Angel's suit has revealed it has almost infinite data storage, which Pike takes to mean that they would input the Sphere archive into the suit, program a destination beyond Gabrielle's anchor point, and let the micro-wormhole take it away forever. "Perpetual infinity", Stamets confirms; Control will not be able to get the data, ever.
However, I think there are multiple ways to interpret the scene, and I think the last couple of episodes of the season are pretty sloppy in that regard.
That's the paradox tho.... if they go through, they fulfill the timeline of the future. If they don't, they break the timeline and now there is a new chance for control to reappear and restart.
The other thing is .... these are time paradoxes so whatever happens creates a new universe and we will never become aware of the alternate versions.
But you do have a great point .... I was so excited watching the finale that I didn't think of that.
There are plot holes everywhere that you could fly a star ship through .... but I still enjoyed it.
As others have said this isn’t the infinitely expanding manifold time of DC or MCU (pre Loki season 2).
SNW season two confirmed what we could infer from the premier of TNG when the date of WW3 had shifted back decades. It also happens to line up better with the understandings of modern physics.
The Prime Timeline in Star Trek is a resilient enormous river. It can be shifted a bit in its course, slip forwards and back.
BUT major events remain largely unchanged
those changes that aren’t large enough to create a major fork shift to a very different future as in TOS City at the Edge of Forever
OR
it takes an event of the order of the Romulan Supernova to create a new branch universe (Kelvin U).