After 60 Years, Star Trek Completely Retconned Spock & USS Enterprise’s Time Travel History

Published Jul 28, 2026, 8:00 AM EDT

While stranded in Earth's dinosaur-dominated Cretaceous era, Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) and the USS Enterprise crew learned that Mars not only had a spacefaring civilization, but the Red Planet was at war with an insect race called the Dol'drm. Mars is losing this conflict, and stole one of the Enterprise's antimatter fuel cells to make a weapon of mass destruction against the Dol'drm.

Captain Pike made a gut decision not to stop the Martian Commander Cassell (Saffron Burrows), from wiping out the Dol'drm homeworld, which was the heretofore unknown fifth planet in the Sol system between Mars and Jupiter. Because there is no Dol'drm planet in the 23rd century, Pike gambled that the Martians destroying it was meant to happen.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Retconned Spock & USS Enterprise’s First Time Travel

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4's premiere was an adventure 65 million years (or 60 years) in the making. Its retcon means that the first time Spock and the USS Enterprise time traveled was to Earth's prehistoric past. Previously, the first time the Starship Enterprise time traveled (with Spock aboard) was to 1967 in Star Trek: The Original Series season 1's "Tomorrow is Yesterday."

The Starship Enterprise's time travel in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4's premiere rewrote human history. By not stopping the Martians, Captain Pike ensured that the Dol'drm planet was destroyed. The Martians' antimatter weapon turned the fifth planet into the Main Asteroid Belt present today between Mars and Jupiter, and shifted Mars' orbit further from the sun.

Most incredible of all is that the blast wave from the Dol'drm planet's destruction sent a piece of it into Earth, which became the Chicxulub meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs. This led to the rise of mammals, then humanity, as the dominant species on Earth. Every human being in Star Trek's universe now owes a debt to Captain Pike thanks to Strange New Worlds' fantastic retcon.

Lieutenant Spock also became the means by which the Starship Enterprise returned to the 23rd century. The Vulcan Science Officer deduced that the Enterprise could use the blast wave's energy to propel it back to the future. This marks the first time that Spock successfully calculated the Starship Enterprise's time travel, and it wouldn't be the last.

Strange New Worlds Set Up Every Time Spock Time Traveled In Star Trek

Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) has a storied history of time travel in Star Trek: The Original Series. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4's premiere established a new benchmark for the Vulcan's first time jumping into the past. 65 million years is now definitively the farthest backward that Spock and the Enterprise have time traveled.

After "Tomorrow is Yesterday," Star Trek: The Original Series season 1 sent Spock and Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) time traveling to 1930s New York City (minus the USS Enterprise) in the classic episode, "The City on the Edge of Forever." However, jumping through the ages was the handiwork of the Guardian of Forever.

Spock mastered calculating the slingshot effect (or lightspeed breakaway factor) that allowed the USS Enterprise to time travel. The Vulcan used it again to jump to 1968 in Star Trek: The Original Series season 2's finale, "Assignment: Earth."

The most famous use of the slingshot effect was in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, when Spock used it to send the HMS Bounty to 1986 San Francisco. After rescuing two humpback whales to save the 23rd century, the Vulcan then took his best guess to slingshot back to the future.

"For everything there is a first time" is a famous Spock quote. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4 has now canonically set the first time Spock and the Starship Enterprise have time traveled, and they went farther back than they've ever gone before.