10 Best Foreshadowing Moments In Star Trek

All of Benjamin Sisko's life was foreshadowed. Let's not get ahead of ourselves, however. Struck by yet another addition to Quark's rap sheet in Rapture, the Emissary's synapses showed future potentials. 

Behold, B'hala, and let's get biblical! Before the rivers and the waters of the Alpha Quadrant ran red, there were the locusts, "billions of them," heading towards Cardassia. Zocal's Third Prophecy proved accurate. Sisko's pagh'tem'fars were far from farfetched. 

"The coming war with the Dominion"? The writers had a plan.

"Here we actually did know what we were doing," writer/producer René Echevarria noted in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion. "[Through the locusts], the Prophets are telling the Bajorans, 'Don't join the Federation, because if you do you will be embroiled in this war." The prophecy was fulfilled and all-out war with the Dominion began at the end of the same season in Call To Arms.

Season three's The Defector was originally planned to open with a "Sherlock Holmes gag," according to Michael Piller in Captains' Logs: The Unauthorised Complete Trek Voyages. That idea had to be abandoned, because of the on-going lawsuit with the Conan Doyle Estate.

However, they had Royal Shakespeare in Patrick Stewart. Approached for suggestions, it was Stewart who chose Henry V, the Act (4) and the extract of the Scene (I). Piller was particularly pleased with the sprinklings of Shakespeare throughout the episode, noting in Captains' Logs,

If you are a musician, as I am, it is a trick that you throw into arrangements to echo other songs […] I was very proud of that.

The King, played by Data, could walk incognito amongst the troops, whereas later, Captain Picard could not. Admiral Jarok was passing himself off as Sublieutenant Setal, bringing the Enterprise-D and the Federation to the brink of war — with the Romulans, not the French.

The stand-off in the Neutral Zone was far from Agincourt, but like Henry V and the English, the Enterprise-D was outnumbered, or so it seemed. Also like Henry V, the play, Picard soon paraphrased, knowingly, to Tomalak, "If the cause is just an honourable, they [the crew] are prepared to give their lives".

Like those of Bajor, we're all now prophets for Star Trek. One character's present (and future) is another's old news. The 22nd and 23rd centuries are the museums and holodeck recreations of the 24th. By the 32nd, the future is practically ancient history. In contrast, The Original Series was beholden only to itself. 

One of the best, most satisfying, examples of this is in the past of humanity's future first encounter with the Borg. Along with the prequel, time travel was equally key to any such predictions. The pogo paradox all over the place, plus a hangover or two, in Star Trek: First Contact was a lot to clean up in the Arctic and for the NX-01.

"Sounds to me like we've only postponed the invasion until what, the 24th century?" A call to the Delta Quadrant. A call to The Neutral Zone. If Enterprise had been allowed to stick around for a fifth season, we might also have got the origins of the Borg Queen herself, via Regeneration and the return of Alice Krige.

Now, whilst we're on the topic of time, let's take a few lessons from Doctor Erin Macdonald…

Seasons one and two of Star Trek: Prodigy were some of the best. Like the lessons from Dr Erin, their mechanics — temporal and otherwise — were perfectly determined. The beginning was the end; the end was the beginning.

Prodigy's second season began with Into the Breach, Parts I & II - the title a tease for so much to come. As we noted in our Ups & Downs, Rok-Tahk's "Sounds like somebody never read 'Temporal Mechanics 101'" to Dal in that first episode foreshadowed the next 19. Through time travel, the ouroboros was deftly led back round to its own tail.

Then, on a combadge, the series foreshadowed itself. It had been, will be, the 'kids' — with help from Admiral Janeway, Captain Chakotay, and Wesley Crusher — who send the Protostar to Tars Lamora for themselves to discover. Before beaming away in Ouroboros, Part II, Dal places his combadge on the floor of the bridge for Rok-Tahk to find. "Now we're ready." Now, we've already begun. Time for 'Temporal Mechanics 201'. 

Time for 301, we hope!

Perhaps we're all living in a simulation, and the Enterprise-D is the table. Unless Reg Barclay suddenly knocks us to the floor, it's unlikely we'll ever find out. Beginning with Ship in a Bottle, however, there are ways to tell in advance when Star Trek is being unreal. 

Scenes of a Star Trek episode are, or were, typically punctuated by exterior shots. Their absence throughout the majority of Ship in a Bottle was an indication that events were all taking place in Professor Moriarty's 24th century mind palace. 

The technique caught on and was later used in episodes such as Distant Voices, Projections, and unironically, These Are the Voyages. Doctor Bashir's inquisition in Inquisition also lacked as much in externals of Deep Space 9 as it did in jam scones. As producer Steve Oster noted in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion:

We had to stay true to being in a holosuite [sic], so we could never step outside. Even when Bashir was on the Dominion ship, which was being blasted by the Defiant, we resisted cutting to an exterior shot. Instead, we showed it on a monitor in the room Bashir's being held in.

One stylus under the sofa is worth two in the ambush!

"I can't try to save humanity without holding on to what makes me human," Captain Archer tells T'Pol at the end of Impulse. Like those zombie Vulcans in all of our nightmares, that phrase would come back to haunt him. He would later forfeit the sentiment entirely.

Several episodes later, in Damage, it is T'Pol, visibly affected by her addiction to trellium-d who then reminds Archer of his adage. In need of a warp coil, Archer and the crew of the NX-01 must ignore it. By attacking and boarding the Illyrian ship, they become the marauders they had met in the beginning, as T'Pol also points out. However you feel about it, the fall for Archer was at least well-telegraphed.

A century or so later, the Illyrians didn't seem to hold the incident against Starfleet either (that we know), though they had every right to. Enterprise had left one of their ships stranded in the Expanse. For that crew, ad astra per aspera was never more prescient.

There is no better way to bookend than with a book. The "something Spock was trying to tell me on my birthday" towards the close of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was the gift of A Tale of Two Cities at the beginning. "Book the First: Recalled to Life" was the start with that famous line for Dickens. 

Death and the Kobayashi Maru was more of a red herring in monster maroon. Gene Roddenberry had allegedly leaked one of the scripts. Producers now needed to distract from Spock's actual demise. First drafts had no death in the simulator, and no simulator up front. That was director Nicholas Meyer's idea. The message? Don't worry, dear moviegoer! "All is well."

Kirk's "Aren't you dead?" to Spock in the corridor was then doubly sarcastic and twice the wink. The fake-out for the real thing became as much a clever teaser for "Remember". You can't cheat death, but also, maybe someone else can.

The clue is in the title. The rest of the foreshadowing is in the absence of the rest of the quote from Batman (1989). In the celebrated episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Captain Sisko would face his answer. "Tell me something, my friend. You ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?"

In the Pale Moonlight shows that the saints in paradise must flirt with the demons once in hell. The war raging, the casualty lists never-ending, Sisko is determined to do whatever it takes to bring the Romulans into the war. 

Of course, the devil was a metaphor for getting down and dirty with Garak. In the dance, Sisko risked not only losing his soul to win the war but losing the war altogether if the plan failed. Garak — plain, simple tailor — put a pin in it after the fact: "That's why you came to me, isn't it, Captain? Because you knew I could do those things that you weren't capable of doing." 

In other words, it always took two to tango.

The opener of Star Trek: Picard's third season was a masterclass in foreshadowing through references to the past. Aboard the SS Eleos, those flowers were from Cause and Effect. History was about to repeat itself… again. And for whom? With whom? 

Panning further, Captain Picard's log from The Best of Both Worlds, Part I announced that "the Borg [had] maintained their position". In hindsight, putting two and two together equalled "Honorary Citizens of Cor Caroli V". That was the outbreak planet from Allegiance — the one with the replica Picard and the imposter cadet. Duplicates were very much the other theme of the season.

Skip ahead to the end credits and you'll find a visual and auditory guide to the rest of the season. Stephen Barton and Frederik Wiedmann's rearrangement of Jerry Goldsmith's 'End Credits' for Star Trek: First Contact was immediately captivating. Then, on one treble clef stave, in D major, 6/8 time, the notes of a melody appeared. It was Pop Goes the Weasel.

Nodding back to Encounter at Farpoint (and to Star Trek: Nemesis), and nodding forward to Daystrom Station in The Bounty, those notes to Pop Goes the Weasel were now a passcode, of sorts, to be whistled back to a "dear friend" inside Android M-5-10.

And speaking of D major…

"Their soldiers have materialised on Decks 15, 11, 4… and 1". The second movement of Mahler's Symphony No.1, 'Titan,' in D Major begins as Captain Janeway is summoned to her ready room. "I took the liberty of playing this music throughout your ship. I thought it might help your crew relax," Devore Inspector Kashyk blusters in Janeway's chair.

Point, counterpoint, point, counterpoint. "Devore soldiers have materialised on Decks 15, 12, 8, 4… and 1." Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4, second movement begins to play, though not for long. "Computer, change music selection. Mahler's Symphony No. 1, second movement. Maybe this will help you relax," is Janeway's blisteringly sardonic remark, matching the Inspector's earlier inflection, firmly in her chair on the bridge. Musically (amongst other methods), the opener to the episode Counterpoint foreshadowed its close.

Musically, for its second movement, Mahler's Symphony No. 1 switches to the dominant key of A major. It is also written in the form of a Ländler, an Austrian folk dance and precursor of the waltz, in 3/4 time. In Counterpoint, a dance of dominance is at play throughout. From the beginning, two Devore warships loom over the singular Voyager. In the ready room after the opening credits, the camera's focus oscillates back and forth between Janeway and Kashyk. By the time the second movement is heard again, it is evident who has been leading the dance all along. Voyager moves forward. The Devore ships move away.

Back to Act One:

Kashyk: "Captain, do you trust me?"

Janeway: "Not for a second."