Loom

The Loom are a trans-dimensional species known to be drawn to temporal paradoxes. Starfleet has only encountered them during events related to time or inter-dimensional travel, where they target individuals whose existence they consider to be out of place or time. The Loom are capable of erasing individuals from existence, eradicating not just them but any memories or records, as if they had never existed.

While they target those whose presence they deem an intrusion or paradox to restore stability to a universe or timeline, they have willingly erased those they deem in their way. The Loom have been known to destroy entire timelines if they consider inter-dimensional intrusion or temporal paradox to be too great. There is no known way to communicate with the Loom, and the nature of them, their intelligence, and their motivations remains poorly understood.

History

The Loom were first encountered by the crew of the USS Voyager-A in 2384 during its mission to rescue Captain Chakotay. An expedition through a temporal wormhole led to a paradox, which drew the Loom to the location of those responsible in an encounter where they erased several crewmembers and a shuttle. Voyager’s crew engaged the Loom in combat, but only survived the encounter due to the intervention of the Traveller, Wesley Crusher, who transported them through space-time before destroying the Loom with an explosion using space-time-thought.

Crusher explained the nature and abilities of the Loom to Voyager’s crew, and aided them in resolving the paradox and restoring the timeline, which caused the Loom to abandon their attack on and depart the prime universe.

The various encounters with the Loom by Voyager’s crew through this ordeal included the Loom pursuing them to an alternate universe. A Vau N’Akat also managed to capture a Loom using some form of collar to restrain or control it, and used the Loom as a method of execution. Once freed, this Loom erased several Vau N’Akat soldiers.

Between 2384 and 2403, there had been few confirmed encounters with the Loom, and none in the prime universe.

The Displaced

In 2403, individuals were spontaneously transported between realities, seemingly at random - some dragged from the prime universe, some to the prime universe. With the inter-dimensional portal at Starbase 80 deemed the cause of this displacement, the prime universe appeared to be ground zero for this multiversal incident.

The Fourth Fleet have embarked on expeditions to recover and return the Displaced individuals, not only as a matter of rescue, but due to warnings that a multiversal disruption of this scale would attract the Loom. The longer a Displaced is in the wrong reality, including those in the prime, the more likely it is that the Loom would travel to that dimension and seek to erase the Displaced as a disruptive incursion - along with anything or anyone in their way.

Should the crisis draw out for too long, it is feared the Loom will erase whole realities Displaced have been transported to, rather than risk the ensuing damage to the multiverse.

Capabilities

Little is understood about the Loom. They appear almost insect-like, with a dark, chitinous body and long, tentacles that can change colour from blues to pinks. If they make a sound, it is a low chittering, growling, or screeching. The Loom have legs but can fly, and survive in a vacuum. While they often appear animalistic in their behaviour, they are capable of some tactical thought; when pursuing the crew of Voyager, their erasing of the shuttle Infinity was a calculated move to cut off an escape route.

Through contact with their tentacles, they can erase individuals from existence. Only those who witness the incident can remember the individual, or those artificially stabilised within a timeline or reality, such as with a phase discriminator or temporal stabiliser. To everyone else, it is as if they never lived at all. When boarding the Voyager-A in 2384, the Loom caused the ship’s logs to lose all records of the eight minutes during which they were aboard.

The Loom can slow time to a crawl. Starfleet equipment such as temporal discriminators may protect against that time dilation, though all developed technology is not passive - it takes a moment to activate, a moment a wearer may not have if they do not see the Loom coming. While the Loom cannot turn invisible, per se, if they have frozen time and acted, it may be functionally the same thing.

They are able to cross between realities, and often manifest in proximity to their targets. While they can pass through walls and hulls, they are tangible creatures, largely travelling through physical space ‘normally.’ Such bypassing of barriers is likely through effort to step out of phase with the current reality so they may pass through matter, before re-stabilising, requiring some effort or focus. They are immensely strong; one in flight was able to ram a shuttle into the ground. Aboard Voyager, one passed through a level 10 forcefield without difficulty.

Phasers are largely ineffective against them unless matched to their phase variance, suggesting the Loom exist partially out of phase with the reality they are in. Admiral Janeway was able to kill several in combat - one only with a full spread of quantum torpedoes, and another by crushing it with a shuttle. Otherwise, they have only been defeated by seemingly massively powerful weaponry specifically targeting space-time. Beyond this, the only way to defeat the Loom is through evading them and resolving whatever paradox or incursion has disturbed them - at which point they cease all hostilities and depart that reality.

Despite their capacity to detect and pursue temporal paradox, the Loom can also be fooled by holograms or mental projections. Starfleet Science hypothesise that they may be drawn to locations where paradoxical individuals are, rather than being able to sense people, which may explain their apparent willingness to erase ‘innocents.’

The motivations of the Loom remain unclear beyond their desire to restore stability to a universe through eradicating incursions, or even the timeline itself. It is possible they are a natural cosmic force to keep the multiverse in order, and that without their presence, temporal anomalies could have an unknown impact on a reality, or other realities. It has been pointed out that the Loom may have made many incursions to the prime universe and, in their way, safeguarded it - but without witnesses, their erasure of individuals would never be known about.

In Play

• The Loom are one of the antagonists from Prodigy season 2. They are depicted as wholly alien entities with one mission: to destroy paradoxical individuals to restore stability to a timeline. They are treated almost as a cosmic phenomenon, rather than as specific foes.
• The Loom cannot be spoken to, reasoned with, or easily defeated in combat. They are something to redirect, avoid, or outwit, not confront. The moment the paradox or incursion they seek is gone, either by them or the resolution of a paradox, they withdraw.
• Their origins and nature are mysterious, and stories should not seek to explain them.
• The Loom are a major antagonist of the 2026 FA Crossroads, where they are drawn to the disruption of the Displaced. Until or unless those individuals are returned to their own reality, the Loom may appear to seek to destroy them, and willingly erase anyone in their path - or, eventually, whole realities. The only way to stop them is to restore the Displaced.
• You may write of the Loom erasing individuals or even whole (other!) realities. Remember that those individuals cannot be restored, and are remembered only by those who witnessed the erasure or are protected from temporal anomalies.
• Equipment such as temporal discriminators or stabilisers are known to Starfleet, and crews expecting encounters with the Loom may prepare appropriately.