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In the Voyager episode "Blink of an Eye" the crew finds a planet where time passes much more quickly than the rest of the universe.

SEVEN: For each second that passes on Voyager, nearly a day goes by on the planet.

Some basic maths suggests that a century on the planet would last around 10 hours in Voyager's timeframe. Given that the rate of advancement seen in the episode is broadly similar to Earth civilizations, within a week of sending the first spacecraft to meet Voyager the planet's technology would be a millennia more advanced than the Federation's​.

It's possible that, for example, being unable to easily exchange ideas and technology with the rest of the galaxy due to the different flow of time may limit the rate at which the planet develops compared to others. Is any canon explanation ever given?

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  • Didn't they create devices that compensated for differing flows of time, but for one person? Would have been nice to discover if they adapted that to a global scale.
    – user107907
    Commented Mar 13, 2019 at 11:50
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    Once they developed social media, all progress stopped.
    – Organic Marble
    Commented Mar 13, 2019 at 12:33
  • Maybe the Cytherians caught wind of their progress and put an end to them.
    – Ham Sandwich
    Commented Mar 13, 2019 at 14:43
  • Given the obvious plot lift from Forward's Dragon's Egg and Starquake the logical conclusion would be that they cut off communications immediately after rescuing the humans, maybe after sprinkling some Easter eggs around the galaxy for us to find.
    – Kyle Jones
    Commented Mar 14, 2019 at 4:21

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Since they're never mentioned again we only have speculation, but there are a wide range of possibilities.

  • Having had a chance to study Federation technology, they be aware of antimatter technology well in advance of the point at which they could develop the technology to control it. We've seen what happens to societies that metaphorically run with scissors in VOY: Friendship One, VOY: Time and Again and VOY: The Omega Directive (spoiler - Boom!)

  • The technology they've developed that allows individuals to interface with other timeframes might not be sufficient to allow the entire planet to come into phase. There's no real sign that they have warp technology so it might well be that they can (theoretically) interact with passing ships but that none come to visit them. It might also be that warp tech is banned since it can cause the planet to become unstable.

  • Given that their one brush with an outside force nearly destroyed their entire world, they might have decided to hide away, like the society in TNG: When the Bough Breaks

  • The planet may have slowed down to a more moderate speed after the Voyager left. When they arrive it was only going at 58 rpm. Their arrival caused it to speed up dramatically. It's possible that leaving then caused it to slow back down again or even become a normal speed.

  • We've seen what happens when species become super-advanced. They have a tendency to turn into immortal energy-based beings like in TNG: Transfigurations

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