Trent Christopher Ganino Trent Christopher Ganino is the writer who co - wrote the story for TNG ' s together with Eric A . Stillwell . Ganino also appeared in as Klingon Judge # 2 . The story for " Yesterday ' s Enterprise " was based on a spec script that Ganino wrote and submitted to the TNG writing staff through Michael Piller ' s open submission policy . Ganino ' s script featured the " Enterprise " - C under the command of Captain Robert Garrett – a character named after Ganino ' s favorite pizza parlor in his hometown of San Jose , California . In Ganino ' s spec script , the " Enterprise " - C accidentally travels twenty - two years into the future , arriving in the current timeline of . In his version , however , there was no time change or alternate future . Instead , Picard and company are faced with the moral question of whether or not to return the ship to its own time period , knowing that the ship will be lost in battle , and if they do , whether or not they should warn Captain Garrett and his crew of this eventuality , running the risk that " Enterprise " - C and her crew might use this knowledge of the future to alter history once the ship is returned . A cover letter that Ganino included with his script submission suggested that he was following the TNG Submission Guidelines by creating another " Enterprise " crew , but if he really had a say in the matter , he would prefer the story involve the original " Enterprise " featuring Kirk , Spock and other characters from TOS . Years later , after the release of , Rick Berman admitted that if he had known in 1989 that they would be making TNG movies in the 1990s , he would have kept " Yesterday ' s Enterprise " for the first TNG feature film . Back in 1989 , Ganino ' s spec script languished on the shelves of TNG staff writers and only gradually made the rounds to the desks of Melinda Snodgrass , Hans Beimler , and , eventually , Michael Piller . During this time , Ganino and Stillwell ran into each other at a studio screening of . After the screening , they spent hours at a local Hollywood diner discussing the film . It was then that they decided to team up to write a story together for TNG . Stillwell told Ganino about a story he had been thinking about which involved Sarek and the Guardian of Forever that would involve a time alteration requiring Sarek to travel back in time to replace Surak , the founder of modern Vulcan philosophy , who had been killed accidentally , thus resulting in the time alteration . In the time altered future , the Federation is at war with a united Vulcan - Romulan Star Empire that has already wiped out the Klingon Empire . Ganino liked the idea , and the two writers agreed to work on developing the story together . During a 1989 convention appearance in San Jose , California , Stillwell ran into Denise Crosby back stage . Crosby suggested to Stillwell that he should write an episode to bring her back to the show . Crosby eventually made her desire to return to the series known to the powers that be at Paramount . Soon thereafter , Ganino ' s spec script " Yesterday ' s Enterprise " arrived on Michael Piller ' s desk . Piller liked the idea and he wanted to buy the story and have a professional staff writer re - write it . He sent a memo to Rick Berman hoping to convince him to reconsider his opposition to time travel stories . Around this time , the producers had also learned about Crosby ' s interest in returning to the series . Piller thought they might be able to incorporate a Crosby guest appearance in " Yesterday ' s Enterprise " . When Stillwell , who was serving as script coordinator at the time , heard about this development , he went to Piller and pitched the Sarek / time - altered universe story he and Ganino had been working on . Piller rejected the TOS elements ( Sarek , the Guardian of Forever , etc . ) as " gimmicks " he wasn ' t interested in using , but he liked the notion of the character in the present timeline who needed to sacrifice themselves to save the future by going back in time . Piller told Stillwell and Ganino if they could incorporate that element using Natasha Yar instead of Sarek , he would buy the story . Ganino and Stillwell immediately set to work writing a new story treatment that would combine the elements of their time altered future with Ganino ' s original spec script concept . From this collaboration emerged the concept which eventually became " Yesterday ' s Enterprise " . One of the significant revisions was the change of Captain Robert Garrett to Rachel Garrett , setting the stage for Tasha Yar to fill her absence on board " Enterprise " - C after Garrett is killed . In developing the story , the most difficult element facing Ganino and Stillwell was trying to figure out how Picard and company , in the battle - worn altered reality , would learn the truth about their situation . How would they know that history had been altered ? It was Piller who suggested that Guinan might have some mysterious alien intuition that would solve the problem . Piller convinced Berman to let him buy the story . After two story treatments written by Ganino and Stillwell , Piller assigned the final story re - write to staff writer Ronald D . Moore . The teleplay was later written by Ira Steven Behr , Hans Beimler , Richard Manning , and Ronald D . Moore . Michael Piller also did a considerable amount of writing on the episode , but was denied a screenwriting credit due to Writers Guild rules . Ganino has a star named after him in " Yesterday ' s Enterprise " , in the alternate timeline , on a tactical situation monitor showing the progress of the Klingon s in their war with the Federation .