TrekGuide.com wrote:
In "Star Trek XI," after Nero enters the black hole and changes history for 25 years, Spock continues to exist in his original timeline for several seconds before entering the same past that Nero has been in. The black hole obviously creates an ongoing gateway between the two universes, and there's no reason to believe from on-screen evidence that Picard and the Enterprise-E couldn't enter the black hole several hours after Spock and Nero and emerge in the same alternate reality that they entered.
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Interesting, if they enter hours later it would be centuries into the future of the prime timeline (assuming the "seconds" = 25 years increases sequentially). Spock would be way, way too long gone (he's already 155 years old! He only has, maybe, a hundred years left).
TrekGuide.com wrote:
In TNG's "Time Squared," Picard went into the past and met himself, but when his past was changed, the future Picard faded away "Back to the Future"-style. But in "Voyager's" finale, "Endgame," Admiral Janeway went back in time and met her younger self, but both continued to exist with memories of their own timelines. In TNG's "Parallels," Worf passed through numerous alternate timelines, all of which co-existed side-by-side.
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Time Squared was originally supposed to be a two-parter with Q Who?, with Q popping up at the end. It's entirely possible that the events of Time Squared (and the temporal vortex seen therein) operate in ways totally different than just normal time travel. Or it was just a silent test in Q's ongoing trial of humanity.
TrekGuide.com wrote:
But in "Time Squared," when Picard went back in time and changed his own past, he faded away, having erased himself from history. This one episode indicates a single timeline, but it is different from every other time travel story depicted in "Star Trek."
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There's also "Tomorrow is Yesterday," where Captain Christopher was superimposed over his own body (and the police sergeant too, apparently) as time reversed in a weird situation. That seems unprecedented.
TrekGuide.com wrote:
But since we have seen on-screen that the black hole is an ongoing (if intermittent) gateway between the Prime timeline and the Abramsverse timeline, if Spock can find the black hole and find a way to pass through it again, he could return to his Prime timeline again, just a few seconds after he left, and find Vulcan and Picard and Janeway all there waiting for him.
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You know, V'ger fell into a black hole and showed up on the other side of the galaxy, and presumably a long, long time ago. I guess this movie proves that V'ger's "original" timeline still exists elsewhere (and is mostly identical up till the time of TMP).
TrekGuide.com wrote:
But this film is definitely a sequel, carrying the story forward from everything that Spock Prime has experienced for the past 150 years.
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I used to wonder who, if you can define it, the central character of Star Trek was. Was it Kirk, the original captain? Worf, the character with the most appearances? Now it seems to be Spock, the only tie between TOS, TNG, nuTrek, and who appeared in both the first production ("The Cage") and the latest (
Star Trek). Pike doesn't count, because of his one only other appearance and alternate status in the film.
TrekGuide.com wrote:
So the writers of future "Star Trek" episodes are still bound by the continuity established in the past 700 episodes of the canon. Andorians are still blue. Orions are still green. Tholians are still punctual. Romulan disruptors are still green. Tribbles are still fuzzy.
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We don't know how the Romulans (the real ones) might have evolved their disruptors over the last twenty-five years of increased Federation intel. They might've evolved to use some sort of plasma weapon (the Dominion kind).
TrekGuide.com wrote:
Why would "Endgame" and "Star Trek: Nemesis" (which takes place in the alternate timeline with Admiral Janeway) be part of the canon, but not "Star Trek XI"? Even if they are in alternate timelines, or alternate realities, or parallel universes, they are all part of the same continuity, and in any event, "Star Trek XI" is definitely still in the future of the "Enterprise" timeline, so the Paramount canon continues to constrain the producers. They still can't depict Deltans with afros, or Betazoids with blue eyes, or Gorn with feathers. The continuity and basic laws of the "Star Trek" universe remains intact, regardless of time travel.
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I can only help but wonder, do you think the El-Aurians are having a collective headache right now? (Joke, I believe in the nexus & Guinan theory which the new timeline might've wiped out)
TrekGuide.com wrote:
As long as Paramount produces new movies, the "Star Trek" canon will continue to grow. History has been changed in many epsodes, from "Yesterday's Enterprise" and "Endgame" to "Shockwave" and "The Expanse," creating major changes to the timeline, but as viewers we adapt to the new history, and tune in to the next episode, because it's still "Star Trek," and the story continues.
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Extremely well written response.