Did First Contact change the timeline?

[Mr. Laser Beam]

sbk1234 wrote:

---

I read in another post somewhere an idea that the pictures in TMP Recdeck could have periodically switched to different ships. Easily done with today's technology. Maybe we just didn't see it come around to the NX-01.

Good point.

[Londo]

NX-01 was probably so famous it had a whole other wall to itself.
The rec dec wall seem suggestive of periods rather than a comprehensive list, an age of sail enterprise when there were several, a carrier for the age of flight, shuttle for he first steps into space, ring enterprise for the pre-federation reach to the stars, and NCC 1701 for the immediate past.
Clearly NX-01 could have illustrated the pre-federation era, we dont really know what the ring ship was, perhaps a stellar liner so its inclusion brings a more civilian aspect.

[Tiberius]

Timo wrote:

---

I don't see any indication in "Q Who?" that the Borg wouldn't already know all about Earth and the Earthlings.

That's assuming that any such connection would have been made clear.

Nor do I see any indication in "Regeneration" that the Borg message sent towards the Delta Quadrant would have been of much significance. It probably made the Collective aware of how the mission went the first time around - but since the Borg can time travel, they could time travel until they reached the desired outcome, which indicates that the history that unfolded after the ST:FC end credits rolled is the one that the Borg desired

.

The Borg message sent in regeneration made little difference? Yet the Federation encoutnered the Borg (Neutral Zone and Q-Who) at exactly the time that was predicted.

Indeed, ST:FC looks like a time loop to me. In the first iteration, Zephram Cochrane is a crazy hillbilly who happens to have some fundamentally faulty ideas about warp drive, and the Borg help him invent warp at the crucial moment by bringing him help from the future. In the last iteration, Cochrane has got it almost right, and the future helpers only need to do a little bit of tinkering to create "the engine they read about in the history books". Thus, the last iteration was always part of "the timeline", whereas the earlier iterations were part of different timelines where at first the UFP didn't exist, then something like it began to exist but with really poor warp drives and tech, and finally the UFP we know began to exist and enjoyed high standard Cochrane warp engines from the very start...

Timo Saloniemi

That's a bit of a stretch for me....

[diankra]

brian wrote:

---

Didn't Picard state in "Q Who" that the Borg now know about the Federation because of the events of "Q Who"? It was never established that a transmission of any sort brought the Borg to the Alpha Quadrant, AFAIK.

For what it's worth, and OT from the First Contact time paradox, I always liekd the idea that by throwing the Enterprise into system J25 in Q Who, Q didn't tip off the Borg about the Federation's existence (after all, The Neural Zone implies the Borg were already scouting on the Romulan/Federation border), but he did let Starfleet know of the Borg's existence, giving them a year's worth of time to prepare for The Best of Both Worlds.

[Captain_Amasov]

brian wrote:

---

When Cochrane looked at the Enterprise-E in the telescope in ST:FC, I admit I did have the thought that the saucer/nacelle configuration of all future Starfleet vessels was born then. There was nothing leading toward that design configuration up until that point. Cochrane did have a 2-nacelle design, but nothing to lead toward a saucer shape for the crew portion of a ship.

I had the same thought when he saw the Enterprise pass in front of the sun just before he made his first warp flight. From that angle all he got was a vague silhouette of a saucer and warp nacelles sticking out the back. That to me is where the NX-class came from.

[Admiral Buzzkill]

No.

[seigezunt]

I like to think that the timeline does get changed, only because I want to fit in somewhere the great novel "Federation."

Also because the Kelvin kind of has an ENT feel more than a pre-TOS feel (which to me, would resemble more "Forbidden Planet" )

[RookieBatman]

In my personal timeline, FC did change the timeline, producing ENT. I have a nebulous idea that in the original timeline (in my personal continuity), Captain Archer may have commanded the U.S.S. Daedelus, or some other pioneer ship, but it's nearly important enough to me to flesh out.
Anyway, FC led to ENT, which led to the Kelvin scene (in my personal continuity). I think there was too much that was different technologically and aesthetically in the movie (including that first scene) to be explained just by a 20 year divergence caused by one attack on one ship. But that's just me; I agree it doesn't matter. BillJ said that having it all be one timeline is dramatically a more satisfying structure, and I find that to be a completely valid viewpoint. It shouldn't need to be something that holds up to anyone else's scrutiny; it just be for you whatever makes more sense and is more satisfying aesthetically or dramatically. And for me, that's the divergent timeline model.

[RookieBatman]

seigezunt wrote:

---

I like to think that the timeline does get changed, only because I want to fit in somewhere the great novel "Federation."

I don't know, I'm kinda anal about continuity myself, but to me, that book is so good it just kinda transcends continuity. It's like, everything else just kinda fades away...

[Captain Rob]

If we're going to talk about ships missing from the wall displays in TMP and TNG then you have to mention the most famous real Enterprise. The World War 2 era USS Enterprise CV-6; the most decorated US warship of the war. Which was cut up and sold for scrap.

As for the ship design of the twin nacelles and saucer. I always thought that the design was a result of the warp field geometry of a flattened elipse.

[Timo]

doubleohfive, the legacy walls included sailing ships and the NASA space shuttle (no Richard Branson VSS Enterprise either ). No "in-universe" reason to exclude it.

Of the three legacy walls, one featured UFP starships exclusively (the one on the E-E). Of the other two, one omitted the nuclear carrier (the TMP one) while the other one omitted the war-hero conventional one (the E-D one - the TMP wall did actually have that one). Both omitted half a dozen assorted sailing ships, and no doubt also half a dozen spacecraft of all sorts. Archer's "poor man's version" only had four vessels in all, again omitting CV-6 but also all other spacecraft besides the shuttle test article.

It's quite difficult to see a pattern of completeness there... A starship or three could well slip through. Indeed, the TMP wall had the famous if mysterious ringship which clearly was an advanced spacecraft, but the E-D wall did not...

The Borg message sent in regeneration made little difference? Yet the Federation encoutnered the Borg (Neutral Zone and Q-Who) at exactly the time that was predicted.

The prediction itself made no sense, though. How could T'Pol figure out when the message would reach its destination? She only knew the direction and the speed. She couldn't know the distance (and thus the time) unless she knew the destination beforehand, and how could she know that?

In all the encounters with the Borg, the cyborgs or supposedly neutral observers have never suggested that any of those would be a first encounter between the Borg and the Earthlings. As for the Earthlings themselves, they thought they had a first in "Q Who?", but they were doubly mistaken - they quickly realized the connection to "TNZ" but never realized that the Hansens had already been there and done that. So it's possible there were no further contacts in addition to those shown, but it's rather probable that there were, quite possibly long before the Hansen case. (Certainly the Borg seem to have clashed with the Federation many times since, without the camera being anywhere around - dialogue in "Scorpion" and ST:FC makes this rather clear.)

Timo Saloniemi

[Tiberius]

Bear in mind that the hansens' trip would have been classified by Stafleet. It wouldn't be in the computers just waiting for someone to find, nor would Starfleet say to Picard, "Oh, by the way, here's all this classified information that you don't actually need to know."

[EEE]

RookieBatman wrote:

---

In my personal timeline, FC did change the timeline, producing ENT.

While I never analyzed FC enough to even think that it could've changed the timeline, I like your idea. ...Because the only way I could watch, much less enjoy ENT, was to pretend it was a parallel universe.

[Tiberius]

RookieBatman wrote:

---

In my personal timeline, FC did change the timeline, producing ENT.

Unfortunately, there's evidence on screen that indicatres that all of Star trek flowed on from the events in FC with the Borg being involved.

In Year of Hell, Seven statesd that the Borg were present at First Contact. How could this be if it was a different timeline?

[RookieBatman]

Tiberius wrote:

---

Unfortunately, there's evidence on screen that indicatres that all of Star trek flowed on from the events in FC with the Borg being involved.

There's certainly no evidence of that in TOS. I don't find ENT as an overall body of work to flow very well into TOS, therefore it makes more aesthetic sense in my mind to consider it an alternate timeline. From that starting point, it's logical to assume that it's the timeline that was started in FC.

Tiberius wrote:

---

In Year of Hell, Seven statesd that the Borg were present at First Contact. How could this be if it was a different timeline?

Frankly, a personal continuity doesn't have to make perfect and complete sense. I accept that the official version is that FC didn't change the timeline, and that ENT and the Kelvin scene was part of the Prime timeline, etc. But in my personal continuity, I choose to ignore that in favor of something that works better for me, personally.

EEE wrote:

---

While I never analyzed FC enough to even think that it could've changed the timeline, I like your idea. ...Because the only way I could watch, much less enjoy ENT, was to pretend it was a parallel universe.

Now, I'm pretty anal about continuity sometimes, but I try not to get so involved in it that I let it ruin my enjoyment of something. I say watch ENT if it entertains you, notwithstanding what timeline it's in. Sure, there are some things that don't exactly sync up with TOS, and that can be annoying, but it shouldn't affect whether you enjoy the interactions of the characters and the adventures they experience. And if you didn't like those parts in the first place, then putting it in a different timeline won't help that.
I like continuity, it's fun when things sync up. When one book makes a reference to another book, and I think "I know that story," it pleases me. But it's not the most important thing; the story itself and the characters are what really matter. My favorite Star Trek novel is Federation, and that's out of continuity. That's a shame, but it doesn't affect my enjoyment of it.