Those features don't seem to be working entirely correctly on TrekBBS, but I'll try my best.
2387
- Thread starter woodstock
- Start date
Those features don't seem to be working entirely correctly on TrekBBS, but I'll try my best.
But it's not a continuation of what came before, except from Spock's point of view. Temporally, it is a replacement. That is the only reasonable interpretation, contextually speaking, based on how time travel is depicted to work, canonically, in Star Trek.
Yes, they still happened, but that timeline would be destroyed (cease) after 2387, based on how time travel works in Star Trek. And that is a huge problem for the novels.
The previous timeline is always destroyed and inaccessible, and does not propagate any further from the point of departure of the incursion.
The same thing happened in City on the Edge of Forever.
The same thing happened in Yesteryear.
The same thing happened in Yesterday's Enterprise.
The same thing happened in Past Tense.
The same thing happened in Star Trek: First Contact.
...Not to mention every single time characters expressed the concern that if something changes in the past, the future will be changed. If that's not true, then who gives a shit? Sisko doesn't reassure Bashir "It's okay, at least all of our friends are still fine in our original timeline." Instead he's worried he has inadvertently destroyed the Federation.
This "Alternate Universe" thing is nonsense: We learn several important things about alternate quantum realities from Parallels.
1. They are detectable and can be measured and recorded for later comparison. That's how they are able to find the right ship and get Worf back. Even in the 22nd century, the Mirror Universe NX-01 has the ability to scientifically assess that matter came not only through time, but from another universe, in In A Mirror, Darkly.
2. Signatures are unique to each reality, and they don't change over time.
These facts mean that the Prime timeline no longer exists anywhere.
Abrams could have chosen to explain in the film that the ships from the future had a different quantum resonance signature, but he didn't. He just had "time travel, time travel, time travel" because it's more accessible to his audience.
And we're not working by Doctor Who rules here.
Last edited:
^The Needs of the Many already did!
THELIN: This change in the timeline will put you in my place, yet I am not aggrieved.
SPOCK: Andorians are not known for their charity.
THELIN: True. A warrior race has few sympathies, but one we do possess is for family. In your time plane, you will live and so will your mother. That is valuable. Live long and prosper in your world, Commander Spock.
SPOCK: And you in yours, Commander Thelin.
Thelin and his timeline goes on, in "The Chimes at Midnight" in Myriad Universes: Echoes and Refractions.
Not in "Yesteryear" . . .chrinFinity said:
THELIN: This change in the timeline will put you in my place, yet I am not aggrieved.
SPOCK: Andorians are not known for their charity.
THELIN: True. A warrior race has few sympathies, but one we do possess is for family. In your time plane, you will live and so will your mother. That is valuable. Live long and prosper in your world, Commander Spock.
SPOCK: And you in yours, Commander Thelin.
Thelin and his timeline goes on, in "The Chimes at Midnight" in Myriad Universes: Echoes and Refractions.
As I've said before, it's bizarrely simplistic to insist that a given outcome must "always" happen in every time-travel situation. That's not how physics works. Outcomes are dependent on initial conditions. An object won't "always" drop from your hand if you let it go -- it will only do so if you're on a planetary body or in an accelerating spaceship. If you're in free fall, it will just hover there. The exact same equations of physics will be operating in both situations, but the terms that get plugged into the equations are different, and so the solutions are different.
And again, sci-fi has brainwashed audiences into believing an absurdity. A timeline "erasing" another makes no sense, for reasons I've explained before. The more realistic scenario is for the timelines to coexist continuously. That should be the default. In DTI: Watching the Clock, I had to invent some imaginary physics to justify the premise that two timelines could ever reconverge with one being destroyed. Realistically, that's a vanishingly unlikely scenario, for much the same reason that it's vanishingly unlikely that the grains of a sand castle that have been scattered by the wind and waves could ever spontaneously reassemble into the original sand castle. I was able to concoct a handwave for how it can happen, but it makes no sense for it to be the inevitable default, because it's a departure from the way it normally, realistically would happen. It should be the exception, not the rule, no matter what the fiction has shown in the past. (But then, fiction routinely focuses on exceptional situations, on the cases where things go wrong and diverge from the routine.)
And again, sci-fi has brainwashed audiences into believing an absurdity. A timeline "erasing" another makes no sense, for reasons I've explained before. The more realistic scenario is for the timelines to coexist continuously. That should be the default. In DTI: Watching the Clock, I had to invent some imaginary physics to justify the premise that two timelines could ever reconverge with one being destroyed. Realistically, that's a vanishingly unlikely scenario, for much the same reason that it's vanishingly unlikely that the grains of a sand castle that have been scattered by the wind and waves could ever spontaneously reassemble into the original sand castle. I was able to concoct a handwave for how it can happen, but it makes no sense for it to be the inevitable default, because it's a departure from the way it normally, realistically would happen. It should be the exception, not the rule, no matter what the fiction has shown in the past. (But then, fiction routinely focuses on exceptional situations, on the cases where things go wrong and diverge from the routine.)
I already addressed Spock's comments from Yesteryear in an earlier post.
Furthermore, and I say again, for reasons explained by Christopher the tie-ins hold no weight in the context of this discussion topic: How canonical events from Abrams' films, in conjunction with licensing restrictions, have damaged the potential of the litverse centring on 2387.
Real physics and "realism" is irrelevant in this situation. It's like trying to use molecular chemistry to defend an argument over the color of the sparkles out of Harry Potter's wand. What matters is what's been previously established about the universe in which the story operates, and in that universe, it is established and reinforced over and over again that timelines can be erased.
To find evidence to argue against that, you'd need to go outside of canon, and whether it's to real-world physics or to tie-in fiction makes no difference. Without an explicit canonical explanation otherwise, the new movies stop the Prime timeline as of 2387.
You can't just change something so fundamental about how the world works without giving an explanation.
I don't care what you are or aren't a fan of, and I'm not saying Abrams isn't canon. It's precisely because it is canon that I am upset.
And you calling my arguments "childish" and "pointless" is derogatory. When I deliver a critique of someone else's arguments (such as to state that something is "nonsense"), I always explain in clear and full detail why I think it's nonsense. All you've done here is cast your judgement and demean me with insulting language.
Try to be better in future.
I don't care what you are or aren't a fan of, and I'm not saying Abrams isn't canon. It's precisely because it is canon that I am upset.
And you calling my arguments "childish" and "pointless" is derogatory. When I deliver a critique of someone else's arguments (such as to state that something is "nonsense"), I always explain in clear and full detail why I think it's nonsense. All you've done here is cast your judgement and demean me with insulting language.
Try to be better in future.
1. Use multiquote.
2. I don't care what you think is or isn't derogatory.
3. I didn't aim that post at you, I said "a small vocal minority," I guess if the shoe fits...........
4. Yes I have judged you by your actions here and in the past, making unfounded and frankly bizarre statements. If I have judged you unfairly, I apologise, but only if I have judged you unfairly.
5. We all have opinions, just because people feel the need to jump up and down and stamp their feet for it to be heard over the more rational amoung us doesn't make a counter opinion any less true.
6. It's all make believe, it's fun to immerce oneself in Star Trek, but at the end of the day, non of it is real.
7. What has any of this got to do with Trek Literature?
It doesn't. It's just resurrecting the thing we were told to drop.
I guess the direction Pocket takes would also depend on how long Bad Robot sticks around (I'm perfectly fine with forever, but they might not), or whether the various players manage to make nice on the matter. Even something like a spike in the sales of Trek Lit or Beyond performing above and er, beyond expectations might change minds. Who knows?
I'm happy enough with IDW handling nu-Trek stuff for now, and the Prime ( and Mirror) verse does show up there. Although apparently the more obvious cross-overs with Prime Trek (for eg. The issues which had Q and DS9 as a big part of their promotion) haven't been the big sellers.
I guess the direction Pocket takes would also depend on how long Bad Robot sticks around (I'm perfectly fine with forever, but they might not), or whether the various players manage to make nice on the matter. Even something like a spike in the sales of Trek Lit or Beyond performing above and er, beyond expectations might change minds. Who knows?
I'm happy enough with IDW handling nu-Trek stuff for now, and the Prime ( and Mirror) verse does show up there. Although apparently the more obvious cross-overs with Prime Trek (for eg. The issues which had Q and DS9 as a big part of their promotion) haven't been the big sellers.
It does have to do with TrekLit, because it impacts what is said and what can be said at 2387 and beyond.
As for how I'll feel if they write books past 2387 in the prime timeline, that depends on how it is handled, and what the consequences of Hobusgate are. Which is what I am concerned about.
As for how I'll feel if they write books past 2387 in the prime timeline, that depends on how it is handled, and what the consequences of Hobusgate are. Which is what I am concerned about.
It's common in the US to (both sincerely and ironically) use <X>gate to indicate a scandal related to the topic of <X>, following in the vein of "Watergate". chrinFinity is doing that with the Hobus supernova.
(Apologies if this was overexplaining, but wasn't sure if you were from the US or not, and most people I know from outside don't know of any of that except maybe in passing.)
I thought that's what he might have meant. The usage of it still doesn't make sense to me though. It's getting difficult to tell what's a joke and what's 100% sincere.
To clarify Chinfinity - you don't actually think there was bonafide scandal over the timeline branch, do you? Because really, only a few (*keeps a wary eye out for T'bonz*) care enough to even know what 'Hobus' refers to. And in universe, only the Feds would care.
To clarify Chinfinity - you don't actually think there was bonafide scandal over the timeline branch, do you? Because really, only a few (*keeps a wary eye out for T'bonz*) care enough to even know what 'Hobus' refers to. And in universe, only the Feds would care.
Last edited:
chrinFinity - most of your recent posts have stayed on the topic of how it's to be handled in the books and then you went to here.
If I ask a subject to be dropped, you don't go back to it just to continue to snipe at other posters. I'm issuing an infraction for ignoring my original request. Comments on this infraction to be sent to my by PM please.
Books, people, books...
The little "venus" symbol in the left pane next to my post indicates female gender. I'm surprised you'd miss that, given you have one too.
Yes, I do care. Let me state unequivocally, I care. Let me state even more unequivocally, for mods' benefit, I care because of how it affects the novels.
EDIT:
Actually it travelled inexplicably faster than light (As per Alan Dean Foster's novelization of Star Trek based on the major motion picture), so it would be a "hypernova" if we want to keep things scientific as per Christopher's POV.
Similar threads
