My explanation was always something like in an alternate universe that looks very similar to the Prime universe but has subtle differences (like Humans knowing how Romulans look, or at least not competely freaking out, before their first apperance in TOS) Romulus exploded and sent Nero and Spock in time. That would avoid all these continuity problems.
JJ-Trek/ IDW Continuity and Discontinuities
- Thread starter Jsplinis
- Start date
Yes, but I don't think that was the explanation that Abrams, Kurtzman, and Orci intended. For one thing, if they'd meant it to be a pure alternate universe, they would've had no reason to tell that convoluted time-travel story to "explain" how it existed. For another thing, if they'd intended it to be a completely clean break, then they probably would've introduced far more substantive changes, like increasing the gender or ethnic diversity of the core cast (black McCoy, female Chekov, something like that). After all, the overwhelming majority of J.J. Abrams's creations have had female leads (except for LOST and one unsold pilot, I think), so the only reason he would've had to stick with the original TOS gender balance was if he was trying to conform as close to the original continuity as possible, and only change things going forward. And for a third thing, Orci's online comments discussing the matter always seemed to support the idea that the timeline only changed from 2233 onward.
I mean, really, the movie universe has existed for seven years now, but it wasn't until yesterday that anyone involved with the movies announced the idea that the entire history of the timeline could be different. If that had been the original intent, we would've heard about it then. (And no, the comics don't count.) The fact that we're only hearing about it now indicates that it's a retcon. The movies are in new creative hands now, and they've taken a different approach than their forebears.
I suspect you actually mean Countdown to Darkness, the STID prequel involving Captain April. After Darkness takes place after STID, and is about Spock's ponn farr having unforeseen consequences.I was a little surprised to find they weren't even internally consistent--the I, Enterprise flashback storyline is dropped in between the events of After Darkness and Into Darkness, with no mention of the Nibiru mission assigned in both AD and the Star Trek 2013 video game, and includes Carol Marcus, who won't join the Enterprise crew until after STID.
The only time the comics hint at Pike being shady is the Return of the Archons story where it is established he's part of a shady officer's cabal, which likely is meant to be Section 31. As for the tribbles and April cover-up, he's just relaying orders in those circumstances, orders which originate from his superiors, likely Marcus himself. From this there is nothing to indicate he's in on Marcus's masterplan. Nothing to disprove it either, there's nothing from those tow incidents which shed light either way.
Quite right! It can be difficult to tell the titles apart in all the Darkness.
Admittedly, Kelvin Pike is one of my favorite characters in the movies, so I'm definitely biased. For me at least, the knowledge that Pike was fully aware of and willing to tolerate Starfleet's systematic control of an entire planet of humans definitely colored my perception of the later, more ambiguous scenes where he's relaying questionable orders to Kirk. Saying that he was definitely in on Marcus's master plan was inaccurate, true, (and having read more, I doubt that anyone but Marcus knew exactly what the master plan was; April didn't know much either) but the Landru experiment alone is pretty reprehensible and appears to go against what we saw of the character in the movies. Maybe he didn't know about it until Marcus told him, maybe there's some greater good that could be served by it, maybe he was just trying to infiltrate Section 31 and didn't want Kirk interfering, or maybe he was Hydra all along...but it's unfortunate that the plot thread continues to dangle.
(Unless it's dealt with in the Green Lantern crossover--haven't gotten that far yet. )TC
As far as I can tell, she's only in the flashbacks--there's really not a lot of framing story.
IIRC, while Takei is not older than Shatner (and therefore presumably Sulu is not older than Kirk in either universe), Cho is older than Pine, so that I could see where that could be confusing for some fans and especially Pegg, who must know his costars pretty well by now. (Trying to think about fictional characters who you knew intimately as a fan before playing them with actors you know personally, and then trying to write for all of them would confuse me!)
I definitely get why they would want to go that direction (although it's unfortunate that it's come up under these circumstances), and I appreciate that the explanation is constructed so that the arrival of Nero still causes the alternate reality. But I'm a little disappointed as I really liked the notion that we were seeing 2233-era starships, uniforms, and characters that were the same in the Prime universe--it was a nice little bit of history that's now called into question. (I'm sure someone's madly editing Memory Alpha as we type.)
TC
I assume that even with Pegg's recent comment about the Kelvinverse, it still doesn't affect the Prime universe? (He did say multidimensional reality shift...)
Sure, that's what the Kelvin Timeline needed: More confusion and arbitrary changes.
I have a great deal of respect for Simon Pegg but somehow I just have to wonder why we should take his word for it on this.
And I'd still like to hear what's supposed to happen to the Prime universe now...
And I'd still like to hear what's supposed to happen to the Prime universe now...
It continues on as it always has?
The easy explanation, which I read a couple of times on this board, is that the time before 2233 is also changed because specific time travel incidents do not occur. For example, what if the mirror universe receives its NCC-1764, it would not be the same Constitution class. And is Kirk going back in time to face Keeler and Gary Seven?
I'm not sure this would be incorporated into Memory Alpha until and unless it were explicitly stated in a film. It is a canon-only wiki, after all, so extracanonical sources like interviews aren't supposed to count. They do draw on scripts and published references to a degree, but not always. For instance, they still haven't retitled their "Alternate reality" article to "Kelvin Timeline" (although the latter now redirects to the former).
Anyway, I don't think this new model necessarily invalidates the possibility that Prime could've had elements very similar to things we've seen in Kelvin like, well, the Kelvin itself and the Kirks' service aboard it. It allows for changes as the story requires, but it still allows for things being largely similar as well. Most of the characters still led similar lives and ended up in similar roles, so it stands to reason that a lot of other stuff is parallel.
Honestly, the new model does make it easier to reconcile some of the pretty drastic changes in things like how the technology looked, how big the starships were, how built-up San Francisco is, the fact that Pike is a decade older, etc. I do like to point out that prior canon had plenty of similar inconsistencies that we have to squint at and pretend are compatible, but it is a bit of a relief not to have to squint so much in this case.
Hmm... I have always wrestled with how to deal with that kind of causal issue. I tend to assume that if an event is before the timeline split, then the visit of the time travelers from the "original" future would still happen, since that timeline would still run in parallel to the altered one, at least up until the moment of the time travel. But since we never see duplicate sets of time travellers from strongly-parallel timelines ending up in the same past and running into each other, it stands to reason that a timeline split can have retroactive effect due to the actions of its time travelers. (Indeed, this is the only way I can make sense of KRAD's Myriad Universes: A Gutted World, which shows the Enterprise-E crew returning to the present following the events of First Contact, yet is in an alternate timeline that diverged years before FC's events.)
In short, yes, this does seem like a plausible interpretation, at least by the standards of Trek-universe time travel stories.
IF that's so, then I have no problem with whatever they're doing in the Kelvin version.
(I was just a bit concerned about Pegg's use of the term "multidimensional". I mean, his intent was probably not to wipe out the prime timeline, but you never know these days.)
^ Of this movie, yes.
As for his point: Would have been easier to simply say what a lot of people thought all along... Nero and Spock Prime emerged into a pre-existing alternate universe. Much simpler than multidimensional reality shifts and all that, innit? And it avoids the problem of what happens to the prime universe.
As for his point: Would have been easier to simply say what a lot of people thought all along... Nero and Spock Prime emerged into a pre-existing alternate universe. Much simpler than multidimensional reality shifts and all that, innit? And it avoids the problem of what happens to the prime universe.
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Because he's one of the screenwriters?
Yeah, I'd take his word on it given his writing and intimate knowledge of the film and not, say a writer of a tie in novel with no intimate knowledge of the inner workings of the film and his speculating like the rest of us.
And, assuming STB is the last Kelvinverse film, it won't be. So in the end, Pegg can say anything he wants, but it's not "binding".
I disagree. Simply having the Kelvinverse already BE different, even before Nero's arrival, IMHO makes a lot more sense than somehow having Nero cause changes that ripple back AND forth through time.
And I just thought of something: IIRC, we see the Kelvin before the "lightning storm in space" appears (and thus, before Nero). So if we see this reality before Nero shows up, then why don't we see it change when Nero shows up?
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However alternate universes are a concept much more known to the broader (sci-fi) audience compared to alternate timelines created by time travel by black hole.
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To my knowledge the only Star Trek wiki that uses the term Kelvin timeline is the german Memory Beta. We had a literal 10 post discussion and then decided that the term Kelvin timeline is correct.
And I just thought of something: IIRC, we see the Kelvin before the "lightning storm in space" appears (and thus, before Nero). So if we see this reality before Nero shows up, then why don't we see it change when Nero shows up?
Because the temporal effects propagated both forward and backward in time from the instance of incursion, so the part of the movie we saw pre-incursion had already been affected by Nero's arrival that hadn't happened yet. So even though the change was *caused* by Nero's arrival, the universe was also always different... both theories are correct!
