Kelvin Timeline all but confirmed

[Shamrock Holmes]

Not part of my montage, but I agree.

In fact, while I understand the reasons (a combination of nostalia and availability) for using the TOS bridge etc in appearances on TNG, DS9 and ENT they would have been better using the Refit model etc as the later versions particularly are a better fit within the overall scheme as we know it.

 

[Greg Cox]

Does it come with a VHS player, is my question. I need a new one.

I finally bit the bullet and disconnected mine a few months ago. Can't bring myself to throw it away, though, so it's gathering dust in the attic.

 

[fireproof78]

I finally bit the bullet and disconnected mine a few months ago. Can't bring myself to throw it away, though, so it's gathering dust in the attic.

That makes me sad...My daughter just hooked ours back up.

 

[JD]

Swap out the KT Enterprise bridge for the USS Vengeance - the same set painted black and with a few other modifications - and it fits just fine. It's the white paint that makes it stand out and nothing else.

Wow, once you get rid of the white, that actually fits in with the TOS movie and ENT bridges a lot better than I expected.
I'm very curious to see just how specific references will be to past shows/movies, because that will be the thing that determines which universe it's in, not the visual designs.

 

[INACTIVEUSS Einstein]

In my head canon, I include the most faithful games, like Star Trek: 25th Anniversary, Star Trek: Judgement Rites and Star Trek: A Final Unity on equal footing with the TV shows - the Elasi, the Vardaine, the Chodak, Dr Breddel. They are seriously like lost episodes in terms of quality - nothing comes close.

 

[KennyB]

I find the conversation and title of the thread amusing. It is far from "confirmed" and we will only KNOW anything when more is released. Comparing 1960s sets with 2017 sets just makes me giggle.

 

[Mr Awe]

That perhaps he already was enjoying the world?

Don't know the guy but his comment seemed to be a downer.

 

[Greg Cox]

I find the conversation and title of the thread amusing. It is far from "confirmed" and we will only KNOW anything when more is released. Comparing 1960s sets with 2017 sets just makes me giggle.

The internet has always has always been a little fuzzy on what "confirmed" means.

As for our VCR, the last time I really used it was to rewatch an instructional video on how to adjust the height of a steel ladder, so I figured we could manage without it . . ..

(Tells you how long we've had that ladder.)

 

[Mr Awe]

Ultimately i think the timeline argument comes down to whether you are more concerned with look and technological progression, or more concerned with the progression of story events and narrative.

I think that's a great way to put it. Personally, I value the continuity of the Prime universe, at least in broad strokes. The visual style depends on real world technology and the various designers involved. I don't care if the look changes dramatically. In fact, it needs to change to appeal to modern audiences.

And, based on both CBS and the trailer, it's apparent we're getting the old continuity with a new look. That's a great combination!

Visually, the show screams Kelvin from the new movies (not really nu1701, specifically the Kelvin scenes). I won't dispute that. But as far as we know, the narrative of events from the prime timeline is entirely intact as originally reported - there's certainly nothing to contradict this yet. Captain Pike is probably out there with a cheerfully shouting Spock, and Jim Kirk is a lieutenant somewhere after growing up with his father in Iowa. They may be wearing different uniforms and have different sets in the background, but as far as we know, the prime timeline is intact in that sense.

Again, I agree with that. I'd just add that some of the similarities between the Kelvin universe and DSC is that they both use modern SFx technology and modern design sensibilities. They also both seem to build off an ENT look, which actually makes sense in-universe.

Kelvin is also technically a Prime ship. So, the Shenzou matching the Kelvin more than nu1701 (which is truly not a Prime ship), reinforces the Prime timeline notion.

 

[Mr Awe]

Swap out the KT Enterprise bridge for the USS Vengeance - the same set painted black and with a few other modifications - and it fits just fine. It's the white paint that makes it stand out and nothing else.

Wow, no, there are a ton more differences than just the black paint!

 

[Mr Awe]

Starfleet's mission was one of peaceful exploration, but that's seldom what happened in the actual movies and episodes. There was always plenty of danger and conflict. I can't even think of a TOS episode where the crew just beamed down a planet, took a few readings, made contact with the locals, and moved on without any trouble arising. All those red-shirts did not die of natural causes.

I completely agree with your point, but just for fun I tried to think of such an episode. Probably the closest was Metamorphosis. There was definitely trouble. However, the problem was mainly that the crew and Cochrane didn't understand the Companion. Once they did, they pretty much just did move on and left things alone! And, what they had to understand is the very nature of Starfleet's mission--to seek out new life, accept its diversity, and peacefully coexist.

Sorry for the tangent but your post got me thinking . . .

 

[Greg Cox]

Excellently put. I think the aspiration of Star Trek is often mistaken for the execution.

Thanks! One might also point out that posters and publicity photos for STAR TREK, going all the way back to TOS, tend to feature the heroes posing with their phasers drawn or hefting a formidable-looking laser rifle, so it's not as though TREK has ever been sold to the public as being strictly about "peaceful" exploration . . . .

It's also about danger and adventure on the final frontier.

(Which seems to be the case with DISCOVERY as well.)

 

[ichab]

Just as Fuller saying DSC is Prime isn't canon unless it's on-screen.

Well I had a long, strange theory about that. Time travel in Star Trek usually follows the Back to the Future rules of being able to change your own history, rather than the ST09 rules of splitting off into a new universe. So perhaps only some methods of time travel, such as going through a black hole, create a new universe. And so in the new Kelvin-timeline, events like Tomorrow is Yesterday don't happen, and so history is altered before Nero even shows up. Brain hurting, I know. But when does time travel make sense?

 

[OpenMaw]

No time travel mumbo jumbo.

It is simply a new creative interpretation of Star Trek's look. That's all it is. Borrowing from the most recent releases so that the broader general audience recognizes it and that's all.

 

[Greg Cox]

No time travel mumbo jumbo.

It is simply a new creative interpretation of Star Trek's look. That's all it is. Borrowing from the most recent releases so that the broader general audience recognizes it and that's all.

Succinctly put.

Occam's Razor: the simplest explanation is probably correct.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Thanks! One might also point out that posters and publicity photos for STAR TREK, going all the way back to TOS, tend to feature the heroes posing with their phasers drawn or hefting a formidable-looking laser rifle, so it's not as though TREK has ever been sold to the public as being strictly about "peaceful" exploration . . . .

It's also about danger and adventure on the final frontier.

(Which seems to be the case with DISCOVERY as well.)

We used to laugh because for ages the local station had a commercial for Trek that always showed Kirk saying "We come in peace...but we'll use force if we have to.". It was a meme between a couple of buddies before there were actual memes lol.

 

[Greg Cox]

I completely agree with your point, but just for fun I tried to think of such an episode. Probably the closest was Metamorphosis. There was definitely trouble. However, the problem was mainly that the crew and Cochrane didn't understand the Companion. Once they did, they pretty much just did move on and left things alone! And, what they had to understand is the very nature of Starfleet's mission--to seek out new life, accept its diversity, and peacefully coexist.

Sorry for the tangent but your post got me thinking . . .

Good one! In a way, I guess, that's more of a "crash landing" scenario, even if it's still a case of a routine mission going dangerously awry. See also "The Galileo Seven," although those particular aliens didn't seem too interested in peaceful coexistence!

 

[Captain Indecisive]

@Everyone

Just to clear something up, not everyone has suggested the Kelvin exists in both timelines - Simon Pegg famously opined when writing Star Trek: Beyond that the quantum singularity had caused changes back throughout history, perhaps appearing at various junctures going back thousands of years, making the Kelvin verse a genuinely new parallel universe - this was also the attitude taken by Mike Okuda for the latest encyclopedia unless I'm mistaken.

This of course doesn't clear the issue up, but it's worth mentioning because a few people have said that the Kelvin definatly exists in both universes - actually, as usual, we just don't know, until one appears on screen in the Prime Timeline.

Do you mean the wormhole itself, not the actual encounter between the two ships?

If the singularity was causing other changes wouldn't this mean it was creating multiple new timelines rather than just be affecting the Abramverse?

 

[TrekGuide.com]

The "Prime" timeline was the one where Ambassador Spock and Nero came from in the 2009 movie. But that is not necessarily the same timeline in which TOS took place.

After the Borg attack on Cochrane in "First Contact," and the Temporal Cold War throughout "Enterprise," with the Suliban attack on the Klingon and the Xindi attack on Earth, the Federation of the 2250s could look wildly different from TOS -- even BEFORE Nero showed up and destroyed the U.S.S. Kelvin. The "Prime" timeline is the result of 200 years of time travel shenanigans, with multiple aliens fiddling with Earth's history.

Also, when Admiral Janeway went back in time in "Endgame" and got the Voyager back to Earth decades earlier, she created a NEW timeline (which was the setting for "Star Trek: Nemesis," where Admiral Janeway was seen already back on Earth). Presumably, this alternate Janeway-verse is the so-called "Prime" timeline from which Spock-Prime originated.

Going further back, the original timeline shown in "Yesterday's Enterprise" showed different Bridge consoles and uniform designs aboard the Enterprise-D. Then Lt. Yar decided to go back in time and change her own past (exactly what Admiral Janeway and Nero did), creating the alternate TNG timeline, which had different ship designs and uniforms from the timeline Yar came from.

So there are multiple precedents for time travel into the past changing uniforms and ship designs, throughout multiple timelines in "Star Trek's" 50-year history. The "Prime" timeline (presumably the same one created by Admiral Janeway) and the "Kelvin" timeline (created by Nero and Spock-Prime) are just the last two of dozens of alternate timelines depicted over the past 700 episodes.

(The only actual canon depictions of the "Prime" timeline are in "Endgame" and "Star Trek: Nemesis," as well as Spock-Prime's flashback scenes in 2009's "Star Trek." Spock-Prime is not even the same Ambassador Spock last seen in TNG's "Unification" -- Spock-Prime is from the alternate timeline created by Admiral Janeway, while the original Spock may have died on Romulus years before the Voyager ever got back to Earth. And that Ambassador Spock is still not the "original" Spock from TOS, who may have died in the Klingon-Federation war of the original timeline from which Yar came in "Yesterday's Enterprise.")

Then there was the "Voyager" episode "Future's End," in which Henry Starling found future technology from a crashed timeship, altering much of the late 20th century's history. Maybe in this timeline, as a result of Starling's futuristic "inventions," the Eugenics Wars never happened, or happened differently from the TOS timeline; or maybe Khan became a blue-eyed, pale British guy instead of an Asian Sikh warrior with a Mexican accent. Who knows.

My point is, the so-called "Prime" timeline is about 20 alternate timelines removed from the "original" timeline depicted in TOS. As far as we know, everything shown in the "Star Trek: Discovery" trailer is exactly how the "Prime" timeline should have looked at that time period, since we have never seen the "Prime" timeline in the 23rd century depicted before.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The "Prime" timeline was the one where Ambassador Spock and Nero came from in the 2009 movie. But that is not necessarily the same timeline in which TOS took place.

Yes, actually, it is.

After the Borg attack on Cochrane in "First Contact," and the Temporal Cold War throughout "Enterprise," with the Suliban attack on the Klingon and the Xindi attack on Earth, the Federation of the 2250s could look wildly different from TOS -- even BEFORE Nero showed up and destroyed the U.S.S. Kelvin. The "Prime" timeline is the result of 200 years of time travel shenanigans, with multiple aliens fiddling with Earth's history.

All of which were part of what was supposed to happen, all along. You can't prove they weren't, anyway.

Then there was the "Voyager" episode "Future's End," in which Henry Starling found future technology from a crashed timeship, altering much of the late 20th century's history.

Or was part of that history from the get-go. (Indeed, in that scene where Janeway is sneaking around Starling's office, she wonders if the Federation's entire technological base might be derived from Starling's advancements.) Again, you can't prove this wasn't the case.