Kelvin Timeline a kinder, gentler reality?

i've been tempted to bring this up in other threads, but i figured it might warrant its own discussion, especially since i've struggled to articulate this concept...

with three kelvin timeline movies to take as a whole, this reality appears to me to be far more utopian than any incarnation of star trek we've seen thus far. despite the action-heavy take of the recent films, none of them have been about interstellar war so much as outliers trying mess with the status quo, which seems pretty good.

even star trek into darkness' heavier plot dealing with the specter of war ends up not bearing it out: khan is awakened by a few bad apples to stir up trouble with the klingons, but the klingons don't actually even take the bait. and khan himself, despite his dubious motivations appears to just want to be left alone.

star trek beyond is specifically about the utopian world our character's are living in and krall being pissed about it.

the other branches of the franchise inevitably fall into dealing with war outright, be it war with the klingons, the dominion, the xindi or the borg. the kelvin timeline appears not be as tied up in this kind of conflict, or the filmmakers have at least avoided this recurring concept.

anyway, thoughts?

 

The Kelvin universe created Yorktown. A massive momument amongst the stars the likes of which we never saw 50 years before, embodying everything we were told about the Federation before.

Not perfect, extremely precarious, still growing, the best they can do. But trying.

It's Star Treks life lessons distilled into a single item. So yes, I'll definitely give this universe points for that.

 

yes exactly, well put.

btw i'm not bashing the rest of the franchise or calling it too dark (though the star trek discovery advertising team is really trying), i'm just saying that these films seem to have distilled (as you say) the best utopian sentiments of star trek.

 

I never thought about it like that, but outside of the destruction of Vulcan, which was an outlier, you have a point.

 

I remember when rumours about Orci's ST3 script were floating around, the idea that we'd see some kind of flashforward featuring an aged (Kelvin Timeline) Kirk and Spock played by Shatner and Nimoy. I always thought that if they showed that, it'd be nice that Kirk outlived his Prime counterpart and the two BFFs lived to a ripe old age together and had a happy ending.

For the universe as a whole, they definitely have more amazing technology, but seemingly a higher rate of apocalyptic incidents.

 

The Kelvin universe also created the USS Vengeance. A massive warship full of weaponry and capable of destruction the likes of which we never saw 50 years before, embodying exactly the opposite of everything we were told about the Federation before.

Outside the destruction of the planets Vulcan and Romulus. How many billions of deaths is that exactly? Very kind, gentle and utopian!

 

The Prime Universe had the great "transition" in the Buried Age which foribly ascended or massacred the population of the Milky Way. Then the First Federation taken out by some unknown failure. Then the elder races, like the T'kon and Iconians who died out. Then the lesser greater races that made the stuff in TOS. Then TOS having THE END OF THE WORLD every. fucking. week.

Then the rest.

So at 3, the Kelvin universe is batting 3:50,000

The death toll in TOS is what? 50 billion or something. None of that has happened due to Prime Spock.

 

Do bear in mind I said it was an outlier and Nero was an invader from the Prime Universe.

 

In TOS? You haven't watched much of TOS have you?

With the exception of the Doomsday Machine what other End-Of-The-World stories did TOS have?

 

Too many times to count after over two decades. The DVD's wore out so I'm onto the blurays entirely now.

 

The blu-rays will do. Still waiting...

 

Nope. We both already know what I was saying, and I am not playing whatever pedantic game you want to drag this out into.

The Prime Universe was a hellhole originally, moping, dire, billions dead in episodes. The Kelvin Universe has never brought about nearly as many things and always destroyed them outright quite a while before the credits and earned it's happy ending more.

 

I thought so. Zero, nada, zilch.

 

Well apparently there was no 2256 Federation/Klingon war (as to be soon seen in Discovery) in the Kelvin Timeline. To them, Klingons are a threat that have "conquered an occupied two planets that [they] know of" and are "coming [their] way" according to Admiral Marcus, who was preparing for war which never happened (as of 2263, at least)

 

right there's no indication that the federation is embroiled in any wars. this may simply be an artifact of the kelvin timeline movies avoiding mentioning the broader geopolitics of the alpha and beta quadrants, but i take it to mean the federation is at peace.

the vengeance is a little hard to hand wave away, but i'll just say if the federation had commissioned an armada of vengeances that would be one thing, but the clandestine creation of the vengeance by a corrupt admiral once again indicates that the kelvin timeline is largely at peace, despite the efforts of a few.

 

I don't think either of these statements can be confirmed from TOS canon. In re: Yorktown, there are lots of starbases brought up in dialogue, and as I recall some of them seem planet-side. These could technically be Yorktown-like bases (even if we never see it).

Second, in re: Vengeance, there may well be dreadnaught class starships flying around Federation space. We do see one in the Starfleet Technical Manual. This same book also shows a starbase very much like the one in ST'09, so one could infer that things listed in the book existed in both timelines.

On Edit: after doing some searches, I learned that MANY of the Franz Joseph starship designs are seen on the bridge displays in STII and III. TMP also mentions a dreadnaught (the USS Entente), so I retract the oroginal statement that these are not canon.

 

I do not believe in utopia because it goes against our nature and real people wouldn't be able to relate to that. Trek is supposed to show a better future where some of the issues of our world don't exist anymore so this is the hope element to it, but conflict is part of people. You may expand the concept of "people" beyond humans, but, in a sense, everything is always relative. For instance, in trek humans might see each others as the human race in the Federation and even keep a new sense of pride for our variety and differences among our people, especially if compared to other worlds, but racism is probably "transfered" to offworlders and you see it with Sarek/Amanda and thus Spock. Even a race like the vulcans who preach about idic still has many bigots in their society.

I think the movies reflect that that balance between showing a positive future, but also keep it real in some aspects that history tells us are kind of universal of all times.

 

How lazy and pretentious of you.

Entire star systems die in "Operation: Annihilate!", "The Changeling" and "Immunity Syndrome", and the danger of similar carnage lurks with "The Doomsday Machine" and "One of Our Planets is Missing". Heck, the entire universe is in danger of winking out in "The Alternative Factor". These are all natural phenomena, after a fashion - which makes one wonder why Mother Nature is so much gentler in that other timeline.

Or is it just that billions die in that timeline, too, but none of it is attributed to war, and therefore Starfleet is a "peaceful" organization concentrating on blowing Doomsday Machines to smithereens, slaughtering Space Amoebae, and catching Mad Scientists before they can blow the Last Trump?

OTOH, war with Klingons is always around the corner in TOS, apparently because both them and Kirk seem awfully trigger-happy in the TOS universe... With Klingons the poster kids of restraint and patience in ST:ID, the timelines definitely differ here.

Oh, we can always assume there were galactic wars in the Abrams timeline we just missed out on - this is par for the course in Star Trek, after all. Say, since Romulans are a known quantity by 2258 in that universe, perhaps there was a huge bloodshed with them in their 2240s? But what we see (or fail to see) there is actually in harmony with Pike's and Marcus' lines about Starfleet being too soft and needing an influx of hotheads and warmongers. Such sentiments would be unnecessary if war really were the norm in that timeline.

Timo Saloniemi

 

But planets die in TOS, too. Should we really raise Earth or Vulcan above others?

But that's a third universe, in addition to the two being compared here... A fourth has "comical" massacres taking place in the prime timeline.

This certainly creates no difference between TOS and Abrams...

Why would that other timeline be considered "prime"? It's 'em other folks, the lesser not-quite-real people whose speculative lives and deaths don't really matter.

Timo Saloniemi