Not JUST Two Timelines - Started with The Naked Time

[USS Triumphant]

What if every instance of time travel that we've seen in Trek, going all the way back to the TOS episode "The Naked Time", has actually resulted in a different timeline, and generally in our heroes being IN that different timeline? No predestination paradoxes, just things seeming to work out as they were supposed to in the end, because the characters check and everything seems fine and they didn't know enough about very specific details in the past of the timeline they were in before to notice the change.

The Enterprise that they returned to at the end of COTEOF wasn't the same, they just didn't see the very minor butterflies. The Earth they received a distress signal from got wrecked and never got help in Star Trek IV, but Kirk and crew saved the future of a different branch that had them in the past taking whales and eating Italian when their original timeline didn't. Worf never really got "home", he just ended up in a universe with a similar enough quantum frequency to his own that it looked right and the hopping stopped. Sisko wasn't predestined to be Gabriel Bell, he just did a good enough job of it that *he* didn't see any changes when he got back. And Voyager and Enterprise both messed with timelines so much that it's a wonder if they believed they were still in the same timeline at all in the end.

Discovery isn't really Prime, but Prime would no longer have any real meaning if the above is correct - save maybe the universe of TOS up until "The Naked Time", and probably not even that one since the Guardian of Forever is a thing that existed. But Discovery is more Prime-adjacent than Kelvin-adjacent or MU-adjacent, so good 'nuff.

 

[fireproof78]

Makes as much sense as anything else.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I've read some science fiction where time travel works that way, but I think it makes time travel episodes less interesting if it works that way.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I find the predestination paradox more interesting. The idea that every instance of time travel we've ever seen is simply part of what was supposed to happen all along. You can't prove this is not the case, anyway.

For a good example of this, watch the Outer Limits episode "Tribunal".

 

[JesterFace]

There was this theory that Data talked about in 'Parallels'. (if memory serves correctly)

Theory says that everything that could happen, do happen. That would mean endless amount of realities.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

But as Teal'c on SG-1 once put it: "Our reality is the only one of consequence."

 

[Vger23]

In my head cannon, each individual episode or film is in its own unique timeline.





Except the ones that take place in more than one timeline.

 

[USS Triumphant]

But as Teal'c on SG-1 once put it: "Our reality is the only one of consequence."

Prof. Hawking said the same thing in his book "A Brief History of Time". He explained it as cones of influence, and basically laid out that if something exists but doesn't exist in such a way that it can actually influence things inside your cone of influence in any way at all, then for your purposes, it may as well not exist.

 

[Vger23]

Prof. Hawking said the same thing in his book "A Brief History of Time". He explained it as cones of influence, and basically laid out that if something exists but doesn't exist in such a way that it can actually influence things inside your cone of influence in any way at all, then for your purposes, it may as well not exist.

Kind of like the brownie sundae I'm imagining right now.

 

[lawman]

I like the basic proposition, with a caveat. I generally prefer to avoid predestination paradoxes, but I also don't think every single instance of time travel spawns a new branch, because many of them just aren't significant enough to make a difference... so it is in fact possible to return to your "original" timeline. It's probably easiest to resort to the familiar "river of time" metaphor to explain my thinking here... sometimes a rock dropped in the river will only cause temporary ripples while things continue to flow around it in the same direction, whereas other times it's major enough to create a new tributary, or change the course of the entire thing.

To my mind, then, the little detour in "The Naked Time" really didn't make a difference... nor did "COTEOF" (esp. because the Guardian presumably has some power over such things). OTOH, the Enterprise's mission to 1968 in "Assignment: Earth" probably did, and the trip to 1986 in STIV certainly did (with both Scotty's disclosure of transparent aluminum, and the removal of Dr. Taylor). In the TNG era, "Yesterday's Enterprise" apparently did so (we have no reason to believe Sela existed in the Ent-D's previous timeline), and the events of ST: First Contact very clearly did so (in my head canon, it's the aftermath of that film which paved the way for the entire series Enterprise, events which didn't "previously" exist). And so on!...

 

[USS Triumphant]

I've never been fond of the artsy-fartsy "river of time" model. It breaks mathematical identity. A universe in which I briefly turned left and then got back on the road and went straight may *seem* identical to one in which I turned right for the same period and then got back on the road and went straight, but, historically, they aren't, and, the air and earth particles that I disrupted which would have in turn caused other interactions to build to different outcomes would be different - even if I can't see that from further down the road. The idea that they become identical again and "collapse" implies something trying to simplify things, and that is both in violation of entropy AND implies a deity, which I'm not fully ready to sign on for.

 

[F. King Daniel]

 

[fireproof78]

Ok, just because I have to now:

 

[The Wormhole]

Huh, so it really is a big ball...

 

[Push The Button]

There were around 54 episodes/movies in onscreen Trek that were somehow related to time travel.

I loved All Good Things and COTEOF, but can you say overused?

 

[ohdeve.]

The multiverse concept does bring up the notion of quantum immortality, which bodes well for me but not so much for all of you. But your mileage will most definitely vary.

 

[USS Triumphant]

The multiverse concept does bring up the notion of quantum immortality, which bodes well for me but not so much for all of you. But your mileage will most definitely vary.

You know, it's impolite to flaunt your immortality. That's why I don't generally bring mine up.

 

[Tracy Trek]

What if every instance of time travel that we've seen in Trek, going all the way back to the TOS episode "The Naked Time", has actually resulted in a different timeline, and generally in our heroes being IN that different timeline?

One thing I've always wondered about that episode, when they do what they did to restart the engine and it throws them back in time 3 days. Was that before or after that crewman (redshirt) accidentally killed himself? If it was before, they didn't mention he was still alive.

 

[Phoenix219]

I would assume that he is still dead....the ship still went through those events, and they should all be physically 3 days older then the rest of the universe they inhabit.

 

[USS Triumphant]

I would assume that he is still dead....the ship still went through those events, and they should all be physically 3 days older then the rest of the universe they inhabit.

I agree, but understand the confusion if you then look at the way it apparently worked in "Tomorrow is Yesterday".

 

[JirinPanthosa]

The 'Back in time to another identical universe' theory is a little bit depressing if you think about it. It means every time somebody goes back in time, they vanish from their universe and are never seen again.