Apparently neither were T'Pring's.
How Many Star Trek Productions are in the Same Timeline?
- Thread starter MAGolding
- Start date
That is true, so maybe parents don't usually attend Vulcan weddings with their slight potential for mayhem. That might be considered illogical or something.
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The logical response^
Take it to heart.
Star Trek is so massive, you'll probably drive yourself crazy trying to analyze timelines. I'd say stick with your own personal canon, for the story that appeals most to you.
Awhile ago I tried to make an actual timeline of Voyager's adventures, but it was impossible. "Before and After", "Year of Hell", "Fury", "Relativity" and others screw up the timeline so much it's impossible to draw a line, even a multiply-forked one, from the beginning to the end. "Year of Hell" alone ends in a huge reset, with galaxy-spanning repercussions.
One of my pet theories is that the first two seasons of TNG happened in a parallel universe or a different timeline than later 24th century Trek, because of the many differences in setting and background history like the mention that the Federation is at peace for a long time and the Klingons are members of the UFP.
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Rather than trying to use different timelines to explain the differences in the shows, I subscribe to the theory that the shows are just a representation of the single timeline of Star Trek that we can never truly 'see', because it exists as an idea and not something that is real... and representations/interpretations sometimes get things wrong or contradict each other.
The Enterprise-E comes from a timeline in which the Enterprise-E was there at the the events of the first flight. Same goes for how fat and old Riker and Troi look in TATV. That stuff always happened in Pegasus, however what we saw was just how the production presented it (in a really lame, cheesy, and hamfisted way). A Commander Riker was having a moral dilemma and was using the holodeck to work out his demons. What we saw was Jonathan Frakes acting out that story, but it looked really different because, hey, it was a decade later and those sets had been destroyed and had to be rebuilt and he got noticeably older.
When we see different things happening like Discovery Klingons looking all crazy or the ship not looking like it was built out of cardboard, what we are seeing is our universe telling the stories of that era with our universe's production technology and aesthetics. What we see as Micahel Burnham is actually MSG, playing a character from the single, unified, Star Trek timeline. This is why Sarek looks different in different eras. This is why sometimes little things don't link up perfectly. Would anyone assume that TAS takes place in a separate 2D timeline set apart from TOS, or that some sort of anomaly caused the universe to suddenly look animated instead of live action for a couple years?
Why? Because why not? People who see different timelines want to see different timelines. I want to see a single timeline, where the actions from one series or the histories they create really do impact later series. I want to have the comfort of knowing that we are seeing a chronicle of different groups of heroes from the same timeline; a history lesson on the future.
The idea that each series is its own timeline, or events in one series completely overwrites the histories of that same series (such as the First Contact/ENT incursion timeline theory) seems like an overly complicated solution to a very minor issue. The simplest explanation for me is that productions don't always represent the "true" story perfectly. If the sets of the DSC Enterprise look different from the TOS Enterprise (which it 100% will) I'm not going to assume that they are different Enterprise's from two separate timelines. I'm going to assume that neither Enterprise set is what the 'real' Enterprise looked like; they are just different interpretations of the same ship. In the 'real' imaginary Star Trek universe, there is an alien species called Klingons that have ridges sometimes and sometimes not. Whether they had hair or other weird crap on their face was up to the production, and Discovery just hasn't revealed why there aren't any non-ridged Klingons running around. They might never do it (although they probably will, and it'll be hamfisted for sure). If they don't? We can rationalize it easily.
If we were presented with a set of movies and tv shows all done back to back, starting with the past parts of First Contact (like a sci-fi drama about Zephram Cochrane's first flight, in which astronauts from the future came to help him out), followed by ENT (augment virus and all), followed by DSC (along with whatever explanation they give for non-ridged Klingons), followed by TOS (where the episode of Trouble with Tribbles also included DS9 characters in the background), followed by TNG (where the episode Pegasus included scenes of Riker in the holodeck), leading up to a movie about the Enterprise-E fighting the Borg and traveling back in time (A sequel to the Zephram Cochrane movie), no one would be saying that there were different timelines, because we'd be presented with a story that is told in a linear fashion which includes incursions from their own futures. But the shows and movies weren't presented in chronological order, and production design between each was vastly different.
I use the same logic for the books. There are things that happen in older books that can't have happened in the established continuity of the modern books, but modern books often reference them. So little details in Imzadi can't link up to the modern continuity, but the events in Imzadi are the history of Riker and Troi's relationship.
Now, I don't mean to say that all time travel in Star Trek operates this way. We've been presented with lots of stories where the effects of time travel vary, depending on how the time travel is achieved. There are plenty of times where the events in a episode or film re-writes events (Year of Hell, for instance), or create a separate alternate timeline (ST09), but those stories are presented as such. The events of First Contact, The Voyage Home, Past Tense, Time's Arrow, Trials and Tribble-ations, etc, are not presented as having huge, timeline altering effects, changing the fundamental basis of history for later events. Before ENT showed Borg on Earth, I would have agreed that yes, it is possible that the Ent-E didn't show up in the past in the original Zephram Cochrane flight, and their timetravel began with them, but as soon as ENT had their own Borg that solidified it as always happening that way for me. That information was classified and studied by rogue scientists (Seven's parents) but was not known to the everyday starship captain. We are never told that Starfleet had NO information on the Borg, only that the people we see on screen had no knowledge of them.
Now, if Michael Burnham beams aboard the Enterprise and kills Spock and Pike in the first two seconds, then I will concede and say that it could be a different timeline, but I'm 99.99999% sure that won't happen. Because this is an actual contradiction of events presented.
The Enterprise-E comes from a timeline in which the Enterprise-E was there at the the events of the first flight. Same goes for how fat and old Riker and Troi look in TATV. That stuff always happened in Pegasus, however what we saw was just how the production presented it (in a really lame, cheesy, and hamfisted way). A Commander Riker was having a moral dilemma and was using the holodeck to work out his demons. What we saw was Jonathan Frakes acting out that story, but it looked really different because, hey, it was a decade later and those sets had been destroyed and had to be rebuilt and he got noticeably older.
When we see different things happening like Discovery Klingons looking all crazy or the ship not looking like it was built out of cardboard, what we are seeing is our universe telling the stories of that era with our universe's production technology and aesthetics. What we see as Micahel Burnham is actually MSG, playing a character from the single, unified, Star Trek timeline. This is why Sarek looks different in different eras. This is why sometimes little things don't link up perfectly. Would anyone assume that TAS takes place in a separate 2D timeline set apart from TOS, or that some sort of anomaly caused the universe to suddenly look animated instead of live action for a couple years?
Why? Because why not? People who see different timelines want to see different timelines. I want to see a single timeline, where the actions from one series or the histories they create really do impact later series. I want to have the comfort of knowing that we are seeing a chronicle of different groups of heroes from the same timeline; a history lesson on the future.
The idea that each series is its own timeline, or events in one series completely overwrites the histories of that same series (such as the First Contact/ENT incursion timeline theory) seems like an overly complicated solution to a very minor issue. The simplest explanation for me is that productions don't always represent the "true" story perfectly. If the sets of the DSC Enterprise look different from the TOS Enterprise (which it 100% will) I'm not going to assume that they are different Enterprise's from two separate timelines. I'm going to assume that neither Enterprise set is what the 'real' Enterprise looked like; they are just different interpretations of the same ship. In the 'real' imaginary Star Trek universe, there is an alien species called Klingons that have ridges sometimes and sometimes not. Whether they had hair or other weird crap on their face was up to the production, and Discovery just hasn't revealed why there aren't any non-ridged Klingons running around. They might never do it (although they probably will, and it'll be hamfisted for sure). If they don't? We can rationalize it easily.
If we were presented with a set of movies and tv shows all done back to back, starting with the past parts of First Contact (like a sci-fi drama about Zephram Cochrane's first flight, in which astronauts from the future came to help him out), followed by ENT (augment virus and all), followed by DSC (along with whatever explanation they give for non-ridged Klingons), followed by TOS (where the episode of Trouble with Tribbles also included DS9 characters in the background), followed by TNG (where the episode Pegasus included scenes of Riker in the holodeck), leading up to a movie about the Enterprise-E fighting the Borg and traveling back in time (A sequel to the Zephram Cochrane movie), no one would be saying that there were different timelines, because we'd be presented with a story that is told in a linear fashion which includes incursions from their own futures. But the shows and movies weren't presented in chronological order, and production design between each was vastly different.
I use the same logic for the books. There are things that happen in older books that can't have happened in the established continuity of the modern books, but modern books often reference them. So little details in Imzadi can't link up to the modern continuity, but the events in Imzadi are the history of Riker and Troi's relationship.
Now, I don't mean to say that all time travel in Star Trek operates this way. We've been presented with lots of stories where the effects of time travel vary, depending on how the time travel is achieved. There are plenty of times where the events in a episode or film re-writes events (Year of Hell, for instance), or create a separate alternate timeline (ST09), but those stories are presented as such. The events of First Contact, The Voyage Home, Past Tense, Time's Arrow, Trials and Tribble-ations, etc, are not presented as having huge, timeline altering effects, changing the fundamental basis of history for later events. Before ENT showed Borg on Earth, I would have agreed that yes, it is possible that the Ent-E didn't show up in the past in the original Zephram Cochrane flight, and their timetravel began with them, but as soon as ENT had their own Borg that solidified it as always happening that way for me. That information was classified and studied by rogue scientists (Seven's parents) but was not known to the everyday starship captain. We are never told that Starfleet had NO information on the Borg, only that the people we see on screen had no knowledge of them.
Now, if Michael Burnham beams aboard the Enterprise and kills Spock and Pike in the first two seconds, then I will concede and say that it could be a different timeline, but I'm 99.99999% sure that won't happen. Because this is an actual contradiction of events presented.
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Also there is the reference in That Which Survives to Devil in the Dark when Sulu says, "Do you remember on Janis VI the silicon creatures....." Then Dr. McCoy chimes in and says "But they were like forms or registered as life forms". So those two epsiodes take place in the same universe as well.
Other than the Kelvin ones which are explicitly in a different timeline.
All iterations of Star Trek have an equal number of inconsistencies with previous ones. So either they are all in the same universe or none of them are.
All iterations of Star Trek have an equal number of inconsistencies with previous ones. So either they are all in the same universe or none of them are.
It's all supposed to be in two timelines - the one with all the tv shows and movies 1-10 and the one with the Kelvin movies.
Whether we agree with the visual differences from ENT to Discovery to TOS and beyond is beside the point. Those are the facts.
Personally I can't reconcile Enterprise and Discovery taking place before TOS for a variety of reasons but it is what is
Whether we agree with the visual differences from ENT to Discovery to TOS and beyond is beside the point. Those are the facts.
Personally I can't reconcile Enterprise and Discovery taking place before TOS for a variety of reasons but it is what is
We have to remember that Amok Time was a ticking time clock episode, and Spock was rushed to Vulcan (against orders and all that). It seems T'Pring lived on Vulcan, but it's very likely that Sarek was off doing Ambassadorial duties on Earth or elsewhere, and Journey implies that Amanda ("Mrs. Sarek") accompanied her husband on business, at least for major events. It could be, if Sarek was titular Ambassador to Earth (or even just a Federation Council member), that he and his wife lived on Earth full time, perhaps in the Vulcan Embassy.
And pon farr (unlike the non-pon farr Vulcan wedding seen in Enterprise) was a ceremonial event with few to no witnesses (just the priestess, the couple, some guards, some gong-players, and the two tagalongs Spock brought, who both ended up being necessary for the ceremony).
Vulcans don't like being seen to be emotional or vulnerable. So inviting your friends and family to your pon farr would be like inviting them into the room during your colonoscopy or kidney stone removal.
O, Vulcan parent don't attend the marriages of their offspring. Where were T'Pring's parents?
Better (easier) might be "what is outside " of the prime universe.
Mirror
The Borg are everywhere
Abrams
Discovery
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So, what you're basically saying is that you look at it the same way you look at a stageplay.
What are the three usual episode orders? Do you mean Air-date, Production and Stardate orders? There is the BBC order but that is pretty weird to be honest! Are there any other orders apart from those?
JB
JB
T'Pol's mother was at her's.
This is frustrating for me.
Personally, I prefer to think of all the TV series as intertwining with each other on the same normal timeline. I actually don’t watch the movies often because the alternate timeline is pointless. It happened in an alternate timeline, so it never really ACTUALLY happened unless it touches on the prime timeline (ex. The evil versions of everyone in DS9 that actually enter their timeline and effect change.)
- Archer is mentioned in DSC = same timeline for DSC & ENT
- Kirk is mentioned in DS9 = same timeline TOS & DS9.
- We all know TNG, DS9 and VOY are in the same timeline because of the Worf, O’Brien, Picard and so on making appearances. So this links pretty much all of them and we will probably see more links coming from DSC.
If you try to prove ENT and TOS aren’t in the same timeline you’re going to drive yourself crazy. The writers of TOS couldn’t predict a prequel series that they were gonna slip Easter eggs in for, to explain continuity for a show that won’t air until 40 years later. Additionally, Archer can’t mention Kirk if he doesn’t have the Enterprise yet.
Alternate universes are a headache.
Personally, I prefer to think of all the TV series as intertwining with each other on the same normal timeline. I actually don’t watch the movies often because the alternate timeline is pointless. It happened in an alternate timeline, so it never really ACTUALLY happened unless it touches on the prime timeline (ex. The evil versions of everyone in DS9 that actually enter their timeline and effect change.)
- Archer is mentioned in DSC = same timeline for DSC & ENT
- Kirk is mentioned in DS9 = same timeline TOS & DS9.
- We all know TNG, DS9 and VOY are in the same timeline because of the Worf, O’Brien, Picard and so on making appearances. So this links pretty much all of them and we will probably see more links coming from DSC.
If you try to prove ENT and TOS aren’t in the same timeline you’re going to drive yourself crazy. The writers of TOS couldn’t predict a prequel series that they were gonna slip Easter eggs in for, to explain continuity for a show that won’t air until 40 years later. Additionally, Archer can’t mention Kirk if he doesn’t have the Enterprise yet.
Alternate universes are a headache.
Surely if you connect with the characters they matter regardless of which timeline they're in? "In a Mirror, Darkly" didn't work for me because they didn't make me care about those mirror-ENT characters. The Kelvin movies made me care about the alternate TOS crew and they work for me.
And don't different versions of Sherlock Holmes, James Bond or Batman and Superman matter?
Indeed. It is very painful and frustrating.
How about this thought. Spock and T'Pring's families are of a different culture than T'Pol and her husband's families, and have somewhat different marriage traditions.
A friend suggested that T'Pring mother was at the ceremony, and that T'Pau was T'Pring's mother.
In the first season of M*A*S*H, Hawkeye's parents were alive and living in Vermont. He also had a sister. Later in the series it was established that his mother died when he was young, he was an only child, and he lived in Maine.
In the first season of That '70's Show, Donna had a 14 year old sister. Later in the series it was established that she was an only child.
Are these examples proof that the first seasons of M*A*S*H and That '70's Show take place in a different universe than the later seasons? No. They're just changed premises. Each inconsistency is still canon to their respective shows; it's just that one fact ends up overriding the other.
Now let's take that a step further. If there was a new series of That '70's Show being produced today, and the creators said that it takes place during the same time as the original show, but the production values looked like the show takes place in the present day as opposed to what the original show looked like, then I'd be wondering why the producers are claiming such an obvious untruth, other than that they are trying to milk the popularity of the former show to get me to watch the new one even though there's very little resemblance to the old show.
In the first season of That '70's Show, Donna had a 14 year old sister. Later in the series it was established that she was an only child.
Are these examples proof that the first seasons of M*A*S*H and That '70's Show take place in a different universe than the later seasons? No. They're just changed premises. Each inconsistency is still canon to their respective shows; it's just that one fact ends up overriding the other.
Now let's take that a step further. If there was a new series of That '70's Show being produced today, and the creators said that it takes place during the same time as the original show, but the production values looked like the show takes place in the present day as opposed to what the original show looked like, then I'd be wondering why the producers are claiming such an obvious untruth, other than that they are trying to milk the popularity of the former show to get me to watch the new one even though there's very little resemblance to the old show.
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