Timelinegeddon - Grand Universe Unification Theories
- Thread starter dahj
- Start date
Well, I've got a bit of time to kill, so here's a potential way to reconcile the major discrepancies (I'm not touching things like James R. Kirk).
*naturally, the following borrows heavily from various sources--I'm not going to footnote them, as that would be too much like work
If I'm feeling pedantic, then I consider just about every instance of time travel in Trek, regardless of how the characters perceive it, as creating a new branch. We simply follow the characters into each new branch, most of which are only infinitesimally different from the other, so they (and we) don't notice. Years ago, over some beers at a pub, some of my fellow Trek fans and I elaborated on this to a considerable degree--it's a lot of work and while it was fun, I can't be arsed to maintain that level of effort when watching something as fluffy as Trek.
Less pedantic (though also strictly unnecessary for me to enjoy Trek--I just take what's in front of me and worry very little about how S2 of Voyager fits into continuity with S3 of TOS or some such thing):
TOS to TOS movies to TNG works fine. No major issues there. Then, TNG-FC creates the first major break. The Borg visit to the 21st century, leaving behind debris, and the imperfect patchwork of the TNG crew, leads to ENT. ENT leads to Kelvin split, with one branch leading to DSC and the other to Abrams' films. The lengthy span between DSC/early TOS and TNG allows for a convergence such that post-FC events in DS9 and VOY remain visually similar to pre-FC TNG world.
Voilà. That's all the effort required to broadly reconcile everything. But usually, as noted above, I just watch what's in front of me and decide if I'm entertained by it or not. Though I once put in far more effort into continuity resolution, analysis of flaws and so on, I no longer have time for that kind of thing. I barely have time to watch it, really. One thing I have found, upon letting go of my desire to "make things fit", is that I enjoy all of Trek far more than before.
YMMV
*naturally, the following borrows heavily from various sources--I'm not going to footnote them, as that would be too much like work
If I'm feeling pedantic, then I consider just about every instance of time travel in Trek, regardless of how the characters perceive it, as creating a new branch. We simply follow the characters into each new branch, most of which are only infinitesimally different from the other, so they (and we) don't notice. Years ago, over some beers at a pub, some of my fellow Trek fans and I elaborated on this to a considerable degree--it's a lot of work and while it was fun, I can't be arsed to maintain that level of effort when watching something as fluffy as Trek.
Less pedantic (though also strictly unnecessary for me to enjoy Trek--I just take what's in front of me and worry very little about how S2 of Voyager fits into continuity with S3 of TOS or some such thing):
TOS to TOS movies to TNG works fine. No major issues there. Then, TNG-FC creates the first major break. The Borg visit to the 21st century, leaving behind debris, and the imperfect patchwork of the TNG crew, leads to ENT. ENT leads to Kelvin split, with one branch leading to DSC and the other to Abrams' films. The lengthy span between DSC/early TOS and TNG allows for a convergence such that post-FC events in DS9 and VOY remain visually similar to pre-FC TNG world.
Voilà. That's all the effort required to broadly reconcile everything. But usually, as noted above, I just watch what's in front of me and decide if I'm entertained by it or not. Though I once put in far more effort into continuity resolution, analysis of flaws and so on, I no longer have time for that kind of thing. I barely have time to watch it, really. One thing I have found, upon letting go of my desire to "make things fit", is that I enjoy all of Trek far more than before.
YMMV
How do we know. You see Janeway around recently?
Fell through a hole in the sky, who knows where it ended up. It could have stayed in the same temporal location but ended up in a universe where time is slower and thus they only got to the ent era rather than the Kirk. (I'm sure Sliders did that one once as have others. Never understood how that worked as surely the Sliders would have been super quick or something? Anyway)
Stuart Baird called Geordie Laverne and thought he was an alien. The people who make this stuff are as human as you and me unfortunately. They put on their pants one leg at a time, don't know everything and make questionable decisions.
How do we know. You see Janeway around recently?
If ST09 had erased the prime timeline, we wouldn't be seeing DSC now.
Ah but that's where the slow moving, super dramatic, wave of time changes comes in. By my super expert calculations it's only just about through the Romulan wars by now. By the time Disco ends the start will be being rewritten giving them a whole new show to air.
I heard she's in prison...
I heard she's in prison...
And not in a particularly good spot right at the moment. Last we left off was a real nail-biter.
I would watch that show
Never gonna happenNot to be generous, but just the opposite....to get everyone so hopelessly confused that they collapse and shut up once and for all.
Ouch. Poor Shannon O'Donnell. Or... was Shannon O'Donnell just a cover for Galina Reznikov. In that case, Galina did a damn good job of hiding her accent.
Alec, is that you?My theory is that at some point in the future TPTB will reverse their stand on Axanar and everything else that is fan-made and fully embrace it all....and make it all canon.
Not to be generous, but just the opposite....to get everyone so hopelessly confused that they collapse and shut up once and for all.
in the wierd Trek-verses cosmology, why do some alternate timelines dissapear while others maintain their own viability. Kelvinverse and Mirrorverse seem to be stable and not going away ant time soon, whereas Enterprise showed several that did not come to pass. Then there's the Yesterday's Enterprise universe and presumable the brief alternate timelines created in All Good Things. I'm sure there are multitudes more. Daniels has a shitty job.
Kind of reminds me of the movie and supplementary material for Donnie Darko. That situation was a tangential universe which spun off due to a very specific event, and was resolved and removed from existance by a very specific event instead of a standalone stream of events on its own. Does this imply the Kelvinverse itself is also a tangent path? Pegg insists it's divergence point came long before. My suspicion with Pegg discussing his age and those of the other actors, and the 5 to 6 year wait for Tarantino trek, might have the next movie maybe resolve or integrate that timeline.
Also, could the actions of a tangential universe cause damage to another? Was this why Picard would have been so adamant that the Enterprise-C crew get back to their own universe and essentially kill themselves when otherwise both timelines would persist, one optimal, one less-so.
Kind of reminds me of the movie and supplementary material for Donnie Darko. That situation was a tangential universe which spun off due to a very specific event, and was resolved and removed from existance by a very specific event instead of a standalone stream of events on its own. Does this imply the Kelvinverse itself is also a tangent path? Pegg insists it's divergence point came long before. My suspicion with Pegg discussing his age and those of the other actors, and the 5 to 6 year wait for Tarantino trek, might have the next movie maybe resolve or integrate that timeline.
Also, could the actions of a tangential universe cause damage to another? Was this why Picard would have been so adamant that the Enterprise-C crew get back to their own universe and essentially kill themselves when otherwise both timelines would persist, one optimal, one less-so.
My head-canon is that no timeline ever actually disappears and that everytime you travel back in time you create a new timeline that won't go away.
If time travel is possible, that is most likely how it would work, at least in theory anyway. Otherwise, we would end up with the paradoxes we often talk about.
So there are probably many co-existing alternate Trek timelines out there. One in which someone invented transparent aluminum on their own, and one in which a time-travelling Mr. Scott gave supplied the "inventor" with the information. One in which Gabriel Bell looks exactly like Benjamin Sisko and the one before it in which he does not. One in which DS9 officers infiltrated Kirk's crew at K-7 and the one before it in which they were not there. Several in which WWII Germany gains an advantage (Edith Keeler lives or the Na'kuhl intervenes) and those in which they don't. And so on ....
I think there are multiple types of time travel in Star Trek. Those artificially induced by Borg time travel in First Contact, Guardians of Forever, starship time travel, etc. actually overwrite the old timeline and have to be "fixed".
"Natural" time travel such as falling into a black hole (the way Spock Prime and Nero did) creates an alternate timeline that doesn't overwrite the old one.
"Natural" time travel such as falling into a black hole (the way Spock Prime and Nero did) creates an alternate timeline that doesn't overwrite the old one.
I dunno, why would time travel through a natural phenomenon have intrinsically different results. Also, wasn't the time travel only possible through the red metter thingy which was artificial? I could be misremembering, though.
Similar threads
- Poll
