After the events of ST09 wrap up, wouldn't it be logical for Old Spock to try to return to his time? I haven't watched the movies in awhile, but was there ever an explanation as to why he continued to be an out-of-time interloper meddling in the past? Surely getting Back to the Future would be within his abilities. Additionally, I would think that with the destruction of Romulus, his role as an ambassador and proponent of unification ( + = ) would be more important to him to continue in the 24th century. Thoughts?
He remained to help establish the New Vulcan colony, since he felt responsible for everything that happened. He died in 2263, which is covered in Star Trek Beyond.
It wouldn't have been his future - it would have been the future of the separate timeline generated by his and Nero's appearance. He couldn't go home without undoing that incursion, and after so long, it was almost certainly unethical for him to try, potentially destroying the lives and effectively, the universe, that all of his new friends lived in.
Can't agree with the last bit, not wholly. If he "tampered with the past" in the usual time travel heroics style, i.e. did some corrective moves in the Kelvinverse to negate the future threat to Romulus, he would not be destroying anything but instead would be letting these new people grow to their fullest potential. The future he would be returning to would just have slightly differently born Uhura and Chekov in its past, plus slightly different other heroes - plus no Vulcan and an extra Spock! If he instead traveled to past first and saved Vulcan, too, then he'd be undoing some minor part of the story of his new friends. But he wouldn't be destroying any of them. And this new Kirk would probably make good despite the late start and the rebellious attitude and whatnot anyway, the new Spock would live long and prosper, etc. In any case, Romulus probably was already saved in the Kelvinverse - or at least Nero claimed he had prevented genocide through his actions, and the only one he can be referring to is the loss of Romulus. Preventing that requires red matter, and Nero had acquired a supply shortly before making that claim... Timo Saloniemi
And if you remember the ending of Back to the Future, you know that Marty did not return to the timeline he originally left. He returned to the new timeline created by his going back to the past. It worked out for Marty because the new 1985 worked better for him than the old one, but imagine if Spock were to go forward to the nu24th century? Things would be so radically different than when he left that there would be no point in even going.
ultimately I think most non fan or casual fan moviegoers who saw ST09 (and then STID) would've just assumed the original timeline had been wiped and this was the new timeline (like BTTF) its only the fans who read Countdown and read Orci's comments on TM.com would know the Prime timeline was still supposed to be there.. however now the tables have seemingly turned as Prime timeline is back with a vengeance (DISC/Picard etc etc) and Kelvin TL is seemingly dead! (or at least on life support)
Most casual or non-fans would see that The Picard Show picks up after the future bits of ST'09 and just roll with it. You know, like we all just rolled with Logan ignoring X-Men: Days of Future Past.
Let's say, hypothetically, that after the events of ST09, Old Spock travels farther back in time before the Narada appears from the future (say, 100 years). Then, from that point in the past, he time travels to the 24th century... does he end up in the Prime 24th century or the Kelvin 24th century?
He needs to find Paul Stamets and help him invent the spore drive, then have him fly him to any universe and time he wants.
Both timelines exist simultaneously, like parallel sets of train tracks. If he has the quantum signature of the timeline he wishes to end up in, he can end up in it. Otherwise, he's never going to find his way back to exactly the right timeline, though he may end up in a reasonably similar one.
Indeed, doing the Slider thing and freely picking your timeline (with or without first traveling to the past or the future) seems to be beyond the capabilities of most mortals (or all mortals - Stamets might not count as one any longer, or at least he got help from beyond the grave). The classic time travel logic is that in order to switch timestreams, you have to go upstream to the past, manhandle the all-important switch to the desired position, and then float downstream to present day along the new path. If you change nothing in the past, or undo whatever you changed, the switch remains in its original position and once you go down the timestream you end up where you left. Spock won't be able to undo the effects of his presence in the early 2260s, so he'll have to go further up the timestream to the late 2250s at the very least, and perhaps even all the way to 2233. Even Worf couldn't be guided back to his desired timestream without help from the weird phenomenon that made him Slide in the first place; it will probably be millennia before humans learn to do that trick, as Braxton's timecops still rely on stupid old time travel instead. Timo Saloniemi
Since he started in the Kelvin timeline, he would probably end up back there as well. He'd just be following his own personal Feynman curve.
Option C: By travelling back in time he creates a whole new timeline. When he travels to the 24th century it is within the confines of that new timeline. What he needs is a spore drive which is a shame as he used to serve on a ship with that capability. It's fun to think that the events in Star Trek 2009 take place in the same year as Discovery season 2 (2258). However because the Klingon war did not happen in Kelvin timeline the spore drive may not have been completed by that time.
I would say "journeys into" rather than "creates", but otherwise I agree that Option C is where it is. Unless you have some sort of quantum signature navigation capability, traveling into the past is never going to put you in the timeline you started in because in that timeline you didn't exist in the past. ...unless it's a predestination paradox...
You're underestimating the effect of time travel alterations on people. To a large extent, we *are* our histories (by which, I don't just mean events on the macro level, but the history of every part of us down to the quantum level). I mean, sure, at the end of BTTF, Marty is happier with "his" parents - they're familiar enough to feel like his parents, but different enough to seem like an improvement - and so we call that a win, but this isn't really being thought through by him or much of the viewing audience, because *those aren't his parents*. They're the parents of the Lone Pine Mall version of Marty that he saw hop into the DeLorean to escape the terrorists near the end of the movie. So what, right? Well, if Marty never thinks of it, perhaps, for him, this is fine. But if he does, he's going to realize that HIS parents, the parents he left in 1985 originally, *that he claimed to love and probably did feel love for*, are at the very least separated from him forever by being on a different timeline, and possibly even wiped from existence altogether. An existential crisis and, eventually, a maddening mourning period for *everyone he ever knew before time travelling* might well be on the horizon for him. As I said, Marty might never realize this. But SPOCK is certainly smart enough and experienced enough with time travel to know what he's dealing with. *On Star Trek*, we know from previous things shown that *some* things altered by time travel can be "put back on course" (a notion that I feel like I know to be nonsense in the real world for reasons that are entirely another story we won't get into here), but some things can't. Spock would know the difference, and I feel like the fact that he didn't seem to try conveys to us which one it is, too. (Or, maybe he DID try in events we haven't seen yet...)
Meh! It's what I thought of the Picard timeline was no more which was the reason Spock didn't make an attempt. Could the timeline from TOS had been altered? Most likely since ST: Enterprise, and Disco both prequels and looks and sounds and acted like they're in the JJ timeline. It will be interesting to see what this Picard series will look like, I'd bet it'll look like Disco... very JJTrek looking.