Time Travel, Alternate Timelines

Think of it as quantum uncertainty. All plausible fan explanations exist until they are showed on screen, and collapse the wave function to one explanation. The most plausible fan explanation exists the most.

Currently, all the most plausible fan explanations exist in the wave function. The most plausible fan explanations account for the most of the realities. If something is shown on screen, it collapses the wave function and locks us into a single explanation of canon. Until that happens, the most consistent and plausible fan explanation is the most likely reality.

The consensus of the fans outweights strict canonical constructivism.

 

There's no question that in theory, anyone can influence anything, but in COTEOF, Spock also talked about how the timeline could put them so close to McCoy. It was a theory that proved accurate. Clearly that bum who killed himself did not have any impact on the timeline. For all we know, he could have died that same night of natural causes. In the theory I discussed earlier, that bum was a pebble in the river, not a dam.

Cochrane could have been that dam, but Picard and crew got lucky.

And nothing changed, right down to the dialogue.

That's your way of looking at it, and I can't fault that, but it's not official.

I have not. I usually stick to TOS stories when I do.

Often though, I find the book authors much more creative than any of the writers of the last 30 years.

Why? What if in this pattern, you kill yourself instead?

Thing is, this implies that canon is a democracy. In the case of the Kelvin Universe, the writer had a perfect chance to explain it all, and CHOSE to make the dialogue such that the explanation we would hope for cannot be true. Even if the writer decides off screen to change his mind, like say in an interview, that could not contradict what's on screen.

If I travel back in time and change the timeline in any way, I have created an alternate reality. Creating an alternate reality does not mean that the original reality still exists. If I'm in another universe, then it does. If I'm in the same universe, like say, Marty McFly, then the original reality is gone.

Saying that there is an alternate reality does not answer the question of whether the original reality exists. In the absence of that, the only solution is to go with precedent, and in Star Trek, in every single venture into an alternate universe, it was crystal clear that going to another universe happened. The Mirror episodes and Parallels are perfect examples of that.

Parallels of course shows that you can destroy your reality and there will still be a universe virtually identical to the reality that you destroyed, but that's still just a copy.

It also has nothing to do with ST09.

As of now, there is no example of proof that shows the prime timeline still exists.

Think of the original timeline as history as it plays out without time travel altering it. If that is the case, there is a past, present and future, all having played out before it was altered. Let's say you travel to the year 1958. Everything in your future played out originally, until the end of time. But if you change something, everything after 1958 can be destroyed. It still happened originally, but the events are now erased from history.

So yes, Star Trek: Picard can exist, and while it's in the future from Spock and Nero's disappearance, these are stories before the timeline was erased. They happened, but Nero's actions erased them.

If you delete a file on your computer and create an altered version of the same file, that doesn't mean the original didn't exist ever.

It just doesn't exist now.

So as of now, using the rules of time travel as established by Star Trek, the prime timeline is gone.

However, that can be changed in canon, if they ever do a story that covers the topic.

 

If the Prime timeline no longer exists then where did PrimeSpock come from?

 

In Star Trek, part of the rules is that the time traveler is protected. That's consistent with City on the Edge, when Kirk and crew didn't disappear, or FC, where Picard and crew didn't disappear, or DS9, when O'Brien didn't disappear.

If the prime timeline exists, why do we even need temporal police? LET people travel back in time and make their own universe.

 

But the dialogue in question is still just Spock Prime's assessment of what happened, not an official explanation. That can be summed up by the following: "Spock misunderstood." He thought the past had been changed, but (on further research) it turned out it hadn't. After all, at first glance it might be hard to tell the difference between a changed timeline and a true alternate universe until you go back and look for the point of divergence (and discover there isn't one).

At that point, what's he gonna do? Run after young Kirk yelling, "Wait! Wait! I was wrong! This isn't the same universe!" Why would he?

So as far as I'm concerned, there's nothing onscreen requiring the original timeline to be gone.

 

Except that in CotE and FC it's explicitly stated that they're being protected, not that that should be assumed to be a normal condition when temporal anomalies occur. I'm not sure what you're referring to with regards to O'Brien?

What's protecting SpockPrime, and why would it endure long enough for him to live out the rest of his life? Even in BTTF Marty's at risk when he changes his past to the point that he wouldn't exist.

 

So many different references in this thread--so am I right to think you're talking ST09? If that's the case, that's kind of what I mean by a revocable presumption. At any point, Abrams can do a story reconciling things and making it another universe.

He just has to choose to do it. But onscreen, in the absence of any explanation, the revocable presumption is that they time traveled--that is what was shown on screen. Abrams, the writer, could have written any explanation. The same dialogue that Uhura talked about could have easily been changed to preserve the prime universe.

By choosing not to do that, I believe that the default explanation--normal Trek time travel, must be applied--but I concede that it can be changed at any time.

There was an episode of DS9, I forget the title, where O'Brien traveled back in time and met his future self (or maybe it was past self), and it involved some timey wimey stuff. We have seen multiple examples of time travelers being protected from the timelines. I believe Sela's existence is also an example. If the alternate Yar wasn't protected as a time traveler, then she would have disappeared as soon as the original timeline was restored. I think time travelers being protected is part of the standard Trek rules.

 

Ah, "Visionary". I'm not sure that's not the same situation, as O'Brien is jumping into the future and then back to himself. He does swap places with Future!Him near the end, but also passes along a device that will allow Future!Him to travel back successfully, IIRC.

As for Sela, I've always felt that Our Heroes don't return to the same timeline from whence they originated. But then, if we want to talk YE, we could argue that it establishes that the "alternate" timeline was in fact the natural timeline. Or that we see three different timelines during the episode.

 

Hard to say, but I think that it is consistent with Trek time travel. The E-C jumped to the future and their absence erased the timeline, causing the nightmare timeline. Of course, I don't see how the Klingons would be beating the Federation so badly, but that's another topic.

Anyway, when the E-C returns, they brought Tasha with them. Had she stayed on the E-D, she would have disappeared and no one would be the wiser (except maybe Guinan). But she traveled back in time and did NOT disappear. The time traveler was protected.

It's consistent with Star Trek time travel, and it's happened often enough that Spock Prime not disappearing is not evidence that the prime timeline exists.

 

That's not how this works, if the timeline was erased, it either would have been erased the moment Spock and Nero went back in time, or it would have been erased when they came out. Either way, the fact that Picard and Discovery Season 3+ exist, is proof that the Prime Timeline continued to exist after Star Trek '09. Honestly this kind of stuff is changed all the time, so what happened before doesn't matter, what matters is what happened in the latest version and both the movie, and the fact that Picard, Discovery Season 3 take place in the Prime Timeline are proof that it has continued to exist after the first Kelvin movie. It's not any different from the Enterprise going from being an Earth ship to a United Federation of Planets, or Spock being a Vulcanian.

Does it have to be Abrams for it to count? He hasn't been involved with the franchise since Into Darkness, and as far as I know he has expressed no intention or desire to ever return to it. Would it still count for you if the Picard or Discovery Season 3+ writers addressed it?
JJ Abrams did not write either of his movies, and he was not the one who came up with the parallel timeline explanation, that was Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman.

And I don't feel like going through the posts to look for quotes, but you've used City on the Edge of Forever as an example of how time travel usually works, but I don't really think that counts as a normal trip through time since it was controlled by the Guardian of Forever. We don't know enough about the Guardian, to know for sure how much it controls how much things are effected by the people it sends back in time. It could very well be able to alter and protect things so that only certain changes permanently effect the timeline.

 

Saying that fan-accepted explanations not contradicted onscreen are part of canon isn't saying canon is a democracy, it's saying that the universe of a TV show, once it's rooted in the fans' collective imagination, is something greater than the sum of the official texts. We can surmise that Picard had breakfast in the morning before he left without having seen it on screen.

There isn't even one writer for Star Trek, it's several writers over the span of decades with their own different ideas.

Why is it so important to you to figure out one definitive canon derived strictly from official on screen content, so strict you can't even apply inductive reasoning to fill in the gaps?

 

For myself, multiverse theory seems to explain a lot of things, and amuses me, and is upheld by "Parallels", so...there we go.

 

It is fine that we speculate and agree on certain aspects, but you would need to make up your own word for it because that is not what canon means.

 

If a timeline is erased, it doesn't mean it never existed. If you go back in time, shoot your friend's grandfather, and he is never born, and that was your reason for going back in time, if you are protected, you will remember your friend. That means your friend did exist in a now erased timeline.

Until you erased him, he had a past, present and future. In City on the Edge, Picard still existed 100 years later. When Edith was spared, he didn't, and then he did again when she died.

Picard and Discovery have nothing to do with proof of the existence of the prime universe. They only show that they once existed.

No. It wouldn't have to be Abrams--it would just have to be on screen and legit. So yes, if Picard or Discovery writers did some sort of crossover story, it would 100 percent count.

I just use the name Abrams as the man in charge during that time. If it's on screen, it's canon (99 percent of the time). It wouldn't literally have to be Abrams.

I use that as a prime example, but not the only one. We have seen quite a few examples of time travel that protected the time traveler in Star Trek. Enough that Spock Prime's continued existence makes sense.

It requires consistency and intelligent writing, and it is the intent of Paramount as well to have it connected.

My belief is that Paramount found themselves in a no win scenario and Abrams copped out.

One of two things had to happen:

1. The prime timeline is wiped out. In this scenario, all the Trek we saw is erased and replaced by what Abrams did. Fans get mad.

2. The prime timeline is not wiped out. In this scenario, Pine and crew are not the same people we followed. Fans don't care as much what happens to them because they aren't the "real" characters.

Abrams tried to play it both ways and by not making a decision, it was more trouble than it was worth.

After the movie came out, they started with the other universe idea and to lean toward scenario 2, but because interviews are not canon, it doesn't solve anything. But I do think they can solve it--they just have to choose to do so.

Besides, if we use the Orci/Kurtzman thinking, I believe that we can prove that Kirk Prime is alive, which would reverse what I consider the dumbest move in Star Trek history.

 

I never once saw anybody say that they were supposed to be the same versions of the characters we saw on TOS, everything I followed before and after made it very clear that everybody other than Spock Prime was an alternate universe version.

 

It's funny you mention that--I distinctly remember Abrams making a comment that they are the same characters at some point before ST09. It's such a needle in a haystack that I can't find it.

But that said, it was not made clear that everyone other than Spock Prime is an alternate version. In fact, they had the chance to do just that and chose not to do so. Time travel in Star Trek has one timeline that can be overridden by time travelers. Those are the rules established. Star Trek, when traveling to other universes, always says it and it's crystal clear. So when they don't say that, there is no reason to think that Spock and Nero went to another universe as well as into the past.

The explanation was poorly written or purposefully written, but either way, it does not make it clear at all that the prime universe exists. Alternate reality and another universe are not the same thing. I'm not saying that the prime timeline can't be shown to co-exist in a future incarnation of Star Trek featuring both universes. I'm saying that because of the way it was written, for now, it does not.

 

I rather thought "Mirror, Mirror" and especially "Parallels" made it explicitly clear that alternate timelines existed and that there was in fact no reason to assume that time travel didn't also result in the creation or transit to such an alternate timeline.

Please cite the episode or film where it's stayed that "Star Trek has one timeline".

 

The first indication of a back-step (time travel) is that the sphere disappears from the military base. I assume the idea is that some version of Frank disappears from the base at the same time and that only one version of Frank and the sphere can exist at any given time.

Alternatively, they could have somebody at the base whose job is to discretely kill the extra Frank every time there is a back-step. I doubt that part of the project is widely known among the staff, though.

 

Those weren't alternate timelines, they were alternate universes. As for one timeline, watch any episode regarding time travel. Any one of them. They all talk about the need to preserve history. Without that need, where is the story? Without one timeline, why are there temporal police? What would be the big deal if you travel back in time? If time travel didn't have one timeline, why shouldn't everyone get a time machine and create their own heaven?

Every single time travel story in Star Trek before ST09 acknowledged one timeline.

And whenever they went to another universe, as Mirror Mirror and Parallels prove exist in Star Trek, they were very clear about it. Going to another universe and traveling back in time are two distinct and different things.

Let's say Spock Prime and Nero travel back in time, erase the timeline and the Kelvin timeline exists in its place. That's time travel. But that said, there would be a universe out there, exactly like the prime universe, with no difference other than Spock and Nero didn't go back in time.

It's just not THE prime universe.

 

That was my interpretation as well and remains so. Kelvin is a quantum branch off the prime timeline. Star Trek time travel rules can change. No need to overthink it.

Yes, that's my rather minimal contribution. My head hurts too much to fight over this again after ten years.