Is our Earth the original?

[F. King Daniel]

TOS had the concept of parallel planetary evolution, which the rest of Trek (outside of William Shatner's novels with J+G Reeves-Stevens which made the multiverse the Preservers' petri dish) has mostly ignored. We visited worlds in the 1960's, in a bizarro modern Rome and planets almost geologically identical to our Earth.

But who's to say Star Trek's Earth is the original? Or that Star Trek's Earth is "our" one, and not a duplicate 10,000 light years away and 300 years more advanced? Imagine if Star Trek came across a duplicate Earth 300 years more advanced with a Federation of it's own. Imagine being on Earth and learning your world is just some random copy.

Such an awesome concept.

 

[Mudd]

Copy of what?

This is one of those "difference that makes no difference" topics. Are we looking to establish that one Earth was created 2.3 milliseconds before a different one? What would meaningfully make Miri's world more or less original than this one, other than the discovery of a cosmic photocopier spitting these things out into a tray?

 

[Timo]

Copy of what?

Of a supposed original, or then not. If such an original exists, it might differ from all the copies in the key respect of age. Or then there might be many copies from different times, diluting the distinction - beyond the original still being the first, in case this matters.

Planets supposedly can be modified at will, or even created out of nothing much, given just a bit more tech knowhow than our heroes possess. So seeming duplicate Earths might be hobby projects faked out of local rocks, rather than actual second incarnations coming out of the putative photocopier. But a cosmic rift splitting one planet into a dozen and scattering them across the galaxy is always an option, too, in which case the concept of "original" might become meaningless except in terms of "original location": every Earth would be identical (and, yes, simultaneously born in case this matters), save for post-splitting developments. Which would be especially befitting in the "Miri" case, I guess.

This is one of those "difference that makes no difference" topics. Are we looking to establish that one Earth was created 2.3 milliseconds before a different one?

Why should we? That's just one of 'em options, others including one Earth created 3.8 billion years after the other, say.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[somebuddyX]

It's interesting to think on. Maybe we're the decoy Earth that was built by the original to deal with being the target for everything that Earth-Prime created or annoyed which kept coming back to shoot at them. Meanwhile they're safe and sound out of phase from the rest of the galaxy. They have an Earth factory like in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy that just keeps popping out Earths, so after the T'Kon and then the Iconians blew the planet up they just switched in another one, always starting sometime around the 21st/22nd century. This has been going on for a bit now.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Copy of what?

This is one of those "difference that makes no difference" topics. Are we looking to establish that one Earth was created 2.3 milliseconds before a different one? What would meaningfully make Miri's world more or less original than this one, other than the discovery of a cosmic photocopier spitting these things out into a tray?

Planets take millions of years to form, so it's likely a much larger gap than 2.3 milliseconds. And that's assuming these worlds are somehow natural phenomena. Human ego would certainly be affected by the idea that our world was one of many spat out on some cosmic copier tray.

Just look at how some Trekkies react when you point out the show is basically Forbidden Planet: The Series.

 

[Mudd]

I've seen thinner ideas for a topic, but not many.

I don't spend enough time above decks in the Trek forums, I guess.

 

[BillJ]

Not sure it makes any real difference. If there is an infinite multiverse out there, it would be impossible to single out the "original" Earth.

 

[Timo]

How so? One could well be the first, and our heroes have always have fancy ways of discerning the age of items and phenomena. Indeed, Spock seems to have a way of his very own, establishing the piano in "Miri" as 300 years old at a glance...

But "infinite multiverse" is an odd way to approach the issue of there being multiple Earths in our very own universe. Might be it's spillover from those other, parallel realms we know are there in Trek - if people can travel between them, why not planets? But xeroxing of planets within our reality is another thing that should be doable in Trek, and while this might involve mere natural forces, it could be the doing of an intellect, too. And the motivations would be the thing of real interest...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Henoch]

Only one identical Earth (Miri) was found and it was listed as the third planet in its solar system. Was the solar system identical to our Solar System, too? In any event, the technical explanation of the discovery of this identical Earth was never addressed in TOS. Maybe there is no explanation and remains a mystery, forever. Worlds with humans and similar cultures across our history are discovered, but those worlds were not on identical Earths, and some effort was taken to explain some of these events like Hodgkins's law of Parallel Planet Development and the Preservers.

In TOS, the child-god Trelane demonstrated the ability to create planets and move them around as toys. Later, TNG introduces the god-level Q. Could they put an Earth with a failed culture from another universe in front of the TOS Enterprise to either save the remaining inhabitants (blameless children who are the victims), and/or conduct a test to study the TOS era human evolvement?

 

[elric428]

It is apparent that earth shown in Star Trek is from a different universe than our own simply by looking at how earth's past history has been portrayed in the series.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I thought "Miri" took the parallel Earth concept too far. Another Earth, its continents look exactly like Earth's, and that tidbit is never mentioned again? Please. It was ridiculous, and not being followed up in the episode itself made it especially so.

They reined it in to be marginally less outlandish in other parallel Earth episodes like "Bread and Circuses."

 

[johnnybear]

Well if the earth that we live on is the same as the one we (rarely) see on Star Trek then we only have to wait another two and half centuries to find out! But from what we've learned of their past and our future then I'd say that we are in another reality to that one that they occupy or they've got their history books a bit muddled!
JB

 

[Noname Given]

TOS had the concept of parallel planetary evolution, which the rest of Trek (outside of William Shatner's novels with J+G Reeves-Stevens which made the multiverse the Preservers' petri dish) has mostly ignored. We visited worlds in the 1960's, in a bizarro modern Rome and planets almost geologically identical to our Earth.

But who's to say Star Trek's Earth is the original? Or that Star Trek's Earth is "our" one, and not a duplicate 10,000 light years away and 300 years more advanced? Imagine if Star Trek came across a duplicate Earth 300 years more advanced with a Federation of it's own. Imagine being on Earth and learning your world is just some random copy.

Such an awesome concept.

No. Why? I didn't see any Eugenics War in the mid 1990s. So yeah, we're a 'parallel Earth'

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Actually, no. We're a replacement, created by Phouchg and Loonquawl after the original was destroyed by the Vogons, to make way for an interstellar bypass.

And wasn't there a recent novel (CLB or GC, as I recall) that explained Miri's Planet?
(Yes, there is, it's CLB's Forgotten History, and yes, when a franchise has been in existence for half a century, a novel that's will be 9 years old in a few weeks counts as "recent.")

 

[Timo]

I find it delightful to think that the heroes were flabbergasted by the existence of the second Earth, and did their damnedest to come up with an explanation after the end credits of "Miri" rolled - and utterly failed, so that a millennium on, Starfleet remains none the wiser. Sometimes the universe simply is too much of a challenge to us mere mortals...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[1001001]

Actually, no. We're a replacement, created by Phouchg and Loonquawl after the original was destroyed by the Vogons, to make way for an interstellar bypass.

To be fair, all the planning charts and demolition orders were on display in the planning department on Alpha Centauri for fifty Earth years, so...

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

To be fair, all the planning charts and demolition orders were on display in the planning department on Alpha Centauri for fifty Earth years, so...

Be sure to get peanuts, if you're playing the Infocom game. And remember your towel.

 

[StarCruiser]

^You can't be a happy frood without it...

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

That's "hoopy frood"!

 

[Qonundrum]

No. Why? I didn't see any Eugenics War in the mid 1990s. So yeah, we're a 'parallel Earth'

I thought it was just down to 1960s fantasies and what they deemed was creative storytelling back then? Khan would be, by 1990s standards, too extreme in terms of physical and intellectual prowess given the span of... two generations since WW2. So it's a plot hole of a certain sort, circa 1967. After all the franchises started leaning on multiverse shtick to justify any number of things because goalpost moving is cool, it's just another in a long string of sausages, all the same... (Sorry to quote Doctor Who from 1968, that was a shtick thing of the 1960s regarding such cookie cutter monotony, among other things...) Never mind the 200 vs 300 year discontinuity and everything else. Without Montalban, Khan and "Space Seed" wouldn't have fared as well, though its central humanist theme - despite the oversimplified certainties - is still a fun and engaging premise, with a few excellent scenes despite the nitpicks.