Alternate Timeline! (a.k.a. Everyone can chill out now!)

[Kaziarl]

Point taken on the probe, but my main statement was that had kirk not altered the timeline, earth would have been destroyed. So how is that different then the new movie?

If it's purely cosmetic then thats pretty superficial. I don't remember hearing anything against getting rid of batmans purple leatards when the movies came out. Or not using the "POW!" or "KA-BLAM!" effects from the batman series.

Truth is, design and graphics get updated as time goes on. As long as the heart of trek is still there, who care's what the E looks like, she still looks great to me.

 

[DaveyNY]

Point taken on the probe, but my main statement was that had kirk not altered the timeline, earth would have been destroyed. So how is that different then the new movie?

If it's purely cosmetic then thats pretty superficial. I don't remember hearing anything against getting rid of batmans purple leatards when the movies came out. Or not using the "POW!" or "KA-BLAM!" effects from the batman series.

Truth is, design and graphics get updated as time goes on. As long as the heart of trek is still there, who care's what the E looks like, she still looks great to me.

LOL
You acknowledge my point then repeat the offense.

Earth would not have been destroyed, the HUMANS would have.

And he didn't alter the timeline... He brought Georgie and Gracie back (forward?) to keep the Probe from killing everybody in His Time.

The only ones that probably altered the time line were Scotty and McCoy. (And that's debatable also, as their conversation in the movie proves.)

Anyway,
Trek XI is not just making Cosmetic changes (which I don't have a problem with) it's creating a drastically new time line. (which I'm not sure is good or bad at this point, not having the clairvoyance of knowing all before seeing all.)

Your example of the 60's Batman is kind of irrelevant here, that WAS created from the outset to be a Satire of sorts and doesn't really have much in common with Trek.

 

[Kaziarl]

And again you still make the same mistake most people do when looking at the time line. George and Gracie leaving earth in the 1990's did make a change, however small. Not to mention the missing persons reports. Also, since we have seen time travel work both ways, kirk altered the timeline of what was yet to come. Splitting the trekverse into an alternate reality. One where the probe did not do what it had arrived to do.

 

[DaveyNY]

And again you still make the same mistake most people do when looking at the time line. George and Gracie leaving earth in the 1990's did make a change, however small. Not to mention the missing persons reports. Also, since we have seen time travel work both ways, kirk altered the timeline of what was yet to come. Splitting the trekverse into an alternate reality. One where the probe did not do what it had arrived to do.

Ah...yes...I forgot about the Lady coming forward with the Gang. It would be interesting to see just how much that changed things.

I understand what your getting at...but... can We really assume that Kirk bringing the whales forward isn't what was meant to happen in the original time line?

And is the splitting off of the alternate time line of any importance since We never get to see the consequences?

Can We really compare that to Trek XI where We are apparently going to get to see the changes...permenantly?

 

[Kaziarl]

And again you still make the same mistake most people do when looking at the time line. George and Gracie leaving earth in the 1990's did make a change, however small. Not to mention the missing persons reports. Also, since we have seen time travel work both ways, kirk altered the timeline of what was yet to come. Splitting the trekverse into an alternate reality. One where the probe did not do what it had arrived to do.

Ah...yes...I forgot about the Lady coming forward with the Gang. It would be interesting to see just how much that changed things.

I understand what your getting at...but... can We really assume that Kirk bringing the whales forward isn't what was meant to happen in the original time line?

And is the splitting off of the alternate time line of any importance since We never get to see the consequences?

Can We really compare that to Trek XI where We are apparently going to get to see the changes...permenantly?

Can we assume that picard going back in time to fix what the borg did wasn't meant to happen?

and from what I can gather as to the plot, can we assume that spock going back to fix what nero did wasn't supposed to happen?

The plots of first contact, and what i've read of XI, are pretty similar. They are going back in time to stop an enemy from changing the past.

So again, I ask, whats the problem?

 

[The Evil Dead]

IT'S ALL MADE UP, NONE OF IT IS REEEEEEAL. IT'S ALL FAAAAAAAAAAKE. One Star Trek isn't anymore real than the next!

As long as they spin a decent yarn, and stick to the spirit of what makes us like Trek, who caaaaaaaaaaaeres?!

 

[DaveyNY]

And again you still make the same mistake most people do when looking at the time line. George and Gracie leaving earth in the 1990's did make a change, however small. Not to mention the missing persons reports. Also, since we have seen time travel work both ways, kirk altered the timeline of what was yet to come. Splitting the trekverse into an alternate reality. One where the probe did not do what it had arrived to do.

Ah...yes...I forgot about the Lady coming forward with the Gang. It would be interesting to see just how much that changed things.

I understand what your getting at...but... can We really assume that Kirk bringing the whales forward isn't what was meant to happen in the original time line?

And is the splitting off of the alternate time line of any importance since We never get to see the consequences?

Can We really compare that to Trek XI where We are apparently going to get to see the changes...permenantly?

Can we assume that picard going back in time to fix what the borg did wasn't meant to happen?

Sorry? What does that have to do with the events of Trek IV?

But to answer that point...
In fact, He had very little choice, when the Borg Sphere initiated the time jump the Enterprise-E was caught up in the time-stream left behind, that's how They were able to notice (and not be affected by) the changes caused by the Sphere going back in time, so in fact, We can assume that those events WERE meant to happen.

and from what I can gather as to the plot, can we assume that spock going back to fix what nero did wasn't supposed to happen?

The plots of first contact, and what i've read of XI, are pretty similar. They are going back in time to stop an enemy from changing the past.

So again, I ask, whats the problem?

The problem is, that We can't assume that much similarity between these two particular movies, since We haven't actually SEEN Trek XI yet.

But on the surface...
Picard had no choice due to circumstances....
And so far, from what I've read, Spock DOES have a choice.

 

[ALF]

Rest assured,
A timeline exists somewhere in which no one, fan or not,
has a problem with this movie existing in some alternatimeline.

I live there currently. Hence the right-aligned text.

​

 

[Captain X]

IT'S ALL MADE UP, NONE OF IT IS REEEEEEAL. IT'S ALL FAAAAAAAAAAKE. One Star Trek isn't anymore real than the next!

As long as they spin a decent yarn, and stick to the spirit of what makes us like Trek, who caaaaaaaaaaaeres?!

Gee, really? I'm so glad I had you here to tell me this, or surely I would have gone on thinking that these were all historical documents.

 

[T'Bonz]

I think you're making assumptions about the plot of this film, and how it will end.

I think I said that I had and that I could be wrong. Right now, it's all speculation until the film comes out and we see it.

As I understand it, the Spock in this film is the same Spock that you've known for 40 years. All the episodes you've seen are the experiences and memories of the Spock in "Star Trek XI."

Which Spock? Quinto STXI Spock or Nimoy Spock? Nimoy Spock has time-traveled into the Quinto timeline, which is the same to a point, but supposedly changes into an alternative timeline. That being the case, if the original timeline is not reset or whatever one wants to call it, all that went forth from TOS-VOY is up in the air.

And just because the future is unknown at the end of a movie does not mean that it isn't an alternate timeline. At the end of "Star Trek: First Contact" they returned to an "unknown" future after changing the past twice, but we later saw that future in "Star Trek: Enterprise" and "Star Trek: Insurrection."

The point is, if the show is set in say "current time," none of us know the future. Each ep or TOS or TNG, DS9, VOY led to future eps, but since we didn't know what would happen and the future was a blank slate at that point, it didn't matter whether it was an alternative timeline or not. I won't go into my problems with Sela's existence, that's a discussion for another time.

But in this case, the future is KNOWN, TOS-VOY. So if they go to an alternate timeline, all that we've known/watched is wiped out. It's not like any other episode or movie. in First Contact, we didn't know what would happen after that movie. There weren't other shows or movies set after it that a timeline alteration would change. Same with Janeway changing the timeline. We hadn't SEEN shows afterwards which set a future. In that episode, the future was a blank slate too.

With Star Trek XI, the future ISN'T that blank slate. We had 3 years (plus the 6 movies,) of getting to know Kirk et al.

So, assuming "Star Trek XI" concludes with a stable alternate timeline, the crew will once again be going into an "unknown" future until the next movie, at which time the future will be known, just like "Star Trek: First Contact" concluded with the Enterprise-E going into an unknown future after changing the past timeline.

But no, they won't be! Three years of TOS contradicts that. We saw Kirk, Spock and all in the future, well after Star Trek XI, in TOS!

If Spock cleans up the timeline altered by Nero in "Star Trek XI," so that Kirk becomes the captain of the Enterprise, and has the same crew and the same five-year mission, then it will be exactly the same as what Picard did in "First Contact" -- he can pat himself on the back for saving the universe, then go home to a future timeline that is almost the same as the one he left.

I guess that depends. The point is, if the timeline is changed, it must lead to what we knew in TOS. I'm afraid that the temptation will be to do the, "well, we almost go it," wiping what we knew and opening the door for adventures with the new crew, unfettered by the chains of TOS history.

Creating new timelines does not "erase" other timelines -- it just introduces new historical facts into the alternate timeline that contradict facts from the other timeline. (In "Yesterday's Enterprise," Yar was alive, and the Federation was at war with the Klingons, but in the alternate timeline created at the end of that episode, Yar was dead, and the Klingons were allies. Both timelines are real; the Enterprise-D crew in the alternate timeline later met the half-Romulan daughter of the Yar from the original timeline.)

LOL. Don't get me started on Sela. You don't want to get me started. Trust me on this. I could rant for days on that. And as for creating new timelines erasing (or not erasing) the old ones, it's all speculation. We simply have no idea if time travel is possible, or what happens as a result in it. If it's possible, we might be able to damage the timeline, change it to an alternate one, or be unable to affect it. We just don't know.

Time travel stories have always been unfettered by history. That's the whole point of time travel. If Spock had gone back in time just to stand around and watch everything work out just the way he remembered it, what would be the point of that?

Time travel in "Star Trek" has always resulted in alternate timelines that are different from what characters remember, from "The City on the Edge of Forever" to TNG's "Yesterday's Enterprise" to DS9's "The Visitor" to "Voyager's" "Timeless" and "Endgame," and a dozen other episodes and movies.

And again. Every one of those ended with a black void for the next week/movie, so it didn't matter if they changed the timeline. This won't. We have the future written already when it comes to this movie. It's called Star Trek (or more conveniently to keep things clear, TOS.)

When you saw the sun explode in "Star Trek Generations" and the whole Enterprise-D crew died, were you outraged that Picard and Kirk created an alternate timeline where that didn't happen? After you invested more than 10 minutes in watching the history of that timeline, and they just went and created a whole new timeline? The only difference between "Generations" and "Star Trek XI" is that Picard went back in time 10 minutes to create a new timeline, and Spock is going back 130 years to create a new timeline. Other than the amount of time traveled, the effect is the same.

See previous comment.

I don't object to time travel, although I think it can be and has been overused in Trek as a way of telling a story. What I object to is having it used to open the door to new stories for the convenience of the reboot, and in the process wiping out what I've spent almost 40 years watching.

Now that may not happen. It's a fear of mine. And yes, I know, "Get a life!" and all. But we're all fans here, we all care about the various shows and after so long, I hate to see it messed up. Based on what I'm reading, that SEEMS to be the direction in which they're headed with this. I might be wrong. Hell, I *hope* I'm wrong. Or perhaps they've figured out a way to do this and lead to the proper future. I hope so.

I will be there opening night, as I always am, of course. But whether I go to any other films that may follow Star Trek XI, depends on what I see here. I have to admit, the films have sucked the past few times they've come out. I winced at so much of "Nemesis" and I remember beforehand the "Oh, it'll be GREAT!" cheerleading before it, just like with this movie. No one who works with a movie comes out ahead of time and says, "Oh, this sucks, but we hope you'll lay down your money anyhow."

 

[Basil]

The interesting thing to discuss here is why "our" Spock feels the need to go back in time and stop Nero. After all, if it's an alternate timeline that Nero is mucking up, then Spock has nothing to worry about, for his timeline will remain perserved.

The answers I've come to on this issue are 1) Spock isn't privy to the fact that, in destroying the Kelvin, Nero creates an alternate timeline, so there's no need to worry about his own timeline becoming corrupted.

And 2) Spock knows that Nero's actions have, indeed, created an alternate timeline... but still feels the need to go back and stop him because the fact that an "element" from his universe is screwing up another just doesn't sit well with him. In other words, he feels that stopping Nero is his responsibility.

I'm leaning toward explanation 2.

Yeah, I don't get Spock's motivation if the idea is that his original timeline continues unabated but the alternate timeline is disrupted. If quantum physics suggests that every single action at every single moment creates an alternate timeline, then the idea of "repairing" anything is simply absurd.

 

[M'Sharak]

I'm sure that it's gonna look outstanding, I just hope that They haven't created something so far out in left-field that I'm going to need one-on-one therapy with Captain April AND TGT for several months, just to make it fit with what I've considered Star Trek to be for four decades of my life.

BTW: My insurance only covers actual physical in-office treatments.

If it comes down to that, you ought to charge admission. I think the demand would be sufficient to offset any insurance-coverage shortfall for additional services and treatment required which might be incurred.

 

[cooleddie74]

Now that we can assume the original TOS through VOYAGER and NEMESIS timeline remains intact(if separate)based on Abrams' and Orci's statements I'm feeling easier about the movie now. If the original TREK lore remains in one piece in its own "original" timestream so to speak it makes the shennanigans and reboots in the new film easier to swallow.

 

[The]

Time-travel makes my brain throw-up a little bit...

 

[cooleddie74]

Like Miles O'Brien and Kathryn Janeway themselves once said: "I hate temporal mechanics."

 

[TrekGuide.com]

The E-C going through the Rift IS the Original Timeline...

The change comes about when it doesn't go back right away to be destroyed and thus, impress the Klingon's.

But the delay it seems, is also a part of the original time line and the decades of war are just a blip in the grand shceme of things.

The real alteration is the change in Tasha's time line, which then begins to alter the original time line.

You have to think of time travel in terms of causality, not chronology.

In "Yesterday's Enterprise," as I recall, the Enterprise-C was in a battle with Romulans, and a spread of photon torpedoes opened a spatial rift causing the Enterprise-C to disappear. That happened in all timelines.

The torpedoes caused the rift, and the rift caused the ship to disappear. The disappearance of the ship caused the Klingon outpost to be destroyed, and that caused the Klingons to be at war with the Federation 20 years later. So far, this chain of causality in uninterrupted, and no alternate timelines are involved.

Then the Enterprise-D encounters the Enterprise-C emerging from the rift after 20 years, and is faced with the decision whether to send it back.

Guinan, who has lived for hundreds of years, and has previously met the alternate Picard in "Time's Arrow, Part II" and in the Nexus in "Star Trek Generations," realizes that this timeline and this Picard do not match the ones she remembers, so she tells Picard to send the ship back in time to alter the past.

Guinan's advice causes Picard to send Yar and the Enterprise-C back in time, and that travel into the past causes a new chain of events, where Yar is captured by the Romulans and has a half-Romulan daughter, and the Klingons do not go to war with the Federation, and Worf is a Starfleet officer.

So this is the timeline we see at the beginning and end of "Yesterday's Enterprise." Nothing in this "Lt. Worf" timeline caused the "Lt. Yar" timeline (unless you count Guinan's awareness of its existence). Rather, it was Picard's decision, during the war with the Klingons, that caused the Enterprise-C to go back in time and create a new timeline where Worf would join Starfleet and Yar would be killed by the tar monster.

(Conversely, there is no chain of events in the "Lt Worf" timeline that would have caused the "Lt. Yar" timeline to be created, so it cannot have been the original timeline. It was only the fact that the Enterprise-C returned from the original future, with Lt. Yar aboard, that caused history to be changed, and that change resulted in the timeline we have seen in every other TNG episode, with Lt. Worf on the Enterprise-D.)

So the disappearance of the Enterprise-C did not cause an alternate timeline, since that event would have happened the same way in all timelines. The only event that caused a change in history was the Enterprise-C returning to the past, which was caused by Picard's decision 20 years in the future.

Yes, before "Yesterday's Enterprise" aired, we had seen 60 other TNG episodes set in that new timeline, where future-Yar had already come back and had a half-Romulan daughter. But just because you saw this timeline first chronologically, and in fact the "Lt. Worf" timeline appeared at the beginning and the end of "Yesterday's Enterprise," that doesn't mean that anything in this timeline caused the Klingon war in the "Lt. Yar" timeline.

The string of causality shows that the "Lt. Yar" timeline was the natural course of history, and only by sending the Enterprise-C back in time were any changes in the timeline created.

You just have to ask yourself, "What caused what to happen?" not, "What did I see happen first?"

 

[Kaziarl]

The E-C going through the Rift IS the Original Timeline...

The change comes about when it doesn't go back right away to be destroyed and thus, impress the Klingon's.

But the delay it seems, is also a part of the original time line and the decades of war are just a blip in the grand shceme of things.

The real alteration is the change in Tasha's time line, which then begins to alter the original time line.

You have to think of time travel in terms of causality, not chronology.

In "Yesterday's Enterprise," as I recall, the Enterprise-C was in a battle with Romulans, and a spread of photon torpedoes opened a spatial rift causing the Enterprise-C to disappear. That happened in all timelines.

The torpedoes caused the rift, and the rift caused the ship to disappear. The disappearance of the ship caused the Klingon outpost to be destroyed, and that caused the Klingons to be at war with the Federation 20 years later. So far, this chain of causality in uninterrupted, and no alternate timelines are involved.

Then the Enterprise-D encounters the Enterprise-C emerging from the rift after 20 years, and is faced with the decision whether to send it back.

Guinan, who has lived for hundreds of years, and has previously met the alternate Picard in "Time's Arrow, Part II" and in the Nexus in "Star Trek Generations," realizes that this timeline and this Picard do not match the ones she remembers, so she tells Picard to send the ship back in time to alter the past.

Guinan's advice causes Picard to send Yar and the Enterprise-C back in time, and that travel into the past causes a new chain of events, where Yar is captured by the Romulans and has a half-Romulan daughter, and the Klingons do not go to war with the Federation, and Worf is a Starfleet officer.

So this is the timeline we see at the beginning and end of "Yesterday's Enterprise." Nothing in this "Lt. Worf" timeline caused the "Lt. Yar" timeline (unless you count Guinan's awareness of its existence). Rather, it was Picard's decision, during the war with the Klingons, that caused the Enterprise-C to go back in time and create a new timeline where Worf would join Starfleet and Yar would be killed by the tar monster.

(Conversely, there is no chain of events in the "Lt Worf" timeline that would have caused the "Lt. Yar" timeline to be created, so it cannot have been the original timeline. It was only the fact that the Enterprise-C returned from the original future, with Lt. Yar aboard, that caused history to be changed, and that change resulted in the timeline we have seen in every other TNG episode, with Lt. Worf on the Enterprise-D.)

So the disappearance of the Enterprise-C did not cause an alternate timeline, since that event would have happened the same way in all timelines. The only event that caused a change in history was the Enterprise-C returning to the past, which was caused by Picard's decision 20 years in the future.

Yes, before "Yesterday's Enterprise" aired, we had seen 60 other TNG episodes set in that new timeline, where future-Yar had already come back and had a half-Romulan daughter. But just because you saw this timeline first chronologically, and in fact the "Lt. Worf" timeline appeared at the beginning and the end of "Yesterday's Enterprise," that doesn't mean that anything in this timeline caused the Klingon war in the "Lt. Yar" timeline.

The string of causality shows that the "Lt. Yar" timeline was the natural course of history, and only by sending the Enterprise-C back in time were any changes in the timeline created.

You just have to ask yourself, "What caused what to happen?" not, "What did I see happen first?"

You said my words better then I could, thank you. Time itself is linear. Tomorrow becomes today, today becomes yesterday. Thats the normal course of events. You add time travel, and temporal anomalies, today becomes tomorrow, tomorrow becomes yesterday, and last week becomes next month. It's not a straight line. It's more like one of those spiralgraphs I used to play with.

 

[AlanC9]

Star Trek fans complaining about the "Canon-violating" ridgehead Klingons of TMP maked absolutely sense back then, I guess.

I mean, until 1978 everybody was convinced that Klingons were supposed to look like this. Period.

Actually, the TOS makeup jobs are pretty inconsistent themselves. Though that just means Klingons have ethnic variety.

 

[AlanC9]

Yeah, I don't get Spock's motivation if the idea is that his original timeline continues unabated but the alternate timeline is disrupted. If quantum physics suggests that every single action at every single moment creates an alternate timeline, then the idea of "repairing" anything is simply absurd.

Well, Spock can create a new timeline where he interferes with the interference. So he's just made a brand-new universe.

But multiple timelines don't make any sense for ENT -- if you can't destroy an opposing timeline then you can't fight a temporal war. Therefore, at least some time technologies do replace the original timeline.

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

Star Trek fans complaining about the "Canon-violating" ridgehead Klingons of TMP maked absolutely sense back then, I guess.

I mean, until 1978 everybody was convinced that Klingons were supposed to look like this. Period.

Actually, the TOS makeup jobs are pretty inconsistent themselves. Though that just means Klingons have ethnic variety.

That's fine...but how do you explain the differences in the way Worf looked as the series progressed:
http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/s1/1x05/lastoutpost046.jpg
and
http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/s6/6x05/schisms016.jpg
(credit trekcore.com for the photos)

I have no problem with them deciding to change Worf's makeup after the first season -- heck, it's only a TV show. But this goes to show that not every inconsistency has (or needs) an "in-universe" explanation.