2. Through all the "Star Trek" series, there have been at least two dozen distinct and mutually exclusive timelines (not even including the self-fulfilling causality loops). For example, in TNG's "Yesterday's Enterprise," it depicted the original timeline where the Federation was at war with the Klingons; Picard's decision to send the Enterprise-C back in time to save a Klingon outpost created the alternate timeline that we see in every other TNG episode, where Worf serves in Starfleet and the Klingons are allies.
? No the original timeline was the one where Worf serves in Starfleet. The timelibe changed when the Enterprise C was removed from the past where it had tried to save a klingon outpost.
You've got it backwards. The Enterprise-C wasn't "removed" by anyone. It disappeared into a spatial rift formed by torpedoes during its fight with the Romulans. The torpedoes caused the rift, the rift caused the Enterprise-C to vanish, which caused the Klingons to be at war with the Federation 20 years later. No time travel or alternate timelines were involved, until Picard decided to send Yar and the Enterprise-C back in time to change the past. The re-appearance of the Enterprise-C in the past was the point of divergence that changed the timeline, leading to Worf joining Starfleet. That divergence in history was
caused by Picard sending Yar and the Enterprise-C back in time from the original timeline to create this new "Lt. Worf" timeline. (The Enterprise-C disappearing did not cause any changes in any timeline, because that was the natural course of events in all timelines.)
Although I would say that an alternate timeline was created when Tasha joined the Crew of the Enterprise C and Sela was born.
That's exactly what I've been saying. That alternate timeline, which you just agreed exists, is depicted in
every TNG episode other than "Yesterday's Enterprise."
The final episode of "Voyager" depicted Admiral Janeway creating a new timeline where the U.S.S. Voyager got back to Earth 20 years early. This alternate timeline was continued in the movie "Star Trek: Nemesis," as evidenced by Admiral Janeway's appearance in that film (when the Voyager and Captain Janeway would still be trapped in the Delta Quadrant for another 20 years in the "original" timeline).
No arguments with that one except that it's not an alternate timeline but the same one. It's the same situation as the new movie. Technology is changed or updated.
How can you start a sentence with "No arguments" and then say the exact opposite of what I just said? In "Endgame," the Voyager was trapped in the Delta Quadrant for 20 years. After Janeway got back to Earth, she used a Klingon time machine to go back in time and create a new, alternate, different timeline, where the Voyager got back to Earth immediately. "Star Trek: Nemesis" took place in this new, alternate, different timeline, because we see Admiral Janeway in that movie (when in the original timeline, Janeway and the Voyager would still be in the Delta Quadrant for another 20 years during the events of "Nemesis").
How can you possibly say they're the same timeline? In one timeline, Janeway is a captain in the Delta Quadrant, and in the other timeline, Janeway is an Admiral at Starfleet Command. At the same time. They are mutually exclusive.
Just like in "Star Trek Generations," in the original timeline, the sun exploded and everyone on the Enterprise-D died. Then Picard and Kirk went back before the sun exploded and prevented it, and everyone on the Enterprise-D did NOT die. Again, these two timelines are mutually exclusive. They cannot be the same timeline.
I think we are arguing over the definition of the word "timeline" -- you are using it do describe the Trek canon (the chain of events seen in all of the episodes and movies, in the order they were seen).
Chronology is not the same as causality.
Had the filming point-of-view of "Star Trek Generations" continued in the original timeline, then we would have seen the sun explode, everyone on the Enterprise-D would be dead, and they would be mourned and a whole new Starfleet crew would need to be assembled years later when an Enterprise-E is built. However, since the movie's cameras followed Picard into the Nexus, then followed him into the alternate past, we saw him prevent the events that we already saw in the original timeline, creating a new sequence of events.
This is what I mean when I say "timeline" -- a series of events following a single line of causality (i.e., event A causes event B, which causes event C, etc.). When you travel back in time, say, to after event A, then you cause event X to happen instead of event B. You have left the timeline defined by events A-B-C-D, and have now entered timeline A-X-Y-Z. A timeline is defined by the set of events that cause other events.
If you go back in time 10 minutes and shoot your younger self in the head, you're obviously creating a new timeline. You came from a timeline where you were still alive, and now you're in a timeline where you're lying in a pool of blood. That's two timelines. Different timelines. Alternate timelines. Not the same timeline. When I say "timeline," that's the situation I'm describing.
You are talking about time travel in terms of a predestination paradox, which was best illustrated in TNG's "Time's Arrow," where they found Data's head in a cave, then Data later went to the past and lost his head, which would later be found in the cave. Obviously, the time travel in that episode did not create an alternate timeline, but rather was part of a causality loop, where future events caused past events, which in turn led to the same future events. So it would be acurate to say all events happened in the same timeline, since history was never changed.
The argument could be made (and you did make it) that "Star Trek: First Contact" was a causality loop, where past events caused the Borg and Enterprise-E to go back in time, which caused events that would eventually cause the Borg and Enterprise-E to go back in time.
But we did, in fact, see the alternate timeline, where the Borg had assimilated Earth, before the Enterprise-E went back in time. In terms of causality, that timeline resulted from the Borg going back alone, killing Cochrane, and assimilating Earth. That timeline was changed when Picard made the decision to go back and stop the Borg, thus creating a third alternate timeline, which was either similar or identical to Picard's original history (depending whether those events were a predestination paradox like "Time's Arrow" or an alternate history like "Yesterday's Enterprise").
My point is that each of the last five "Star Trek" movies has taken place in a different timeline from the one before it. It makes no sense to criticize the "Star Trek XI" writers for this, when it has already been going on in the four previous films (whether the writers were aware of it or not).
In fact there is nothing, absolutly nothing to say that any of the last 5 movies took place in an alternate or new timeline.
Well, it's debatable whether "First Contact" was a predestination paradox, but in "Star Trek Generations," we saw Picard go back in time and create a new, different, alternate timeline with different events than the timeline he came from. Obviously the movie ended in a different timeline than the one in which the sun exploded and killed everyone on the Enterprise-D. And we saw in "Endgame" that Admiral Janeway created a new, different, alternate timeline with different events than the timeline she came from, and the Admiral Janeway from that new, different, alternate timeline appeared in "Star Trek: Nemesis." So it is clear that "Generations" and "Nemesis" were in two different timelines, and "First Contact" and "Insurrection" were at least in the alternate timeline created in "Generations."
There is no "official" "Star Trek" timeline.
There is one canon timeline that has tied all of the episodes and movies together. The new movie will not be tied to them.
No, the Trek canon (the continuity of all episodes you have seen on TV or at the theater) is a chronology, not a timeline. The chronology, or canon, is the order in which you saw the episodes; it is the point of view of the cameras following certain crew members on certain ships in certain timelines.
However, a "timeline" is defined as the causality of a sequence of events, regardless of whether a TV camera is recording those events, or whether those events take place in chronological order. There is only one timeline, where events happen only once, UNTIL someone goes back in time and changes those events, so that they happen differently than they did before. Then you have created an alternate timeline. That's what Picard and Kirk did in "Generations," that's what Picard and Yar did in "Yesterday's Enterprise," and that's what Admiral Janeway did in "Endgame." And, based on the plot details released so far, that's exactly what Spock and Nero will do in "Star Trek XI." If you thought "Yesterday's Enterprise" was a good episode, then you should also enjoy "Star Trek XI," since they both involve going back and changing events to create a new timeline.
Those are good examples of DIVERGENT Time Lines, but they are not considered to be THE Time Line by everyone.
I think there is confusion over the word "timeline" here. Most casual viewers think of all "Star Trek" episodes as linear, one episode leading to the next. But that progression of episodes isn't "The" timeline; it is "the canon" -- the chronology of episodes and movies in the order they aired."
A timeline is defined by a string of causality. From "Yesterday's Enterprise" we saw Lt. Yar go back in time on the Enterprise-C to change the past, which caused her half-Romulan daughter to be born in that new timeline. But just because you saw all those events on your same television doesn't mean they're all part of the same timeline. It's just that TNG, as a TV series, followed the point of view of Lt. Yar from one timeline to another.
Likewise, in "Generations," when the sun exploded, and everyone on the Enterprise-D died, and Picard disappeared into the Nexus, the cameras could have continued to show that timeline, where Riker, Troi, Data,
et. al, were all dead, the planet was destroyed, and Picard would never be seen again. There would still be a DS9 and a Voyager, but the crew of the Enterprise-E would be different. However, the cameras instead followed Picard into the Nexus, then followed him into the past, where he created a new, different, alternate timeline, in which the sun did not explode. (Why didn't Picard meet his younger self when he went to the past? That's a topic for a whole different thread.)
The point is, what you think of as "the official timeline" in "Star Trek Generations" is really just Picard's point of view as he moves from one timeline, into the Nexus, and then into an alternate timeline where events are changed.
That is Picard's personal chronology, not "the official timeline." Timelines are defined by the chain of events that cause other events, not by the order in which one person remembers the events happening.
Yes, "Star Trek" has depicted many causality loops, where an act of time travel is part of an endless a chain of events that cause themselves to happen. In such predestination paradoxes, there is no free will, no one changes the past, everything happens only once, in only a single timeline.
However, "Star Trek" has also depicted many acts of time travel that led to alternate realities, or parallel universes, or divergent timelines, or whatever you want to call them, where at the same time, the same event happens two different ways:
In "Yesterday's Enterprise," the Federation was at war with the Klingons, then it wasn't. In "Endgame," the Voyager was lost in the Delta Quadrant for 20 years, then it wasn't. In "Parallels," Worf's birthday cake was chocolate, then it wasn't. In "Timeless," the Voyager crew was dead after crashing on an icy planet, then it wasn't. In "Generations," the Enterprise-D crew was dead after the sun expolded, then it wasn't.
All of these alternate, different, divergent, parallel timelines are equally real, and they all exist. None is more "official" than any other. It's just that the cameras filming the "Star Trek" series follow the points of view of specific characters moving from one timeline to another, and we as viewers are sympathetic to those characters' motivations for changing the past, so we tend to think that the new timelines they create are the "correct" or "official" timeline, and we just don't care any more about the timelines they left.
Because the "Star Trek" cameras in "Yesterday's Enterprise" followed Tasha Yar and the Enterprise-C into the new timeline, and stayed there for the rest of the series, we tend to think of that new timeline as the "official" or "true" or "real" one. But the cameras could just as easily have stayed in Lt. Yar's timeline, where the Klingons likely would have destroyed the Enterprise-D after she left, and the Federation would have lost the war, and DS9 and Bajor might have become Klingon outposts. But since no cameras were filming episodes in this timeline, we as TV viewers think it was just a "temporary" timeline. But just because we only saw 40 minutes of TV footage set in that timeline, does not mean that the timeline only existed for 40 minutes. That timeline had existed for billions of years, and would continue to exist for billions more; we just stopped caring about it after 40 minutes.
