Orci on Start Trek, timelines, canon and everything (SPOILERS)

[lawman]

I find diagrams can be helpful when time travel is involved, and I look at it like this: imagine the timeline (relevant to this episode) as a "Y". Things are flowing unbroken up until the branching point, which is the ENT-C's battle with the Romulans.

At that moment, things go two ways: (1) the ENT-C disappears into the future, the Klingons get angry, and a war results; (2) the ENT-C sacrifices itself in battle, the Klingons are impressed, and no war results.

Branch (1) is the one experienced for the bulk of the episode. Branch (2) is the one we know from TNG episodes before and after this one.

But, again, everything has to be caused by something. What would cause a single timeline to branch off into a "Y"?

I think we could argue about the proposition that "everything has to be caused by something," both in a larger ontological sense and in the specific linear-causation sense that you seem to be implying here.

But to keep it relatively simple, let's just look at the obvious thing about the branching point: either the anomaly opens up and the ENT-C disappears... or it doesn't. Options 1 and 2, again. "2" is the one we're more familiar with, and self-evidently the one more likely to occur in any stable universe. Still, whatever may have "caused" option 1 is kind of beside the point (and certainly a photon torpedo battle by itself is not ordinarily sufficient to produce such results); all we really need to know is that in one line of probability, it does indeed happen.

(My answer... The Enterprise-C always had fought the Romulans, always fired torpedoes, and always had created the rift, which always sucked it into the future.)

See, that's where I think you're making an unwarranted assumption. In fact, I don't think the word "always" even applies here, since it implies a definite before-and-after chronology that can't actually be imposed. The outcomes are parallel but mutually exclusive, and each is equally valid.

From the episode, it would seem that the only branching point forming a "Y" in the timeline would be AFTER the Enterprise-C returns from the future (or fails to return -- those are the two branches of the "Y").

IF one accepts your proposition that it "always" disappears, then this would logically follow... but it's hairsplitting, really, since it's still the same moment.

But the branch of the "Y" where the Enterprise-C fails to return (resulting in the Klingon war) is the branch where the Enterprise-C pops out of the rift 20 years later, and from which future Yar comes from.

Are you proposing an outcome where it merely disappears, but doesn't "pop out" in the future? I see no evidence for that. It is possible to imagine an outcome where it "pops out" but doesn't return, and thus the "war" timeline (branch A) continues to exist rather than sealing itself off, but again that's entirely speculative. (Indeed, IMHO that would represent a second branching, 20 years later than the first.)

And from that future, the Enterprise-C is sent back to the branching point, thus CREATING the other branch, in which Yar is captured, has a half-Romulan daughter, and Worf joins Starfleet.

What I'm disputing here is the way you're using the word "creating." I would agree only insofar as the chain of events anomalously allows Tasha of branch 1 (and thus later Sela) to survive in branch 2. Call it 2B. (But that's really no different than any time-traveler visiting the past and then living on into a future different from what he/she recalls.)

Therefore, the timeline branch would more resemble a "4" than a "Y," because the two branches are not spontaneously created at once -- the existence of one causes the existence of the other. They only seem spontaneous because they are simultaneous.

Listen to yourself. You're proposing a scenario in which events are simultaneous (on which I agree), and yet (somehow!) don't happen "at once," because one "causes" the other. That's a logical pretzel. Isn't it simpler (Occam's Razor) merely to suppose a timeline split, a quantum branching, in which the anomaly both does and doesn't appear?

At any rate, we're arguing over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin here. If it's important to you to see the "war" timeline as "first," the fact remains that it seals itself off and continues from a moment 20 years in its own past. The important point to keep in mind, IMHO, is that however one cares to parse the causation, from the narrative point of view the Star Trek timeline flows unbroken through that branching point and forward along one particular path... just as it does at all other such branching points in the canon. (We've occasionally been shown the "alternatives," but never for so long as to get attached to one or mistake it for the primary.) There is no point at which the timeline incontrovertibly backs up and starts in a different direction, like what we're being told happens in this movie.

 

[trekkerguy]

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

...2. Nothing is required to keep things synchronized at all. If the amount of parallel universe that exist is large enough, then no matter how small the chance this particular combination occurs, the chance of it existing is exactly 1. If the sample size is large enough, it MUST exist, it cannot NOT exist...

True. It's the old Infinte Monkey Theorum that states "a monkey hitting keys at random on a computer keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely be able to type the complete works of Shakespeare.

If there are an infinite number of universes, then there is almost surely one other universe besides our own in which Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, and Uhura are all beaming up from the Halken world at the exact same moment as their "Mirror" counterparts.

The only problem with your applying the Infinite Universe Theory to 'Mirror Mirror' is that it is an ad-hoc explanation -- and the Infinite Universe Theory probably was NOT the intent of the writers.

No...it's just as easy for me to tell myself "the writers want me to believe this Mirror Universe is exactly like ours except for the evil and the goatees, so I will". I could suspend my disbelief and enjoy 'Mirror Mirror' without resorting to the Infinite Universe theory to explain how it could exist. If the writers tell me it can exist, then it can exist. No further explanation is required.

 

[trekkerguy]

^^^ But it is still kinda cool to know it could actually happen in real life/science.

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

^
^^ So in one of the infinite universe out there, the MUST be one in which I am having intimate relations with Scarlett Johansson on a regular basis.

...but also another universe exists where I am doing the same with Rosie O'Donnell.

 

[TrekGuide.com]

If you think about the odds of any individual person EXISTING AT ALL in the Mirror Universe (let alone doing the same thing at the same place at the same time), it is quite clear that the laws of causality cannot operate the same in both universes.

We have seen that both universes have a Zefram Cochrane, and a Jonathan Archer, a James Kirk, and a Benjamin Sisko, in four different centuries. The genetic likelihood of that happening in two universes with wildly different events, personalities, and histories is approximately zero.

1. We follow only those people important to the story, so it doesn't strictly require to be billions, strictly speaking, it requires only those people on the screen, and their direct ancestors until the splitting point.

Well, obviously the whole contrivance of the Mirror Universe is to have the same actors play the same characters in both universe, so the producers don't have to pay any guest actors.

But if you think of how each person comes to exist at the atomic level, and how millions of sperm each have a different genetic code, then it would have to be a monumental coincidence for the same exact sperm to fertilize the same exact egg in two different universes to create the same exact person with the same exact ancestors. So, millions of ancestors would have to be the same throughout history, even though history is different, to produce the same person in both universes. And that would also be true of every other person we see in both universes.

Even if you're saying that there are an infinite number of Mirror Universes, and an infinite number of Federation Universes, it is still unlikely that all the same people would be alive in two universes, let alone all end up as crew members on the same ship at the same time, and happen to be beaming up from the same planet at the same time.

It's one thing to show in "Parallels" that in two different realities, Worf could be having a birthday party on the Enterprise-D at the same time. The Mirror Universe isn't just a depiction of one of infinite parallel timelines, it is a depiction of an "opposite" timeline, but one which has the same people with the same DNA over many centuries.

In other words, in each of the infinite timelines depicted in "Parallels," if you go 400 years into the future, none of the same people would still be alive in more than one universe, due to the butterfly effect. Today, Worf's cake is chocolate instead of yellow, but that one difference will snowball over 400 years so that the whole history of the Galaxy is different, and no two people will conceive the same child with the same DNA at the same moment. The farther you go into the future in an alternate timeline, the greater the differences will be, especially differences in sensitive and delicate "random" matters, such as rolling dice, or a single sperm fertilizing a single egg in a single second.

But the butterfly effect does not apply to the Mirror Universe, since we have seen characters in four different centuries who are identical genetically to characters in the Federation Universe. Rather than differences in the two timelines snowballing, becoming greater, we continue to see the same people being born to the same parents at the same time over four different centuries, while everything else in the universe is different.

(Again, it is "caused" by the producers wanting to have the same actors playing roles in both universes, so they don't have to pay new actors, so I guess it's kind of silly to argue over the "logic" of Mirror Universe genetics.)

What chain of events would cause the Enterprise-C NOT to fire torpedoes at the Romulans, and NOT form a spatial rift, which does NOT pull it into the future? (My answer: None. The Enterprise-C always had fought the Romulans, always fired torpedoes, and always had created the rift, which always sucked it into the future.)

From the episode, it would seem that the only branching point forming a "Y" in the timeline would be AFTER the Enterprise-C returns from the future (or fails to return -- those are the two branches of the "Y"). But the branch of the "Y" where the Enterprise-C fails to return (resulting in the Klingon war) is the branch where the Enterprise-C pops out of the rift 20 years later, and from which future Yar comes from. And from that future, the Enterprise-C is sent back to the branching point, thus CREATING the other branch, in which Yar is captured, has a half-Romulan daughter, and Worf joins Starfleet.

Therefore, the timeline branch would more resemble a "4" than a "Y," because the two branches are not spontaneously created at once -- the existence of one causes the existence of the other. They only seem spontaneous because they are simultaneous.

In other words, the timeline in which there are two Yars must logically come AFTER the timeline where there is only one Yar (speaking causally, not chronologically).

No. Since when do exploding torpedoes cause temporal rifts?

I think they said explicitly in the episode that the rift was opened by a spread of photon torpedoes during the Enterprise-C's battle with the Romulans. We certainly didn't see Picard and the Enterprise-D do anything to open the rift in the future.

This requires that something else is there, something unique, almost certainly something temporal, that was a catalyst for the rift to form.

Yes, perhaps the rift was always there, and it took the exploding torpedoes to open it. In fact, I think Worf saw the rift briefly in his timeline, but the Enterprise-C never emerged in that timeline. But if the same rift existed in all timelines, then its mere existence could not have been the cause of divergent timelines.

However, Picard and Yar intentionally sending the Enterprise-C back in time to change history did, undeniably, change history.

If this something temporal has its origin in the future, then there might have been a timeline where there was never a rift, and the Enterprise-C never came to the future. In fact, this is exactly how the episode plays it.

In fact, if you look things through down to the nitty gritty, it could even be, that there was a timeline with only one Yar.

Yes, there is only one timeline until such a time as a time rift is created in the future and causes changes to the past. But since the rift connected the future where Lt. Yar was alive and there was a Klingon war to the point where the Enterprise-C detonated torpedoes in the battle with the Romulans, then the rift must have originated in the original future -- the one where the Feds were at war with the Klingons.

We saw in the episode where each end of the temproal rift led. And neither end led to a universe where there was no rift. So the rift is a constant in all timelines. The only difference is whether Picard decided to send the Enterprise-C back or not.

The same rift remained open the entire time, and the Enterprise-C (with Lt. Yar aboard) returned through the same rift to its same past timeline where it had disappeared from. So there were only two timelines depicted in that episode, and the rift connected both of them. And both timelines were identical up until the point where Lt. Yar went back in time on the Enterprise-C to create the new timeline.

Since we saw the rift in all timelines, you can't argue that there was a timeline where there was no rift. (Yes, you could cite "Parallels" to show that there could be an infinite number of universes where there was or wasn't a rift, or the rift could have been yellow instead of blue, etc., but within the logic and storyline of "Yesterday's Enterprise," the fact is that a temporal rift linked two time periods, and people in all time periods saw the rift, so the hypothetical conjecture of "what if there were never a rift" is just that -- conjecture -- since no part of the episode, or any other episode, depicted a universe in which there was no temporal rift.)

Yes, in a hypothetical timeline where there never was a temporal rift, then there would be no Klingon war, Lt. Worf would join Starfleet, and Yar might be killed by a tar monster. But in this hypothetical timeline, nothing would ever create a temporal rift, so there would be no time-traveling Yar on the Enterprise-C, and she would never have a half-Romulan daughter. Obviously, this hypothetical no-rift timeline is not the one depicted in "Yesterday's Enterprise" or any other episode, since a timeline with no rift could not lead to events created by the existence of a rift.

If you're saying that the first two minutes of "Yesterday's Enterprise" depicted the "original" timeline, then that would mean that Picard and Worf on the Enterprise-D did something to prevent the Enterprise-C from going back in time, thus creating the Lt. Yar timeline. But even if that's true, then that would just mean that there's a third timeline with a temporal rift. It still doesn't depict any timeline where there is NO rift.

 

[TrekGuide.com]

And from that future, the Enterprise-C is sent back to the branching point, thus CREATING the other branch, in which Yar is captured, has a half-Romulan daughter, and Worf joins Starfleet.

What I'm disputing here is the way you're using the word "creating." I would agree only insofar as the chain of events anomalously allows Tasha of branch 1 (and thus later Sela) to survive in branch 2. Call it 2B. (But that's really no different than any time-traveler visiting the past and then living on into a future different from what he/she recalls.)

That's exactly my point. In "Yesterday's Enterprise," when Yar went back on the Enterprise-C, she created a NEW timeline and continued to live in it. Just like in "Star Trek Generations" when Picard used the Nexus to go back in time and create a NEW timeline where the Enterprise-D crew did NOT die, and the sun did NOT explode, and he did NOT enter the Nexus. Just like in "Endgame" and "Star Trek: Nemesis," when Admiral Janeway went back in time and created a NEW timeline where the Voyager got back to Earth 20 years earlier. These are all alternate timelines (as opposed to the "original" timeline), but we, as TV viewers, "care" about these timelines created by time travelers, while we don't "care" about the original timelines the time travelers came from, since the "Star Trek" series does not depict those "original" timelines from week to week.

Therefore, the timeline branch would more resemble a "4" than a "Y," because the two branches are not spontaneously created at once -- the existence of one causes the existence of the other. They only seem spontaneous because they are simultaneous.

Listen to yourself. You're proposing a scenario in which events are simultaneous (on which I agree), and yet (somehow!) don't happen "at once," because one "causes" the other. That's a logical pretzel.

Yes! I'm proposing a Logical Pretzel™! You've brilliantly summed up in two words what I wasted thousands of words trying to explain.

A pretzel has a beginning and an end, and is essentially a one-dimensional, linear object, which happens to loop back on itself. That is a perfect illustration of the Enterprise-C's journey through time, first looping through one timeline, where it picked up Lt. Yar, then circling back to the same point again and continuing on into another timeline.

Isn't it simpler (Occam's Razor) merely to suppose a timeline split, a quantum branching, in which the anomaly both does and doesn't appear?

Well, that's the plot of "Parallels," where new timelines "branch" for no reason, just to have many different timelines. While this is certainly simpler, that's not the point of "Yesterday's Enterprise," which was explicitly about deciding whether to go back in time and whether to change the past or not, and whether to create a new timeline or not. The characters decided to create a new timeline, and they successfully executed that decision, so it wasn't just a spontaneous quantum split of a timeline.

The important point to keep in mind, IMHO, is that however one cares to parse the causation, from the narrative point of view the Star Trek timeline flows unbroken through that branching point and forward along one particular path... just as it does at all other such branching points in the canon. (We've occasionally been shown the "alternatives," but never for so long as to get attached to one or mistake it for the primary.)

Well, that's my point, too. When time travelers in "Star Trek" go back in time, we usually continue to follow the time traveler into the past and we "care" about the new timeline because the time traveler is someone we "care" about. (They have a motivation to change their past, and we, as TV viewers, tend to sympathize with that motivation.) It's all subjective -- it's the point of view of the cameras showing us one timeline rather than an infinite number of equally real timelines.

There is no point at which the timeline incontrovertibly backs up and starts in a different direction, like what we're being told happens in this movie.

I think with that last sentence you just negated your own argument. Starting the timeline in a different direction is ALWAYS the point of changing the past. (At least in "Star Trek Generations," "Yesterday's Enterprise," "Endgame," and a half dozen other episodes -- excluding causality loops like "Times Arrow" and "Parallax.)

The story starts from a (usually) unpleasant future in the "original" timeline, a time traveler decides to go back in time and change something, thus creating a whole new timeline different from the one the time traveler remembers. Then the "Star Trek" series keeps its cameras in that NEW timeline, showing the results of the changes made by the time traveler.

This is what happened with Lt. Yar in "Yesterday's Enterprise," it's what happened with Picard in "Star Trek Generations," it's what happened with Admiral Janeway in "Endgame"/"Star Trek: Nemesis," and it's what happens with Nero in "Star Trek XI." In all cases, the story follows the time traveler into the past, where the story unfolds in a new, different direction from what the time traveler remembers.

Granted, in the case of Nero, the time traveler is the villain (more like the Borg in "Star Trek: First Contact"), but mechanically the plot is the same as any other time travel story in "Star Trek." It's just that in "Yesterday's Enterprise" and "Endgame," the time traveler went back in time 20 or 30 years, and in "Star Trek Generations" the time traveler went back in time 20 or 30 minutes, and in "Star Trek XI," the time traveler is going back about 150 years.

Yes, in "Yesterday's Enterprise" we saw Lt. Yar's original timeline for about 40 minutes of screen time. In "Star Trek Generations" we spent about 10 minutes of screen time in Picard's original timeline where the planet was destroyed and he entered the Nexus. In "Endgame" we spent about 30 minutes in Admiral Janeway's original timeline. And in "Star Trek XI" we have spent about 750 episodes and movies of screen time in Nero and Spock's original timeline. But the difference is just the amount of time spent watching a series of events on our TVs. It's subjective.

In terms of logic and causality, the new movie is not doing anything different from other time travel stories in "Star Trek." The only difference is our emotional reaction to it, since, for the first time in a time travel story, we care more about the timeline the time traveler is coming from than we do about the new timeline the time traveler is creating.

 

[3D Master]

The only problem with your applying the Infinite Universe Theory to 'Mirror Mirror' is that it is an ad-hoc explanation -- and the Infinite Universe Theory probably was NOT the intent of the writers.

No...it's just as easy for me to tell myself "the writers want me to believe this Mirror Universe is exactly like ours except for the evil and the goatees, so I will". I could suspend my disbelief and enjoy 'Mirror Mirror' without resorting to the Infinite Universe theory to explain how it could exist. If the writers tell me it can exist, then it can exist. No further explanation is required.

Actually "I'm" not applying anything; especially if you take in the following option I wrote which you didn't quote. "The Mirror Universe just is", is my point, in fact. Trekguide's need to explain it, and then doing so by invoking an unseen ghostly force that keeps them "synchronized" is really the one (unnecessarily by my reckoning) applying ad hoc explanations to the Mirror Universe.

 

[trekkerguy]

...and then doing so by invoking an unseen ghostly force...

Also known as logic.

 

[3D Master]

I think they said explicitly in the episode that the rift was opened by a spread of photon torpedoes during the Enterprise-C's battle with the Romulans. We certainly didn't see Picard and the Enterprise-D do anything to open the rift in the future.

No, that was just them speculating.

This requires that something else is there, something unique, almost certainly something temporal, that was a catalyst for the rift to form.

Yes, perhaps the rift was always there, and it took the exploding torpedoes to open it. In fact, I think Worf saw the rift briefly in his timeline, but the Enterprise-C never emerged in that timeline.

Because THAT timeline was CHANGED the moment the E-C came to the future.

But if the same rift existed in all timelines, then its mere existence could not have been the cause of divergent timelines.

But then, there aren't any divergent timelines. There's one timeline that gets changed twice throughout that episode.

However, Picard and Yar intentionally sending the Enterprise-C back in time to change history did, undeniably, change history.

And for the most part, sets it back to what it was at the very beginning of that episode.

If this something temporal has its origin in the future, then there might have been a timeline where there was never a rift, and the Enterprise-C never came to the future. In fact, this is exactly how the episode plays it.

In fact, if you look things through down to the nitty gritty, it could even be, that there was a timeline with only one Yar.

Yes, there is only one timeline until such a time as a time rift is created in the future and causes changes to the past. But since the rift connected the future where Lt. Yar was alive and there was a Klingon war to the point where the Enterprise-C detonated torpedoes in the battle with the Romulans, then the rift must have originated in the original future -- the one where the Feds were at war with the Klingons.[/quote]

Nope. First of all, we already know it's not the original future, the original future is the future where the Klingons and the Federation are allies, we see this timeline for 2 seasons, and the beginning of this episode, and we see this timeline get changed because the E-C traveled to the future, disappearing from its present.

We saw in the episode where each end of the temproal rift led. And neither end led to a universe where there was no rift. So the rift is a constant in all timelines.

Of course not!

The rift can NOT lead to any universe where there was no rift, because the moment the rift leads there, there's a rift, whether the rift was there before it led there or not, doesn't matter to this.

It also means it is NOT a constant in all timelines. It simply means that the timeline that had no rift, is ERASED the moment that rift forms.

The only difference is whether Picard decided to send the Enterprise-C back or not.

No, the difference is the E-C not completing what it set out to do, disappearing from its present, thus changing the timeline to one where the Federation and the Klingons are at war, as we see occurring at the beginning of the episode.

The same rift remained open the entire time, and the Enterprise-C (with Lt. Yar aboard) returned through the same rift to its same past timeline where it had disappeared from. So there were only two timelines depicted in that episode, and the rift connected both of them. And both timelines were identical up until the point where Lt. Yar went back in time on the Enterprise-C to create the new timeline.

You don't know there were only two timelines depicted. There could have been three; namely that peaceful timeline we saw change at the very beginning that got changed to one of war, could be a different timeline than the one with Yar in it, we see at the end.

But even if this is not the case, and there simply was never a timeline where there was only one Yar; it still doesn't mean that the war timeline is the original timeline.

Since we saw the rift in all timelines, you can't argue that there was a timeline where there was no rift.

That's wrong. We never saw the original E-C's past, so we don't see all the timelines, so you can't know whether the rift was in all timelines. Which incidently doesn't really matter.

(Yes, you could cite "Parallels" to show that there could be an infinite number of universes where there was or wasn't a rift, or the rift could have been yellow instead of blue, etc., but within the logic and storyline of "Yesterday's Enterprise," the fact is that a temporal rift linked two time periods, and people in all time periods saw the rift, so the hypothetical conjecture of "what if there were never a rift" is just that -- conjecture -- since no part of the episode, or any other episode, depicted a universe in which there was no temporal rift.)

That's because we start this episode in the future; the cause of the rift thus, seems to be in that future. You can then, not talk about people in ALL time periods seeing the rift, because the moment the rift formed it would have ERASED the past where the E-C never encountered the rift. Which incidentally we seemingly see happening at the beginning of the episode: peaceful timeline future, peaceful timeline future encounters rift, E-C comes through, peaceful timeline future's past and present get changed, being erased in the process, to a war timeline.

Yes, in a hypothetical timeline where there never was a temporal rift, then there would be no Klingon war, Lt. Worf would join Starfleet, and Yar might be killed by a tar monster. But in this hypothetical timeline, nothing would ever create a temporal rift,

If nothing would ever create a temporal rift, that rift could not have existed. A rift DID exist, so something CAN create suche a temporal rift, so something would somewhere along the line, at some possible time create such a temporal rift.

so there would be no time-traveling Yar on the Enterprise-C, and she would never have a half-Romulan daughter. Obviously, this hypothetical no-rift timeline is not the one depicted in "Yesterday's Enterprise" or any other episode, since a timeline with no rift could not lead to events created by the existence of a rift.

And lo and behold, we see a rift form; but where the origin for this rift lies we do not strictly know. However, seeing as we see a peaceful timeline getting changed; and we invoke a rather dirty, unclean, not quite right, causal logic; we can conclude more favorably that the rift's cause lies in the future, and thus in the iteration of this timeline's past before this cause was envoked, there would be no rift in that past.

Of course the events of a timeline with no rift could lead to the events of a timeline where there is peace. If there is no rift, the E-C gets NOT transported to the future, it thus DOES fight against the Romulans and gets destroyed, and thus the Klingons DO see examples of Federation honor, and thus their relationship DOES gets strengthened.

If you're saying that the first two minutes of "Yesterday's Enterprise" depicted the "original" timeline, then that would mean that Picard and Worf on the Enterprise-D did something to prevent the Enterprise-C from going back in time,

No, the Enterprise-C would have been visually fighting to help the Klingons and gotten destroyed by the Romulans in the past, no traveling to the future having happened to begin with.

thus creating the Lt. Yar timeline. But even if that's true, then that would just mean that there's a third timeline with a temporal rift. It still doesn't depict any timeline where there is NO rift.

No, it would be a third timeline, that in the past had no rift, reaches a future/present where the rift is formed, this is a temporal event, and thus that timeline's past where there was no rift in the past, gets erased/changed to a timeline where there is one - and the E-C goes to the future.

...and then doing so by invoking an unseen ghostly force...

Also known as logic.

Nope, that's not logic at all. If that were logic, Creationism would be logical.

Yes, in "Yesterday's Enterprise" we saw Lt. Yar's original timeline for about 40 minutes of screen time.[/qoute]

No, we saw a peaceful original timeline for about 2 seasons, and then 2 minutes in "Yesterday's Enterprise", then we saw Lt. Yar's unoriginal, altered, "wrong" timeline for about 40 minutes, and then we saw the timeline being changed BACK to a peaceful timeline (whether changed by Yar's presence on the E-C or not.)

In terms of logic and causality, the new movie is not doing anything different from other time travel stories in "Star Trek." The only difference is our emotional reaction to it, since, for the first time in a time travel story, we care more about the timeline the time traveler is coming from than we do about the new timeline the time traveler is creating.

It would be the 2nd time, actually. What Janeway did in Endgame is horrific, not to mention very likely made the Borg unstoppable to the Federation.

 

[Samuel T. Cogley]

I don't know why people think Star Trek fans are dorks.

 

[TrekGuide.com]

First of all, we already know it's not the original future, the original future is the future where the Klingons and the Federation are allies, we see this timeline for 2 seasons, and the beginning of this episode, and we see this timeline get changed because the E-C traveled to the future, disappearing from its present.

As I've mentioned before, chronology is not the same as causality. You perceive the timeline you watched for two years to be the "original" timeline because it was the first one that you saw, chronologically. But if you follow the line of causality, from Yar and the Enterprise-C going back in time, to the Enterprise-D crew later meeting Yar's half-Romulan daughter -- then if Sela is 22 years old, she was already alive on Romulus during the first two seasons you saw. (There were just no cameras recording her life during those episodes.)

Though it is kind of pointless to argue about the logic of "Yesterday's Enterprise," since it combines both a natural temporal rift as well as an intentional change to the past timeline, so half of a predestination paradox intersects with a divergent timeline, and spins off into an alternate reality, and there's not enough information depicted in the episode to prove anything.

A cleaner example of an alternate timeline is in "Star Trek Generations," when Picard and Kirk intentionally go to Picard's past to create a new, different timeline than Picard remembers. That's the same thing Admiral Janeway did in "Endgame."

Those two stories clearly show the one "original" timeline, where the time traveler decides to go back and change the past, creating an "alternate" timeline where the story continues into the next movie. That is also what Nero is doing in "Star Trek XI."

My point is that "Star Trek XI" is not doing anything new or unprecedented. There have been so many different time travel episodes, with so many different resulting alternate timelines, that nothing that happens in "Star Trek XI" will be happening for the first time. It will just be happening to different characters.

 

[BillJ]

It still comes down to dramatic storytelling. A single timeline makes the stakes much higher than all of the alternate timeline stuff being spouted.

A cleaner example of an alternate timeline is in "Star Trek Generations," when Picard and Kirk intentionally go to Picard's past to create a new, different timeline than Picard remembers. That's the same thing Admiral Janeway did in "Endgame."

Would you care to point out in the episode/movie the evidence you used to come to this conclusion? Because I see you continuing to say it. In most Star Trek the intent seemed to be towards a single timeline.

 

[SalvorHardin]

I think the thread has passed the point where this is appropriate

 

[trekkerguy]

Also known as logic.

Nope, that's not logic at all. If that were logic, Creationism would be logical.

Everything Trekguide.com has said makes complete and utter logical sense.
People have just decided it should work one way so they refuse to hear.

Jolan Tru.

 

[3D Master]

First of all, we already know it's not the original future, the original future is the future where the Klingons and the Federation are allies, we see this timeline for 2 seasons, and the beginning of this episode, and we see this timeline get changed because the E-C traveled to the future, disappearing from its present.

As I've mentioned before, chronology is not the same as causality.
You perceive the timeline you watched for two years to be the "original" timeline because it was the first one that you saw, chronologically. But if you follow the line of causality,

And I've told YOU before, that unless you know every single last causal relationship, you can NOT say anything about causality. Cause of something in the present and past, can lie in the FUTURE.

from Yar and the Enterprise-C going back in time, to the Enterprise-D crew later meeting Yar's half-Romulan daughter -- then if Sela is 22 years old, she was already alive on Romulus during the first two seasons you saw. (There were just no cameras recording her life during those episodes.)

You don't know that, you don't know that at all. It's a very good possibility that there was no Sela alive during those first two years at all. But even if there was, it ultimately doesn't matter.

Though it is kind of pointless to argue about the logic of "Yesterday's Enterprise," since it combines both a natural temporal rift as well as an intentional change to the past timeline, so half of a predestination paradox intersects with a divergent timeline, and spins off into an alternate reality, and there's not enough information depicted in the episode to prove anything.

1. There is nothing there to suggest that the rift is natural or otherwise.

2. There is no predestination paradox, no time travel back to the past created the very future someone was trying to change.

3. There was never an alternate reality. There was only one reality, in which there were at least two, but possibly three timelines that were created through a temporal event.

A cleaner example of an alternate timeline is in "Star Trek Generations," when Picard and Kirk intentionally go to Picard's past to create a new, different timeline than Picard remembers. That's the same thing Admiral Janeway did in "Endgame."

Those two stories clearly show the one "original" timeline, where the time traveler decides to go back and change the past, creating an "alternate" timeline where the story continues into the next movie. That is also what Nero is doing in "Star Trek XI."

My point is that "Star Trek XI" is not doing anything new or unprecedented. There have been so many different time travel episodes, with so many different resulting alternate timelines, that nothing that happens in "Star Trek XI" will be happening for the first time. It will just be happening to different characters.

Couldn't care less.

Also known as logic.

Nope, that's not logic at all. If that were logic, Creationism would be logical.

Everything Trekguide.com has said makes complete and utter logical sense.
People have just decided it should work one way so they refuse to hear.

No, envoking a ghostly unseen force to do the sucked out of one's thumb action of synchronizing time lines is NOT logical, and does NOT make logical sense.

It's the same thing as a caveman not understanding fire and making up something to cover the hole in his understanding: "The fire spirit did it!"

It's the same thing as a BC person not understanding lightning and fantasizing something to cover that hole, saying, "Zeus did it!"

It's the same thing as creationist refusing to understand evolution, and then to cover the hole in his (and the legitimate holes in our) understanding, claiming, "God did it!" Or for that matter, "Khali did it! Buddha did it! The invisible pink elephant and spaghetti monster in the sky did it!"

Sucking a ghostly unseen force out of your thumb to cover a hole in your understanding is NOT logical, whether you like it or not.

 

[trekkerguy]

I have no clue what you're talking about.

Anyways, kudos Trekguide.com, you've made a
great explanation of the situation in Trek's timelines.

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

people are wasting a lot of electrons here trying to logically explain time travel paradoxes...

...but there is a reason why they are called paradoxes.

 

[trekkerguy]

people are wasting a lot of electrons here trying to logically explain time travel paradoxes...

...but there is a reason why they are called paradoxes.

And in the proccess we're creating multitudes of new 'verses.

 

[Franklin]

My point is that "Star Trek XI" is not doing anything new or unprecedented. There have been so many different time travel episodes, with so many different resulting alternate timelines, that nothing that happens in "Star Trek XI" will be happening for the first time. It will just be happening to different characters.

Exactly. So, isn't it a kind of cheat to say it's an origins story, but it's the origins of the characters as they came together in another universe/timeline?
I guess what I'm saying is I had always thought they meant this was the story of the origins of the crew as we knew them in the TOS timeline/universe. Before their well-chronicled adventures together.

Also, what's old Spock's stake in this timeline if things are still going on swimmingly in his and this is just a new branch created when Nero destroyed the Kelvin? Is this Spock going around to make sure all the Kirk's in all the universes end up as captain of the Enterprise?