Someone asked in another thread about why Nimoy Spock didn't go back to his timeline at the end of the picture. I don't think there is anything for him to go back to. If Nero changed history then he changed history. I don't buy all this guff from Bob Orci that the prime timeline still exists alongside the new one.
El Chupacabra, you are 100 percent wrong here.
The movie itself clearly addresses this question. AFTER Nero went into the past through the black hole, the original timeline still existed. Ambassador Spock was still in it. We saw it on the screen.
The black hole acted as a doorway between the two timelines, allowing Nero and Spock both to go through at different times. Both timelines were ACTUALLY SHOWN TO EXIST after Nero went through, but before Spock went through.
This isn't a philosophical debate where everyone's entitled to their opinion. The original timeline DID STILL EXIST after Nero went through the black hole. It was shown on the movie screen. You saw it yourself. That is a fact.
If that were the case then in the City on the Edge of Forever Kirk and Spock need not have gone back after McCoy since their universe was still out there somewhere.
No, in "The City on the Edge of Forever," Kirk and the landing party were instantly pulled into the new future created by McCoy due to their proximity to the Guardian of Forever. This is the same phenomenon that happened in "Star Trek: First Contact," when the Enterprise-E was instantly pulled into the new future with an assimilated Earth, created by the Borg in the past, before Picard (like Kirk and Spock in "City") decided to follow them into the past and undo the changes.
You are making the mistake of assuming that there is only one method of time travel, with only one set of rules in "Star Trek," and trying to use what happened in one episode to explain what is happening in another.
In fact, there have been at least
Five Distinct Categories of Time Paradoxes in "Star Trek." "The City on the Edge of Forever" and "Star Trek: First Contact" may be lumped into the same category, but "Star Trek XI" clearly cannot be. It is definitely in the divergent-timeline category, like Voyager's "Endgame" or "Star Trek Generations."
The fact is that Nero travelling back did not cause a divergence. It caused everything to be rewritten full stop. Those who are told by the gushers that the TOS "prime" universe is still chugging along on its own are not being entirely truthful. Fact is that the only way to restore the timeline is for Nero to be stopped "back in the future" before he gets caught in the black hole. If that doesn't happen then Picard, Sisko & Co as we know them has quite simply been earsed from existance. It's not a parallel universe situation at all...
You keep using the word "fact," when what you mean to say is "my personal, unproven hypothesis."
The "facts" are what we actually saw in the movie, NOT what you personally believe in your own imagination.
Fact: After Nero went into the past and attacked the U.S.S.
Kelvin, creating the new timeline with his arrival, Spock was still in his ship in
the original timeline, and had not yet entered the black hole.
Scenes of the original timeline still existing were shown AFTER Nero went into the past but BEFORE Spock went into the past. Obviously, Nero's time travel did not erase the original timeline, or else Ambassador Spock would not have existed to follow him back.
What if somehow Spock had been able to avoid entering the black hole? He would have seen Nero enter, and never heard from him again. Spock's original timeline was still there, whether he followed Nero back or not.
Also, since Spock and Nero entered the black hole at different times, yet ended up in the same timeline, it would appear that the black hole is an ongoing gateway between the two timelines, so that at a later time, another ship (e.g., the
Enterprise-E or the
Titan) could enter the black hole after Spock and Nero, and appear at some later time in the new timeline.
It is a foolish debate whether the original timeline still existed after Nero went into the past, since both Spock and everyone watching the movie saw the original timeline still existing AFTER Nero entered the black hole.
If Spock was still around to follow Nero back, so was Picard and Riker and Janeway and everyone else in the Universe. So, no, the original timeline did NOT disappear. It was still there AFTER Nero went back in time. We all saw it. So did Spock. There are two timelines, connected by one black hole. Those are the facts, as shown in the film. (It doesn't matter what the producers or fans think.)