Timelines, reality,star trek, canon, and the Truth!

[O'Dib]

My point is why does it have to rebbot at all... Its a big universe... They didnt have to do it at all, But to come up with a new story and leave the existing timeline alone would have been to much effort for JJ! (He has lost to think about, and a giant crab monster thing attacking people with camcordors, Hes Busy!)

That's exactly why. It's a big intimidating universe that most people dismissed as too nerdy to engage with. There is no way new characters from Trek Prime would've connected with the American audience as much as Kirk and Spock do, who are as pop culture as stormtroopers. So while it would've actually been LESS effort than this convoluted plotline that is meant to satisfy fans both old and new, by restarting while acknowledging the old (Spock is not a girl banging Kirk in this one), it would've been wasted effort. Something that only hardcore fans would see, thus burying the franchise forever.

And frankly, I don't think this timeline will end up differing from Prime by very much. Sure, Vulcan's gone, but there'll be a new one. If the story requires it, I bet all the KEY Vulcans we have seen in the future will end up having magically survived. The same crew is on the same ship, having the same adventures. We were just blessed with an opportunity to see even more of their TOS adventures, looking more convincing then ever.

But, you know, if you prefer the niche market of 60s looking Trek, made by fans, for the fans, there're always fan films..

 

[In the Past]

I wonder what The Sisko would think of all this, sitting back in his Celestial Throne. Certainly Janeway would advise us not to think about it at all! Meanwhile (or whenever), Kirk doesn't care so long as he adds another notch to his belt of temporal violations. You've gotta be feelin sorry for those poor fellas at the Department of Temporal Investigations...

At first I had the same attitude as hal9500. How dare those new movie mofos erase all the original ST! Outrageous! All the stories and depth acumulated over 40+ years that make up the ST cosmos and canon is such a big part of why I love and watch the show. I was robbed! How could they so flippantly dispense of it all, make it that it never existed?

Well, the answer is that they didn't. It still exists! Maybe not in our cosmos, where "it's just a TV show", where for comercial reasons we may never see any old ST on new film. But in the ST cosmos, and in the ST canon, it all still exists and is just as crucial and real a part of ST as it ever was. If all of TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY and the movies didn't happen, then Spock and Nero could not have gone back in time to create the rebooted timeline! Logic dictates that rebooted ST cannot exist unless original ST exists.

In some sense, one might even say that all the events of original ST happened before those of the rebooted timeline. The writers of ST have always picked and chosen different and contradicting interpretations of temporal mechanics simply depending on what makes good entertainment. What's really wrong with that? (Apart form that in this case they unfortunately seem to believe that original ST is no longer good entertainment.) Remember that time travel inherently does not make sense (common or scientific) and the only way to accept it is to suspend disbelief, which is something Trekkies and sci-fi fans are hardly unfamiliar with.

It's interesting that in JJ Abrams' Lost, physicist Daniel Faraday says, "time is like a string. You can move forward or backward along that string, but you cannot create a new one." Yet in Star Trek XII they are bent on insisting that all events after about 20 seconds into the film occur in an alternate timeline. Like another poster said, it's up to the writer's to make up the rules and it's up to us to deal with it.

So of course I'm bloody peeved that there's very little chance of seeing any original characters or events again in cameos or by reference in any rebooted series/movies. (Unless they do with alternate timelines what TOS and DS9 did with alternate realities.) And i personally don't consider the rebooted TOS crew to even be the same characters because they were raised in a different environment, especially Kirk ! But nothing truly ceases to exist as long as it lives on in the minds of others. I agree that Old Spock had better get to mind-melding with the Vulcan refugees and make sure they and the rest of the reboots know not only what would have been, but what was (or is). By the same token, original ST will always live on as long as we continue to watch and remember it.

P.S. Sorry for the long post - one of the greatest things about ST is that it's thought-provoking. Star Trek XI certainly did it's job there!

 

[El Chupacabra]

P.S. Sorry for the long post - one of the greatest things about ST is that it's thought-provoking. Star Trek XI certainly did it's job there!

No, it did not. Your post reads almost as if you were a stooge of one of the writers.

 

[TrekGuide.com]

One time line: Examples of this are in every version of star trek, in case you cant remember here is a list which i have drawn up. A list of instances in which someone or something upset that timeline, and thankfully our heroes FIXED. In some instances they did it by changing the proper run of things (VOY:TIMELESS - Ok technically that is one where they broke the rules to save the crew.... ONE CREW! SO WHAT!) But most instances involved fixing the timeline for the better:

hal9500, you are making the mistake of assuming that all time travel episodes in "Star Trek" are following one common set of rules. In fact, there are Five Distinct Categories of Time Paradoxes, and "Bad guys break the past, but good guys go back and fix it" is just ONE of them.

There are many episodes where characters from the future go back and change history in a major way, permanently, and no one fixes it. In "Yesterday's Enterprise," "Timeless," "Endgame," and "Star Trek Generations," we saw characters going back in time, and creating a new history different from the one they remember.

Remember in "Star Trek Generations," AFTER Picard and Soran entered the Nexus, the original timeline still existed, and the sun exploded, destroying the entire planet, the Enterprise-D, and everyone on it. That timeline was real, and continued to exist AFTER the time travelers left it.

Likewise, in "Star Trek XI," we continue to see the original timeline exist AFTER Nero went into the new timeline through the black hole. Ambassador Spock was still in the original timeline AFTER Nero went back. The Universe was NOT erased. What if Spock had been able to avoid entering the black hole? His timeline was still there whether he followed Nero back or not. We all saw it there on the movie screen, just like in "Generations."

Now, these instances whether good bad or indifferent all have a common thread... Either changes to the timeline were small enough not to upset said timeline (Tribbles in DS9 - gotta love it!) -or- There were no changes at all ie Timline restored....

You seem to think the laws of time travel include some provision that "Good guys can use time travel to make good changes to history, but it's physically impossible for bad guys to do bad things in the past."

If Lt. Yar goes back in time to fight the Romulans, or Kirk and Spock go back in time to rescue some whales, or Admiral Janeway goes back in time and gets the Voyager back to Earth 10 years earlier, then you're fine with that. But if Nero goes back in time and blows up some starships and a planet, suddenly you have a big problem with time travel!

SO! JJ Abrams comes along and tells us this is an alternate reality... BUT Created by a charactor form the Real Reality.... No. Sorry folks thats not the case...

Sorry, hal9500, that IS the case. It doesn't matter what J.J. Abrams says, or what you say. What we actually see on the screen in the movie, AFTER Nero goes back in time, is that the original timeline STILL EXISTS. You saw it. I saw it. Ambassador Spock saw it. Whether Spock went into the black hole or not, his timeline STILL EXISTED AFTER NERO ENTERED THE BLACK HOLE.

This is like first contact without the enterprise going back and fixing it,

This is like City on the edge of forever, where the good guys dont go back and fix things.

No, in "First Contact" and "The City on the Edge of Forever," the characters were pulled into the PRESENT of the new timeline, while the Borg/McCoy made changes in the past, and seeing that the new timeline did not have a Federation, the captain (Picard/Kirk) decided to go back and undo those changes that already happened.

When Nero went into the black hole in "Star Trek XI," Spock was NOT pulled into the present of the new timeline. He DIDN'T see that history was changed and DECIDE to go back and fix it. Because, unlike "First Contact" and "City," Nero's changes in the past didn't affect the original timeline and Ambassador Spock. They still existed unchanged AFTER Nero went back.

This time line is the same one as always but because of nero its been altered so NONE OF THE OTHER SERIES EXIST! There time line is redundant, IE GONE!

Adding exclamation points doesn't support your assertion. The facts, as depicted in the film, are that the original timeline DOES still exist AFTER Nero went back in time. Spock was in it. Picard and Riker and Janeway and everyone else are still in it. Since Nero and Spock entered the black hole at different times, but ended up in the same alternate timeline, that means the black hole forms a continuing link between the two timelines, both of which exist side-by-side. This isn't the opinion of the producers or fans, this is WHAT IS ACTUALLY SHOWN IN THE MOVIE.

If your going to point out instance where other universes are said to exist fine... Im ok with that! But those Universes exist aside from ours with no link. This trek reality is whole and has been irevocably altered with the destruction of Vulcan... And why? Why was it necessary? Why did they need to destroy a pillar of the federation?

Answer: They didnt need to, the did it anyway...

If you accept this fair enough but i dont... And im entitled to my opinion, and im not going anywhere.

But please dont delude yourself into thinking that all the other episodes still exist... they have been erased..

No, actually you are not entitled to your opinion, because you are stating it as a fact. I can't say, "In my opinion, there's no such thing as gravity" -- that is a factual statement, not an opinion. And, unless I am levitating when I say it, it's a FALSE factual statement.

And when you say, "In my opinion, the original timeline does not exist," you are dead wrong, because you and I and Ambassador Spock all saw the original timeline still existing AFTER Nero went back in time.

As for my comments in a similar thread about remakes being an excuse for poor writing... i stand by it, and il add this. Not only poor writing, but laziness. Starting a new franchise is hard work, and they dont like hard work... better to find a franchise that exists and , i dunno, say.. PISS ALL OVER IT... Typical.

You have been so conditioned by the reset-button brand of hack writing over the past 40 years, you actually reject a story in which the characters' actions have real consequences. You think "The good guys always win and the bad guys always fail" is some kind of law of physics or something.

But if a story about good guys doing good things with time travel is fine, then a story about bad guys doing bad things with time travel must be equally valid.

You're obviously upset about something, but it shouldn't be the logic of the story, which is sound, and doesn't contradict the past 40 years of "Star Trek" storytelling.

 

[Borgminister]

P.S. Sorry for the long post - one of the greatest things about ST is that it's thought-provoking. Star Trek XI certainly did it's job there!

No, it did not. Your post reads almost as if you were a stooge of one of the writers.

Almost, huh?

 

[TrekGuide.com]

It's interesting that in JJ Abrams' Lost, physicist Daniel Faraday says, "time is like a string. You can move forward or backward along that string, but you cannot create a new one." Yet in Star Trek XII they are bent on insisting that all events after about 20 seconds into the film occur in an alternate timeline.

Yes, but that's the same Daniel Faraday who died in the next episode while trying to CHANGE the past.

The first rule of time travel is: "There are no rules of time travel."

 

[thumbtack]

This thread is just embarassing.

 

[In the Past]

P.S. Sorry for the long post - one of the greatest things about ST is that it's thought-provoking. Star Trek XI certainly did it's job there!

No, it did not. Your post reads almost as if you were a stooge of one of the writers.

1. You are very rude.
2. Obviously this movie was thought-provoking or you wouldn't be here and this thread wouldn't be so long.
3. Perhaps you should re-read my post since I edited it with one word so that it should make alot more sense.

 

[Thrawn]

P.S. Sorry for the long post - one of the greatest things about ST is that it's thought-provoking. Star Trek XI certainly did it's job there!

No, it did not. Your post reads almost as if you were a stooge of one of the writers.

1. You are very rude.
2. Obviously this movie was thought-provoking or you wouldn't be here and this thread wouldn't be so long.
3. Perhaps you should re-read my post since I edited it with one word so that it should make alot more sense.

Yeah, just ignore him. I enjoyed your post; balanced and well thought out.

 

[In the Past]

Likewise, in "Star Trek XI," we continue to see the original timeline exist AFTER Nero went into the new timeline through the black hole. Ambassador Spock was still in the original timeline AFTER Nero went back. The Universe was NOT erased. What if Spock had been able to avoid entering the black hole? His timeline was still there whether he followed Nero back or not. We all saw it there on the movie screen, just like in "Generations."

It doesn't matter what J.J. Abrams says, or what you say. What we actually see on the screen in the movie, AFTER Nero goes back in time, is that the original timeline STILL EXISTS. You saw it. I saw it. Ambassador Spock saw it. Whether Spock went into the black hole or not, his timeline STILL EXISTED AFTER NERO ENTERED THE BLACK HOLE.

Well said! I was about to say the same thing after reading the entire thread and I'm amazed noone noticed sooner .

 

[In the Past]

It's interesting that in JJ Abrams' Lost, physicist Daniel Faraday says, "time is like a string. You can move forward or backward along that string, but you cannot create a new one." Yet in Star Trek XII they are bent on insisting that all events after about 20 seconds into the film occur in an alternate timeline.

The first rule of time travel is: "There are no rules of time travel."

Lol yes, that's a good way of putting it. It's a point largely supported by the physicist who wrote "The Physics of Star Trek".

 

[God Magnus]

But let me point out this... There exists a star trek timeline or reality if you prefer that word that started in 1966 and ended 20 Seconds in to the film you all love which opened last week... The operative word being ... ENDED!

I don't have my copy in front of me right now, but in the prequel comic book "Countdown" by IDW, they show the events leading up to Nero and Spock getting sucked into the past. Once Nero and Spock vanish, IIRC the Enterprise-E tries to find them but cannot. This suggests to me that the "Prime" timeline still lives on despite what we saw in Trek 2009. This indicates that the "Prime" timeline still exists. If not, the moment Nero and Spock vanished, the E-E should have winked out of existence as it was portrayed in the beginning of that comic.

 

[In the Past]

No, it did not. Your post reads almost as if you were a stooge of one of the writers.

1. You are very rude.
2. Obviously this movie was thought-provoking or you wouldn't be here and this thread wouldn't be so long.
3. Perhaps you should re-read my post since I edited it with one word so that it should make alot more sense.

Yeah, just ignore him. I enjoyed your post; balanced and well thought out.

Cheers. I've enjoyed the whole discussion and thinking about the time-space continuum in general. Unlike some people...

Janeway: "Time travel. Since my first day as a starship captain I swore I'd never let myself get caught in one of these godforsaken paradoxes. The future is the past, the past is the future - it all gives me a headache."

Which reminds me, I thought Crusher said humans didn't get headaches anymore? Probably time-travel's fault.

 

[Admiral Bear]

Discussions like this always remind of that scene from Back to the Future when 1950's Chris Lloyd frantically draws that layman's diagram on his blackboard to explain to Michael J Fox about how the timeline has diverged in to separate tangents due to Fox travelling back in time.

As said above, there are no rules with time travel. And as we've never time travelled, if there any rules, we won't have discovered them yet.

 

[Ovation]

SO if what your saying is true, how come in first contact the enterprise, which was protected by the temporal wake... actually saw an altered earth, sure when the borg went back that just created an alternate universe....

RIGHT?

Can someone explain that for me im confused?

id really love this clarified for me

Still waiting for this one by the way?

Here you go:

But after "Yesterday's Enterprise," "Endgame" and "Star Trek Generations," Lt. Yar, Admiral Janeway, and Captain Kirk did NOT fade away after changing the past. They continued to live in the new timeline, with memories of the old timeline. (The fact that all three of them eventually died violent deaths has nothing to do with time travel. Time travel, due to its nature in fictional stories, tends to dump the time travelers into hostile, life-threatening situations. Very few people use time travel to have a safe, peaceful picnic in the past.)

You have to admit that the events in those three episodes prove that there is at least more than one time travel theory in different "Star Trek" episodes.

Some episodes, like "Time Squared," support your "Back to the Future" one-timeline model of time travel; while episodes like "Endgame," "The Visitor," and "Star Trek Generations" support my divergent-timelines theory; while other episodes introduce different time paradoxes, like the causality loops in "Times Arrow" and "Parallax," the anti-time paradoxes in "Twilight" and "All Good Things ...," and the change-the-past-then-fix-the-past scenarios in "Star Trek: First Contact," "The City on the Edge of Forever," "Trials and Tribble-ations," and possibly "Star Trek XI."

And then there's "Star Trek IV," which is either a predestination paradox or a divergent timeline, as the characters in the movie themselves were debating, but there's not enough information to classify it either way. (This demonstrates that neither the writers, nor the fictional characters, know what the hell they're talking about most of the time when they discuss time paradoxes.)

So there are at least five different theories of time travel depicted in various "Star Trek" episodes (not even counting the "Sliders"-type alternate realities like "Parallels" and the Mirror Universe).

"Star Trek" is a lot like the "Terminator" movies: Each episode is written by a different person with a different internal logic regarding time travel (fate vs. destiny vs. free will), but when they are all viewed together as a single fictional universe, the various theories do not fit together logically.

(emphasis mine)

source

Read the whole post. Better yet, read all of Trekguide.com's posts on the subject. He makes a very compelling case (I will warn you that it will not be a comfortable line of argument for a "true fan" like yourself--but I defy you to refute its logic).

ETA: Oops. That's what I get for responding before reading the whole thread through. Trekguide.com provided his own post above. Still, the part I bolded bears repeating, so I'll leave it here.

P.S. Can we please stop with attempts to decide who is a "real fan"? NO ONE has the right to make that determination other than the individual in question. Being a "fan" of something is ENTIRELY a self-defined thing. I think this attempt to say "he's a real fan" "he's NOT a real fan" bugs me more than any other single thing about "fandom" in general (not just Trek related). It makes me want to reach through the screen and punch such a person in the nose 'til it bleeds. Liking or not liking one particular iteration of a whole does NOT establish whether one is a fan. And NO ONE has the right to determine that for you.

 

[J Archer]

P.S. Can we please stop with attempts to decide who is a "real fan"? NO ONE has the right to make that determination other than the individual in question. Being a "fan" of something is ENTIRELY a self-defined thing. I think this attempt to say "he's a real fan" "he's NOT a real fan" bugs me more than any other single thing about "fandom" in general (not just Trek related). It makes me want to reach through the screen and punch such a person in the nose 'til it bleeds. Liking or not liking one particular iteration of a whole does NOT establish whether one is a fan. And NO ONE has the right to determine that for you.

Preach on brother!

 

[Ovation]

I'd do it even more forcefully, but this topic earned me my only warning in over 6300 hundred posts, so I have to watch myself. Fortunately, the most egregious promoter of this notion appears to have "left the building". Hope he didn't let the door hit him on the way out.

 

[cmdrbolly]

i
P.S. Can we please stop with attempts to decide who is a "real fan"? NO ONE has the right to make that determination other than the individual in question. Being a "fan" of something is ENTIRELY a self-defined thing. I think this attempt to say "he's a real fan" "he's NOT a real fan" bugs me more than any other single thing about "fandom" in general (not just Trek related). It makes me want to reach through the screen and punch such a person in the nose 'til it bleeds. Liking or not liking one particular iteration of a whole does NOT establish whether one is a fan. And NO ONE has the right to determine that for you.

A REAL ST fan would never reach through the screen and punch someone in the nose.

They would use a Vulcan nerve pinch.

 

[Tikkun]

I'm a hard-core Trek fan from way, way back. I like this new movie as an action-adventure flick. Not as Star Trek. I could give a crap about continuity, alternate timelines, red matter, or whatever. I just want a good story that's well told. This movie is. But it's still not Trek. The heart and soul of Trek, to me, is the brains over brawn story with a moral. This film had neither.

It's easy to understand why so many fans are raging. All the data they're memorized over the years is now useless. There's no new info to add to the collection, no more dates to fit in, no new races to ponder about, or series to quibble over, etc. It's all wiped away in a flash. Not the actual films or episodes, obviously, but the community of fans that sprang up around the original have to start over. Memorizing all this new timeline data, or simply crystalize their original timeline data and let is sit, withering.

I personally could give a crap about continuity. Ron Moore even said Trek was strangling on 30+ years of continuity. The comics reboot all the time. It doesn't take the joy away from the original reading of those, or the joy of re-reading those old ones, what it does is make the wanton memorization of all that minutia pointless. That's what's pissed off the fans.

Even classic Trek had APOTA - which was just for fun, and Spock's Brain. Not every episode had a huge thematic issue. And I think there are enough nuggets about revenge to count this as more substantive than either of those episodes. Besides which, brains did beat brawn here - and some lessons were learned.

 

[Overgeeked]

That anyone can overcome their biggest limitations, get over themselves and achieve their true potential. That trust and friendship are more important than petty bickering. That you can rise above differences and be better than anyone expects you to.

For example.

If you're referring to Kirk, I'd agree that his childhood appears to be a severe limitation. If you're referring to Spock, I'd say he was only limited by the prejudice of some of the Vulcan people.

As for Kirk though, he didn't get over himself. He ran everything as if he knew better than everyone around him, including Spock and Captain Pike. To me that's just going to tell people that if you think you're right, to hell with everyone else and bully your way into getting what you want / what you think is right.

The power of simple friendship.

Which, really, is pretty much the only moral of all of the Trek movies that aren't 1 or 6, unless you're considering Shatner's rants against televangelism or "power corrupts" from Insurrection something powerful or deep.

Well, I wasn't just referring to the movies. But hey.

Sure, Spock became Kirk's friend by accepting that he was illogical, and there was nothing Spock could do to change that. How did Kirk compromise to become Spock's friend? Kirk spent the film (from bar fight talk with Pike to the end) pushing people out of his way because he was right and they were wrong. Kirk made no change or compromise.