Rationalization is a bit different from guesswork. It requires evidence. The difference between the time travel in 'Time Squared' and the time travel in other episodes is the presence of the weird vortex, so it's logical to assume that duplicate-Picard's disappearance had something to do with the vortex. Further supporting evidence comes from the fact that duplicate-Picard says there is an entity in the vortex that wants him specifically.
Oh, like that's the only time-travel episode with a "weird vortex." What about "Yesterday's Enterprise"? What about
First Contact? For that matter, the "black holes" in the new movie could also be described as "weird vortices." "Weird vortex" is not evidence, it's a handwave. You
want to rationalize it so you latch onto a detail that allows you to do so. You could easily do the same in this case,
if you chose.
When it comes to rationalization, the more plausible explanation is preferable to the less plausible explanation. The most plausible explanation is that the original timeline no longer exists because that's how it was shown in numerous other episodes.
No. There is no way that is plausible. I've explained many times why the idea of a timeline "overwriting" another timeline is wrong, impossible, and absurd. The most plausible interpretation is that when it's
looked like a timeline was being overwritten or erased, the reality was that the two versions of the timeline coexisted in parallel and our perception of the situation was flawed. It's always a mistake to assume that the way things look to the observer represent the true situation, especially when dealing with matters so far outside conventional experience.
For thousands of years, it appeared to most observers that the Sun circled the Earth. So they would've thought that a story based on that assumption was "more plausible" than a story based on the assumption that the Earth circled the Sun. And they would have been wrong. The more plausible answer is not the one that tracks with what people have assumed in the past. It's the one based on better information.
The explanation that the time travel created a parallel universe is less likely because it contradicts what we've seen before.
No, it doesn't. It's easy to reconcile with a little imagination. Besides, as I said, Trek temporal theory has contradicted itself many times in the past, so any perceived contradiction here shouldn't be a dealbreaker. The only thing keeping you from glossing over this contradiction the same way fans gloss over or rationalize all the other hundreds of contradictions within existing Trek canon is that, for whatever reasons of your own, you choose not to.
Real quantum theory is irrelevant. Star Trek has never been hard science fiction.
Of course it's relevant, because
Star Trek is not something that exists independently of its creators. If the creators of new ST choose to base their storytelling on real quantum theory, then that is entirely relevant to how the stories are told. Different ST creators have been wildly inconsistent in their use of science, admittedly. (Even this movie is inconsistent within itself; the quantum physics is good, but the astrophysics is totally absurd.) But they've all shaped the fiction they wrote or produced according to their own preferences. There isn't one ST, because it's a fictional creation of many different minds. We choose to buy into the pretense that it's a consistent whole, but it never really has been. It's multiple different interpretations of a shared premise. So it's illogical to say that the preferences of the people creating new ST are irrelevant to the ST they create. If ST ended up being produced by someone who wanted it to be hard SF and knew how to make it that way, then it would be hard SF for the duration of that producer's tenure.
Besides, it's relevant because, as I said, it gives you an excuse. All time travel fiction is ultimately implausible on some level. It's just a question of how willing you are to suspend disbelief and how you choose to rationalize the problems with the concept. As long as you
want the Prime universe to still exist, all you need is something to let you rationalize that belief. The Many-Worlds Interpretation of quantum physics provides a handy, ready-made rationalization, one that not only meshes with the intent of the people in charge of shaping the ST franchise for the foreseeable future, but that has the added benefit of being scientifically plausible for a change. What's not to like?
If it was, there'd be no faster-than-light travel or numerous alien races.
Non sequitur. I've read plenty of hard science fiction featuring both these things. I've even written some. Now, if you'd said telepathy and humanoid aliens, then you'd have a point. (And magic instant translators, and "wall" force fields, and godlike superbeings, and preprogrammed evolution, and...)
Of course, hard SF is beside the point, because as I said, the scientific credibility is just a bonus, something that makes it easier to buy the new Word of God about how time travel works in Trek. It is fiction, after all, so it's ultimately only a question of your willingness to accept the conceits of the story.
For the parallel-universe-explanation to become more plausible than the timeline-erased-explanation, there needs to be more evidence to support it.
Come on, all the evidence you have for your "Time Squared" argument is "A vortex did it." Surely you can make up something just as arbitrary here. The only difference is that you've had years to get used to "Time Squared" and this is more of a novelty.
