Alternate Timeline?

[Beavis420]

Ok, from what I learned of space travel from other movies regarding time travel is that if you alter the events of the past, the future will change as well. So is it safe to say that the events of XI will cause an effect where everything that has happaned from TOS will change?

I think that's an interesting take considering that it'll give JJ and other possible directors a chance to create an alternate "TOS" timeline.

 

[M'Sharak]

Ok, from what I learned of space travel from other movies regarding time travel is that if you alter the events of the past, the future will change as well. So is it safe to say that the events of XI will cause an effect where everything that has happaned from TOS will change?

I think that's an interesting take considering that it'll give JJ and other possible directors a chance to create an alternate "TOS" timeline.

They've already done just that with this movie, most of which takes place in the alternate timeline. Here's the diagram, courtesy of Squiggy:

I'll refer you also to this thread, where the timeline thing has been discussed.

 

[xman]

Ok, from what I learned of space travel from other movies regarding time travel is that if you alter the events of the past, the future will change as well. So is it safe to say that the events of XI will cause an effect where everything that has happaned from TOS will change?

I think that's an interesting take considering that it'll give JJ and other possible directors a chance to create an alternate "TOS" timeline.

This is very sound logic. Unfortunately the writers are hedging their bets with a mutiverse scheme.

 

[USS Excelsior]

And was this NuTimeline created when the Narada appeared or did it always exist all along and the Narada was pre-destined to appear in it from the get go....

 

[xman]

Depends on who you ask, but for all intents and purposes it started when the Narada and the Kelvin squared off.

 

[USS Excelsior]

Seems far fetched that the appearance of the Narada would spontaneously create a duplicate universe and then take it from there.

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

Seems far fetched that the appearance of the Narada would spontaneously create a duplicate universe and then take it from there.

That scenario of time travel/alternate universes was not invented by the screenwriters Kurtzman and Orci -- it's part of some actual theories of quantum mechanics (although it's highly speculative).

Take, for instance the famous "Grandfather Paradox"....
In the Grandfather Paradox, a man goes back in time and kills his own grandfather before even the time traveler's father was conceived, so therefore the time traveler will also never be born. However, if the time traveler was never born, then how could he go back in time and kill his own grandfather. So if the time traveler was not born, nobody killed the grandfather, therefore the time traveler could have been born and would be able to kill his grandfather...and so on and so on...

...However, some real quantum theoricists say that if we can go back in time (and some theorists say it may be possible) we don't go back to our own universe, but one of the infinite other universes created by quantum mechanics. So the time traveler can kill the guy who is supposedly his own grandfather, but he's not really his grandfather, because it is an alternate universe. By the time traveler killing his own grandfather in this other universe he time traveled into, he is only causing himself not to be born in that universe, not the universe he originally came from -- therefore the time traveler can be born in his original universe, even though his grandfather in that parallel universe is dead.

Quantum theory tells us that countless numbers of alternate and parallel universes are popping into existence every instant due to the nature of quantum mechanics. Every particle has different possible "options" in how it can be described. Quantum theory tells us that these particles actually realize ALL of those possible options, but each in a different parallel universe.

Think of the TNG episode Parallels or the TV show Sliders, but add time travel to them.

 

[Jeri]

Quantum theory tells us that these particles actually realize ALL of those possible options, but each in a different parallel universe...

I think the entire notion was to make time-travel paradoxless -- which gave so many, including Janeway, a headache.

 

[DEWLine]

Unfortunately the writers are hedging their bets with a mutiverse scheme.

I take issue with the "Unfortunately" qualifier. No problems with a multiverse scheme here. If it's good enough for Michiu Kaku and Astronomy magazine...

 

[DEWLine]

Quantum theory tells us that these particles actually realize ALL of those possible options, but each in a different parallel universe...

I think the entire notion was to make time-travel paradoxless -- which gave so many, including Janeway, a headache.

Remember O'Brien's line from that DS9 episode about temporal mechanics?

 

[USS Excelsior]

Quantum theory tells us that countless numbers of alternate and parallel universes are popping into existence every instant due to the nature of quantum mechanics. Every particle has different possible "options" in how it can be described. Quantum theory tells us that these particles actually realize ALL of those possible options, but each in a different parallel universe.

Popping into existence like constantly splitting in 2? Then that would mean that we would constantly be splitting and our consciousness would be randomly passing through the split universes and the same with our other split selves who think they're the original....

 

[Jeri]

Remember O'Brien's line from that DS9 episode about temporal mechanics?

"I hate temporal mechanics!" (DS9:Visionary)

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Quantum theory tells us that countless numbers of alternate and parallel universes are popping into existence every instant due to the nature of quantum mechanics. Every particle has different possible "options" in how it can be described. Quantum theory tells us that these particles actually realize ALL of those possible options, but each in a different parallel universe.

Popping into existence like constantly splitting in 2? Then that would mean that we would constantly be splitting and our consciousness would be randomly passing through the split universes and the same with our other split selves who think they're the original....

What are you talking about?

 

[xman]

Quantum theory tells us that countless numbers of alternate and parallel universes are popping into existence every instant due to the nature of quantum mechanics. Every particle has different possible "options" in how it can be described. Quantum theory tells us that these particles actually realize ALL of those possible options, but each in a different parallel universe.

Popping into existence like constantly splitting in 2? Then that would mean that we would constantly be splitting and our consciousness would be randomly passing through the split universes and the same with our other split selves who think they're the original....

What are you talking about?

heh ... Yeah, that's the 'headache part of it.

I feel a need to point out AGAIN that the macro universe does not operate on the same level that quantum particles do hence the lack of a unified field theory. The M theory of branes comes close.

X

 

[USS Excelsior]

Or maybe we don't split but new universes appear based off of already existing ones, where our counterparts there would think they're us and everyone that we've been copied from before us.

So for all we know our universe may only be 15 minutes old and we assume that we've been here all along since we think we existed in all the previously and currently existing universes where we existed but that may not be us but counterparts that existed before us.

I know for some of us reading this post it will actually be true in their case that they've only existed for 15 minutes and for all we know it could be us!

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Ok, from what I learned of space travel from other movies regarding time travel is that if you alter the events of the past, the future will change as well.

There isn't any consistent single rule to time travel even within Star Trek, much less for "all movies and TV." I'm happy when a story can have rules and stick to them without either being inconsistent or doing the ENT dodge and never actually telling us what the rules are.

Star Trek has usually, but not always, implied a single-timeline philosophy - change the past and you change the future - but for Trek XI, we were basically informed by the writers (via the characters' preternatural knowledge of the "rules" of time travel) that this rule does not apply, and Spock & Nero's actions have created* an alternate timeline, which is the same as an alternate universe.

The old timeline/universe still exists and theoretically Spock (or anyone) could go visit it, and find it utterly different from the one he now inhabits (apparently for good) and unchanged by anything that happens in this film. All the TNG/DS9/VOY stuff will still happen on schedule, with no deviations from what we see on our DVD collections. Future movies and TV series won't deal with that universe but we've already seen that universe so why bother anyway?

This explains how two Spocks can exist in the same cosmos without, I dunno, the universe exploding or something. The two Spocks are actually two distinct people. Young Spock is already different from Old Spock, who never endured the trauma of his mother - and Vulcan's - violent demises. Kirk, and for some reason, Uhura, are even more different from the parallel characters of the old universe.

*Just to be really picky, it's not clear whether the new timeline was created, or whether it always existed and Spock & Nero just happened to journey into a pre-existing universe which, without their presence, might have evolved more similarly to the one we're already familiar with.

Seems far fetched that the appearance of the Narada would spontaneously create a duplicate universe and then take it from there.

It's less far fetched that the putting-a-scrambled-egg-back-in-its-shell philosophy behind the dominant theory of time travel used in Star Trek - that you can screw with the past and then restore the timeline precisely to what it used to be, down to the last subatomic particle.

Then that would mean that we would constantly be splitting and our consciousness would be randomly passing through the split universes and the same with our other split selves who think they're the original....

Then opt for the theory that nothing "split" and that there are already an infinite number of universes, many of which seem almost identical, except maybe for one subatomic particle in the wrong place. Nero and Spock journeyed to one of these dopplganger universes and made substantial changes. And maybe there were other differences anyway. Why should Nero and Spock's actions have changed Uhura so distinctly? I could come up with reasons why their actions might be responsible, but that kind of explanation isn't stricly necessary.

 

[USS Excelsior]

Or maybe Spock and Nero didn't make any changes to the NuUniverse at all, maybe it was predetermined that they appeared in that universe all along, and both of them going back was just history fulfilling itself.

 

[gastrof]

Quantum theory tells us that these particles actually realize ALL of those possible options, but each in a different parallel universe...

I think the entire notion was to make time-travel paradoxless -- which gave so many, including Janeway, a headache.

Remember O'Brien's line from that DS9 episode about temporal mechanics?

Oh please! Don't mention O'Brien in a discussion of Time Travel. In one episode of DS9 his younger self DIED and yet his (several hours) older self went back in time and replaced him.

If the younger version died, there couldn't have BEEN an older version.

I don't care how the writers tried to explain that one. It was just plain INSANE and impossible.

Nothing had been said about O'Brien time traveling to alternate universes. He was visiting other times in his own universe, right up to the time he died. Also, he died from exposure to the energy that was making his time travel possible, and yet his older self was suffering from no such ill effects. And again, if the younger one died, the older one shouldn't have still been there, since he'd never have lived up to that point in time.

I mean, this type of stuff has to make SOME kind of sense.

This is why despite the "onscreen is canon" rule, there are times I look at an episode and say to myself "It never happened. It couldn't have. It's too stupid." There's one or two of TNG that fit into that catagory well too.

 

[Ovation]

Time travel in Trek (as in time travel stories in general) is ALWAYS in service to the story, not the other way around. As such, its "rules" conform to whatever the story writer wants. Trek time travel has never been consistent, though it has more often than not favoured the "one timeline" premise. There has been a sufficient number of exceptions to this, though, that the latest version should not be any more difficult to accept than the others, on its own merits (the specific consequences of the latest version appear to cause some people major discomfort--but that's a separate issue).

 

[Hartzilla2007]

I think the entire notion was to make time-travel paradoxless -- which gave so many, including Janeway, a headache.

Remember O'Brien's line from that DS9 episode about temporal mechanics?

Oh please! Don't mention O'Brien in a discussion of Time Travel. In one episode of DS9 his younger self DIED and yet his (several hours) older self went back in time and replaced him.

If the younger version died, there couldn't have BEEN an older version.

I don't care how the writers tried to explain that one. It was just plain INSANE and impossible.

Nothing had been said about O'Brien time traveling to alternate universes. He was visiting other times in his own universe, right up to the time he died. Also, he died from exposure to the energy that was making his time travel possible, and yet his older self was suffering from no such ill effects. And again, if the younger one died, the older one shouldn't have still been there, since he'd never have lived up to that point in time.

I mean, this type of stuff has to make SOME kind of sense.

This is why despite the "onscreen is canon" rule, there are times I look at an episode and say to myself "It never happened. It couldn't have. It's too stupid." There's one or two of TNG that fit into that catagory well too.

This is why personal continuity works so well you only have to accept what you want to accept instead of having to rationalize every damn contridictory thing.