How can the original timeline still exist?
- Thread starter EJA
- Start date
Works for me.
Whether it existed the whole time, or only sprung into existence once the black hole was created, the point is that it existed.
I don't know why everyone gets so up in arms about this. But, then, I don't understand why everyone gets so up in arms about a lot of things involving the new movie.
So maybe the original timeline did exist...but then it died. And just like any dear 45-year-old relative, the Original Star Trek Universe Timeline went, well, before its time. Even so, in some quarters, its passing was not unexpected. So it will be sorely missed, especially, as more stories about it are told and others relived.
But in its passing, the previous universe of Star Trek gave birth to a new timeline where the adventure continues...even before it began...with a new excitement.
But in its passing, the previous universe of Star Trek gave birth to a new timeline where the adventure continues...even before it began...with a new excitement.
Meanwhile, the deceased is survived by several novels, calendars, and comic books. In lieu of flowers, mourners are asked to support the publisher of their choice.
Here it is, from the writers' own mouths.
Orci and Kurtzman Q&A
"...The idea of a fixable timeline has been a wonderful staple of sci-fi since the 50’s, but in reading about the most current thinking in theoretical physics regarding time travel (Quantum Mechanics), we learned about the speculative theories that suggest that if time travel is possible, then the act of time travel itself creates a new universe that exists in PARALLEL to the one left by the time traveler. This is the preferred theory these days because it resolves the GRANDFATHER PARADOX, which wonders how a time traveler who kills his own younger grandfather would logically then cease to exist, but then he’d never be around to time travel and kill his grandfather in the first place. Quantum Mechanically based theories resolve this paradox by arguing that the time traveler, in killing his grandfather, would merely split a previously identical universe into a new one in which a man who is his grandfather in another universe is killed in the new one. The time traveler does not cease to exist, although he is no longer in his own original universe (where he is now missing)..."
Orci and Kurtzman Q&A
"...The idea of a fixable timeline has been a wonderful staple of sci-fi since the 50’s, but in reading about the most current thinking in theoretical physics regarding time travel (Quantum Mechanics), we learned about the speculative theories that suggest that if time travel is possible, then the act of time travel itself creates a new universe that exists in PARALLEL to the one left by the time traveler. This is the preferred theory these days because it resolves the GRANDFATHER PARADOX, which wonders how a time traveler who kills his own younger grandfather would logically then cease to exist, but then he’d never be around to time travel and kill his grandfather in the first place. Quantum Mechanically based theories resolve this paradox by arguing that the time traveler, in killing his grandfather, would merely split a previously identical universe into a new one in which a man who is his grandfather in another universe is killed in the new one. The time traveler does not cease to exist, although he is no longer in his own original universe (where he is now missing)..."
So basically, like Worf in "Parallels," if Spock was to open a quantum fissure and fly through it with a shuttlecraft tuned to the Prime reality quantum signature, he could return to the prime reality? He'd be in the past of course, but then he could time travel forward and reappear just after he originally left in the 24th century.
"I hate temporal mechanics."
-Miles O'Brien
"I hate temporal mechanics."
-Miles O'Brien
Exactly. That's how I see it. I highly doubt it's like Back to the Future time mechanics.
You're half right. It is not an alternate universe because the temporal rift that Enterprise-C passed through did not actually close until AFTER the ship passed back through it. The two universes never actually bifurcated, the train of causality was simply altered. This does not become the case in STXI unless SpockPrime goes back in time, flies into the black hole just before Kelvin gets there and forces the Narada back through the hole so it returns to its original timeline. In that case, the two universes are renormalized and become the same timeline again.
UNTIL this happens, the example you need to look for is Parallels, and also at "Endgame" where FutureJaneway is able to alter events in the past without altering her own memories or otherwise instantly causing herself to cease to exist (which would result in a bit of a causality loop if you think about it).
Strictly speaking, Sela Yar probably already existed before the events in Yesterday's Enterprise "really" took place. This is, again, an example of a causality loop, or in this case a causality spiral: an effect precedes its cause in such a way that the cause appears not to occur at all.
Indeed. The fact that Spock and Nero continue to exist demonstrates as much. Remember, the changes we witnessed in "Yesterday's Enterprise" occurred instantly, the direct historical result of Ent-C's dissapearance. Since Nero went through the wormhole first, his arrival in the past (and the destruction of Vulcan) would have instantly changed SPOCK's past and would have erased his memory of the Prime Universe; from his point of view, he would have remembered Vulcan being destroyed, and he would have known exactly how to stop Nero the moment he emerged again from the black hole.
But Spock Prime is as alienated from the new timeline as Nero is, despite going through the wormhole second. This means his timeline isn't altered; he remembers the Prime Universe because it--and he--still exist.
The Vulcan Science Directorate has determined that time travel is impossible.
That it's a paradox doesn't make it irresolvable. It just makes it really really awkward. A causality loop simply establishes that an event is both its cause and its ultimate effect; this is resolved by predestination and the fact that you must now grapple with the fact that you fucked your own grandmother.
As they say in the Hitchhiker's Guide, there's nothing in being your own grandfather than an open-minded well adjusted family can't cope with. Actually, it's just a problem of grammar: did you fuck your grandmother or are you going to fuck your grandmother? Or are you having to have been fucked your grandmother in the past yet to come?
Ignoring trek rules for a moment, technically, every time you travel back in time you are playing out events that have already happened. Put that another way: ten years from now I'm going to invent a time machine and travel back to in time to try and shoot Lee Harvey Oswald before he can kill Kennedy. The attempt fails, I miss Oswald, and he kills Kennedy anyway. Coincidentally, I picked the Grassy Noll as my sniping spot, knowing from history that that particular spot wouldn't be observed by anyone so I could get off a good shot.
Now, this might present a paradox if I had succeeded in shooting Oswald. But I didn't. And it's recorded in history that I didn't. Which means even if time travel is possible, anything and everything that has ever been done by time travelers has already been done whether we know about it or not.
Trek rules don't work this way, though. Probably some extra timelike dimensions that allow timelines to move in non-linear directions. If I had to guess, I'd say there are probably around 47 timelike dimensions in which an otherwise linear timeline can curve and loop.
If the Prime Universe was wiped out then the second the Narada and Jellyfish went through the singularity Picard wouldn't have been able to give his emotional little monologue at the end of Star Trek: Countdown.
and Star Trek: Online couldn't happen either, since that takes place after Nero and Spock go through.
and Star Trek: Online couldn't happen either, since that takes place after Nero and Spock go through.
But I'm female - I can't fuck my grandmother (get your minds out of the gutter, folks - we're discussing time travel paradoxes here!)... I can't be my own ancestor if I kill my grandfather, ok?
If I kill my grandfather, I'll never be born. If I don't exist, I can't go back to kill my grandfather. If I didn't go back to kill my grandfather, I'm born and so can travel back to kill him... the causalities aren't simply each other's cause and effect, they erase each other in turns. "Akward" doesn't even begin to describe this. It can't be logically resolved.
Assuming, of course, that it's being biologically possible for me to impregnate my grandmother, which, in 50% of cases, it's not. Anyway, a parody won't offer you a real solution for the problem. Think of this: you, the grandson, are carrying your grandfather's DNA - if you kill him, you stop existing the same instant. You won't have time to fuck your granny!
Assuming that I travel back along the timeline - which I didn't assume. I said this kind of travel is impossible and doesn't happen - it only appears that way.
So you're saying that one can travel back in time, but can't alter the timeline, based on the fact that from the present POV there are no changes visible? That sounds like predestination to me.
As soon as you are present in a certain point in time, you are part of that "present". That means you can change it. If I were to follow your reasoning, everything I do is already determined: From tomorrow's POV, this moment is already past and therefore unalterable.
And I say timeloops are a logical impossibility. Anyway, the writers seem to share my theory, as you can see in Jeri's post above.
In that case we might as well ignore ALL Trek that came before XI. Great idea....not. All that hard work has to count for something.
Plenty of people, including myself, can watch and enjoy "Yesterday's Enterprise," the new movie, as well as any other time travel story Star Trek has told over the years without even batting an eye at how it works. As long as it i consistent within the specific story being told, I couldn't care less how it was handled in previous stories.
I'm sure Christopher L. Bennett once said he had an idea of how to reconcile these different attitudes to time travel within Trek, which I'd love to hear. But in all honesty, I think it was a mistake to include time travel in XI in the first place, it just complicates things so much.
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