How do you escape an alternate timeline?

[Saul]

Is it at all possible?

I'm thinking of poor Old Spock stuck in the JJ verse. Is there any way he could ever return to his own time? He can't go to the future because it'll be the future of the JJ verse. But if he goes back to the past, before Nero arrived and then he time traveled again into the future what future would he arrive at????

 

[T'Girl]

Old Spock already did move between time lines in Star trek Eleven. Nero moved backward through the prime time line, emerged in the prime time line, made changes that producing an alternate time line.

Spock separately move backward through the prime time line (not as far back as Nero), but instead of emerging in the prime time line as Nero did, somehow he emerge in the alternate time line Nero created.

If Spock can figure out how in the hell he emerged in the alternate, he can use that knowledge to travel from the alternate into the prime.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Is it at all possible?

I'm thinking of poor Old Spock stuck in the JJ verse. Is there any way he could ever return to his own time? He can't go to the future because it'll be the future of the JJ verse. But if he goes back to the past, before Nero arrived and then he time traveled again into the future what future would he arrive at????

DS9 had little gizmos that allowed transporters to beam between alternate universes. Perhaps he could build one and beam home.

BUT, Spock doesn't want to go back to his timeline/future. He's at least in part responsible for the destruction of Vulcan, and he's doing his part setting up the new colony (and, apparently, repopulating the species). What's he got to go back to in the prime future? No Romulus, no reunification, no nothing.

 

[Saul]

DS9 had little gizmos that allowed transporters to beam between alternate universes. Perhaps he could build one and beam home.

But isn't that just for the mirror universe? Which is more of an alternate universe rather than alternate timeline.

What's he got to go back to in the prime future? No Romulus, no reunification, no nothing.

He's got his home planet. Nobody annoying him with phone calls asking him how he dealt with such a such a problem when he was younger.

Spock separately move backward through the prime time line (not as far back as Nero), but instead of emerging in the prime time line as Nero did, somehow he emerge in the alternate time line Nero created.

If Spock can figure out how in the hell he emerged in the alternate, he can use that knowledge to travel from the alternate into the prime.

I thought the reason he arrived after Nero was because Nero entered the Black hole first and each were deposited at different places in the timeline.

 

[Gary7]

I think with all the time travel technology that is accessible to him, he could go back to the time when Nero was a child and just have his circumstances changed for the better, so that he doesn't become a megalomaniac. And that would save Vulcan from Nero's potential wrath. But of course... nobody is going to want to write that.

 

[F. King Daniel]

In "In a Mirror, Darkly" Mirror-T'Pol called the Prime Universe "an alternate reality" - exactly the phrase used by Uhura in ST'09. I presume it's all the same - ENT even planned a mirror universe origin/divergence point story but they couldn't get William Shatner back to reprise his Mirror-Kirk character (who was sent into the past by the Tantalus Device). There have been a couple of non-canon stories about the point at which the PU and MU diverge (the Romulan War and First Contact are the ones I remember off the top of my head), it's an idea that's been kicking around forever.

 

[Cyke101]

Frankly, the last time Spock traveled between timelines, it required the destruction of a star and a *lot* of WMDs to do it. Surely some combination of cosmic forces were at play. For him to repeat the process, even in an unpopulated solar system, would be tricky, dangerous, and probably devastating (even if he made it back anyway), which could have untold effects on the region.

Besides the type and scale of destructive energy needed, as King pointed out, there's still work to be done in the JJ verse anyway. "The needs of the many" blah de blah blah.

 

[T'Girl]

I thought the reason he arrived after Nero was because Nero entered the Black hole first and each were deposited at different places in the timeline.

Yes, but if Nero arrived in the prime universe, a quarter century later Spock should have as well.

He did not travel as far back in time as Nero, he wasn't present when the time lines branched. How did he get from the prime into the alternate? The alternate had sailing away for twenty plus years when Spock stopped time traveling.

Spock needs to figure out how he got from the prime into the alternate. Then (if possible) reverse that event.

The movies TPTB have stated that the prime continued after the split, Spock should have emerge in the prime just as Nero did.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

What if the divergence point is City On The Edge Of Forever?

Honestly the whole alternate timeline thing was just a contrived way not to piss off fans by claiming to wipe out all the events of the show they know and love. But you could say that Spock came in the same timeline because he was caught in the temporal wake or whatever, same reason in First Contact the Enterprise E wasn't erased from history. Or maybe 'Temporal Shielding' was immediately installed on every ship in the fleet after Voyager got back. Make up your own reason. Maybe when Biff Tanen came back to 2015 from 1955 and wound up in his original timeline he created a rift in spacetime that Spock fell through.

And there has to be more going on between these two worlds than just to be alternate timelines of each other. Otherwise, why would almost the exact same people exist in both timelines regardless of events being completely different? Maybe since space, time and thought are all one, the MU was created by our dark suppressed passions, so there are corresponding versions of us who act out on all our suppressed violent urges. Or maybe the Prophets created the MU to help Sisko let go of Jennifer. Whatever, the explanation you make up will probably make more sense than the official one if it existed.

 

[dub]

The timeline/universe thing has always confused me. Because there are a number of theories out there, and it seems Star Trek has explored many of them. But in doing so, they seem to say that all are of those possibilities exist. So, you can go into your past and change your own timeline (in these cases, our characters try not to do anything major in the past to stir up their present, and if they do they have to fix it/make it right before going back to their present). But you can also go into the past in an alternate timeline. Or the present in an alternate universe.

I think if I were Spock (Prime), I would try to figure out a way to get to his original timeline and time period if that's possible, and then see if what happen changed his future or in fact created a completely new timeline which he is now stuck in. There's really no way to find out for sure unless he attempts to go back. Unless I'm completely wrong, which is very possible because as I said all of the timeline stuff confuses me. And I've only seen the new movies once each, so my memory of the definitive talk about their timeline in the films themselves are a blur now. If he is indeed in an alternate timeline and he knows that for sure, then he has nothing to lose by trying to get back to his own timeline because there is an infinite number of alternate timelines and he's just in one of them. And the one he's in sucks now with Vulcan destroyed and everything, so all the more reason to attempt to get back to his own timeline. Seems logical to me.

 

[USS Triumphant]

The Guardian can see all the parallels. Spock could just go there, and go right home, I think.

 

[Green Shirt]

Click you heels and repeat after me - "There is no place like home".

 

[bbjeg]

Didn't Worf get back home in "Parallels" by finding his carrier wave thingy? I think Spock can get home and chooses not to. The fact he didn't cease to exist after Vulcan's destruction makes me believe he's not connected to his timeline anyway. I agree with King Daniel Into Darkness, he's just more useful where he is.

Click you heels and repeat after me - "There is no place like home".

Dorothy: "You mean you could have told me that before I battled a witch!?!

 

[-Brett-]

Assuming he has a time machine, he could go back to the point where the Narada emerges in the past and destroy it before it does anything, then go back to the future. It wouldn't be his timeline exactly, but it'd be close enough.

 

[Gary7]

The Guardian can see all the parallels. Spock could just go there, and go right home, I think.

Assuming it actually exists in this new timeline. Of course, we have no way of knowing either way.

 

[Set Harth]

Old Spock already did move between time lines in Star trek Eleven. Nero moved backward through the prime time line, emerged in the prime time line, made changes that producing an alternate time line.

Nero's mere presence in 2233 is already a change, so it's already an alternate timeline just by virtue of his being there.

How did he get from the prime into the alternate?

Presumably this is because they went into the same black hole, which had already established a connection to the alternate by that point.

Honestly the whole alternate timeline thing was just a contrived way not to piss off fans by claiming to wipe out all the events of the show they know and love.

And people say this all the time, yet it's still nothing more than unsubstantiated speculation.

The fact he didn't cease to exist after Vulcan's destruction makes me believe he's not connected to his timeline anyway.

I don't get this. Why should he have ceased to exist after Vulcan's destruction?

 

[bbjeg]

The fact he didn't cease to exist after Vulcan's destruction makes me believe he's not connected to his timeline anyway.

I don't get this. Why should he have ceased to exist after Vulcan's destruction?

It was possible for Spock to restore the Timeline when he appeared (though unlikely) but after Vulcan's destruction, Prime Spock and all of his exploits, like creating the red matter ship on Vulcan, would have never happened. How can you make a ship on a planet, go back in time, destroy that planet, and still have that ship made on that planet.

It's not like if you cut NuSpock, Prime Spock would have a scar, and it's not like Prime Spock saw the destruction of Vulcan, blinked his eyes, and said "I totally remember making the red matter ship on New Vulcan". I believe Prime Spock's timeline must exist in order for him to alter NuTrek's timeline.

 

[Saul]

Assuming he has a time machine, he could go back to the point where the Narada emerges in the past and destroy it before it does anything, then go back to the future. It wouldn't be his timeline exactly, but it'd be close enough.

Humm. What you're suggestion seems to be a bit similar to the 'Back to the Future II' method but that was dealing with one timeline that was altered.

The timeline splits at the point that Nero arrives and destroys the Kelvin or even before that when the Kelvin scans her.

So that alternate timeline no. 1 was created then and branched off so to speak.

But could Spock go back to before Nero arrived and then travel to the future of the prime timeline before it was changed or would he just be jumping into alternate timeline no. 1 again? If so then the arrival of Nero must mean that the alternate timeline is not just from a split point but effects everything in past, present and future.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Guys, the number one rule of Star Trek fandom is, don't try to make sense of time travel physics.

It's pretty clear from the context of the movie that in the Abramsverse, nothing exists from the original timeline except for Spock.

Ok, ok. There's one way Spock can get back to his original timeline. Go back in time to 2015, find Biff Tanen and eat his brain. Then he will steal his superpower to go back in time, change the past, then get back into your original unchanged timeline.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Guys, the number one rule of Star Trek fandom is, don't try to make sense of time travel physics.

This. Going by "Time Squared", Spock, Nero and their ships should have faded away once they started making changes.

It's pretty clear from the context of the movie that in the Abramsverse, nothing exists from the original timeline except for Spock.

Eh, Admiral Marcus' desk was packed with references to pre-TOS happenings:

-Aries IV from VOY: "One Small Step"
-The Phoenix from ST:FC
-The Ringship Enterprise from ENT and TMP background art
-NX-Alpha from ENT: "First Flight"
-Enterprise NX-01 from the ENT TV series.

I say they were no accident, but confirmation of Bob Orci's statements about a branching timeline with an unchanged pre-2233 past.

Plus, they bent over backwards to explain how and why Khan was awoken years before "Space Seed", and there was even a deleted scene where Carol explains why she has a British accent in this timeline.