Hi all, All the talk on splinter timelines, stable or unstable timelines, etc had me thinking - Isn't the Prime Timeline (which the Litverse /"First Splinter" timeline branched out from) in itself a splinter timeline? Looking at the TNG episode Yesterday's Enterprise , my take from it was that the "regular" timeline was the "militerized" one that had the war with the klingons. "Our" trek universe (the Prime Timeline) was created due to the actions taken by Picard et al, along with the ENT-C crew. The very fact that Sela exists means that her mother existed, and that would mean that this universe was preceded by the "militerized" Trek universe.. SO, with that logic, how is *that* universe considered the Prime Timeline? Wouldn't it be a Splinter universe, much like the litverse? Appreciate your feedback and possible explanations/theories!
There have been countless temporal interventions that created the Prime Timeline as we know it, such as the Temporal Cold War influencing events in Enterprise, Kirk and Spock's presence being part of what shaped 1968 history in "Assignment: Earth," and Spock going back through the Guardian to ensure his own survival in "Yesteryear." There's really no such thing as a "pure" timeline unaffected by time travel. "Prime" is just what people call their own timeline, regardless of its origins. (As Georgiou said in Discovery last season, "Where I come from, we are Prime and you're the Mirror.")
Agreed, absolutely. I was referring to the terms brought up in Oblivion's Gate as to the Prime Timeline and its stability (vs the "First Splinter" timeline's instability, when taken in-story, of course). Why was the on-screen timeline post-Yesterday's Enterprise a "stable Prime Timeline" and not one splinter of the timeline it branched out of (i.e. the militerized timeline as seen in that episode's 24th century scenes after the ENT-C appeared)?
Because the whole stable vs. unstable timeline thing was a metaphor for how the litverse couldn’t continue after canon contradicted it, not a coherent theory of temporal metaphysics. You can try to construct an in-universe rationale after the fact if you want, but that’s not where the idea began.
I wager that the explanation is more narrative then technical, but if I were an author tasked with trying to massage it into something resembling a possible explanation, I might explain it by saying that the method of time travel from the Borg event was artificially created (and furthered tampered with by the Borg in the Borg future timeline) while the method of time travel used in Yesterday's Enterprise was seemingly natural.