Altering the past to change the present

[Crewman47]

I was watching Voyagers Timeless and I was wondering what happens to the present if the past is altered, if it merely fades away from existance from the POV of those in the present?

It's just that I often assumed that if you in the present send a signal into the past to change a certain event, no physical time travelling is done, then all you do is create a new time line/universe from that past point and the present you live in still continues on, unless of course you have some techno babble time device that protects you from the change in the timeline and alters everything around you. But the way it's portrayed here is that Harry and Chakotay are basically wiping out everyone and everything that exists in there timeline from existance.

How can anyone really make a decision like that even though from the pasts perspective they now no longer exist but should still do in the present?

 

[Deckerd]

That's why Star Trek time travel stories are bunk.

 

[Michael]

That's why Star Trek time travel stories are bunk.

This.

 

[Timo]

All time travel stories are: we have every reason to think time travel can't happen, because otherwise it would already have.

Unless the point of view affects things. In which case Trek makes as much sense as anything out there. Causal cascades of events must naturally diverge into an infinite number of options if they are demonstrated to diverge into two. Changing something in the past will create a new branch of time, but it has also always been there because the potential for the change has always been there. Yet our heroes would get no satisfaction from merely knowing that in some universe they are all millionaires who get so much sex that they have to hire bodyguards to give them a breather. Some mechanism must affect the specific timebranch they inhabit.

One plausible way to get one's specific timebranch affected would be to go to a juncture point and then go back along a different, more desirable branch. A time machine might be postulated that needs to do exactly this, and cannot hop from branch to branch unless going through the branching point in the past. And the act of choosing the branch could more plausibly consist of taking a certain set of actions (say, preventing Edith Keeler from being rescued) than of pressing a button on a machine that has blinking lights on it. If the universe is subject to our will at all, we shouldn't be expected to express it via a "timebranch-changing machine" and forbidden from expressing it through other means, because the universe won't be thinking in terms of machines, won't be considering Kirk's crucial hugging of McCoy fundamentally different from a time traveler pushing a button in his time machine console.

The "go back, change things, go forward again" time travel drama smacks true and plausible to me, then. Different time machines might do it differently, and sometimes what travels back and forward again is ill defined. It need not be the people sitting in the time machine. It may be the people seemingly sitting on DS9 while an Orb performs its magic.

As for "Timeless" and its ilk, what we saw isn't particularly illogical or impossible. It's just irrelevant. An infinite number of futures may unfold, and actions that favor a future where nice people live happily will not be significant to the future people - they will either always have lived happily, or they will always have died miserably. Adjusting the future is only significant to people from the future if they do the adjusting themselves, if they undergo conscious effort and either succeed or fail in it. The future Kim succeeded in what he set out to do - in making those futures (actually, presents) where everybody but himself is miserably dead statistically less likely. That didn't erase such futures from the infinite range of futures, but it made Kim happy in his quest, and that's the only thing that mattered for him. Irrelevant but satisfactory, both for our hero and for our own enjoyment.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[F. King Daniel]

I kinda like the multiverse idea, that no timeline can be destroyed and only new ones created (if 'created' is the correct term for an exponentially infinitely expanding multiverse). Ergo, Old Janeway's future is still there, as is TOS even after Nero and Spock go back. The Borgified Earth from "First Contact" lives on somewhen, as does the universe where Vosk helped the Nazis in WWII, the one where Klingons are whuppin' the Federation in "Yesterday's Enterprise" (which I think is meant to be the 'true' TNG universe, since the TNG we know was technically 'created' when Picard sent the -C back, and it's all been a matter of multiverse POV), the one where Spock died as an infant and Thelin is science officer of the Enterprise ("Yesteryear") and so on forever.

How to rationalize our heroes' actions? They didn't have a fucking clue what they were doing. Not Old Janeway, not Older Harry, not Old Jake Sisko, not Kirk, not Picard. Only Spock Prime understood how it all works in his old age.

Or whatever.

 

[kkozoriz1]

We don't actually know that the prime universe wasn't erased at the end if XI. With no reset, we didn't see it again. The writers have said their intention was that it is still there but we haven't seen it post XI. Spock claimed that the new universe is an alternate that branched off but we have no proof of this.

 

[SoM]

All time travel stories are: we have every reason to think time travel can't happen, because otherwise it would already have.

One suggestion I recall reading is that time travel is possible only to a time & place when & where a time machine exists - meaning that the earliest possible moment you could travel to would be the moment a time machine was first invented...

We don't actually know that the prime universe wasn't erased at the end if XI. With no reset, we didn't see it again. The writers have said their intention was that it is still there but we haven't seen it post XI. Spock claimed that the new universe is an alternate that branched off but we have no proof of this.

But we do - since we're talking MULTIversally, rather than UNIversally, then non-screen stuff becomes evidence. And the Countdown comic/ST:Online timeline, a version of the Prime timeline with Picard/Geordi/etc, continues after its Spock & Narada have fallen through the black hole. Ergo, red-matter black hole travel doesn't erase your original timeline even if you go back, and so the canon Prime timeline must still exist too.

 

[kkozoriz1]

Inconsistencies between film and "Countdown" can be explained that the comic is not canon

cugel the clever: In “Countdown”, the Narada effortlessly destroyed an armada of 24th century Klingon warships and disabled the Enterprise-E with one volley. However, in the film, the Kelvin (and early 23rd century ship) actually managed to exchange fire and survive for at least several minutes. It even managed to damage the Narada by ramming it. Logically, this makes no sense…. it should have been destroyed immediately (and Kirk&mother killed) given the firepower possessed by the Narada. This is like the Merrimac surviving a firefight with the Bismark. Care to explain this inconsistency?

BobOrci: Easy. The comic is not canon

http://trekmovie.com/2009/05/22/orci-and-kurtzman-reveal-star-trek-details-in-trekmovie-fan-qa/

 

[Unicron]

Perhaps the Narada was damaged during its time passage compared to its fight against the Klingons and the E in its own time? Also the Kelvin might have had somewhat weaker weapons. Stretching, I know.

 

[SoM]

Inconsistencies between film and "Countdown" can be explained that the comic is not canon

Uh... What has that got to do with what I said? I never said that the Spock/Narada from Countdown were the precise versions shown in the movie - I specifically AVOIDED saying that. I said that if the Countdown timeline continued after its' Spock/Narada went back in time, then so would the canon Prime timeline!

 

[kkozoriz1]

But we have no proof of it is my point. All we saw of the prime universe was flashbacks. It MAY have ceased to exist once Nero appeared and changed history.

That's not the writers intent but until we see otherwise we just do not know that it's still there.

 

[Myasishchev]

Even ignoring the insane conservation violations they entail, what's really hilarious about most "go back break X go back again fix X" time travel is how it reveals how little the writers of them know about how the world we live in operates,. I honestly don't think they even know how babies are made.

If so, they'd probably realize that the first generation born in the light cone of the tranchronal event would be radically different in makeup from the original "timeline's." Marty McFly was never going to be born the minute he said hello to his father and imperceptibly switched the sperm batting order.

So remember--every time you do anything, untold trillions of babies are never born. Because of you.

 

[scotpens]

That's why Star Trek time travel stories are bunk.

That's why all time travel stories are bunk. That doesn't stop us from enjoying them, though.

 

[F. King Daniel]

But we have no proof of it is my point. All we saw of the prime universe was flashbacks. It MAY have ceased to exist once Nero appeared and changed history.

That's not the writers intent but until we see otherwise we just do not know that it's still there.

My...my entire DVD collection...it's...it's fading away!

Nooooooo!

 

[SoM]

But we have no proof of it is my point. All we saw of the prime universe was flashbacks. It MAY have ceased to exist once Nero appeared and changed history.

That's not the writers intent but until we see otherwise we just do not know that it's still there.

If you're going to play that game, we have no proof that Ambassador Spock, Nero & co were even FROM the timeline we saw through most of TNG/DS9/VOY. Sure, the writers said so - but their timeline had Romulans without V-foreheads, a Gregorian-based stardate system and a "fastest ship" that could only go up to Warp 8 or so. None of which is consistent wth the timeline we know.

Or, flipping it around, we have no proof the STXI timeline was *ever* the same as the Prime timeline, even before Nero's incursion. The Kelvin's crew number & number of shuttles isn't exactly consistent, and nor is that stardate system again. It could have been a "Parallels" timeline that was already on a different course, even if the Narada's destruction of the Kelvin shoved it further away still.

It's basically a case of "you take the writers' word on all of these three points, or none of these three points." Either way, the Prime timeline is still out there, chugging along...

 

[F. King Daniel]

We also have no proof that "Where No Man..." is the same universe as the rest of TOS - in fact there's evidence against it: James R. Kirk, the uniforms, the sets...

That same can be said for TMP and TOS (a bigger visual update than STXI had - look at the Klingons!), WoK and TMP (suddenly low-tech, militaristic Enterprise with no explenation), ENT and TOS (Romulan cloaking devices, technology totally inconsistant with Spock's description in "Balance of Terror"), ENT and TNG (Picard's line about disasterous Klingon first contact, Worf's line about phasers, first contact with Ferengi and Borg) and any other Star Trek where there's been any sort of changed premise, visual update or mistake of any kind.

So we're back to "Every episode and film is it's own universe and there are no continuity mistakes whatsoever"

 

[kkozoriz1]

I'm simply saying that we have no proof that the Prime Universe is still there until we see it. It's what up on the screen that counts.

 

[keekwai]

But the way it's portrayed here is that Harry and Chakotay are basically wiping out everyone and everything that exists in there timeline from existance.

First of all it's fiction .. so anything goes .. but logically speaking (from my little fantasy world) .. that's crap. The only way to change the future of "this" timeline .. is the normal way. Advance planning.

Any changes in "this present's" past will result in a new timeline.

Won't it ??????

 

[publiusr]

Well, we have heard it said that the Narada was damaged passing through the flat BH, and that its structure wasn't the same. In the comic, some borg tendrils explained its hairy look, but that was supposed to be from passing through a linear singularity. This would explain why Narada swapped fire with Kelvin (especially if it was a very large ship)--but later defeated klingon fleets.

After this, larger starships would be possible in this universe, especially with any scans the Kelvin transmitted, allowing some 24th century tech to be shared...

I do rather like the comic, but Narada wasn't supposed to look like it did from the beginning. I wonder what it could have looked like originally...not going by the comic.

There is an art contest for you.

 

[F. King Daniel]

What's wrong with how Narada looked in Countdown? I like the idea that something of that massive mining ship is somewhere underneath all that Romulan/Borg technology.

There was an ad for the Star Trek DAC game that showed an almost-Narada attacking the Enterprise. IIRC it looked about halfway between Countdown's proto-Nerada and the way it looked after it's trip to the Forge.