Alternate reality vs. altered timeline

[gastrof]

Dennis?

The method of time travel wouldn't change how changing the past affects the timeline or creating/not creating an alternate timeline.

Previous Trek plainly establishes in EVERY time-change episode that the timeline of a single universe is changed by changes in history, and in turn can be restored to pretty much how it should be.

Please give up trying to convince anyone of anything different.

Decades of episodes prove you wrong.

You are right when you say

Spock can't set time to rights even if he buys into the Guardian's version of time travel, because he arrives thirty years after the events that alter the timeline and has no method of time travel available to him.

I agree totally, except for one little thing.

Would "our" Spock, no matter how old he was, just leave this continuity as it is (Amanda dead far too early, Vulcan destroyed, etc.) simply because the changes started 25 (*ahem*) years earlier?

He'd find a way to go back and destroy the Narada before it even SAW the Kelvin.

 

[James Cole]

My theory... What happened to the Nerada and Spock Prime is just like what happened to the USS Defiant in "In a Mirror, Darkly": traveling back in time, but to an alternate universe.

The Abramsverse is just like the Mirror Universe, a parallel universe and not just an alternate timeline like the ones seen in Yesterday's Enterprise, First Contact, or COTEOF.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ That's also how I look at this situation.

 

[Shazam!]

For the record, I agree that they fucked up and made a mess of things. I'm just not willing to let them off the hook by saying "Oh well, maybe it's ALL new". No it's not. It's TOS pre-Kelvin and it's clearly TOS Spock. They just made a mess of it.

So your saying that the major episode of the original series that depicts the effects of altering the past is and is considered a classic is irrelevant

LOL What?

My statement was quite clear. Which part of it didn't you understand?

All of it. Your response had nothing to do with what I'd said.

 

[Shazam!]

You know just saying things like it's TOS pre-Kelvin and it's clearly TOS Spock don't mean much when you don't support these statements with facts or evidence. Just saying it doesn't make it accurate. Support your position.

I've presented facts and evidence; THE WRITERS HAVE FLAT OUT SAID WHAT IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE, whereas your evidence is that time-travel is handled a bit differently than in previous Trek.

But, y'know, you know best and the writers don't know what they're doing.

Trek contradicts itself. Cherry-picking a favorite episode and insisting that the logic of all Star Trek must follow its example proves nothing and is evidence of nothing.

Spock Prime is TOS Spock - there is no other, until Quinto appears as Spock. There is no suggestion anywhere in the film that there are a multiplicity of alternate universes from which he might have appeared. The intentions of the producers are explicit, and they rule out your hypothesis.

High Five

 

[Shazam!]

The method of time travel wouldn't change how changing the past affects the timeline or creating/not creating an alternate timeline.

Which just means that the writers made a complete mess of established Trek continuity.

It doesn't mean that the entire premise of the film is contrary to what the writers themselves are insisting it is.

 

[JarodRussell]

The first three seasons of Enterprise are about several factions manipulating the timeline to gain an advantage in the future. That doesn't work with Orci's interpretation of MWI (an interpretation of the interpretation so to speak, lol), but it's true to CotEoF. Yesterday's Enterprise has one timeline being influenced. Guinan is there and senses that the timeline must be corrected. When Yar returns, Sela is born and appears in the original timeline. Doesn't work with MWI, is true to CotEoF. In Time's Arrow they find Data's head, and it is shown how Picard stores information to send a signal to them in the future while he is in the past. Doesn't work with MWI, is true to CotEoF. In a DS9 episode, the Defiant crashes 300 years in the past, and a settlement of 8000 people develops. They know everyone will cease to exist when the Defiant isn't traveling back through time. Again, that doesn't work with MWI, but it's perfectly fine with CotEoF. When the Defiant is thrown back in time to meet the Enterprise, Sisko is later interrogated because they are afraid he changed the timeline in some way. In First Contact, the Borg Sphere travels into the past an Picard & Co immediately notice a difference to the timeline. That is exactly what happened in CotEoF.

If time travel would only create parallel universes, they would have never noticed any time travel effects ever. And such a thing as Temporal Investigators would not exist. And Kirk would have never needed to bother with the pilot they beamed up from the jet. Nor would they have had to deal with Gary Seven in the past.

Really, time travel in Star Trek has been consistent. It's probably not true to real science (and noone ever claimed it was, unlike the new writers, who try to sell their script as being scientifically accurate, which is only a sad joke), but it's consistent within the fictional universe. It's the new movie that insists on being different and ignoring the (fictional) time travel rules: there are multiple parallel universes, and each of them has its own timeline. And time travel is possible to undo things. And the character of Spock has done it before to save a planet (and in TVH it was even a "natural" event, not the result of guys from the future wreaking havoc), and he would do it again, if he really was the same character.

 

[Shazam!]

Really, time travel in Star Trek has been consistent. It's the new movie that insists on being different and ignoring it.

.

Which just means that the writers made a complete mess of established Trek continuity.

It doesn't mean that the entire premise of the film is contrary to what the writers themselves are insisting it is.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Really, time travel in Star Trek has been consistent.

Easily as consistent as the rest of Trek continuity - which is to say, pretty loose and inconsistent.

To the extent that there's anything specific and odd about the new movie's approach to time travel, it appears to be because at least one of the writers read a book or two and did some thinking about it as opposed to the thrice-told-tale approach of most Trek writers. He may not have quite understood everything he read, but the effort clearly did a lot to reduce the amount of cliche in the time travel plotting.

 

[number6]

Really, time travel in Star Trek has been consistent.

Easily as consistent as the rest of Trek continuity - which is to say, pretty loose and inconsistent.

To the extent that there's anything specific and odd about the new movie's approach to time travel, it appears to be because at least one of the writers read a book or two and did some thinking about it as opposed to the thrice-told-tale approach of most Trek writers. He may not have quite understood everything he read, but the effort clearly did a lot to reduce the amount of cliche in the time travel plotting.

This!


People love to try and hold TOS to this standard that never really existed. If anything TOS was less consistant than the series that followed. Every series and film had its flaws. It is only too easy to nitpick all of the fun out of any film. People who choose to hate something will find infinitely more flaws in something, than people who enjoy it. It's fairly obvious to see who is who and I consider the source when taking these criticisms seriously.

 

[M'Sharak]

Shazam!, could you watch the triple-posting, please? Thanks.

 

[Shazam!]

LOL Why?

 

[M'Sharak]

LOL, that's why.

 

[Shazam!]

That's the strangest forum rule I've ever heard.

 

[JarodRussell]

Really, time travel in Star Trek has been consistent.

Easily as consistent as the rest of Trek continuity - which is to say, pretty loose and inconsistent.

To the extent that there's anything specific and odd about the new movie's approach to time travel, it appears to be because at least one of the writers read a book or two and did some thinking about it as opposed to the thrice-told-tale approach of most Trek writers. He may not have quite understood everything he read, but the effort clearly did a lot to reduce the amount of cliche in the time travel plotting.

This!


People love to try and hold TOS to this standard that never really existed. If anything TOS was less consistant than the series that followed. Every series and film had its flaws. It is only too easy to nitpick all of the fun out of any film. People who choose to hate something will find infinitely more flaws in something, than people who enjoy it. It's fairly obvious to see who is who and I consider the source when taking these criticisms seriously.

I'm not only holding TOS to a standard, I'm holding TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY and ENT to a standard, and when it comes to time travel, the standard exists, as I showed in my post.

I made a clear argument why time travel has been always consistent in all of Trek (except this movie). I can't remember an exception (without Q's or the Prophet's interference), and if there is one, then it's outweighed by the major time travel episodes that did follow the (fictional) rules.

 

[lorrak7]

You know just saying things like it's TOS pre-Kelvin and it's clearly TOS Spock don't mean much when you don't support these statements with facts or evidence. Just saying it doesn't make it accurate. Support your position.

I've presented facts and evidence; THE WRITERS HAVE FLAT OUT SAID WHAT IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE, whereas your evidence is that time-travel is handled a bit differently than in previous Trek.

But, y'know, you know best and the writers don't know what they're doing.

Trek contradicts itself. Cherry-picking a favorite episode and insisting that the logic of all Star Trek must follow its example proves nothing and is evidence of nothing.

Spock Prime is TOS Spock - there is no other, until Quinto appears as Spock. There is no suggestion anywhere in the film that there are a multiplicity of alternate universes from which he might have appeared. The intentions of the producers are explicit, and they rule out your hypothesis.

High Five

The writers saying what its supposed to be are not facts when what they are saying is not demonstrated in the movie itself. I am evaluating the movie and the story that was made not the story and the movie that wasn't made. If you want to discuss the movie and story that wasn't made perhaps you should start your own thread. Furthermore time travel is not handled just a bit differently from original Trek in Trek 2009. The way it is handled in Trek 2009 is a major alteration of what the effect of changing the past is. Every depiction of the effect in all the time travel episodes of the original series as well as in any of the movies that involve time travel conform to the same principle. If you alter the past you change your own present. You do not create an alternate time line. Therefore Spock Prime who is from a universe where this principle does not hold true is not from the TOS Universe. He is from an alternate universe in which the effect of altering the past is that you create an alternate timeline and do not effect your own timeline.

 

[lorrak7]

The first three seasons of Enterprise are about several factions manipulating the timeline to gain an advantage in the future. That doesn't work with Orci's interpretation of MWI (an interpretation of the interpretation so to speak, lol), but it's true to CotEoF. Yesterday's Enterprise has one timeline being influenced. Guinan is there and senses that the timeline must be corrected. When Yar returns, Sela is born and appears in the original timeline. Doesn't work with MWI, is true to CotEoF. In Time's Arrow they find Data's head, and it is shown how Picard stores information to send a signal to them in the future while he is in the past. Doesn't work with MWI, is true to CotEoF. In a DS9 episode, the Defiant crashes 300 years in the past, and a settlement of 8000 people develops. They know everyone will cease to exist when the Defiant isn't traveling back through time. Again, that doesn't work with MWI, but it's perfectly fine with CotEoF. When the Defiant is thrown back in time to meet the Enterprise, Sisko is later interrogated because they are afraid he changed the timeline in some way. In First Contact, the Borg Sphere travels into the past an Picard & Co immediately notice a difference to the timeline. That is exactly what happened in CotEoF.

If time travel would only create parallel universes, they would have never noticed any time travel effects ever. And such a thing as Temporal Investigators would not exist. And Kirk would have never needed to bother with the pilot they beamed up from the jet. Nor would they have had to deal with Gary Seven in the past.

Really, time travel in Star Trek has been consistent. It's probably not true to real science (and noone ever claimed it was, unlike the new writers, who try to sell their script as being scientifically accurate, which is only a sad joke), but it's consistent within the fictional universe. It's the new movie that insists on being different and ignoring the (fictional) time travel rules: there are multiple parallel universes, and each of them has its own timeline. And time travel is possible to undo things. And the character of Spock has done it before to save a planet (and in TVH it was even a "natural" event, not the result of guys from the future wreaking havoc), and he would do it again, if he really was the same character.

Exactly. You understand as I understand that conclusions should be based on what occurs within the episodes and movies themselves and not what writers say in interviews about the episodes and movies. Thank you.

 

[Nerys Myk]

As the great philosopher Mel Brooks wrote: "I am the author. You are the audience. I outrank you!"

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Exactly. You understand as I understand that conclusions should be based on what occurs within the episodes and movies themselves and not what writers say in interviews about the episodes and movies. Thank you.

By "understand" you mean "agree with."

Even based entirely upon what's in the episodes and movies your conclusions are matters of opinion and interpretation, not logically inevitable or inarguable. Your inability or refusal to accept that truth is the only reason that this disagreement continued past two or three posts.

 

[lorrak7]

Exactly. You understand as I understand that conclusions should be based on what occurs within the episodes and movies themselves and not what writers say in interviews about the episodes and movies. Thank you.

By "understand" you mean "agree with."

Even based entirely upon what's in the episodes and movies your conclusions are matters of opinion and interpretation, not logically inevitable or inarguable. Your inability or refusal to accept that truth is the only reason that this disagreement continued past two or three posts.

No. By understand I mean understand. And if my interpretation is arguable it hasn't been done here. The only argument against my interpretation presented here has been "The screen writers said it is TOS Spock so it is." If you can refute my argument using actual evidence from the movies or episodes I welcome it.