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Can Spock return to his timeline?

Point being is that I can't understand why anyone is trying to justify whether this is an alternate reality or not when Trek has never had firm, established rules regarding time travel. Time travel in Trek has always been what fits the script.

As every episode. I was interested into how the new Trek writers viewed the time travel mechanics displayed in their movie. Without people realizing it much, its always in integral part of a specific time travel story.
 
Yes, Spock-p could return to his timeline- simply get a weapon/warp core breach big enough to destroy the Narada, go back in time with the weapon to when the Narada just exits the black hole and destroy it before it affects the Kelvin.

Or devise a way to seal the black hole before the Narada exits.

Then travel forward in time to the day after he left.

Yes, there may be minor changes due to the Kelvin witnessing the Narada's destruction and/or the black ole being shut down, but the timeline would prolly be restored to "close enough".
 
The Timeline has been altered, if Spock tried to travel forwards, he would end up in the future of this alternate timeline, not the future he left behind.

No. He would end up in yet ANOTHER Alternate Timeline.

All time travel whether forward or backwards will create a new timeline, there is no way to time travel and come out in the same timeline and there's no way to return to a previous timeline because as soon as you appeared there you'd alter it and create a new one.

This is basic stuff.
 
Wibbly Wobbly, Timey Wimey as The Doctor would say. :techman:

Well, to put it logically, once the timeline has been changed, even by the slightest molecule as once said above, it creates an alternate timeline. Thats captain Braxton flipped off then. :p

It would, logically, be impossible to return to your original timeline once said thing is altered. However, in theory, and often or not, Spocks theories almost always check out, it could be done given the circumstances.

By going back and stopping the Narada would fail to restore the timeline, at least on a molecular level ala the butterfly effect theory. However, it would restore the timeline to the closest percentage, in essence, the timeline would be restored to 99.99% of the original. Close enough to preserve events/situations that shape the future that Spock Prime knew.

I doubt that a molecular difference would change it that much in retrospect, but it might. So, in theory, stopping the Narada would work. Spock would just have to wait around for the ideal moment to travel forward to before he left, so like BTTF part 1 he arrives back as soon as he leaves and watches himself and the Narada disapear.
However, theres a wibbly wobbly flaw in that. That would create a loop of Spocks going back creating more timelines. :wtf:

Obviously, you cant travel forward as it would be the future of that alternate timeline, ala BTTF trilogy.

The other alternative is to seek the guardian of forever (damn you Harlen Ellison :klingon:), The Guardian, knowing everything and everyone in the universe, would know of Spocks cause for concern and possibly help him with clues to restore the timeline and to get back to the prime time line. Hence the head ache free fandom. :)


The other alternative is to go in search of a small blue police box with a tall hyporactive man in a trench coat for help. :techman:
 
The Timeline has been altered, if Spock tried to travel forwards, he would end up in the future of this alternate timeline, not the future he left behind.
Not necessarily. Remember what happened in "Endgame" of Star Trek Voyager.
What are you talking about? What happened in "Endgame" was exactly the same as in this movie.

Admiral Janeway went back in time and created an entirely new timeline by helping the Voyager get home 20 years earlier. She never returned to her own future. She lived out her life and died in the new timeline, just as Ambassador Spock is doing.

The only way Spock could get back to his own timeline would be to go back through the same black hole again. But from this movie, it appears that the black hole only appears (as a "lightning storm in space") when something is coming FROM the future. That is, after Nero came through, the anomaly vanished for 25 years until Spock came through.

So unless Picard and the Enterprise-E comes through the black hole, and finds a way to hold it open, then Ambassador Spock will never be able to find the gateway back to his own timeline.

Going forward in time via any other method would simply send him farther into the same future where Vulcan is still destroyed.
 
So, in theory, stopping the Narada would work. Spock would just have to wait around for the ideal moment to travel forward to before he left, so like BTTF part 1 he arrives back as soon as he leaves and watches himself and the Narada disapear.
However, theres a wibbly wobbly flaw in that. That would create a loop of Spocks going back creating more timelines. :wtf:
At the end of "Back to the Future," Marty saw himself vanishing in the Delorean at the Lone Pine Mall. But in the original timeline Marty had gone back in time from the Twin Pines Mall, before crashing into one of the pine trees in the past.

So the Marty that disappeared at the end was a different Marty, one who had grown up in a town with a Lone Pine Mall, and who had a brand-new truck and a father who was a successful science-fiction author.

So, really, Marty didn't see himself go back in time; he saw a different version of himself go back to a different timeline. If "Marty 2" goes back in time and crashes into the pine tree again, then he would still return home to a Lone Pine Mall, so to him it would appear that he is trapped in a causality loop. But to "Marty Prime," who is the star of all three movies, he is in a wildly different future than the one he left, with a different family, different car, different Biff, and a different name of his mall.

So "Marty Prime" has set into motion a quasi-infinite temporal regression, such that "Marty 2," "Marty 3," "Marty 4," et al., are all virtually identical, and do not notice any changes to the timeline when they return home. The only way to break this cycle would be for, say, "Marty 27" to get back early and kill "Marty 28" before he has a chance to go back in time, thus preventing another loop from starting.

Likewise, even if Spock went back, stopped the Narada when it first arrived, then traveled forward into the future (like Picard did after stopping the Borg in "First Contact"), he could either get back just in time to see himself and Nero get sucked into the black hole again, or he could get back a year earlier, help his one-year-younger counterpart complete the "red matter" device earlier, and save Romulus, thus preventing Nero from going back in the first place. Then Romulus and Vulcan would still exist in the 25th century, and there would be two Ambassador Spocks, one a year older than the other, and no new timelines would be created.

(Of course, that would be a massive violation of the Temporal Prime Directive.)
 
So, in theory, stopping the Narada would work. Spock would just have to wait around for the ideal moment to travel forward to before he left, so like BTTF part 1 he arrives back as soon as he leaves and watches himself and the Narada disapear.
However, theres a wibbly wobbly flaw in that. That would create a loop of Spocks going back creating more timelines. :wtf:
At the end of "Back to the Future," Marty saw himself vanishing in the Delorean at the Lone Pine Mall. But in the original timeline Marty had gone back in time from the Twin Pines Mall, before crashing into one of the pine trees in the past.

So the Marty that disappeared at the end was a different Marty, one who had grown up in a town with a Lone Pine Mall, and who had a brand-new truck and a father who was a successful science-fiction author.

So, really, Marty didn't see himself go back in time; he saw a different version of himself go back to a different timeline. If "Marty 2" goes back in time and crashes into the pine tree again, then he would still return home to a Lone Pine Mall, so to him it would appear that he is trapped in a causality loop. But to "Marty Prime," who is the star of all three movies, he is in a wildly different future than the one he left, with a different family, different car, different Biff, and a different name of his mall.

So "Marty Prime" has set into motion a quasi-infinite temporal regression, such that "Marty 2," "Marty 3," "Marty 4," et al., are all virtually identical, and do not notice any changes to the timeline when they return home. The only way to break this cycle would be for, say, "Marty 27" to get back early and kill "Marty 28" before he has a chance to go back in time, thus preventing another loop from starting.

Likewise, even if Spock went back, stopped the Narada when it first arrived, then traveled forward into the future (like Picard did after stopping the Borg in "First Contact"), he could either get back just in time to see himself and Nero get sucked into the black hole again, or he could get back a year earlier, help his one-year-younger counterpart complete the "red matter" device earlier, and save Romulus, thus preventing Nero from going back in the first place. Then Romulus and Vulcan would still exist in the 25th century, and there would be two Ambassador Spocks, one a year older than the other, and no new timelines would be created.

(Of course, that would be a massive violation of the Temporal Prime Directive.)

Fair point.

All this talking about a miriad of alternate timelines and i forgot there was one staring me in the face, from BTTF.

cheers. :techman:
 
Well, if we use previous "parallel universe" episodes (especially the MU ones) as a precedent, then yes, Spock could find a way back to his reality if the writers really wanted him to and could invent a nicely techymagical way for it to happen. After all, there's been so much travel between the MU and the Prime universe that they may as well install a revolving door.

But seeing as though

1) The reality Spock is currently in will be our focus for the forseable future,
2) We won't see old Spocky boy as a central figure (let's face it, he probably won't be mentioned at all in the next movie), and
3) He's already started working on the Vulcan resettlement stuff,

he'll be fine where he is.

So yes, he could go back. But only if the writers take previous MU stuff as a guide and have a desire to get Spock back there. And they don't have to if they don't want to.

:D
 
The only way I can see someone getting back to an original timeline would be to use the guardian of forever and have the guardian be the one to create the portal.
 
The only way I can see someone getting back to an original timeline would be to use the guardian of forever and have the guardian be the one to create the portal.

That was my comment above aswel. That was the only logical, rational train of thought i came up with on the matter.
 
Its always possible to have characters jump between realities (between parallel alternate universe). Like TNG's Parallel or TV series Sliders. This doesn't involve time travel.
 
I'm wondering, if Nero had the technology to go back in time through a black hole or however he did it, couldn't Old Spock find someway to get back to his original timeline if he wanted to? If any thing that Star Trek has taught us, anything is possible.

I'm only asking because what if Spock didn't want to stay in this alternate universe, because technically his Vulcan is alive and well.


I'd love to see Spock attempt to go back (maybe in the last part of this trilogy) and have a nice Cameo from the Enterprise E and crew waiting for him on the other side.

No reason he can't go back.
People have visited alternate realities before.
 
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