Spoilers Canon, Continuity, and Pike's Accident

[NCC-73515]

It's interesting because in real life in the workplace, etc. people very often accuse me of having no sense of humor, never smile, never make jokes etc. and sometimes ask me why.

I just show the 'ignored content' on pages like this to them as the reason (and it always gets people I show this to that this cruelty is towards real people over fictional characters). Sometimes I read it myself before a tough work meeting etc. to remind myself how cruel people are so I can be as serious and grim as possible. I wish I was joking...

If you can't unwind here and joke about fictional characters, with not a single bad thing said about real people in said joke, but then real people gang up on other posters because they don't like said jokes over... fictional characters (instead of just scrolling down and ignoring), it says a lot about the current state of the world.

It's bizarre that people apparently don't see a well fitting SW E3 reference when it's right in front of them

 

[fireproof78]

I blocked that movie from my memory.

 

[Nerys Myk]

It's bizarre that people apparently don't see a well fitting SW E3 reference when it's right in front of them

To be fair, it wasn't great there either.

 

[Mudd]

Jokes usually need to be funny to work properly.

Yep.

 

[JRob94]

Spock: Where is Christine? Is she safe? Is she all right?
Kirk: It seems she dumped you and is engaged to Roger Korby.
Spock: No! She loved me! We were in a relationship, I felt it!

(Kirk gives an evil grin as Spock breaks out of his sickbay restraints)

Spock: NOOOOO!!!!!!

Mournful operatic music plays as Pike hands over baby David to Carol Marcus to be raised, then walks off into the sunset. The scene cuts to the bridge of the Enterprise, now refit and shown in full TOS glory. Uhura finishes submitting a verbal report to Kirk before leaving as Spock approaches, solemnly crossing his arms as he takes his place next to Kirk, a grim expression as all traces of emotion from him are gone forever.

Roll credits!

This fits so perfectly

 

[Yistaan]

Characters in Trek often keep saying that "records on this timeframe are fragmentary" regarding the late 20th century/early 21st century Earth events (partly to handwave the errors Trek's predictions make about this timeframe, like the Eugenics Wars and WW3, considering real life Trek is produced in that timeframe)

Why does no one ever ask Pelia and sit her down with some historians? She's not exactly secretive about living for thousands of years.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Characters in Trek often keep saying that "records on this timeframe are fragmentary" regarding the late 20th century/early 21st century Earth events (partly to handwave the errors Trek's predictions make about this timeframe, like the Eugenics Wars and WW3, considering real life Trek is produced in that timeframe)

Why does no one ever ask Pelia and sit her down with some historians? She's not exactly secretive about living for thousands of years.

How accurate and detailed would your recollections of worldwide historical events during your lifetime be?

 

[Set Harth]

This fits so perfectly

Uhura as Tarkin is the plot twist we never saw coming

 

[Mudd]

How accurate and detailed would your recollections of worldwide historical events during your lifetime be?

There's actually an old pulp science fiction story where scientists pull someone back in time from a century or so in the future, with a limited window in which to interrogate him - something like ten minutes.

He's just an average dude.

He knows nothing about what the current-to-his-era stock market numbers are, how the engines that power vehicles in his time work, or who the President is. He knows nothing at all about the world other than who won some game the night before and what's on TV.

 

[Jedi Marso]

Heck, the SS Valiant getting to the galactic barrier in 2065 is probably part of the old timeline where Zefram Cochrane was a genius who built a massively more powerful warp engine than even the Vulcans had. In the new current timeline, the trauma of the Eugenics Wars AND WW3 happening in Zefram's lifetime was too much and turned him into First Contact's drunk who could barely get his ship into the atmosphere, and the much slower TNG warp scale is a butterfly effect from that.

Actually, there's a relatively simple explanation for ships making it to the Galactic Barrier, if you engage in three dimensional thinking. The galactic disk is pretty wide, but also pretty thin. You don't go out to the galaxy's edge- you go up or down.

 

[Jedi Marso]

Why does no one talk about the Alternate Timeline where Spock's Sehlat is alive? THAT'S when it all came undone!

Ahh, yes! This! Even the TOS timeline isn't the original timeline, but one paradoxically created.

 

[Tallguy]

Actually, there's a relatively simple explanation for ships making it to the Galactic Barrier, if you engage in three dimensional thinking. The galactic disk is pretty wide, but also pretty thin. You don't go out to the galaxy's edge- you go up or down.

My mind is BLOWN.

 

[Mytran]

Ahh, yes! This! Even the TOS timeline isn't the original timeline, but one paradoxically created.

I wonder how that happened - presumably another version of Spock went back (prior to the Spock escapade in Yesteryear) and did things slightly differently, but what timeline did that other Spock come from?

 

[Mudd]

It's not a set of branching timelines - it's a closed loop in time. Does it violate causality? Sure does. Does it require a branched or parallel timeline? No, it does not. Falls into the same category as Edith Keeler and the destruction of the Enterprise C.



In the case of closed loops, there's one timeline going in, and one timeline going out. Branches produce two for every divergence. Also called "alternate timelines" a lot. Parallels are just that - two timelines that never diverge or converge.

Obviously, there can be multiple closed loops on a timeline - "Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow" involves at least two, because there are two intrusions from further downstream - Sera, and La'An/Kirk.

 

[JoeZhang]

There's actually an old pulp science fiction story where scientists pull someone back in time from a century or so in the future, with a limited window in which to interrogate him - something like ten minutes.

He's just an average dude.

He knows nothing about what the current-to-his-era stock market numbers are, how the engines that power vehicles in his time work, or who the President is. He knows nothing at all about the world other than who won some game the night before and what's on TV.

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[Mytran]

It's not a set of branching timelines - it's a closed loop in time. Does it violate causality? Sure does. Does it require a branched or parallel timeline? No, it does not. Falls into the same category as Edith Keeler and the destruction of the Enterprise C.

View attachment 35621

In the case of closed loops, there's one timeline going in, and one timeline going out. Branches produce two for every divergence. Also called "alternate timelines" a lot. Parallels are just that - two timelines that never diverge or converge.

Obviously, there can be multiple closed loops on a timeline - "Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow" involves at least two, because there are two intrusions from further downstream - Sera, and La'An/Kirk.

I've normally seen the term "closed loop" refer to situations where the time traveller was always part of established history - they didn't end up changing any history because they were always a part of it. Times Arrow is a great example of this.
Obviously TTT can't fall into this category as one character in it explicitly states that history has been altered from what it once was, something simply not possible in a time loop.

 

[Mudd]

I've normally seen the term "closed loop" refer to situations where the time traveller was always part of established history - they didn't end up changing any history because they were always a part of it. Times Arrow is a great example of this.
Obviously TTT can't fall into this category as one character in it explicitly states that history has been altered from what it once was, something simply not possible in a time loop.

They state that history was changed from their perspective - there's nothing in this episode or elsewhere in SNW to suggest that La'An has ever lived in a 1990s-Khan universe. In fact, the opposite is heavily suggested.

To Sera, the Eugenics War originally happened in the 1990s. To La'An, it originally happened in the mid-21st century.

A loop is just that - a loop. Events will flip back and forth forever within it. Linear causality - "which was the original?" - does not apply.

The complication in this case is that there are several overlapping loops created by different actors - Sera's and La'An's at least.

Who knows how many more loops there are involving roughly the same period of history? Killing/saving Khan may be as popular a time-traveler preoccupation as killing Hitler.

 

[Mytran]

To Sera, the Eugenics War originally happened in the 1990s. To La'An, it originally happened in the mid-21st century.

A loop is just that - a loop. Events will flip back and forth forever within it. Linear causality - "which was the original?" - does not apply.

Yeah, we are definitely not using "time loop" to mean the same things!
A self perpetuating causal loop would not be able to flip-flop in that manner - it's a single, looping motion, with nothing changing in it. That's what I thought you meant with the label of "closed" loop.

What you seem to be describing as a "time loop" is more like Back To The Future time travel, where people travel back, change a thing and then "loop" back to their origin. Or have I missed something?

 

[mattman8907]

Time travel gives me a headache. It's like which came first the chicken or the egg. If you went back in time and killed your own grandfather, you wouldn't be born so its all pardoxes and what not. and don't get me started on Back to the Future.

 

[Mytran]

Time travel gives me a headache. It's like which came first the chicken or the egg.

From an evolutionary perspective, the egg came first