couple questions about new trek?

[F. King Daniel]

^So this comes down to "I don't like it, so I declare it an alternate universe"? Good for you.

The Klingon change was far, far more than spines and bumps on their heads. They went from slimy, sly villains to brainless brutes who yell "Honour!" over and over. They are not the same in anything but name. The Trill not only went from bumps to spots, but their way of life, the way symbiots are treated and the way hosts lived changed greatly too. These things make a difference to Star Trek in a very big way - they alter the stories that underly everything. The sets, CG's and brief shots of background cities don't.

 

[kkozoriz1]

OK, you're right. I'm just hating NuTrek for no reason. You found me out. I hereby admit that there's noting that should be changed in the movie. It was perfection. They should have swept the Oscars.

I'm done here.

<sheesh>

 

[F. King Daniel]

OK, you're right. I'm just hating NuTrek for no reason. You found me out. I hereby admit that there's noting that should be changed in the movie. It was perfection. They should have swept the Oscars.

I'm done here.

<sheesh>

You're the one trying to turn a discussion of whether retconning various elements of Star Trek terminally breaks continuity or not into another "I hate the brewery/iBridge/it looks too advanced/etc" rant. You're missing the point.

 

[number6]

I accept the JJverse as an alternate reality because they already stated that it was in the film. There's no need to pretend or try to rationalize. It's supposed to be different by design.

 

[JJAdams]

The problem is that IF the JJ-Verse is supposed to be considered the same as the TOS/TNG universe up until Nero arrived, then it should have at least resembled the TOS/TNG universe a little bit. As it stands, one can not watch STXI and then TOS and even imagine that they were part of the same universe. But if STXI bore some resemblance, even a little bit, to the original series, or even the movie series (however, that wouldn't work given the Kelvin is 30+ years older than the TOS era, it should look older), it would be easier to swallow that they were part of the same continuity up until Nero's arrival. With STXI, the visual differences are much too pronounced to override one's ability to suspend disbelief to the extent that they are both part of the same universe.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

All this talk of "did the universe branch off or was it an identical, pre-existing one" is meaningless.

I did say it was a theoretical discussion. If you find it uninteresting, so be it. The important points are that the Prime U is safe & sound "somewhere else" and that the Abrams U is an independent timeline where what happens is wide open and not subject to Temporal Investigations laws.

To say one retcon or goof is acceptable but another is "a pre-existing slightly different alternate universe" is ridiculous.

If there's some sort of "goof" (I haven't been following the design debate, since I find it utterly uninteresting), then that can be solved simply, by deciding that the Abrams U is a pre-existing universe that looked a lot like the Prime U and the "goofs" are the points at which it diverges. The multiverse theory covers the notion of extremely similar realities, in fact realities that are exactly the same except for a tiny detail such as the flap of a butterfly's wing, and that's it.

You just have to pretend it "always" looked like that, in the same way Klingons "always" had bumpy heads (at least until that Enterprise two-parter) or that there was "always" an Enterprise before Kirk's captained by Jonathan Archer.

The problem is that IF the JJ-Verse is supposed to be considered the same as the TOS/TNG universe up until Nero arrived, then it should have at least resembled the TOS/TNG universe a little bit. As it stands, one can not watch STXI and then TOS and even imagine that they were part of the same universe.

All these differences are proof that the Abrams U didn't branch out but always existed. I dislike the branching-out notion for the reasons I've already outlined: it doesn't make intuitive sense. A cosmos that has been packed with an infinite number of parallel realities since they all came into being together in the Big Bang, in which every conceivable thing that can happen, does happen in at least one, and vary from one another on a range from "totally" to "a mere flap of a butterfly's wing" sounds perfectly acceptable to me.

Of course this leads to another problem: if it's mandatory that every conceivable thing and sequence of things must happen in at least one reality, does that mean the timelines of each universe are predestined and that free will therefore is an illusion?

 

[JJAdams]

I did say it was a theoretical discussion. If you find it uninteresting, so be it. The important points are that the Prime U is safe & sound "somewhere else" and that the Abrams U is an independent timeline where what happens is wide open and not subject to Temporal Investigations laws.

If there's some sort of "goof" (I haven't been following the design debate, since I find it utterly uninteresting), then that can be solved simply, by deciding that the Abrams U is a pre-existing universe that looked a lot like the Prime U and the "goofs" are the points at which it diverges. The multiverse theory covers the notion of extremely similar realities, in fact realities that are exactly the same except for a tiny detail such as the flap of a butterfly's wing, and that's it.

All these differences are proof that the Abrams U didn't branch out but always existed. I dislike the branching-out notion for the reasons I've already outlined: it doesn't make intuitive sense. A cosmos that has been packed with an infinite number of parallel realities since they all came into being together in the Big Bang, in which every conceivable thing that can happen, does happen in at least one, and vary from one another on a range from "totally" to "a mere flap of a butterfly's wing" sounds perfectly acceptable to me.

Of course this leads to another problem: if it's mandatory that every conceivable thing and sequence of things must happen in at least one reality, does that mean the timelines of each universe are predestined and that free will therefore is an illusion?

I like this. It makes perfect sense. I couldn't have said it better myself. I bolded the parts I really liked.

 

[F. King Daniel]

does that mean that the timelines of each universe are predestined and free will is therefore an illusion?

There's plenty of evidence of that in prior Star Treks: DS9's wormhole aliens percieve time in an non-linear everywhen-at-once way, so doesn't that mean that the future has already happened and is thus fixed? I recall them giving Sisko a choice at one point (apologies for the vagueness, I haven't seen DS9 in years), that led to both Dax's and (later) his death, but since the wormhole aliens know/knew the future, wasn't the choice he was given an illusion? They should have always known the answer, rendering the question moot. How about Kes and Seven re-enacting the same scene, for different reasons, in "Before and After" and "Year of Hell"? Or Archer founding the Federation as scheduled despite two massive changes in the timeline (compared to Daniels', in "Shockwave" and "The Expanse")? Spock spoke of "the currents of time" in COTEOF. Is it probability or destiny?

 

[Set Harth]

So that means that Spock & Nero created some universe that didn't previously exist by their actions. Uh. It must have previously existed, or else how was George Kirk & the redoubtable Robau alive at that point?

It previously existed as the past of the Prime before being changed.

 

[F. King Daniel]

The problem is that IF the JJ-Verse is supposed to be considered the same as the TOS/TNG universe up until Nero arrived, then it should have at least resembled the TOS/TNG universe a little bit. As it stands, one can not watch STXI and then TOS and even imagine that they were part of the same universe. But if STXI bore some resemblance, even a little bit, to the original series, or even the movie series (however, that wouldn't work given the Kelvin is 30+ years older than the TOS era, it should look older), it would be easier to swallow that they were part of the same continuity up until Nero's arrival. With STXI, the visual differences are much too pronounced to override one's ability to suspend disbelief to the extent that they are both part of the same universe.

Rubbish. If you can change an actor or alien make-up, or change entire races (Klingon, Trill) and pretend they're the same, you can do the same for a visual effect or set.

No difference.