Did Nero "break" the Space-Time Continnum?

[Cadet49]

Sorry if someone has already posted this idea ... it's hard to keep track of all the threads as a casual visitor to this forum.

Is it possible that the red matter spacial anomaly, in interaction with the very unusual Hobus supernova, somehow "shattered" the space-time continuum, making linear time travel within a single temporal universe (as we saw in ST IV and FC) impossible? Now, traveling through time only results in a new temporal universe that branches off...

I've heard a lot of fans gripe that Spock Prime should use his knowledge of time travel to travel back in time to prevent Nero from destroying the Kelvin or Vulcan... maybe he was visited by a being who travels through space-time and between dimensions, like Q or a certain "Doctor" of another reality , who informed him that linear time travel is no longer possible?

Spock could go back in time and stop Nero, but in this current reality he is in, Vulcan, the Kelvin, and his mother would still be gone...

Perhaps this "interdimensional traveller" even had the good sense to return Spock Prime to his own reality, since we hear his voice in Star Trek Online! That would also resolve the "Spock Prime knows the future" paradox!

 

[F. King Daniel]

I like to think that Star Trek time travellers are a bit clueless, and don't really know what happens. It could be that all those trips created near-identical alternate universes, or maybe that Nero and Spock erased TOS/TNG/DS9/VOY from history. Time travel in Trek has been portrayed in so many incompatible (and often nonsensical) ways, saying "Temporal mechanics is beyond the understanding of us viewers" is probably the best way to explain it all.

The time travel in the movie itself is really no different from that in many other Treks, like "Endgame". People go back in time and alter history - the only difference is that this time the writers claim that timelines can't be destroyed, only new ones created. In the movie itself, the bridge crew realize that history's unfolding in a way other than it should - an "alternate reality" - but they keep it vague, leaving the fate of classic Trek ultimately up to the viewer.

Isn't there loads of time travel in STO? Maybe you're not in the STO you left!

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Isn't there loads of time travel in STO? Maybe you're not in the STO you left!

Well so far you only travel back in time 3 times.

 

[Gojira]

<snip> It could be that all those trips created near-identical alternate universes, or maybe that Nero and Spock erased TOS/TNG/DS9/VOY from history. Time travel in Trek has been portrayed in so many incompatible (and often nonsensical) ways, saying "Temporal mechanics is beyond the understanding of us viewers" is probably the best way to explain it all.

The time travel in the movie itself is really no different from that in many other Treks, like "Endgame". People go back in time and alter history - the only difference is that this time the writers claim that timelines can't be destroyed, only new ones created. In the movie itself, the bridge crew realize that history's unfolding in a way other than it should - an "alternate reality" - but they keep it vague, leaving the fate of classic Trek ultimately up to the viewer.

I was so passionately on the bandwagon that Nero and Spock erased TOS/TNG/DS9/VOY from history. But now I have mellowed out quite a bit about it and realize that it doesn't matter how one views the time travel in this movie. There are good sound arguments on both sides of the issue.

We'll just have to take a wait and see approach to how it is handled. This next movie can shed light on whether or not the old time line continues on or that it doesn't. Or they may never resolve it. But the point is that someday a writer can revisit the original time line/universe so in science fiction no death is permanent even the death of time lines. They can always be brought back to life.

 

[Destructor]

This next movie can shed light on whether or not the old time line continues on or that it doesn't. Or they may never resolve it.

It won't be mentioned in the new film.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

If "STO" is a reference to Star Trek Online, then yes, it is pretty much a given that the classic Trek timeline continues. Because there is a scene in the comic Countdown, which is part of the STO continuity, in which Nero and Spock vanish into the past, but the reality of the timeline continues even after they're gone.

Also, the mere fact that the classic Trek timeline is still written in novels, is all the evidence we will need *and* all we will ever get. I know novels aren't canon, but obviously they will be the only 'prime universe' Trek material we will ever see again. If they exist, then so does the timeline written about in them.

 

[DrTaylor]

You're right. It would work for Spock Prime to try to "fix" things, but there's a good reason why he can't - besides Nimoy's retirement, I mean. The movie was made to fix things - the damage that we all know was done by people we've been bashing for the last ten years or so. We can't have it both ways - either we get the old timeline back, and all the hurt that's brought with it, or we embrace the new one and hope for a better future. The hard part is accepting that it's either one or the other.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I've heard a lot of fans gripe that Spock Prime should use his knowledge of time travel to travel back in time to prevent Nero from destroying the Kelvin or Vulcan...

If you mean the knowledge he got in this movie, he didn't get any knowledge of time travel in a single reality. He got knowledge of how to time travel between realities. He could go to a different universe and try to save the Kelvin or Vulcan, or even Romulus, but who's to say they need saving in that reality?

If you mean the knowledge that all the Trek characters had in previous movies and TV shows, well, that's not a new problem.

 

[kkozoriz1]

All he has to do is go back in time to Montana in 2063 and hitch a ride back with the Enterprise E. He'll then have years to solve the Hobus problem and keep Nero from going all nutbar.

 

[ST-One]

All he has to do is go back in time to Montana in 2063 and hitch a ride back with the Enterprise E. He'll then have years to solve the Hobus problem and keep Nero from going all nutbar.

And how is he supposed to know about that?

 

[kkozoriz1]

He's Spock. He knows everything.

OK, how about he foes back to Earth in 1968 and hitches a ride back after Tomorrow is Yesterday? Better?

If the NuUniverse branched off the old one, he CAN get back. If they don't share a common past then he's stuck until he can get a dimensional transport.

 

[ST-One]

He's Spock. He knows everything.

OK, how about he foes back to Earth in 1968 and hitches a ride back after Tomorrow is Yesterday? Better?

No.

 

[JarodRussell]

He's Spock. He knows everything.

OK, how about he foes back to Earth in 1968 and hitches a ride back after Tomorrow is Yesterday? Better?

No.

Yes!

 

[UFO]

He's Spock. He knows everything.

OK, how about he foes back to Earth in 1968 and hitches a ride back after Tomorrow is Yesterday? Better?

If the NuUniverse branched off the old one, he CAN get back. If they don't share a common past then he's stuck until he can get a dimensional transport.

Are you guys forgetting that going back in time will just split off another universe so whoever he hitches a ride with won't get him back to the prime universe, or am I missing something? Actually it's kind of hard to figure out if there even IS a prime universe. I mean with all the branching going for whatever reason, is the prime universe the one where event A or event B happens? Even a "dimensional transport" might just create another universe when you arrive at the existing reality!

Put another way: "Your new time travel gimmick sir. Would you like a can of worms to go with that?"

I suppose it would solve such problems if some methods of time travel circumvented the normal tendency of universe branching while others didn't. But that's just speculation, and not as much "fun".

 

[kkozoriz1]

Red matter apparently causes a split. There's a number of ways that allow you to travel back and back to the future <g> without splitting off a new universe. Slingshot around the sun for instance. All Spock has to do is travel back to before Nero's arrival and then slingshot forward to the 24th century again. The Prime and Nu Universes share a common past.

 

[UFO]

Red matter apparently causes a split.

In which universe!? () Er, I mean, that's yet another interesting interpretation. Red matter is obviously the WD40 of plot gimmicks. I wish I could get hold of a copy of that darn countdown comic! The summary is obviously inadequate.

There's a number of ways that allow you to travel back and back to the future <g> without splitting off a new universe. Slingshot around the sun for instance.

I was not aware of that. I thought NuTrek just updated its physics theories a little and let contradictions fall where they may.

All Spock has to do is travel back to before Nero's arrival and then slingshot forward to the 24th century again. The Prime and Nu Universes share a common past.

Yes they do, but here's your bonus question: Does a universe's past get split off (copied) as well? You see where I'm going with this ... .

 

[kkozoriz1]

Red matter may not be the ONLY way a new universe splits off from an existing one but it apparently is one way that it does. Perhaps it's a combination of red matter and a supernova that's so big it threatens the galaxy. Your garden variety supernova may not work, even for time travel.

Kirk and company did the slingshot around the sun and back to the point where they left in TVH. Same universe.

There's no indication that the past is changed retroactively. There's no indication that it doesn't either. However, if we take intent into account, the past is the same in both universes.

 

[JarodRussell]

Remember, the same thing happened in Enterprise to the Defiant. Switch into a parallel universe, and travel back in time.
It happened to Worf in Parallels as well. At the end, he returned to his universe, and travelled back in time to the point where it all began.

 

[F. King Daniel]

^He assumed he was in his own universe, but he wasn't. In his universe, he made a log entry about losing that silly competition. In the universe he was in when it ended, things unfolded differently - ergo, alternate universe.

Since we know Spock Prime didn't hitch a ride with Picard in 2063 or Kirk in 1986 or Janeway in 1996 or Archer in 2002, if he went back and did so he would simply create an alternate universe where he hitched a ride in the past with whomever, and start off a different chain of events. He'd end up in a future almost identical to the one he left, but not the one he left - but then again isn't a difference that makes no difference, no difference at all? Therefore who really cares if Kirk actually created dozens of alternate universes over the years? If every choice anyone makes creates a universe, it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^He assumed he was in his own universe, but he wasn't. In his universe, he made a log entry about losing that silly competition. In the universe he was in when it ended, things unfolded differently - ergo, alternate universe.

No, Worf won the tournament in his own universe.