So in the Kelvin universe, Does Picard chase the Borg back in time, and help Cochrane launch his warp ship, leading to Vulcans, archer, the NX-01, and Federation? Exactly the same way it happened in the Prime? Kelvin Picards history would be different. Would his life be the same?
Yes. Those things all happened before the divergence. The future that prime-Picard came from still exists, and therefore anyone can travel back from it, to a time before 2233. There is no "Kelvin universe", as such. (I don't care what Simon Pegg says.) Just a branching of the timelines, nothing more. Either branch can send people back.
Ok, I'm with you that anyone from any future can potentially visit any past. But where do you get that "there was only one timeline" before? We saw others. Why not just let there be an infinite number of timelines made up of infinite possible events in infinite combinations, out of which we (or rather the writers) are free to arbitrarily pick one set (consisting of the events depicted outside of the Abrams/Lin films, excepting the ones considered "alternate" versions by our protagonists in that context) and let it be described as "the Prime Timeline" and a different set (consisting of the events portrayed in those films, both before and after the "divergence," excepting the future Spock Prime and Nero came from) which can potentially—but need not necessarily—overlap with the former at any given point, and let this be described as "the Kelvin Timeline"? Seems like it would allow much more creative freedom and less fan headache to just keep them separate entities, even though peripherally connected, and all part of the same vast multiverse as seen in "Parallels" (TNG) and elsewhere? I don't see the downside, especially since we'll now be getting new but probably-uncoordinated productions set in both. Let them each do their own thing and not worry about getting in each other's way. Future-proofing.
As far as warp factors and barriers go, let’s not forget the “time barrier” broken by the Constitution class ships, mentioned by Tyler in the TOS episode “The Menagerie” which allows them to go much faster than previous ships of only a decade or two before, like the S.S. Colombia. Both Pike and Spock refer to warp factors as “time-warp factors” which might suggest that breaking the time barrier involved, or required, a new warp scale –similar to the situation introduced in TNG- but in this case with a change in terminology to distinguish the new time-warp factor scale from the previous space-warp factor scale?
What if.... Old Spock got himself a ship, sailed off to earth, a did a slingshot around the sun to take him back to the year 2300, and then did it again to take himself to 2400. Would he end up in the Kelvin universe, or Prime?
Since he's not changing the phase variance of his ship, it will remain temporally locked to the quantum reality of the origin point. The Kelvin universe is a side universe with a unique signature.
Well the "time-warp factor" was not the Spore Drive...two years too early. USS Franklin could have easily been a competing engine design developed parallel to the Archer Warp Five drive. It even could have been the backup design. "Archer's drive is too ambitious reaching for warp five, so lets focus on getting to warp four first". It might use different principles to achieve the same general things...faster than light travel. It is entirely possible that while the Archer-Enterprise drive did work better, is wasn't able to handle larger starship like USS Kelvin. But the Franklin style drives could be enlarge to that scale. Thus Starfleet has some really large ships from time to time, while most ships use engines based on Andorian, Tellerite, or Archer drives, the huge ships use Franklin drives instead of the Vulcan ring drives. Than Nero arrives, and starships need to be scaled up a lot to counter the potential threat. Resulting in a lot of Kelvin-based starships and the next generation of that engine style is the new Constitution-class ships like USS Enterprise. Delayed in this universe because of the need to upscale the ships and come up with a new scaled up warp engine to power it. (The Spore Drive being put on the back burner as the new drives got ships their pretty quick compared to the earlier Archer based drives). Like Enterprise (NX-01), the USS Franklin might not have reached warp four at first. Making it only after some improvements were made just prior to the launch of Enterprise, which could comfortably make Warp 4.5 from the day she launched, but had a really hard time breaking Warp 5, managing Warp 5.06 eventually, and after the Xindi mission, her first major engine overhaul could make Warp 5.2 for a little but, as could Columbia (NX-02) So it seems reasonable that USS Franklin, back in the day, could only cruise at Warp 3.5 or even Warp 3.8, with burst at Warp 4 or Warp 4.1 or whatever. If that was the case (if she was MACO or Starfleet, it wouldn't matter), Enterprise could head out to the Expanse at Warp 5 for seven weeks ("The Expanse")...plus whatever time they spent going from Earth towards Vulcan first. Franklin would be lagging behind at upwards of Warp 3.8 or even warp 4. Enterprise, even though it is only "one warp factor" is twice as fast as Franklin. Franklin would not reach the Expanse for another seven weeks. Earth doesn't have time to wait. Enterprise discovered their first real clue six weeks after entering the Expanse ("The Xindi")...If Franklin was also coming along, she's still about a week away from the edge of that space.
It's stuff like this probably why Pegg said what he did, giving them a clean slate pre-Kelvin as well as post. It's impossible to make sense of time travel in Trek. The rules change with whatever writer they have at the time. Try and explain how "Tomorrow is Yesterday" makes sense with "Time Squared" or how the 2009 movie does things - you can't. So Kelvin Picard's history and time tampering will work however the writers decide, if and when they write him.
I realized that I inadvertently mis-attributed the quote I posted upthread regarding the Franklin's background as conceived by Beyond's production team to Sean Hargreaves instead of Dylan Highsmith. Corrected now. Apologies.
The only thing about Franklin I didn't like was the first ship to Warp 4 thing. It could have just been any old ship that once disappeared, not everything needs to have notoriety or destiny. The important thing is that was just an old ship that crashed one day. That's just personal preference though. Pegg's theory about Kelvinverse time travel rippling backwards and forwards is kind of cool to me, like a comic book type scenario like Flashpoint or even stuff Doctor Who has done. Maybe it's like one of those anti-time eruptions All Good Things made up and causes random stuff from before 2233 to be different as well. But I also don't like this theory because it was made up after the universe already existed and seems at odds with the in-universe and out of universe explanations for 09.
To me, I think the JJ-verse is not a branched-off timeline, but a completely separate timeline that diverged well before 2151. Given the Franklin and its looks, it was called an NX-class if I remember correctly. If that's the case, then this universe diverged at least in 2145 or so, and perhaps earlier. Spock simply traveled into a separate quantum reality, he didn't change the past of his own timeline. Thus, the Prime universe is still safe and sound and working as normal.
He'd stay in the Kelvin universe, since he's traveling forward in the same quantum universe. If he can find a way to change quantum signatures, maybe like how Worf was switching quantum universes, he could perhaps get back to his own timeline, though at the 2250s, he'd encounter himself on the real USS Enterprise with Captain Pike and Number One still voyaging out there.
If the Kelvin universe is a separate quantum reality, then there was no point of divergence. It's simply always existed. And that, for some reason, makes more sense in my mind. My question about Spock...if he traveled back to a point before the divergence, then traveled forward, where would he end up?
Now that's what they should have stuck with all along. Makes a hell of a lot more logical sense than time changes somehow affecting the past.
In theory, the Spore Drive is a dimensional hopper drive, so you use that, than use your warp drive to slingshot around a sun....figure out where and when you are.