Has nuTrek been INTERNALLY consistent, so far?

[fireproof78]

No, I wasn't saying that was actually, officially the case, just that it's the way it seems to me. There are instances where computer games are considered canonical within a franchise's universe, such as with Defiance, which was created to be a multimedia TV/game franchise. The events of the MMO game are treated as "real" in the show's universe and are frequently referenced in the show. But it's just the broad strokes of the events going on in the game, rather than the specifics of how individual players interact or move through the game. It seems to me that the missions are really just about running or driving to a certain place and shooting enemies that get in the way, and then when you finally reach the target site, a bit of story happens or you acquire the object you were looking for. So the overall flow of the story is going to be the same for pretty much every player. It's just the details that differ -- what happens between plot points and what character is experiencing the plot points -- and that throws me because I'm a detail-oriented person. It seems more reasonable to me that the game should be a simulation based on actual events, with those underlying events being canonical.

(Sort of like how Roddenberry's ST:TMP novelization hinted that TOS had been an "inaccurately larger-than-life" dramatization of Kirk's "real" adventures. They happened, just not quite in the way we were shown.)
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I apologize if I misrepresented your position.

However, I do agree with your overall premise, but I usually treat games as outside the canon. Just my point of view on that one.

I haven't liked every aspect of the IDW comics (Gary Mitchell being my prime annoyance) but inconsistencies have seem to be minimal.

The inconsistencies in IDW's comics are anything but "minimal." We have had characters using their chest insignia like comm badges, 24th century LCARS computer displays are shockingly common, the Enterprise has been shown with TMP era nacelles and the registry number NCC-1701-D, and that's just off the top of my head.

I'm more referring to the characterization and storylines and the like. I have no doubt of the details being off, especially with regards to Trek art, which, to be perfectly honest, has been the same for the past 3 decades, with LCARS from TNG onward.

Details in art, for me, are quibbles in the art form, and are going to occur, just like film errors. It's a massive medium, requiring hours of detail and work and things are going to be missed, or slipped in as a nod to previous works, or just a cut and paste because it is 11:59 pm, and the boss will kill me if it's not done.

Consistency of characters, sequence of events and the like are more important to me. YMMV

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

why are they using the nautical paradigm for transport rather than the aviation paradigm?

I'm not sure what, exactly, you're getting at here. Could you explain?

 

[Mytran]

Ultimately, with spontaneous quantum branchings happening every moment, any "timeline" is simply going to be an arbitrary set of selections among the various branchings. But once you've defined a continuous path through the multiverse as a timeline, it is then valid to say that that timeline can be visited by travellers from multiple separate futures.

I suppose that also relates to what one thinks of as the "present", where all these numerous spontaneous quantum branchings are taking place (even if many of those branchings subsequently collapse back into dominate probabilities). From the POV of Picard, all of the branchings in Kirk's time have already taken place. From Braxton's time, all of Picard's are done, the results of which lead to his own time and history. Since our Trek heroes regularly receive visitors from (various) futures, it would imply that the "present" is not the 23rd, 24th or even 31st century but somewhere even further uptime, where (from their POV) all quantum branchings have already been resolved, and history written. Isn't it?

 

[Christopher]

^There is no absolute "present" any more than there's an absolute reference frame for space. It's all relative. How you perceive and define things is a function of what frame of reference you use to measure them. One observer will see event A preceding event B, while another will see event B preceding event A, and neither one is more objectively correct than the other. It just depends on what frame of reference you're using.

 

[Mytran]

I understand that - but if we are getting visitors from 100 years in the future then that means their extra century of history has already happened. Probability of events (for all those spontaneous quantum eruptions) is all very well, but for physical creatures to actually exist and travel back then that means we are living in their past. From their perspective, our lives have already happened - which means our future(s) are already set.

This is the element of the "numerous quantum timeline" theory that I struggle to reconcile with events in Star Trek episodes, because I don't see how it can allow for visitors from the future without settling on a predetermined existence for all our lives.

 

[Christopher]

I understand that - but if we are getting visitors from 100 years in the future then that means their extra century of history has already happened. Probability of events (for all those spontaneous quantum eruptions) is all very well, but for physical creatures to actually exist and travel back then that means we are living in their past. From their perspective, our lives have already happened - which means our future(s) are already set.

This is the element of the "numerous quantum timeline" theory that I struggle to reconcile with events in Star Trek episodes, because I don't see how it can allow for visitors from the future without settling on a predetermined existence for all our lives.

Again, you're assuming there has to be one absolute, underlying "correct" viewpoint, but that's not how the universe works. It's only predetermined from the perspective of people looking back after the fact -- but that's just because the decisions were already made from their perspective. It's like watching a replay of a baseball game. It may look to you like the outcome is predetermined because you already know how it ended, but that's only because you've rewound the tape and thus created the illusion for yourself that something from your past is actually in your future. In reality, it's in your past, and that's why it's already decided. The appearance that it's decided before it happens is an illusion created by your subjective movement "back in time."

Of course, if you actually were traveling through time, it wouldn't be an illusion, since your reference frame would be as valid as a non-time-traveling observer's -- just as in relativity the reference frame of someone in a moving ship is as valid as that of someone on a planet surface. But neither interpretation of reality would be more objectively correct than the other. The stationary observer's viewpoint is correct for their reference frame and the traveling observer's viewpoint is correct for theirs, but not vice-versa. So it's a fallacy to pick out only one and attempt to claim it's the "actual" correct answer for both observers.

 

[Mytran]

Again, you're assuming there has to be one absolute, underlying "correct" viewpoint, but that's not how the universe works.

I didn't think this was a frame of reference error, but maybe it was just the way I worded the post.

In your example of the baseball game, of course the outcome is still in doubt from the POV of the players. But if I could rewind the tape and inset myself into the playback, sit with the crowd and cheer on the players - then the same outcome is still assured, simply because I am watching a game that has occured in my own past. From the POV of the crows the outcome may be in doubt, but my very presence assures a known outcome from my own POV, because the game has already happened.

To put it another way, for multiple frames of reference to even exist across time and space, the individuals holding those POVs must exist as well - and if they exist, then history has already happened, hasn't it?

 

[M'Sharak]

I understand that - but if we are getting visitors from 100 years in the future then that means their extra century of history has already happened. Probability of events (for all those spontaneous quantum eruptions) is all very well, but for physical creatures to actually exist and travel back then that means we are living in their past. From their perspective, our lives have already happened - which means our future(s) are already set.

This is the element of the "numerous quantum timeline" theory that I struggle to reconcile with events in Star Trek episodes, because I don't see how it can allow for visitors from the future without settling on a predetermined existence for all our lives.

Visitors from which future, though?

 

[Christopher]

To put it another way, for multiple frames of reference to even exist across time and space, the individuals holding those POVs must exist as well - and if they exist, then history has already happened, hasn't it?

From their perspective, yes. From the perspective of people from the past, no. Both answers are correct in their respective frames of reference, and neither is absolute for the entire universe. That's what relativity means.

 

[Mytran]

All well and good until the different frames of reference interact. Once you've got a man from the future sitting in your living room, his history must exist to me too, is that right?

 

[Christopher]

^Same kind of reference-frame problem you get in a relativity thought-experiment like the grandfather paradox. It still depends on the particular observer's point of view, and it's meaningless to try to force some kind of absolute, universal interpretation on it like "That history really exists, period." Everything is defined relative to the observer. What you observe is real to you in the way that you observe it, but you are not entitled to assume that the entire universe must conform to your perception of it.

 

[Mytran]

Ah, a very quantum answer! Of course, in Star Trek (the source in our discussion of these fictional notions of time travel) we do have an objective observer - the audience. They are seeing both the contemporary character (i.e. Kirk) and the visitor from the future (i.e. Sisko) in the same setting, with the same frame of reference.

I think the wall that keeps rearing it's ugly head is that we are mixing current quantum (spontaneously generated multiple-reality) theory with the sci-fi conceit that time travel is actually possible, somehow.

 

[Christopher]

^No, it's quite literally a relativistic answer. The principle that different observers in different reference frames measure space and time in different ways was the fundamental insight of Albert Einstein's theories of relativity, and it's the exact reason that it's called relativity -- the whole point is that the measurements of space, time, and motion are relative to the frame of reference. The principle also shows up in the physics of fictitious forces like centrifugal force and the Coriolis effect. Grade-school science books will sometimes tell you centrifugal force doesn't exist, but that's wrong; it is functionally real within a rotating reference frame even though it isn't applicable when the rotation is measured relative to a stationary reference frame. The way you define the forces, the way you do the math, changes depending on which reference frame you use as your coordinate system. None of this has anything to do with quantum physics (except in the sense that all classical physics is really the quantum physics of large ensembles of correlated particles). The "observer effect" in quantum physics is something entirely different.

And I don't agree that the viewer is an objective observer. We're seeing the events from a specific point of view, just as the characters are. If the filmmakers had chosen to tell the story from a different perspective, then the same events would appear different to us.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I just spotted a MASSIVE continuity error. Pike's dress uniform at the end of ST'09 is slightly different from the one he wears in ID.

It's ruined now.

 

[Mytran]

I don't agree that the viewer is an objective observer. We're seeing the events from a specific point of view, just as the characters are. If the filmmakers had chosen to tell the story from a different perspective, then the same events would appear different to us.

Funnily enough, this is exactly what happened to Riker in A Matter of Perspective! Or were you referring to observation from within our protagonists' own timeline, as we were a passive invisible person on the ship?

But referring to the "frame of reference" examples you've sited, I understand that different individuals at different points in history have different viewpoints of what is "the present". But if a man from the future is sitting in my armchair and drinking my beer, then he exists, doesn't he? Exists physicially, yes? And such must from originate from a timeline (maybe not my own, exactly) where all my current actions have occured in his past. All possible variations on the timeline have occured in his past.

Yes our frames of reference about what defines "the present" differ, but that doesn't change the fact that he must exist, or else who just got up and punched me when I told him to stop drinking my booze?

I apologise if you feel you've answered this already (and I know you're better versed in current quantum multi-universe theory than me, I haven't progressed beyond your novels yet), but I'm honestly not seeing the solution here.

 

[Christopher]

I don't agree that the viewer is an objective observer. We're seeing the events from a specific point of view, just as the characters are. If the filmmakers had chosen to tell the story from a different perspective, then the same events would appear different to us.

Funnily enough, this is exactly what happened to Riker in A Matter of Perspective! Or were you referring to observation from within our protagonists' own timeline, as we were a passive invisible person on the ship?

I'm speaking in terms of viewpoint as a storytelling technique. Which character's vantage you use affects how the story is told -- what they're aware of what they're not aware of. Consider the difference between a standard murder mystery, told from the POV of the detective trying to find out who the killer is, and a Columbo-style inverted mystery, told from the POV of the killer trying to avoid discovery. The same set of events can be the basis of two different stories depending on whose viewpoint you tell it from. Relativity applies dramatically as well as physically.

But referring to the "frame of reference" examples you've sited, I understand that different individuals at different points in history have different viewpoints of what is "the present". But if a man from the future is sitting in my armchair and drinking my beer, then he exists, doesn't he? Exists physicially, yes? And such must from originate from a timeline (maybe not my own, exactly) where all my current actions have occured in his past. All possible variations on the timeline have occured in his past.

As I keep saying, as long as you ask questions phrased in terms of "He exists, doesn't he?" then you're trying to reduce things to absolute statements, and that is missing the point. What's physically relevant is what you can observe and measure. That defines reality from your point of view. If someone is standing in front of you and physically interacts with you, then you have evidence that they exist. If not, then it's an unanswerable question (unless you can measure some indirect consequence of their existence).

I apologise if you feel you've answered this already (and I know you're better versed in current quantum multi-universe theory than me, I haven't progressed beyond your novels yet), but I'm honestly not seeing the solution here.

Again, this has nothing whatsoever to do with quantum physics or Many-Worlds theory. This is the most fundamental principle of relativity, the principle that gives it its name and the key to understanding why it works. Indeed, it's even more basic than relativity -- it's part of everyday classical physics. If you want to solve a physics problem about the motion of a point on the outer edge of a train wheel moving down the tracks, you get a different answer from the perspective of the observer on the train (in which case the point is moving in a circle) than you do from the perspective of an observer watching from beside the tracks (in which case the point is moving in a sine wave or something like it). Both answers are correct relative to their respective reference frames. There is no single answer that is correct for every observer.

So you can speak about what you observe or what someone else observes, but you cannot speak in the abstract about what "exists" in the absolute, independent of any vantage point. What you measure depends on where -- or when -- you're measuring it from.

 

[fireproof78]

^^
In other words, if I follow correctly, it is like Protagoras' statement, "Man is the measure of all things."

 

[Mytran]

I understand the importance of relativity in physics and scientific studies. And indeed, scientific results are never "absolute" in any case, they draw the most likely conclusions based on the data available, to be updated as needed if the data should change.

Just talking about "frames of reference" leads to a very individual-centric view of the universe. I'm not sure how we can discuss anything at length if we limit ourselves to a group of individual observations and do not draw conclusions from the most likely outcomes.

Otherwise, we limited to this:

My universe is my eyes and my ears. Anything else is hearsay.

(Douglas Adams, HGTTG)

 

[Christopher]

Just talking about "frames of reference" leads to a very individual-centric view of the universe. I'm not sure how we can discuss anything at length if we limit ourselves to a group of individual observations and do not draw conclusions from the most likely outcomes.

But it's not limited as long as you take all the different points of view into account. What's limiting you is your desire to settle on a single unambiguous interpretation of an event. The conclusion should be drawn from all relevant viewpoints, with the understanding that they all contribute useful data. It's like parallax -- you get more information from multiple measurements than you can from just one, because the differences between the measurements give you more information and let you draw conclusions that aren't limited to a single perspective. It's the exact opposite of being "individual-centric," because it lets you get a more objective, comprehensive view of what's really going on. The point on the train wheel isn't just moving in a circle or moving in a sine wave. It's moving with both rotational and lateral components at the same time, and measuring it from both perspectives, on board the train and from outside, gives you more information about the whole context of the event than you'd have from just one perspective. Each measurement fills in gaps in the other observers' subjective measurements, and lets you cancel out sources of individual bias and narrow things down to the fundamentals.

 

[Mytran]

Right, but getting ALL available viewpoints is surely an idealised situation, isn't it? In most situations we have to make do with the viewpoints we've got access to.

In my beer-drinking armchair intruder example above there are two frames of reference. Both people claim to exist; someone who lives in another town has no idea we exist (and so to her we don't) but that doesn't alter the fact that we are scuffling on the carpet right now.

Taking into account relatively and different frames of reference are means of gathering more accurate data - it doesn't affect the events themselves, they just carry on regardless.