Is Data's head still under San Francisco?

[Set Harth]

It doesn't matter that the "TNG era" could turn out very differently in the 24th century of the Abramsverse. The Abramsverse is only different from the Prime after Nero's arrival in 2233. After Time's Arrow, we know that Data's head being in San Francisco is part of the past of the Prime universe, the same universe from which STXI's Nero and Spock Prime originate. Therefore it is still there in Prime universe 2233 or Abramsverse 2233 or Abramsverse 2258.

 

[DonIago]

I suspect there are some timelines where Data's head is there, and others where it is not. Whether it is in any of the ones that we will see remains to be seen, and could depend on whether in the NuVerse Data still journeys back to San Francisco.

Of course, if Data doesn't journey back (or even, isn't built) and his head still turns up, that will be an interesting mystery.

 

[Set Harth]

Whether it is in any of the ones that we will see remains to be seen, and could depend on whether in the NuVerse Data still journeys back to San Francisco.

It shouldn't depend on anything NuVerse Data does or does not do. We know from Time's Arrow that it's there in the TNG timeline, and that's the same timeline that Nero and Spock Prime left to go back in time to the branching Abramsverse. Since the Abramsverse and the Prime share the same past prior to Nero's arrival, the head is still there in Abramsverse 2233 just as it was there in Prime universe 2233. Of course, due to the "Nero effect" it's always possible that Data's head gets discovered earlier in the Abramsverse.

 

[USS Triumphant]

The very presence of Spock Prime might be a reason for Data's head to get discovered sooner: if Starfleet determines his quantum signature, and thus the quantum signature of his native timeline, and scans for it, maybe to try to clean up anything else Nero may have contaminated the timeline with, they might find Data's head right away!

 

[DonIago]

I still think it's a chicken and the egg paradox where the only way to resolve it will be to empirically determine whether Data's head is there.

 

[Set Harth]

The plot of Time's Arrow itself is the predestination paradox. Welcome to the wonderful world of traditional time travel stories. However, unless those episodes are somehow discarded from canon, the fact remains that in the Prime continuity Data's head was there for 500 years, a situation which remained unchanged. Assuming that Nero and Spock Prime do indeed come from the same timeline in which TNG occurred, Nero traveled back into the middle of this period.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Maybe it's not a closed loop, but more akin to going bananas on a spirograph. We're only assuming events occur the same way each time.

 

[M'Sharak]

Maybe it's not a closed loop, but more akin to going bananas on a spirograph. We're only assuming events occur the same way each time.

Heh.

[anncr]Tune in next week to find out what the f**k is up with
the timeline now? ... on "As the Universe Turns" [/anncr]
​

 

[Ryan8bit]

Is the answer to the original question even relevant in any way? I mean, I love such discussions, but I feel they aren't even appropriate to these particular movies and the creative staff's handling of things.

This isn't the kind of "what if" alternate history like you might see in some types of fiction. There isn't any focus on the details such as causality or determinism, so there's really only one answer to the question: Whether it's there or not depends on what the writers want it to be. That's the pattern we're left to follow when crews magically reunite through rare coincidence and fate.

For instance, you could wonder if the Federation or Klingons will be weakened toward the Romulans now, and that's a valid question given what happened in the movie. But it most likely won't be addressed unless the writers feel like it or if it helps them with their story. When writing works this way, it kind of pulls the fun out of it for me in this kind of speculation. Spock Prime should have opened a huge can of worms, but there are rarely such implications in any of Star Trek.

 

[Flake]

Unless someone from the Abramsverse goes to San Francisco and digs his head up we will never know. Neros arrival may have altered the sequence of events that led to Data going back in time.

We don't even know if Data exists. What if Noonien Soong used post 2258 Vulcan research into positronic brains to construct one? Maybe he failed in this reality?

We will never know.

 

[Mr Silver]

Lets see If I can try and construct a variable sequence from the information

AU: Nero arrives > George Kirk killed, James T Kirk born in Space > Kirk enters Starfleet slightly late > Pike is promoted to Admiral > Kirk promoted to Captain...
PU: No Nero > James T Kirk born on Earth > Christopher Pike commands an 11 year mission > Captain Kirk takes command of the Enterprise > TOS > Spock undergoes Pon' Farr > TOS movies > TNG

As far as I can tell, Nero's appearance in the AU only changed minor events. Perhaps the mission to Talos would occur with Kirk instead of Pike, but not much else, everything just kind of happened faster in the AU. But there will be problems later, for instance Spock's Pon' Farr, he cannot return to Vulcan, so he would have to find a Vulcan where there is only 10,000. This could be a problem

The way I see is the AU is a completely different reality, the inhabitants are more or less the same as their counterparts, but things happen differently. I would argue that the technology in the AU is much more advanced for the same technology in the PU. Argue all you want about TOS being a 60's production. It makes much more sense to conclude that the technology is better, otherwise how would the Kelvin stand 1 hit, let alone several and survive long enough to complete a collision course?

 

[Set Harth]

Maybe it's not a closed loop, but more akin to going bananas on a spirograph. We're only assuming events occur the same way each time.

I'm not sure what you mean. As of the end of Time's Arrow, moving on from that point forward in the Prime timeline ( which eventually brings us to Spock and Nero's departure in 2387 ), isn't it a closed loop which has taken place in one specific way? Data showed up in 1893, lost his head, left sans head, and the head stayed there for nearly 500 years. Nero's arrival in 2233 creates the branching Abramsverse timeline; I don't tend to assume that something like Data's head would just disappear at that point. Now, it's always possible that some time traveler from later on in the Abramsverse could go back and remove the head in single-timeline fashion, assuming that single-timeline time travel can coexist with MWI time travel in the Abramsverse. But that would seemingly be a "future" event from the perspective of STXI. ( Unless the Abramsverse timeline that we see in STXI is one that has already been altered in that fashion by time meddlers from the future of the "original" Abramsverse... )

 

[DonIago]

Except that the NuVerse may have always existed and Nero and Spock didn't "create" it so much as "visit" it. If it always existed and Data does not come into existence in it, there's no reason for Data's head to pop off in SF.

As I said before, whether or not Data's head is there may depend on whether Time's Arrow is a predestination paradox.

 

[Set Harth]

Except that the NuVerse may have always existed and Nero and Spock didn't "create" it so much as "visit" it.

According to the writers, Nero's time travel created it; it didn't exist before that.

the act of time travel itself creates a new universe that exists in PARALLEL to the one left by the time traveler.

...

As I said before, whether or not Data's head is there may depend on whether Time's Arrow is a predestination paradox.

Time's Arrow is by definition a predestination paradox.

 

[MANT!]

Wow, the O/P stirred up a mess of crap...

 

[Ryan8bit]

Except that the NuVerse may have always existed and Nero and Spock didn't "create" it so much as "visit" it. If it always existed and Data does not come into existence in it, there's no reason for Data's head to pop off in SF.

All of that is very arbitrary. If you go so far to say that this was some sort of mirror universe that always existed, it's just as likely that the same incident could happen with Data's head. That kind of reasoning is basically just a free carte blanche pass to do whatever anyone feels like doing, making any such argument moot.

 

[DonIago]

That's kind of my point...we don't know exactly what happened or may happen. Heck, we can't even agree whether the Nuverse supercedes or exists in parallel with the Primeverse.

 

[RandyS]

Datas head is there, but it has blue eyes and when he looks at you, you see lens flares.

And it now resembles Justin Biber, or whatever the hell his name is.

 

[Set Harth]

Heck, we can't even agree whether the Nuverse supercedes or exists in parallel with the Primeverse.

The phrase "exists in PARALLEL to the one left by the time traveler" is sufficiently clear. This is also demonstrated by the "Path to 2409" plot of Star Trek Online, in which we see the near future of the Prime timeline as it continues on post-2387.

I have suggested in previous posts that the single-timeline mode of time travel could be assumed to coexist with MWI ( branching ) time travel in the Abramsverse continuity, meaning that there could be occurrences of both types depending on the method used. However, some of Orci's comments seem to imply that single-timeline does not exist in NuTrek and that examples of time travel in previous Trek canon should be viewed from NuTrek's perspective as consistent with MWI in some way. The problem is that some of these examples do not fit MWI, and Time's Arrow is one of them, due to the message entered into Data's static memory by Picard in 1893.

 

[Mr Silver]

This is my interpretation of the timelines and divergence. The Prime and Alternate exist side by side, whereas the mirror is connected to the Prime timeline, but twisted in accordance with the opposing elements compared to the Prime timeline.

The black hole that Spock created which engulfed him and Nero lead to a crossover point, where perhaps infinite universes linked together and while at this point, both Spock and Nero ended up being thrown into the JJ-Verse. (albeit over 20 years apart, perhaps this was due to Nero entering before Spock?)