Is Data's head still under San Francisco?

[Set Harth]

We know from Time's Arrow that it WAS. We don't know that it IS.

Those are the same thing in this context. If we know that it WAS there in 2233, and then Nero goes back to said 2233, then it IS there in AU 2233. The changes created by Nero involve dead George Kirk, et cetera, which happen as a direct result of the presence of Nero ( and later Spock ), and for tangible reasons ( being killed in a suicide run against the Narada, for example ). They do not include underground android heads which magically disappear for no reason at all.

If Nero's actions CREATED an alternate timeline, then the timeline had to have been created the instant the black hole came to exist, in which case Nero and Spock did not enter the past of the prime universe at all.

That doesn't make any sense. There is some potentially misleading nomenclature here. In a sense, under branching time travel you don't really enter the past itself, because that past didn't have you in it. You arrive in a "new" past created by your own interference. But the raw material for that new timeline was the actual past of the Prime, so in that sense you are going into the past. But it's not single-timeline. The situation depicted in STXI is clear and internally consistent.

The film implies nothing of the sort.

I used "implies" to mean something other than "proves".

The best you can say is that the two universes are similar in terms of Spock's future plans after Starfleet, but it is never established that the events of 2287 are in the same continuity or even the same history as the rest of Trek canon.

Which is entirely unreasonable for you to expect the film to "establish", since that would require the writer/director to break through the fourth wall and explain the situation directly to the audience, which never happens. Specifically, it has never happened before in the Trek franchise, which by the above logic would imply that all previous Trek films took place in completely separate continuities. Thus we are left with writer intent ( equivalently studio intent ), as is normally the case.

( And it's 2387, not 2287. )

And there is at least one reason to think that they're not: the Jellyfish computer gives its "manufacturing origin" in the Abramsverse stardate system, not the prime universe one.

Given that we know the writer intent, I think it's clear that was a case of cinematic license rather than an attempt to show that Spock and Nero did not originate in the Prime.

 

[Pauln6]

We know from Time's Arrow that it WAS. We don't know that it IS.

Those are the same thing in this context. If we know that it WAS there in 2233, and then Nero goes back to said 2233, then it IS there in AU 2233.

I think this is the fundamental reason why people are having difficulty. Nero isn't going back to 'said 2233'. We know he did not do that in the Prime universe or we would have ourselves a pre-destination paradox with no changes.

He has gone back to a different 2233 where his presence and subsequent actions have caused the timeline to diverge from what it would otherwise have been but he hasn't 'changed' anything - in this timeline he was always going to go back. We are assuming that the NuUniverse is one where the past is identical to the Prime Unniverse but that doesn't necessarily include time travellers from a future that is now different. There wasn't even a nanosecond where Nero the time traveller was present in the Prime Timeline. Data's head doesn't have to disappear if it was never there. Time happens everywhen all at once, remember!

We know that the head was there in the Prime Universe when Data first discovered it. Since he hasn't discovered it in the NuUniverse yet, we don't know if it is there or not.

The characters are not 'duplicating' when a new timeline is 'created'. They and their entire timeline are simply diverging and that can include the past if that past is dependent on future events that don't happen.

 

[DonIago]

^Well-said.

 

[Set Harth]

Nero isn't going back to 'said 2233'. We know he did not do that in the Prime universe or we would have ourselves a pre-destination paradox with no changes.

There are no predestination paradoxes in branching. I already said that when I refer to him traveling to the past, it is the branching form and not single-timeline. We know that he "went back in time" - that is the story - but it's the branching form of going back in time, which leaves the original timeline unaffected ( except for the absence of the time travelers, of course ).

We are assuming that the NuUniverse is one where the past is identical to the Prime Unniverse but that doesn't necessarily include time travellers from a future that is now different.

Actually, it does. ( BTW they were travelers from a timeline, or universe, which still exists. )

Data's head doesn't have to disappear if it was never there.

It was there, you said it yourself. Don't tell me you're changing your story. It dces not vanish when Nero arrives.

Since he hasn't discovered it in the NuUniverse yet, we don't know if it is there or not.

Whatever does or does not happen with NuVerse Data makes no difference at all to the question of whether Data Prime's head is there. Like Sela, Data Prime's head is a refugee from another timeline. It is inherited from the Prime by the NuVerse just like everything else that was left intact by Nero's arrival.

They and their entire timeline are simply diverging and that can include the past if that past is dependent on future events that don't happen.

The past of the NuVerse is identical to that of the Prime before a certain point. It is not somehow dependent on its own unformed future. That is a logical non-starter which ultimately cannot work. The existence of the head does not depend on anything that happens in the future of the NuVerse because it is already there. It is not NuHead. It is PrimeHead ( just as NuKelvin was PrimeKelvin ). Once again it seems as if you're trying to treat branching time travel as something else entirely.

 

[BillJ]

We are assuming that the NuUniverse is one where the past is identical to the Prime Unniverse but that doesn't necessarily include time travellers from a future that is now different.

But how can it's past be identical to that of the Prime Universe without the Time Travelers from the future?

 

[DonIago]

Why would we assume that its past -is- identical, beyond "that's clearly the writers' intent"? As I alluded to earlier, there's nothing to say that the "past" events of Time's Arrow couldn't have initially been triggered by something unrelated to the discovery of Data's head, and that would seem, to me, to be the most logical way of unraveling a paradox which can't realistically exist in the first place. It's fun sci-fi but that's about it.

 

[Mr Silver]

Even if the NuTrek verse is identical to the Prime verse (albeit prior to Nero's appearance) whats to say that the events in the movie changed things for Data and of course, the head under San Francisco?

Noonien Soong's father may have been a member of Starfleet, maybe he was one of the casualties from the mass of ships that the Narada destroyed? That would mean that Noonien Soong was never born and therefore never created Data.

Then whose head is under San Francisco?

 

[DonIago]

(checks himself) Well, I'm pretty sure it's not mine...

But then, I don't believe any TNG crew would find a Data's head that originated within their own timeline; rather they would find one that originated from an extremely similar timeline and entered theirs when the TNG crew from that other timeline jumped tracks into the one where the TNG crew has found the head.

I'd write up some sort of diagram, but I already did that way back when...

 

[Mr Silver]

Yes I did a diagram myself too!

My opinion about the NuTrek verse being a place where things happen differently and aren't bound by the Prime verse timeline still stands. I just thought I should cover the other possibilities.

Unfortunately it still seems that a lot of people are afraid that the NuTrek verse will wipe the Prime from existence.

 

[UFO]

Even if the NuTrek verse is identical to the Prime verse (albeit prior to Nero's appearance) whats to say that the events in the movie changed things for Data and of course, the head under San Francisco?

Noonien Soong's father may have been a member of Starfleet, maybe he was one of the casualties from the mass of ships that the Narada destroyed? That would mean that Noonien Soong was never born and therefore never created Data.

Then whose head is under San Francisco?

An exact copy of the Prime Data's head created when Nero caused the JJverse to branch off. If there ever is a NuData who also loses his head in the same fashion and single timeline time travel still exists, there will be two heads (which will obviously be better than one ).

 

[Pauln6]

The same head cannot 'duplicate' if time happens everywhen all at once. Nor can the 'same' person or object exist in two timelines. Alternate Harry Kim was a Kim that just happened to have the same(?) history as Kim Prime up until the point where the two realities became quantum entangled. Even Janeway says she doesn't get it.

The version of branching theory being postulated here is inconsistent with the existence of time that applies to the Prophets. The head either exists or it doesn't. If it exists it must be either because it has jumped tracks when passing back through time from an alternate reality or because it has travelled back within this reality as part of this timeline's pre-destination paradox. It can only be Data Prime's head in the NuUniverse if the head Data retrieved in the Prime Universe was from an alternate reality. That doesn't stop it being an alternate reality head with the same history as the Prime - but they can't both retrieve the same head.

I think people are confusing IDENTICAL pasts with the SAME past. And of course when I am referring to 'identical' pasts, I mean identical subject to whatever time travel events occur from the future of new timeline. Those events will also have to be pre-destinantion paradoxes or 'create' a 'new' divergance. Data Prime's head existing would be a paradox. Paradoxes cannot occur in many worlds theory - that's the whole point of it.

The timeline doesn't branch like a tree from the same physical stalk. Each reality exists and overlaps within different dimensions and if they branch away from each other it doesn't alter the fact that they never actually interacted in the first place even if they were exactly the same prior to the divergance. The important thing to grasp is that in the NuUniverse, the timelines were NEVER the same because Nero was ALWAYS going to travel there. Reality may diverge from the expected reality as a consequence of Nero's visit but nobody is being duplicated like on a photocopier. We are not watching events changing, we are watching events playing out differently in a reality where circumstances are different.

They and their entire timeline are simply diverging and that can include the past if that past is dependent on future events that don't happen.

The past of the NuVerse is identical to that of the Prime before a certain point. It is not somehow dependent on its own unformed future. That is a logical non-starter which ultimately cannot work. The existence of the head does not depend on anything that happens in the future of the NuVerse because it is already there. It is not NuHead. It is PrimeHead ( just as NuKelvin was PrimeKelvin ). Once again it seems as if you're trying to treat branching time travel as something else entirely.

The concept of an 'unformed future' is the fundamental error that you are making. The existence of the head CAN be affected by future events of the nuUniverse because time happens everywhen all at once. The future IS formed. It is the present, just at a different point in the timestream. Most time travel mechanics are open to interpretation. I'm simply trying to interpret the so-called branching theory in a way that doesn't contradict the unambiguous mechanics that relate to the Prophets. Branching in Star Trek can't be the version of branching that you propose. The Kelvin we see was NEVER PrimeKelvin because from the moment Nero went back we were looking at an alternate reality that had always existed not a branch that sprung up at the moment he went back.

This is why writers prefer to use branching/many worlds. We can't expect them to know what future stories they are going to tell before they've written them. The Prophets were brave and interesting concepts but they were not ambiguous. We need to interpret all other Trek time travel around them unless we accept that this is a hard reboot with new laws of physics (and there is plenty of evidence to support that theory too).

 

[Crazy Eddie]

If Nero's actions CREATED an alternate timeline, then the timeline had to have been created the instant the black hole came to exist, in which case Nero and Spock did not enter the past of the prime universe at all.

That doesn't make any sense. There is some potentially misleading nomenclature here. In a sense, under branching time travel you don't really enter the past itself, because that past didn't have you in it. You arrive in a "new" past created by your own interference. But the raw material for that new timeline was the actual past of the Prime, so in that sense you are going into the past. But it's not single-timeline. The situation depicted in STXI is clear and internally consistent.

In which case they didn't arrive in the Prime universe' past, they arrived in a DUPLICATE of the Prime universe that they could fuck up with impunity without ever altering their originating timeline. That explains nicely why Spock didn't immediately cease to exist when Nero went through the black hole.

It DOESN'T explain why Spock emerged into the same timeline as Nero, 25 years later, instead of yet another Prime Timeline duplicate.

The best you can say is that the two universes are similar in terms of Spock's future plans after Starfleet, but it is never established that the events of 2287 are in the same continuity or even the same history as the rest of Trek canon.

Which is entirely unreasonable for you to expect the film to "establish", since that would require the writer/director to break through the fourth wall and explain the situation directly to the audience, which never happens.

It wouldn't require even that much. A moment where OldSpock makes overt reference to an historical event in the prior films, for example, would solidly establish his point of origin. Instead there's just imagery and familiar quotes, which isn't enough to establish his point of origin (otherwise Sentinel Prime is an evil reincarnation of Spock from the future).

And there is at least one reason to think that they're not: the Jellyfish computer gives its "manufacturing origin" in the Abramsverse stardate system, not the prime universe one.

Given that we know the writer intent, I think it's clear that was a case of cinematic license...

Writer intent is always trumped by writer OUTPUT. This is why the original script--or even the shooting script--is not considered canon if the actual film diverges from it. Hell, the original script for STXI has Spock and Nero both INTENTIONALLY traveling through the black hole, one trying to save the universe and the other hell bent on destroying it.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

The same head cannot 'duplicate' if time happens everywhen all at once.

The hell it can't! This is Star Trek, remember?

The past of the NuVerse is identical to that of the Prime before a certain point.

First of all, the problem has always been establishing exactly WHEN that point is. Nero's entry into the past changes a hell of a lot of things about the future, including the negation of a great many time travel incidents that occurred well before Nero arrived in the past (Quark and Rom at Area 51, Sisko in the Bell Riots, Enterprise in 1961, Enterprise again in the Gary Seven thing, the Voyage Home, the half-Vulcan time traveler from "Future Tense," etc). Lots of things that happen in the past of the Prime Universe are shaped by the actions of travelers from the future, with a number of predestination paradoxes in the mix like eddies in a stream. Destroying Kelvin and the Vulcan and changing history has already changed the flow of that stream and knocked out several of those causality loops.

So the Abramsverse past CANNOT be the same as the Prime Universe' past, regardless of writer's intent. AT THE VERY LEAST, we know that most of the Prime Universe time travel events never took place. That may be a superficial historical difference, but it could just as easily be a HUGE one with far-reaching and unpredictable consequences.

The existence of the head does not depend on anything that happens in the future of the NuVerse because it is already there. It is not NuHead. It is PrimeHead ( just as NuKelvin was PrimeKelvin ). Once again it seems as if you're trying to treat branching time travel as something else entirely.

The thing you're not seeing here is that not all time travel IS branching time travel. Alot of things that have happened in the Trekiverse are causality loops, events whose effects occur before their causes. Eliminating the cause will necessarily eliminate the effect, even if that effect is in the past.

I'm simply trying to interpret the so-called branching theory in a way that doesn't contradict the unambiguous mechanics that relate to the Prophets.

There's nothing unambiguous about the Prophets, except for the fact that they possess the curious ability to change both the past and the future without themselves being affected by those changes. Apparently they have difficulty with linear time, primarily because while the prophets themselves are not linear, they CAN be affected by events that take place in linear time and cannot undo those effects by a non-linear process (in exactly the same way that linear entities like Sisko can be effected by actions in non-linear time--his mother's death, for example--but he cannot undo them in a linear process). How or why this occurs and what this has to do with their relationship with Bajor--or Sisko, for that matter--has never adequately explained.

But I digress...

The Prophets were brave and interesting concepts but they were not ambiguous. We need to interpret all other Trek time travel around them unless we accept that this is a hard reboot with new laws of physics (and there is plenty of evidence to support that theory too).

First of all, I accept it is a hard reboot, and I don't really see a problem with that conception.

Second of all, not all time travel does work on the branching/many worlds paradigm, especially the prophets (and their orbs), which have repeatedly demonstrated the ability to change the linear past in ways that become immediately apparent but somehow fail to alter the future.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Quark would at Area 51, Sisko at the Bell riots etc. just the same as Spock Prime would be in 2258 and Nero in 2233. Their future "vanished" just the same as Quark and Sisko's did. Yet they're still very much there. Otherwise the movie would undo itself!

Trek has never ever had time travel to a certain point affect events that occurred prior to it. Not a single time. There are no examples. Therefore your argument fails. You dealing in what you think it should be like, not what's actually been depicted on-screen.

 

[Pauln6]

Quark would at Area 51, Sisko at the Bell riots etc. just the same as Spock Prime would be in 2258 and Nero in 2233. Their future "vanished" just the same as Quark and Sisko's did. Yet they're still very much there. Otherwise the movie would undo itself!

Trek has never ever had time travel to a certain point affect events that occurred prior to it. Not a single time. There are no examples. Therefore your argument fails. You dealing in what you think it should be like, not what's actually been depicted on-screen.

I don't recall any incidences where this kind of mixing and matching different mechanics from different time periods has occurred. How can we tell whether any element of a pre-existing past had changed? How can any of the characters? How can we tell whether we are looking at the same past or an identical or different past on a different time track? It just brings us back to the conclusion that the head may or may not be there.

Just watch a few episodes of Red Dwarf. You won't be so certain of anything after that.

 

[BillJ]

Quark would at Area 51, Sisko at the Bell riots etc. just the same as Spock Prime would be in 2258 and Nero in 2233. Their future "vanished" just the same as Quark and Sisko's did. Yet they're still very much there. Otherwise the movie would undo itself!

Trek has never ever had time travel to a certain point affect events that occurred prior to it. Not a single time. There are no examples. Therefore your argument fails. You dealing in what you think it should be like, not what's actually been depicted on-screen.

I don't recall any incidences where this kind of mixing and matching different mechanics from different time periods has occurred. How can we tell whether any element of a pre-existing past had changed? How can any of the characters? How can we tell whether we are looking at the same past or an identical or different past on a different time track? It just brings us back to the conclusion that the head may or may not be there.

Just watch a few episodes of Red Dwarf. You won't be so certain of anything after that.

King Daniel is right. Plus, we're talking Trek not Red Dwarf. Different universes, different rules.

 

[doubleohfive]

I like the idea that Data's head is down there and will continue to be down there till the nuTrek timeline gets to the 24th century at which point whenever Time's Arrow was to take place (and summarily doesn't/goes differently) Data's decapitated head will simply vanish from existence. Same way Biff did in that deleted scene of BTTF2.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Quark would at Area 51, Sisko at the Bell riots etc. just the same as Spock Prime would be in 2258 and Nero in 2233. Their future "vanished" just the same as Quark and Sisko's did. Yet they're still very much there. Otherwise the movie would undo itself!

Trek has never ever had time travel to a certain point affect events that occurred prior to it. Not a single time.

What about Yesterday's Enterpirse? Enterprise-C's travel to the future directly affects 22 years worth of Trek history. Jean Luc Picard sent them back into the past, which reverted his timeline back to normal... except that Sela now exists, where she probably didn't before.

 

[beamMe]

Quark would at Area 51, Sisko at the Bell riots etc. just the same as Spock Prime would be in 2258 and Nero in 2233. Their future "vanished" just the same as Quark and Sisko's did. Yet they're still very much there. Otherwise the movie would undo itself!

Trek has never ever had time travel to a certain point affect events that occurred prior to it. Not a single time.

What about Yesterday's Enterpirse? Enterprise-C's travel to the future directly affects 22 years worth of Trek history. Jean Luc Picard sent them back into the past, which reverted his timeline back to normal... except that Sela now exists, where she probably didn't before.

We don't know that.
We either always saw a timeline in which the E-C always came into the future and got send back, or we saw a different timeline after the E-C went back in time.

I think Sela always existed in the TNG-timeline we saw from season one... or she didn't...

 

[Crazy Eddie]

^ That's not very helpful, dude.