Didn't try to be helpful... but... why not?
Is Data's head still under San Francisco?
- Thread starter USS Triumphant
- Start date
Didn't try to be helpful... but... why not?
Sela always existed in TNG, albiet unseen, like the Remans.
The Enterprise-C jumped 22 years forward in time. Alternate Picard sending it back created the TNG timeline just as Spock and Nero going back created the STXI one. Viewer POV's screwy, but it's the same thing.
Yes, the time travel of STXI is not single-timeline, I already said that.
newtype_alpha said:
That is fairly easily explained by the fact that we haven't seen red matter black holes before and they can simply be defined to have this property.
newtype_alpha said:
Clearly you haven't been reading my earlier posts in this thread, where I said exactly that.
Pauln6 said:
"Time happens everywhen all at once" is wordplay with little or no substantive or practical meaning. The head does not "duplicate"; it is inherited from the Prime universe along with everything else that the branching timeline inherits, including worlds, starships, whatever. To say that it "cannot" be inherited is simply to outright deny the time travel event.
Pauln6 said:
No, there is no "jumping tracks". It is Data Prime's head in the Abramsverse because the Abramsverse branches from the Prime at a point which included the presence of PrimeHead. No other scenario is required.
Pauln6 said:
Actually, it does. That's the story. You're trying to change it into something else, apparently from a different franchise. This is taking death of the author to a new level.
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This is the crux. I view it as one franchise which, depsite having numerous irreconcileable inconsistencies, should be interpreted consistently where possible. Thus I apply the same mechanics to every time travel story I see, which leads me to many worlds theory as the only one that can apply across the board. Under this theory, Data's head may or may not be there (but it won't be Data Prime).
If you feel it is a hard reboot (some might argue that this wasn't writer intent but we're going round in circles enough) then it is fine to apply accept different time travel mechanics for different stories based on writer intent or character dialogue. Other people are happy just to accept that it's a soft reboot with yet more inconsistencies.
However, under a hard reboot, it is entirely up to the writers to determine which parts from the history of the earlier shows they want to include so the head may or may not be there.
Under a soft reboot where you have a history of inconsistent time travel mechanics you are hoist on your own petard. You can't guarantee the way that future writers will view your paradox since they may apply any one of the canon mechanics. Under this theory, Data's head may or may not be there.
Overall answer: Data's head may or may not be there.
Okay. How about this?: Was Data's head under San Francisco during the alternate history parts of Yesterday's Enterprise?
My answer: If Yesterday's Enterprise was a predestination paradox, then yes, but if the events of YE actually branched a previous (unseen) timeline, then only maybe. Which leads to another question - in the YE universe, how did Guinan and Picard meet?
My answer: If Yesterday's Enterprise was a predestination paradox, then yes, but if the events of YE actually branched a previous (unseen) timeline, then only maybe. Which leads to another question - in the YE universe, how did Guinan and Picard meet?
I wonder if Data's head will play into Spiner's desire to be in the upcoming movie, or possibly the next one after 12.
And how could Troi go back in time with them in YE if she was never a member of the crew? She was generally superfluous but did she use her abilities to help in Time's Arrow? I've confused myself again...
I think you're thinking about it wrong. Only Troi-Prime was involved in going back in time, as was needed for the events related to Data-Prime's head then ending up present in every timeline that diverged from that date in 1893 onward. In any timeline other than the Prime, their appearance in history would be considered a temporal orphan - which can get confusing, but is not unprecedented in Trek. It's just that we're used to seeing temporal orphans from other timelines, and thinking of those timelines as somehow less real than the Prime - even though that's just bias based on what we are familiar with. I'm sure from the perspective of someone in the Mirror Universe, for instance, they are the "Prime" and the Prime is the "Mirror" version.
The only compelling argument I have seen in this entire thread (and I've read all of it) for why Data's head would not be under S.F., or why the Prime-Enterprise-E would not have been in the sky in 2063, and so on, in the Nu timeline is the idea that perhaps the Nu timeline diverged MUCH farther back in time than 1893. I believe the poster actually expressed this as it being a parallel rather than divergent timeline, but IMHO, that's semantics: They are ALL divergent, it just depends on how far back they diverged. Unless they have specifically been revealed to be completely separate creations by Q, or the Time Trapper, or whatever - and so far, I don't think any of them have been except possibly in the novel Q Squared (I can't remember that book well enough to preclude it at the moment.)
The contra-argument to my own seems to me to be that if the NuTrek TNG crew find Data Prime's head in a cave and go back in time they will come into contact with the Prime crew because they share the same past (not an identical past - the same past). Now we assume that the NuCrew don't go back but if we suppose that they did, the Prime crew would not know about it because this would be a branching time travel event that would generate 'duplicates' of them in a new timeline. We would need a new branch where the NuCrew and Pime crew vie for Data Prime's head. When that is all resolved, the new branch of the Prime crew has to return to a new NuTNG (we'll call them NuTNG2) future where their past visit included two versions of themselves. NuTNG2 has their own version of Nero whose life plays out in the same way. When their version of Nero decides to go back, he too will appear in the shared past of the Prime Universe at the same time as Nero Prime. Since we know he did not do that in NuTrek, we need a new branch where there are now two Neros and so on.
It would soon get very crowded... whoever said Trek was so different from Red Dwarf?Obviously, the main argument against this is that those with knowledge in the NuUniverse will work to prevent Nero travelling back but that couldn't be guaranteed (say Spock Prime dies in 2259 trying to prevent the star going nova in the future). He might also travel back to a different time zone and create a different, earlier branching event and so on.
Many worlds may suck but it's a lot better than branching theory!
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Um, Many Worlds IS a branching theory. Where do you think the "many" came from? All of the multiverse came from a single collection of essential stuff with uncollapsed quantum resolutions. (I speculate that everything may, in fact, be the exact same bit of stuff, really - just in different probability states. The proton in a particular atom in my left buttcheek is also, at a different probability level, an electron in an atom in a different galaxy, 20,000 years ago or in the future.) The different probabilities that it collapsed into spawned the first branches, and everything else branched on from there.
Maybe many worlds and branching are intended to be the same theory, but we don't seem to be using them as such, if I'm understanding people correctly...
Branching - Data's head will be in the past for the NuFolks because their timeline branched from the Prime timeline. Traveling back in time for the NuFolks means traveling back into the "Prime" timeline; time travelers don't "jump" timelines.
Many Worlds - Data's head isn't necessarily in the past for the NuFolks because circumstances may not transpire that will cause it to exist in the past. Traveling back in time for the NuFolks means traveling back into a timeline that is (very) similar to the "Prime" timeline but is -not- the Prime timeline. Do time travelers "jump" timelines?
Branching - Data's head will be in the past for the NuFolks because their timeline branched from the Prime timeline. Traveling back in time for the NuFolks means traveling back into the "Prime" timeline; time travelers don't "jump" timelines.
Many Worlds - Data's head isn't necessarily in the past for the NuFolks because circumstances may not transpire that will cause it to exist in the past. Traveling back in time for the NuFolks means traveling back into a timeline that is (very) similar to the "Prime" timeline but is -not- the Prime timeline. Do time travelers "jump" timelines?
I've come to the conclusion that this issue really does not matter. Its a minor piece of trivia that has got us all wound up and theorising for 17 pages! The argument is pretty simple "Is Data's head under San Francisco in NuTrek", therefore we have two answers.
A) Yes it is, because the verse in which NuTrek is set carries identical history to Prime. Therefore despite Spock or Nero's contaminations to the timeline, the Enterprise D crew will still find themselves in the past where Data will lose his head.
B) No it is not, because the verse in which NuTrek is set carries a similar, but not identical history. Events have either divurged from the norm because of Nero and Spock's contaminations to the timeline or certain events have happened differently or not at all that have affected the existence of Data. Or another possibility is that the events which caused the Enterprise D crew to go back in time never happened, therefore Data did not lose his head in the past and Guinan and Picard never met or met under different circumstances.
A) Yes it is, because the verse in which NuTrek is set carries identical history to Prime. Therefore despite Spock or Nero's contaminations to the timeline, the Enterprise D crew will still find themselves in the past where Data will lose his head.
B) No it is not, because the verse in which NuTrek is set carries a similar, but not identical history. Events have either divurged from the norm because of Nero and Spock's contaminations to the timeline or certain events have happened differently or not at all that have affected the existence of Data. Or another possibility is that the events which caused the Enterprise D crew to go back in time never happened, therefore Data did not lose his head in the past and Guinan and Picard never met or met under different circumstances.
Sorry yes, here is the crux of the matter from a philosophical & scientific perspective from Wikipedia:
The many-worlds interpretation is very vague about the ways to determine when splitting happens, and nowadays usually the criterion is that the two branches have decohered. However, present day understanding of decoherence does not allow a completely precise, self contained way to say when the two branches have decohered/"do not interact", and hence many-worlds interpretation remains arbitrary. This is the main objection opponents of this interpretation raise, saying that it is not clear what is precisely meant by branching, and point to the lack of self contained criteria specifying branching.
Quantum decoherence gives the appearance of wave function collapse (the reduction of the physical possibilities into a single possibility as seen by an observer).
And an article in the Telegraph from 2007:
"Parallel universes really do exist, according to a mathematical discovery by Oxford scientists that sweeps away one of the key objections to the mind boggling and controversial idea... The new work bolsters his claim that quantum theory does not forbid time travel. "It does sidestep it. You go into another universe," he said yesterday, though he admits that there is still a way to go to find schemes to manipulate space and time in a way that makes time hops possible.
"Many sci fi authors suggested time travel paradoxes would be solved by parallel universes but in my work, that conclusion is deduced from quantum theory itself", Dr Deutsch said, referring to his work on many worlds."
From the article, it appears that the branching concept is simply a way of illustrating the concept of probable outcomes rather than the way the mechanics are supposed to work in practice, particularly when concerning time travel. Nero never at any stage entered the past of the Prime timeline. The article is brief, so I think that the theory doesn't consider the possibility of time happening everywhen all at once but the existence of Data's head remains dependent upon the future actions of this universe's Data (or at least a different version of Data from the one that went back in the Prime universe. Presumably pre-destination paradoxes are bumped in favour of every time travel event causing the time traveller to jump tracks. I'm not saying Data's head isn't there. I'm not saying that Data can't have the same memories as Data Prime. I'm just saying it can't possibly BE Data Prime.
This commentary by Jim Schnabel also seems to support what I'm saying:
"A living person records in conscious memory the experiences of a particular life path. He may be tempted to ask such questions as, “Why am I here, in this world, rather than in a different one?” The chilling answer implied by MWI is that he has to be here – because the path that stretches back into the past could have brought him nowhere else. All alternative paths, all alternative worlds, are populated with other, conscious versions of himself — and perhaps most of those versions are asking the same fruitless question, “Why am I here, in this world?”"
The key is that in 'real' life the different possible universes cannot interact. If the NuCrew go back they can never find Data Prime because they can only travel back to an alternate past. At best they can find an alternate Data from another timeline. Whether that timeline gave him the same memories as the Prime timeline depends on what the writers decide. It may be that Douglas Adams had the future of space travel correct with his improbability drive.
I think the confusion arises because people mix up the physical act of 'branching' with the concept of probability. Everything we watch the characters say and do involves 'branching'. All the possible events occur simultaenously in the alternative realities that up until that moment have been running exactly parallel to your world. It's only the time travelling observer (and viewers at home) who perceives events as branching when a time travel event occurs.
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I guess my understanding boils down to the fact that while the branching shown on the wall chart in "Parallels" was user friendly, it would have been more accurate to show essentially an infinity of horizontal lines representing different timelines (with large numbers of them being almost identical to each other), while a single diagonal line could represent Worf's journey throughout the episode (at least until things get fixed). Timelines don't diverge from each other, they always existed in parallel and the time traveler just switches tracks.
I still say you're confusing real-life theories with how things work in a cute little ficticious universe full of bumpy-headed aliens, awful science and total ignorance of how ships move in zero-g.
That it was a guy with his face painted white pretending to be an emotionless android who actually showed more emotion than the rest of the crew who gave the powerpoint presentation with the branching timeline chart in it says to me that branching timelines is how it works in Star Trek's world.
That it was a guy with his face painted white pretending to be an emotionless android who actually showed more emotion than the rest of the crew who gave the powerpoint presentation with the branching timeline chart in it says to me that branching timelines is how it works in Star Trek's world.
Sounds like a wizard did it. I may be wrong but at least I get to keep the moral high ground... such as it is.
I really do hate bumpy-headed aliens... except zaranites.
Species-ist.
We are aware of ONE universe with quantum branching. More than one requires postulating things that fall way outside of what Professor Hawking calls our "cone of influence" - or put another way, yer just makin' sh*t up. So where would they have come from? Separate acts of creation by a "God"? Q? When the Great Bird lays eggs, each one is a universe, kinda like in the Chinese tradition? Whut?DonIago said:
Yes, and since that assumption goes against both explicit writer/franchise intent and what is fairly clearly presented in the film - that the changes in the Abramsverse timeline are due to Nero's traveling back to 2233 from Prime 2387 - it can be discarded, leaving no compelling argument for the absence of PrimeHead.
Captain M said:
It has nothing to do with what the hypothetical Enterprise D crew of the future of the Abramsverse timeline will or will not still do. The Enterprise D crew of the Prime already did it. From the POV of Prime 2387, everything that went on in Time's Arrow is a past event, and PrimeHead was there in the past of the timeline. Starting in Prime 2387, Nero goes back to a point in the middle of the period when PrimeHead was there. It doesn't magically disappear upon his arrival.
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We are at the stage where we are arguing in circles:
"Parallel universes really do exist, according to a mathematical discovery by Oxford scientists that sweeps away one of the key objections to the mind boggling and controversial idea... The new work bolsters his claim that quantum theory does not forbid time travel. "It does sidestep it. You go into another universe," he said yesterday, though he admits that there is still a way to go to find schemes to manipulate space and time in a way that makes time hops possible. "Many sci fi authors suggested time travel paradoxes would be solved by parallel universes but in my work, that conclusion is deduced from quantum theory itself", Dr Deutsch said, referring to his work on many worlds."
If I can paraphrase Magneto: "Are you sure you saw what you think you saw?"
We know that Nero's presence led to events being different from the Prime universe. We have no way of knowing if, for whatever scientific or dramatic reason they so choose, the writers will determine that the consequences of those changes will affect the past as well as the future, particularly where the past is dependent upon a future that will not now occur. We can debate temporal mechanics v writer intent but we just don't know.
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