Is the "prime" timeline erased or running on a different channel?
- Thread starter golakers
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Spock Prime, who was not temporally shielded, still exists and still remembers the original timeline. I would say that's proof that the original timeline still exists, albeit in another reality.
It ties into some hypothesis of how time travel would actually work. Basically if you were to go back and change anything, a new universe would be created. The old one still exists and it also prevents a paradox. You could go back and kill yourself without creating one. There would just be an universe where you live and one where you were killed.
Yeah, as everyone else said, the trip to the past created a new, divergent timeline, but the old one still exists.
It kind of makes one wonder, though, if Spock wanted to, would there be any way to return to the future he knows? He could probably time-travel to the future by some means (i.e. slingshot effect around a star), but he'd probably just wind up in the future of this new timeline. He'd have to cross universes to get back to where he came from, and that would probably be much trickier.
It's a moot point, seeing as how he seems set on staying in the past of this new reality, but I'm kind of curious anyhow.
It kind of makes one wonder, though, if Spock wanted to, would there be any way to return to the future he knows? He could probably time-travel to the future by some means (i.e. slingshot effect around a star), but he'd probably just wind up in the future of this new timeline. He'd have to cross universes to get back to where he came from, and that would probably be much trickier.
It's a moot point, seeing as how he seems set on staying in the past of this new reality, but I'm kind of curious anyhow.
I'm pretty sure this question has come up a hundred times in the past two years, but people keep asking it.
Think of it this way. Spock Prime is the point-of-view character for this story, showing him and Nero traveling from their original timeline to this new one.
But think about it from Picard's point-of-view: He sees Spock and Nero disappear into the black hole and never hears from them again. His universe doesn't end. He and the Enterprise-E crew simply go on with their lives, with no knowledge of the chaos Spock and Nero are unleashing in the new timeline.
With Nero dead, Spock Prime is the only person in either timeline who remembers both timelines.
It's like in Voyager's final episode, "Endgame," when Admiral Janeway goes back in time and changes the past, she is the only one there who remembers her original timeline. (But in the original future, there's still a bunch of angry Klingons upset that Janeway stole their time machine and vanished into a new timeline, just like Spock and Nero did in this movie.)
Think of it this way. Spock Prime is the point-of-view character for this story, showing him and Nero traveling from their original timeline to this new one.
But think about it from Picard's point-of-view: He sees Spock and Nero disappear into the black hole and never hears from them again. His universe doesn't end. He and the Enterprise-E crew simply go on with their lives, with no knowledge of the chaos Spock and Nero are unleashing in the new timeline.
With Nero dead, Spock Prime is the only person in either timeline who remembers both timelines.
It's like in Voyager's final episode, "Endgame," when Admiral Janeway goes back in time and changes the past, she is the only one there who remembers her original timeline. (But in the original future, there's still a bunch of angry Klingons upset that Janeway stole their time machine and vanished into a new timeline, just like Spock and Nero did in this movie.)
I believe that it is the two-timelines-at-once sort of thing, per Roberto Orci I beleive.
But watching the movie it never actually states this, it just says things have been changed and this is an alternate reality.
My friends who were not really trek fans simply assumed from watching the movie that the old timeline was erased. If thats what the average person assumes based on the movie, that may be the answer.
In the end I think it's your decision to make. Whichever you prefer.
But watching the movie it never actually states this, it just says things have been changed and this is an alternate reality.
My friends who were not really trek fans simply assumed from watching the movie that the old timeline was erased. If thats what the average person assumes based on the movie, that may be the answer.
In the end I think it's your decision to make. Whichever you prefer.
Probably a little of both. Plus back in his timeline, most of his friends are dead, the planet he was Ambassador to was blown up so he's out of a job, and he may be curious to see how this new timeline plays out.
All Abrams had to say to the Trekkies/ Trekkers was that this is a "parallel universe" over and over again. All he had to say that is was a mirror universe like the one Sisko went into in DS9 (where the humans were the slaves). Had he done that, the discussion would have been over and I would be at the cinema now watching his film. Cobra
Or he could have just said "reboot" and left out the Old Spock nonsense. That would have worked for me.
Uhura outright calls it an alternate reality. For Abrams and 99% of all viewers, "alternate reality" and "parallel universe" are synonyms.
Just think of this new Star Trek timeline taking place in something like a MU thing, and you'll be fine.
In the end, does it even matter?
In the end, does it even matter?
Of course it matters. I watch TOS episodes and movies 14 hours a day. This is my life.
What he said.
Nothing's been destroyed (well, except for Vulcan
). The original timeline's still there. This movie's started off a new and potentially fabulous timeline, without doing a thing to alter the one that's existed for the past fortysomething years. It's all good, really. 
Well then as William Shatner said, "Get a life! It's a TV show."
The more I think about it, the less I think the timeline will actually change. Think about it, do you think Kirk Snr being killed or the destruction of vulcan will have any effect on lets say VGer's approach to earth - I think not.
Will it change the fact that Trelane was on Gothos, or the fact that their is a Nazi planet out there - no.
What it will change is when our main characters will find these wonders and challenges and perhaps how they will deal with them.
That being said the biggest change has to be the destruction of vulcan. This in my mind will have massive repercussions such as No more Tuvok and without him possible a very different voyager and captain janeway. Oh and what about Unification or even the Federation itself - could it continue to function without the influence of one of its major founding members.
Now I know they are not all dead, but it is still a big change.
Will it change the fact that Trelane was on Gothos, or the fact that their is a Nazi planet out there - no.
What it will change is when our main characters will find these wonders and challenges and perhaps how they will deal with them.
That being said the biggest change has to be the destruction of vulcan. This in my mind will have massive repercussions such as No more Tuvok and without him possible a very different voyager and captain janeway. Oh and what about Unification or even the Federation itself - could it continue to function without the influence of one of its major founding members.
Now I know they are not all dead, but it is still a big change.
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