Is the "Yesterday's Enterprise" alt-timeline the REAL one?

[Lance]

I was thinking about this today. If the 'true' course of historical events was always that the Enterprise C vanished at Narendra III, as is implied by the episode (returning them home is what 'resets' the timeline), then presumably the war-torn universe is the true one. The more peaceful timeline, the one we think is the real one, the one we've been watching for three seasons up to that point... might just have been a peek of the universe as it should be. "Yesterday's Enterprise" allows us to pierce the bubble, and it shows us what truely happened, the true course of events, until the Enterprise C got sent backwards in time and made everything how we perceive it to be instead.

It made my head spin a bit, but the more I thought about it the more sense it seemed to make. I think there's a logic there. The Enterprise C being sent back doesn't reset the timeline, it ensures the timeline is the happy one we've been watching all these years, instead of the crappy one that has actually been happening up to that point.

Does this make sense to anyone else?

 

[BriGuy]

I think it goes back a bit farther, and is deeper than that divergence point.

The real universe is the mirror universe, starting when Zeframe Cochrane blasted a hole in a Vulcan with a shotgun, and humans ransacked their ship.

That approach, and everything that follows, is much more in keeping with how humans actually behave, toward aliens and each other.

 

[MacLeod]

Repeat after me

"I hate Temporal mechanics"

Best not to over think these things. We simply saw an alternative timeline in which the crew of the Enterprise didn't die in honourable combat.

 

[trevanian]

I like the notion a lot, as it builds on what we see in the TOS films rather than having the century tick over and everything is suddenly near-Utopian. Plus it has a lot more interest visually.

You can also make a counter-argument that TFF & TUC are building toward what we see in TNG, but that's kind of an ass-backwards SW prequel approach to storytelling IMO.

 

[Mysterion]

The grass is always greener in the other universe.

 

[Praetor]

The OP is right, technically. The Enterprise-C's displacement to the future occurred "before" it was corrected. The choices of the C's crew then altered that timeline into the one we know.

Obviously, though, the true original timeline was one where Earth was destroyed by a giant black cylinder in 2286 before a stolen bird-of-prey dropped a pair of whales in the San Francisco Bay...

 

[Leviathan]

...it was certainly more entertaining.

 

[Push The Button]

"Let's make sure history
never forgets
the name...
Enterprise."

 

[Dukhat]

I think it goes back a bit farther, and is deeper than that divergence point.

The real universe is the mirror universe, starting when Zeframe Cochrane blasted a hole in a Vulcan with a shotgun, and humans ransacked their ship.

Not quite. The credits for the ENT mirror universe two-parter suggested that the Terran empire existed as far back as WWI, and definitely by the moon landing.

 

[R. Star]

I think it goes back a bit farther, and is deeper than that divergence point.

The real universe is the mirror universe, starting when Zeframe Cochrane blasted a hole in a Vulcan with a shotgun, and humans ransacked their ship.

Not quite. The credits for the ENT mirror universe two-parter suggested that the Terran empire existed as far back as WWI, and definitely by the moon landing.

Some German planes and tanks is no evidence of a Terran Empire. And for all we know the moon landing shot could be in the 22nd century with a space nazi kicking over the US flag and putting the Empire's there as a big FU to freedom.

 

[BillJ]

I doubt any timeline we've seen in Trek is the "real" timeline (even TOS).

In the "real" timeline, humans probably didn't develop warp drive until the 30th century and time-travel until the 40th. At that point, they began rewriting their own history, either through accident or on purpose.

Maybe some type of galactic cataclysm caused them to begin altering the past. By speeding human development they hoped to avert the cataclysm.

 

[BillJ]

I think it goes back a bit farther, and is deeper than that divergence point.

The real universe is the mirror universe, starting when Zeframe Cochrane blasted a hole in a Vulcan with a shotgun, and humans ransacked their ship.

Not quite. The credits for the ENT mirror universe two-parter suggested that the Terran empire existed as far back as WWI, and definitely by the moon landing.

Some German planes and tanks is no evidence of a Terran Empire. And for all we know the moon landing shot could be in the 22nd century with a space nazi kicking over the US flag and putting the Empire's there as a big FU to freedom.

Unless every narrative Phlox is talking about is written after the split, I think the intention is for it to have happened well before first contact...

PHLOX: I was merely researching classical literature. I wanted to compare our major works with their counterparts in the other universe. I skimmed a few of the more celebrated narratives. The stories were similar in some respects, but their characters were weak and compassionate. With the exception of Shakespeare, of course. From what I could tell, his plays were equally grim in both universes.

 

[F. King Daniel]

It does seem as though sending the Enterprise-C back through the time rift in "Yesterday's Enterprise" created the TNG timeline in much the same way as the nuTrek AU was created.

BUT, that doesn't explain Guinan's knowledge that something was somehow wrong. And it confuses the hell out of "Time's Arrow" and how Guinan and Picard met.

 

[The Emissary]

I think part of the problem here is we don't really know of any details on where that convenient temporal rift appeared from.

It's been so long since I've seen the episode but wasn't the implication that it was from the discharge of weapons between the ENT-C and the Romulan ships? But that could have been their guess.

It could have been one of those pesky awkward temporal anomalies that was "formed" in the 28th century, but due to it being temporaly unstable it appeared in the mid 24-th century. So really, "originally" the "good utopian" time line IS the original time line. Then that anomaly just had to screw it all up and randomly appear in the past.........right in the middle of an important battle.

So sending them back did restore the "original" time line.

The problem, again, is that we don't really get any details on what really happened at Narenda III. It's just cliff notes.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

According to in-universe explanations, no.

 

[R. Star]

^
What a detailed and tangible explanation. Eliminates all doubt.

 

[Trekker4747]

The "Yesterday's Enterprise" timeline is built on the idea of the Enterprise-C leaving the timeline, never being reported as having shown up at the Klingon outpost having (I'm guessing) just "gone missing." So right there it can't be the "correct future" since that future was built on an alteration of the timeline.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The "regular" timeline is the real one. The very fact that we saw so much of it before "Yesterday's Enterprise" ever aired is all the proof I need. The 'war future' timeline is just a means to that end - it was necessary for that alt-timeline to exist so that the real one also could.

 

[DonIago]

If you want to look at this from a multiverse standpoint I feel it would be something like this-

Track A, which we're watching up until the C comes through the rift: TNG as we've known it to that point. No Sela. The C was destroyed at Narendra Three.

Track B: The war timeline. The C disappeared in the past and reappears in the future (you could make a case for another alternate timeline where the C appears versus one where it doesn't, I suppose). The D protects it while it's sent back and is ultimately destroyed. Things continue to go badly, because the C ends up in...

Track C: A variant of Track A in which Sela has always existed and the C was destroyed at Narendra Three. The D observes a rift but nothing comes through.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ There is no Track C. In every episode we saw even prior to Y.E., Sela was still part of history, as was the battle in which the Ent-C was destroyed. Indeed, the alliance with the Klingons couldn't have existed without it, as it was the ship's destruction which spurred said alliance.