Is the "Yesterday's Enterprise" alt-timeline the REAL one?
- Thread starter Lance
- Start date
I'm going to stick with the original intent of this episode, before NuTrek's alternate-universe version of time travel.
It was one timeline that changed, and changed back. The temporal rift had apertures at two different times in the same universe, and Guinan has some sense of alterations to that universe.
I don't know. The way I see it, the timeline existed in the following way:
Timeline A: Enterprise-C destroyed defending Narendra III; Klingon-Federation peace treaty signed; USS Enterprise-D commanded by Jean-Luc Picard; Tasha Yar dies on Vagra II; Sela does not exist in this timeline because her mother never traveled back in time to conceive her.
However, after the Enterprise-C vanishes from its proper place in history, the following timeline (B) comes into play:
Timeline B: Enterprise-C vanishes from Narendra III (presumed destroyed); Federation-Klingon relations deteriorate following incident; Federation-Klingon war begins following Romulan attack and lasts for two decades; Enterprise-D commanded by Jean-Luc Picard and encounters Enterprise-C when the latter travels into the future in 2366; Tasha Yar is alive but returns to the past with Enterprise-C to defend Narendra III.
When the Enterprise-C returns to her proper place and time, the second timeline above vanishes and is replaced by a third timeline (C). This timeline is similar to the first with the exception of there being two people named Tasha Yar prior to the death of the Tasha native to the original timeline on Vagra II as noted above. The Tasha from Timeline B conceives and gives birth to a half-Romulan daughter named Sela.
--Sran
Correct. The example I always think of happens in Back to the Future, when Doc tests the Delorean with Einstein by sending him one minute into the future. For Einstein, the trip happens instantly, and he never realizes that he's gone anywhere. But for Doc and Marty, Einstein is missing for the entire minute that passes before he reappears.
The same is true of the Enterprise. She disappeared before the Klingons realized that their distress signal had been heard and responded to. They blamed the Federation for not acting properly because they didn't understand what had happened. When the Enterprise returned to 2344, she was able to defend the outpost from the Romulans long enough for the Klingons to realize that Starfleet was trying to help them.
--Sran
Agreed. Though I'm not sure the lack of help from the Federation caused the war, I think tensions just increased more and more between the Klingons and the Federation in the intervening 20-years or so and it just reached a breaking point. It's possible the incident with the Romulans didn't help matters but I doubt it was a contributing factor.
But it was the destruction of the -C at the outpost that changed relations between the Federation and the Klingons since the ship and her destruction showed that the Federation had honor in them.
But it was the destruction of the -C at the outpost that changed relations between the Federation and the Klingons since the ship and her destruction showed that the Federation had honor in them.
I don't agree. The very nature of time travel in situations like this means that the effects can and do precede the cause. So the end result of the Ent-C's time travelling make themselves known before it actually does that thing.
Kind of like ST:FC. Picard and company were always part of the history of Earth-Vulcan first contact (you can't prove otherwise, at any rate - just like here), but we never actually see how this happens until the film.
This idea has been debated by temporal physicists over and over again, and no conclusion has been reached (or likely ever will be). The idea that one could create a time-loop in which traveling into the past is necessary to bring about the future in which the original time-travel occurs is certainly plausible.
OTOH, it's also possible that changes to a timeline don't propagate backward. In other words, if an individual were to travel into his own past, he wouldn't suddenly form a new memory of having met his (relatively speaking) future self once the maneuver was complete. His younger counterpart would have that memory, as would all subsequent versions of the individual from that time period. But the original time-traveler wouldn't remember meeting his future self because the event wouldn't have happened to him at that point in his life.
Mr. Laser Beam said:
Not necessarily. The only reason Picard and company traveled into the past was because the Borg did so first. Time-travel was necessary to prevent Earth's assimilation in the late twenty first century. Had the Borg never made the attempt, the Enterprise-E would never have followed. The Borg found during the events of Enterprise would seem to contradict this, but that episode was written after First Contact originally was in theaters, so it's not clear if such an event would be possible were it to happen in real life.
--Sran
Besides, in FC the Borg and the E aren't traveling into their own past if you go by multiverse theory. Rather, they're traveling into the past of a timeline that closely resembles their own. At the end the E jumps forward in time in that same track, but as far as the original timeline is concerned the Borg and the E disappeared into a temporal vortex and never returned.
Correct, just as there's also a timeline in which the Enterprise never followed the Borg back in time, and Earth was assimilated in the past.
--Sran
The inherent problem with Cochrane's actions being the divergence point is that it's completely out of character for him, based on what we see in FC. He was not a gun-toting, ransacking lowlife. His response to having too much pressure from the Starfleeters telling him how awesome he is? He ran away.
In order for Cochrane to act as he did in "IAMD," he would have had to have been far more aggressive in personality from the get-go. That implies that he's NOT the same individual as what we see in FC.
If the scenes are being shown chronologically like they are in the usual credits, then that guy in a space suit on the moon with the Terran Empire flag happened before Cochrane's warp flight.
As much as I hate to admit it, I agree with Christopher in these matters:
He suggests that in most of the instances of time travel we've seen, like "Yesterday's Enterprise" and ST:FC and all that, there is a single timeline which is changed, because information is freely exchanged between the two points thus travelled to and from. ST XI, on the other hand, does not change the existing timeline, but creates a new one, since the black hole which transports Spock Prime and Nero does not allow information to feed back into the prime timeline. It's strictly a one-way trip. Thus, it creates an alternate timeline. All other instances of time travel change the existing one.
Thanks for spoiler-coding that.... 
^ I did spoiler-code it, genius. 
My pet theory is that the JJverse flows from the First Contact/Enterprise universe, created by the Borg incursion. The monster ships and seemingly accelerated technology is a consequence of Federation scientists dissecting leftover Borg tech, and a much more powerful Section 31 pushing a beefed up Starfleet to protect Earth from the horrors they know are waiting for humanity.
Thanks for spoiler-coding that....
Why the unnecessary comment. If he thought it worthy of concealment, it is his call, not yours.
This debate has been going on for a while. There is a small group that's upset about the seeming lack of spoiler codes used when discussing novels and other works of fiction, even if said works have been out for years.
--Sran
The ENT episode "These are the Voyages..." showed that TNG and ENT happened in the same universe though.
:shudder:
That... that episode. The flashbacks, oh god... EVERYONE DUCK FOR COVER!!!.... Ugh... Oh! Where am I?
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