Is there a diference between a parallel universe and alternate timelin

[F. King Daniel]

Re: Is there a diference between a parallel universe and alternate tim

You can never know if you are travelling in time, across dimensions, or both.

WRONG! At least for Star Trek's world. "Parallels" introduced the concept of "quantum signatures", which were unique to each timeline and were used to match Worf with his Enterprise (it also shows us a branching "Y" diagram). Yes, IRL the signature, if expressed numerically, would be as complex as pi, but notheless it's part of Star Trek's canon.

I'll also point out that if the Star Trek multiverse were made up of preexisting universes, there would be endless paradoxes (like how does STXI timeline exist if the allies only won WWII due to the interference of Kirk, Spock and McCoy in "City on the Edge of Forever"? What about the Roswell Incident? Transparent Aluminum? Spock's maturity test?), none of which exist in a branching multiverse. We've seen alternates of Braxton, Spock, Picard, Janeway, Daniels and whatnot moving down the endless timeline tree and shifting us onto new paths.

 

[Tora Ziyal]

Re: Is there a diference between a parallel universe and alternate tim

They're just fictional notions vaguely based in theoretical science. Neither actually refers to an observed phenomenon, and whether there's any difference or not is entirely up to the person using the terms.

Yep, if the writer calls his creation an alternate timeline or parallel universe ( especially if a character outright says it) then thats what it is. Dont matter what anyone else calls it.

Of course, you're both right. But it's so much more fun to agonize over the meanings.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Re: Is there a diference between a parallel universe and alternate tim

WRONG! At least for Star Trek's world. "Parallels" introduced the concept of "quantum signatures", which were unique to each timeline and were used to match Worf with his Enterprise (it also shows us a branching "Y" diagram). Yes, IRL the signature, if expressed numerically, would be as complex as pi, but notheless it's part of Star Trek's canon.

Star Trek has not exactly been consistent in regards to time travel logic. What I described is my preferred explanation for time travel. It's loosely based on real-life theories that are far from proven anyway (how could they be?)

But it has a massive flaw when applied to storytelling, namely the Who Cares Factor. If you aren't travelling into your own past, then what does it matter what happens there? If there is an infinite number of realities, what does it matter what happens anywhere? Vulcan got blown up, who cares! An infinite number of Vulcans still exist. Infinity minus one is still infinity, so in fact, Vulcan did not get blown up and nothing happened. You wasted your ten bucks.

Time travel is very difficult to make work in a story, and still have it make sense, unless a) you're going for comedy and can make fun of the contradictions (Futurama has done this well) or b) can focus on the characters so that the mechanics of time travel don't matter as much (such as in Twelve Monkeys).

If you take a good look at Star Trek XI's use of time travel, you'll see that it was character based (get Nimoy in the movie, come up with an excuse for revising Kirk and Uhura) and not really about plot mechanics (Nero didn't need to be a time travelling Romulan in particular in order to blow up Vulcan). This is a real change from the usual repair-the-timeline type of story, where the plot mechanics are the whole point.

I'll also point out that if the Star Trek multiverse were made up of preexisting universes, there would be endless paradoxes (like how does STXI timeline exist if the allies only won WWII due to the interference of Kirk, Spock and McCoy in "City on the Edge of Forever"? What about the Roswell Incident? Transparent Aluminum? Spock's maturity test?), none of which exist in a branching multiverse. We've seen alternates of Braxton, Spock, Picard, Janeway, Daniels and whatnot moving down the endless timeline tree and shifting us onto new paths.

How do you know which multiverse any of the characters were in? Maybe Kirk, Spock and McCoy visited a different universe where Edith Keeler lived, not their own (under my theory, they couldn't have visited their own past). The alternates of various characters could actually be those characters in different universes - each is "native" to his or her own universe and isn't branching off from anyone.

The key is, nobody is outside of the multiverse and can serve as referee, declaring this or that character or path of history "correct" for any given multiverse, because nobody knows which multiverse they are in, at any given time, or what is right or wrong for that multiverse. They don't even know whether they live their whole lives in the same multiverse, or if they might naturally travel between mutliverses at all time, without being aware of this.

A writer can just come up with something to signal their intention that a character is somehow serving as referee - Worf and his quantum signatures, or Uhura's preternatural knowledge that she is in a parallel universe to the one Nimoy's Spock came from - but that's just a declaration by the writer that we're not supposed to be questioning whether these characters are in any position to know such things. They're not, really, but we can pretend they are, for the sake of the story.

 

[Nightdiamond]

Re: Is there a diference between a parallel universe and alternate tim

Q takes Picard into the past, allows him to change his actions, returns him to the present.

Everything is the same except he never became a captain.
I would call that an alternate timeline.

The Federation evolved into a brutal empire without interference. Everyone has a counterpart except they're all evil or really nasty.

I would call that a parallel universe.


Except in Yesterdays' Enterprise when time travel is involved and the past universe is altered which alters the present and history has no record of interference from the past when the future is restored which is really the present so it never happened in the first place....

 

[KJbushway]

Re: Is there a diference between a parallel universe and alternate tim

They are different, and they are close enough to get mixed up.
Yestarday's enterprise alternate timeline but also a parallel universe.
Technically we don't know if that war universe is still thriving.

 

[Frontier]

Re: Is there a diference between a parallel universe and alternate tim

I think this is a "chicken or the egg" question, IMHO.

I think they're, depending on unknowable circumstances, interchangeable.

Like, whose to say that simply because the 1701-C went back to Narendra 3 that it 'collapsed' the timeline from "Yesterday's Enterprise"? Rather, I'd argue that both timelines existed, but when the 1701-C first went through the rift, it "eclipsed" the timeline we're familair with for a while...

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Re: Is there a diference between a parallel universe and alternate tim

Q takes Picard into the past, allows him to change his actions, returns him to the present.

Everything is the same except he never became a captain.
I would call that an alternate timeline.

The Federation evolved into a brutal empire without interference. Everyone has a counterpart except they're all evil or really nasty.

I would call that a parallel universe.

Or they're both parallel universes, and in the first case, Picard travelled to a parallel universe and is under the misconception that he travelled to his own past simply because the two universes are very similar.

You can never tell the difference. For example, let's say you travel into the past and your childhood home is painted blue instead of green. Are you in your own past, and some inconsiderate time traveller did something that caused the paint color to change, or are you in a parallel reality where it was always blue?

 

[Nerys Myk]

Re: Is there a diference between a parallel universe and alternate tim

[/bobgoldthwait]there's more white meat on a gerbil[/bobgoldthwait]

 

[Nightdiamond]

Re: Is there a diference between a parallel universe and alternate tim

I can see how the two can be related to each other, and it's hard to tell the difference, but this a pet theory of mine;

A parallel universe is separate from the "regular" universe with boundaries. It takes tremendous power to breach it.

An alternate timeline is created by some deliberate action and involving phenomena such as time travel.

As long as Tasha Yar was alive, her daughter Sela didn't exist.

The moment she died, Sela came into existence because Tasha was recreated when the Enterprise C altered the timeline where the Federation went to war and she never died prematurely. Tasha returned to the past with Enterprise C and got captured and brought to Romulus, hence altering events in the present timeline.

again lol .....

 

[Capt_Pickirk]

Re: Is there a diference between a parallel universe and alternate tim

Is there a difference between a parallel universe and alternate timeline?

Yes. They're spelt differently.

Ba-dum dum. Tiishh!

 

[F. King Daniel]

Re: Is there a diference between a parallel universe and alternate tim

The timeline where the Enterprise-C vanished from Narendra III predates (relatively speaking, it's all concurrent and parallel to the wormhole aliens) the TNG one, akin to how the TOS timeline predates the STXI one. The E-C vanishes -the original and correct order of events-, reappears 22 years later and when it's sent back it alters history creating the TNG timeline. Nero and Spock go back in time and alter history creating the STXI one. The difference is that with "Yesterday's Enterprise" we'd already been watching the alternate branch of the timeline for ages before we learned how it came to be.

Similarly, we see in Enterprise that the TOS timeline is the result of extensive time tampering in the temporal cold war. Daniels' timeline predates (relatively speaking) TOS, where the colony from "Shockwave" still existed, the Xindi never attacked and the Delphic Expanse existed into the 26th century.

Of course, I'm ignoring all of the Trek retcons and errors. Otherwise each episode is it's own universe

 

[el Chalupacabra]

Re: Is there a diference between a parallel universe and alternate tim

HORRAY! My favorite topic of all time! Yes, this is even better than bashing the Star Wars PT.

There is NO difference between a parallel universe and an alternate timeline - or at least, no difference that you can be sure you are seeing.

Envision the multiverse as a series of parallel bands stretching to the right and to the left into infinity. (I like to envision them as separate colors for simplicity.)

Each band is a universe with its own timeline that stretches in front of you and behind you into infinity. Because there is an infinite number of bands, every possible thing that could happen, does happen in at least one band. Most things happen in more than one band. It's reasonable for bands to be very very similar to vast numbers of other bands, so that a person bopping from one to another might not realize they'd changed universes at all. (Feel free to fuck with your minds by imagining that universe-bopping happens naturally to all of us, all the time, without us being aware of it.)

Time travel cannot occur within one band (let's say the red band) into the past because of the grandfather paradox. It can happen into the future of a single band, and also at any point in any other band. A thousand years back in the blue band or a billion years back in the green band is no problemo at all for red band grandchildren. If red, blue and green differ from each other only by one or two flaps of a butterfly's wings on Proxima Centauri in the year 1,000,292,383,201,392 BC, then your average time traveller might be fooled into thinking that no inter-dimensional travel had occurred at all.

The key thing to remember is: there is no way to check out every butterfly on every world at every time in the existence of every universe when you are casually time travelling around. You can never know whether you are travelling in time, across dimensions, or both. The only thing you can be sure ever happened, and constitues "proof" of where you are, is the past of your own timeline - the one place you are prohibited from ever visiting.

"Parallel universe" is a misnomer used when people mean "alternate timeline". An alternate timeline is a set of events that is divergent from the "original" and that follows its own course.

If you assume that the "original" number of universes was one, and at some point, time travellers started mucking things up. But if the "original" number of universes was infinity at the time of the Big Bang, then there is no need, and in fact no room for more universes to be created. It all just becomes a game of Wack-a-Mole, with time travellers appearing in various places but never, ever in the past of their own original timeline. With an infinity of playgrounds to choose from, they'd hardly feel constrained. If they ever had a way of knowing what was really going on - and that's the thing they can never be sure of.

Alternate Reality/Universe = Mirror Universe
Alternate Timeline = Star Trek XI

They're the same thing: Prime, Mirror and Abrams 'verses are three of an infinity of pre-existing universes, each with their own independent timeline. And they are very similar to each other, even with the Terran Empire stuff. There are universes so alien that they'd drive HP Lovecraft mad!

I agree with this!

 

[Vanyel]

Re: Is there a diference between a parallel universe and alternate tim

I think the universe shown in Tapestry, was one of Q's creations so it wasn't parallel or alternate, possible only something in Picard's mind that Q put there. He was teaching Picard a lesson after all.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Re: Is there a diference between a parallel universe and alternate tim

When it come to which is what I'll take writer intent over fan dissent. STXI is an alternate timeline branching off the TOS timeline.

 

[Gojira]

Re: Is there a diference between a parallel universe and alternate tim

When it come to which is what I'll take writer intent over fan dissent. STXI is an alternate timeline branching off the TOS timeline.

My complaint about Trek XI (and it is my only complaint because I love the movie) is that if the writers had been more clear in their writing then we wouldn't have to accept their intent because the writing would have been clear enough to not create any ambiguity.

 

[Gojira]

Re: Is there a diference between a parallel universe and alternate tim

HORRAY! My favorite topic of all time! Yes, this is even better than bashing the Star Wars PT.

There is NO difference between a parallel universe and an alternate timeline - or at least, no difference that you can be sure you are seeing.

Envision the multiverse as a series of parallel bands stretching to the right and to the left into infinity. (I like to envision them as separate colors for simplicity.)

Each band is a universe with its own timeline that stretches in front of you and behind you into infinity. Because there is an infinite number of bands, every possible thing that could happen, does happen in at least one band. Most things happen in more than one band. It's reasonable for bands to be very very similar to vast numbers of other bands, so that a person bopping from one to another might not realize they'd changed universes at all. (Feel free to fuck with your minds by imagining that universe-bopping happens naturally to all of us, all the time, without us being aware of it.)

Time travel cannot occur within one band (let's say the red band) into the past because of the grandfather paradox. It can happen into the future of a single band, and also at any point in any other band. A thousand years back in the blue band or a billion years back in the green band is no problemo at all for red band grandchildren. If red, blue and green differ from each other only by one or two flaps of a butterfly's wings on Proxima Centauri in the year 1,000,292,383,201,392 BC, then your average time traveller might be fooled into thinking that no inter-dimensional travel had occurred at all.

The key thing to remember is: there is no way to check out every butterfly on every world at every time in the existence of every universe when you are casually time travelling around. You can never know whether you are travelling in time, across dimensions, or both. The only thing you can be sure ever happened, and constitues "proof" of where you are, is the past of your own timeline - the one place you are prohibited from ever visiting.

"Parallel universe" is a misnomer used when people mean "alternate timeline". An alternate timeline is a set of events that is divergent from the "original" and that follows its own course.

If you assume that the "original" number of universes was one, and at some point, time travellers started mucking things up. But if the "original" number of universes was infinity at the time of the Big Bang, then there is no need, and in fact no room for more universes to be created. It all just becomes a game of Wack-a-Mole, with time travellers appearing in various places but never, ever in the past of their own original timeline. With an infinity of playgrounds to choose from, they'd hardly feel constrained. If they ever had a way of knowing what was really going on - and that's the thing they can never be sure of.

Alternate Reality/Universe = Mirror Universe
Alternate Timeline = Star Trek XI

They're the same thing: Prime, Mirror and Abrams 'verses are three of an infinity of pre-existing universes, each with their own independent timeline. And they are very similar to each other, even with the Terran Empire stuff. There are universes so alien that they'd drive HP Lovecraft mad!

I actually followed you on this one. But my one question is this. Take "City on the Edge of Forever" as an example. Bones goes back in time and changes the past so that the Enterprise/Starfleet never exists. Kirk and Spock go back in time and undo what Bones had done. They come back to their own time period and everything is fine. So were they jumping in time within their own universe and time line or were they jumping from their universe to another universe but did not know it? If that is what they were doing (universe hopping) how could their actions affect the past or future of the original universe or even any multiple universes that they visited in that one episode?

 

[Nightdiamond]

Re: Is there a diference between a parallel universe and alternate tim

I think the writers are intending to rewrite some of Star Trek rather than create a story based on an alternate timeline.

Mainly to give a boost to waning franchise, and for a newer generation.

Kirk never becomes a midshipmen, the crew seems to meet each other at the same time, Spock and Uhura had a love affair- all the evidence they were rewriting it for a new audience, IMO.

From what I see, time travel can occur within a universe and can alter events in that universe.

A Bajoran (who was a poet) vanishes for 300 years after he sails his vessel into the wormhole.

The Prophets send him back in time. Suddenly Kira notices a poem he never finished, actually finished instantly.

Captain Sisko's face is listed under Gabriel Bell's profile.

Reminds me....remember that popular Sci-Fi idea that if you travel back in time, step on a bug, the future could altered disastrously?

 

[Nerys Myk]

Re: Is there a diference between a parallel universe and alternate tim

When it come to which is what I'll take writer intent over fan dissent. STXI is an alternate timeline branching off the TOS timeline.

My complaint about Trek XI (and it is my only complaint because I love the movie) is that if the writers had been more clear in their writing then we wouldn't have to accept their intent because the writing would have been clear enough to not create any ambiguity.

SPOCK: ...we must gather with the rest of Starfleet, to balance the terms of the next engagement.
KIRK: There won't be a next engagement. By the time we've gathered, it'll be too late. But you say he's from the future, knows what's going to happen, then the logical thing is to be unpredictable.
SPOCK: You are assuming that Nero knows how events are predicted to unfold. To the contrary, Nero's very presence has altered the flow of history, beginning with the attack on the USS Kelvin, culminating in the events of today, thereby creating an entire new chain of incidents that cannot be anticipated by either party.
UHURA: An alternate reality?
SPOCK: Precisely. Whatever our lives might have been, if the time continuum was disrupted, our destinies have changed. Mr. Sulu, plot a course to the Laurentian system warp factor three.

Don't know how they could be any clearer.

 

[KJbushway]

Re: Is there a diference between a parallel universe and alternate tim

What would you call it then. A alternate timeline or a parallel universe from the original star trek timeline.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Re: Is there a diference between a parallel universe and alternate tim

Its an alternate time line that splits off from the TOS time line in 2233.