Kelvin Timeline all but confirmed
- Thread starter captainkirk
- Start date
You're suggesting all time travel episodes in "Star Trek" are part of a predestination paradox. But you're overlooking ALL of the episodes in which new, alternate timelines were created, with a history completely DIFFERENT from the original timeline.
In fact, the only time travel episode that depicted a predestination paradox was "Time's Arrow," where everything the time travelers did was what had already happened in a closed causality loop; but this is not how time travel works in every other episode of "Star Trek."
The main difference between "Star Trek" and "Star Wars" is that "Star Wars" takes place in a single timeline, with no time travel or alternate universes, so every prequel or sequel is strictly part of the same chronological story.
But "Star Trek" has depicted multiple alternate timelines, with mutually exclusive histories, where characters go back in time and change history, and it stays changed.
In "Yesterday's Enterprise," the Federation was losing a war with the Klingons. Then Yar went back and changed her history, and had a half-Romulan daughter in the new timeline where she prevented the war with the Klingons.
In "Endgame," the Voyager spent decades in the Delta Quadrant, and many crew members were lost. Then Admiral Janeway went back in time and created the new so-called "Prime" universe, where the Voyager got back to Earth years earlier. It was in this "Prime" universe where Admiral Janeway, now back on Earth, ordered Picard to Romulus in "Nemesis," and in which a disaster later blew up Romulus, causing Nero and Spock-Prime to go back in time and create yet another alternate timeline, where the Kelvin was destroyed and Vulcan was imploded.
When the Admiral Janeway shown in "Star Trek: Nemesis" is sitting in her office on Earth, looking back at Starfleet history from the past 150 years, THAT is the "Prime" timeline that she is remembering. But we already know that isn't the "original" timeline, because she is only back on Earth because her older self altered the "original" timeline to get her there.
The only time in canon the word "Prime" has appeared was in the 2009 movie, when Nimoy was credited as "Spock-Prime" (but we already know he came from the alternate Janeway-verse created in "Endgame," not the "original" timeline of TOS).
"Prime" has never meant the same as "original," because in "Star Trek," there is no "original" timeline, just an infinite number of alternate timelines, each with a slightly different history.
Like "Back to the Future," time travelers in Trek can go back in time and screw up the past permanently, or choose to "fix" history that has already been screwed-up, creating another future that is "close enough" to their original timeline (but not actually their original timeline). In "Back to the Future," Marty got his parents to meet in high school so he could be born, but when he got home it was a different timeline than the one he had left (e.g., he had a new truck, and his father was a successful author).
Likewise, in "Star Trek: First Contact," the Borg went back in time and assimilated Earth, creating a new timeline; that was actually shown before the Enterprise-E crew went back in time and changed that history, creating a third timeline where the Borg ship was destroyed (this was the timeline in which "Enterprise" was set, where they found the Borg wreckage 90 years later); but when the Enterprise-E went home, they weren't "returning" to their "original" timeline (nor to the Borg-assimilated-Earth timeline they had just been in before going back in time); like Marty McFly, the Enterprise-E crew returned to a new timeline that was "close enough" to the one they had left, but not identical.
I tend to think most people dislike the "Kelvin" timeline movies because they mistakenly think all of "Star Trek's" 700+ previous episodes have taken place in a single timeline with a consistent history (and these new movies are contradicting that history); but in fact many previous episodes have shown time travelers (e.g., Yar and Janeway) doing EXACTLY what Nero and Spock-Prime did: going back in time, changing their own history, and creating an alternate timeline different from what was "meant to be."
In each case, new technology, alternate ship designs, and different uniforms have resulted from alternate timelines being created. So anything depicted in the "Star Trek: Discovery" trailer is not evidence that continuity is being violated; it's evidence that in this alternate timeline, there may be differences from the "original" timeline depicted in TOS. (It's probably why the very first episode in "Enterprise" introduced the Temporal Cold War, so that fans couldn't claim there were "continuity errors" in every episode -- it was a conspiracy from the future to change history that was causing the contradictions.)
Dibs on the novelization!
The notion that Nero and Leonard Nimoy's Spock didn't come from the timeline comprising Enterprise through to Nemesis is pure bullshit.
Wouldn't have it any other way.
@TrekGuide.com isn't - from what I'm reading - saying that the 'broad strokes' of ENT through NEM didn't occur in the Prime Timeline (they certainly did) but that due to various time travel events they didn't necessarily happen exactly the way we remember any more.
For instance, originally Picard might have still been sent to Romulus by Starfleet but it wouldn't have been by Janeway (because she is still in the DQ) but instead a different admiral but the "broad strokes" are preserved.
Similarly, in a "pre-Yesterday's Enterprise" timeline, the Duras family might have opposed Gowron's assention to the Chancellorship but without the Romulan aid provided by Sela (who couldn't possibly exist in an earlier version of the timeline) it wasn't a full-blown Civil War.
Additionally, more advanced interface technology in the 23rd Century of the Kelvin and Discovery Timelines could be mutually explained by Lily and Cochrane's exposure to the advanced tech of the E-E giving them a "head start" via reverse-engineering over the late 21st/early 22nd C engineers of a "pre-First Contact" timeline.
That's my point -- "Enterprise" through to "Nemesis" was made up of multiple alternate timelines. We saw Admiral Janeway on Earth in "Nemesis," so clearly that movie was already set in the alternate timeline created in "Endgame." So, if we assume that Nero and Spock came from the same timeline depicted in "Nemesis" (let's call that the "Prime" timeline), then we know for a fact that this isn't the "original" timeline, where the Voyager spent decades in the Delta Quadrant (the Janeway of the original timeline couldn't possibly be on Earth during the events of "Nemesis").
When Yar went back in time and prevented the Klingon war, when Janeway went back and got the Voyager home a decade sooner, and when Nero went back and blew up the Kelvin and imploded Vulcan, they were all creating new, alternate timelines.
When the Sphere-builders (presumably from the future of the "Prime" timeline) directed the Xindi to attack Earth on "Enterprise" (as part of the Temporal Cold War), then they were actively changing their own past, just like Yar and Janeway and Nero did.
Admiral Janeway either got the Voyager home early or she didn't; Lt. Yar either died in the past with a half-Romulan daughter, or died fighting a tar monster; Nero either blew up Vulcan or he didn't. We have seen all of these alternate timelines in various Trek episodes (plus dozens of others). Which timeline did Nero and Spock come from? Which timeline is "original," and which is "Prime"? Every time someone changes their own past, they create a new "prime" timeline.
No matter which timeline "Discovery" is set in, there's no way to be certain whether it's in the "original" or "Prime" or some other timeline. If you assume that Spock and Nero were from the timeline depicted in "Nemesis," and we call that the "Prime" timeline, then we already know that was an alternate timeline created by Admiral Janeway in "Endgame." So what exactly does "Prime" mean? It's just another in a long string of alternate timelines.
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They are wrong. Star Trek is not a historical period drama. It is a work of fiction imagining the future, and to expect a work of fiction to depict the future in 2017 in the same manner as a television show made 51 years ago (that's nine presidents ago) is just absurd.
There is no "right," because this is not a recreation of a historical period that actually happened. There is "consistent with what was done before," but that is not necessarily an artistic virtue.
If someone really wants to find a way to justify the difference between the production designs of Star Trek: Discovery and "The Cage," the easiest explanation is that "The Cage" depicts a Constitution-class starship launched in 2245, but the Shenzhu and Discovery may have been launched in the 2250s.
The simple fact is that every time the timeline was altered in the TOS, TAS, TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT, TOS movies and TNG movies, they tried to restore it as best and as close as they could. The only time that didn't happen was in ST'09.
And Endgame. And except when they were expressly trying to alter the timeline for their own needs, as in Star Trek IV and Generations.
...and probably more. I forget.
Time Squared, Cause and Effect, Timescape, The Visitor, Children of Time, Timeless, all deal with scenarios in which the timeline is changed as a result of prior knowledge of events and the change is not reversed. Usually our heroes want that change to happen. In the unaltered 'prime timeline' the Enterprise D never made it to the end of its second season, and Sisko died in an accident on the Defiant.
There's a difference in Star Trek - and most other fiction - between an ALTERNATE timeline and an ALTERED timeline.
Both the Mirror Universe and "Abramsverse" are examples of alternate timelines, whereas the vast majority of time-travel-related stories in Star Trek revolve around altered timelines, up to and including Endgame.
Timeline alterations in Star Trek do frequently create alternate timelines as a result of the "multiverse principle", but we as an audience do not generally see said alternate timelines because we remain tethered to the altered timeline.
Trying to claim otherwise is, as I noted, pure bullshit, and is creating narrative complications for no reason whatsoever.
Unless otherwise specified, what we as an audience see when it comes to Star Trek exists in a single, albeit altered, timeline, which CBS and Paramount have officially dubbed the "Prime Timeline", and this includes Discovery.
Both the Mirror Universe and "Abramsverse" are examples of alternate timelines, whereas the vast majority of time-travel-related stories in Star Trek revolve around altered timelines, up to and including Endgame.
Timeline alterations in Star Trek do frequently create alternate timelines as a result of the "multiverse principle", but we as an audience do not generally see said alternate timelines because we remain tethered to the altered timeline.
Trying to claim otherwise is, as I noted, pure bullshit, and is creating narrative complications for no reason whatsoever.
Unless otherwise specified, what we as an audience see when it comes to Star Trek exists in a single, albeit altered, timeline, which CBS and Paramount have officially dubbed the "Prime Timeline", and this includes Discovery.
What's even simpler is accepting that we're watching a lot of TV shows produced over half a century by different people using the same IP, and they're going to vary a lot as a result.
The only way in which Trek continuity causes fans problems is when we treat it like a jigsaw puzzle that we've lost the "completed" image to - if this has to all go together seamlessly in order to fulfill its primary function as entertainment, well there's a great big problem. But that criterion is useful in the case of jigsaw puzzles and a lot less so when dealing with fiction created over time.
The only way in which Trek continuity causes fans problems is when we treat it like a jigsaw puzzle that we've lost the "completed" image to - if this has to all go together seamlessly in order to fulfill its primary function as entertainment, well there's a great big problem. But that criterion is useful in the case of jigsaw puzzles and a lot less so when dealing with fiction created over time.
"Hey! Every single one of these levers is fully functional! I don't know about you, but I'm tired of tapping panels, and getting blinded by flaring lights on every bulkhead."
(Sorry, I wanted to post this like ten pages ago, but this thread is moving so dang fast)
No. VOY's "Future's End has t he MAJOR issue of effectively stating showing the Eugenics Wars (referenced in TOS - "Space Seed" and again in Star Trek II: TWoK; and even in Enterprise - and the Wars were worldwide and lasted from 1992-1996) NEVER OCCURRED - but sorry, they were a major part of the Star Trek timeline. They wern't a group of 'small wars' either:
From TOS - "Space Seed" (showing how major the Eugenics Wars were in the Prime Star Trek Timeline:
and
So, yeah - the world as depicted in VOY's "Future's End" SHOULDN'T EXIST AS SHOWN had the events in "Future's End" been part of the Prime Star Trek Timeline discussed in TOS, STII:TWoK or ENT. (Of course maybe that just means Star Trek: Voyager may just be in it's own 'pocket timeline' and not a part of the Star Trek Prime timeline.
[Hey, works for me. As someone who's watched Star Trek first run since I was 6 years old in 1969 - ST:YOY is the only series I couldn't stand when it came to the writing - Hell, the way they wrote Janeway, she came across as having a Bipolar disorder... one week she was all gun ho about the Prime Directive, and ready to sacrifice her ship and crew to uphold it; while the following week she was ready to chuck the PD to save the life of one crewmember - so yeah, even the writers couldn't make up their minds it seemed. I watched regularly up through "The 37's" - and have seen some selected episodes recommended by friends; but nothing's changed my impression of VOY; and honestly, I was HAPPY when Mr. Bryan Fuller left the ST: D Production Team.]
Future's End overrides what Space Seed said about the timeline of the Eugenics Wars; that's as simple an explanation as it gets, and the only one that's needed.
Rain Robinson had a model of the Botany Bay with booster rockets in her office:No. VOY's "Future's End has the MAJOR issue of effectively stating showing the Eugenics Wars (referenced in TOS - "Space Seed" and again in Star Trek II: TWoK; and even in Enterprise - and the Wars were worldwide and lasted from 1992-1996) NEVER OCCURRED - but sorry, they were a major part of the Star Trek timeline. They wern't a group of 'small wars' either:
From TOS - "Space Seed" (showing how major the Eugenics Wars were in the Prime Star Trek Timeline:
SPOCK: Your Earth was on the verge of a dark ages. Whole populations were being bombed out of existence. A group of criminals could have been dealt with far more efficiently than wasting one of their most advanced spaceships.
SPOCK: Would you reveal to war-weary populations that some eighty Napoleons might still be alive?
So, yeah - the world as depicted in VOY's "Future's End" SHOULDN'T EXIST AS SHOWN had the events in "Future's End" been part of the Prime Star Trek Timeline discussed in TOS, STII:TWoK or ENT. (Of course maybe that just means Star Trek: Voyager may just be in it's own 'pocket timeline' and not a part of the Star Trek Prime timeline.
Just because that flare up of the Eugenics Wars lasted from 1992 through to 1996 doesn't mean it lasted the entire year of 1996. The war could have ended in early 1996 and we were seeing Los Angeles sometime later in the year during the post-war peace.
There can be a global war that plunges much of the Earth into chaos and a new dark ages and still leave many major cities and even whole continents largely unaffected. The Eugenics Wars were said to have killed greater than 30 million people, but World War II killed well over twice that number and yet if you had visited Los Angeles during the height of the war you would have still found a bustling metropolis. Yes, there would be indications of the war — soldiers in uniform everywhere, propaganda and recruitment posters, blackout shutters, etc. But you could travel down a street and not see much of a difference from pre or post-war LA.
There are certain possible indications of trouble. While it's not unusual for police to harass homeless people, they did seem a bit aggressive with Captain Braxton, so maybe there was a bit of a curfew or a crackdown on homelessness. There was an active militia group in open rebellion against the government in the desert, which could have been allied with one of the Eugenics Factions or taking advantage of the wars for their own ends.
Or, if you are so inclined, you can go the route offered up by Greg Cox's Eugenics Wars books which depicted them as a series of secret wars that the majority of the people of Earth were unaware of the full extent of, or that certain natural and manmade disasters were actually salvos in that war. Certain populations could experience localized "dark ages" as a result of these disasters while bigger countries were able to largely maintain stability.
That explains why I have no idea what is going on............
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