Khan #1 Review

[Christopher]

People always say the Prime timeline coexists, but that was never actually shown on screen.

I don't see why it should have to be. It should be self-evident that the filmmakers would not want to erase the previous 45 years of Trek continuity from existence. Even if that had been Bad Robot's intent -- which we know from many interviews that it wasn't -- there's no way CBS would've allowed it, because they have too much invested in that history. Even if it's never practical again to make new shows or films in that continuity, the last thing they'd want to do is make it less desirable for audiences to spend money on the DVDs by telling them "Hey, these stories don't 'count' anymore." So it should be self-evident that the original timeline is still as valid as it ever was.

There's also the fact that Pocket, IDW, and Star Trek Online are still licensed to tell stories set in the Prime timeline, and since tie-ins are obligated to stay consistent with canon, that means the canonical "reality" is that the Prime timeline is still viable.

And what is shown onscreen is Spock Prime making no effort to "restore" his own timeline, which allows us to infer that he does not consider that timeline to be under threat. Which is consistent with our modern understanding of physics; the coexistence of alternate timelines is simply the more believable interpretation.

So we don't have to see it onscreen to know it's still there. There's simply no reason why it wouldn't be, and plenty of reasons why it should be.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Have Old Spock spell it out clearly. But you know why he didn't?

Because he is trapped in the Abrams timeline with no way of reaching his own. It still exists, Spock Prime just can't ever access it. So even though his Vulcan still exists, to him it's just as dead as the Abrams version.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Has anyone read #3 yet? It gets even worse....

Yes, I read it this morning! Loved it. The artwork was great and I was entertained. And Sydney, Australia, got a neat cameo!

Because he is trapped in the Abrams timeline with no way of reaching his own. It still exists, Spock Prime just can't ever access it. So even though his Vulcan still exists, to him it's just as dead as the Abrams version.

Additionally, his mission in the Prime Universe (ever since "Unification", attempting to help the Romulans to unify with the Vulcans) is over - because Romulus was destroyed, so he has switched his efforts to the new timeline, where it's the Vulcans who've suffered the big loss.

Despite not being onscreen, I'm content that the story contributed to IDW's "Countdown" mini-series by Orci & Kurtzman concludes with Picard and Data/B-4 still in existence after Nero and Spock had vanished.

 

[Christopher]

Have Old Spock spell it out clearly. But you know why he didn't?

Because he is trapped in the Abrams timeline with no way of reaching his own. It still exists, Spock Prime just can't ever access it. So even though his Vulcan still exists, to him it's just as dead as the Abrams version.

Well, yes, my point is that the Prime timeline still exists. But we're talking about Spock here. He was the science officer aboard the first Starfleet vessel to time travel under its own power, using a warp intermix formula he devised. Months later, he was flung back in time to 1969 and was able to compute a way to return his crew to their proper time and undo the temporal damage of their intervention. Months after that, he discovered the Guardian of Forever. And so forth, through dozens of other temporal incidents throughout the ensuing decades. Spock is arguably the Federation's greatest expert on applied temporal physics. So it doesn't really make sense to say he'd be trapped and helpless in a temporal-displacement scenario. If he did believe that his timeline were in danger of erasure, it stands to reason that he would be the one person best qualified to find a way to restore it.

So yes, the other timeline still exists. But if anyone could find a way back, he could. He stays not because he's trapped, but because he's aware that his old timeline is safe and secure, and because he has a responsibility to make amends to this new timeline for the harm he allowed to befall it.