Parallels question

[Lance]

The Doctor Who expanded universe in the 1990s regularly operated on the assumption that the Doctor's people (the Time Lords) actively stamped out alternative universes, being as they are the keepers of a one true timeline, which is why they sometimes employed the Doctor as a 'man on the ground' to ensure the correct outcomes are reached (eg. in Genesis of the Daleks).

Some of the more wildly inconsistent aspects of the Doctor Who universe as depicted in the newer version of the show from 2005-onwards have sometimes been attributed to the Time Lords being out of the equation. The entire continuity is in a constant state of flux, changing and warping from story to story and season to season, because the Time Lords are no longer there to ensure a single, unwavering timeline.

 

[F. King Daniel]

IF there is any reality to the multiverse, it's not our choices which lead to alternate realities (that's just Trek's comic book world pseudoscience), it's actual possible outcomes of events. And I think there are far fewer alternate possible outcomes of events than people think, if any.

 

[od0_ital]

But the tournament was days ago, wasn't it? Or are you suggesting that the tournament took place at different times in different realities? (In an infinite multiverse, though, I'm sure it did.)

Did ya miss the part about him travellin' back in time?

After closin' the anomaly, Worf was back to the point just prior to his return to the Enterprise from the tournament. The time travel aspect of it explains all the Worfs in the shuttle when the anomaly was closed - it was the shuttle in each reality with Worf returnin' from the tournament.

Closin' the anomaly erased the events of the episode for everyone but Worf, since his memories of the alternate realities prompted him to ask Deanna to stick around for a drink as the credits rolled.

 

[Iamnotspock]

Of course, "Parallels" would have been another opportunity to have Densie Crosby reprise her role as the Tasha Yar character. A little pity that we didn't see this happening.

It was intended, but they felt it would be too similar to Yesterday's Enterprise, so Wesley was substituted instead.

 

[FormerLurker]

I love this episode, it's a great episode, but the idea of infinite realities.has always been a foolish one to me, and I'm a Larry Niven fan (All the Myriad Ways). You'd need a new universe created, not just for every choice or outcome in every sentient person's life, but for every single physical event in the universe that could have gone another way, up to and including every single subatomic interaction. In the whole universe. At every "moment," whatever the smallest definable moment would be. Where in HELL could all those universes exist? And where did the energy come from to create all those universes?

I interpret things this way: Our choices don't literally create alternate universes. They already existed, and always did.

For instance, let's say you wake up in the morning and decide among four different sweaters to wear for the day. By doing this, you don't literally create four different universes springing off from that point. They already existed, but up until you made the decision, all four were identical. Same story here, really.

It also was a great analogy, IMHO, to illustrate (by showcasing different parallel universes that apparently had a common point of convergence in the past) how little decisions we do every day can affect the future.

In one universe the Enterprise-D had defeated the Borg in BoBW but Picard had died in the process, in another one the Enterprise-D was sort of the last ship standing against the Borg.

And along similar lines, some of the differences between the universe are only very minimal, but just enough to show that events were ever so slightly different in this parallel due to one specific decision having been made over another at one specific time. A small thing, changing the entire course of a bigger thing.

Another way to look at it is that once any differences between dimensional alternates have been superceded by later events, the alternate universes recombine in some way, to save space. For instance, if you wore a blue shirt today, and a red one yesterday, but in the parallel dimension next door it was reversed, once both yous moved on to doing the exact same thing at the same time, the two versions became one again, with just a barely perceivable loop in the timeline.

 

[Mojochi]

Of course, "Parallels" would have been another opportunity to have Densie Crosby reprise her role as the Tasha Yar character. A little pity that we didn't see this happening.

It was intended, but they felt it would be too similar to Yesterday's Enterprise, so Wesley was substituted instead.

It Just seems tragic that no one could ever get it worked out to have Pulaski return in some capacity

 

[Robert Comsol]

^^ You have a good point! She should have been in one of these parallel universes.

Bob

 

[USS Triumphant]

How could the "multiverse" have "known" ahead of time--that is, since the Big Bang (BB)--that, oh, say 10 billion years after the BB, a particular photon was absorbed by an electron (photoelectric effect), OR resulted in absorption plus change in energy of the electron plus production of a new lower energy photon (Compton scattering), OR was of sufficient energy to result in an electron-positron pair (pair production). How can all those outcomes exist already (ready to be found like your sweaters), when the event hasn't even occurred?

You are biased by being a lifeform that evolved to perceive the order of events in a particular way. Our current understanding of physics, though, implies that time is a convenient fiction and that the universe cares not one whit about it - events resolve the same way mathematically whether calculated "time forward" or "time backward". The universe doesn't know that is "going to happen" because it all already will have has happening at all of the myriad quantum probability states in which it did, will, didn't, won't, is, or isn't.

Try to think about it from the perspective of one of the Bajoran Prophets, or in the way Q was trying to teach Picard in "All Good Things".

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I'm watching Parallels right now and I noticed another odd issue.

In one reality, Geordi is killed because during an attack, he does not know how to work the controls.
Then Geordi's visor is activated, sending him to another reality where Geordi is still dead.
But in this reality, Worf is first officer, not tactical officer, so his disorientation would not have resulted in Geordi's death.

Parallels was a great episode but they certainly put concept before details.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

But in this reality, Worf is first officer, not tactical officer, so his disorientation would not have resulted in Geordi's death.

So maybe something else killed Geordi in that universe.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I suppose maybe somebody was slapping Wesley at the moment he was ordered to raise shields.

I guess you can make the "Extreme coincidence" argument here, though I like explanation better than the "The writers said screw it" one

 

[Mytran]

A new universe generated every time an individual makes a choice. ANY choice? Does that go for (non-instinctive) animals as well? Quite apart from the phenomenal amount of universes that would create, it suggests a remarkable amount of (Q-like) power in the power of decision making. As a metaphor, it works. In a practical sense? I seriously doubt it.

On the other hand, I can believe in a finite number of parallel universes - some similar, some not. To a mere observer from one of those universes (even a clever one like Data) it may appear that "our actions" are what is causing those differences, but this is just a theory. And a very egotistical one, I might add.

The absurd power requirements the Parallels theory has as presented in the episode (thanks, Vandervecken)are also a massive stroke against it.

 

[DonIago]

Unless all of the universes already exist and decisions merely influence what "track" one is on. Or rather, present the appearance of doing so, since objectively you were always on that track to begin with.

Time travel into the past doesn't create new timelines, it just causes you to jump tracks.

 

[F. King Daniel]

According to DS9, time is not actually linear, only our limited perception of it. Therefore all of this "created" timeline stuff is rather moot (for Star Trek's version of the multiverse, at least).