Prime Universe time travel and the new timeline

[fireproof78]

The only way to justify the way Trek ships look and work is by saying they're futuristic technology-meets-art. Thus there is no real design evolution, just the whim of the designer/artist. Thus, it all fits - from TOS' blinking coloured squares, to the classic movies' buttons and 80's graphics, to TNG's touchscreen DOS to JJ's Apple store.

Now you're getting it.

Much simpler explanation: quantum states of red matter, yadda yadda yadda; works much better than trying to say the writers were full of it or something.

If a few drops of red matter is enough to turn a planet into a black hole, then how come the guy had like thirty gallons of it? did he plan to collapse all the planets of the hundred closest galaxies or something?

Perhaps it's only stable enough to transit in large quantities.

I always thought that the Jellyfish was the one ship the Vulcans had that could keep the red matter stable enough to study it.

 

[Tosk]

I always thought that the Jellyfish was the one ship the Vulcans had that could keep the red matter stable enough to study it.

Then where did they keep it before they built the Jellyfish?

 

[fireproof78]

I always thought that the Jellyfish was the one ship the Vulcans had that could keep the red matter stable enough to study it.

Then where did they keep it before they built the Jellyfish?

Well, this was just my personal take (again), but I thought the Vulcan Science Academy had created the Jellyfish specifically to gather and study red matter. Maybe it has to go so fast in order to gather it.

They were so busy with it that they couldn't give it a proper class name beyond Jellyfish

 

[DonIago]

Another possibility is that the process required to create red matter simply results in a certain amount.

 

[JWPlatt]

If a few drops of red matter is enough to turn a planet into a black hole, then how come the guy had like thirty gallons of it? did he plan to collapse all the planets of the hundred closest galaxies or something?

Perhaps you are not considering or comprehending the sheer difference in scale between a planet and a black hole which can contain as much mass as millions of stars. The original purpose was to create a black hole to absorb the energy of a supernova.

My synopsis probably is not quite consistent with the facts of the movie, because Memory-Alpha does say "by shooting a small amount of it into the exploding star," but I hereby proclaim that the facts as represented in the movie and thus Memory-Alpha are scientifically inaccurate - for whatever "scientifically inaccurate" in matters of Star Trek science is really worth.

Theories about needing enough Red Matter for stable transportation and containment also seem plausible, but I do wonder how they keep it from collapsing in upon itself and taking the ship with it. You would think that the larger the quantity, the greater the effort required. But hey, quantum mechanics isn't intuitive.

 

[Set Harth]

I guess my argument would be that the whole "branching theory" doesn't tie into how time travel has been shown in the rest of the Star Trek franchise...

Well, then that's really no argument at all, I'm afraid. We've never seen red-matter-black-hole-induced time travel before, so it should be able to operate in whatever way is dictated by the writers.

It makes it a lot easier to reconcile things that appear to be different to the Prime-U before Nero's arrival

I think the key words in the above are "appear to be". We may see a somewhat different visual aesthetic, but I don't think such a thing qualifies as "obviously not the Prime", and in fact there are design elements on the Kelvin which evoke the TOS films if not the series. Also, for whatever it's worth, the time period of Nero's arrival is prior to the TOS timeframe; we hadn't actually seen what things looked like in that decade before.

 

[kirkfan]

If a few drops of red matter is enough to turn a planet into a black hole, then how come the guy had like thirty gallons of it? did he plan to collapse all the planets of the hundred closest galaxies or something?

Perhaps you are not considering or comprehending the sheer difference in scale between a planet and a black hole which can contain as much mass as millions of stars. The original purpose was to create a black hole to absorb the energy of a supernova.
...

Actually the bigger the initial mass the easier it turns into a black hole. So if anything, you'd need even less red matter to create a giant black hole than you'd need for a smaller one. Micro black holes (Under certain conditions black holes can explode and the explosion would create myriads of micro black holes) would be a bitch to create, from scratch that is.

 

[Silvercrest]

Why does it have to?

I also personally view it as Nero/Spock going back in time to an already existing alt-universe. It makes it a lot easier to reconcile things that appear to be different to the Prime-U before Nero's arrival, or that are difficult to imagine being influenced by same. You can make excuses for most (all) the differences, but I prefer one excuse that covers them all in one fell swoop.

That is my view as well.

Me too.

I'm curious about that myself. The intent was clearly not to do so; just to create a branching timeline. If Nero and Spock Prime emerged into the past of an alternate universe, it sort of all falls flat, because the point is that these are all the same characters we have grown to know and love.

But if you go with the alt universe theory then all bets are off.

Yes, they are. But some of the implications of the Abramsverse are hard enough to explain as it is-- hence threads like this one. And many people don't feel that they are the same characters. It appears all bets were already off. So I'm going with the simple explanation.

 

[kirkfan]

I also personally view it as Nero/Spock going back in time to an already existing alt-universe. It makes it a lot easier to reconcile things that appear to be different to the Prime-U before Nero's arrival, or that are difficult to imagine being influenced by same. You can make excuses for most (all) the differences, but I prefer one excuse that covers them all in one fell swoop.

That is my view as well.

Me too.

I'm curious about that myself. The intent was clearly not to do so; just to create a branching timeline. If Nero and Spock Prime emerged into the past of an alternate universe, it sort of all falls flat, because the point is that these are all the same characters we have grown to know and love.

But if you go with the alt universe theory then all bets are off.

Yes, they are. But some of the implications of the Abramsverse are hard enough to explain as it is-- hence threads like this one. And many people don't feel that they are the same characters. It appears all bets were already off. So I'm going with the simple explanation.

But if all bets are off then you can put Tuvok, Zorro and Spiderman there if you want. After all it's another universe, it doesn't have to follow any laws. It's not even a variation of our universe as they have in Sliders for example.

 

[JWPlatt]

If a few drops of red matter is enough to turn a planet into a black hole, then how come the guy had like thirty gallons of it? did he plan to collapse all the planets of the hundred closest galaxies or something?

Perhaps you are not considering or comprehending the sheer difference in scale between a planet and a black hole which can contain as much mass as millions of stars. The original purpose was to create a black hole to absorb the energy of a supernova.
...

Actually the bigger the initial mass the easier it turns into a black hole. So if anything, you'd need even less red matter to create a giant black hole than you'd need for a smaller one. Micro black holes (Under certain conditions black holes can explode and the explosion would create myriads of micro black holes) would be a bitch to create, from scratch that is.

You still require an equivalent mass to do the work relative to the mass-energy of the target to extend the event horizon. i.e., a supernova compared to a planet.

Pray tell, under which certain conditions can a black hole explode - either observed or in theory? Source? (Note: Quantum Bounce transforming a black hole into a white hole doesn't count.)

Apologies to the general discussion for the pedantry.

 

[HIjol]

man, if we only had all the answers...but then we would not have this cool discussion!


Thread Smile Pause

from "Cookbook of the Cosmos"
Writen and Edited by Carl Sagan
Foreward by Sir Stephen Hawking

(not really)

Recipie for a Black Hole

One (1) Center of the Galaxy
One (1) Central Molecular Zone
One (1) Radio Telescope
Three to Four (3-4) clumps of Molecular Gas
Multiple (200+) Supernovae Explosions
Secret Ingredients
Popcorn (enough for a while, like hundreds of millions of years, if not more - a LOT!)

Real "Source"
Charles Q. Choi, August 22, 2012
Space.Com

 

[T'Girl]

We've never seen red-matter-black-hole-induced time travel before, so it should be able to operate in whatever way is dictated by the writers.

No, it would operate in the way it's depicted on screen.

How the writers intended it to work is irrelevant, if that intent doesn't manifest itself on screen.

 

[JWPlatt]

We've never seen red-matter-black-hole-induced time travel before, so it should be able to operate in whatever way is dictated by the writers.

No, it would operate in the way it's depicted on screen.

How the writers intended it to work is irrelevant, if that intent doesn't manifest itself on screen.

With such matters of relativity and quantum mechanics, both frames of reference are correct.

 

[F. King Daniel]

We've never seen red-matter-black-hole-induced time travel before, so it should be able to operate in whatever way is dictated by the writers.

No, it would operate in the way it's depicted on screen.

How the writers intended it to work is irrelevant, if that intent doesn't manifest itself on screen.

"Beginning with the attack on the USS Kelvin, culminating in the events of today... thereby creating an entire new chain of incidents which cannot be anticipated by either party"

 

[Set Harth]

We've never seen red-matter-black-hole-induced time travel before, so it should be able to operate in whatever way is dictated by the writers.

No, it would operate in the way it's depicted on screen.

How the writers intended it to work is irrelevant, if that intent doesn't manifest itself on screen.

Nothing on screen contradicts that intent. But of course the point was that this is time travel created by a method not seen in prior canon, so the fact that it leads to branching is not a problem just because single-timeline travel has happened before.

And many people don't feel that they are the same characters.

A new creative team does not necessarily connote a different universe.

 

[JWPlatt]

And many people don't feel that they are the same characters.

A new creative team does not necessarily connote a different universe.

This is true. Injecting real life matters into canon is an abomination; for example, continuity errors are a production problem - not canon. But... in an alternative reality, when the Prime universe has not been affected and still exists with all those characters living their fates as we knew it, those in the Abramsverse really are different characters.

 

[kirkfan]

...
Pray tell, under which certain conditions can a black hole explode - either observed or in theory? Source? (Note: Quantum Bounce transforming a black hole into a white hole doesn't count.)

Apologies to the general discussion for the pedantry.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v248/n5443/abs/248030a0.html

S. W. HAWKING

Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics and Institute of Astronomy University of Cambridge

QUANTUM gravitational effects are usually ignored in calculations of the formation and evolution of black holes. The justification for this is that the radius of curvature of space-time outside the event horizon is very large compared to the Planck length (Għ/c 3)1/2 ≈ 10−33 cm, the length scale on which quantum fluctuations of the metric are expected to be of order unity. This means that the energy density of particles created by the gravitational field is small compared to the space-time curvature. Even though quantum effects may be small locally, they may still, however, add up to produce a significant effect over the lifetime of the Universe ≈ 1017 s which is very long compared to the Planck time ≈ 10−43 s. The purpose of this letter is to show that this indeed may be the case: it seems that any black hole will create and emit particles such as neutrinos or photons at just the rate that one would expect if the black hole was a body with a temperature of (κ/2π) (ħ/2k) ≈ 10−6 (Mcircle dot/M)K where κ is the surface gravity of the black hole1. As a black hole emits this thermal radiation one would expect it to lose mass. This in turn would increase the surface gravity and so increase the rate of emission. The black hole would therefore have a finite life of the order of 1071 (Mcircle dot/M)−3 s. For a black hole of solar mass this is much longer than the age of the Universe. There might, however, be much smaller black holes which were formed by fluctuations in the early Universe2. Any such black hole of mass less than 1015 g would have evaporated by now. Near the end of its life the rate of emission would be very high and about 1030 erg would be released in the last 0.1 s. This is a fairly small explosion by astronomical standards but it is equivalent to about 1 million 1 Mton hydrogen bombs.

QED.

 

[kirkfan]

...
You still require an equivalent mass to do the work relative to the mass-energy of the target to extend the event horizon. i.e., a supernova compared to a planet...

You don't understand. It is much easier and require much less energy to nudge a supernova into becoming a black hole since it's practically already there than to FORCE a planet into one.

You'd need much MORE red matter to do the latter than you would to do the former.

 

[DonIago]

Given how little we know about what red matter actually does I'm not sure we should make that assumption.

 

[JWPlatt]

Unfortunately for the quote from Hawking, the mass will likely take many times longer than the age of the Universe to evaporate from Hawking Radiation before becoming small enough to explode, and that "explosion," while nearly instantaneous from the local point of view of the black hole, would take a very long time and appear to be more of a controlled release to an observer's frame of reference because of the time dilation from the intense gravitational field of the black hole.

In reality, this has about as much chance of happening as the LHC has of creating micro black holes that destroy the Earth, but the writers of a fictional Universe can do anything they want.