Spoilers Should Star Trek be "our future" or an alternate timeline?

[Vale]

Kirk's shuttles weren't warp capable at Kirk's time, yet Discovery's easily go to warp.

The TOS shuttles do clearly have warp nacelles though, with a separate sublight engine at the rear of the main hull. We might assume that they are only fuelled with antimatter for warp travel if their mission profile specifically requires it as a safety precaution, or that they can only really support interplanetary warp speeds rather than interstellar warp speeds (i.e., no faster than warp 2ish).

 

[fireproof78]

Him having one is fine since it’s the future.
Him having a Vengeance model in plain sight was weirder

Not really, It probably started as a legitimate project that he coopted for his own purposes.

 

[Jedi Marso]

I mean, no TV show really exist in "our world" not even the ones that are set in modern times, so why should Star Trek be any different?

I gotta say, this little truth hit me hard yesterday when I saw the black, female police commissioner of NYC on TV and was like: "Wait! That's not Tom Selleck!"

 

[Jedi Marso]

For me, Trek is now, incontrovertibly, an alternate timeline to our own. In Trek's timeline, most of us wouldn't have survived the 1990's and the world of 2024 should probably be something of a post-apocalyptic wasteland on the rebound.

It's pretty amazing when you think about it- can any other show ever made claim to have laid down its 'history' and then still be around (in various incarnations) more than a half century later? Of course some inconsistencies are going to creep in...

 

[UssGlenn]

I'm sort of surprised that there's never been an episode that was implied to be the split between our reality and Trek. The furthest they have ever gone back is 1893 in Times Arrow (Voyager's cameo at the Big Bang doesn't count). So the split would need to be before that.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

There is no split. Just like there’s no split in Sherlock Holmes.

It’s a fictionalised version of Earth as opposed to the kind of ‘alternate’ timeline we see in something like For All Mankind.

Star Trek is it’s own thing, like most other shows are their own thing. There doesn’t have to be some specified moment of divergence.

Star Trek is just Star Trek, like Dracula is Dracula or The Great Gatsby is The Great Gatsby.

It’s fairer to say Star Trek takes place in its own narrative world rather than pin “alternate universe” on it.

This thread gives me a headache, but I do find it quite interesting. It’s the slightest degree of difference, but I do think there is a distinction to be made between a story set in a fictionalised version of our world and a story set in an alternate universe.

Either way though, I’m still not budging on the idea that Star Trek is not set in our world, or was ever meant to be. If that was ever the intent they wouldn’t have run roughshod over the idea regularly in Season 1 of TOS.

 

[Vale]

It's pretty amazing when you think about it- can any other show ever made claim to have laid down its 'history' and then still be around (in various incarnations) more than a half century later? Of course some inconsistencies are going to creep in...

Doctor Who, which is the only genre show I can think of off the top of my head that's older than Star Trek. The far-flung future of the 1970s and 1980s was a WILD time in the old Whoniverse... unlike Star Trek, however, Doctor Who positively revels in this, making explicit reference to it even in the classic era and routinely now reverting to wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey, timey-war-y, cracks-in-the-universe-y, second-big-bang-y, flux-y wux-y explanations.

 

[Elias Vaughn]

I gotta say, this little truth hit me hard yesterday when I saw the black, female police commissioner of NYC on TV and was like: "Wait! That's not Tom Selleck!"

He's just a really good actor.

 

[BillJ]

Some folks are saying alternate reality/universe like they’re dirty words.

It’s fairer to say Star Trek takes place in its own narrative world rather than pin “alternate universe” on it.

What exactly is the difference? Either way, it ends up not being our world.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

Some folks are saying alternate reality/universe like they’re dirty words.



What exactly is the difference? Either way, it ends up not being our world.

The difference, at least as I have come to perceive it, is how obviously it is applied.

Sherlock Holmes seems to have become a go to example in this discussion and it’s a good one. It is set in it’s own fictional world, but aside from a few characters and places kind of silently hand waves that into the background so it can get on with stories.

If you’re writing an alternate universe story, the story tends to be about that universe somehow. There tends to be a specific point of divergence, as in For All Mankind with the Soviets making the moon landing, or The Man In The High Castle with the Nazis winning World War 2.

Functionally they operate in the same way, but they have a different focus.

As I understand it anyway, and I’ve only come to that understanding over the last 48 hours in this thread, so I’m not exactly standing on solid ground.

 

[at Quark's]

It's as if someone came around suddenly and said "Sherlock Holmes of course never took place in our universe! It's ridiculous to think someone in our universe could be that smart and capable! The only logical conclusion is Sherlock takes place in an alternate universe with a different history and human-like aliens. That's just logic!"

It's stupid.

Yes. But why ? In my view exactly because everyone should already know this and repeating it is simply an insult to the viewer. It would be much like an action movie, where the lead actor suddenly turns to the screen and says: "you know, you've seen me driving through red traffic light intersections at high velocities and emptying my guns on those I was chasing. In real life, this usually isn't a good idea" It's certainly absolutely true, but it really doesn't need any explaining (and it breaks immersion).

Pretending Trek takes place in 'our' future would always have been a doomed enterprise as time went on. Those cracks between what the show had to assume about the future and what would actually would happen would have shown after 55 years in any event - unless they would have strictly confined themselves to a remote century and never made any statements about the 20th/21st century - but in that case, there really wouldn't have been any link between our world and their world in the first place. And they made such statements about our time exactly because Star Trek was meant as a commentary on our time, too. So ultimately the choice would always have been between endless revisions of earlier material or simply giving some indication that this isn't happening in our timeline- and I'm glad they chose the latter. Had they chosen the 'endless revisions' route I probably would have stopped watching, or start assuming that this was taking place in an alternate timeline from older material anyway (much like many already do with the JJ Abrams material).

So, I think on both routes it eventually would have become unavoidable to assume an alternate timeline/universe. I prefer the more graceful exit in that case - the open, but subtle admission. Not an actor saying so on the screen, but showing /referring to an event we already know will be (or was) counterfactual.

 

[Lord Garth]

I voted in favor of retconning in the poll, and already said what I thought earlier.

But it's interesting. One-third favor retconning, two-thirds don't.

 

[Rahul]

This IS going to be retconned anyway - in ten, twenty years 'Star Trek' will still be around. And if they do a time travel episode then, their "present day" will look exactly like the "present day" in 10-20 years, no Augments, casual space travel or WW3.

Well, the people claiming 'PIC' takes place in a different universe then 'traditional' Star Trek will have a point then.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

It's been a good discussion. On reflection, I don't think they need to do anything at all. Just let it rumble on as is. If you retcon, where do you stop? It's like pulling an endless thread out of a sweater.

I just think it's easier for all involved if it's allowed to exist as it is. It's been rumbling on that way for 55+ years after all.

 

[dupersuper]

Not looking forward to the nuclear holocaust.... thought we avoided that back in the late 80's with perestroika.

...Have you not been keeping up with the news lately?

 

[Empok Nor Station Manager]

...Have you not been keeping up with the news lately?

I have - which is why i just filed to rename my youngest son to "Zephram Cochrane".

 

[fireproof78]

This IS going to be retconned anyway - in ten, twenty years 'Star Trek' will still be around. And if they do a time travel episode then, their "present day" will look exactly like the "present day" in 10-20 years, no Augments, casual space travel or WW3.

Voyager already did that.

 

[shapeshifter]

But it's interesting. One-third favor retconning, two-thirds don't.

Perhaps because most voting so far do not believe it is needed...

It's been a good discussion. On reflection, I don't think they need to do anything at all. Just let it rumble on as is.

I just think it's easier for all involved if it's allowed to exist as it is. It's been rumbling on that way for 55+ years after all.

Yep. They should just keep writing stories assuming it is our timeline as always. Leave any necessary retconning to us in our headcanons as always.

'Cause you know, if they crash this Picard TT story at the end, we'll just figure out the better way to do it and make that our HC anyway.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

All the bits and bobs like the Eugenics Wars, Bell Riots, Edith Keeler etc. are what make Star Trek into what it is.

You don’t have to retcon a thing. You just need the handy phrase “In Star Trek”.

In Star Trek there was a war in the nineties.

In Star Trek, Vulcans invented Velcro.

In Star Trek the entire concept of how evolution works seems to come from the mind of a three year old child.

Etc. ;-D

 

[at Quark's]

You don’t have to retcon a thing. You just need the handy phrase “In Star Trek”.

"In Mother Star Trek, history revises you!"