Star Trek XI has failed... Trek Lit

[Sci]

A black hole is an extreme distortion in space and time so being close to a black hole might have the same effect as being close to a temporal vortex.

There's no evidence of that. And a black hole is, as you note, a distortion in space, not a collection of chroniton particles leading to what is, in essence, an artificial wormhole. In other words -- very different set-ups. With one, you're either in it or you're out of it, and with another, there are chroniton particles being released that interact with you before you hit the actual wormhole.

No reason at all to think that being near the black hole would protect Spock. Logically, the prime timeline still exists.

 

[Christopher]

Why is everyone here so sure that the original timeline still exists? Some producer or scriptwriter saying something in some interview on some website doesn't mean anything. Perhaps if he said it in a DVD audio commentary or in one of the DVD special features, it would carry more weight, but the only thing that will prove the two-timelines theory correct, is to see the original timeline, after the destruction of Romulus and disappearance of Spock and Nero.

Why does it have to be proven? None of this is real. It's all fiction. Even if the original timeline had been "erased" within the Abrams films' continuity, there'd be nothing to preclude us from continuing to tell fictional stories set in the original continuity -- just as it's possible to carry on telling Spider-Man or Batman stories set in their respective comics continuities alongside their ongoing movie series. Whether you believe they're coexisting timelines within a single reality or merely two distinct creative interpretations of a fictional franchise, there's absolutely no reason why the existence of the new timeline should make it impossible to continue writing stories set in the old timeline. It's all equally unreal anyway.

And there is precedent within the literature. You mention The Chimes of Midnight, showing how the "Yesteryear" timeline unfolded in the era of the TOS movies. Whether you choose to interpret it as an alternate timeline that "actually" still exists or merely a hypothetical "what if it had continued?" tale, it's still just as valid as a work of fiction.

And then there are Diane Duane's later Rihannsu novels. Even though her earlier novels were contradicted by various things in later Trek, she was still allowed to continue the series with tales that were explicitly out of continuity.


Besides, the "history being overwritten" model of time travel is just plain wrong. It's bad science and it doesn't make any logical sense. If there are two different versions of a given moment in time, it's nonsensical to see it as one "replacing" the other, because a single moment in time can't come before or after itself. That's just silly. By definition, two different versions of a single moment in time exist simultaneously, parallel to each other. The only possible way to have two different versions of a single span of time is if they exist in parallel timelines.

The only remotely plausible way to justify the fictional trope of a timeline being replaced by a different one at the moment of time travel is if the two histories coexist from the moment of their creation onward, and then merge back into a single timeline once history catches up with the moment the characters went back in time. Like one road branching into two that run parallel for a time until merging back into one. So even the "overwriting" model involved parallel timelines, at least during the interval in between the time travellers' arrival in the past and their departure from the future. All that's necessary for the timelines to continue to coexist is for that merger to be averted somehow. And you can easily justify that with a simple handwave, since it's all made up anyway.

So asking for "proof" that the old timeline continues is missing the point. We don't need proof. We can make up whatever explanation allows us to justify continuing to tell the stories that our audience wants us to tell. It's fiction, so the science exists to serve the story needs, not the other way around. Hell, the whole idea of a timeline being erased by time travel is a total lie, a fantasy that makes no scientific or logical sense but is made up to serve the dramatic needs of a story. So what's wrong with using actual good science to serve our storytelling needs this time?

 

[Therin of Andor]

Why is everyone here so sure that the original timeline still exists? Some producer or scriptwriter saying something in some interview on some website doesn't mean anything.

The screenwriters supplied the storyline for "Countdown", the tie-in comic, which ends with Picard, Geordi and the B-4/Data contemplating the fate of Ambassador Spock after his ship disappeared into the black hole.

Also, in interviews before the movie came out, they told us to "think 'Parallels', the TNG episode."

 

[William Leisner]

Why is everyone here so sure that the original timeline still exists?

Because my Trek DVDs still play, and my Trek books still have words in them.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

Why is everyone here so sure that the original timeline still exists?

Because my Trek DVDs still play, and my Trek books still have words in them.

 

[TerriO]

Which old timeline doesn't exist anymore? If I'm remembering my TOS correctly, we left the "original" timeline behind in Star Trek IV when Kirk went back in time and saved the humpbacks.

We've got to be running on our fourth or fifth "parallel" now.

1. TOS-->Star Trek IV.
2. Star Trek IV-->Star Trek: First Contact.
3. Star Trek: First Contact-->DS9: "Visionary"
4. DS9: "Visionary"-->VOY: "Endgame"
5. VOY: "Endgame"-->Spock and Nero go back in time in Star Trek

And I'm sure there are a few maintained timeline shifts that I'm not thinking of right now. Of course, that also ignores all of the alternate timelines that didn't get followed to become the mainline continuity.

We have shifted timelines and continuities more times than people think. All of those older and alternate continuities still exist. We're just not following them anymore.

 

[Paris]

Hopefully people aren't forgetting about KRAD's Q & A. He featured a shit load of different divergent timelines, some of which were pretty cool. They even had one where Wesley was the Captain of the Enterprise-E . AFAIK, all of those realities are still intact. Fictionally, of course .

 

[ProtoAvatar]

Why is everyone here so sure that the original timeline still exists?

Because it never existed in the first place.

 

[JB2005]

^ And we're all forgetting the craziness of the temporal cold war...who knows what that could have done!

 

[Smiley]

Good list, Terri. You could also argue that "Return to Tomorrow" and "Little Green Men" created new timelines with minuscule differences.

 

[Trent Roman]

Why is everyone here so sure that the original timeline still exists?

A question I answer with a question of my own: why are you so sure future Spock came from the original timeline in the first place? There's no evidence of it in the film; all we know is that this Spock was also an Ambassador and also knew Kirk in Starfleet, which could be any number of timelines. Nothing more familiar appears in the *cough* 'impressionistic' mind-meld sequence; however, many unfamiliar things do show up: unfamiliar ship designs, unknown technologies, a Romulan subculture no-one's ever heard of, not to mention that the laws of physic appear to function differently there. If you accept, on the basis of authorial intention, that future Spock comes from the real Star Trek timeline, that there should be no problem in also accepting authorial intention as the basis for the belief that the original timeline continues. If you don't accept authorial intention at all, then there's no need to believe that the future shown is in any way relatd to the Trek timeline of the last forty years, that it was always already a different reality, and thus this turdheap of a movie has no effect on the original continuity.

1. Yes it does. Creative intent counts, especially since these are the guys in charge of Trek.

Why should it? It's not in the film; it's just something a bunch of people have said until they, or some other bunch of people, say something else. It carries no authority.

There's no evidence of that. And a black hole is, as you note, a distortion in space, not a collection of chroniton particles leading to what is, in essence, an artificial wormhole. In other words -- very different set-ups. With one, you're either in it or you're out of it, and with another, there are chroniton particles being released that interact with you before you hit the actual wormhole. No reason at all to think that being near the black hole would protect Spock.

First of all, any black hole that leads to another, that connects two (or more) points in space-time is by definition also a wormhole. Futher, as noted, black holes disrupt space-time; note the two operant terms. If Spock was already past the event horizon when Nero's ship 'entered' the black hole ()--which seems likely considering they went through mere seconds apart--then he was already within the radius of the black hole's gravitational time dilation; outside events (everything following Nero's emergence from the black hole at the other end) could not have affected him.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[Christopher]

Good list, Terri. You could also argue that "Return to Tomorrow" and "Little Green Men" created new timelines with minuscule differences.

Do you mean "Tomorrow is Yesterday?" There was no time travel in "Return to Tomorrow" -- just disembodied minds in big glowing globes taking over people's bodies and making Shatner overact more than usual.

 

[Therin of Andor]

And I'm sure there are a few maintained timeline shifts that I'm not thinking of right now.

The timeline Spock returns to in "Yesteryear" (TAS) is incorrect, because his pet sehlat died too early, but it's a change only Spock has noticed, and realises it's a change he must live with.

 

[TerriO]

Thanks, Smiley.

And I'm sure there are a few maintained timeline shifts that I'm not thinking of right now.

The timeline Spock returns to in "Yesteryear" (TAS) is incorrect, because his pet sehlat died too early, but it's a change only Spock has noticed, and realises it's a change he must live with.

But it's a maintained timeline shift, so it counts. He's not in the timeline that created his existence. Even a small change from what we know is still a change.

Like I said, we're nowhere near the "original" timeline/continuity/history we started TOS with, and nobody's said anything about erasing the timeline where any of those changed events happened. What about the timeline we were in for so many years where O'Brien died?

We just jumped to a different timeline and never really gave it a second thought. I don't think anybody's going to forget the original continuity existed, any more than we forget the continuity of "Yesterday's Enterprise" or "The Visitor" existed.

 

[Smiley]

Good list, Terri. You could also argue that "Return to Tomorrow" and "Little Green Men" created new timelines with minuscule differences.

Do you mean "Tomorrow is Yesterday?" There was no time travel in "Return to Tomorrow" -- just disembodied minds in big glowing globes taking over people's bodies and making Shatner overact more than usual.

Yes, "Tomororw is Yesterday" was meant. I should just say the one where Kirk and his crew mess with the Air Force pilot.

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

It doesn't matter. It's all happening in Brother Benny's head. It's been fifty years, the guy must be getting pretty addled by now. No wonder it's getting all mixed up.

 

[Urge]

I prefer to think of the new movie as something that isnt Startrek, something that is something else pretending to be Startrek, like if some factory puts a fake brandname on its shoes or shirts, like if somebody should just go out and make a independent starwars-movie without the approval of George Lucas and Lucas-arts.

Think about how extremly silly it was..... Kirk became the captain of the best ship in the federation at a age of 24, without finishing starfleet, the noble Spock stops being noble, and tosses Kirk out on a dangerous alien planet where he would have died had he been more unlucky - why? Because he was annoying. Spock is never evil in anny of the real startrek-stuff.

The combined military force of the vulcans and the humans fails to destroy a civilian ship that was made to mine asteroids. Even though it comes from the future, a civilian romulan ship would never have that kind of firepower, it would take the Borg, or something simular to make that much destruction. If you take a car, or a mining-truck from the 21st century, and pull it back into the 19th century with a evil Romulan as its driver - it will still be possible for 19th century guns and cannons to stop it. A battletank on the other hand.... Worse - but the Romulan mining-vessle was not a battletank.

 

[Trent Roman]

^ Not that I disagree in any particular respect, but we have a Star Trek XI forum here on the board for such reviews and discussions that don't touch on the novel line (although be warned you'll be outnumbered by the gushers).

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[Deranged Nasat]

^ Not that I disagree in any particular respect, but we have a Star Trek XI forum here on the board for such reviews and discussions that don't touch on the novel line (although be warned you'll be outnumbered by the gushers).

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

Indeed. I for one spent a lot of time upthread discussing- moaning about, that is - the film, before being gently reminded that I was getting off-topic (I started completely on topic but wandered off ), and that some of my contributions were best suited to the actual film forum. However, the Trek XI forum isn't like our friendly Trek lit forum, in my experience. Here, we debate things in a polite and friendly manner, and have productive back-and-forths. Maybe it's simply that there are many more people in the Trek XI forum, but it feels a lot less community-like and more...unpleasant. If I type anything negative there, I do believe I'll be set upon and torn to pieces by all those people who loved the film and roll their eyes at nay-sayers. I have a terrible feeling I'm one of the "canon freaks" they talk about...

 

[Urge]

I liked your review on the movie Roman, well written, I agree.

"pretty-people-blowing-shit-up outings"



But it did make me hungry for the real star-trek stuff, wich is why I ordered the next generation seasons that Im now watching through. Perhaps I shouldnt have done so? If lots of people do the same, it might encourage them to make more shit, and blow up more of the trekkie-universe. But even if that happens, it will only be a bad dream, because it happens in a alternative reality where Q has given his powers to change whatever he wants to a insane psycopat of a movie-maker (the powers Riker refused to get) that films all the changes he makes, and cuts it together into cynical and depressing movies that he then transforms back to the 21st century in order to increase the stupidity of our time and make it easier for the Borg to innvade (Q likes the Borg, doesnt he?) - unless they offcourse finds out humans are unworthy of assimilation, and go elsewhere. That could perhaps be a good and very absurd (startrek have always liked absurdities) plot for the next film? Im sure the creator of this one will be a exelent villlian, much better then Nero. In this plot, everything will go well in the end only because the preparations that has been made in order to make a easy conquest has made us completly usless to the Borg, making them refuse to eat the cake they have been given.