Yup.
News Strange New Worlds casting/new characters
- Thread starter F. King Daniel
- Start date
Except there's no evidence that the events of First Contact created an alternate timeline.
In fact there's evidence in the pre-Kurtzman shows (specifically Voyager and Enterprise) that it was the reverse, they basically call it a predestination paradox in Voyager "Relativity". The Borg and Ent-E always went back in time and always stopped the Borg from stopping the flight.
The signal the Borg sent out at the end of the ENT Borg episode is implied to be the reason why the Borg are investigating the Fed and Romulan colonies at the end of TNG Season 1.
Plus you know, when the Ent-E got home there were no apparent changes to the timeline when they got back.
Yes, it doesn't make sense, but that's why it's a paradox, paradoxes don't make sense.
In fact there's evidence in the pre-Kurtzman shows (specifically Voyager and Enterprise) that it was the reverse, they basically call it a predestination paradox in Voyager "Relativity". The Borg and Ent-E always went back in time and always stopped the Borg from stopping the flight.
The signal the Borg sent out at the end of the ENT Borg episode is implied to be the reason why the Borg are investigating the Fed and Romulan colonies at the end of TNG Season 1.
Plus you know, when the Ent-E got home there were no apparent changes to the timeline when they got back.
Yes, it doesn't make sense, but that's why it's a paradox, paradoxes don't make sense.
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Not a matter of an alternate timeline but an altered one.
Nothing major, that we saw, but after that much time, maybe things course-corrected a bit better by the 24th, then by the 23rd. Could be lots of small butterflies that we haven't seen. Could be that the whole point of the Temporal Cold War was to nudge the timeline back on track after First Contact screwed it all up, and ensure the Federations creation, and get things basically back to normal by the 24th.
Its possible.
First couple seasons of Enterprise seem to imply heavily that its an altered timeline, before Season 4, anyways.
Imagine this, as a narrative: 29th century Federation Time Ships were protected from the mess that First Contact made, and *instantly* went into overdrive trying to course-correct and save the Federation. So many butterflies unfolded between First Contact and the 22nd century, that the Federation never came to be. Archer and his (now named Enterprise) ship, that was originally destroyed, and meaningless to history, were completely repurposed and sent a path that would result in the Federation's creation, as the original path is now out of reach. They come into conflict with a group from the altered, Federation-less timeline that exists after the First Contact damage, and thus begins the Temporal Cold War - the other group wants to preserve THEIR existance as well. From a 4D perspective, this all happens instantly, and by the time Picard returns to the 24th Century, the effects of all said meddling have been achieved, to the point where he does not even notice anything is wrong, although there could be millions of small things going unnoticed, and an entire chapter of history that no longer matches the Enterprise crew's memories. Haha, 24th century Mandela Effect? 
To be fair there are examples in TOS that firmly placed TOS in the 22nd century, the 23rd century, and the 27th century.
I guess the Temporal Cold War screwed up The timeline more often than not.
BTW - remember that in TNG S3 "Hollow Pursuits" you had an engineer saying that transporter technology didn't exist a century earlier... Yeah about that, TOS pretty much proves that statement false and the engineer who said it must have failed his academy history course.
No they don't.
It's a clever video and nice editing but it doesn't tell me anything beyond the fact that the writers and producers of each successive Trek series don't feel beholden to minor details from previous series. If they have a story they want to tell then they'll go ahead and do that. As far as they are concerned, any minor retcon that happens along the way is just collateral damage, so to speak. This is nothing new; we knew this already.
At the end of the day, it's a TV show. A franchise I'm very fond of, to be sure, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over it!
I have come to expect inconsistencies and I am long since beyond the point where this sort of thing worries me. Life is just too damn short to spend my time and energy fretting about inconsequential "violations of canon." It just doesn't matter to me any more. If it's a good story and I find the show to be generally engaging and enjoyable then I'll watch it. If not, then I won't.
I appreciate that YMMV...
The timeline is blatantly changed as soon as Daniels is introduced and the NX is saves from destruction, but the entire series is littered with a combination of things that hadn't happened before and things that happen at an accelerated rate.
But then at the end of the first season, the removal of Archer from the 22nd century alters the timeline so much the Federation never existed. Which is odd if he was in fact supposed to die a few months earlier.
Well that would be the point.... that he wasn't originally important, but he was repurposed to save the Federation after the original path to Federation/TOS was derailed in First Contact..... that the entire TCW was to ensure (and assure) the creation of the Federation.
The show is a prequel, all the events you see happen in Enterprise lead into TOS, any changes made to the timeline in ENT lead to the timeline we see in TOS onward.
Because it is a prequel. Not a reboot, a pequel.
I just feel that after awhile, too many of these "not beholden to previous canon" issues add up to kill any suspension of disbelief, and that if there is a direct path to explain ALL of it that using previous time travel shenanigans spread across multiple places that can be used to tie up the narrative cleanly, why not? It explains all of those inconsistancies from multiple newer shows and leaves a clean slate for the current shows... explains the visual and tech dis-continuity.... explains timeline issues (when was First Contact with the Gorn?) ... allows for the first leg of the franchise to stand strong without being contradicted by what came later. A lot less to complain about when there is a built in explanation. I find it all much more probable than thinking all of that timeline meddling and all of those butterflies didn't matter at all. The future might think its a predestination paradox, but thats only because they don't even know what came before, and are operation on assumptions.
Like you said, YMMV.
It can be both. A prequel, but due to previous time travel elements, and the built in Time War, is operating with slightly different events unfolding. Until Season 4 happened, I felt that it was pretty blatant in deciding that events can be changed as needed, and was not as beholden to the future.
No, it can't.
But it's a perquel, so clearly that wasn't true.
We're getting completely off topic now, so I'm done commenting on this train of thought.
Its a show set in the past, but building directly off a movie that contained countless timeline pollution, and leading directly to a show that completely redesigns the 23rd century. Way more logical that it is the start of a post-FC timeline rewrite, then an actual prequel leading into TOS. The entire show itself is about time travel meddling, and its explains disparities in the current shows. Just logically connecting the dots here...
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If you wanna be technicial about it. SNW is what the original series was supposed to have been. Pike at the helm and leading the crew on its adventures.
Yeah, I do understand — the details and the continuity used to annoy me too (and that was long before we had the new Movie franchise and streaming nu-Trek to deal with) but I’ve reached the stage in life where I just don’t find it worth the effort to worry about it.
I honestly think the whole thing has now gone beyond the point at which it’s possible to do the mental gymnastics necessary to explain away the inconsistencies. Even before this, the “head canon” that people were trying to come up with because they wanted everything to “fit” perfectly was becoming so crazily convoluted that it had gone way beyond the point where the juice was worth the squeeze.
I’m now at the point where I’ll watch each series one episode at a time and take them at face value. It’s not that I’m unaware of the problems but I admit that I no longer actively nit-pick with the proverbial fine-tooth comb. Obvious stuff is indeed hard to wholly ignore but little things from one line in one episode from thirty or even fifty years ago…?
Given that TOS, the original movies and TNG were not exactly internally consistent themselves it was inevitable that subsequent series were never going to achieve that.
Again, YMMV…
I consider The Cage to be SNW's pilot. It just took 57 years to go to series and has been recast...
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