The Guardian of Forever Paradox

[T'Avri]

Sooo, I realize this is an alternate timeline and all but I was watching TAS and it got me thinking... Is there no Guardian of Forever now? But, if there is no Guardian, how does Spock save his younger self from not dying in the Llangon Foothills before his kahs-wan???

Noooooo! The paradox is killing me...

Or has this been covered by IDW and I'm just lame and haven't read about it yet.

 

[M'Sharak]

Sooo, I realize this is an alternate timeline and all but I was watching TAS and it got me thinking... Is there no Guardian of Forever now?

We don't know with certainty that there is no Guardian, but Roberto Orci has said that the Guardian would not appear in the alt-reality movies as a means of time-travel.

 

[Mytran]

NuSpock's probably had an ever so slightly different experience to PrimeSpock, meaning that he didn't need to be saved.

Everyone else's personal history got altered, why not his?

 

[Ryan8bit]

Yeah, a ripple effect should be a sufficient explanation.

What I wonder is if they did go through the guardian, and happened to go to Keeler's time period, would they see their alternates?

 

[T'Avri]

Lets just say I'm a big fan of the time donut and its going to bug me till I know an outcome. Anything Guardian related has always held my fascination. ( The new City on the Edge... Comics are awesome, btw.)

I know pretty much anything can be explained away via the alt timeline clause, but... Its the freakin' GOF. Its to vital of a story vehicle to just ignore!

...and well, if they could bring I-Chaya back just for one comic, I'd probably be cool.

I digress....

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The reason there was a paradox in the original TAS episode was because various teams from the Enterprise were using the Guardian to explore different areas of history, and were doing it pretty much concurrently. Kirk and Spock were using the Guardian to explore one era, whereas a different team was using it to explore Vulcan history. Spock couldn't be in both eras (as shown by the Guardian) simultaneously, so that's why he was retroactively 'killed off'.

In the Abrams timeline, these events might never happen at all, or indeed might happen very differently. (It could be that nobody has even discovered the Guardian in this timeline.) Any time paradoxes that arose in the TAS episode arose directly from the use of the Guardian; without it, there might never be any paradoxes at all.

(There's nothing in Spock's life that means he "had" to die as a child; the only reason that happened was because teams in the future were using the Guardian in the way that they were. If the latter doesn't happen, then the former doesn't have to either.)

What I wonder is if they did go through the guardian, and happened to go to Keeler's time period, would they see their alternates?

Yes, that is theoretically possible. From the 1930's perspective, the prime and Abrams timelines are possible futures, and both can still arise; teams from both of those timelines can travel to the past and meet each other.

 

[Ryan8bit]

What I wonder is if they did go through the guardian, and happened to go to Keeler's time period, would they see their alternates?

Yes, that is theoretically possible. From the 1930's perspective, the prime and Abrams timelines are possible futures, and both can still arise; teams from both of those timelines can travel to the past and meet each other.

But you would think that by that token that just about any time travel event would involve serious amounts of duplicates, given a multiverse with infinite possibilities. Even though a multiverse is probably more accurate, I think for the purposes of entertaining stories it doesn't make sense.

 

[T'Avri]

I was mostly being melodramatic... I realize exactly what you mean. But it doesn't change the fact that the GOF needs to make a comeback.... And that I stay up way to late watching TAS thinking of silly nonsensical questions. That's a fact.

Good points all around though.

 

[alpha_leonis]

The reason there was a paradox in the original TAS episode was because various teams from the Enterprise were using the Guardian to explore different areas of history, and were doing it pretty much concurrently. Kirk and Spock were using the Guardian to explore one era, whereas a different team was using it to explore Vulcan history. Spock couldn't be in both eras (as shown by the Guardian) simultaneously, so that's why he was retroactively 'killed off'.

In the Abrams timeline, these events might never happen at all, or indeed might happen very differently. (It could be that nobody has even discovered the Guardian in this timeline.) Any time paradoxes that arose in the TAS episode arose directly from the use of the Guardian; without it, there might never be any paradoxes at all.

(There's nothing in Spock's life that means he "had" to die as a child; the only reason that happened was because teams in the future were using the Guardian in the way that they were. If the latter doesn't happen, then the former doesn't have to either.)

What I wonder is if they did go through the guardian, and happened to go to Keeler's time period, would they see their alternates?

Yes, that is theoretically possible. From the 1930's perspective, the prime and Abrams timelines are possible futures, and both can still arise; teams from both of those timelines can travel to the past and meet each other.

I'd guess they'd be more likely to meet their alternates in an event like the Whale Probe Humpback Rescue[tm]. In "City" they only went backwards initially because Prime McCoy went bonkers and went back on his own to mess things up. The odds of McCoy-Secundo doing the same thing would be exceedingly low.

As opposed to the Whale Probe, which is more or less guaranteed to happen in the new timeline.

 

[The Wormhole]

I know pretty much anything can be explained away via the alt timeline clause, but... Its the freakin' GOF. Its to vital of a story vehicle to just ignore!

Harlan Ellison is very territorial regarding City on the Edge of Forever and anything related to it. In fact, he once sued Pocket Books because they used Edith Keeler in a novel without his permission, and kind of flew off the handle when rumours of the Guardian appearing in Trek XI were making their way online. With this in mind, it wouldn't surprise me if the Guardian is never featured in the Abramsverse.

 

[JWPlatt]

Harlan is 80. The possibilities could free up soon.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Sooo, I realize this is an alternate timeline and all but I was watching TAS and it got me thinking... Is there no Guardian of Forever now? But, if there is no Guardian, how does Spock save his younger self from not dying in the Llangon Foothills before his kahs-wan???

Noooooo! The paradox is killing me...

Or has this been covered by IDW and I'm just lame and haven't read about it yet.

They might still find the Guardian and have their own version of that adventure. Or, as others said, events might be just different enough that Young Spock survives the Khas-Wan by himself.

There is an awesome bit of wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey stuff regarding it in ST'09: The speech Sarek gives Young Spock about choosing a path is almost word-for-word what Spock tells his younger self in "Yesteryear". It's like Spock is telling himself what he remembers Sarek telling him in the original timeline, before he started going back and rescuing himself. If that makes any sense.

In "City" they only went backwards initially because Prime McCoy went bonkers and went back on his own to mess things up. The odds of McCoy-Secundo doing the same thing would be exceedingly low.

Like the chances of a touching death scene in engineering after a heroic sacrifice in a battle with Khan?

 

[Set Harth]

Zing!

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

events might be just different enough that Young Spock survives the Khas-Wan by himself.

But that's the thing - even in the original timeline, Spock DID survive the Kahs-Wan alone.

The only reason Spock died in the episode is because there were two teams using the Guardian to observe different areas of history. Kirk and Spock were researching the Orions, and there was another team observing Vulcan history. Spock couldn't be in two Guardian "viewings" at once, so in one of them, he died.

If there is nobody using the Guardian in Trek's "present", or if only one group at a time is actively in the past, then there's no need for young Spock to die.

 

[Mytran]

You're saying that because adult-Spock was participating in a GOF viewing in one time period, the mere act of someone seeing young-Spock in another GOF viewing would cause the universe to slay one of them? That's a new interpretation...

 

[JWPlatt]

When Spock is observed, his superimposed state collapses and the entanglement resolves itself.

 

[Mytran]

And there's me thinking he got killed by a fearsome le-matya!

 

[T'Avri]

Superimposed states? A fascinating conjecture you've just made... hmmmm.

Also, call me spiteful, but as much as I appreciate and love the work of Harlan Ellison, when he does go to meet the Great Bird of the Galaxy I sincerely hope Star Trek will reappropriate the GOF for their own devices.

Call me selfish, but... that's where I stand.

 

[Commishsleer]

You're saying that because adult-Spock was participating in a GOF viewing in one time period, the mere act of someone seeing young-Spock in another GOF viewing would cause the universe to slay one of them? That's a new interpretation...

Yeh it doesn't make any sense to me.

Unless the Vulcan viewers accidentally made a mistake and accidentally interfered with the timeline. Looks like elder Spock as 'Cousin Selek' was there to repair the mistake so maybe in the unaltered timeline Sarek or Amanda went out and searched for Spock himself and saved him.

How would merely viewing the timeline invoke Spock's death unless its a special Guardian rule of course?

 

[JWPlatt]

See my post above. Maybe you missed it.