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The IDW Nu Trek missions so far...

Cadet49

Lieutenant Commander
Red Shirt
I for one don't understand how Kirk and crew could be encounter these same situations in 2258, when these things happened before in 2266/2267. Why is the plague that Enterprise responded to in Galileo 7 happening almost a decade earlier? Why is Deneva under attack from the mysterious parasites 10 years earlier? It doesn't make logical sense to me, and the writers don't offer any logical explanation in the comics, as far as I see... it really draws me out of the story, because it doesn't make sense. Also, why would Mitchell have been friends with Kirk back in the Academy... his history wouldn't have been changed by the Nero incident in 2233, so wouldn't he have already graduated the academy by the time nuKirk entered, in 2255?
 
Because they're retelling the stories themselves, and not obsessing over continuity? Chekov was 17 in the last movie in a timeframe where he should have been 13. That's your standard.

And as for "X shouldn't have been affected by Nero"-type stuff, the Butterfly Effect pretty much excuses anything from 2233 onwards.
 
To borrow a term from Doctor Who, wibbley-wobbly timey-wimey. Basically, it's not as cut-and-dried as "Only the Kelvin and forward were changed and then only for those on the ship." It seems the temporal ramifications of the alternate timeline are far reaching. In the movie itself, Cardassians are mentioned, a race that wouldn't be met by the Federation until about 50 years later. Though, I think the Countdown comic series implies that the Borg tech the Narrada has motivated a lot of the sweeping changes to the 2250s timeline we see in the film. (Sensor readings, personal accounts about the ship.)

My advice - which isn't helpful I know - is that we shouldn't be overly concerned about it. We're in a new universe so there are a number of reasons why things happen sooner, later, not at all, etc. Perhaps "time" is trying to repair itself by presenting nuKirk and nuCompany with situations they should have encountered had time remained unaltered.

I, myself, am I quite taken with the idea some have put forward that Enterprise and nuTrek movies take place in the same universe, therefore the divergent event is much earlier in the timeline and Nero and Spock's arrival just serve to screw things up even more!
 
It seems the temporal ramifications of the alternate timeline are far reaching. In the movie itself, Cardassians are mentioned, a race that wouldn't be met by the Federation until about 50 years later.

That's not entirely true. There wasn't any formal contact between the governments until the 2320s, but we know that Tobin Dax, who lived in the late 22nd and/or early 23rd century, met an exiled Cardassian poet on Vulcan. So there was at least some contact with the species, if not the state, before TOS.


I, myself, am I quite taken with the idea some have put forward that Enterprise and nuTrek movies take place in the same universe, therefore the divergent event is much earlier in the timeline and Nero and Spock's arrival just serve to screw things up even more!

Except there's no valid reason to think that Enterprise represents an alternate timeline from the rest of Prime ST, when the clear intent of the show's creators (especially in season 4) was to have it lead directly into TOS, to show the origins of the Trek universe we knew rather than some other version. The idea of it being an alternate timeline is just the wishful thinking of the people who disliked the show.
 
This was something I was really bothered about when the series was first announced, but with a few more months to mull it over I don't find it so hard to rationalise.

The progression of the neural parasites, or plague on New Paris might seem like events totally outside the effects of the arrival of the Narada. But we've already seen in the film that had huge consequences for Starfleet technology, and presumably as a result effected the development of the Federation and it's neighbors.

Whatever ever event originally brought the neural parasites into Federation space before could have been triggered by different shipping routes or movements of people now happening years earlier due to different interstellar goings on. Same for the plague on New Paris - Or maybe New Paris suffered regular plague outbreaks in both timelines, and the trip we see Enterprise make in either version of the story is a regular mission.

Even without being told the reasons it's not too hard to imagine an explanation for most of what (to borrow another Whoism) might seem like fixed points in time.
 
8of5, those are some interesting possibilities... but they don't account for the fact that a lot of the specific dialogue in the comics seems to match the original episodes verbatim. I guess a given person might be likely to choose roughly the same words in an equivalent situation, but then, I'm not sure if the words I'd choose today would be the same ones I would've chosen 8 years ago.

Is there any clear information in the comics about just when they take place relative to the movie? I gather the "Where No Man" adaptation seemed to be set shortly after the film, but what about the others? Of course, I doubt they could be interpreted as taking place ten years later, but it might be useful just to know how clearly they're dated to begin with.
 
Is there any clear information in the comics about just when they take place relative to the movie? I gather the "Where No Man" adaptation seemed to be set shortly after the film, but what about the others? Of course, I doubt they could be interpreted as taking place ten years later, but it might be useful just to know how clearly they're dated to begin with.

From a quick flick through, Where No Man Has Gone Before takes place "ages since we left earth", but not so long that the Enterprise is still in a state of disrepair after the battle with the Narada. Kirk has "been a starship captain for less than a year. In that time I've crossed the galaxy, seen things I could never imagine and will never forget". In Operation Annihilate! it has been months since the destruction of Vulcan, and the events of The Galileo Seven are referred to as part of Spock's recent recklessness. Peter Kirk is also mentioned to be eight years old.

So at the moment everything is less than a year after the end of the first movie, but the Enterprise has already been busy doing lots of unforgettable things.

they don't account for the fact that a lot of the specific dialogue in the comics seems to match the original episodes verbatim. I guess a given person might be likely to choose roughly the same words in an equivalent situation, but then, I'm not sure if the words I'd choose today would be the same ones I would've chosen 8 years ago.

Agreed, but as you say, similar people in similar situations helps explain that. I imagine the same must have occurred from time to time in other Star Trek alternate timeline stories?
 
From a quick flick through, Where No Man Has Gone Before takes place "ages since we left earth", but not so long that the Enterprise is still in a state of disrepair after the battle with the Narada.

Well, in the film itself there's clearly a significant passage of time between the climactic battle and the final scene, since not only is the ship repaired, but Kirk's injuries (which were still present in the awards ceremony in between) are completely healed.


Kirk has "been a starship captain for less than a year. In that time I've crossed the galaxy, seen things I could never imagine and will never forget". In Operation Annihilate! it has been months since the destruction of Vulcan, and the events of The Galileo Seven are referred to as part of Spock's recent recklessness. Peter Kirk is also mentioned to be eight years old.

So at the moment everything is less than a year after the end of the first movie, but the Enterprise has already been busy doing lots of unforgettable things.

Okay, so assuming they take place in the order they're presented (and is there in-story evidence for that?), the interval would have to be something that could be referred to as both "months" and "less than a year." That's gotta be a narrow window, since I think most people would favor the former usage for a shorter period and the latter usage for a longer period. Maybe 6-8 months after the final scene?


Agreed, but as you say, similar people in similar situations helps explain that. I imagine the same must have occurred from time to time in other Star Trek alternate timeline stories?

I'm not sure how often we've seen the same event depicted in two different timelines with the dialogue unfolding almost identically. Maybe in The Embrace of Cold Architects or The Chimes at Midnight, but I'm not sure. Even so, the events are assumed to occur at the same time in both histories.
 
They should just said that Spock walked into an another dimension along with Nero and we would not have continuity problems.
 
"You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension."

Oops, wrong '60s genre show.
 
The continuity problems with the new movie are no greater than the many, many continuity problems that already exist within the Prime universe. If fans can accept that TWOK takes place in the same reality as "Space Seed" despite all the inconsistencies (like the ethnically diverse supermen turning into uniformly Nordic types and getting younger rather than older), then they shouldn't have any more trouble accepting that ST'09's universe was the same as the Prime universe prior to the opening moments of the film.
 
To resolve any continuity problems.

I don't see any problems.

Peter Preston's moving bloodstain in ST II was a continuity problem. The wardrobe mistress was probably mortified when she saw the film on premiere night. Changing it with CGI wouldn't make ST II a better film, nor make more fans like it.
 
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