There is no prime timeline anymore

[El Chupacabra]

Someone asked in another thread about why Nimoy Spock didn't go back to his timeline at the end of the picture. I don't think there is anything for him to go back to. If Nero changed history then he changed history. I don't buy all this guff from Bob Orci that the prime timeline still exists alongside the new one. If that were the case then in the City on the Edge of Forever Kirk and Spock need not have gone back after McCoy since their universe was still out there somewhere.

The fact is that Nero travelling back did not cause a divergence. It caused everything to be rewritten full stop. Those who are told by the gushers that the TOS "prime" universe is still chugging along on its own are not being entirely truthful. Fact is that the only way to restore the timeline is for Nero to be stopped "back in the future" before he gets caught in the black hole. If that doesn't happen then Picard, Sisko & Co as we know them has quite simply been earsed from existance. It's not a parallel universe situation at all...

.....and I'm cheesed off about it.

 

[Captain Pike]

Sigh... this shit again?

 

[TheMadCloner]

There isn't a hard and fast rule.

Trek has flipflopped itself between the idea of "one timeline" and "multiple universes."

Given that, isn't it simpler (and less taxing on yourself) to think of it in a way that allows your desired timeline to co-exist?

Why force a negative perspective upon yourself when you don't have to?

It's almost like you're deliberately choosing to believe in a version of events that will piss you off for the sole purpose of giving you a reason to feel pissed off and not enjoy the movie.

 

[Shim]

Who cares if it doesn't exist? Loved it while it lasted, happy to stay in the new timeline if it means more Trek.

 

[Dac]

This movie doesnt abide by movie time travel mechanics, theyve said time and again that there basing it on recent theories on the subject - the most recent of which (if i remember correctly) states that no matter where you travel back in time, and change something, it does not affect the timeline it started in, it creates a whole new chain of events, leaving the original timeline to go its merry way UP UNTIL the point the time traveller left the original timeline. Something to do with an observer effect or something.

Im not a quantum physisicist, I just remember something I saw on a science show once, and it made sense.

So, if you go the smart route, yes, all the original stories still exist (both in this new universe and your DVD collection) so theres no reason to worry.

End Of.

End.Of.

 

[Captain Pike]

The Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. Read it. You don't need to understand all of it, but here is the main bit -

Time travel

The many-worlds interpretation could be one possible way to resolve the paradoxes that one would expect to arise if time travel turns out to be permitted by physics (permitting closed timelike curves and thus violating causality). Entering the past would itself be a quantum event causing branching, and therefore the timeline accessed by the time traveller simply would be another timeline of many. In that sense, it would make the Novikov self-consistency principle unnecessary.

Really, what this forum needs is the above stickied in a FAQ at the top with "Before you whinge about the timeline being altered or destroyed or some other nonsense, read this!"

 

[Joby]

Well look it's all made up, none of this stuff is real. These are all made up stories for our fun.

You still have 40 years worth of TV shows, movies and novels from the Prime timeline to enjoy, and we know that that timeline was already being screwed around with a bunch of times by people from every single Trek show. So who's to say that's the real universe anyway?

After 40 years, it got stale anway, fuck the old universe. Bring on the new reality.

 

[JoeZhang]

This all seems simple to me - the timeline branched when Nero and Spock arrived (or maybe branched twice) - he couldn't get back to the future because he would simply travel forward in that timeline not back to his own.

Does this fit with what previous series have said? who cares? Not me.

 

[gastrof]

Someone asked in another thread about why Nimoy Spock didn't go back to his timeline at the end of the picture. I don't think there is anything for him to go back to. If Nero changed history then he changed history. I don't buy all this guff from Bob Orci that the prime timeline still exists alongside the new one. If that were the case then in the City on the Edge of Forever Kirk and Spock need not have gone back after McCoy since their universe was still out there somewhere.

The fact is that Nero travelling back did not cause a divergence. It caused everything to be rewritten full stop...

I agree with you. Trek has always shown that changing the past CHANGES THE PAST, it doesn't create an alternate timeline with the original remaining intact "somewhere else".

If that were the case, then Kirk, Spock, Scotty, Uhura, etc. never got home after CITY. They ended up in a THIRD timeline.

No, if this is the Trek timeline, then it's been overwritten.

The thing is, I'm not so sure that's what's happened.

Look at the Kelvin. Does it look like you'd expect if it were part way between Archer and Pike's CAGE Enterprise?

I'm not so sure this is even "our" Trek universe. They gave us a time-traveling Spock to cushion the blow, but this may not be the original universe....with changes....at all.

This may be a parallel universe that was ALWAYS somewhat different, and Nero has made it all the more so.

You know what?

If that's the case, then that's okay. Apparently we were never going to see more onscreen Trek in "our" universe ever again, so this at least comes close, plus it gives us a version of the ORIGINAL characters to play with from now on. (And this is coming from a "Change NOTHING!!!!" person.)

My only question is how this will affect any books written from now on. How in the world are people gonna know which reality the books are happening in? Traditional Trek, or nu-Trek?

 

[skep155]

Someone asked in another thread about why Nimoy Spock didn't go back to his timeline at the end of the picture. I don't think there is anything for him to go back to. If Nero changed history then he changed history. I don't buy all this guff from Bob Orci that the prime timeline still exists alongside the new one. If that were the case then in the City on the Edge of Forever Kirk and Spock need not have gone back after McCoy since their universe was still out there somewhere.

The fact is that Nero travelling back did not cause a divergence. It caused everything to be rewritten full stop. Those who are told by the gushers that the TOS "prime" universe is still chugging along on its own are not being entirely truthful. Fact is that the only way to restore the timeline is for Nero to be stopped "back in the future" before he gets caught in the black hole. If that doesn't happen then Picard, Sisko & Co as we know them has quite simply been earsed from existance. It's not a parallel universe situation at all...

.....and I'm cheesed off about it.

None of its real, its a t.v show. The latest theories clearly point to a many worlds interpretation, far be it from Stephen Hawking and modern physicists to contradict City on The Edge of Forever and the way time travel traditionally works in Star Trek though lol

 

[Michael]

People definitely need to stop worrying about timelines. It's all fiction, really.

 

[Pingfah]

I think it does fit, parallel dimensions have already been established by Trek.

But it doesn't matter if that reality does still exist, Star Trek is no longer set there. It's as irrelevant to the new Trek universe as the mirror dimension was to the old. They needn't have bothered explaining it because it doesn't mean squat.

Making a great film that has revitalised a dying franchise, now that counts for something.

 

[gastrof]

People definitely need to stop worrying about timelines. It's all fiction, really.

No.

People can discuss whatever they like, and if the timelines are important to some, who are you to discourage such discussions?

If people want to talk about it, let them. It shouldn't affect your feelings towards nu-Trek, should it?

 

[Tentacle]

The whole creating a new timeline that branches off from the original had been abused by lazy writers like abrams who didnt want to connect the dots.
It doesnt matter if its possible, its just lazyness on the writers so they dont have to make everything fit, it makes life for them easyer.

abrams had abused it, and i'm not suprised, after following Lost. The only way all the inconsistences can be explained away is with its another timeline plot.
Its a lazy lazy device.

 

[gastrof]

I think it does fit, parallel dimensions have already been established by Trek.

But it doesn't matter if that reality does still exist, Star Trek is no longer set there. It's as irrelevant to the new Trek universe as the mirror dimension was to the old. They needn't have bothered explaining it because it doesn't mean squat.

Making a great film that has revitalised a dying franchise, now that counts for something.

That was my point about "a time traveling Spock to cushion the blow".

It left us thinking maybe this IS still the same universe, but altered.

I'm just suggesting it might not be, and if an alternate, even better since that leaves the original (which we might have never seen again anyway) intact, PLUS gives us more that WILL go on.

 

[TheMadCloner]

The whole creating a new timeline that branches off from the original had been abused by lazy writers like abrams who didnt want to connect the dots.
It doesnt matter if its possible, its just lazyness on the writers so they dont have to make everything fit, it makes life for them easyer.

abrams had abused it, and i'm not suprised, after following Lost. The only way all the inconsistences can be explained away is with its another timeline plot.
Its a lazy lazy device.

So if it's plausible and frees up restrictions on script writing to allow for better movies with fresh ideas, it's a bad thing?

Sorry, that just doesn't make it any sense to me.

You're basically moving the goalposts of the argument now.

 

[Michael]

No.

People can discuss whatever they like, and if the timelines are important to some, who are you to discourage such discussions?

If people want to talk about it, let them. It shouldn't affect your feelings towards nu-Trek, should it?

Oh, people can talk about whatever they want. I just wish they'd stop worrying. Sorry if I came across snarky.

 

[exalted one]

If that were the case then in the City on the Edge of Forever Kirk and Spock need not have gone back after McCoy since their universe was still out there somewhere.

Kirk and Spock and their landing party were stuck in the changed timeline, because they were present on the Guardian planet in the moment the change happened. They thought that Enterprise vanished, but in fact, Enterprise just stayed in the original timeline, it was still in the orbit - and looking from Enterprise, the whole landing party vanished.

Yes, their universe was still "out there somewhere", but in order to get to it, they needed to get back to their timeline.

Imagine the Guardian planet as a sort of "raid instance" in some MMORPG. The moment you use Guardian to change the timeline, you get "saved" to the current "instance" of Guardian planet. The original timeline still goes on, but you are no longer a part of it, because you are "instanced" into different timeline. You can change it all the way you want, but it won't influence your original timeline. You'll only create more and more "instances", each with a new copy of you living their lives in their respective changed timelines. With each change, a there is a new you, a new universe...

Which also means you can't really return into your original timeline. Funny, isn't it? Imagine the implications: Earth was eventually frozen solid by whale people, because Kirk failed to bring back a pair of whales. Yes, he did bring them to the future, but that was the future he *created* by travelling to the future. The future he *left* simply went on without him...

 

[El Chupacabra]

There isn't a hard and fast rule.

Trek has flipflopped itself between the idea of "one timeline" and "multiple universes."

Given that, isn't it simpler (and less taxing on yourself) to think of it in a way that allows your desired timeline to co-exist?

Why force a negative perspective upon yourself when you don't have to?

It's almost like you're deliberately choosing to believe in a version of events that will piss you off for the sole purpose of giving you a reason to feel pissed off and not enjoy the movie.

I gave a mixed review of the movie and this didn't form part of it. I was just thinking about it and how I keep hearing that the two timelines co-exist. But, loically speaking, there isn't a way they could if you look back on previous Trek stories.

 

[El Chupacabra]

The Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. Read it. You don't need to understand all of it, but here is the main bit -

Time travel

The many-worlds interpretation could be one possible way to resolve the paradoxes that one would expect to arise if time travel turns out to be permitted by physics (permitting closed timelike curves and thus violating causality). Entering the past would itself be a quantum event causing branching, and therefore the timeline accessed by the time traveller simply would be another timeline of many. In that sense, it would make the Novikov self-consistency principle unnecessary.

Really, what this forum needs is the above stickied in a FAQ at the top with "Before you whinge about the timeline being altered or destroyed or some other nonsense, read this!"

Ah yes. Because some scientist comes up with a theory (as apposed to unprovable fact), everyone is supposed to suck up what they are told "just because".