Not sure if this has been pointed out, but considering that this thread is speculating on how the books might handle future events, I feel like some of this discussion is getting very close to posting potential story ideas, which we should probably be staying away from.
UNTO THE QUADRANT SHALL COME A GREAT DISASTER: 2387
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Hmm. We know next to nothing about the internal structure of the empire, and the relationship of subject races and different Romulan groups to wider imperial society. I can imagine secessions.
Here on Earth, some nation-states are much bigger than others: China versus Korea, say. Processes of cultural assimilation do operate on Earth that wouldn't in the case of empires, but aggressively expansionistic cultures which active promote their own growth while limiting or even reversing others' would still have an edge. In the era of the Romulan War, Haakona seems to have been roughly on par with Earth notwithstanding its disinterest in expansion, but, well, they don't exist any more.
(Maybe Romulan history since the mid-22nd century can be described as one of relative decline, as the Federation has grown much more quickly than the Empire ever could? Romulans might be establishing colonies and protectorates at a furious pace, but a civilization that has a narrower base than the Federation can't outpace it?)
Or maybe in the Prime universe, Spock will save the day, save Romulus, and push the Romulans into the hands of the Federation. If the prime timeline is to survive, the this probability must occur. It would make more sense for the prime universe to switch to the new quantum reality rather continue with the old one, where Romulus is wiped out and we know everything should have changed... but hasn't.
But who runs Trekmovie? Who is their tweeter? They aren't Bad Robot, are they? Nor CBS? They are likely a publicist?
I'll put it another way. If Spock and Nero disappear and Romulus is destroyed, that means the prime universe should be altered to the abramsverse. How can the primeverse exist when the timeline has been irrevocably altered, like in 'Yesterday's Enterprise'.
The primeverse would have to be either retconned with future temporal police fixing the damage, or switching to a different quantum timeline where things happen differently, such as no time travel for Spock and Nero, or Spock fixing the Hobus supernova, and thereby not splitting off the Abrams timeline. I feel this would be the best way to go. It would feel strange to see Romulus destroyed, and Spock vanished, yet the prime timeline continues as normal.
Actually, no. It shouldn't be. That's a story conceit based on bad, outdated physics. Strictly speaking, the original timeline "should" continue unaffected, because that's the outcome that makes the most physical sense. It's possible (albeit difficult) to rationalize timeline collapse as seen in prior Trek as something that can occasionally happen under specific circumstances, but it should not be interpreted as the default or inevitable outcome. Quantum physics says that as a rule, once two timelines have diverged, they both continue to exist separately and indefinitely. It's hypothetically posssible for two timelines to reconverge and one to be "erased" in favor of the other, but the circumstances to bring that about would be extremely improbable and difficult to achieve.
Yes, true, we've seen it happen in the majority of Trek time-travel stories -- but think about it. Fiction is about what happens when things go wrong. There's a selection bias at work. It's safe to assume that nearly all holodeck sessions occur without malfunction, that the vast majority of shuttlecraft flights occur without crashes, that the majority of planetary surveys are routine and don't involve any crewmembers being killed or abducted or meeting their idols from history or whatever. But routine occurrences aren't exciting to watch, so the stories we see are chosen to emphasize the minority of cases where things go wrong, where things happen abnormally. The things that happen in the stories we see usually represent the exception, not the rule. So there shouldn't be any problem accepting that the erasure of the original timeline is the exception, something that happens occasionally but not by default.
No, it wouldn't. There's no reason why the prime timeline shouldn't continue to exist. From the perspective of anyone living in 2387, it would appear that Spock and Nero have disappeared. Events beyond that point in time would still continue unaffected for the inhabitants of that universe.
It would seem bringing two separate timelines together would require knowing the exact reasons why their diverged in the first place, something that- as you've already said- would be virtually impossible to achieve because it would be extremely difficult to track down every reason for divergence in the timelines. One might be able to isolate the most significant reason (Edith Keeler living verses dying, for example). But it would be hard to pair down every single difference in the two continuities.
A best case scenario would be achieving the existence of two separate but similar timelines, much like what's observed in the Back to the Future films. Whenever Marty (and Doc) return to 1985, there are always small differences compared to when they left (Eastwood Ravine instead of Clayton Ravine or Lone Pine Mall instead of Twin Pines Mall). The most striking difference occurs due to Biff's theft of the sports almanac, something that's repaired only after Marty learns of the specific circumstances of how Biff's 1955 counterpart came to have the book in the first place.
--Sran
It's not about knowledge, it's about entropy and probability. As far as the laws of physics are concerned, people and their minds are just ensembles of subatomic particles interacting through fundamental forces, so knowledge and awareness aren't a factor. In physical terms, in order to get two timelines to recombine, you'd need to get all their particles to align up in exactly the same states as each other. This is why divergent timelines diverge in the first place, though: because once the particles begin to move into different position and energy states, the differences keep multiplying and the probability of them all spontaneously coming back into alignment quickly becomes infinitesimal. It's akin to expecting the grains of sand on a beach to reassemble into a sand castle that had been built there weeks earlier -- or to reassemble into the solid rocks they were originally part of thousands of years earlier. The probability of such a thing happening is so small as to be effectively zero. And that's dealing with far, far fewer particles than are involved when you're talking about an entire universe, or at least the observed and mutually interacting portion of it that's diverged into more than one history.
Basically, the only way to get those grains of sand back into a sand castle -- to reverse the entropy that's caused them to drift into random configurations -- is to do work, to make an active effort to bring them back into the desired shape. So bringing two timelines back into physical alignment so they can reconverge would also require some kind of force acting against entropy to draw them back into unity. (In Watching the Clock I used the gibberish "anti-time" phenomenon from "All Good Things" as this force -- complete nonsense, but anti-time implies anti-entropy, and that's what I needed.)
An excellent analogy. But I would still argue that even if it were possible to reassemble the sand castle back into the structure it was before it was toppled over, who's to say each individual grain of sand would be in the same place it was before the castle was destroyed? That's more or less what I was trying to articulate with my theory about "similar but nonetheless divergent timelines." Even reassembling the castle wouldn't completely eradicate the differences between the timelines that already existed. It would only minimize them.
--Sran
Seeing as it hasn't been stated one way or the other in the movies then any explanation is possible. A case could even be made that the OldSpock that appeared wasn't the same Spock as from TOS, at least not the TOS that we're familiar with. There's billions of possible universes out there. What a conceit to assume that one of them is more real than any other.
If we're going to bring real world physics into it then the number of known alternate dimensions, parallel universes or "evil" versions of our own is exactly zero.
I prefer to think of Trek as an endless forest. The trees are all pretty much similar although the branches happen at different places. Spock and Nero didn't create a new universe, they simply jumped to a new tree. For all we know the very act of jumping from one universe to another may have destroyed the original one. Or, multiple Spocls and multiple Neros leapt from multiple trees to multiple other trees. Some continued on, some ceased to exist, some changed in ways we can't even imagine. Some may have destroyed both universes when they linked. Saying one universe is Prime is as silly as saying one drop of water in the ocean is Prime.
If we're going to bring real world physics into it then the number of known alternate dimensions, parallel universes or "evil" versions of our own is exactly zero.
I prefer to think of Trek as an endless forest. The trees are all pretty much similar although the branches happen at different places. Spock and Nero didn't create a new universe, they simply jumped to a new tree. For all we know the very act of jumping from one universe to another may have destroyed the original one. Or, multiple Spocls and multiple Neros leapt from multiple trees to multiple other trees. Some continued on, some ceased to exist, some changed in ways we can't even imagine. Some may have destroyed both universes when they linked. Saying one universe is Prime is as silly as saying one drop of water in the ocean is Prime.
I go with the official explanation that Spock and Nero are from the prime timeline and that Nero's interferrence branched off a new timeline, with both realities continuing in parallel.
This event may have ocurred a countless times. We have one other example - an alternate prime Spock and Nero travelling to another permutation of the mirror universe in Ongoing: Mirrored.
This event may have ocurred a countless times. We have one other example - an alternate prime Spock and Nero travelling to another permutation of the mirror universe in Ongoing: Mirrored.
This is exactly what I've been saying, all I ever hear is how wrong I am. Glad to see somebody finally agrees.
^Sure, in-universe there's no "proof" that it's our Spock, but if it weren't meant to be our Spock, the filmmakers wouldn't have written in a part for Leonard Nimoy in the first place. The whole idea was to bring Nimoy's Spock in to pass the torch, to establish a direct and recognizable continuity and anchor the new films as an offshoot of the old rather than something completely separate from them.
I mean, by the "no proof" argument, there's no proof that the previous series all take place in the same reality as each other; sure, that looks like "our" Scotty showing up in "Relics," but maybe it's just a Scotty from a very similar alternate timeline! And heck, maybe the first season of TOS is in a different timeline from the second season, which would explain why the sets look different. Maybe the first two acts of "Datalore" where Data uses contractions are in a different timeline from the last two acts where it's suddenly claimed he doesn't! And so on. It's kind of a reach and clearly goes against the creators' intent. Over the decades, some fans have refused to accept any new incarnation of Trek -- from TAS to the first movies to TNG to ENT -- as a continuation of the stuff they were used to. But the creators (except, perhaps, for Roddenberry in early TNG) have always intended the new series and films to be in the same reality as the previous ones, even if some of the details were reinterpreted.
And really, "what a conceit?" What does that even mean in this context? It's fiction. The whole thing is a conceit. The reality is whatever the filmmakers want it to be. And what they wanted was to create a new timeline (so they could be unrestricted in their storytelling) whose origins were clearly anchored in the old timeline (so that there'd be a point of continuity and identification for pre-existing fans). If that hadn't been what they wanted, they would've told a very different story with no time travel, no Red Matter, and no Leonard Nimoy.
I mean, by the "no proof" argument, there's no proof that the previous series all take place in the same reality as each other; sure, that looks like "our" Scotty showing up in "Relics," but maybe it's just a Scotty from a very similar alternate timeline! And heck, maybe the first season of TOS is in a different timeline from the second season, which would explain why the sets look different. Maybe the first two acts of "Datalore" where Data uses contractions are in a different timeline from the last two acts where it's suddenly claimed he doesn't! And so on. It's kind of a reach and clearly goes against the creators' intent. Over the decades, some fans have refused to accept any new incarnation of Trek -- from TAS to the first movies to TNG to ENT -- as a continuation of the stuff they were used to. But the creators (except, perhaps, for Roddenberry in early TNG) have always intended the new series and films to be in the same reality as the previous ones, even if some of the details were reinterpreted.
And really, "what a conceit?" What does that even mean in this context? It's fiction. The whole thing is a conceit. The reality is whatever the filmmakers want it to be. And what they wanted was to create a new timeline (so they could be unrestricted in their storytelling) whose origins were clearly anchored in the old timeline (so that there'd be a point of continuity and identification for pre-existing fans). If that hadn't been what they wanted, they would've told a very different story with no time travel, no Red Matter, and no Leonard Nimoy.
I'd say the Wrath of Khan references in both STXI ("I have been and always shall be your friend") and ID ("...at great cost") are pretty solid evidence that the elder Spock is the guy who lived and died through WoK (and STIV: TVH - "A trick I learned from an old friend.")
The evidence against it is as strong as the evidence that the ancient McCoy in "Farpoint" is an alternate, based on the refit Enterprise appearing on the screen when the crew looked up "The Naked Time" in "The Naked Now" (evidently, in the TNG timeline the refit happened 15 years earlier
)
The evidence against it is as strong as the evidence that the ancient McCoy in "Farpoint" is an alternate, based on the refit Enterprise appearing on the screen when the crew looked up "The Naked Time" in "The Naked Now" (evidently, in the TNG timeline the refit happened 15 years earlier
)
The evidence against it is as strong as the evidence that the ancient McCoy in "Farpoint" is an alternate, based on the refit Enterprise appearing on the screen when the crew looked up "The Naked Time" in "The Naked Now" (evidently, in the TNG timeline the refit happened 15 years earlier
Which has been acknowledged as a production error and corrected in the Blu-Ray release.
Ah, proof that TNG-HD is yet another alternate universe to the SD version!
I like to think that every time the camera cuts to a new shot it's a new universe, and that new universe is created because Janeway decided to ignore the Temporal Prime Directive again.
Winner, and new Internet Champion!
But author's intent doesn't count for squat. It's what makes it onto the screen (or page) that counts. If Kivas Fajo appears in a novel should he be described as looking like Saul Rubinek or David Rappaport? Obviously the intent was that he was David Rappaport. Which is it?
Spock as seen in STXI & ID doesm't have to be the same guy, just one that's had enough of the same or similar adventures that he can make the called for call outs to the past.
As far as re-mastering "correcting" things, should Space Seed have replaced Eugenucs with Genetic Engineering? Which is the origin of Khan, grown in a test tube according to Greg Cox or altered as a child according to the comic?
There's lots of room for all sorts of interpretations in Star Trek. Saying that everything has to take place in one Prime universe along with a couple of spin off universes seems awfully confining.
Spock as seen in STXI & ID doesm't have to be the same guy, just one that's had enough of the same or similar adventures that he can make the called for call outs to the past.
As far as re-mastering "correcting" things, should Space Seed have replaced Eugenucs with Genetic Engineering? Which is the origin of Khan, grown in a test tube according to Greg Cox or altered as a child according to the comic?
There's lots of room for all sorts of interpretations in Star Trek. Saying that everything has to take place in one Prime universe along with a couple of spin off universes seems awfully confining.
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