Will a "Hero" try and go back in time and fix Vulcan's Destruction?

[Shat Happens]

Re: Will a "Hero" try and go back in time and fix Vulcan's Destruction

Spock Prime must keep his mouth shut. Nobody may do anything to save Romulus from the supernova and/or Nero from travelling backwards in time, otherwise hello grandfather paradox.

Also that way he can get revenge on Romulus for what they did to Vulcan. Sort of.

 

[Poltargyst]

Re: Will a "Hero" try and go back in time and fix Vulcan's Destruction

I really hope not. For one thing, I'm not a great fan of time travel stories. But also, in order for fans to be invested emotionally in the story, events have to have consequences. Pushing the magic reset button cheapens everything. Keep Vulcan destroyed, show us the consequences.

 

[Set Harth]

Re: Will a "Hero" try and go back in time and fix Vulcan's Destruction

But also, in order for fans to be invested emotionally in the story, events have to have consequences. Pushing the magic reset button cheapens everything.

I'm looking at you, X-Men franchise.

Nobody may do anything to save Romulus from the supernova and/or Nero from travelling backwards in time, otherwise hello grandfather paradox.

Secondly, our story is not based on the linear timeline of Einstein’s General Theory of relativity upon which most movies about time travel are based (like say, BACK TO THE FUTURE, or TERMINATOR, both of which I LOVE). The idea of a fixable timeline has been a wonderful staple of sci-fi since the 50’s, but in reading about the most current thinking in theoretical physics regarding time travel (Quantum Mechanics), we learned about the speculative theories that suggest that if time travel is possible, then the act of time travel itself creates a new universe that exists in PARALLEL to the one left by the time traveler. This is the preferred theory these days because it resolves the GRANDFATHER PARADOX, which wonders how a time traveler who kills his own younger grandfather would logically then cease to exist, but then he’d never be around to time travel and kill his grandfather in the first place. Quantum Mechanically based theories resolve this paradox by arguing that the time
traveler, in killing his grandfather, would merely split a previously identical universe into a new one in which a man who is his grandfather in another universe is killed in the new one. The time traveler does not cease to exist, although he is no longer in his own original universe (where he is now missing). Or something.

 

[MakeshiftPython]

Re: Will a "Hero" try and go back in time and fix Vulcan's Destruction

I really hope not. For one thing, I'm not a great fan of time travel stories. But also, in order for fans to be invested emotionally in the story, events have to have consequences. Pushing the magic reset button cheapens everything. Keep Vulcan destroyed, show us the consequences.

I agree there should be consequences, but at the same time I find it hard to believe Spock Prime would just go along with Vulcan's destruction and not try something. This is why I suggest they should have done a hard reboot of the franchise with no ties to previous Trek and where time travel is verboten. Cleaning the slate is the right idea, but I don't think the 2009 film did enough. It left too much in the open merely because the filmmakers didn't want to alienate Trekkies by saying "every Trek you've seen before is now irrelevant", hence the "the original timeline is still out there, it's all good!"

 

[Mad Mike]

Re: Will a "Hero" try and go back in time and fix Vulcan's Destruction

That's where the movie lost me. The Spock we've always known would have done something. Here, it was almost like he was doing his own version of cooking eggs, and saying he'd done his bit for King and Country...

Couldn't have said it better myself. This is my main pet peeve with the philosophy of the new films, even though I do enjoy watching them.

 

[WarpFactorZ]

Re: Will a "Hero" try and go back in time and fix Vulcan's Destruction

Secondly, our story is not based on the linear timeline of Einstein’s General Theory of relativity upon which most movies about time travel are based (like say, BACK TO THE FUTURE, or TERMINATOR, both of which I LOVE).

Huh? None of these are based on the "linear" timeline of general relativity. GR, by its nature, does not allow time travel (called "closed timelike curves"), because it violate causality and screws up everything. It also violates what's called Lorentz invariance, a cornerstone of relativity.

The idea of a fixable timeline has been a wonderful staple of sci-fi since the 50’s, but in reading about the most current thinking in theoretical physics regarding time travel (Quantum Mechanics), we learned about the speculative theories that suggest that if time travel is possible, then the act of time travel itself creates a new universe that exists in PARALLEL to the one left by the time traveler.

No theory in quantum mechanics says this. The theories say that one could have multiple branches at the collapse of a wavefunction.

This is the preferred theory these days because it resolves the GRANDFATHER PARADOX, which wonders how a time traveler who kills his own younger grandfather would logically then cease to exist, but then he’d never be around to time travel and kill his grandfather in the first place.

This isn't quantum mechanics. Plus, no one is concerned about the grandfather paradox in physics. Rather, the grandfather paradox is the REASON that time travel is likely not possible. It violates causality. If A causes B, then B cannot influence A.

Or something.

Yeah, Bob. Stick to speculative writing....

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Re: Will a "Hero" try and go back in time and fix Vulcan's Destruction

That's where the movie lost me. The Spock we've always known would have done something. Here, it was almost like he was doing his own version of cooking eggs, and saying he'd done his bit for King and Country...

Couldn't have said it better myself. This is my main pet peeve with the philosophy of the new films, even though I do enjoy watching them.

You mean like the time Spock went back in time and stopped V'ger from destroying Epsilon XI, or used time travel to save the planets Nomad fried, oh and let's not forget how Kirk wouldn't let his brother's death stand so he flew the Enterprise around Deneva's sun to stop the parasites before they ever showed up

Oh wait....

 

[BigJake]

Re: Will a "Hero" try and go back in time and fix Vulcan's Destruction

You mean like the time Spock went back in time and

... helped save Earth from destruction at the hands of a strange alien probe by stealing whales from Earth's past?

That the Enterprise couldn't go slingshotting into the past for any old planet or space station didn't mean they showed no attachment to the major worlds of the Federation. He has a point. But even judging PrimeSpock too elderly for that kind of gallivanting, that's precisely why teacake's idea has some merit.

 

[Franklin]

Re: Will a "Hero" try and go back in time and fix Vulcan's Destruction

You mean like the time Spock went back in time and

... helped save Earth from destruction at the hands of a strange alien probe by stealing whales from Earth's past?

That the Enterprise couldn't go slingshotting into the past for any old planet or space station didn't mean they showed no attachment to the major worlds of the Federation. He has a point. But even judging PrimeSpock too elderly for that kind of gallivanting, that's precisely why teacake's idea has some merit.

There was no reset button in TVH.

In TVH the Earth hadn't been destroyed, yet. It was in dire shape, but it wasn't dead, yet. Kirk and company were on their way back to Earth, heard the distress signal, and decided that if they could find a whale, it might placate the probe and save the Earth. Time travel was entertained only because Spock said humpback whales could not be found in their time on any other planet.

So, they went back in time, but it wasn't in an effort to change anything that already happened in their time, it was to try to keep something from happening. That's a big difference.

Bringing the whales and Jillian Taylor back to the 23rd century with them didn't change anything in the timeline, either.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Re: Will a "Hero" try and go back in time and fix Vulcan's Destruction

It's easy to stop Nero.

Go back and tell Spock to ignite the red matter the moment he comes out of the black hole. Nero may be swallowed, or may survive, and has a ship that can wreck some havoc, but no red matter = Vulcan survives. Period.

*cut to a post-apocalyptic universe with Old Spock roasting marshmellons with his younger self in the ruins of San Francisco*

"Well, it seemed like a foolproof plan at the time."

 

[BillJ]

Re: Will a "Hero" try and go back in time and fix Vulcan's Destruction

It's easy to stop Nero.

Go back and tell Spock to ignite the red matter the moment he comes out of the black hole. Nero may be swallowed, or may survive, and has a ship that can wreck some havoc, but no red matter = Vulcan survives. Period.

*cut to a post-apocalyptic universe with Old Spock roasting marshmellons with his younger self in the ruins of San Francisco*

"Well, it seemed like a foolproof plan at the time."

I think Engines of Destiny covers this pretty well. When Scotty pulls Kirk off the Enterprise-B the moment before he gets sucked into the Nexus.

 

[BigJake]

Re: Will a "Hero" try and go back in time and fix Vulcan's Destruction

In TVH the Earth hadn't been destroyed, yet. . . So, they went back in time, but it wasn't in an effort to change anything that already happened in their time, it was to try to keep something from happening. That's a big difference.

And in Generations, where the (relatively random) planet in question had already been destroyed? First Contact, where Earth had already been assimilated?

The point is that the Trek universe in general is obviously no stranger to the use of time travel to solve problems, so there's no particular reason the idea couldn't occur to someone in the NuTrek universe. Whether it would work or whether the story would be about how you shouldn't do this is another question. I don't take teacake's idea to be about actually resetting the destruction of Vulcan, just about someone attempting to do so.

 

[Set Harth]

Re: Will a "Hero" try and go back in time and fix Vulcan's Destruction

Rather, the grandfather paradox is the REASON that time travel is likely not possible.

Unless said time travel operates in a branching fashion as in the film, which avoids the grandfather paradox entirely. That was the point.

 

[Oso Blanco]

Re: Will a "Hero" try and go back in time and fix Vulcan's Destruction

Unless said time travel operates in a branching fashion as in the film, which avoids the grandfather paradox entirely. That was the point.

Branching or not, Spock could always try to contact someone (maybe even himself) from the Prime Universe and tell them to take care of Nero before he made the Jellyfish and the Narada disappear into that black hole. Then the branching is avoided and the nuUniverse will never exist, everything is restored to normal.

 

[Franklin]

Re: Will a "Hero" try and go back in time and fix Vulcan's Destruction

Unless said time travel operates in a branching fashion as in the film, which avoids the grandfather paradox entirely. That was the point.

Branching or not, Spock could always try to contact someone (maybe even himself) from the Prime Universe and tell them to take care of Nero before he made the Jellyfish and the Narada disappear into that black hole. Then the branching is avoided and the nuUniverse will never exist, everything is restored to normal.

What's the need to avoid the branching? The existence of the new universe doesn't affect the other one in any way, so why wipe it out? That actually sounds evil, not returning anything to normal. Besides, everything in both universes is normal for each universe.

 

[DonIago]

Re: Will a "Hero" try and go back in time and fix Vulcan's Destruction

It sounds like a paradox anyway...how can PrimeSpock warn himself not to end up in the NuVerse if he never ends up in the NuVerse? Generally I'd suggest the paradox would be resolved by the "creation" of yet another timeline...

Except that I'm not sure that timelines are "created" or "destroyed" in any case, but rather that they always existed, like railroad tracks running parallel to each other. You can switch from one track to another, but that doesn't mean the "alternate" track didn't exist before you jumped to it.

 

[Ovation]

Re: Will a "Hero" try and go back in time and fix Vulcan's Destruction

Unless said time travel operates in a branching fashion as in the film, which avoids the grandfather paradox entirely. That was the point.

Branching or not, Spock could always try to contact someone (maybe even himself) from the Prime Universe and tell them to take care of Nero before he made the Jellyfish and the Narada disappear into that black hole. Then the branching is avoided and the nuUniverse will never exist, everything is restored to normal.

This is, well, stupid. You presume the new branch needs to be "fixed" (an impossibility) or, if we carry the implication of your suggestion to its logical outcome, you endorse the extinction of an entire universe--teeming with life. Now it's all fiction, so the stakes are not all that high. But if you are, on the one hand, arguing that a character who did not attempt to "save" a doomed planet is behaving at odds with his previous character development, you cannot seriously propose that that same character, in the name of some "higher morality", go about that action by snuffing out the lives of an entire universe.

Nothing needs to be "fixed". Nothing that has happened in the new universe has in any way altered the "prime" universe. Besides, you are free to simply ignore the new universe if it isn't to your liking. Many of us, though, are quite fond of it and would prefer to have it continue.

 

[BillJ]

Re: Will a "Hero" try and go back in time and fix Vulcan's Destruction

Nothing needs to be "fixed". Nothing that has happened in the new universe has in any way altered the "prime" universe. Besides, you are free to simply ignore the new universe if it isn't to your liking. Many of us, though, are quite fond of it and would prefer to have it continue.

+1

 

[Shat Happens]

Re: Will a "Hero" try and go back in time and fix Vulcan's Destruction

JJ's universe, prime universe, which universe is the correct one? Come on, that's BS and a lot of it.

Kirk didn't see the probe boling Earth's oceans away and thought, "it's alright, there's another universe where this didn't happen". So with Vger etc.

The only way to enjoy ST09 is thinking of it as a reboot with a bad excused cameo from Nimoy in it.

 

[Franklin]

Re: Will a "Hero" try and go back in time and fix Vulcan's Destruction

JJ's universe, prime universe, which universe is the correct one? Come on, that's BS and a lot of it.

Kirk didn't see the probe boling Earth's oceans away and thought, "it's alright, there's another universe where this didn't happen". So with Vger etc.

The only way to enjoy ST09 is thinking of it as a reboot with a bad excused cameo from Nimoy in it.

One more time, with feeling: BOTH UNIVERSES ARE CORRECT! Almost everyone from Orci and Kurtzman to a lot of us posting here have been trying to explain that.

Kirk didn't come across an Earth destroyed by the probe, then go back in time and change everything. He found whales in the past, came back to his correct time and place with them, and stopped the probe before it could destroy the Earth.

I have no idea what you mean about just letting V'Ger go. That all unfolded "real time."

If everyone were as fatalistic in all the universes as you have Kirk above, every universe would soon disappear.