Will Khan Still be From the 1990s?

[tighr]

All those things still happen in nuTrek's past.

Think about this: nuTrek is one of the first instances of time travel that we see in all of Star Trek canon where the heroes don't return to their present at the conclusion of the story. Spock Prime is now stuck in the 2250's.

The future that we know and love from the Prime reality had always been the result of actions that characters who time traveled had taken in the past, so we were always seeing it from the point of view of the characters returning to their present after "fixing" whatever in the past.

That isn't to say actions in the past had no effect on the present: In the current Prime universe, if you look up Gabriel Bell on Wikipedia a picture of Ben Sisko pops up. Obviously, that wasn't always the case before the temporal incursion. I would still expect that to be true in nuTrek.

 

[F. King Daniel]

All those things still happen in nuTrek's past.

Think about this: nuTrek is one of the first instances of time travel that we see in all of Star Trek canon where the heroes don't return to their present at the conclusion of the story. Spock Prime is now stuck in the 2250's.

The future that we know and love from the Prime reality had always been the result of actions that characters who time traveled had taken in the past, so we were always seeing it from the point of view of the characters returning to their present after "fixing" whatever in the past.

That isn't to say actions in the past had no effect on the present: In the current Prime universe, if you look up Gabriel Bell on Wikipedia a picture of Ben Sisko pops up. Obviously, that wasn't always the case before the temporal incursion. I would still expect that to be true in nuTrek.

It's not quite the first time. It's the first time us the viewers have moved POV and stayed there with the main cast, but we've seen plenty of Spock Prime-like travellers from alternate futures, like Admiral Janeway or time cop Daniels.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

if you look up Gabriel Bell on Wikipedia a picture of Ben Sisko pops up. Obviously, that wasn't always the case before the temporal incursion.

Really? How can we be so sure?

We did see the real Gabriel Bell (briefly), but that was when they were already in the past. If somebody had looked up Bell's picture - BEFORE any time travel occurred - and seen that other person, then we'd know there was a change. But it could be that nobody bothered to look up Bell before they travelled to the past, and thus never realized that it was Sisko all along.

In other words: Predestination paradox. Sisko was always Bell. How can we prove he wasn't?

 

[Therin of Andor]

We did see the real Gabriel Bell (briefly), but that was when they were already in the past. If somebody had looked up Bell's picture - BEFORE any time travel occurred - and seen that other person, then we'd know there was a change. But it could be that nobody bothered to look up Bell before they travelled to the past, and thus never realized that it was Sisko all along.

In other words: Predestination paradox. Sisko was always Bell. How can we prove he wasn't?

Then what made the "wrong" picture appear the first time they looked?

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Gabriel_Bell

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Then what made the "wrong" picture appear the first time they looked?

I thought the only time we saw the 'real' Gabriel Bell was when they were actually in 2024 San Francisco. Before that, did anyone look at a tricorder, or otherwise search for Bell's image (in a Federation computer), and see the same version of Bell? Because if not, then it could be that Sisko was indeed 'always' Bell.

 

[SiddFinch1]

As has been noted all future time travel after Nero popped out is done from the nu-trek. Kirk and co went back in time several times. So instead of Kirk-spock-mccoy going back thru the guardian in the 2260s it could be Kirk spock and uhura 5 years earlier. Mccoy is not there to shoot the bum. The bum sobers up and as å result history is cha nged mleading to the eugenics war coming å hundred years later and å more advanced Kelvin in 2223. Or instead of john the bum gettinshot Tom the bum is shot. Or...

 

[tighr]

I thought the only time we saw the 'real' Gabriel Bell was when they were actually in 2024 San Francisco. Before that, did anyone look at a tricorder, or otherwise search for Bell's image (in a Federation computer), and see the same version of Bell? Because if not, then it could be that Sisko was indeed 'always' Bell.

I would think that Sisko, who was already familiar with Bell before going back in time, would have seen a picture of him prior to this episode. Since we didn't see that on screen, I guess we can never prove that to be the case.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ And since the DS9 crew returned to the same future they left, I'm inclined to believe they didn't change history. Even if Sisko-as-Bell did absolutely everything that the 'real' Bell did (assuming you believe there was ever a timeline where Sisko was not Bell), even the slightest difference would have lasting repercussions.

 

[F. King Daniel]

As has been noted all future time travel after Nero popped out is done from the nu-trek. Kirk and co went back in time several times. So instead of Kirk-spock-mccoy going back thru the guardian in the 2260s it could be Kirk spock and uhura 5 years earlier. Mccoy is not there to shoot the bum. The bum sobers up and as å result history is cha nged mleading to the eugenics war coming å hundred years later and å more advanced Kelvin in 2223. Or instead of john the bum gettinshot Tom the bum is shot. Or...

It's supposed to be like this (forgive shitty photo quality):

The prior time travels all still happen, they just move up a different "branch" of the timeline.

 

[The Wormhole]

I thought the only time we saw the 'real' Gabriel Bell was when they were actually in 2024 San Francisco. Before that, did anyone look at a tricorder, or otherwise search for Bell's image (in a Federation computer), and see the same version of Bell? Because if not, then it could be that Sisko was indeed 'always' Bell.

I would think that Sisko, who was already familiar with Bell before going back in time, would have seen a picture of him prior to this episode. Since we didn't see that on screen, I guess we can never prove that to be the case.

Sisko knew about the Bell Riots, and knew of Gabriel Bell, but he didn't actually recognize Bell when he helped Sisko and Bashir out in the fight. It wasn't until after Sisko checked out Bell's ID card that he realized Bell's identity.

However, I am inclined to believe that prior to Past Tense it was the actual Bell that was pictured in the file, otherwise there'd be no reason for why his death would have erased the Federation's existence from the timeline. If it had been Sisko's picture in the file all along, that shouldn't have happened.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ Yes it should, since Sisko still had to go back in time and fulfill his destiny as Bell.

 

[Franklin]

As has been noted all future time travel after Nero popped out is done from the nu-trek. Kirk and co went back in time several times. So instead of Kirk-spock-mccoy going back thru the guardian in the 2260s it could be Kirk spock and uhura 5 years earlier. Mccoy is not there to shoot the bum. The bum sobers up and as å result history is cha nged mleading to the eugenics war coming å hundred years later and å more advanced Kelvin in 2223. Or instead of john the bum gettinshot Tom the bum is shot. Or...

It's supposed to be like this (forgive shitty photo quality):

The prior time travels all still happen, they just move up a different "branch" of the timeline.

Interesting. But I'm not sure it addresses SiddFinch1's problem. If going back in time in the new timeline means going back into the prime timeline, then what happens to both timelines?

Let's try it this way: There are no whales on Earth in the new timeline. Let's say the probe appears and Kirk and Spock determine they must find whales in order to communicate with the probe. To do so would require going back in time. So, what past are they going back to? The prime timeline? As that diagram is drawn, that past doesn't exist in their timeline. Could they theoretically run into Kirk Prime and Spock Prime also looking for whales?

Could Kirk and Kirk Prime end up getting into a fight over who gets to date Edith Keeler?

Could the new timeline's Enterprise be thrown back to 1967 and John Christopher would see two Enterprises struggling to get back into space?

Or, is traveling back in time beyond the appearance of Nero not possible in the new timeline? If so, when the probe appears thinking it's going to talk to whales, Earth is screwed.

 

[F. King Daniel]

It's the same past for both timelines. So, yes, they'd theoretically bump into the Prime-universe characters if they went back to those times and places seen in TOS, TNG and the movies.

But, in going back, they'd create yet another reality splitting off from their arrival points in the past (perhaps though, this would depend upon the method used to travel back and forth, as per the novel "Watching the Clock")

 

[ClayHefner]

maybe we could see it like this
Nero traveling through time creates an infinite number of timelines/ new universes/whatever.
Orci and Kurtzman chose to "show us one of those", one in which

- Nero loses
- Kirk meets Old Spock
- The past is exactly the same in both universes and ENT is 1:1 intact (this could still mean the new past is influenced by future time travel, but the resulting past timeline is the same somehow).
- The crew is composed of the same dudes we saw on TOS
-etc.

So yeah, this could make sense. I still think if they handle it that way, the ONLY benefit would be that ENT is still intact in that universe. But the price would be that they will still have to check for "canon violations" which is pretty restricting when doing stuff like Klingons and Khan.

 

[YellowSubmarine]

Coming to think about it, the prime timeline stole their whales from their past, so now they are stuck with dealing with the whale probe directly. They ought to travel back in time to when Kirk Prime went to take the whales, follow him into his future to take his whales after the whale probe was gone, then travel back in time so they can travel back to their own fut... Wait, whaaat?

 

[F. King Daniel]

I finally saw Transformers 3 last night, and the way they dealt with the "real" reason for the moon landing reaffirms to me how easy it would be to flashback to a 1990's Khan origin story.

Star Trek's past can be ours just fine - with a fun fictionalized twist.

 

[Therin of Andor]

It wasn't until after Sisko checked out Bell's ID card that he realized Bell's identity.

As I linked before, both Bells are depicted on Memory Alpha.

 

[The Wormhole]

I finally saw Transformers 3 last night, and the way they dealt with the "real" reason for the moon landing reaffirms to me how easy it would be to flashback to a 1990's Khan origin story.

Star Trek's past can be ours just fine - with a fun fictionalized twist.

Well, the moon landing is something you have wiggle room with. A massive world war in the mid 1990s is a bit harder. Yes, I know the novels masterfully inserted the Eugenics Wars among actual 1990s history, but they aren't going to have time to go into that kind of detail in a flashback scene of a summer blockbuster movie.

 

[tighr]

Well, the moon landing is something you have wiggle room with. A massive world war in the mid 1990s is a bit harder. Yes, I know the novels masterfully inserted the Eugenics Wars among actual 1990s history, but they aren't going to have time to go into that kind of detail in a flashback scene of a summer blockbuster movie.

As I've mentioned in previous posts, it would be trivial to portray the Eugenics Wars as a type of Cold War between world powers.

We already live in a world where we believe the events of spy films like Mission Impossible, Salt, Bourne Identity, even James Bond to be not only possible, but plausible. Even Captain America (but not the The Avengers, obviously) takes place in the real world with the general public being unaware of the existence of a man with super-human strength.

A person like Khan could already be walking amongst us, undetected.

As far as the Eugenics Wars being common knowledge by the 2250s, you could chalk that up to government declassification, or even the release of documents after the fall of world governments in the 3rd World War.

 

[CorporalClegg]

Or they could just change the date.

The number of people who would roll their eyes and gaff at the idea of some super secret war of uber humans would greatly exceed the number of people who'd actually give a shit a throwaway line from a 2013 film contradicts a throwaway line from a 1967 TV show.