WTF..? Just when did the alternate timeline start..??

[Roald]

I've always assumed that the alternate timeline started with the Narada's confrontation with the Kelvin, and that everything prior to that is the same as we've always thought it was...

Now, JJ has said in an MTV interview (find a report on that here) that the Kevlin crew were aware of the Narada crew being Romulans, and that he intentionally wanted to break away from the Prime timeline at the very beginning of the film...

So.... did the Narada and Prime Spock enter a Mirror Universe where Romulans were already known...??

 

[Shim]

Wouldn't bother me if they did.

Long live the Ambramsverse, the nuEnterprise, and all who sail in her.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I've always assumed that the alternate timeline started with the Narada's confrontation with the Kelvin, and that everything prior to that is the same as we've always thought it was...

Now, JJ has said in an MTV interview (find a report on that here) that the Kevlin crew were aware of the Narada crew being Romulans, and that he intentionally wanted to break away from the Prime timeline at the very beginning of the film...

So.... did the Narada and Prime Spock enter a Mirror Universe where Romulans were already known...??

That's how I saw it.

 

[IDIC]

I've always assumed that the alternate timeline started with the Narada's confrontation with the Kelvin, and that everything prior to that is the same as we've always thought it was...

Now, JJ has said in an MTV interview (find a report on that here) that the Kevlin crew were aware of the Narada crew being Romulans, and that he intentionally wanted to break away from the Prime timeline at the very beginning of the film...

So.... did the Narada and Prime Spock enter a Mirror Universe where Romulans were already known...??

It is possible. While there have been alterations to the timeline (e.g. First Contact), there were a number of significant changes caused by the Temporal Cold War in Star Trek: Enterprise. The Federation was aware of the Romulan Empire. Also, there were incidents on Vulcan that were caused by Romulans. I do not recall if it was ever pieced together that it was by Romulans. It occurred during the last season. I am sure the Vulcans must know who the Romulans are which means the Federation does.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

As i've said in a previous thread there's many reasons how they knew it was a Romulan ship. Ships in the Trekverse of the 24th century have identification beacons identifying who they are and what species they belong to, all space faring species also have identifiable warp signatures even when the ship hasn't been at warp and those signatures have never changed in the 150 years. There are any number of reasons how they might have figured out it was Romulan.
When Nero came on screen they might have used their own logic and gut feeling about it and concluded they're Romulan.

The Kelvin crew knowing they are Romulan changes nothing, the timeline does not change prior to the Kelvin being destroyed.

 

[Kpnuts]

They found out the crew were Romulans during the battle, I'm sure that's what he meant. After that the truth about Romulus came out. It was still the prime timeline at the start.

 

[number6]

The alternate timeline begins when the lightning storm appears. Just like TNG's timeline changes the moment the E-C pokes through the even horizon of the temporal anomoly, so does TOS' timeline.

I like the idea of this being a different quantum reality. There's no need for a reset, and we get to see lots of parallels with the Original Timeline, without a straight duplication. This gives Abram's team a clean palette to work with, without erasing anything that came before.

 

[IDIC]

They found out the crew were Romulans during the battle, I'm sure that's what he meant. After that the truth about Romulus came out. It was still the prime timeline at the start.

I am not sure that is true. The timeline branched off during the Temporal Cold War depicted in Enterprise and further alterations occurred with the arrival of the Nerada and Spock Prime.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

They found out the crew were Romulans during the battle, I'm sure that's what he meant. After that the truth about Romulus came out. It was still the prime timeline at the start.

I am not sure that is true. The timeline branched off during the Temporal Cold War depicted in Enterprise and further alterations occurred with the arrival of the Nerada and Spock Prime.

The timelines supposedly branched off ever single time future guy appeared and every single time the sphere builders appeared because every single tiny time travel sequence caused a new timeline. The whole point is that we've witnessed hundreds of alternate timelines throughout the years of watching Trek. There's no reason to believe that what happened in ENT wasn't what supposedly happened in the original timeline that old Spock came from, therefore nothing has changed before the arrival of the Nerada.

 

[Kruge]

I'm not sure about all of this, but it seems like Mr. Abrams has a metaverse fetish...I just watched the season finale of Fringe (only to see Nimoy, of course!), and, once again, we have a prime/alternate timeline situation (SPOILER: in this one, for one thing, the World Trade Center towers are still standing)

I think the multiverse concept is great for comic books, when you need to clear out some of the clutter that will invariably start collecting, but I hope that this film is the only mention of the parallel universe concept.

 

[apenpaap]

I don't mind them knowing how rommies look, just as I wouldn't have minded if they had met rommies face to face in ENT. Some canon is very annoying and restrictive.

 

[Kruge]

I don't mind them knowing how rommies look, just as I wouldn't have minded if they had met rommies face to face in ENT. Some canon is very annoying and restrictive.

That bumpy-forehead look from the TNG era bothered me too...weren't the Romulans and Vulcans only separated for a few thousand years? Hmm..college biology tells me that's not enough time for such physiological changes

The tattoos were weak, but they explained them well somewhat in the comic...

 

[buzzknox]

In the original timeline, negotiations between the Romulans and Federation were conducted by subspace communications. The Romulan language was therefore in the database and the Kelvin crew would have been informed that the language being spoken was Romulan. That would explain the shock of learning who they were.

 

[Kruge]

All I can say is, thank God they did not go with the whole "Romulan War as-the-setting" idea that was being bandied about a few years back before Abrams got ahold of this movie...As much as I liked Star Trek, even with it's flaws, I cannot imagine watching "Tiberius Chase" as opposed to "James T. Kirk (Alternate reality)"..

 

[apenpaap]

That bumpy-forehead look from the TNG era bothered me too...weren't the Romulans and Vulcans only separated for a few thousand years? Hmm..college biology tells me that's not enough time for such physiological changes

In TOS we see non-bumpy rommies, and later in "Unification" we see that Spock can walk around on Romulus without being noticed as a Vulcan. In the Vulcan arc on ENT, rommies were on Vulcan without anyone noticing them. Therefore I think both bumpy and nonbumpy foreheads exist on both planets, just more non-bumpy on Vulcan and more bumpy on Romulus.

 

[Kruge]

That bumpy-forehead look from the TNG era bothered me too...weren't the Romulans and Vulcans only separated for a few thousand years? Hmm..college biology tells me that's not enough time for such physiological changes

In TOS we see non-bumpy rommies, and later in "Unification" we see that Spock can walk around on Romulus without being noticed as a Vulcan. In the Vulcan arc on ENT, rommies were on Vulcan without anyone noticing them. Therefore I think both bumpy and nonbumpy foreheads exist on both planets, just more non-bumpy on Vulcan and more bumpy on Romulus.

"Stop saying 'bumpy' in there!"

"Never!"

 

[Kruge]

I'd say this new timeline started in the year 1996...at some point, our universe diverged into two..one which we all remember, and another one, in which technology abruptly leapt forward, and a fleet of sleeper-ships was built for the genetically engineered supermen of the time to escape on after they had waged war and bombed entire nations out of existence.

 

[TrekGuide.com]

The timelines supposedly branched off ever single time future guy appeared and every single time the sphere builders appeared because every single tiny time travel sequence caused a new timeline. The whole point is that we've witnessed hundreds of alternate timelines throughout the years of watching Trek. There's no reason to believe that what happened in ENT wasn't what supposedly happened in the original timeline that old Spock came from, therefore nothing has changed before the arrival of the Nerada.

Exactly. This movie is the sequel to all the time travel stuff in "Star Trek: First Contact" and "Enterprise" -- not a prequel to the unaltered TOS timeline.

Even if this movie DID NOT INCLUDE NERO AND SPOCK, it would already be in a different timeline from TOS, since it would incorporate all the changes to the timeline made in "Enterprise" by the Borg, Daniels, FutureGuy, and the Sphere-Builders. These major changes include the Xindi attack on Earth in "The Expanse," the destruction of the Paraagan mining colony in "Shockwave," and the Suliban attack on the Klingon in "Broken Bow," not to mention the Borg's attack in Earth's past in "ST: First Contact" and "Regeneration." None of those happened in the pre-TOS timeline, so obviously this post-"Enterprise" movie would not resemble the original TOS timeline, regardless of Nero's and Spock's presence.

I'm not sure about all of this, but it seems like Mr. Abrams has a metaverse fetish...I just watched the season finale of Fringe (only to see Nimoy, of course!), and, once again, we have a prime/alternate timeline situation (SPOILER: in this one, for one thing, the World Trade Center towers are still standing)

The term "Prime" is subjective. Whichever universe you live in will be "prime" to you, while the other will be "alternate."

I think the multiverse concept is great for comic books, when you need to clear out some of the clutter that will invariably start collecting, but I hope that this film is the only mention of the parallel universe concept.

"Star Trek" has never been shy about depicting alternate realities, from all the Mirror Universe episodes to TNG's "Parallels." Parallel universes and alternate realities aren't just for comics, and they certainly weren't invented by J.J. Abrams.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

That bumpy-forehead look from the TNG era bothered me too...weren't the Romulans and Vulcans only separated for a few thousand years? Hmm..college biology tells me that's not enough time for such physiological changes

I've explained about this long ago in another forum in another thread.

What we know and understand about evolution is limited to the planet Earth, just because it may take us hundreds of thousands of years to notice any changes to our DNA and biology doesn't mean other species in the Star Trek universe are limited to the same timescale. So your "college Biology" means absolutely nothing whatsoever and is completely useless when it comes to talking about species outside the planet Earth.

The Vulcans therefore the Romulans could undergo rapid evolutionary development when exposed to just a few thousand years of a different environment because they are not from Earth and are not subject to the same evolutionary timescale. This is also what I propose happened to the Remans, the Remans were Vulcan/Romulan to start with but thousands of years of breeding and living constantly under the harsh conditions of Remus coupled with their rapid genetic ability to evolve quickly caused them to look like they did in Nemesis.

 

[Kruge]

That bumpy-forehead look from the TNG era bothered me too...weren't the Romulans and Vulcans only separated for a few thousand years? Hmm..college biology tells me that's not enough time for such physiological changes

I've explained about this long ago in another forum in another thread.

What we know and understand about evolution is limited to the planet Earth, just because it may take us hundreds of thousands of years to notice any changes to our DNA and biology doesn't mean other species in the Star Trek universe are limited to the same timescale. So your "college Biology" means absolutely nothing whatsoever and is completely useless when it comes to talking about species outside the planet Earth.

The Vulcans therefore the Romulans could undergo rapid evolutionary development when exposed to just a few thousand years of a different environment because they are not from Earth and are not subject to the same evolutionary timescale. This is also what I propose happened to the Remans, the Remans were Vulcan/Romulan to start with but thousands of years of breeding and living constantly under the harsh conditions of Remus coupled with their rapid genetic ability to evolve quickly caused them to look like they did in Nemesis.

I mean you no disrespect, but to quote the Alternate James T. Kirk:

"...Bullshit!"