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

[teacherbrock]

I'm pretty sure there was a huge ass war with the Romulans before TOS in the "prime 1966" worldline. Also I am sure the Vulcans remember when the Romulans left Vulcan.

Also Archer encounter the Romulans (once again they never seen them on the viewscreen).

 

[Kruge]

...Let's be honest, there was no real way to reconcile 'bumpy' versus 'non-bumpy' Romulans, Vulcans, Klingons or others in any truly believable way...

ENTERPRISE did it in an entirely satisfying way, and made everything make sense, as far as the Klingons were concerned.

As for the Romulans, I've always suspected something similar happened to them.

TNG made it clear they'd suddenly "disappeared" from galactic involvement for unknown reasons decades earlier, and by their own admission this was because they'd had "things to take care of".

This opens up many possibilities.

See? It proves what I've known all along

Your average star trek fan is more intelligent, creative and imaginative than the unwashed masses that this new film was geared towards

I liked Star Trek, but I hope that this quality of endless question asking and supposition is more pronounced in the subsequent installments...it'd be a welcome break from the vast majority of the bilge that makes its way into theatres

 

[Hober Mallow]

It helps not to put a lot of thought into it. The way I see it, this is a complete reboot. THere's too much that's different than can be explained by the Narada'a sudden appearance. The time travel aspect is just JJ's last crutch in case fans complain about continuity. It's a way out to do a reboot without explicitly calling it a reboot. But let's not kid ourselves: it's a reboot.

And I couldn't be happier.

If you don't want to play, fine, but don't try to make out "this isn't important".

It isn't important.

All that was important for this reboot was for them to get the spirit of Star Trek and the characters right. They've done it, IMO, while making it a bit different, as it's bound to be with a new guy in charge.

The movie isn't perfect by any means. For the next Trek reboot, I'd like to see some actual SF writers write actual SF stories (a novel idea, I know!). THat's the one missing element for me. But even without that this time, Star Trek was far more vibrant and entertaining than either Enterprise or Voyager, and felt more like Star Trek to me than either series.

 

[teacherbrock]

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

We don't know that.

Actually we do. The divergence from ENT is the moment the narada appears. We can't be sure what effects this will have on the future, but the past we can be certain. Admiral Archer would agree that all those things happened.

 

[gastrof]

It helps not to put a lot of thought into it. The way I see it, this is a complete reboot. THere's too much that's different than can be explained by the Narada'a sudden appearance. The time travel aspect is just JJ's last crutch in case fans complain about continuity. It's a way out to do a reboot without explicitly calling it a reboot. But let's not kid ourselves: it's a reboot.

And I couldn't be happier.

If you don't want to play, fine, but don't try to make out "this isn't important".

It isn't important.

All that was important for this reboot was for them to get the spirit of Star Trek and the characters right. They've done it, IMO, while making it a bit different, as it's bound to be with a new guy in charge.

The movie isn't perfect by any means. For the next Trek reboot, I'd like to see some actual SF writers write actual SF stories (a novel idea, I know!). THat's the one missing element for me. But even without that this time, Star Trek was far more vibrant and entertaining than either Enterprise or Voyager, and felt more like Star Trek to me than either series.

"It helps not to put a lot of thought into it."

Yes, it helps us become mindless drones with no imagination, willing to just swallow whatever is dished out.

Weren't you listening?

Trek fans have ALWAYS enjoyed discussing seeming continuity glitches, and figuring them out in a satisfying way.

If you want to say "it's not important", you're free to remain in your disinterested state.

You're also WRONG.

If the movie is important enough to watch and enjoy, it's important enough to DISCUSS.

IF WE WANT TO.

If you don't, then stop bothering us. Go away.

It IS of interest to many of us, and you saying it isn't doesn't make us disappear.

Get used to it. Other Trek fans LIKE discussing such things, and you're wasting our time telling us we don't and shouldn't.

If YOU don't enjoy something, that doesn't mean others don't.

To some people, knowing the stats of the players of their favorite sport is important, but to others it isn't.

Who would you be (or me) to tell someone "Your line of interest and the things you enjoy discussing aren't important"?

Who in the world do you think you are?

Stop trying to tell other people they don't like what they like. (And YES, that is what you're doing.)

Again, you're just wasting our time...and thus your own as well.

 

[Overgeeked]

The proposed Season 5 of Enterprise would have started detailing the Earth-Romulan war, and there will be a series of books dealing with same coming up.

This bit of canon (that Earthers don't know what Romulans look like) is way too restrictive and downright stupid. There's no way to fight a hot war with someone and not know what they look like. At some point, at least once, there will be a Romulan ship destroyed by an Earth ship and if there is even a single corpse, they can beam it up and there you go. Even if they only get a limb or something there's genetics. "Hey wait, they're almost identical to Vulcan's on a genetic level. What's up with that Vulcans?"

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The matter of the Romulans and the tech seen in connection with the Kelvin has made some of us suspect that very thing, that the movie takes place in a universe similar but not identical to the original Trek universe.

Spock and Nero sort of slid sideways AND BACK in time, maybe?

This would help explain why Data and Picard stood unchanged after Nero and Spock vanished into the black hole in the COUNTDOWN prequel.

I can buy this explanation. Countdown takes place in the universe of Star Trek Online, which is incompatible with the current Trek novel continuity anyway.

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

We don't know that.

Actually we do. The divergence from ENT is the moment the narada appears. We can't be sure what effects this will have on the future, but the past we can be certain. Admiral Archer would agree that all those things happened.

I'm not talking about the Narada. That's obvious. We *know* that caused the timeline to diverge. I'm referring to all those other things - the Xindi attack, the Borg in "Regeneration", the events of "Shockwave", etc. There is no evidence that those things didn't always happen. I don't care what Daniels says.

I'm pretty sure there was a huge ass war with the Romulans

A huge ass war would probably involve the 'Kardashians'.

 

[Omega_Glory]

There is strong evidence for an alternate reality rather than an alternate timeline.

1)The fact that Spock and his ship didn't physically change or change location when Nero went into the black hole. There was no temporal wake or other technobabble present to refute this.

2) The USS Kelvin is massively differnent than anything seen in TOS or any other series that shows ships from TOS timeframe.

3)The events after the Kelvin change way too dramatically. Just because Starfleet lost a ship out in space doesn't account for the changes shown.

4)Delta Vega is a planet a very long ways away from Vulcan. Delta Vega is near the energy barrier where the Valliant was lost. (Where No Man Has Gone Before).

5)Transwarp beaming....up to light years away???? This was never shown in any series to my knowlege. Why would they need ships if they can beam from planet to planet.

And there's probably others.

 

[superdeluxe]

A huge ass war would probably involve the 'Kardashians'.

I'd pay to see that

 

[Peter the Younger]

...Let's be honest, there was no real way to reconcile 'bumpy' versus 'non-bumpy' Romulans, Vulcans, Klingons or others in any truly believable way...

ENTERPRISE did it in an entirely satisfying way, and made everything make sense, as far as the Klingons were concerned.

As for the Romulans, I've always suspected something similar happened to them.

TNG made it clear they'd suddenly "disappeared" from galactic involvement for unknown reasons decades earlier, and by their own admission this was because they'd had "things to take care of".

This opens up many possibilities.

[Pictures Billions of Romulans looking into the mirror one morning, to find they now have bumpy foreheads...]

"Well I can't go out like this!"

----------------

I like the idea that the Augment virus spread all over the place. In fact, don't even think of it as a virus; think of it as an inoculation against short-sighted makeup decisions.

As for parallels vs. alternates, I have no problem with the idea that what we thought we knew about time travel (and what the characters thought they knew) in older Trek was just plain wrong. For my money, quantum branching time travel makes far more sense than those silly "temporal waves", which never had any basis in science.

 

[Peter the Younger]

I'm pretty sure there was a huge ass war with the Romulans before TOS in the "prime 1966" worldline. Also I am sure the Vulcans remember when the Romulans left Vulcan.

Also Archer encounter the Romulans (once again they never seen them on the viewscreen).

True. But as much as I love "Balance of Terror" (it premiered on my birthday, I have to love it) I roll my eyes at the Spock's description of a war fought with "primitive atomic weapons" with negotiations conducted over subspace radio. (Yeah, a big ol' war, great big battles, yet you never glimpse one of their bodies, even once?) Not to mention the fact that the Romulan ship didn't have warp drive. Yeah, I know, we have come up with ways to explain all this, tying ourselves - and Trek history - into knots. But the truth is, the episode is badly dated. It's also a prime example of the silly straight jacket canon had become. ENT did it's best, but it was getting a little nuts.

 

[aelius]

Transwarp Beaming. Canon...
The Dominion had transporters with a range of several LY. Dukat used one to beam Kira from DS9 to Empok Nor.

 

[Peter the Younger]

Transwarp Beaming. Canon...
The Dominion had transporters with a range of several LY. Dukat used one to beam Kira from DS9 to Empok Nor.

Sure. I'm fine with Orci's excuse on this one - it's just too dangerous in the 23rd century, for whatever reason. Maybe Spock put something into the equation that Scotty can't replicate, maybe they just don't have the computer power to do it reliably, maybe it only worked because they had exact specs on the Enterprise and the data on her warp fields, or whatever.

 

[Sharr Khan]

In all honesty, I just don't care. Personally the whole alternate universe stuff doesn't matter to me in the slightest. I wanted to be entertained. And I was. All Star Trek timelines are fictional by definition anyway. So I don't see why I should be bothered if it was one or the other.

Of course, other mileages will vary.

Seconded! No let me triple that agreement!

My biggest issue: the movie was too short, and Anton Yelchin's Russian accent, certainly good and no doubt accurate but I found it a tad grating...

Sharr

 

[Overgeeked]

There is strong evidence for an alternate reality rather than an alternate timeline.

1)The fact that Spock and his ship didn't physically change or change location when Nero went into the black hole. There was no temporal wake or other technobabble present to refute this.

2) The USS Kelvin is massively differnent than anything seen in TOS or any other series that shows ships from TOS timeframe.

3)The events after the Kelvin change way too dramatically. Just because Starfleet lost a ship out in space doesn't account for the changes shown.

4)Delta Vega is a planet a very long ways away from Vulcan. Delta Vega is near the energy barrier where the Valliant was lost. (Where No Man Has Gone Before).

5)Transwarp beaming....up to light years away???? This was never shown in any series to my knowlege. Why would they need ships if they can beam from planet to planet.

And there's probably others.

In our modern understanding of quantum physics, there is, properly, no such thing as an alternate timeline. When time travel is involved it's really just shifting dimensions, they always end up in an alternate reality.

Yes, this flies in the face of everything we've learned about time travel from the Trek universe in the last 40+ years, but hey, there it is.

 

[Overgeeked]

Seconded! No let me triple that agreement!

My biggest issue: the movie was too short, and Anton Yelchin's Russian accent, certainly good and no doubt accurate but I found it a tad grating...

Sharr

Actually, no. The accent is effectively an ethnic slur to Russians. There is no "w" sound in the Russian language. The Russian language does have "v"s however, and so they typically pronounce "w" words as "v" words, thus Washington becomes Vashington.

And anyone notice he's got perfect "v"s when he tells the captain his name, but magically can't pronounce his passcode. Vladimir Putin. Vladivostock. The Russians have "v"s people. No "w"s though.

This has pissed me off since the beginning of Trek.

 

[Sharr Khan]

Seconded! No let me triple that agreement!

My biggest issue: the movie was too short, and Anton Yelchin's Russian accent, certainly good and no doubt accurate but I found it a tad grating...

Sharr

Actually, no. The accent is effectively an ethnic slur to Russians. There is no "w" sound in the Russian language. The Russian language does have "v"s however, and so they typically pronounce "w" words as "v" words, thus Washington becomes Vashington.

And anyone notice he's got perfect "v"s when he tells the captain his name, but magically can't pronounce his passcode. Vladimir Putin. Vladivostock. The Russians have "v"s people. No "w"s though.

This has pissed me off since the beginning of Trek.

Oh didn't know that, just assumed he was being accurate since most of the media stuff I have seen played up Anton Yelchin's Russian heritage. Though like I said I found it a tad grating and for a moment it took me out of the film not sure why.

Sharr

 

[TrekGuide.com]

I'm referring to all those other things - the Xindi attack, the Borg in "Regeneration", the events of "Shockwave", etc. There is no evidence that those things didn't always happen. I don't care what Daniels says.

If everything depicted in "Enterprise" always happened, why did they have to send time travelers back to make sure it happened? That doesn't make any sense. The time travelers were blowing up planets and killing people in order to CHANGE the past. If they wanted the past to stay the same, they could have just stayed home.

When Lt. Yar went back in time in "Yesterday's Enterprise," she changed the past so that the new timeline would be DIFFERENT than her future, thus preventing the Federation-Klingon war.

When Admiral Janeway went back in time in "Endgame," and got the Voyager back to Earth 20 years early, that obviously changed the last three decades that she remembered from her original timeline.

And when the Borg went back in time to assimilate Earth in "First Contact," we know for a fact that Earth was not assimilated in TOS. The Borg went back in time to CHANGE the past, not keep it the same.

TOS took place BEFORE any of these 34 separate acts of time travel altered the past timelines depicted in "Voyager," "First Contact," and "Enterprise."

Not only is the "Enterprise" and "Star Trek XI" timeline different from the original timeline depicted in TOS, but Ambassador Spock and Nero are from the alternate timeline depicted in "Endgame" and "Star Trek: Nemesis" (where Janeway and the Voyager got back to Earth early), so the Ambassador Spock seen in this movie is from that alternate timeline, not the original timeline seen in "Unification, Part II," which itself was an alternate timeline, as evidenced by the presence of Commander Sela, the daughter of Lt. Yar, a time traveler from the "Yesterday's Enterprise" timeline. So the Spock in "Unification, Part II" is in a different timeline from the Spock we last saw in "Star Trek VI."

So the last three times we have seen Spock, each has been in an alternate timeline, plus the fourth alternate Spock played by Quinto in this movie.

In our modern understanding of quantum physics, there is, properly, no such thing as an alternate timeline. When time travel is involved it's really just shifting dimensions, they always end up in an alternate reality.

Yes, this flies in the face of everything we've learned about time travel from the Trek universe in the last 40+ years, but hey, there it is.

Everything we've learned about time travel from "Star Trek" over 40 years has been arbitrary and inconsistent. From a couple episodes, you might infer that there is only one timeline that is continually erased and overwritten like a blackboard (like in "Back to the Future"). But other episodes are consistent with alternate timelines as depicted in this movie, such as "Endgame." Plus there are many other examples of alternate realities, such as the Mirror Universe and all the alternate timelines depicted in "Parallels."

Obviously, the hundreds of writers who have worked on "Star Trek" over the years have just been making it up as they went along. There has NEVER been a time travel rule book,

This movie did not introduce anything surprising or new. It's just another time travel story that may or may not be consistent with past time travel stories.

 

[Overgeeked]

In our modern understanding of quantum physics, there is, properly, no such thing as an alternate timeline. When time travel is involved it's really just shifting dimensions, they always end up in an alternate reality.

Yes, this flies in the face of everything we've learned about time travel from the Trek universe in the last 40+ years, but hey, there it is.

Everything we've learned about time travel from "Star Trek" over 40 years has been arbitrary and inconsistent. From a couple episodes, you might infer that there is only one timeline that is continually erased and overwritten like a blackboard (like in "Back to the Future"). But other episodes are consistent with alternate timelines as depicted in this movie, such as "Endgame." Plus there are many other examples of alternate realities, such as the Mirror Universe and all the alternate timelines depicted in "Parallels."

Obviously, the hundreds of writers who have worked on "Star Trek" over the years have just been making it up as they went along. There has NEVER been a time travel rule book,

This movie did not introduce anything surprising or new. It's just another time travel story that may or may not be consistent with past time travel stories.

The majority of time travel episodes, and films, have introduced an altered past that needed fixing, implying that there was a single timeline that needed fixin'. In that sense, yes there is a book on how time travel works (see note). And yes, as you stated there are a few examples of it working in other ways. And more on point, it's more likely that there was a book on it.

Note: All TV shows have a season / series bible that explains what the show's about (in broad strokes), over-arching themes, and how particular issues are dealt with. In SF shows, things like the tech are often explicitly handled. And in Trek, it's a safer assumption to make that they did in fact approach the topic in the shows bibles.

 

[USS Renegade]

I mentioned this in another post.

http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=93438

But to sum up... The Kelvin had the Delta insignia, BEFORE the Nero temporal incursion. The Delta was unique to Kirk's Enterprise until sometime between TOS and TMP. This is backed up by TOS and DS9, so the Kelvin having the now-standard Delta infers that the Trek XI universe was an alternate reality to begin with.