[SPOILER WARNING!!! If you have not seen the new Star Trek film yet, please stop reading as the plot is extensively discussed. You have been warned!]
Now that we know how the new Star Trek film handles the continuity issues, what exactly does it all mean and what are the greater implications to not just the original series, but the greater Trek mythos as a whole? I freely admit I may be the only one who really cares, but the more I started thinking about what this new timeline meant, the more it spiralled out of control. So, I decided to take a stroll through established Star Trek history and was surprised at all the events, large and small, that are affected as a result of two actions on Nero’s part. It all starts in the time of Mark Twain.
Time May Change Me, But I Can’t Trace Time
Chronologically the crew of the Enterprise-D make the first appearance on Earth via time travel in 1893. Should the Next Generation crew never make this journey I speculate that Guinan would have eventually become aware of the Davidians insidious plans and found a way to defeat them (“Time’s Arrow, Part I” and “Time’s Arrow, Part II”). Next we turn to Kirk and crew’s visits to contemporary Earth. Their earliest visit is to 1930, as depicted in “The City on the Edge of Forever.” There is no issue here, for if the Enterprise were to never encounter the Guardian of Forever then a drugged McCoy will never use it to go back and prevent the death of Edith Keeler. Likewise, their next two appearances in the twentieth century, 1968 (“Tomorrow is Yesterday”) and 1969 (“Assignment: Earth”) can also not occur with no disruption to history. In the former the ship’s appearance began the very problems the crew eventually had to resolve while in the latter Gary Seven could have definitely completed his assignment without assistance (or hindrance, as the case may be) from the Starfleet personnel. The Original Series crew next appears in 1986, attempting to procure a humpback whale and return with it to the 23rd Century (Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home). We’ll look at the event that lead to this trip later, but should Kirk, Spock, McCoy et al never take a Klingon ship back to this time history will march on none the wiser. The extinction of humpback whales was reported as happening long before the Kelvin encountered Nero so two more of the animals are, sadly, unlikely to alter that. The next visit to the 20th Century was Voyager appearing in 1996 (“Future’s End, Part I” and “Future’s End, Part II”). That, and the Ferengi visit to 1947 (“Little Green Men”) both are events that have no significant impact on history should they not occur.
In 2024 a time lost Benjamin Sisko took the place of Gabriel Bell, an important historical figure. As Bell was arguably killed due to Sisko and Julian Bashir’s presence during that time, then history would actually continue its normal course should the alternate universe cause them not to journey to the past (“Past Tense, Part I” and “Past Tense, Part II”). While writing this article I realize that this new timeline may actually “fix” several situations where the various Trek characters have screwed up their own timeline forcing them to go to extreme lengths to insure that not only does their presence remain undocumented, but that events still unfold as they should. But I digress. Our next stop along the timeline is a very crucial event, 2063 and Zephrem Cochrane’s historical warp drive test. Borg incursion notwithstanding, it would seem that Picard and his officers played a crucial part in not only convincing Cochrane in making hist first flight, but in preparing the ship (Star Trek: First Contact). Would time arrange for another gentle nudge for Cochrane? Since Starfleet and the UFP still exist, we must assume that either Cochrane plucked up the courage himself or things self-corrected.
But Still The Days Seem The Same
There are three events that happen in the late 20th Century/early 21st Century that should still occur that could possibly have an impact later on. Voyager VI gets launched meaning V’Ger still returns in 2273 (Star Trek: The Motion Picture). Khan Noonien Singh and the crew of the sleeper ship Botany Bay escape Earth in 1996 to begin their 271 years of drifting in suspended animation (“Space Seed” and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan). Lastly, Jackson Roykirk still launches the Nomad probe in 2002, setting it on its course to merge with the alien probe Tan Ru and eventually murder four billion beings in the Malurian System sixty-five years later (“The Changeling”). These are all events that occur prior to Nero’s altering of the timeline, so they all three should still happen. There is nothing preventing the first one and the third is dependent upon being noticed by someone, although four billion deaths would be a little hard to ignore and we must assume that Nomad/Tan Ru would not have stopped there. As for Khan and his followers, it all depends on whether or not Starbase 12, or a similar such station, is ever constructed in the sector where their ship was adrift. Technically they could just continue along, asleep and unnoticed, until the Botany Bay used up all its power.
The only series that is completely unaffected by this new timeline is Star Trek: Enterprise. It’s possible that the episodes “In A Mirror, Darkly” and “In A Mirror, Darkly, Part II” have been negated, however they both take place entirely in the Mirror Universe with no interaction with the main universe. The Temporal Cold War involved factions from the 28th-31st Centuries and featured fluidly changing possible futures, so I think it is reasonable to assume that it still occurred and affected events during the series as depicted. This includes the Enterprise’s trip to 1944 (“Storm Front” and “Storm Front, Part II”) and Archer and T’Pol’s visit to 2004 (“Carpenter Street”). Indeed, the only series other than the original, and obliquely The Next Generation, to get a direct reference is the prequel series with Scotty’s line about Admiral Archer’s favorite beagle. The Romulan War and the founding of the United Federation of Planets should still occur unimpeded as does the Horizon leaving the book Chicago Mobs of the Twenties behind on Sigma Iotia II (“A Piece of the Action”).
Just Gonna Have To Be A Different Man
This leads us to Nero’s arrival in the 23rd Century and he immediately changes things. The USS Kelvin is destroyed, killing George Kirk. This singular event significantly alters the life of James T. Kirk and seems to have other ramifications as well. Beginning with Kirk, it seems without his father’s influence he turned out to be a thrill-seeking, rebellious young man. It’s doubtful he was on the Tarsus IV colony to witness the massacre perpetrated by Governor Kodos (“The Conscience of the King”). Kirk now doesn’t enter Starfleet Academy until 2255, five years later than he originally did. This means he doesn’t get hazed by Finnegan (“Shore Leave”) and doesn’t meet Gary Mitchell (“Where No Man Has Gone Before”). It’s possible John Gill could still have been influential teacher to him (“Patterns of Force”), but Ben Finney would have already been assigned to the Republic, which Kirk would have never served aboard (“Court Martial”). Likewise, Kirk did not serve as tactical officer aboard the Farragut meaning that he never visits Neural and befriends Tyree in 2255 (“A Private Little War”), nor is he aboard the ship when it encounters the cloud creature at Tycho IV (if it ever does) (“Obsession”). The Axanar peace mission would have been conducted without the young cadet Kirk. Kirk becomes captain of the Enterprise almost seven years earlier than in the original timeline. None of this rules out the possibility of Kirk meeting Carol Marcus, so David Marcus could still be born.
Curiously, the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 launches much later than it did in the original timeline. Robert April never commanded the ship and Christopher Pike served as her skipper for a lot less than the original eleven years. Pike, having likely distinguished himself elsewhere is now a fleet Admiral after captaining the Enterprise on its maiden voyage. Whether or not he will avoid his fateful encounter with delta radiation in a few years remains to be seen. The ship also seems to be more advanced technologically then it was originally. My speculation on that is after the Kelvin’s ill-fated encounter with a mysterious ship of clearly advanced design, Starfleet accelerated its research and development and made bolder advancements in starship design and equipment. Also, while events have changed in the lives of all Kirk’s crew to bring them together on the Enterprise much earlier than in the unaltered timeline, there isn’t enough known about their individual pasts to be able to say what’s different. That is, except for a certain Vulcan with a human mother.
Spock’s history up through his graduation from Starfleet Academy remains unchanged. He does not serve as Pike’s science officer for eleven years due to the late launch of Enterprise and Pike’s early promotion (“The Cage”, “The Menagerie, Part I” and “The Menagerie, Part II”). The major events for Spock in this new timeline are the destruction of Vulcan and the death of his mother. Interestingly, those two events result in some positive developments for the half-Vulcan/half-human. He and his father, Sarek, reconcile much sooner than the eighteen years it took originally (“Journey to Babel”). Perhaps even more importantly, Sarek’s blatant admission to having loved Amanda plus the tremendous emotion turmoil he was forced to come to terms with have apparently helped Spock reconcile his two sides fairly rapidly. The fact that Spock is willing to openly engage in a romantic relationship with Uhura is evidence of this. I think his conversation with his counterpart from the future only helped in further understanding how his emotional and logical halves could compliment each other. I think we’ll see a much more assured and less conflicted Spock going forward.
Pretty Soon Now You’re Gonna Get A Little Older
It is impossible to fully speculate how things play out for the characters of the original series going forward or for the generations to come, although it’s reasonable to assume that things will proceed in the general direction we’ve seen. However, the destruction of Vulcan raises a point worth speculating on. Considering that the UFP will become much more human-centric now it is easy to imagine that tensions with the Klingon Empire will continue for many, many years and possibly even heighten. This makes it unlikely that the Federation and the Empire will sign the sign the Khitomer Accords in 2293 (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country). At the same time, consider all the work the future Spock has done towards re-unifying his people with their long-lost brethren, the Romulans (“Unification, Part I” and “Unification, Part II”). Considering there are only approximately 10,000 Vulcans remaining, unification with the Romulans would be one course of action to consider. It’s possible that unification would succeed and have a positive unfluence on the reclusive Empire to the effect that it could be the Romulans that end up signing a peace accord with the Federation instead of the Klingons. That could even mean a Romulan instead of Worf serves aboard Picard’s Enterprise-D, or whatever Enterprise model Jean-Luc commands. That or I’m just getting crazy with speculation.
You’ve Left Us Up To Our Necks In It
No matter what events transpire in future films sequels, television series and/or novels based in this new timeline I, for one, am excited by the possibilities. Anything can happen at this point and, while some it may seem familiar, the Star Trek universe is no longer the same. The great thing about this new alternate universe is that new stories can be told without being beholden to over forty years of continuity. At the same time, since this is an alternate timeline, all the adventures that we know and love so well have still and will still occur. Nothing invalidates them and they can be watched or read anytime. To be honest, I’ve felt that Star Trek as it was had shoe-horned as many stories into the original five year mission as it possibly could and, if tales would going to be told about Kirk and Co., something needed to be done to accommodate them. J. J. Abrams, Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof have come up with a most elegant solution. It is not a reboot, it is not a reimagining, but a bold new direction full of exciting possibilities. Star Trek is firmly in their capable hands and I can’t wait to see what they do with it next.
On May 11, 2009, Christopher Valin said:
This is a great article, and you’re definitely not the only one who thought about this. In fact, I was thinking about doing the same thing, and you saved me a lot of research. Thanks! I completely agree with you about this being a brilliant solution.
P.S. One thing, though…could you possibly edit out all the apostrophes in the possessive “its?” As a nit-picky proofreader, it burns my eyes to read them! :)
On May 11, 2009, ken1w said:
Interesting things to consider, just for fun. However, consider this… Spock Prime knows the future in his timeline. And he is alive and doing just fine at the end of the film. Does he warn the Federation leadership about all the galactic-threat events that will still happen, with or without the altered timeline? Things like the Doomsday Machine, Nomad, V’ger, the humpback whale probe, the Borg, the Dominion, etc.
Is it logical for Spock to give warnings? Or does he consider it more logical to shut up and let things happen for fear of doing more harm than good, due to unintended consequences.
On May 12, 2009, figmillenium said:
Doesn’t Kirk now know everything Spock Prime knows too?
On May 12, 2009, Specialist Grate said:
You missed one important detail: the revelation of the Romulans to the Federation.
On May 12, 2009, Craig Mckenzie said:
You raise some interesting points but You forget some fundamental things.
Judging by the fact that Nero’s meddling creates an alternate reality does that not suggest that every time time travel happens in Star Trek an alternate reality is created?
For instance in First Contact when Picard and the Enterprise E travel back in time. Before they travel back in time they exist in a universe where there was no meddling at the events of First Contact but when they travel back in time, nudge the events in the right direction then return to the future they in fact return to the future of that alternate reality where the difference is that the Enterprise was there in the past.
Several things may have changed because of this. For example the design of Enterprise may be completely based on what Cochrane saw through the telescope as well as the name so the first Warp 5 ship may have had a completely different name and design in the universe where the Enterprise E wasn’t there at First Contact. Also in the Universe where First Contact wasn’t changed the Borg wouldn’t have returned frozen in the ice decades later.
It’s similar for any instance of time travel, when the crew return they return to a slightly alternate reality where they travelled back in time. It makes sense if you think about it and accomodates almost every canon inconsistency in Star Trek.
So lets assume that when Enterprise ends that universe goes on unchanged until we get to Nero attacking the Kelvin, until that point there was going to be a slightly alternate version of the Original Series anyway, how alternate we cannot say but that universe if it had continued would next be seen by the viewer in Insurrection and Nemesis that we know of so the universe continues mostly as normal.
Moving onto the Nero factor. When he changes the early life of James T Kirk and creates a different start to the Original series it accomodates for all canon errors in the movie, the destruction of Vulcan is a bold move as it shows that there are no rules in this alternate reality and that anything can happen. It will be interesting to see how this reality pans out and how drastically events are alterred.
Another point to confuse you. Voyager and Deep Space 9 are set in different universes some of the time.
Deep Space 9’s first instance of time travel is when Sisko becomes Gabriel Bell. Since the viewer is watching Voyager in the Delta Quadrant then it’s reasonable to assume that Sisko’s return to his alternate present doesn’t affect the viewer’s voyager meaning that they exist in an alternate reality where Sisko didn’t become Gabriel Bell which means that Deep Space 9 (had it continued) would have had a different version of Voyager’s return from the Delta Quadrant.
I hope i’ve suitably confused everyone as much as I’ve confused myself. I look forward to reading comments on my theory.
On May 12, 2009, Martin Handrlica said:
To the last comment, DS9 and Voy were not in different universes, they were only in different quadrants of the galaxy. If a time traveller changed something in one show it was also changed in the other one. Meaning, with the Bell example at the time when the timeline wasn’t corrected there was no starship Voyager in Delta quadrant. If the episode of DS9 would play on the same time as an episode of Voy, then Voyager would have disappeard.
Also I think that this new Star Trek move is not an timeline created by time travell, but was and alternate/parallel to begin with. Therefore we may learn that there were no Eugenic wars, no Probe sent to look for whales, there is probably no wormhole in Bajor system and so on…
On May 12, 2009, Mike Licht said:
The new Star Trek film is TOO horrible. The food is ALL wrong!
See:
http://notionscapital.wordpress.com/2009/05/10/intergalactic-eats/
On May 12, 2009, Boulent said:
Does this also mean Tuvok has passed away?
On May 12, 2009, Kevin Canty said:
In regards to Craig’s comment: I do not think every instance of time travel in Star Trek creates an alternate reality.
Let’s deal with First Contact and the Borg incursion first. When the Enterprise follows the Sphere back in time, it sees it’s reality change outside of the temporal distortion field. The Earth suddenly changes, in front of their eyes, from the homeworld of the Federation to a Borg planet populated by over 9 billion drones. This change in and of itself suggests that reality remains constant (though the details altered) after time travel. Otherwise, when the Sphere traveled back in time the Earth would not have changed outside of the vortex, but rather the future Earth of that alternate reality would have. To expand further on this particular event, Riker and his away team play a pivotal role in the successful flight of the Phoenix. Now, it could be debated that their help would not have been necessary if the Sphere hadn’t bombarded the launch site, but also consider this: in the Mirror Universe, Trek’s most prolific alternate reality up to this point, Cochrane attacks the Vulcans when they land because he thinks they are alien invaders. In First Contact, Cochrane states that he had developed warp technology for the money, not for the altruistic ideals that the Federation would later represent. One could make an argument that Cochrane, who as a drunk and opportunist is far less than the idealized human hero the Enterprise crew remember from their history books, only became that hero as a result of the influence of the Enterprise crew. Cochrane may never have thought that warp flight could change the world so drastically, (and living in a post-apocalyptic slum it’s probably hard to be THAT optimistic about a new form of travel) but the Enterprise crew gave him foreknowledge of his potential. Perhaps the point of divergence in the Mirror Universe is the lack of a Borg incursion and subsecuent Federation counter-incursion during this event. (Now, I realize that OTHER parts of the Mirror Universe seem to be more brutal prior to First Contact, but the only examples given on screen are things that COULD be revised after the fact: Shakespeare can be made more brutal and entertaining as a response to changing cultural values, the history of the Terran Empire can be made to appear to reach back further than it actually did for the sake of seeming more impressive, and so on. Such revisions would not be unprecedented for regimes of this type.)
The second Borg incident caused by First Contact is also explained better by a continuous reality than an alternate one. In “Regeneration,” the Borg send a message to the Delta Quadrant which would arrive at approximately the era of “Q Who” and “The Best of Both Worlds.” This explains why the Borg were scooping up planets around the Romulan Neutral Zone in “The Neutral Zone” and why they were so interested in the Enterprise when it first arrived in front of their cube in “Q Who.” Consider that the Borg allowed the “Raven” to shadow a cube for a very long time because as a single ship, they were of no interest to the Borg until they developed technology capable of eluding Borg sensors. Why then, do they immediately attack the Enterprise? The Borg clearly have more advanced technology than the Federation in all regards that we have seen (weapons, shields, tractor beams, nano-technology, ship repair, medical technology, replicators, force fields, etc). The only thing the Enterpise had that they may not have is Data, but they didn’t even go after Data until First Contact so that’s a moot point. This interest in a single ship is uncommon for the Borg, and it’s likely that the message they received from the Alpha Quadrant in “Regeneration” explains this. Those Borg had the memories of Picard from his assimilation in “The Best of Both Worlds” and so would know that he once commanded the Enterprise-D before his then-current Enterprise-E. Since the timeline for the Borg receiving the message fits and their clandestine actions in the Neutral Zone suggest they had received it, it is likely the Borg recognized the Enterprise from the message and sought to investigate and then assimilate it in order to prevent their future defeats at the Federation’s hands. Interestingly enough, this makes the attack on the Enterprise in “Q Who” a pre-emptive action against the Federation along the same vein as the attempt to assimilate Earth in First Contact; certainly fitting the modus operandi of the Borg. It also creates a causality loop regarding the Borg’s interest in Picard becoming Locutus in “The Best of Both Worlds” (the Borg know he has already thwarted them twice so far, added to the obvious appeal of him being the captain of the flagship of the Federation, assimilating him is in line with their attempts to improve themselves by bringing their adversary into the fold and learning from his knowledge).
Now, I won’t go into as much detail with all of the other time travel events in the various Star Trek franchises, but it’s obvious in careful watching of those episodes that it makes sense that there is a continuous reality being represented. The only change that occured in the past that had no explored impact on the present of the respective series or film was when Scotty gave the manufacturing engineer the formula for transparent aluminum. Scotty speculates that that person may have been the one to invent the stuff anyways (and suggests in his statement that the inventor of this critical material is of little note historically as Scotty has no knowledge of who the actual inventor is despite knowing the formula itself by heart).
In general, time travel in Star Trek seems to cause causality loops like this one. The Borg travel back in time, leading the Federation to essentially help lay the framework for it’s own society and giving the Borg the chance to inform themselves about a threat in the Alpha Quadrant that they would later investigate. Scotty gives an engineer the formula for a material in the past, but the inventor is of no historical note, which leads to the formula existing in Scotty’s era for him to learn it in the first place. Benjamin Sisko travels back in time and meets a historical figure, only to have to become that figure after an unfortunate demise and then actually doing the things this figure was in the history books for.
There are also a lot of “zero sum” time travel episodes, many appear in Voyager’s run and “All Good Things…” is an example, where we see a self contained event that is undone during the course of the episode that therefore never happened in the first place and therefore changes nothing in the timeline.
I think I’ve given a pretty indepth analysis of my case for a continuous Trek universe here. The best example and the easiest to point to without lengthy discussion is the change to Earth seen outside of the temporal vortex in First Contact, if it changed it couldnt be an alternate reality. The more indepth analysis of the causality loops provides answers for essentially all of the other time travel instances that don’t fit into the “zero sum” category.
I would very much like to hear what others think on this issue as well.
On May 12, 2009, AT-AT DRIVER said:
I have read the above with interest, but can anyone explain why the USS Kelvin seemed more advanced than the original USS Enterprise (TOS) and why Vulcan now has or should I say had a blue sky?
Is Spock Prime from the original Star Trek timeline anyway or from another one?
If they hadn’t used Leonard Nimoy to play Spock would this debate exist as I think we would all agree that this movie is a reboot or could it be that Nero went back in time prior to destroying the USS Kelvin therefore altering the timeline before hand and as a result changed the technology of the timeline.
Beem me up Scotty as I’m confused
On May 12, 2009, David said:
I have a question, now that Vulcan has been destroyed, won’t that affect everything? Without Vulcan, Spock cannot return there in TOS for his Pon Far Ritual. Also, without Vulcan and the proper Vulcan’s, can Spock truly return to his body after Star Trek 2? What about the bridge crew of the Enterprise in Star Trek 3 and 4? Where are they going to find refuge, if not Vulcan? And will Lt. Saavik still exist? What about all the Vulcans who would have served on starships who know won’t exist? How about the final season of TNG in which Picard pretends to be a mercenary and returns to the planet Vulcan to see the assembly of the Vulcan phsyionic resonator? Will Tuvok still exist? What about the Nebula class ship of Vulcans that challenged Sisko and his crew to a baseball game? Doesn’t all of this change every course of action in the timeline that we know and wipe the slate clean? Without the planet Vulcan, it inhabitants, and all of the potential offspring, everything will have changed significantly.
On May 12, 2009, moebius said:
On Kirk’s age:
The Kelvin was destroyed approximately 25 years prior to the events of Star Trek, which means Kirk entered Starfleet at 22 and graduated (a year early) at 25. I would assume that Starfleet takes cadets at 18 and that it takes them 4 years to graduate. So Kirk entered 4 years late (he’s also old enough to drink, though that law may have changed on Earth by the 21st Century).
In TOS, Kirk was given command of the Enterprise at 29. In the AU, Kirk becomes captain at 25.
On May 12, 2009, moebius said:
On the Movies and the Borg: Right now, the only confrontations that are guaranteed to happen are the V’Ger probe (either because the Federation finds it early or it comes to Earth on schedule) and the Probe (making its way back for a routine checkup on Earth’s whales).
The crew may or may not meet Khan (I suspect that they will), the Genesis device may or may not be created, the mining disaster triggering the Undiscovered Country may or may not happen, Spock’s half-brother may or may not begin an insurrection (now that Vulcans have to stick together), Soran may or may not enter the nexus, etc…
The Borg presence in the past is the result of Q’s interaction with the crew of the Enterprise in “Q Who”, which is no longer guaranteed to have happened (as there is no guarantee Picard will be born or that Q will interact with the Federation in the same way). The probe therefore won’t go back in time in First Contact and drones won’t be left over for “Regeneration” to send the message to the Delta quadrant.
On May 12, 2009, Reboot Bloke said:
Nothing in old Star Trek applies here as the film is a reboot that just features Leonard Nimoy to play Spock once more, but it’s not the old spock from the original franchise. James Bond also featured Judi Dench from the original 007 timeline, and Superman Returns includes footage of Brando recycled from Superman The Movie. It’s a reboot!, if Suart Baird hadn’t made such a mess of Star Trek: Nemesis (let’s face it he had no idea) & Rick Berman hadn’t milked Star Trek to death (starting with the horrid Voyager series) we may have had a Star Trek movie that would have fit in with the past movies/series. Let’s hope this reboot series stays true to the spirit of the original.
I hate the new Enterprise it looks stupid, apart from that a good reboot film
On May 12, 2009, W said:
Not really a nitpick, but more of a question/observation. Is it actually necessary to explain why technology is so much more advanced in the new timeline? Because taking the concern to its logical conclusion, aren’t we just asking why the Kelvin, for example, doesn’t look like it was built in the 1960s?
On May 12, 2009, Patrick said:
I would point out that although the characters assume that time-travel has occurred, thereby creating an alternate history, it is entirely possible that Nero and “Spock-Prime” may have entered an alternate reality similar to the mirror universe. It makes more sense given the sweeping changes in the timeline and in the appearance of the crew and locations.
On May 12, 2009, GIRAUD said:
LMAO, talk about geeks.
Ok, me too.
From what I understand this is a different reality Nero and Spock V01 accidentally stranded in, another dimension, so to speak.
Here’s proof for ya:
1. Beaming looks different.
2. Steadycams haven’t been invented in this dimension.
3. Babylon 5 never was produced in this reality, so lensflares are still a big thing.
4. They already have invented 10 dimensional spaces (this Enterprise’s engine room is 3-4 times the height and area the hull actually permits)
5. Spock has a dik
6. Uhura uses Spock’s dik to be assigned
7. Wynona Ryder rides a vulcan and nobody laughs
8. Scotty is flushed through a ton of potentially radio-active cooling fluid and everybody laughs
9. Chekov kills Terminators, travels through time, hops Sarah Connor to spawn Jesus, but still can’t speak without heavy accent after years of academy?
10. Space without sound…only sometimes?
So, you see, the new Trek is set in a different dimension, that’s all. Think DC Elseworlds.
All the later events may happen (adjusting for Vulcan’s demise), or not.
There may even not exist any Borg in this Universe, so Picard (who in this Universe also may never exist)..
Ahh well, all in good fun.
It’s a pity, though.
With the destruction of the World Trade Center…..Uhhhhh….I mean…Vulcan, the future Federation in this reality will be more oriented to defense and attack than to research and exploration.
Good thing we now have a Kirk and Spock who gleefully pump 20 photon torpedos into a defeated enemy’s ship…while it’s being sucked into a black hole, nontheless, LOL.
Seriously, after Cloverfield and TDK how many more genre movies will milk the moviegoers 9/11 sensibilities before anyone notices what a cheap trick terrorist mass destruction has become in recent movies? And to (ab)use that sensibility to justify killing helpless enemies???
I don’t know what it is, but certainly not Star Trek..
On May 12, 2009, Nick said:
I think you maybe wrong on the whole what doesnt happen part
anyhting before 2233 (begining of the new film)is now the alternate universe but anyhting before that is canon in both the prime and alternate universe’s
SO the “enterprise” series happend in both realities!
and so did all the time traveling from the prime reality
im sure DATA’s head is still back there in that cave in san fransico
and Sisko’s picture is labeled as “gabriel bell” is starfleet archives.
this may seem confusing but if the new enterprise has to go back intime for some reason they will go back to a time before the divergence
but thats what the writer will have to figure out what cannoncal
one other reason i belive it to be true
when voyager got trapped in the past (1996) Starling stole that time ship from the 29th century and used it to make the technological leap from the 1970’s to the 1990’s
so without that incident the future would be totally different
(no eurgenics no ww3 no cocrane warp drive etc)
and i think the writers shouldnt do a few things
1 dont forget the klingons for the next 20 odd year will still need to be played primarilly without ridges (like in the old series)
so if we see them remember this
2 dont forget anything not dependent on fereration interaction will still happen
ie vger probe the whale probe
Odo and Lass in a bucket nearing the wormhole
any species Voyager encountered should have there same pasts
and the Prophets would still need there Emissary to “complete his task”(destroy the book of the KOSST AMOJAN)
whether or not this is BEN SISKO is determinded if his grandparents were not killed on any new incidents
obvioulsly the 24 century characters arnt needed for much much later discusion!!
3 fix all these problems people bring up by telling audiance that Spock Prime (which he probly did anyway why have so many more tragieties when they can be prevented in a way that doesnt hurt history) gave them the info on the probes and khan and the borg dominion etc and just make some new stories with klingons and such
it would end all serious/silly debates with fans and open the plot lines for better stories than redoing everyhting again!
On May 12, 2009, sheepskin said:
OK isn’t the biggest difference the destruction of Vulcan? That would be a huuuge change to history. Aside from geopolitical impact on the galaxy, it would mean most if not all the prominent Vulcans in the future never existed…
On May 12, 2009, Tim Thomason said:
Let’s go through this chronologically:
The first 20 episodes (“The Cage” to “Arena”) could be butterflied away if the Enterprise isn’t in the vicinity, and aren’t particularly important anyway. According to deleted scenes, Nero helped out the Romulans technologically, so they wouldn’t need to do their covert operations of “Balance of Terror” in 2266 (of course this means more aggressive Romulans prior to that time).
“The Alternative Factor” features the characters of Anti-Lazarus and Lazarus, who are time travelers from the past (likely long before 2233). If it wasn’t for Kirk, they might never have fought each other in the “negative magnetic corridor” thus preventing both the matter universe and the anti-matter universe from being destroyed.
Thus, Spock Prime’s actions have destroyed the universe! I just have to hope that Anti-Lazarus was able to do the job without Kirk, or more likely Spock showed up in a shuttlecraft to handle the situation and explain to Anti-Lazarus what to do.
Nothing universe or galaxy-destroying happens in the next fourteen episodes. Sure, Landru remains in charge on his planet, and the Eminiar-Vendikar War continues in its crazy way. The Horta’s a goner, and Klingons might declare war (although I’m sure the Organians’ll stop them anyway). I feel sad for the Denevans and Zefram Cochrane gets to live in ignorant bliss with his “Companion.” When Spock’s pon farr roles around… well we’ve seen a separated Vulcan seek pon farr in Voyager’s “Blood Fever,” so I’m sure he’ll be able to do something similar.
When “The Doomsday Machine” rolls around, well we can only hope that 164-year-old Spock can help out in that situation too (he might be able to save a few planets in the process). Otherwise, Starfleet’ll figure something out after an armada or two are sent to stop it.
After Redjac gets a few more kills unabetted, we get to “The Changeling,” AKA Nomad. It won’t necessarily get to Earth, and might just continue it’s senseless murderous journey through space. The Malurians don’t seem very lucky, but maybe Spock can stop it (although I have a feeling he might not be able to induce a self-destruction).
Vaal retains control, the mirror universe is unaltered (which has major results for the DS9 era), the “Gamesters” continue their kidnapping, gambling ways, and the dikironium cloud still feeds off of human blood (but Kirk doesn’t retain his “obsession” with it, having not been in Starfleet in 2257).
I don’t know how the galaxy can survive the potential replication of the space amoeba, but we can only hope they figure out how to destroy it (them) in time.
The Iotians continue their Mafioso ways, the Kelvans probably never find the ”Enterprise” after their ship is destroyed, so that solve that issue, the Yonada sadly destroys the planet Daran V, the Gideons might not find the plan for their overpopulation (although they could still seek out Kirk), Flint concludes his long-life without realizing his mortality, and Janice Lester never met Kirk in the first place, so no harm done.
That just covers the 3-4 years of TOS. V’Ger, the Whale Probe, the Nexus (Soran is likely from the Delta Quadrant, so unaffected unless his rescue never occurs), the Borg, a bunch of animated series stuff I can’t recall right now, as well as Next Generation (Q’s trial), Deep Space 9 (the Dominion!), and to a small extent Voyager (Omega molecules, anyone?) stuff could also doom the universe, but we can only hope “equally” competent crews can deal with these problems in the new timeline.
On May 13, 2009, Jim Mills said:
Yikes. I don’t think much of this matters to the new hip Star Wars fans writers. All I know is this.
Spock Prime is stuck in the new timeline so what will he do other than help the Vulcans? Reveal information, new technology and future events? He practically knows everything so really he is the most valuable living being in the new timeline. If I was a Romulan or Klingon I’d put a price on his head and bring him in alive to extract all that priceless information from him.
Also there is a really big old chuck of 24-25 Century Mining drill at the bottom of San Fransisco Bay. Starfleet is not going to just leave it there so what kinds of new technologies and information will they get out of that?
Just bring back Kirk and make many happy :)
On May 13, 2009, kevin bleasdale said:
surely the probe from star trek IV would still come to earth wondering why it lost contact?
On May 13, 2009, Kev said:
Kev Bleasdale,
Yes it would! But I guess they’ve got 20 years to wait yet!
If they never get a Klingon Bird Of Prey, how will they go back and get one?
Will Nero win, in that the probe will destroy Earth?
On May 13, 2009, Kev said:
Go back and get a whale that is!
On May 13, 2009, boborci said:
Great article, and thanks for the support!
On May 13, 2009, curson said:
Absolutely compelling to read, a great article and kudos for the outstanding researches you’ve done.
I’m also quite thrilled by the “new alternative reality” thing, the possibilities are really close to be endless. And if this puts renewed energy into the Star Trek franchise, all I can think of is *YAY*!!! ;)
On May 13, 2009, moebius said:
Of course, with Spock there, he can warn the Federation about both V’Ger and the Probe.
He’s really in an interesting position. He knows so much about the future…where does the prime directive fit in?
Also: In TOS universe, the Klingons traded warp to the Romulans for cloaking devices. If Nero gives them warp, there’s no reason for an alliance.
On May 13, 2009, David Baxter said:
No you are not the only one who has thought of this. I just watched it and I’m still trying to digest it. I think there will be a lot of people from Paramount commenting here, about “possibilities” and about how it is “exciting.”
JJ Abrams is an egomaniac and an idiot. Just listen to the commentary on lost, they are just making stuff up all the time. If isn’t “genius” it is just a bunch of intentionally confusing crap. In Star Trek, he wasn’t smart enough to come up with something exciting that sticks to timeline, so he just ignored it. Nevermind 11 movies and 5 television series.
Paramount should really ashamed for letting this go. It isn’t being a “nerd” or being a “trekkie,” It is watching a whole bank of films and television series being destroyed by a hack. (Abrams)
On May 13, 2009, David Baxter said:
And no, nothing in the original movies or series happens any longer. That isn’t how “alternate realities” work in Star Trek. If they did, what’s the big deal about stopping the Borg in “First Contact?”
On May 13, 2009, Joseph Dilworth Jr. said:
Hi Folks,
As the author of this article I just wanted to step in and say thank you for all the comments. I’m glad to see that it has sparked all these discussions and debates. A lot of you bring up some terrific points. I’m thinking I may have to add a section or two at some point to address a couple of things I left out.
Stay tuned and keep checking back as I will have more Trek goodness in the coming weeks!
Thanks,
Joseph Dilworth Jr.
Editor-in-Chief
On May 13, 2009, chkno said:
I still don’t understand the non-involvement of the Department of Temporal Investigations and the Temporal Integrety Commission. One would think that these events would be of interest to those organizations, and that they would have some 29th century firepower available to send back to deal with Nero at his first incursion. They’re supposed to have those fancy shields that prevent their ships from being affected by changes to the timeline.
So, in the canon-is-canon, take-consistency-as-given-and-solve-for-the-rest spirt, what does the failure of these organizations to intervene tell us about the star trek laws of physics, their time-shield technology, etc.?
( http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Temporal_Integrity_Commission )
On May 13, 2009, zeke67 said:
I loved the new movie and would like to see it again and again and again.
I’m of a mind that the new movie is an alternate timeline. It is the only way Spock Prime could still have knowledge of his history and interact with young Spock. If it’s not an alternate timeline then we got some problems. Abrams may have created a “Grandfather Paradox”.
Now here’s the tricky stuff. Think about it, if Vulcan is destroyed then stories like “Amok Time” don’t happen in this new Trek universe. Nor is there a Vulcan for the Enterprise crew to bring back a Genesis-reborn Spock to (ST3). Spock never gets his pre-Genesis memories back so he never creates detente with the Romulans during TNG, the Romulans never reach out for Spock to save their homeworld from destruction. So Spock never fails in something he was not involved in. With no Spock to disappoint Nero, he never goes on a time travelling vendetta. Since Nero doesn’t go on his vendetta the USS Kelvin is not destroyed. TOS history goes on as usual, TNG, DS9 and Voyager history goes on as usual. So Spock is free to try and help the Romulans save their homeworld and fails. Nero gets pissed and travels back in time and destroys the Kelvin. Vulcan is destroyed. Spock doesn’t piss off Nero. Vulcan doesn’t get destroyed. Nero doesn’t travel to the past. Spock pisses off Nero, etc. etc. etc.
Oh would you look at that!!! A time loop !!! So folks, the new Star Trek is either an alternate timeline or a time loop. Take your pick. But again it’s more like an alternate timeline in which Spock is trapped in because Spock Prime still has the knowledge of his life before.
On May 13, 2009, Pistachio Wildebeest said:
Nice observations.
It seems to me that history is significantly altered long before the Kelvin’s destruction due to the events you mention.
For instance… wasn’t Little Green Men the Roswell Incident? Chekhov certainly left a phaser and tricorder behind in the hands of the US Navy in 1986. Scotty gave someone the formula for transparent aluminium. The computer revolution in Trek’s history was jump started by the events of Future’s End, so even if it happens anyway without future technology, that’s a huge difference. And so on…
Best to assume the first changes happened centuries ago, at least, and the changes in the timeline have been gradually butterflying to significance.
Works for me, anyway, it explains why everything looks so different. I don’t see any reason to assume that the Botany Bay launched in 1996, or that Voyager 6 became V’Ger, or even that humpback whales went extinct in the first place.
On May 14, 2009, Brian said:
“That could even mean a Romulan instead of Worf serves aboard Picard’s Enterprise-D, or whatever Enterprise model Jean-Luc commands”
Except that Picard’s great-great grandfather was standing on the bridge that was destroyed by Nero’s drill near the end of the movie: squashed like a bug.
Naw, I’m kidding. But wouldn’t that be fun?
On May 14, 2009, AttackTribble said:
It was only reading this that I realised what they did to Star Trek. Way back in the 80s, DC comics decided their universe had got too complicated and convoluted, and did a series called “Crisis on Infinite Earths” which basically rewrote the whole DC Universe’s history, which rejuvenated the whole thing. JJ just pulled a “Crisis” on Star Trek. I wonder if he ever read those comic books?
On an unrelated note, I see with some amusement that the CAPTCHA I have to type in is “BatmAN”, DC’s iconic dark here. Coincidence? :-)
On May 14, 2009, Jeff R. said:
The destruction of Vulcan probably means that the other senior partner of the Federation, the Andorians, will be far more prominent in the AU federation than in the original one…
On May 14, 2009, Craig Mckenzie said:
Response to AT-AT DRIVER.
While the temporal wake thing is a good example it could simply be a view of the new universe the Borg have created, it would kind of make sense since they’ve travelled back in time so the Enterprise crew see the result of that particular time tunnel.
However I’m not aware of the intricacies of quantum physics so I won’t debate them. What I will debate is what I have seen onscreen.
My hypothesis is basically this. Every time there is time travel in Star Trek the end of it signifies a new universe, it may be a subtle and ineffectual change such as Sisko as Gabriel Bell, doesn’t matter who the guy was the same stuff happened and he still “died”.
Since Sisko thought highly of Bell and would presumably know what he looked like and would realise that it is not in fact him it would support my theory of an alternate reality created after his return.
My hypothesis about Voyager not being affected is circumstantial i’ll admit, however it makes sense that the viewer seen Voyager is in no way affected (this is bringing us out of the show itself and looking at us as viewers).
I think Parallels is the best example where we see various examples of alternate realites, some subtly different and some markeldly different.
I believe we can take it as read that things happened in roughly the same fashion but they are in some ways different, for example maybe TOS knew Archer’s Enteprise as Pathfinder and it looked like a Deadalus class (just an example, insert any name and class type you see fit). Same with TNG up to Insurrection (which is my confirmed point of the First Contact alternate reality returning from the viewers perspective)
It can explan most of the canon inconsistencies fairly well I feel. However time travel has been haphazardly treated in star trek but on the whole this holds up. It’s just interesting to think about it this way because it gets confusing as to which universe the viewer percieves at any given episode, one of these days i’ll make a timeline based on this.
I welcome other people’s opinions as this is merely an opinion and I am really enjoying this debate.
On May 14, 2009, Jules Ismail said:
Star Trek: Enterprise would still be affected by Nero’s timeline change. The episode “Regeneration” involves the NX-01 being sent to find borg drones, that were reactivated after being frozen in the arctic on Earth ONLY because of the events in First Contact… Which, should they never have occurred, would have meant the NX-01 wouldn’t have been recalled and continued on their mission… Setting them up for entirely different circumstances.
Also, the DS9 episode “Little Green Men” explains the Roswell mystery. If it never happened, Roswell would have never happened and an awful lot of science fiction films– Like “Independence Day” would have never been made… Or, would have had different storylines. Changing that changes the experiences of everyone in the world as the movie they’d have seen.. should they have seen a movie at all.. would have been completely different!
Those are just two small observations. I haven’t finished reading your article yet and will now continue.
On May 14, 2009, Evan Claypool said:
I think it would have been better if this was an origin story, and not an “let’s-throw-everything-out-the-window” story. It certainly sets itself up as an origin story for all of the people who are not Trekkies/Trekkers out there.
Spock Prime’s presence in this AU changes past, present, and future, as many future time-travel plots deal with changing the past, and Spock Prime may have altered them with his presence in the “new” present. This would explain why the past of the new movie appears to have already been altered, which would explain why the starships look more advanced, and why many other things look different (Vulcan’s sky, for example).
Personally, I think the best course of action for Abrams to take would be to make two more movies that are direct sequels to this one. The second one could deal with how messed up the universe is in this AU thanks to Nero and Spock Prime (leading to some very intense scenes), and the third (and final) one could deal with how they fix this AU and change it back into the Trek we all know and love.
Even if they don’t decide to do this, they’ve got a clean slate to work from, and I’m eager to see which direction they take this new Trek in.
On May 14, 2009, The New Anarchist said:
Time travel is the problem child of plots but, as this movie has shown, it can do some great things as well.
*Alternate Realities – Stories and scripts are written on blank pages. You can do anything when you write. So, let’s say that in the 2009 Star Trek movie, there is no Temporal Police Squad or, BETTER YET, at some point in the future, they took on a new set of morals that says:
Reintegrating timelines is tantamount to killing a universe full of beings. So they dismantle the fleet of time ships and go on their merry. There.
So you’re like, “Oh no, then there’s inconsistency where they show up sometimes and don’t show up other times.” But that’s the beauty of it. A temporal squad has objectives and limited time and missions like every other crew. They can only undertake so many since, even though the human body can time travel, it still needs rest and sleep and adequate time to be briefed and debriefed. So, they simply never got around to stopping every incursion before their moral enlightenment.
*Q – Q did it.
Good night!
On May 14, 2009, Whofan said:
I just had to comment because the anti-spam word was, rather appropriately for a discussion on the implications of time travel, TARDIS.
Also, to be relevant, I enjoyed reading this analysis, and I’m intrigued to see whether Abrams decides to deal with the implications of the AU, or just blithely ignore it.
On May 15, 2009, MadmanJack said:
This movie, in my opinion, isn’t compatible with a single-timeline theory. The world before it changes so much without the influence of the prime universe that I believe that the prime universe’s influence still exists in the Alternate Reality.
In this theory, it won’t change a thing when Romulus and Remus get destroyed without Spock to blame… because it already happened in the event that created the AR. And what happens, stays happened. (Yes, I’m quoting Night Watch by Terry Pratchett.)
As for the Amok Time problem… this was covered in ST3 and Voyager. The major issue isn’t the return, it’s, well, the sex. Or at least the exertion. So basically, Spock will be fine. He’s got Nyota and a crew cabin.
And I have heard that JJ intends to deal with the people that are still around, just a little different because of the timeline change. Whether or not he explores it far enough for some of us…
Oh, and the CAPTCHA is Delorean.
On May 15, 2009, Tiron said:
One thing everyone seems to be missing with this, is all the ships that were lost to the Narada.
Starfleet lost a grand total of Seven ships. The Kelvin’s loss is debatable. Whatever it was going to do after Kirk was born it obviously didn’t, but 25 years is long enough that it may have no further impact than that, as it may have been retired in the meantime. It also has the fewest crew losses of these seven ships, with over 800 survivors, quite possibly the vast majority of the crew.
The other six ships, however, are lost with all hands, including a large number of trainees. That’s thousands of members of starfleet gone, not to mention the six hulls. Who exactly died on those ships is pretty much up in the air. Regardless, it’s not an insignificant thing going forward.
And finally, the one absolutely everyone seems to neglect.
Prior to the battle at Vulcan, the Klingons lost a full 47 ships to the Narada.
FORTY. SEVEN.
It’s pretty safe to assume that the crews were probably lost with the ships, given Nero’s…style.
Once again you get into the whole ‘who died, and who were they the ancestors of’ bit, which is just as unknowable.
More immediate however, is the strategic effects.
I have no idea how many ships are in the Klingon fleet, but I find it hard to believe that it would be so large that the loss of so many ships would not be substantial. If that’s the case, it puts the Klingons in a weakened state, strategically, making them less likely to be able to prosecute a major engagement, much less a war.
In short, a prime setup for someone opportunistic and expansionistic enough to attack them.
It could also make them slightly less expansionistic their own selves, since they won’t have as many ships or men available to push outwards with. That could lead to them having to sit and rebuild for awhile, using their remaining ships purely for defense and patrol.
On May 15, 2009, Kevin Canty said:
I disagree with you Jules, I don’t think that “Regeneration” has been affected by the altered timeline, because their temporal incursion happened prior to the other alteration by Nero.
There is a precedent to this way of thinking presented in during the run of Enterprise itself. In “Azati Prime,” when Archer is taken into the future by Daniels, the Earth is a desolate waste land with no Federation and no humanity. Despite this, Daniels still exists in that timeline, because he jumped through time prior to the change (and even though his jump in itself was the catalyst for the change it still protected him).
Another example of this same precedent in Trek is how the Enterprise-E still exists in Star Trek First Contact, even though the Borg succeeded in assimilating Earth long before the ship was constructed outside of the temporal vortex the Enteprise was caught up in.
Since neither the Enterprise-E, nor Daniels blinked out of existence because of a timeline alteration, even very extreme ones with a more direct correlation to them than the Borg and Nero parrellel you draw Jules, there’s no reason to think the Borg would blink out of existence either. Even if the events which created their presence in the past will now never transpire in the future, they would still be in the past.
On May 15, 2009, Jim Z said:
I agree with Pistachio’s earlier comments. Any occurrence of time travel is going to cause unpredictable changes in the timeline due to the “butterfly effect”. Therefore, if a particular instance of time travel to the past didn’t happen, anything that occurs after that point in the past is occurring in an alternate reality. In the Trek universe, the earliest known point in time to which members of the non-altered reality traveled back to is 1893, in “Time’s Arrow”. So effectively anything that occurred after 1893 in the non-altered reality isn’t guaranteed to occur in the alternate reality.
On a more practical note, I think the writers are going to assume that everything up to 2009 happened the way it did in the real world, and anything beyond that is fair game. The reboot is supposed to be for everyone, after all, not just the hardcore fans. Personally, I really liked the movie, and thought it was a great idea for the writers to use the alternate reality angle to give themselves room to do something different. I look forward to seeing what they come up with next.
On May 15, 2009, Tiron said:
well, it seems to be subscribing to the theory of time travel whereby you’re not really going back in time, you’re traveling to an alternate universe. Thus why Spock Prime remembers everything that happened in the prime universe.
In such a circumstance, it would be entirely possible for prime travels into the past to have STILL HAPPENED, exactly as they did in Prime. Because it would be people from prime doing it, not people from the alternate.
Good lord I hate temporal mechanics.
On May 15, 2009, leonel said:
Love the article. However I do have a question. After only skimming through the comments I don’t know if this question has been asked or answered.
So – in which timeline does the very first scene from the movie takes place?
In other words: does Nero’s incursion create the new timeline within the prime universe, or does he inadvertently travel to an alternate / parallel universe which becomes altered by his incursion? Does this question make sense?
Either way, I’m with everyone who appreciates the lack of reset button. Can’t wait to see what adventures this new crew have!!
On May 16, 2009, leonel said:
OK – I read through all the comments (finally) and see that my question had been raised. Very interesting discussion. At any rate, it would be interesting to find out what takes place in the history of the new alternate universe..
On May 16, 2009, Tomas said:
How about a STAR TREK: The Temporal Voyages , or some title like that for a series in which they go fixing up all the time screw ups this guys made all the time?
that can fix it all…
On May 17, 2009, Abigail Brady said:
@Tiron
So, what happens when Kirk from the AltVerse decides he needs a pair of whales? Does he go back to the same shared history that PrimeVerse Kirk got the whales from? Do they engage in hilarious adventures in order to not be seen by the PrimeVerse crew?
The way meta-time-travel has been dealt with in Trek before isn’t consistent with the way it has been portrayed here. Branching quantum realities have been seen in “Parallels” but those weren’t created by time travel. New mechanism, new rules?
On May 18, 2009, Juan said:
I liked the new movie, however I do not consider it Canon to the other films and TV shows. Kind of like the books and the animated series.
I see this Star Trek Similar to Star Wars Infinities. Infinities is not canon to the mainstream Star Wars universe.
Same with Battlestar Galactica. The Sci Fi channel’s version is obviously not canon to the classic version, but a revamp.
I think the only way to settle this is to have a sequel where either Captain Sulu, the next generation or Voyager end up in this reality. (preferably Captain Sulu, or the next generation) Kind of like that GI joe episode where the joes ended up in an alternate universe where Cobra took over the world.
On May 19, 2009, Toriach said:
Great article. However I’d like to offer an alternate possibility on one point. Regarding the Klingons and the Romulans, since as far as most people know the destroyer of Vulcan was a Romulan it seems to me more likely that the Klingons will make peace with the Federation sooner, and the Romulans will be an even more feared enemy.
Either way, while this new reality still has some kinks to work out, it definitely offers some exciting potential for new stories.
On May 19, 2009, Chris Arndt said:
According to the movie’s writers, the USS Enterprise was constructed in Iowa instead of San Fransisco because a shipyard was constructed in Iowa in honor of George Kirk and the Kelvin incident.
Also, more importantly, all the tech is more advanced on board this Enterprise than in the “prime reality” because a good chunk of it was reverse-engineered from scans taken of the Norada by the Kelvin, according to the writers in an interview.
Said scan data was stored aboard the retreating shuttles.
On May 19, 2009, kel said:
Ok folks, here’s my 47 cents…
According to the Star Trek Chronology; Star Trek Blueprints and a few other official canon documents a) Pavel Chekov was significantly younger than Kirk having being born the same year the Naval Construction Contract -1701 Enterprise was built (2245) at the San Francisco Dockyards. OK? How does his birthdate get altered so many years? In the movie he is 17 years old in the year 2258? Why, for ANY reason was the ship built 10 yrs later? Is the Butterfly Effect the standard thought here? Sheesh! That’s just two of many many inconsistancies. Sure, you can say that Nero’s ship altered things, but really?!!
:)
On May 19, 2009, Mark Harrison said:
This article is great as are the other comments! I have one thought here: I am not so sure that Jim Kirk’s youthful recklessness is entirely a product of not growing up with his father. First, genetics are powerful. I’ve seen how much my adoptive son, in spite of not growing up around his biological father, is like him in personality – even his sense of humour. Second, I am forced to consider Kirk’s words at the end of “Wrath of Kahn”: “I never have faced death. I’ve cheated death and patted myself on the back for my ingenuity.” That little stunt Kirk pulls as a twelve-year-old (give or take) is a case of cheating death. I cannot dismiss the possibility that had George Kirk lived, young James still would have pulled the same stunt. The difference is that he dad would have whooped his butt and grounded it until James was old enough to enter Starfleet. LOL
On May 19, 2009, Mark Harrison said:
P.S. Now writers can go where no scriptwriter has gone before.
Oh yeah, what about Sam Kirk (“Operation Annihilate”)?
On May 20, 2009, Chris Arndt said:
The ship was built ten years later because it probably took those ten years to construct the freaking shipyards, moving resources from SF to Riverside, IA.
Not to mention that this version of the Constitution Class is approximately more than twice the size of the prime version.
On May 20, 2009, kel said:
Ha! Good point on the ship and the date. But what of Lazarus… er… Chekov? Not to mention the other altered B’Days of the crew. It’s plain and simple writers “we want them to be a collective brat pack” thing! U know: Star ‘Friends’ Trek!
:)
On May 20, 2009, Chris Arndt said:
Eh. Changed birthdays…. Chaos Theory?
Maybe the death of George Kirk by feral Romulans caused some of his contemporaries to think twice about having kids in a hostile universe?
On May 21, 2009, David Buckna said:
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
A Star Trek quiz…Boldly going where no quiz has gone before
By David Buckna
Special to ASSIST News Service
http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/2009/s09050064.htm
===================================
A Heavenly Enterprise
‘Star Trek’
By Ann Hornaday
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 7, 2009
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/06/AR2009050603913.html?wprss=rss_print/style
On May 21, 2009, Johannes said:
Seeing AU Spock’s emotional reaction to the destruction of his home planet, Vulcan, and the death of his mother, his biggest wish will most probably be “what if this all could be prevented”.
Spock Prime and Spock AU would most probably have a debriefing meeting about the coming supernova and devise methods of even preventing such a supernova to happen.
In which case, in due time, Spock AU will prevent or neutralise the supernova, and thus undone the alterations to reality.
Off course, as mentioned somewhere at above comments, this will lead to a time loop. With the alternate reality undone, Spock sill again fail to prevent the supernova for destroying Romulus, be plunge through a dark whole after the Narada, creating this new world, just to have a debriefing meeting with is alter ego about a coming supernova…
Now that bugs me – this loop of time where Spock (or the rest of the universe) never dies.
***
On why the ships in this new movie has newer technology? Well, plain and simple, special effects of the 21st century is far more capable to present the true appearance of future technology than 40 years ago. No reason to complicate this. I mean, how much information can you get from a few final snapshots from the Kelvin?
On May 21, 2009, Tiron said:
@Abigail Brady
Not too likely. One of the tricks of a true branching multiverse setup is that there are literally an infinite number of alt-verses. Each one has some difference from the others, but it doesn’t have to be as huge as the mirror universe.
It could be as small as one of George Kirk’s hairs curling a slightly different way as it grew on one particular day. It can be as small as two air molecules deflecting off each other differently, causing the air to move slightly differently. It can even be as small as some molecule somewhere having a very slightly different quantum state.
What this means is, in effect, there are not only an infinite number of universes, for each alt-verse, there’s an infinite number of alt-verses that are *all but identical* to it, where the difference(s) are so minor they functionally don’t matter.
And with these infinite number of universes, any possible setup, no matter how remote, is going to appear.
The ‘you’re really travelling to an alt-verse’ theory is mostly espoused as a form of paradox-prevention, specifically to avoid the scenario Johannes described. Because, simply put, if it wasn’t the case in the Trek Movie, there’d already be a paradox. Spock Prime, with all his memories of the Prime universe, *COULD NOT EXIST*, and as you’ve stated, with his knowledge, chances are Romulus wouldn’t be destroyed.
In addition…the Vulcan Science Acadamy, who commissioned the Jellyfish and possibly made the Red Matter(bloody MacGuffin) NO LONGER EXISTS.
Because Nero and Spock are from Prime, not from Alt, it’s entirely possible for the destruction of Romulus to be prevented in Alt without altering Nero’s changes to the timeline.
It’s also possible for the Alt version of a time travel scenario to replace the prime one, if the end result is compatible with the existence of the alt universe. In theory what should happen is that any time travel scenario from prime duplicated in alt would have occurred as it did in alt, but any that wasn’t duplicated and was necessary for alt to follow the same track as prime up to Nero’s incursion would happen in a way that allowed it to continue on the same track, possibly the same way it did in Prime. The people doing it don’t necessarily have to be from prime, they could be from one similar to prime. Or one that wasn’t, for that matter.
I hate quantum mechanics.
This whole idea of impossible timeline occurrences popping up via alternate verses has happened in Canon trek too.
One word: Sela.
On May 22, 2009, Bah! said:
I saw this film with an open mind and thought it was ok, it didn’t really do anything except I will say I did think I was watching a movie against an extended episode of the TV series which is good.
I’m willing to accept it’s an ALT universe just like the mirror universe however this is purely because they were looking to make money off a francise which they had not been able to make work because everyone loved TOS and then fragmented with each series there after. Although the new movie I think misses the point a lot of what Gene’s original thoughts were. We bettered the human condition to be the best we could be (which still could happen) and used our brains and those of our friends (like Vulcans) to ceate technology so we could keep life of a human nice and cosy.
I can also accept also this a universe which was in existance at the same time as the prime with events in human past being different and having different things to the prime and Nero simply crossed from one universe to another, like going into the mirror universe.
This film dare I say it, is TOO Star Warsy! I grew up loving Star Wars and hated Trek, it was boring but that was because I was not mature enough, once I did mature and got into TNG it all made sense and I loved it. JJ appears to have never gotten it and had to change it to Star Wars.
But does this start a precident for this francise, everytime a company in charge of the franchise does not like where it is going creates a new ALT universe.
I’ve never seen people say I like the mirror universe over the prime but I dare say this will start to occur, instead of TOS vs TNG it will be Prime vs Alt with the most popular possibly becoming prime. At least in Trek in the past they used time travel to tell a story and then correct the time line at the end at least story wise so it has minimum impact on the time line, now it’s given license to change what it wants, say it’s and ALT universe and be done with it.
I also wonder where Q sits in all this, if this ALT timeline results in a more militarlistic federation will he come in and wipe all human existance from this universe.
I’m not sure but did the movie also explain what will happen to the black hole in the prime universe, are prime universe ships going to be sending their probes through to the ALT universe which seems to change time quickly so if the prime universe sends a probe through 1 years after the hole was created does it come out in the ALT univerise some 300 years in their future thereby being old technology. And was the red matter the reason for the hole to be a doorway to an ALT universe or are all black holes a door to an ALT universe.
And since prime Spock is so willing to be a Kirk would he not try his hardest to go back in time on that time line and devise a way to destroy Nero as he comes through the hole thereby saving his people. Or does he only really care for his own universe.
On a personal note I like the prime universe and would have liked to see more of the future (like 300 or 400 years or more down the track from the TNG, DS9 and VOY) of man kind then with more of our galaxy explored and perhaps moving to new galaxies with new technology thereby keeping to the spirit of what Trek started as.
But thats just me!
On May 25, 2009, Andrew said:
One question struck me: How do they know what Romulans look like? Did Nero’s appearance change history so they have now had direct contact with Romulans? Because in TOS no one knew what Romulans looked like, and were shocked to find they appeared Vulcan, none more than Spock. Yet in the enw film, not only do they know what they look like, but Spock knows they are related to Vulcans.
How did that change come about?
On May 26, 2009, Tomas said:
But …but …but there is no record of a supernova blowing up Romulus in TNG or VOY…so that happened in a ALT ALT?? Was the Supernova Natural or was it a experiment gone bad? so many questions…..
On May 28, 2009, YJ said:
Romulus’s destruction happened in 2387 (prime), 8 years after Nemesis, hence ‘no record’.
Whilst clearly a necessary plot device, the supernova near Romulus seems a little contrived- it’s unlikely they wouldn’t realise this sort of thing til the last moment.
But just about anything occuring post-2233 in this and future Abrams-helmed films can potentially be explained with the so-called butterfly effect.
I read that Orci said the characters are unchanged and still the same people. But regardless of how they wrote his lines, would Kirk really be the same man having grown up with an abusive step-father instead of George Kirk?
On May 28, 2009, BeyShere said:
Let’s be honest with ourselves folks, there is no possible way that Nero’s arrival would have changed the original timeline as much as was displayed in the new film. We all grant that a couple of things are firmly connected to Nero’s arrival, i.e. death of George Kirk, destruction of Vulcan, but there were many other changes that could in no way be completely reliant on Nero’s arrival
Let’s start in the beginning of the movie with the design of the USS Kelvin. Never in any record of canonized Star Trek has a Starfleet vessel been equipped with the type of warp nacelle that the Kelvin had. As seen in Star Trek: Enterprise, and even on Cochrane’s Phoenix, the warp nacelle structure and design held fairly consistently until the refit of the Constitution class, and launching of the Miranda and Excelsior classes. This altered design, as seen in the movie, had, for lack of a better phrase, “taken place” before Nero’s arrival.
Next on the list is the insignia. I see no need to discuss this one in detail, as it was evident in ST: ENT and TOS that each ship had their own insignia. This changed in the 2270’s when Starfleet apparently chose the Enterprise’s insignia to be the standard for all ships. The Kelvin’s crew wore Enterprise insignia before the Enterprise was commission.
Another minor detail, “NCC-0514″. To my knowledge I welcome correction), the only ships Starfleet have ever commission with a “0″ as the first numeral in the designation, was for the original “NX” class (i.e. the NX-01, USS Enterprise, and the NX-02, USS Columbia, seen in ENT). I think it is safe to assume that the Kelvin is not of the same class…
Next on the wondrous list of non-Nero-related-changes, is the commissioning of the USS Enterprise, NCC-1701. First, let us discuss the implications of Nero’s incursion on Starfleet’s policy of starship construction. It is understandable that the tech of the starships would be more advanced, given the scans by the Kelvin of the Narada, and we can therefore dismiss, to a certain degree the elaborate “upgrade” in tech versus TOS. However, given such a threat as Nero, would it not make sense that a more advanced starship like the Enterprise be built earlier than the TOS date? Why later? Why did they wait an additional 12 years? One could proport that Starfleet decided to churn out more of the starship designs they had, rather then slow construction down for a transition to newer, better ships, however, that begs the following question– why not push the transition to newer ships earlier to allow for more of those ships later? Then the tech of the Narada comes into play. They needed time to study, recreated and subsequently integrate the new tech into Starfleet ships. So, on that note, one theory could be that they wanted to install the newly discovered tech on what would be Starfleet’s new line of warships– thus leading to a delayed commissioning of the Enterprise. Though, I still find it doubtful that the Enterprise would have been pushed back 12 years.
And why the move to Iowa? Well, once again, one theory could be that with the new Narada threat, the Iowa facility was built, perhaps with many others, to accommodate increased starship production. This raises the question as to why the new flagship of Starfleet would be built in one of these newer, less notable shipyards and not the more famous San Fransisco shipyard is unknown to me.
As far as viewscreens are concerned, while they do look really cool, they seem so be less effective than the original screens. I mean, come on, it would be a pain to watch a distorted, see-through image of Nero all the time. This change of viewing styles was apparent on the Kelvin, before Nero, and didn’t really seem to be an upgrade at all. More like some one forgot about TV screens that could give a whole heckuva lot better display.
And the phasers. The Kelvin had some sort of pulse phaser variant in addition to the standard phasers, that, while a very cool and attractive addition, still didn’t fit with the whole scheme of things. I can’t think of another Federation starship that used both pulse and beam phasers from to separate arrays. Yes, we all remember episodes like “The Best of Both Worlds” where they configure the phasers to pulse, or the movie “The Wrath of Khan” where Starfleet decided to temporarily change from beam to pulse (only to change it back), but never have we seen both used at the same time on a starship. So why the switch to pulse? Isn’t beam a much more efficient weapon? Why Starfleet changed is a mystery to me. The Narada didn’t use energy pulse weapons, so that can’t be the reason for the switch. Beam weapons seem more tactfully useful, as they can still be rigged to emit a pulse.
These changes can in no way be the result of Nero’s incursion. I grant that his arrival may have influenced timing, or augmenting of some things, but in no way can be responsible for the changes that had obviously already occurred before he had arrived.
So what is my conclusion? Well, to say that the reality we all witnessed in ST XI is one that branched off from the “Prime” reality in 2233 with Nero’s arrival is erroneous. Some how, the black hole created by the red matter/supernova not only sent Spock Prime and Nero back in time, but must have shifted them to another alternate reality. So, I therefore conclude that the reality we saw was an alternate of a previously alternate reality of the Prime.
This, therefore, would throw out all of the prior events that occurred in the Prime as having occurred in the “Beta” timeline, as it is apparent that some, if not many, changes had already taken place. This would include ALL time travel that we saw in the Prime timeline, such as the Borg incursion in 2161, the Enterprise-D visit to 1893, etc. Perhaps they did/do still happen, but we cannot know, as the new Beta timeline has shown evidence of many changes from the Prime timeline prior to Nero’s arrival.
So what do we do now? Well, if Romulus is spared from destruction in 2387, I highly doubt a reoccurring loop would occur, as the “Beta” Romulus would have been spared, not the “Prime” Romulus.
This brings up another point. Spock Prime would not be able to effectively offer the Federation adequate or accurate knowledge about future events as his knowledge pertains to the Prime reality, and not the Beta reality. It may very well be likely that Spock Prime, like Nero, inadvertantly altered the future of the Beta reality without realizing it…
…but then again, it’s Spock. He most likely knew of the reality shift from Prime to Beta and influenced the relation of Spock and Kirk on purpose to ensure that the Beta reality would have the same strong Kirk-Spock bond as his did.
Wow! What a topic!
On May 28, 2009, BeyShere said:
Addendum:
(I meant the Borg incursion in 2063).
And, the whole “Spock knew about the Romulans” could be another remarkably different change– perhaps the Federation knows more about the Romulans in 2258 in the Beta reality then “we” did in the Prime reality.
On May 30, 2009, Sweezely! said:
You know, I just call bullshit on the whole thing. You guys have put some fantastic thoughts and arguments foward but I doubt the writers ever bothered considering that. Had this been a true reboot I could have accepted it, but they tried to link it back to the continuity and didn’t really think about it very well. You guys have thought about it more than the film deserved. The movie executives just thought like this:
“Star Trek is a brand. Kirk is a brand. Spock is a brand. Somehow we needed to get this out there and ignore the small (large) problem that all the stories have already been told and that we will have to fit it in with ten future films’ and three future series’ worth of stories. Hmmm, well they did it with Batman and James Bond… REBOOT!” So they did. The hit the reboot button with a fist stuffed with marketing checklists. One liners to edit into the trailer… check. Ability to used some combination of “legend” and “begins” in the tagline… check. Old guy from the TV series to get the crucial “middle aged people with disposable income” demographic… check. Girl stripping off to her underwear for no reason to get the even more crucial “14 year old horny teenager” demographic… check.
It has been shown many, many times that travelling back in time does not create an alternate reality in Star Trek. Forget actual physics, because let’s face it, sometimes Star Trek does (it’s science fiction so you expect that). The physics in Star Trek may not always be right but at least they’re usually self consistent, and changing the past always affects the future. Sisko becomes Gabriel Bell and then his photo is in the history books. Sure, maybe by going back in time he did create a new reality, but the original reality is the one where he didn’t go back in time and that’s not the one that’s shown, if you understand me. To put it another way, if time travel creates an alternate reality then that alternate reality is the one we see the rest of the shows in. That’s the reality that’s canon, essential overriding the previous reality/canon. It’s just that until now, it never really overrode anything too important. For example, we never learn about Gabriel Bell at all until the episode “Past Tense” so we never care that the real Bell actually died and Sisko took his place. And for all we knew, history always recorded Bell as looking like Sisko, as nothing about Bell is ever mentioned up until that point. Also remember the episode “Trials And Tribbleations” – that episode actually fixed the continuity error of the tribbles falling out of the hatch onto Kirk. The Star Trek timeline is self-consistent (mostly), and if time travel overrides anything from before then it’s either self-contained in one episode or it’s to fix something that goes wrong in an “alternate future” (like the last episode of Voyager where future Janeway goes back in time and gives old Voyager a deus-ex machina to get home).
Other continuity examples (probably mentioned before): the Borg going back in time and the Enterprise seeing the changes in the timeline by being caught in a plot device/’temporal wake’. That then leads eventually to the time travelling Borg to send a message to the past Borg to look for the Federation in the future, thus setting up an information paradox. You don’t get paradoxes if time travel creates alternate realities. Also consider the paradox in “All Good Things…” where Picard created the anomaly he was looking for by the act of looking for it (even if this was all a test by Q, Q acknowledges that paradoxes are a part of the way that the universe works). Also the changes to Picard’s life in “Tapestry” show much the same pattern, even if it is all an illusion by Q. Data having a head 500 years older than his body and all the self fulfilling crap in “Time’s Arrow”. In the novel for “Star Trek IV: The Voyage To The Decade That Hairstyles Forgot (Also: Home)” the guy Scotty gave the transparent alumin(i)um formula to was later recognised by Spock as the man history recorded as inventing it – yet another information paradox. The list is not endless but it is as long as Reg Barclay’s therapy bills at least.
No, this new film doesn’t follow the rules of the universe created before, it just ignores it. This is just a seperate story about the young crew of a ship called ‘Enterprise’ with some people from the future of THEIR universe coming back in time and screwing up history, and also demonstrating that in this universes paradoxes seemingly don’t happen either. Just looking at the ship design (no nacelles on the Kelvin), the costume design (the Enterprise insignia being used everywhere instead of just on the Enterprise like it’s supposed to), to the special effects (Star Wars special effects), to the sound design (Star Wars sound effects), to the characters (Uhura becoming a space-slut) says that they didn’t really care about the previous continuity a whole lot. And what was up with that Uhura/Spock thing? Firstly, it’s supposed to be Kirk/Spock (if you don’t know about Kirk/Spock I advise you to not to Google it), and more seriously secondly, isn’t Spock meant to be her teacher at the academy? Even ignoring the fact he’s only supposed to get horny once every seven years aren’t there rules about banging your students/communications officers in the future? And presumably it’s normal to go from cadet to captain of the flagship in the space of exactly no-time-at-all despite never graduating because you cheated. This is truly a universe with its own rules.
Not to say the film was bad. It was ok. I wouldn’t rave about it like most reviewers and I’m surprised more hasn’t been made of the ball-shattering continuity crotch-kicking but I’d hesitate to call it entirely crap. It’s just that “Star Trek” is not Star Trek.
P.S. The captch is TERMINATOR, quite fitting for a thread about paradoxes.
On June 1, 2009, kel said:
OK, here goes nuthin, er.. or something, er.. maybe something out of nuthin…
Star Trek TOS was full of coninuity holes (Roddenberry and other writers said so). Time shifts, paradoxes, alt reality, quantum physics, all bunk. It’s like this… give the people what they want and the creators will get what they want… money. I love Star Trek (all of it – and yes, I’ll ‘marry it’) but ya just gotta understand that Roddenberry wanted to tell a you STORY. You know “Wagon Train to the Stars”, that sorta thing. He also wanted to make ALOT of money. No difference here. Period. So the long-and-strange-45-year-trip-that-it’s-been has fans, writers, nuts, etc get real defensive (read crazy aggressive). That’s only human. That’s lovely ’cause it shows a genuine affection for the product. YES, product. Not many products have a fanatical following with their own naming conventions (trekker; trekkie) but thetre you have it. STAR TREK LIVES! Write it on the subway walls…
On June 1, 2009, kel said:
ADDENDUM (for nitpickers)
Of course I meant to spell ‘continuity’ near the beginning and meant to spell ‘there’ near the end, sorry.
On June 9, 2009, Belzediel said:
I think it would have been helpful to mention which model of time-travel you subscribe to at the beginning of the article. Either you go with ‘there’s a single timeline and everything that happens in a time-travel episode always happens and has always happened’ or ‘each time-travel event creates a future timeline that is different, albeit often subtley’. Which you go with dramatically changes to what degree any given or hypothesised event has repercussions.
Personally I go with the latter, and work on the basis that whenever the time-travellers return to a ‘fixed’ timeline, it is a ‘best-fit’universe, one that is sufficiently similar that they can overlook things like Data’s cat changing gender, or Tuvok’s rank changing.
However, having said all that, I see no real reason to debate this in any case, JJ ‘dad issues’ Abrams has simply rebooted the franchise – nothing that happens in ‘Classic Trek’ is guaranteed to happen in ‘Teen Trek’ nor would the failure of events to occur in the reboot timeline have any significance to the new version.
This seems to be as pointless as debating where ‘The Dark Knight’ fits into the continuity of Adam West’s Batman.
On June 16, 2009, Adrick said:
A friend of mine brought up the idea that the new universe has a “shared past” with the old universe. The universes are the same until Nero creates a new one by arriving in 2233. For example, the crew of the Enterprise-D traveled back in time to 1893 San Francisco in the shared past of BOTH universes, and we don’t have to worry about someone else taking care of the invading aliens. Until 2233, it’s the same universe.
On June 21, 2009, Mark said:
I agree completely with the shared past. Even though we are now in a new alternate universe from the point of incursion, that past up to that point remains the same including Scotty inventing transparent aluminum, Data’s head being in the sand, the Borg going back to stop Cochrane and the Enterprise NX01 encountering the Borg.
Part of the confusion is obviously due to the principles of Star Trek time travel not being consistent. You can travel in time by walking through the Guardian, going to close to a black star or flying around the sun backwards. Time changes can result in people and things disappearing, or sometimes you have to beam their alternate selves on top of their original selves. There are paradoxes and problems all over the place.
From some comments from Orci and others, I think one of the things that the writers are attempting to reboot is the nature of Star Trek’s time travel rules themselves. In other words, quantum realities is the norm now. So, from this perspective, going forward that is the paradigm that Star Trek should be understood is in operation. Why? If the old way of doing things still existed, Spock could just do a slingshot around the sun, go back before Nero arrived and change history to save the Kelvin.
I think the biggest retcon is the retcon that the old way of doing Star Trek time travel is actually gone for good!
On June 24, 2009, Antiloquist said:
Reading all of this has been quite a didactic and, for the most part, an enlightening debate. I believe that philosophers of old would commend the thought experiments that modern entertainment, particularly science fiction, postulates.
If I may concur with one comment that came before and propose yet another headache that merges my current understanding of superstring theory, the hypothetical effects of dark matter, a different interpretation of “the ripple effect,” particle flux, and the repercussions of causality in a 4th dimension of space-time construction resembling a tesseract. I have no doubt that an understanding of this will cause a great many headaches as the one I have developed and hopefully perpetuate additional enlightening pains in others.
Let me say first that the individual who suggested that Nero’s actions in the film only altered the “future” of a parallel universe proposes the most likely and simplest form to understand the concept that most of us are attempting to grasp. For the sake of space and to “mirror” the same simplicity, I will digress as little as possible on my additional postulation.
We have been viewing time as linear as this is the simplest way for our minds to comprehend. Some would argue that it is cyclical. I would say rather that time is a human construct to understand causality, which is never cyclical, and particle FLUX, which can be.
The idea of time paradoxes and the multiverse view are not mutually exclusive. Everything that can happen does happen all of the “time” but not in a different space. They occur rather in the same space at the same “time” all of the time but they are out of flux relative to everything else. I would advise not trying to understand the previous sentence just yet but to review it later.
Why does Spock still exist in the “alternate universe” with the same memories, if an alternate past is currently being formed? Shouldn’t he be remembering the altered history as it is occurring and for that matter be unable to cognitively change any of it or even converse with his past counterpart?
The answer is that he is currently out of flux with the ordinary flow of space time and will not “feel” the effects of the ripple until it has caught up with him.
- No same matter in the same space at the same time.
o Spock prime is not composed of the same matter as
alternate Spock. His cells have completely been
replaced along with all of the atoms that make him
up.
o For that matter, every infinitesimal millisecond,
we are not of the same subatomic configuration.
Electron orbitals only appear as such when
observered, but are always moving.
To illustrate this, let us re-visit the grandfather paradox:
If a time traveler travels back in time to kill his own grandfather, would he cease to exist, becoming unable to fulfill the act to begin with? The answer is, not exactly.
He does continue in an alternate universe of sorts that eventually rejoins with a similar one that he would remember as the fabric of 4th dimensional space is perpetually changing.
Let us say the traveler begins at “B.” They arrive at point “A.” They stay there for a certain length of time, “T,” before changing history, by means of causally killing their grandfather, apart from the minute changes in time just from them occupying a different space and causing subatomic particles to react with a displaced individual in addition to the rest of the present universe. Said individual then returns to point “C” in the future relative to their original flux departure.
- The time is today (B), and I travel 50 years to
the past (A). I have now left my continuum and
will experience a sort of temporal “jet lag” from
this point forward; this is the “ripple effect.”
- I spend 55 minutes looking for my grandfather, I
then stab him and it takes him 5 minutes to die.
That is 55 minutes that I spent existing in the
past altering the flow of energy and matter, then
a causal act with mortal repercussions, and an
additional five minutes before grandpa Shroedinger
dies. A combined time of one hour (T).
- I now wonder why I am not ceasing to exist.
- I can either sit here and continue wondering why I
am still alive or I can return to “future,”
represented by (C). Let us look at both possible
choices here, remaining where I am in the past
(C+1) and returning to the “future” (C-1)
- If I remain at (C-1), from my point of view, I
could live for another 50 years plus one hour
before I would feel the physical effects of my
actions, A+T=(C+1)-B.
o The particles that made up myself would still
continue to exist until the universe reached a
point where those original particles left the
continuum. They would exist for an additional 55
minutes that I spent looking for my grandfather,
and would spend the remaining five minutes
breaking down to their new locations in the
continuum after that. They would then end up
wherever they did in the universe where grandpa
dies.
At this point we have similar dilemma with the
original paradox. The original paradox is
maintained and repeated in a causal loop since
everything now has a flux lag. Relatively
speaking, I now will cease to exist and
be “unable” to return to the past to kill my
grandfather. Blink, I vanish!
• However, I still existed in the past for the last
50 years plus one hour.
• You can view each millisecond or whatever minute
scale you wish as annihilating itself in
succession, however; relative to the point of my
original annihilation, I had caused ripples with
everything else I had encountered for the last 50
years, 1 hr, which will now take an additional 50
years, 1 hr, before those effects are felt
relative to each other and any additional events
that they perpetuated.
• The ripple multiplies and extends to infinity in a
non terminating, non repeating decimal, just like
Pi. They are likened to ripples in a pond,
circular in shape, and limited in their “relative”
lifetimes. Towards the end of a pond ripple, the
water may have returned to stillness at the point
of impact while a ripple on the perimeter is still
being felt. Additionally, that ripple may bounce
back and strike another sending a rippling in an
entirely different direction.
• The universe begins to exhibit entropy, but will
never be 100% the same again.
What would have been my relative experience had I
chosen to return to my “future,” A+T=(C-1)-B?
• I just killed grandpa, wondered why I am still
alive but returned to the “preset” or rather, five
minutes later since I didn’t want to risk
interacting with myself before I left. Do I have
to wait 50 years plus 1hr? The answer is no; I
still have to wait, it’s just a smaller ripple.
• From my relative point of view, the universe
doesn’t have to catch up to B, or rather B + five
minutes. I don’t have to wait for the past
particles to move about for fifty years to the
time at which I left.
• However, I did spend 55 minutes in the past before
I killed him, he took 5 minutes to die, then I
returned to 5 minutes in the future. Due to
my “time travel” I have altered my particle flux
creating a lag. There are three different “time
zones;” the time before I left, (B), the length of
time I was gone, (A), and the time I returned to,
(C-1).
• I am currently occupying “time zone” (C-1). In the
previous scenario, my (C+1) was a point before B,
essentially –B. I don’t have to wait for B to run
its course, my (C+1) is B + 5 minutes. I am
occupying a flux five minutes relative to the time
that I originally left.
• I was however gone for an hour. Hence I will exist
for the next 55 minutes wondering why nothing is
happening to me before I undergo a particle
annihilation that will take five minutes to
complete that will be implosive in nature rather
than explosive and give off dark energy as a
result.
• If I had a friend with me whom I have known for 3
years witness my departure, they would perceive as
follows:
o My friend observes my departure and witnesses my
absence for 5 minutes.
o They then witness my return and share my confusion
with why I still exist; as well as why the history
books still record my entire past as being intact.
o We spend 55 minutes researching history looking
for some record of my grandfather’s death. After
56 minutes, my friend finds a record of his death
on one of the pages he has already viewed many
times before. He then turns to me to show me what
he has found only to witness me, aging in reverse
over the next five minutes. He sees myself in very
much a confused state as my memory, along with my
physical being reverts over the length of my
lifetime for the next five minutes. Eventually, I
die as a fetus while the corpse continues to
degrade to a subatomic level before collapsing in
on itself creating a miniature black-hole that
carries all of the energy of my former self into
the stream of dark matter eventually re-emitted as
hawking radiation from a miniature white hole at
the point of my conception wherever the new
particles reside in the alternate universe where
my grandfather is dead.
o My friend is uncertain as to why he can still
remember me as he will continue to remember the
horrors he just witnessed for another 46 years
before the causality ripple reaches him at the
point in which we, now, never meet. Forty six
years after my annihilation, he begins to remember
a past where we never met and he continued without
knowledge of my existence.
So much for not digressing. How does all of this relate to Star Trek 2009? It means is an alternative explanation to how Spock prime remembers everything that happened before with rememebering the new timeline that he has created, yet.
For questions and further debate, please e-mail
On June 25, 2009, Antiloquist said:
Although at this point I am probably only writing this for my benefit, apart from minor errors that no one will likely notice, I did make a rather large one in this conjecture.
The friend would not exist for 46 years with the memories. His ripple would take as long as my age, at the point of travel, minus 3 years since I have known him for that long. If I were 30 then he would have his memory of me erased in 27 years.
My ceasing to exist is an individual circumstance that individually affects many others but still within the relative context of particle flux.
On August 3, 2009, Watto said:
There is a paradox already in existence in Voyager’s Future’s End, we have no mention of the devastation of the Eugenics Wars which apparently killed millions of people.
On September 12, 2009, Gianni said:
I think it is safe to say that J.J. doesn’t have a degree in physics. (thank you for the very clear article btw Antiloquist =) )
I’ve had to translate some interviews JJ made some time ago and let me clarify a very obvious point (how Vulcan of me) he doesn’t care that he screwed up the star trek timeline by making a movie that is (even though you guys did a wonderful job) extremely hard to place next to what we all know and love.
He admitted to being more of a Star wars fan and even remarked that he wanted a more SW feel in Star Trek (which might explain the pulse phasers, Nero’s oversized mining ship and other nifty technical weaponry).
TOS seems to be all that he knows (or was briefed about). Calling VOY, Enterprise, DS9 and TNG nothing but spin-offs of a great original.
Sure he took a few cue cards from people he SHOULD have interviewed more extensively. Like ‘Starfleet isn’t militairy’ or ‘Rodenberry wanted a happy future’.
Actually, the non-militairy part gave him the wonderful oportunity to promote a cadet to captain in one lovely movie…. just to see how you can twist stuff around for your own purposes.
The scriptwriters, whoever those idiots are, must have thought the ‘going back in time thing to wipe the slate clean, give us free reign and deflect any questions with: ST physics are different anyway’ was extremely clever, but if you read all the above you know they actually made things worse (because we can’t accept the fact that we might have to let go of the original universe we know)
There are many mistakes, a few examples:
– Nacelles going into warp light up at the sides, not some ‘rocket ship’ like flash at the back. How else can you create the illusion of a warp ‘bubble’???
- The Enterprise has ONE reactor core, not FIVE
- Since when is water used in engineering??? Why on earth is there a massive ‘mixer of death’ sucking in all the water??? (answer: just to create a funny situation with scotty: it has no functionality whatsoever) (and yes people, I thought I could explain it by it being something else then water, but it acually says so on the pipes)
- Transwarp beaming??? Funny idea, wasn’t there an Enterprise episode about the creator of transporter technology telling us the idea of beaming over such long distances is fundementally flaud???
- Vulcan sky is blue …
- Since when are Romulans bald with tribal markings???
- Let’s not start again about why the enterprise is built 12 years later ….
You can try to incorporate all this in the ‘alternate reality’-theory, which would be the only thing that COULD work (seeing as disruption of space-time wouldn’t cause those changes)
But let’s face it. Paramount called JJ one day with the mission: Make a Star Trek movie, make it popular, earn us loads of money. He then proceeded with his ‘clever’ ideas. And now we are are struggling to incorporate this monster into the known universe.
The question is: should we???
After all, many non-trekkers love the movie. Interest in the old series has sparked. (Although I thinkw e can forget about a new ST: serie) And besides. I myself liked it, thought it looked VERY cool (the point on which the movie hinges I’m afraid) but have ordened my mind to ignore its changes.
Like Captain Sisko I’ve just woken up from a lovely dream about an alternate TOS, …. to see the known universe.
On September 19, 2009, StarFuryG7 said:
I’d take issue with your contention that Kirk could still meet Carol Marcus and that they could have a son named David, and yet you say this after pointing out that Kirk will never meet Gary Mitchell, who introduced Kirk to Marcus for the expressed purpose of setting them up, and that he gets command seven years earlier here than in the original timeline. This all makes his meeting Carol Marcus very unlikely IMO.
Beyond that, I’m not sure why all the kudos to JJ Abrams and his two writers, who thought nothing of wiping out more than four decades of Trek history as though it was of little relevance and no real concern to them. They claim, as you also claim here, that the original prime timeline is not affected when the whole purpose of the movie was to change it all, with nothing definitive within the film itself that establishes that the original timeline remains intact. Elder Spock’s actions in this movie were also wholly inconsistent with how we know he would react to a situation such as this, which we’ve actually witnessed on several occasions. He would not have simply stood by and accepted the death of his mother or the destruction of his homeworld the way he did here in ST XI. No, he would have made it his mission to correct those events which he knows were never meant to happen, having lived through the original timeline. You point to “City on the Edge of Forever,” and “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home,” two cases where it became necessary to correct problems in their past in order to set their present straight, yet why does it not disturb you that Spock’s reaction to events as they played out in this movie were completely out of character for him? Why do you take it for granted obviously that the original timeline is not affected when we see it actually get overwritten here?
On September 20, 2009, StarFuryG7 said:
Just a brief follow-up that I also meant to touch on last night with respect to the technology being more advanced here because the Narada went back in time and delivered more advanced tech that Starfleet could then study and copy — this excuse/justification for the technology being more advanced in this period than what we saw in the original series also does not hold up because clearly the technology seen aboard the Kelvin was also more advanced than what was shown in the original series. It’s the same rationale that J.J. Abrams tried to fall back on as to why things in the movie are apparently so much more advanced, and it obviously doesn’t fly.
On September 26, 2009, akirajay38 said:
Loved this sight, good stuff. Now starfuryg7 has a point but lets just assume since enterprise nx-01 seemed more advanced than the old connie we love so much, its because we have better fx now. if they could have done then what we can do now, im sure the old connie bridge would look something like the kelvins. I mean my car dash and stereo system look more advanced than the original bridge. Now the whole romulans and ufp being buddies and not the klingons and ufp is interesting, but suppose the ufp have tech that they wouldnt have gotten for another 40-50 years later in the prime universe, is it not conceivable they could be far ahead of both empires? Which leaves open 3 races that havent gotten enough screen time and can become the new badguys in this reality. Im taliking Tholians, Gorn, Kznti. if you take the old school badies out, and put these way more agressive and paranoid races in the mix we could see some major problems for the ufp. i like the new look of star trek, its modern 21st century. it has adapted to peoples changing tastes and thats what star trek does. it reinvents itself for every generation.
On November 11, 2009, John Abbe said:
‘It’s possible that the episodes “In A Mirror, Darkly” and “In A Mirror, Darkly, Part II” have been negated, however they both take place entirely in the Mirror Universe with no interaction with the main universe.’
I just watched those episodes, and there was very significant interaction – the mirror universe’s Terran Empire acquires the USS Defiant (NCC-1764, a Constition class ship) from “about 100″ years into the future, most likely enabling them to crush the rebellion they faced at the time (2150s). The boring possibility now is that the mirror universe Tholians still grab the Defiant from the Prime universe, and the mirror timeline is unaffected.
But what fun is that? Let’s assume that the Tholians do instead lure ships from the Alt universe (or that there is an Alt mirror universe to go with the regular Alt universe :). Keeping in mind that the Alt Constitition class is significantly larger and more powerful, but that it’s construction schedule was different from the Prime Constitution class, several possibilities suggest themselves:
1) The Tholians never manage to lure a ship of such power across universes/time to the mirror universe and capture it. The Terran Empire, without the boost of 23rd century tech, falls to the rebellion of the 2150s.
2) The Tholians do manage to lure a ship of significant power – possibly even the better-Constituted Defiant – but not in 2154. The Terran Empire falls to the rebellion. The Tholians (or whoever ends up owning the advanced tech) emerge rapidly as a major power in the late 22nd century Alpha Quadrant.
3) The Tholians capture a ship of power analagous to the Prime universe’s Defiant to the mirror universe, in 2154 (i.e., not an Alt Constitution class ship). This ship is captured by the Terran Empire, which crushes the rebellion, and things continue to proceed much as they did in the mirror universe timeline we know.
4) The Tholians capture the Alt universe Defiant (or another ship of significantly more power than the one they got in the mirror universe we know). With this more powerful boost to their war tech, the Terran Empire not only crushes the rebellion, but increases the pace and scope of its expansion, perhaps even defeating the Klingon/Cardassian Alliance.
5) The Tholians lure a ship of power but don’t manage to capture it. Wild card possiblities galore.
If/when people start telling mirror universe stories in relation to the Alt universe, they have a lot of options…
On November 22, 2009, navamske said:
I finally saw this movie this week — I opted not to see it in the theater and to wait for the DVD.
In a nutshell: Decent enough movie, decent enough science fiction movie. But it’s not Star Trek.
Star Trek always seemed to have a sense of humor about itself, as if it didn’t take itself too seriously, as if both the actors and the audience were in on the joke, the joke being that this wasn’t real, that it was just an artistic production. And they managed to do this without breaking the fourth wall, even though they came very close at some points, meaning that the underlying humor didn’t take the viewer out of the story. (Examples of their very nearly breaking the fourth wall: McCoy to Spock: “You really *have* gone where no man’s gone before!”* and Zefram Cochrane to Riker, Troi, and LaForge: “And you people — you’re all astronauts… on some kind of star trek.”) I felt that sense of fun was lacking in this movie; the closest they came was when Fake Chekov couldn’t get the computer to recognize the password because he kept saying “Wictor” instead of “Victor.” But it didn’t really work.
My main concern is with the “alternate universe” timeline. People around my age (mid-50s) may remember a Gothic daytime serial called “Dark Shadows” (1966-71) that dealt mostly with the supernatural but dabbled in science fiction concepts from time to time. The last three months of the show took place in a parallel universe, with the same actors we’d been seeing for five years but playing different roles. I didn’t know those characters and I didn’t care about them. It’s the same with Star Trek 2009 — because of the oh-so-clever “alternate timeline” conceit, these aren’t the characters I care about, and that’s not even taking into account the fact that they’re played by an entirely new cast (a necessity, I know).
I understand the inherent narrative impediment to making a true prequel — we already know these characters’ futures, so they can’t be put into life-threatening or -altering situations because we know what will happen. Or won’t happen. For all that I cared (read: didn’t care) about these characters, my preference would have been to “reboot” the movie franchise by using an entirely new set of characters on a different ship. If such a movie were set in the TOS era, you run into a similar problem: You don’t know the ultimate fate of, say, Captain Smith or Yeoman Jones, but you do know about the explosion of Praxis, the rapprochement with the Klingons, and Khitomer; about V’ger; about the whale probe; about the Borg. This wasn’t that big of a problem for “Enterprise” (which had other problems), but if it’s deemed a problem, then set the movie in the post-TNG era.
I don’t think “Enterprise” was as bad as some people say it was, but still I was disappointed that it didn’t start really acknowledging the TOS canon until the last season. What I would have liked for the fifth series would have been a show based loosely on “Trials and Tribble-ations” — a show set in the TOS era, using the TOS-era sets and costumes, on a different ship. I think that would have been pretty cool. And actors from TOS could even have “appeared” on the show, as long as you didn’t actually see them (e.g., their voices on a subspace message or whatever).
My main problem with the conceit of the “alternate universe” gimmick of Star Trek 2009 is that the writers may have doomed all life on Earth. As I understand it, history didn’t diverge until the attack on the Kelvin. Therefore, humpback whales have still been extinct since the twenty-first century. It doesn’t seem likely (to me, at least) that anything about Nero’s attack on the Kelvin would prevent the probe from coming by just as it did in the “normal” timeline and destroying life on Earth because it can’t find any whales to talk to. Kirk and his crew saved Earth from the probe, and it was an unusual, if not unique, set of circumstances that allowed them to do so — they happened to be off-planet at the time of the probe’s visit, they knew how to do the slingshot-around-the-sun gag for traveling backward in time (as a result of having done so during their encounter with Captain Christopher in “Tomorrow Is Yesterday”), and Spock had very recently been reeducated as a result of his regenerated body’s being rejoined with his mind and therefore (apparently) was familiar with cetacean species — much of which, it seems to me, is extremely unlikely to occur in the same way in this new timeline. Apparently it is Spock’s fate in the “normal” timeline to disappear into a black hole eight years after the events of “Nemesis” and, unknown to the denizens of the “normal” timeline, to live out the rest of his life in the past of an alternate timeline. Does he impart his wisdom about the Doomsday Machine, about V’ger, about the whale probe? Or does his having mind-melded with the Fake Kirk mean that Fake Kirk now knows what Old Spock knows, thereby obviating the need for Leonard Nimoy to appear as a specter in the inevitable sequels urging Fake Kirk to “use the Force”?
*McCoy’s saying, “You really *have* gone where no man’s gone before!” was a (near-) breaking of the fourth wall at the time ST:IV was released. Subsequent (not necessarily chronologically subsequent) additions to the Star Trek canon have made this no longer the case. I believe it was in ST:V that we first saw a plaque in the Enterprise-A’s observation lounge (or whatever) bearing the words “To boldly go where no man has gone before,” and we learned (if I’m remembering correctly) in the first episode of “Enterprise” that Zefram Cochrane coined that particular phrase at the launching of the Warp Five Complex. So within the Star Trek universe it made sense for McCoy to know that phrase, but at the time of ST:IV’s release, we didn’t have canon proof of that. On the other hand, when William Shatner did the TOS voiceover, was he in character? Was that supposed to be a generic excerpt from Captain Kirk’s log, or was it supposed to be William Shatner telling the viewers what the show was about?
On January 12, 2010, Jerry said:
Love you article, but a couple of points that occur to me.
First, the Federation’s advanced tech in the film may be a direct result of the Kelvin’s encounter with Nero. The survivors carried back scans of the Nerada. That would also explain why the Enterprise launched later in this timeline…it took the Federation a while to understand and adapt the future tech.
As for the alliance with the Klingons, you left out the importance of the Organians. If events in this timeline unfold such that the Kirk and Kor don’t find themselves on Organia on the brink of war, that would affect the Klingon/Federation relationship as much as the destruction of Vulcan. After all, it was the Organians who prevented a full-blown war in the first place.
On January 14, 2010, Sirius said:
I’m smiling at the lively debate the article caused and thinking the discussion good for Star Trek fandom in general.
However, one thing missing here is the realization that the Nexus in Star Trek Generations still holds the Next Generation crew in its grasp. Kirk and Picard ‘escape’ from the Nexus to fight Soren. But, they ‘escape’ into a reality created within the Nexus, not back into the ‘real-world’. Therefore, everything concerning the Next Generation crew after they enter the Nexus takes place within the Nexus.
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