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Do parallel realities take precedence over time travel in the Star Trek Universe?


The 2009 Star Trek movie and its pending sequels are based on the concept of parallel realities introduced in the season 7 Next Generation episode "Parallels," laying out that anything that could happen has happened in a parallel universe. The Enterprise and its crew from the most recent movie are part of a parallel reality that was created when Nero and Spock came back through the black hole created by red matter in an attempt to stem the destruction caused by a supernova. For clarification, this crew will be referred to as Chris Pine's and the older movies as Shatner's.


In the movie Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, a probe shows up in 2286 at Earth looking for whales that had disappeared decades before. Shatner's crew is faced with travelling back in time to try and retrieve two humpback whales in order to stop the cylindrical probe from destroying Earth. They do this using a Klingon Bird-of-Prey that was stolen in the previous movie, going back to 1986 to find the whales.


I think it's safe to assume that in Pine's reality, the probe will probably make an appearance again, since the destruction of whales probably wouldn't change. So Pine's crew will also be faced with the dilemma of travelling back to find humpbacks (although probably without using a Klingon ship).


If Pine's crew also goes back to the same instant in 1986 as Shatner's crew to find whales (which seems highly improbable given that hitting the same time period as Shatner would be ridiculous), would they run into Shatner's crew or would it create another parallel reality stemming from 1986? If it created another reality, that seems like some kind of backwards causality since the event that would be causing the new stem wouldn't be the instant before the ships arrived but an event in the future. Would time travel trump the parallel universe and both Kirks would be there at the same time?



Answer



It depends on how far the Trek 2009 team go back in time.



  • The TOS timeline had a time-travel event to the 1900s

  • The 2009 Movie causes a split in the timeline in the 2100s.


    • Therefore, the 2009 Movie and TOS share the timeline prior to the 2100s.



  • Therefore, the TOS team is a part of the 2009 Movie's timeline, back in the 1900s.


We can agree up to this point, right?


There are 6 possible ways to arrive in the past, with 3 possible outcomes:


Case 1:


TOS:      |--------|

2009:               |-----|

In this case, they do not encounter each other (obviously), and 2009 causes a timeline split of its own, such that their appearance in the past does not happen in the TOS timeline.


Case 2:


TOS:      |-----------|
2009:        |------------|

In this case, they have the potential for an encounter. As established above, the TOS crew is in the 2009's history. However, this would cause a timeline split such that the TOS crew would be unable to return to their own timeline, because the 2009 crew were not recorded in the TOS history.


Case 3:


TOS:      |-----------|

2009: |-------------------|

The 2009 crew cause a timeline divergence before the TOS crew arrive. While the times overlap, they have no chance of meeting each other. And because this causes the timelines to diverge, the TOS crew no longer return to the 2009 timeline's occurrence during this event (If they go further back than when 2009 arrived, that turns in to Case 1 or 2, because TOS's history was written already when 2009 happens). The 2009 crew have accidentally rewritten their history such that the TOS crew are no longer in it.


Case 4:


TOS:  |-------------------|
2009:     |-----------|

The end result is the same as in Case 2, because the timeline divergence would happen when they arrive, not when they leave.


Case 5:


TOS:      |-----------|

2009: |-----------|

The end result is the same as in Case 3, because of when the timeline divergence happens. Neither team can meet the other.


Case 6:


TOS:         |--------|
2009: |-----|

The end result is the same as in Case 3, because of when the timeline divergence happens.


However, the timeline in Star Trek seems to be pretty elastic. With regards to Case 2, if the 2009 team has not caused the timeline to diverge too much, the TOS team's timeline may get modified slightly instead of causing a divergence into the 2009 team's timeline. (Which does have precedent) This however would cause the question of how the 2009 team will return home.


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