Skip to main content

In Star Trek (2009), Did the Original Timeline Survive?


Usually, in Star Trek, when there's a timeline change, the indication is that the original timeline is gone and replaced with the new one. In City on the Edge of Forever, Kirk makes a comment that if they don't get the timeline straight, that millions of people who never died before will die.


Much of the time travel in Trek created suspense by declaring a need to restore the original timeline.


It's already been discussed in other questions about how, in the new movie (simply titled Star Trek with no subtitle or series number) they were unable to restore the original timeline. While some of this is open to interpretation, it seemed like in this instance, for the first time, in Trek, there was an alternate timeline that was seen as an alternate possibility - no reference was made to it replacing the original timeline.


In this movie, was there any reference to the original timeline still existing? In this movie, was the original timeline still considered to be intact?




Answer



To say Star Trek is inconsistent with time travel would be a massive understatement. Each story involving it usually has its own rules which are established or inferred during that story. This is part of the nature of having a science-fiction dynasty where dozens of writers contributed to the canon.


That said, the writers of the film Star Trek sought to reboot the franchise while respecting the original canon we all enjoyed. As part of the reboot, they had Spock and Nero's actions create a new timeline that's similar, but crucially different from the original. This was meant to be irreversible, as to establish a new canon. In addition, they sought to do this in a manner that shows the original canon still exists.


The mechanism they used for this was Spock. By having the original Spock get hurled back in time into this alternate timeline, the writers show us that the stories we grew up on are still there, but they're inaccessible to this new Enterprise crew. Otherwise old Spock wouldn't be the Spock we knew from TOS and TNG, as his memories would have been presumably overwritten with the new historical events of the film. During the film, there's a scene on the bridge where they establish this in-universe:



Spock: Nero's very presence has altered the flow of history, beginning with the attack on the U.S.S. Kelvin, culminating in the events of today, thereby creating an entire new chain of incidents that cannot be anticipated by either party.


Uhura: An alternate reality.


Spock: Precisely.



In addition, the makers of the game Star Trek Online, which takes place in the original timeline, released this image which helps clarify where their game fits into the new status quo. Timeline of key Star Trek events



The 'Alternate Timeline' being the one of Star Trek (2009). This nicely lays out how the two timelines are related, and shows they both continue to exist.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

harry potter - Do the Kwikspell courses work?

In Harry Potter we are introduced to Kwikspell course in The Chamber of Secrets (and never hear about it again). We see Filch taking courses, presumably by mail. The descriptions of Kwikspell make me think it is for people who are weak in magic (kind of like how Neville was supposed to be when he was younger), but had magic in them nonetheless. However, Ron's comments later in the chapter make it sound like it is mainly for Squibs to learn magic. However, it is strongly implied through out all the books that Squibs are essentially Muggles, and will never be able to do magic. How then is a Kwikspell course supposed to work? Do we have any information to know if it works at all? Is it a scam? An answer from any level of canon is welcome. Answer Kwikspell courses are (probably) useful to some wizards, but not to squibs. The Kwikspell course literature comes with two testimonials. Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes: ‘I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke...
Post a Comment
Read more

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.
Post a Comment
Read more

languages - Do we ever see written English in the Star Wars films?

In Empire Strikes Back , we see a transcription of what R2's beeps and bloops mean, but it's not English (sorry for the low quality, it's from the 2004 DVDs): I'd assume it's what Basic looks like when written, but is there some point in the the Star Wars films we see written English instead? (This sort of spun off from a discussion in How do people understand astromech droids? .) Answer At one point there was English but it has been phased out in subsequent versions of the films. Chris Gould at DVD Active did a comparison of all versions of each of the Star Wars films, and in his comparison of Episode 4 , there are a couple of screenshots showing how the power gauge for the Death Star tractor beam was changed. I imagine there are probably more to be found in his other comparisons but I haven't got around to reading those yet.
Post a Comment
Read more

Was the "pure soul" of Harry's what had really hurt Voldemort?

In the Order of the Phoenix, Voldemort possesses Harry, and it hurts. Greatly. I think that Dumbledore explained that it was because Voldemort's rotten soul was incapable of assimilating Harry's pure soul, that Voldemort didn't understand the love and friendship etc that Harry has in his heart. But, I think it was a lie. Remember that in Deathly Hallows, while looking for information regarding Horcruxes, it is discovered that it is in fact possible to merge a soul fragment back, but that the process was extremely painful. Now then, if Voldemort tried to possess Harry, and Harry had a fragment of Voldemort's soul, I think that it could have been the true cause of Voldemort's pain: the fact of having his soul so close of another fragment. I think that Dumbledore knew that fact, but had to lie to Harry because it was inappropriate to let him know that he had one of Voldemort's soul fragments at the moment. Is that right? Or was it truly the pure soul of Harry's...
Post a Comment
Read more