Star Trek Secret Revealed!!! (and spoilers about new film)

Perfect example of what I said about time travel. brilliant use of Time travel to highlight some great new effects and bring back in old trek fans. That was one of my favorite DS9 eps.

Oh, clearly, old Spock would never fully succeed in "restoring" the timeline, but what I am saying is that it goes very much against his established character to not at least try.

Y'know, everyone is assuming that there will be three JJVerse Trek movies.

What if they "reset" the timeline in the last one and everything goes back to the original timeline?

I've assumed from the start the third will dovetail back into TOS...somehow.

I'll be disappointed if it doesn't.

There's no reason to "restore" the timeline since the original timeline still exists.

If he ever tried to "fix" the current one, all he'd be doing is creating yet another divergent timeline, different both from the one he originally left and the one he tried to "undo", both of which would still continue to exist.

Timeline still existing?? That's a track I never followed. Its confusing enough. I believe in one timeline.

Star Trek has never been clear on this. There have been many episodes based upon the necessity of "restoring" the "proper" timeline.

While TNG's "parallels", had a timeline for every fart and hiccup.

Old Spock more or less came out and directly said this in the movie.

THIS movie WAS clear on this.

The best example of this is Back to the Future. When Marty McFly almost accidentally erased himself and his siblings from history, he sort of "fixed" it but his dad became the dominant power over Biff by 1985.

the mirror universe pretty much set in stone the concept that they exist in the trek-verse.

My guess is that there will be exactly ZERO references to the "original" timeline in the new film, with the possible exception of Spock-Prime providing some information to the characters that they couldn't otherwise have known.

There will be ZERO amount of story built around "restoring" the pre-Nero timeline. The WHOLE POINT of the first film was to create a new timeline wherein the future is not determined. Things are not going to "fixed" or "restored." The JJVerse timeline *is* the timeline until the franchise is rebooted years from now.

I agree.

But I think Trek fandom needs to take a big page from Comics fandom here and wrap their minds around the alt-verse concept.

Doing so open up a myriad of possibilities, including cannonizing (in your head) your favorite novels, or ret-conning as you see fit to explain something that grinds your gears.

It also keeps you from being busted up about seeming inconsistencies.

I learned this lesson for myself when I decided that "Enterprise" was simply taking place in a new timeline which was created by the events of "First Contact"

(and in that sense, the Nero incursion could, if you like, be seen not as a split from the "original" time line - and we have to concede that even that might not be original per se, just the first one WE were told about - but a split from the FC timeline)

In point of fact, since we have already passed the dates specified for the Eugenics Wars, one might argue that the "original" crew created an alt-universe which diverged from our own when they intervened twice in 1969.

(or that even that one was a split from the original created in "Time's Arrow" ....you get the idea)

Oh, and to address a point raised up-thread, just because the characters in a given episode THOUGHT they were repairing or needed to repair the original timeline doesn't mean they were correct.

Indeed, given that mirror universe episodes, in particular "In A Mirror Darkly", happen alongside the mainstream timeline in chronological sequence, then JJTrek is still chronologically the first Trek flick, and still a prequel.

Yup, a "clean slate" so they can do everything all over again in a modernized campy, slapstick fashion that will constantly reference pop culture.

Parallel or mirror universe would represent ONE other reality. Not multiple timelines. In Trek in, there are two timelines. All others are literary license.

But as to the Nero altering event, it brings you to the great time travel debate. Some goes back and makes changes. So from that point the time line has changed. But it all originally happened until the leap back. So those people lived a life and then they live another life.

But the original life is still moving forward. Or does everyone's life change as per the time travelers actions? In Trek, Guardian of Forever, everyone's life canged due to what McCoy did.

Oh we and go on and on and on. Some here say that the this creates multiple timeline that still exist. I disagree but its still a never ending cycle or cycles.

Re: Star Trek Secret Revealed!!!

That would be fucking hilarious.

Think of it as The Sliders Principle.

It makes no sense to say "yes the mirror universe exists but it's the only one"

Based on what?

literary license? That's kinda what ALL of fiction is, is it not?

IF the mirror universe exists, then by direct implication one cannot rule out others - in fact, the direct implication is that there pretty much MUST be others.

You look in a mirror you see ONE reflection. Only one line is parallel to another line. That's how I see it. When I see these other universes I see it as off the track. With fiction we 'believe' certain things. For me, I just can't go for just anything.

Its why I hate magic in fiction movies or books.

If you want to mentally model the state of Trek reality, the parallel universes interpretation is fine. You can imagine that JJTrek is one thread and that TOS is another.

But NONE of that is going to show up in the films. In the first place, the parallel universe stuff could only be of interest to fanboys, not for wider audiences to whom the new films are meant to appeal. And, in the second place, Abrams wants the old Trek left behind so that it doesn't constrain story-telling going forward.

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Actually, they say it right in TOS.
In "The Tholian web", I think it's Spock that says that the spatial interphase is an overlapping with an infinite amount of other universes.
Words to that effect, anyway.
Someone, fire up the DVD, you'll see.

Then, of course, it happens to retroactively lead to the mirror universe, but point is, the concept of unlimited parallels goes back to the start.

Maybe he is playing a descendant of Khan?

No, no, see, he has to try to awkwardly connect it to the main universe so he can sell people on the idea better. Or if nothing else so he can keep making lame pop culture references.

Well, duh! OBVIOUSLY, they're not going back to the original timeline for all the reasons you mentioned. All I'm saying is old Spock WOULD at least TRY to fix things, if he was staying true to character.

And yes, we know that in Star Trek, parallel universes exist. That has never stopped our heroes from "correcting" errors they perceive in the timeline.

I don't agree that old Spock would try to wreck someone else's timeline to "fix" it from his perspective. If anything, he'd try to get back to his own timeline.

Kirk didn't mind altering the history of the mirror universe via mirror-Spock, and Spock had the line in JJTrek about learning cheating from an old friend...

But that wasn't just the selfish motive of making the current timeline he occupies feel like "home." They seem to have a flourishing Starfleet with bigger, badder ships, but still not an empire full of conquerers. The course of history is more or less on track, just a little different.

Same difference, really.

Kirk didn't alter the "history" of the mirror universe. He altered the "present" of the mirror universe.