What's the recommended way of watching Star Trek?

[smf]

Actually, Yesterday's Enterprise employs the multiple timelines concept. Natasha Yar's presence on the Enterprise-C in the prime timeline is analogous to elderly Spock's presence in the alternate timeline created in the 2009 movie.

The Enterprise D changes, which wouldn't happen with multiple time lines. With the multiple timeline concept there would be a timeline where things had changed but you wouldn't have any knowledge about it, which Guinan does. Sending the Enterprise C back wouldn't change the state of the new time line either, as the events had already taken place. All you could do at that point by sending it back is create another time line.

In fact Natasha Yar suddenly appearing seems more likely they were thinking that there was only one time line. Spock appeared because he travelled from the future, while Natasha appeared because past events no longer happened.

 

[Lacius]

The Enterprise D changes, which wouldn't happen with multiple time lines. With the multiple timeline concept there would be a timeline where things had changed but you wouldn't have any knowledge about it, which Guinan does. Sending the Enterprise C back wouldn't change the state of the new time line either, as the events had already taken place.

No, I'm afraid you aren't following what's possibly happening in the episode.

• Timeline 1: The Enterprise-C (TL1) isn't pulled into the future because no future exists to be pulled into. The ship is destroyed, and the events of the prime timeline take place as we've already seen. Sela doesn't exist.
• Timeline 2: The Enterprise-C (TL2) is pulled into the future of Timeline 1. There likely isn't any reason for the Enterprise-C (TL2) to return to this timeline. The war with the Klingons occurs. This is the alternate future depicted in Yesterday's Enterprise.
• Timeline 3: The Enterprise-C (TL3) is pulled into the future of Timeline 2. The events of the past shown in Yesterday's Enterprise happen here. The Enterprise-C (TL3) is sent back and is destroyed, and the rest of the timeline follows almost identically to Timeline 1. Sela exists.

Another possibility:

• Timeline 1: The Enterprise-C (Unified TL) is pulled into the future of Timeline 1 and skips over that amount of time. The war with the Klingons occurs. This is the alternate future depicted in Yesterday's Enterprise.
• Timeline 2: The Enterprise-C (Unified TL) returns from the future of Timeline 1. The events of the past shown in Yesterday's Enterprise happen here. The Enterprise-C (Unified TL) is sent back and is destroyed, and the rest of the prime timeline follows. Sela exists.

Guinan's ability to sense the possible timelines has nothing to do with anything literally "changing." You're right that the state of the timeline in which there was a war with the Klingons isn't going to change; the events of that timeline already took place. That doesn't make what they were trying to accomplish by sending the Enterprise-C back any less meaningful.

 

[smf]

Guinan's ability to sense the possible timelines has nothing to do with anything literally "changing." You're right that the state of the timeline in which there was a war with the Klingons isn't going to change; the events of that timeline already took place. That doesn't make what they were trying to accomplish by sending the Enterprise-C back any less meaningful.

Well they didn't write it like there were multiple time lines. They make it appear as if there is only one time line, which can be affected by time travel.

"The Enterprise-D encounters a rift in space-time while on a routine mission. As they monitor the anomaly, the heavily damaged USS Enterprise-C, a ship believed destroyed more than two decades earlier, emerges. At that occurrence, the Enterprise-D undergoes a sudden and radical change: it is now a warship and the Federation is at war with the Klingons. Worf has disappeared and Tasha Yar mans the tactical station. None of the crew notice the change, but Guinan senses that reality has changed, and has a meeting with Captain Picard. She says, for example, that there are supposed to be children on the ship, leaving Picard greatly surprised."

I'm not going to drink the kool-aid on this one. You can try to explain it with the revisionary multiple time line concept, but it doesn't fit.

Yar going back in time because she was supposed to be dead in the future suggests that by sending the Enterprise-C back the timeline will revert and she will cease to exist.

 

[Lacius]

Well they didn't write it like there were multiple time lines. They make it appear as if there is only one time line, which can be affected by time travel.

"The Enterprise-D encounters a rift in space-time while on a routine mission. As they monitor the anomaly, the heavily damaged USS Enterprise-C, a ship believed destroyed more than two decades earlier, emerges. At that occurrence, the Enterprise-D undergoes a sudden and radical change: it is now a warship and the Federation is at war with the Klingons. Worf has disappeared and Tasha Yar mans the tactical station. None of the crew notice the change, but Guinan senses that reality has changed, and has a meeting with Captain Picard. She says, for example, that there are supposed to be children on the ship, leaving Picard greatly surprised."

I'm not going to drink the kool-aid on this one. You can try to explain it with the revisionary multiple time line concept, but it doesn't fit.

Well, the fact remains that the episode would be paradoxical without the multiple timelines. You also haven't given any reason to think that your idea of it being a single timeline is anything more than a rule you're projecting onto the episode. Is time travel perfect in Star Trek? Are they always clear about how time travel works? No. There are various time travel episodes that take some real stretches of the imagination in order for the paradoxes to be resolved (ex. Time and Again). But that doesn't change the fact that you're arguing for a concept that precludes the involvement of time-travel duplicates with an episode that specifically sets up a story arc revolving around the presence of a time-travel duplicate from another existing timeline.

Edit: In regards to your episode synopsis, please keep in mind that Star Trek is a television show. Things "changed" from the point of view of the viewer. The crew of the Enterprise-D in the alternate timeline experienced time as a linear series of events in that timeline.

 

[smf]

You also haven't given any reason to think that your idea of it being a single timeline is anything more than a rule you're projecting onto the episode.

I have, you just don't want to accept it. How about Yar going back in time because she was supposed to be dead in the future suggests that by sending the Enterprise-C back the timeline will revert and she will cease to exist, so she would rather die in battle than have her original death take place.

Is time travel perfect in Star Trek? Are they always clear about how time travel works? No. There are various time travel episodes that take some real stretches of the imagination in order for the paradoxes to be resolved (ex. Time and Again).

Why are you trying to project the current theory of time travel in Star Trek onto episodes that are clearly not written with that in mind if you don't believe it's perfect? That was my point that they just make stuff up on the spot & they could easily just change their mind again. The number of times they have on screen suggested that time travel creates multiple time lines is a lot less than the number of times they have time travelled and implied that there was a single time line.

But that doesn't change the fact that you're arguing for a concept that precludes the involvement of time-travel duplicates with an episode that specifically sets up a story arc revolving around the presence of a time-travel duplicate from another existing timeline.

If you accept that time travel is possible (which is obviously up for debate, especially by people who get paid a lot of money to drag out research) then a single time line could still have time travel duplicates, I'm not sure why you think it precludes it? With scifi they don't need science, they just have to write a script.

They are obviously trying to appease the fans by suggesting that the new time line in the Star Trek reboot is not the prime one. However if fixing the borg taking over an alternate timeline is important, then why doesn't future spock destroy the new timeline where Vulcan is destroyed? Especially as he supposedly goes to a lot of trouble to reduce the number of time lines.

 

[Lacius]

I have, you just don't want to accept it. How about Yar going back in time because she was supposed to be dead in the future suggests that by sending the Enterprise-C back the timeline will revert and she will cease to exist, so she would rather die in battle than have her original death take place.

She went back with the Enterprise-C because she wanted her death to mean something. She was either going to die on the Enterprise-D in the Klingon attack, be killed by a tar monster (in an alternate timeline, so not mutually exclusive), or die a meaningful death on the Enterprise-C. She was also enamored with what's-his-name.

Why are you trying to project the current theory of time travel in Star Trek onto episodes that are clearly not written with that in mind if you don't believe it's perfect? That was my point that they just make stuff up on the spot & they could easily just change their mind again.

Because the multiple timelines approach is the only one that makes logical sense. Most time travel episodes of Star Trek, regardless of what they might imply on the surface, can be rationalized with the multiple timelines approach. It should also be noted that this "current theory" as you call it is nothing new.

If you accept that time travel is possible (which is obviously up for debate, especially by people who get paid a lot of money to drag out research) then a single time line could still have time travel duplicates, I'm not sure why you think it precludes it?

I don't think you understand that it would be a paradox for time-travel duplicates to exist if there's only one timeline. The Grandfather Paradox is the most famous example of a paradox caused by time travel without a multiple worlds approach.

If I go back in time and shoot my grandfather before my father is born, then I will never be born. If I'm never born, then I won't go back in time to shoot my grandfather, so then my dad will be born, and I will be alive to go back in time...

The multiple worlds interpretation of time travel and the Novikov self-consistency principle are the only two ways to resolve paradoxes, and the Novikov self-consistency principle is itself a paradox.

They are obviously trying to appease the fans by suggesting that the new time line in the Star Trek reboot is not the prime one.

"Prime" is just a name given to the timeline followed by the episodes we see. By definition, the 2009 film isn't the prime timeline since it's not what we follow on the shows. You're free to call it whatever you want; all the timelines we've seen are equally real.

However if fixing the borg taking over an alternate timeline is important, then why doesn't future spock destroy the new timeline where Vulcan is destroyed? Especially as he supposedly goes to a lot of trouble to reduce the number of time lines.

What are you talking about?

 

[smf]

She went back with the Enterprise-C because she wanted her death to mean something. She was either going to die on the Enterprise-D in the Klingon attack, be killed by a tar monster (in an alternate timeline, so not mutually exclusive), or die a meaningful death on the Enterprise-C. She was also enamored with what's-his-name.

But the on screen reason she gave was that she was supposed to be dead, which doesn't make sense if you have multiple time lines as you're supposed to be whatever you are now with no regard to any other time line.

I don't think you understand that it would be a paradox for time-travel duplicates to exist if there's only one timeline. The Grandfather Paradox is the most famous example of a paradox caused by time travel without a multiple worlds approach.

It's only a paradox if you expect it to be scientifically possible, but Star Trek is fiction and relies on plenty of things that aren't possible (not just now but ever).

If I go back in time and shoot my grandfather before my father is born, then I will never be born. If I'm never born, then I won't go back in time to shoot my grandfather, so then my dad will be born, and I will be alive to go back in time...

I know the paradox, but time travel is like magic in a story. It doesn't have to make sense. With a single time line then you have travelled back in time, your matter exists just in a different time. Therefore killing your grandfather will have no effect on yourself, when you return to your time then you'll find it different but you'll be the same because you were in the magic time travel bubble Doctor Who & Quantum Leap goes with that theory, Back To The Future on the other hand does the same mix and match theory as Star Trek.

The multiple worlds interpretation of time travel and the Novikov self-consistency principle are the only two ways to resolve paradoxes, and the Novikov self-consistency principle is itself a paradox.

Time travel is an unresolvable paradox. I don't know why anyone would pretend anything different (unless you're being paid a lot of money to do research so you can have an easy life at the expense of the gulible).

"Prime" is just a name given to the timeline followed by the episodes we see. By definition, the 2009 film isn't the prime timeline since it's not what we follow on the shows. You're free to call it whatever you want; all the timelines we've seen are equally real.

It's what we follow now though. They are scared to call the new stuff the new prime just because they know trekkies would be upset. All timelines aren't equal, prime is the one true timeline or you wouldn't bother calling it something different.

What are you talking about?

The Temporal Cold War in Enterprise should close off the rebooted time line if it's not considered the prime one. Instead of repairing the time line back to prime he's decided to let it go and rebuild the Vulcan colony. It doesn't make sense, except it means they can keep making films without upsetting old fans too much.

Travelling back in time will always violate the Temporal Prime Directive as you will consume oxygen and let out carbon dioxide. Eat, drink etc. However because of the magic status of time travel, it's only ever plot points that can change history.

 

[Lacius]

But the on screen reason she gave was that she was supposed to be dead, which doesn't make sense if you have multiple time lines as you're supposed to be whatever you are now with no regard to any other time line.

In regards to the other timeline, she was right; Tasha was supposed to be dead.

It's only a paradox if you expect it to be scientifically possible, but Star Trek is fiction and relies on plenty of things that aren't possible (not just now but ever).

There's a difference between something being a paradox and something being scientifically unknown/improbable. We understand time travel to sometimes be paradoxical in the same way we understand that A=A is a logical absolute.

I know the paradox, but time travel is like magic in a story. It doesn't have to make sense.

Sure, time travel doesn't have to make sense. I'm telling you the only way it can make sense.

With a single time line then you have travelled back in time, your matter exists just in a different time. Therefore killing your grandfather will have no effect on yourself, when you return to your time then you'll find it different but you'll be the same

I don't think you understand that the paradox is that one's matter is now in two places at once forever. For example, if I go back in time to stop a friend from getting shot, by your rules, there are now two me's: one who went back in time to save a friend and one who didn't have to go back in time because his friend wasn't shot. That's a paradox without multiple realities.

Time travel is an unresolvable paradox. I don't know why anyone would pretend anything different (unless you're being paid a lot of money to do research so you can have an easy life at the expense of the gulible).

Multiple timelines and realities makes it so time travel is not paradoxical.

The Temporal Cold War in Enterprise should close off the rebooted time line if it's not considered the prime one.

The Temporal Cold War isn't a problem. It was people from alternate futures interacting with the present.

It doesn't make sense, except it means they can keep making films without upsetting old fans too much.

Last time I checked, Prime Spock neither has a way to go back in time and stop the destruction of Vulcan, nor does he have a way to regrow Vulcan.

 

[kehkou]

Stoned of course.

 

[smf]

In regards to the other timeline, she was right; Tasha was supposed to be dead.

Yes she was supposed to be dead in the other time line but she was supposed to be alive in the time line she was in. There was no justification for her to go back, it would violate the Temporal Prime Directive. She was just as likely to prevent the Enterprise-C stopping the war.

In regards to the other timeline, she was right; Tasha was supposed to be dead.

Sure, time travel doesn't have to make sense. I'm telling you the only way it can make sense.
[/quote]

No, it makes no sense either way. Especially as the majority of episodes were written without considering it.

In regards to the other timeline, she was right; Tasha was supposed to be dead.

I don't think you understand that the paradox is that one's matter is now in two places at once forever. For example, if I go back in time to stop a friend from getting shot, by your rules, there are now two me's: one who went back in time to save a friend and one who didn't have to go back in time because his friend wasn't shot. That's a paradox without multiple realities.
[/quote]

It's magic, when you return to your time it sorts itself out. See paradox solved.

The Temporal Cold War isn't a problem. It was people from alternate futures interacting with the present.

That is exactly what happened in Star Trek 2009.

Last time I checked, Prime Spock neither has a way to go back in time and stop the destruction of Vulcan

Why can't he build another ship that can time travel?

 

[smf]

In regards to the other timeline, she was right; Tasha was supposed to be dead.

She was dead in the prime time line but she was supposed to be alive in the alternate time line. There was no justification for her to go back, it would violate the Temporal Prime Directive. She was just as likely to prevent the Enterprise-C from stopping the war. Besides by going back all Enterprise-C was going to do was create another time line, or are alternate timelines only selectively created when you travel back in time?

Sure, time travel doesn't have to make sense. I'm telling you the only way it can make sense.

No, it makes no sense either way. Especially as the majority of episodes were written without considering it.

I don't think you understand that the paradox is that one's matter is now in two places at once forever. For example, if I go back in time to stop a friend from getting shot, by your rules, there are now two me's: one who went back in time to save a friend and one who didn't have to go back in time because his friend wasn't shot. That's a paradox without multiple realities.

It's magic, when you return to your time it sorts itself out. See paradox solved. All temporal issues are resolved at the end of an episode, maybe there is something special about that time?

The Temporal Cold War isn't a problem. It was people from alternate futures interacting with the present.

That is exactly what happened in Star Trek 2009.

Last time I checked, Prime Spock neither has a way to go back in time and stop the destruction of Vulcan

Why can't he build another ship that can time travel?

 

[BORTZ]

eyes closed and choose something else to watch.

 

[Gahars]

eyes closed and choose something else to watch.

You rang?

 

[BORTZ]

You rang?

MUCH BETTER

 

[Gahars]

MUCH BETTER

Suck it, Guild.

 

[Guild McCommunist]

Suck it, Guild.

Statistics show Babylon 5 is a bad show with terrible haircuts.

 

[Gahars]

Statistics show Babylon 5 is a bad show with terrible haircuts.

If that's what you have to tell yourself, Guild, go ahead. I don't want to have anymore sleepless nights.

 

[BORTZ]

Statistics say that i was being sarcastic

 

[Gahars]

Statistics say that i was being sarcastic

Statistics say that you can't ruin this for me!

 

[Lacius]

There was no justification for her to go back

The justification to go back was the fact that she was going to die from the Klingon attack anyway. She was also aware of her meaningless death in another timeline. She also knew that going back with the Enterprise-C would result in dying a meaningful death. She also liked that one dude.

it would violate the Temporal Prime Directive.

That hasn't stopped people in the past, pun intended.

She was just as likely to prevent the Enterprise-C from stopping the war.

What?

Besides by going back all Enterprise-C was going to do was create another time line, or are alternate timelines only selectively created when you travel back in time?

The Enterprise-C going back in time was going to create an alternate timeline with or without her. However, Tasha wanted her death to mean something, at least for once.

As for your question about alternate timelines only being created when you go back in time, that depends on how you look at it. One could argue that all backwards time travel results in alternate realities; we just seem to subjectively call them "alternate timelines" if they're different enough. As for forward time travel, that depends on whether or not you're skipping over time in your own reality or merely transporting to an alternate reality that happens to be temporally ahead of your own.

No, it makes no sense either way. Especially as the majority of episodes were written without considering it.

A multiple realities interpretation of time travel allows time travel to make sense, and it can be applied to most (if not all) instances of time travel in Star Trek. It's also not as new a concept as you're implying.

It's magic, when you return to your time it sorts itself out. See paradox solved. All temporal issues are resolved at the end of an episode, maybe there is something special about that time?

Asserting a paradox is magically resolved doesn't resolve the paradox.

That is exactly what happened in Star Trek 2009.

Yes it is. And?

Why can't he build another ship that can time travel?

Perhaps you should re-watch the movie.

You rang?

I started watching Babylon 5 since you mentioned it. We'll see how it goes.

On an unrelated note, I re-watched those episodes of TNG you cited (from Wikipedia) during our conversation about beaming torpedoes earlier, and neither episode you mentioned had anything to do with what we were talking about. Ain't no thang.