Personally I don't believe in alternate realities because I don't believe in free will. Without free will there is no such thing as choice and without choice you don't generate alternate realities.
I believe in cause and effect. A condition in which free will is an illusion.
Cause and effect does not negate free will, it simply affects your options.
Personally I don't believe in alternate realities because I don't believe in free will. Without free will there is no such thing as choice and without choice you don't generate alternate realities.
I believe in cause and effect. A condition in which free will is an illusion.
Which works fine as a philosophy for real life, but in Star Trek there are demonstrably alternate timelines.
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Joined January 2010.
An alternate universe exists, yes. Technically thousands do.
I subscribe to the alternate universe where Sisko returns from the wormhole, travels through time and punches JJ Abrams in the face to prevent his movies from ever being created. That is the universe that is canon to me.
Whoa! That's canon to me as well, clearly it must be one of the more travelled parallel universes to have so many people know of it!
Why do TOS purists think there is a secret philosophy that only they can interpret. I mean Star Trek is not that hard to understand at all. In fact, Star Trek pretty much hits you upside the head with its messages, you gotta be not watching at all to completely miss it.
Many scientists argue that time travel undermines the idea of cause and effect to create paradoxes, therefore time travel can't happen, BUT the existence of parallel universes offers a way around these paradoxes..........so time travel CAN happen.... To an alternate universe.
It's a different idea than the classic H.G.Wells in the "Time Machine.". Instead of going forward and backward in time, you leap from parallel universe to parallel universe.
Guiding principle:
The universe does not allow paradoxes. In other words, it is simply not possible to travel back in time and kill your own father before you were conceived. You may be able to travel back in time and kill the person you thought was your father, or kill the father of a version of yourself in a parallel universe, but a true paradox is simply not a possibility.
I think that the movie simply takes advantage of the newest theory ATM.
I also agree with an earlier poster about this keeping the prime timeline we have come to know and love intact, for us prime trekers. And MAYBE Just in case of a revival ?
Gods I hope so !
Cause and effect negates the possibility of options.
This is a pointless line of argument; better philosophers and physicists than us have debated it for decades, to no consensus. To that end, you're welcome to believe whichever side of the argument you prefer when it comes to the real world.
Suffice it to say that there is free will in Star Trek and that it is responsible for the creation of alternate timelines, as evidenced by countless episodes across all of the series.
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Joined January 2010.
I think that the movie simply takes advantage of the newest theory ATM.
Except it's not a new theory; the many-worlds interpretation is from 1957 and has long been considered a possible solution to time travel paradoxes. Also, Star Trek has consistently used the time travel theory where changing the timeline of your own universe is possible.
I am going to post this once and I expect a hundred people trying to explain it to me and it is not that I do not understand what people are trying to say it is that I am saying in Star Trek History, Lore, Past whatever you want to call it Time Travel has changed the present and not created a parallel Universe. Parallel Universes were explored in the Mirror universe stories which followed Quantum theory that every decision that can be made has been made but that is not what happens with JJ ****efest a Romulan goes back and alters the past.
In First Contact when the Borg Sphere goes back in time and prevents Zephram Cochrane's warp flight the Enterprise still in the present witness a change immediately and then go back fix what went wrong and return to the unaltered present.
Again these events change slight things in the past as Borg are left on Earth and that is an example of effect preceding cause as this is what causes the first Borg cube to come to Earth as seen in Q-Who. Again changes in the past effecting the present not creating an alternate timeline where nothing remains changes in the prime universe and an alternate universe is created. There is one timeline, it is a singular and it can be changed and fixed.
In Yesterdays Enterprise when the Enterprise C comes through the temporal rift there is an instant change in the present and then when it goes back the change is again instantaneous as the timeline is repaired a new timeline is not created. Another proof from Star Trek lore is that Sela is created in the present, a new universe is not created as people claim she exists in the prime universe as some people have coined it.
In the Voyager episode Relativity Captain Braxton tries to destroy Voyager in hopes of changing the timeline, not in hopes of creating a new universe. If changes in the past did nothing in your universe but created new universes then there would have been no point for him to destroy Voyager in the past as he would have not reaped the benefits and neither would the Borg in First Contact for that matter.
In Trials and Tribbeations Arne Darvin tries to kill Kirk in the past in the hopes it will change his past and present, again not create an alternate universe where he would not reap the benefits. In that episode also Temporal Investigations confirm that changes would be witnessed in the present although they would not be aware of them.
In the Year of Hell the Krenim Temporal Weapon ship eradicates species and objects from history and the timeline changes resulting in changes in the present, NOT ALTERNATE UNIVERSES! These are all fixed when the weapon ship is destroyed again changing the present!
So my point is this for Vulcan to still exist in STO someone must have gone back in time and saved it from Nero and repaired the timeline.
Or that Nero never existed, to destroy Vulcan, because in an alternate timeline, in the past, or future, he went back in time and killed his grandfather. The actual point is... you're argument is based on as yet, unproven, theories, with the only control factor being what Star Trek says, in different episodes. These episodes frequently, had different writers. Different episodes frequently, contradict each other, based upon whatever theories, that writer established. Even going by today's science, quantum mechanics are mathematically, impossible without string theory, which is very similar to the theory of everything. The only true factor is that the "right" timeline, is only perceivable from the selfish bias of someone traveling to the past, from the future. As for the Temporal police, who tells them what the "right" timeline is? They have a future, too. Ultimately, it comes down to what kind of Sci you want in YOUR Sci-Fi. One single, unified, timeline, progressing linearly, from start, to finish. Or multiple linear progressions, occuring simultaneously, and crossing over repeatedly with each other.
Except it's not a new theory; the many-worlds interpretation is from 1957 and has long been considered a possible solution to time travel paradoxes. Also, Star Trek has consistently used the time travel theory where changing the timeline of your own universe is possible.
Which is one of the aspects of the many worlds interpretation - it might be possible for a time traveler to change only their own, personal timeline; for instance, to avoid a bad future, the time traveler goes back in time and rights some wrong - when the time traveler returns to the 'righted' future, he or she is actually returning to an alternate timeline in which the changes that he or she made had an effect. His or her original bad future timeline still marches on without him or her in it. Paradox averted, timeline changed from time traveler's perspective, alternate timeline created.
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Joined January 2010.
Why does time travel need to be used 100% consistently?
In most serial science fiction, sometimes time travel creates alternate realities and sometimes it alters the past.
I have no problem with both being possible in the same science fiction universe based on the method of time travel used.
The one consistent metaphor for time and time travel in Star Trek is that time is like a river.
Rivers can be split or diverted. Some time travel diverts the river. Spock and Nero's time travel split the river instead.
I'm perfectly fine with the idea that something like time travel is complex enough that the rules of how it works don't appear consistent when only comparing a handful of instances of it.
Which is one of the aspects of the many worlds interpretation - it might be possible for a time traveler to change only their own, personal timeline; for instance, to avoid a bad future, the time traveler goes back in time and rights some wrong - when the time traveler returns to the 'righted' future, he or she is actually returning to an alternate timeline in which the changes that he or she made had an effect. His or her original bad future timeline still marches on without him or her in it. Paradox averted, timeline changed from time traveler's perspective, alternate timeline created.
But what about himself, that was already existing, in the alternate timeline? And all the people that populated, this, alternate timeline? Did they travel there from alternate dimensions, too? Or is it more a case of this whole, other, dimension springing into existence, from his action alone? A case of him creating the space/time continuum for that dimension, at that exact moment in time? There would be no original wrong to travel back in time to right. Not to mention, from his perspective, unless he ran into himself, he would think this was the future, as he would think his actions negated the original timeline from taking place, and would have no idea, that it simply continued without him in it. And what about all the momentous events, and roles that he was now absent from in this, original timeline? The questions are endless... that's the beauty of Sci-Fi, you can make up anything.
Every single Star Trek movie aside from the first (which was shat on by pretty much everyone for being boring) was an action movie. Sure, some had character development and good stories, but you've got to be stupid to think action movies can't have those. If the technology available to us now was available when they were making Wrath of Khan, Search for Spock, etc., then AbramsTrek is how they would have looked. I know we all want another Trek TV show, but AbramsTrek just followed the direction that 9 previous Trek films had gone before, just with better effects technology and budget.
Paradox averted, timeline changed from time traveler's perspective, alternate timeline created.
However, Star Trek hasn't avoided time travel paradoxes. One of the more blatant ones is the causality loop from Time's Arrow, where the discovery of Data's severed head in an abandoned mine sets the events in motion that causes his head end up in that very place.
But what about himself, that was already existing, in the alternate timeline? And all the people that populated, this, alternate timeline? Did they travel there from alternate dimensions, too? Or is it more a case of this whole, other, dimension springing into existence, from his action alone? A case of him creating the space/time continuum for that dimension, at that exact moment in time? There would be no original wrong to travel back in time to right. Not to mention, from his perspective, unless he ran into himself, he would think this was the future, as he would think his actions negated the original timeline from taking place, and would have no idea, that it simply continued without him in it. And what about all the momentous events, and roles that he was now absent from in this, original timeline? The questions are endless... that's the beauty of Sci-Fi, you can make up anything.
Unless Spock knew of advanced temporal mechanics that would result in different methods of time travel having different effects. Spock Prime was from 2387, at which point he could have had knowledge of time travel causing different effects, more sophisticated than what people knew about in the 2370 era of Nemesis. I'd imagine Voyager's logs alone would revolutionize the science of temporal mechanics in the Federation and assuming the typical ship encountered as many time anomalies as Voyager did, changes in the understanding of time travel seem possible.
The Borg INTENDED to alter a single timeline and not create a new one. And without knowing which conditions allow for the creation of a new timeline and which conditions don't, it's hard to say.
But my personal take is that if you want to alter your own past, you swim upstream through time like a salmon. And that the slingshot effect and Borg methods do this.
Whereas the red matter singularity DOESN'T propel you upstream. It causes you to exit your timeline and then re-impact with it, with sufficient probabilistic force to splinter it into two timelines upon re-entry.
However, Star Trek hasn't avoided time travel paradoxes. One of the more blatant ones is the causality loop from Time's Arrow, where the discovery of Data's severed head in an abandoned mine sets the events in motion that causes his head end up in that very place.
Good point. I'm willing to concede that time travel in Star Trek is generally a tangled mess of the currently available theories on how time travel and paradoxes would work if you are.
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Joined January 2010.
Unless Spock knew of advanced temporal mechanics that would result in different methods of time travel having different effects. Spock Prime was from 2387, at which point he could have had knowledge of time travel causing different effects, more sophisticated than what people knew about in the 2370 era of Nemesis. I'd imagine Voyager's logs alone would revolutionize the science of temporal mechanics in the Federation and assuming the typical ship encountered as many time anomalies as Voyager did, changes in the understanding of time travel seem possible.
The Borg INTENDED to alter a single timeline and not create a new one. And without knowing which conditions allow for the creation of a new timeline and which conditions don't, it's hard to say.
But my personal take is that if you want to alter your own past, you swim upstream through time like a salmon. And that the slingshot effect and Borg methods do this.
Whereas the red matter singularity DOESN'T propel you upstream. It causes you to exit your timeline and then re-impact with it, with sufficient probabilistic force to splinter it into two timelines upon re-entry.
There you go. You're better than anyone writing at Cryptic. Just remember... space itself, is also moving.
JJ Trek is the only currently supported Star Trek out there.
You will never see another Next Gen movie.
JJ Trek is now THE timeline unless someone decides to do something else with Trek.
I heard the third J.J. Trek actually deals with Kirk and Han Solo being redirected to their respective timeline/dimensions, during a freak transporter/hyperspace miscalculation. It aint like dustin' crops kid...
There you go. You're better than anyone writing at Cryptic. Just remember... space itself, is also moving.
There has been some recent theoretical work done which suggests that while space may be moving, it may NOT be accelerating as previously thought. The theory goes, as I recall, that time is actually much more relative than was previously thought. So at the rim of the universe, the rate of time may be different which only makes movement APPEAR to accelerate.
Point being, applying present understanding to 25th century characters is tricky. They need to know more than we know, which calls for certain "made up" rules for things like time travel.
The most dated science in Trek generally results from cases where the writers had Trek characters' understanding of science match real world science, which was subsequently ditched.
In general, I think you need lots of analogies (time being like a river) and fantasy rules to govern Trek. And they need to sound like things that match the basic workings or outer rim of science as we know it. But you run the risk of being dated whenever you say that there is one way that things "always" or "never" work or rely too heavily on real science without having made-up science tacked on top of it. That said, as a semi-regular enthusiast of Scientific American and scholarly theoretical physics, I do like references to real science. I just think Trek should try to stay fairly neutral on whether contemporary theories are adequate or complete or true in all situations.
I'd probably be so non-committal that I'd have characters say things like:
"Hydrogen GENERALLY has one proton and no neutrons."
"Generally?"
"Well, we made a discovery in 2377 that revolutionized particle physics in very rare cases and..."
"So most of the time Hygrogen has one proton?"
"Yes. It would be unusual if it didn't."
Basically, treat no rules as universal, including ones we take for granted.
I'd probably be so non-committal that I'd have characters say things like:
"Hydrogen GENERALLY has one proton and no neutrons."
"Generally?"
"Well, we made a discovery in 2377 that revolutionized particle physics in very rare cases and..."
"So most of the time Hygrogen has one proton?"
"Yes. It would be unusual if it didn't."
Basically, treat no rules as universal, including ones we take for granted.
If we found an atom that differed from Hydrogen, wouldn't we call it something else instead of "also Hydrogen"?
If we found an atom that differed from Hydrogen, wouldn't we call it something else instead of "also Hydrogen"?
You'd think so. But there may be reasons why we wouldn't.
Which is why I'd allude to these things and cut off attempts at explaining them.
I'd think people in Trek wouldn't JUST be very good at modern day science but would have contradictory science that never gets fully explained onscreen. Because anything they could explain, we'd have access to. But they're in the future so they need to be presented as having access to information we don't.
Maybe atoms, for example, have building blocks we don't know about or some have massless protons attached, causing them to behave and look chemically like Hydrogen but get treated like Hydrogen isotopes for certain purposes.
When it doubt, I say:
- The universe is more complex than we think it is.
AND
- Trek characters know something about everything that we don't know.
AND
- Trek characters know things that we can't allow them to say onscreen because this establishes that they're more advanced than we are. If they said these things (and they were right) then they'd no longer be more advanced than we are.
This is why thy rebooted Trek because fans and their canon, which is why Enterprise even though it was pretty good fans could not handle the canon problems.
If you go and listen to the First Contact commentary on the DVD you will find out that no matter what Trek was heading towards a reboot because they were sick and tired of canon problems., and wanted top tell a story.
Besides the JJ universe dose not effect the prime universe, every Trek DVD is not going to change.....Trek works that way but not real live....your DVD series are safe from time travel.
As mentioned before, multiple slightly-variant universes are canon - TNG episode "Parallels", in which an accident leaves Worf sliding through timelines; in many of them, he's married to Deanna Troi. Therefore, Nero traveling to the past and attempting to alter it would indeed lead to an alternate timeline, as the one he departed obviously did not include an attack on the USS Kelvin by a mysterious atemporal Romulan ship. (In fact, it strikes me as odd that nobody on the Kelvin's bridge was shocked at seeing a Romulan - it was established in TOS that the entire war was conducted without anybody from the Federation even seeing a Romulan corpse. The treaty was negotiated by subspace radio, no video.)
Hydrogen is an element; its distinguishing characteristic is that it has only one proton, and no neutrons. Its stable form has one electron; there are two known ionic forms, with two and three electrons respectively. If it has more than one proton, it's not hydrogen, it's some other element, and won't behave the way hydrogen does.
The original timeline is still supported - we're playing a game set in it. (If you haven't reached the Romulan missions yet, you'll find they even contain an explanation for how a supernova in one star system could propagate effects faster than light, and destroy a planet in another system. It's not a pretty explanation, but it is internally consistent...) We're almost certainly never going to see another movie or TV show set in it, which is a pity, because I was trying to get someone in Hollywood to pitch a series following the adventures of a long-range exploration vessel in the Gamma Quadrant, seeing what things were like there since the Founders withdrew to the Great Link.
Arguing free will is pointless - if you don't believe in it, then my disagreement with you is not something that I can change (since changing that implies I have the free will to choose my position), and therefore you can't possibly change my position through discussion. And you will discount any arguments I make as the inevitable result of the influences that make up what appears to be my mind. I see no logic in arguing a point which admits of no reasoning.
Comments
Cause and effect does not negate free will, it simply affects your options.
Which works fine as a philosophy for real life, but in Star Trek there are demonstrably alternate timelines.
Joined January 2010.
In regard to hating Star Trek 2009:
Whoa! That's canon to me as well, clearly it must be one of the more travelled parallel universes to have so many people know of it!
Why do TOS purists think there is a secret philosophy that only they can interpret. I mean Star Trek is not that hard to understand at all. In fact, Star Trek pretty much hits you upside the head with its messages, you gotta be not watching at all to completely miss it.
Yeah, they're still Star Trek. Just because you dislike them doesn't change the fact that they are Star Trek.
The film had quite a few morals. Mostly centering on friendship, loyalty, and even the old no-win situation.
Not true.
No one knew Lucas was going to "retire" and sell his IP to Disney in 2008 and 2009. So no, this is not true either.
Cause and effect negates the possibility of options.
Many scientists argue that time travel undermines the idea of cause and effect to create paradoxes, therefore time travel can't happen, BUT the existence of parallel universes offers a way around these paradoxes..........so time travel CAN happen.... To an alternate universe.
It's a different idea than the classic H.G.Wells in the "Time Machine.". Instead of going forward and backward in time, you leap from parallel universe to parallel universe.
Guiding principle:
The universe does not allow paradoxes. In other words, it is simply not possible to travel back in time and kill your own father before you were conceived. You may be able to travel back in time and kill the person you thought was your father, or kill the father of a version of yourself in a parallel universe, but a true paradox is simply not a possibility.
I think that the movie simply takes advantage of the newest theory ATM.
I also agree with an earlier poster about this keeping the prime timeline we have come to know and love intact, for us prime trekers. And MAYBE Just in case of a revival ?
Gods I hope so !
This is a pointless line of argument; better philosophers and physicists than us have debated it for decades, to no consensus. To that end, you're welcome to believe whichever side of the argument you prefer when it comes to the real world.
Suffice it to say that there is free will in Star Trek and that it is responsible for the creation of alternate timelines, as evidenced by countless episodes across all of the series.
Joined January 2010.
In regard to hating Star Trek 2009:
R.I.P
Or that Nero never existed, to destroy Vulcan, because in an alternate timeline, in the past, or future, he went back in time and killed his grandfather. The actual point is... you're argument is based on as yet, unproven, theories, with the only control factor being what Star Trek says, in different episodes. These episodes frequently, had different writers. Different episodes frequently, contradict each other, based upon whatever theories, that writer established. Even going by today's science, quantum mechanics are mathematically, impossible without string theory, which is very similar to the theory of everything. The only true factor is that the "right" timeline, is only perceivable from the selfish bias of someone traveling to the past, from the future. As for the Temporal police, who tells them what the "right" timeline is? They have a future, too. Ultimately, it comes down to what kind of Sci you want in YOUR Sci-Fi. One single, unified, timeline, progressing linearly, from start, to finish. Or multiple linear progressions, occuring simultaneously, and crossing over repeatedly with each other.
Which is one of the aspects of the many worlds interpretation - it might be possible for a time traveler to change only their own, personal timeline; for instance, to avoid a bad future, the time traveler goes back in time and rights some wrong - when the time traveler returns to the 'righted' future, he or she is actually returning to an alternate timeline in which the changes that he or she made had an effect. His or her original bad future timeline still marches on without him or her in it. Paradox averted, timeline changed from time traveler's perspective, alternate timeline created.
Joined January 2010.
In regard to hating Star Trek 2009:
In most serial science fiction, sometimes time travel creates alternate realities and sometimes it alters the past.
I have no problem with both being possible in the same science fiction universe based on the method of time travel used.
The one consistent metaphor for time and time travel in Star Trek is that time is like a river.
Rivers can be split or diverted. Some time travel diverts the river. Spock and Nero's time travel split the river instead.
I'm perfectly fine with the idea that something like time travel is complex enough that the rules of how it works don't appear consistent when only comparing a handful of instances of it.
But what about himself, that was already existing, in the alternate timeline? And all the people that populated, this, alternate timeline? Did they travel there from alternate dimensions, too? Or is it more a case of this whole, other, dimension springing into existence, from his action alone? A case of him creating the space/time continuum for that dimension, at that exact moment in time? There would be no original wrong to travel back in time to right. Not to mention, from his perspective, unless he ran into himself, he would think this was the future, as he would think his actions negated the original timeline from taking place, and would have no idea, that it simply continued without him in it. And what about all the momentous events, and roles that he was now absent from in this, original timeline? The questions are endless... that's the beauty of Sci-Fi, you can make up anything.
JJ Trek is the only currently supported Star Trek out there.
You will never see another Next Gen movie.
JJ Trek is now THE timeline unless someone decides to do something else with Trek.
Unless Spock knew of advanced temporal mechanics that would result in different methods of time travel having different effects. Spock Prime was from 2387, at which point he could have had knowledge of time travel causing different effects, more sophisticated than what people knew about in the 2370 era of Nemesis. I'd imagine Voyager's logs alone would revolutionize the science of temporal mechanics in the Federation and assuming the typical ship encountered as many time anomalies as Voyager did, changes in the understanding of time travel seem possible.
The Borg INTENDED to alter a single timeline and not create a new one. And without knowing which conditions allow for the creation of a new timeline and which conditions don't, it's hard to say.
But my personal take is that if you want to alter your own past, you swim upstream through time like a salmon. And that the slingshot effect and Borg methods do this.
Whereas the red matter singularity DOESN'T propel you upstream. It causes you to exit your timeline and then re-impact with it, with sufficient probabilistic force to splinter it into two timelines upon re-entry.
Good point. I'm willing to concede that time travel in Star Trek is generally a tangled mess of the currently available theories on how time travel and paradoxes would work if you are.
Joined January 2010.
In regard to hating Star Trek 2009:
There you go. You're better than anyone writing at Cryptic. Just remember... space itself, is also moving.
I heard the third J.J. Trek actually deals with Kirk and Han Solo being redirected to their respective timeline/dimensions, during a freak transporter/hyperspace miscalculation. It aint like dustin' crops kid...
I can see continuing movies dealing with TOS.
Oh... O.K. How's this sound then:
You're wrong. STO is Star Trek, and yes, it's currently supported. And it has nothing to do with Paramount, or J.J. Abrams.
I'm sorry, I didn't realise there was an argument.
There has been some recent theoretical work done which suggests that while space may be moving, it may NOT be accelerating as previously thought. The theory goes, as I recall, that time is actually much more relative than was previously thought. So at the rim of the universe, the rate of time may be different which only makes movement APPEAR to accelerate.
Point being, applying present understanding to 25th century characters is tricky. They need to know more than we know, which calls for certain "made up" rules for things like time travel.
The most dated science in Trek generally results from cases where the writers had Trek characters' understanding of science match real world science, which was subsequently ditched.
In general, I think you need lots of analogies (time being like a river) and fantasy rules to govern Trek. And they need to sound like things that match the basic workings or outer rim of science as we know it. But you run the risk of being dated whenever you say that there is one way that things "always" or "never" work or rely too heavily on real science without having made-up science tacked on top of it. That said, as a semi-regular enthusiast of Scientific American and scholarly theoretical physics, I do like references to real science. I just think Trek should try to stay fairly neutral on whether contemporary theories are adequate or complete or true in all situations.
I'd probably be so non-committal that I'd have characters say things like:
"Hydrogen GENERALLY has one proton and no neutrons."
"Generally?"
"Well, we made a discovery in 2377 that revolutionized particle physics in very rare cases and..."
"So most of the time Hygrogen has one proton?"
"Yes. It would be unusual if it didn't."
Basically, treat no rules as universal, including ones we take for granted.
If we found an atom that differed from Hydrogen, wouldn't we call it something else instead of "also Hydrogen"?
You'd think so. But there may be reasons why we wouldn't.
Which is why I'd allude to these things and cut off attempts at explaining them.
I'd think people in Trek wouldn't JUST be very good at modern day science but would have contradictory science that never gets fully explained onscreen. Because anything they could explain, we'd have access to. But they're in the future so they need to be presented as having access to information we don't.
Maybe atoms, for example, have building blocks we don't know about or some have massless protons attached, causing them to behave and look chemically like Hydrogen but get treated like Hydrogen isotopes for certain purposes.
When it doubt, I say:
- The universe is more complex than we think it is.
AND
- Trek characters know something about everything that we don't know.
AND
- Trek characters know things that we can't allow them to say onscreen because this establishes that they're more advanced than we are. If they said these things (and they were right) then they'd no longer be more advanced than we are.
If you go and listen to the First Contact commentary on the DVD you will find out that no matter what Trek was heading towards a reboot because they were sick and tired of canon problems., and wanted top tell a story.
Besides the JJ universe dose not effect the prime universe, every Trek DVD is not going to change.....Trek works that way but not real live....your DVD series are safe from time travel.
As mentioned before, multiple slightly-variant universes are canon - TNG episode "Parallels", in which an accident leaves Worf sliding through timelines; in many of them, he's married to Deanna Troi. Therefore, Nero traveling to the past and attempting to alter it would indeed lead to an alternate timeline, as the one he departed obviously did not include an attack on the USS Kelvin by a mysterious atemporal Romulan ship. (In fact, it strikes me as odd that nobody on the Kelvin's bridge was shocked at seeing a Romulan - it was established in TOS that the entire war was conducted without anybody from the Federation even seeing a Romulan corpse. The treaty was negotiated by subspace radio, no video.)
Hydrogen is an element; its distinguishing characteristic is that it has only one proton, and no neutrons. Its stable form has one electron; there are two known ionic forms, with two and three electrons respectively. If it has more than one proton, it's not hydrogen, it's some other element, and won't behave the way hydrogen does.
The original timeline is still supported - we're playing a game set in it. (If you haven't reached the Romulan missions yet, you'll find they even contain an explanation for how a supernova in one star system could propagate effects faster than light, and destroy a planet in another system. It's not a pretty explanation, but it is internally consistent...) We're almost certainly never going to see another movie or TV show set in it, which is a pity, because I was trying to get someone in Hollywood to pitch a series following the adventures of a long-range exploration vessel in the Gamma Quadrant, seeing what things were like there since the Founders withdrew to the Great Link.
Arguing free will is pointless - if you don't believe in it, then my disagreement with you is not something that I can change (since changing that implies I have the free will to choose my position), and therefore you can't possibly change my position through discussion. And you will discount any arguments I make as the inevitable result of the influences that make up what appears to be my mind. I see no logic in arguing a point which admits of no reasoning.