test content
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc

Regarding any Further Time Travel...

SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
edited January 2011 in Ten Forward
So, regarding any future in Star Trek... if a ship would travel back in time shouldn't they theoretically end up in the rebooted Star Trek universe? I'm using some slight Back to the Future logic in the sense that the one time altering event involving Nero created an alternate reality that would affect any ship that would time travel to the past. Therefore, any ship from the current STO based universe should, upon traveling to the past, end up in the alternate reboot universe since their original (true) past no longer exists. Added to that, if said ship attempted to return to the time from which they came from they would not be able to return to the proper STO universe as they would only be going to the future of the new alternate reality.

Therefore... even though the current reality is still continuing onward despite Nero's reality/time changing events, any current era starfleet ship could theoretically be able to travel back in time and therefore discover that Nero and Spock didn't die from the red matter black hole but instead altered history. And then they could go back to stop Nero from ever destroying the USS Kelvin, and would have to in order to get back home.

(Yes, I know nothing like this will ever happen either in the new movies or in STO due to rights and legal mumbo jumbo. I just thought it would be fun for discussion)
Post edited by Unknown User on

Comments

  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2011
    no thats not correct. (based off of what we have seen, as its all just made up)

    in star trek there are now shown to be two forms of time travel.

    normal travel that takes you back into your own past as seen in tng and ds9 etc where changes affect that single timeline.

    blackhole time travel, as seen in star trek xi works differently as it either puts you into an a reality that is already alternate to begin with or at the moment of entry into the past splits you into a new reality.

    everybody in sto is unaffected by the events nero caused in star trek xi. if anybody goes back in time they will simply go back to the past.

    if they used a blackhole to time travel they would either create a brand new alternate reality or i guess could have a one in an infinite chance of landing in the alternate reality now created by nero thus casuing an alternate of that alternate reality.

    good luck understanding any of that.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2011
    no thats not correct. (based off of what we have seen, as its all just made up)

    in star trek there are now shown to be two forms of time travel.

    normal travel that takes you back into your own past as seen in tng and ds9 etc where changes affect that single timeline.

    blackhole time travel, as seen in star trek xi works differently as it either puts you into an a reality that is already alternate to begin with or at the moment of entry into the past splits you into a new reality.

    everybody in sto is unaffected by the events nero caused in star trek xi. if anybody goes back in time they will simply go back to the past.

    if they used a blackhole to time travel they would either create a brand new alternate reality or i guess could have a one in an infinite chance of landing in the alternate reality now created by nero thus casuing an alternate of that alternate reality.

    good luck understanding any of that.

    Oh I understand it. I just like Back to the Future's explanation of time travel better ;)
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2011
    Well, Back to the Future did a lot of things wrong. For instance, when old Biff steals the DeLorean to pass the Almanac on to his younger self, he created what Doc Brown later described as a branch off the time track as we, or Marty and Doc for that matter, know it. So how can he get that same DeLorean back into the still unaltered future for Doc and Marty to use, when he was starting from the alternate time line he just created?

    Even worse: In the alternate 1985, Doc Brown was institutionalized. He didn't build the time machine, he never attempted time travel. Isn't that one such paradox that Doc always warns Marty about?

    But to your problem at hand: Perhaps you can take a look at this for some inspiration: http://boingboing.net/2009/08/18/visualizing-up-to-te.html
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2011
    Well, Back to the Future did a lot of things wrong. For instance, when old Biff steals the DeLorean to pass the Almanac on to his younger self, he created what Doc Brown later described as a branch off the time track as we, or Marty and Doc for that matter, know it. So how can he get that same DeLorean back into the still unaltered future for Doc and Marty to use, when he was starting from the alternate time line he just created?

    good point. old biff should have returned to the alternate future where he is running the place, not the normal future.

    the problem is marty and the doc and that entire time line they were currently in should have been erased immediately and the film and series should have ended right there and then with biff in control.

    but then there should also be a biff already there as well as the returning biff creating two of them.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2011
    The_Dogman wrote:
    So, regarding any future in Star Trek... if a ship would travel back in time shouldn't they theoretically end up in the rebooted Star Trek universe? I'm using some slight Back to the Future logic in the sense that the one time altering event involving Nero created an alternate reality that would affect any ship that would time travel to the past. Therefore, any ship from the current STO based universe should, upon traveling to the past, end up in the alternate reboot universe since their original (true) past no longer exists. Added to that, if said ship attempted to return to the time from which they came from they would not be able to return to the proper STO universe as they would only be going to the future of the new alternate reality.

    Therefore... even though the current reality is still continuing onward despite Nero's reality/time changing events, any current era starfleet ship could theoretically be able to travel back in time and therefore discover that Nero and Spock didn't die from the red matter black hole but instead altered history. And then they could go back to stop Nero from ever destroying the USS Kelvin, and would have to in order to get back home.

    (Yes, I know nothing like this will ever happen either in the new movies or in STO due to rights and legal mumbo jumbo. I just thought it would be fun for discussion)

    If their past on longer existed, then neither would their present or future; therefore, established Star Trek history must still be there for them to travel back to or they wouldn't exist to travel through time at all.

    The only way a time traveller from the 'Prime' universe could end up in the reboot universe is if, as a result of travelling back in time, they happened to be present for Nero's emergence into the past. So, for example, somebody who travelled back to observe Nero's rampage across history, would wind up stuck in the alternate timeline (Spock being an exception; due to being caught up in the original time travel event, he ended up in the same place as Nero, even though he missed the initial changes to the timeline).

    Of course, it could be argued that the 'Prime' Star Trek universe doesn't really exist; and that due to time travel, the characters of the various series have moved through a variety of very similar, yet still different, timelines. For example, in the original timeline, Cochrane most likely didn't get attacked by the Borg; yet in the current version of the 'Prime' universe, he did (due to the events of 'First Contact'). In this sense, correcting changes to the past is simply a matter of manipulating the timeline in such a way that the point you return to in the future/present is as similar to the one you left as possible.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2011
    Well, Back to the Future did a lot of things wrong. For instance, when old Biff steals the DeLorean to pass the Almanac on to his younger self, he created what Doc Brown later described as a branch off the time track as we, or Marty and Doc for that matter, know it. So how can he get that same DeLorean back into the still unaltered future for Doc and Marty to use, when he was starting from the alternate time line he just created?

    Even worse: In the alternate 1985, Doc Brown was institutionalized. He didn't build the time machine, he never attempted time travel. Isn't that one such paradox that Doc always warns Marty about?

    But to your problem at hand: Perhaps you can take a look at this for some inspiration: http://boingboing.net/2009/08/18/visualizing-up-to-te.html

    Actually this is wrong. In the BTTF universe the time travel change is not instant, its more like a wave traveling through time. So the further away you are in time from the temporal event, the longer it takes for you to change. This is why Marty doesn't instantly vanish from existence the moment he alters his parents first meeting in the original film, and why he instead starts seeing aspects of his life slowly fade away. The only time something is "instantaneous" in the BTTF-verse is when something is fixed to its original state (or close enough to). This also explains why Old Biff is able to get back to proper 2015 before the almanac event affects him, because since 2015 is obviously further away from 1955 than 1985 the event would change 1985 well before 2015. In addition, since Doc and Marty didnt exist in proper 1985 at the time of that event, as they were in 2015, they weren't subjected to the timeline change as they essentially "skipped over it" (very similar to how the Enterprise-E is preserved in First Contact).

    Fun side story relating to this: If you've ever wondered why Old Biff looks like he's having a heart attack or something when he gets out of the Delorean in 2015 after delivering the almanac, there's a reason. Apparently in a cut section of BTTF 2's story, when Marty vanishes from Biff's Casino in Alternate-1985 (when he jumps off the roof and lands on the Delorean)... apparently Casino Lorane thinks that Casino Biff killed Marty just like Biff killed George in the alternate timeline. In revenge of this apparently Alternate Reality Lorane ends up shooting and killing Casino Biff in that timeline. So when Old Biff returns to 2015 the timeline change is having an accelerated effect on him, since he would be dead by that point in time.








    By the way... I really like Back to the Future.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2011
    I think the black hole method is similar to crossing into a "mirror" (not THE "mirror" just A "mirror") reality which would be why the prime time line was unaffected by Nero and Spock's journey to the past.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2011
    I think the black hole method is similar to crossing into a "mirror" (not THE "mirror" just A "mirror") reality which would be why the prime time line was unaffected by Nero and Spock's journey to the past.

    Black holes wormholes and many other forms of space tunneling can cross both time and space under proper conditions, so its no big stretch of sci-fi science to say that the right kind of black hole (especially one induced by unstable little understood applied plot device) might also cross reality in addition to the other two.....

    .....Brb. gettin mah red matter and goin to Narnia. :p
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2011
    @ The_Dogman
    Not quite so wrong as you make it seem ;)
    In part one, Marty slowly fades from existence, yet when he finally gets his parents to get each other, he's instantly restored. Physics teaches us that for each action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. So it should have taken a couple of seconds for Marty to fully recover.
Sign In or Register to comment.