With the Kelvin timeline, we are not entirely beholden to existing canon, this is an alternate reality and, as such is full of new and alternate possibilities. “BUT WAIT!” I hear you brilliant and beautiful super Trekkies cry, “Canon tells us, Hikaru Sulu was born before the Kelvin incident, so how could his fundamental humanity be altered? Well, the explanation comes down to something very Star Treky; theoretical, quantum physics and the less than simple fact that time is not linear.
Sure, we experience time as a contiguous series of cascading events but perception and reality aren’t always the same thing. Spock’s incursion from the Prime Universe created a multidimensional reality shift. The rift in space/time created an entirely new reality in all directions, top to bottom, from the Big Bang to the end of everything. As such this reality was, is and always will be subtly different from the Prime Universe. I don’t believe for one second that Gene Roddenberry wouldn’t have loved the idea of an alternate reality (Mirror, Mirror anyone?).
This means, and this is absolutely key, the Kelvin universe can evolve and change in ways that don’t necessarily have to follow the Prime Universe at any point in history, before or after the events of Star Trek ‘09, it can mutate and subvert, it is a playground for the new and the progressive and I know in my heart, that Gene Roddenberry would be proud of us for keeping his ideals alive. Infinite diversity in infinite combinations, this was his dream, that is our dream, it should be everybody’s. ~ Simon Pegg
Time travel man, how does it work?
According to Pegg, just because something happened before Nero landed in the past, does not mean it wasn't changed by Nero going back in time.
We can't automatically assume the events leading to Beyond happened in Prime Trek just because those events started before the moment Nero landed back in time.
Which is reasonable - to an extent. Sulu could be bisexual and was the same in both timelines, just met different people and made different decisions. And it makes sense that time travel incidents that happened in the PT couldn't happen in the KT, causing different time loops and whatnot. But a temporal incursion in the 23rd Century changing everything from the Big Bang onwards? That's just him spitballing bull. He can try to justify it philosophically and try to make it seem like an ode to Roddenberry, but both canonically and physically it's just bull. I highly doubt Roddenberry would be proud of the KT anyway. Different timelines have been created in Star Trek before and never did anything approaching that. I can see the Borg incursion to the 21st Century in Star Trek: First Contact not happening in the KT because the events leading up to it didn't happen, so Zefram Cochrane completed his original test flight of the Phoenix with Lily Sloane instead of Riker and La Forge and never heard of the Borg, and Archer and his Enterprise never encountered the defrosted Borg from the same incursion, which means that the Borg did not get the warning from the 22nd Century about Earth that they didn't receive in the Delta Quadrant until the 24th Century and led to the Borg assimilating Federation and Romulan colonies along the Neutral Zone in the first season of TNG. Also no incursions from the Guardian of Forever to the 1930s, no Enterprise slingshots to the 1960s, no Klingon Bird-of-Prey to 1986 for humpback whales, no Voyager appearing in 1996 due to the TIC, or Sisko, Bashir and Jadzia Dax appearing in 2024. Also, maybe no Devidian incursion to 1893, but it also may have happened anyway since they live out of phase with the majority of lifeforms. Also, the Roswell Incident may have happened in 1947 in the KT, but it might have been a ship besides Quark's.
However, they mentioned the Xindi in Beyond. Which means that the Sphere Builders, from an extradimensional realm outside the regular multiverse, made the same attempt with the Delphic Expanse and trying to get them to destroy Earth in the KT's 22nd Century. Did Archer and his Enterprise investigate that one? Or did it wait until another ship, like Erika Hernandez and the NX-02 Columbia, investigated it instead? Or did both ships go investigate together? And if that's so, then why did they try again in the KT's 23rd Century according to STO's Agents of Yesterday expansion? You'd think the KT Klingons would have remembered what happened then and known better than to ally with the Sphere Builders since they were terrified of the Expanse as it was. Any which way, that could have led to the same incursion of Xindi-Reptilians being sent to the past to develop a bio-weapon, though the date and place they were sent to and who went back to stop them would have changed.
Regardless, it's far simpler to say that the KT and PT explored different areas of space rather than saying Nero's incursion in the 23rd Century somehow unmade an entire nebula, M-class planet, and the old alien civilization that had resided on it. I mean, really, it unmade those but the Eugenics Wars still happened and Khan still launched out on the Botany Bay? If it could change things that much, I doubt there would have been a United Federation of Planets in the first place for Nero to encounter.
And this is what is known as handwaveium, the magical force that allows an author to change anything he wants, while still keeping anything he wants from the original canon, when making an alternate universe setting.
Yeah, not exactly keeping with Simon Pegg's assertion of being a 'Trekkie'. When Kirk's Enterprise in the PT went back to 1969 in TOS episode 'Tomorrow is Yesterday', they didn't suddenly create some new universe where everything was different even though they ran amok by destroying a jet fighter, beaming its pilot aboard, and generally TRIBBLE up their attempts to fix things up until Spock figured out a way to reverse the slingshot and temporally integrate John Christopher and the MP into their past selves. Or when the Borg opened fire on Zefram Cochrane's Montana missile complex, killed a chunk of the original Phoenix flight's ground crew, and his co-pilot Lily was stuck in orbit while Riker and La Forge took her place on the Phoenix and Troi acted as launch coordinator. Those were on par with what Nero did in the '09 Star Trek reboot, yet no massively different universe.
All of those are entirely different situations though.
As none of them involved red matter, giant super novas, or black holes.
Again, handwaveium.
The extent I can go with it is that a black hole only allows a one way trip through it, so the KT wouldn't have a quantum entanglement with the PT, which is why it was able to go on as a separate timeline instead of overwriting the PT when events were changed. Red matter, as far as they say, only creates black holes. The energy from the Hobus supernova traveling through subspace at FTL speed, however, is likely what caused the black hole to become a temporal gateway, though apparently a highly unstable one as it sent the Narada and the Jellyfish through to different years but the same continuity. Reminds me somewhat of TAS episode 'Yesteryear' in which the Guardian of Forever was used to study recent Vulcan history - namely during Spock's childhood - while Spock was in the more distant past, basically replaying history and severing a temporal loop in which the older Spock was needed to go back and save his younger self from being killed during his kahs-wan maturity test. Which, if you want to go canonically, means that the red matter black hole and supernova created a temporary effect similar to the Guardian of Forever, but without its cryptically speaking guiding intelligence.
But recreating an entire universe? No supernova would have the energy equivalent of the Big Bang, which is basically what that would have to be. And again, if it could change things from the Big Bang onwards, the chances that Nero and Spock arrived in a universe that close to the one they left would be negligible. They could just as easily have ended up in a realm like the Undine's fluidic space, or the extradimensional realm the Sphere Builders are from, nothing like the universe as we know it, and they would have died almost immediately. And even if they created a universe like ours, there are millions of years of history that could have changed before the 23rd Century to create a radically different universe. Like the Voth retaining control of Earth and making sure mammals never evolve, the Organians dying out instead of evolving into energy beings, the Preservers deciding not to seed humanoid DNA on worlds throughout the galaxy, or ancient empires like the Tkon, the Iconians, the Talosians, or Sargon's species made different decisions that changed entire sectors of the galaxy, leading to the failure of sentient life evolving on planets like Vulcan, Andoria, Tellar, and Earth.
Yeah, I know, handwaveium. But some really sloppy handwaveium from someone who claims to be a Trekkie.
And this is what is known as handwaveium, the magical force that allows an author to change anything he wants, while still keeping anything he wants from the original canon, when making an alternate universe setting.
Yeah, not exactly keeping with Simon Pegg's assertion of being a 'Trekkie'. When Kirk's Enterprise in the PT went back to 1969 in TOS episode 'Tomorrow is Yesterday', they didn't suddenly create some new universe where everything was different even though they ran amok by destroying a jet fighter, beaming its pilot aboard, and generally **** up their attempts to fix things up until Spock figured out a way to reverse the slingshot and temporally integrate John Christopher and the MP into their past selves. Or when the Borg opened fire on Zefram Cochrane's Montana missile complex, killed a chunk of the original Phoenix flight's ground crew, and his co-pilot Lily was stuck in orbit while Riker and La Forge took her place on the Phoenix and Troi acted as launch coordinator. Those were on par with what Nero did in the '09 Star Trek reboot, yet no massively different universe.
So, yeah, Pegg's explanation is bull.
But the Trek we see on screen is a direct result of those actions having already taken place. The future affecting the past affecting the present. We see the results of the changes before the changes occur - All is predestined.
The Kelvin Timeline, we are seeing the death and birth of a new timeline from the actions on screen.
But the Trek we see on screen is a direct result of those actions having already taken place. The future affecting the past affecting the present. We see the results of the changes before the changes occur - All is predestined.
The Kelvin Timeline, we are seeing the death and birth of a new timeline from the actions on screen.
I disagree. When Sisko, Bashir, and Jadzia Dax went back to 2024 in the DS9 'Past Tense' two parter, they knew who Gabriel Bell was and he was obviously the sort of man who did what history recorded him as doing. However, because he went to Sisko and Bashir's aid because of their anachronistic presence, he got killed prematurely and Sisko decided to take his place. His portrait ended up becoming that of Gabriel Bell's. So it wasn't a predestination paradox originally.
The First Contact-Enterprise-1st Season of TNG Borg loop is arguably a predestination paradox, as is Data's head being left behind in 1893 San Francisco. But Voyager had a few instances of the timeline being changed utterly without changing random components from the Big Bang onwards: Kes being around for the Year of Hell and afterwards instead of Seven of Nine in 'Before and After'; Harry Kim and Chakotay from 2390 stopping Voyager from getting destroyed in 'Timeless'; Voyager successfully stopping the destruction of the 29th Century Sol System in 1996 in the 'Future's End' two parter, successfully severing a temporal loop; the entire 'Year of Hell' two parter being averted with the destruction of Annorax and his timeship; the averting of the future where Voyager is still making its way back to Earth where Icheb and Naomi Wildman are adults in 'Shattered'; and the averting of another timeline where it took Voyager decades longer to get home when Janeway traveled back from 2404 in 'Endgame'.
Not to mention the whole affair the Prophets pulled off with Akorem Laan in the DS9 episode 'Accession' where they brought him forward from the 22nd Century to have history record him as disappearing, then reinserted him back into the 22nd Century while changing only the fact that he wrote more poems; the severing of a temporal loop of the Defiant being sent to the 22nd Century on the planet Gaia in 'Children of Time'; the very similar ENT episode 'E2'; the severed temporal loop of Molly O'Brien being sent alone to the 21st Century and recovered as an adult in 'Time's Orphan'; not to mention the variety of futures Miles O'Brien averted during his temporal jumping around in 'Visionary'.
So not all is predestined. There were numerous changes that didn't remake the entire universe, just overwrote the timeline from the point of the temporal incursion instead of remaking the entire universe from its point of creation - the Big Bang - up to the point of the temporal incursion in 2233, which is what Pegg is saying happened and created new planets, species, nebulas and whatnot while keeping things similar enough that a UFP, Klingon Empire and Romulan Star Empire still exist, let alone Kirk's parents and his gestation up until the point Nero showed up. Not to mention the Eugenics Wars and Khan's fleeing aboard the Botany Bay happened on schedule.
Moving on, in addition to the possibility of a Gorn rebellion - which I see as likely since Ambassador S'taass has repeatedly called for Gorn representation in the Klingon High Council and constantly gets shot down - I would think the Orion Syndicate under Melani D'ian might be a possible ally for them since I doubt the 'Emerald Empress' would be happy about the Alliance cracking down on the types of activities the Orions pursue for pleasure and profit - slaving, smuggling, and various other criminal enterprises. I can't see the Nausicaans cheering for 'peace in our time' either, being violence-prone anarchists who are prone to pursuing the mercenary life. The STO Klingon Empire is a hastily built construct of various species led by another species with a xenophobic tendencies. Without the outside pressure of the Undine or Iconians, I can't see its jury rigged structure continuing indefinitely without some cracks threatening to bring the whole thing down. And I can see the Na'kuhl or other members of the Temporal Liberation Front looking to hasten its downfall.
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However, they mentioned the Xindi in Beyond. Which means that the Sphere Builders, from an extradimensional realm outside the regular multiverse, made the same attempt with the Delphic Expanse and trying to get them to destroy Earth in the KT's 22nd Century. Did Archer and his Enterprise investigate that one? Or did it wait until another ship, like Erika Hernandez and the NX-02 Columbia, investigated it instead? Or did both ships go investigate together? And if that's so, then why did they try again in the KT's 23rd Century according to STO's Agents of Yesterday expansion? You'd think the KT Klingons would have remembered what happened then and known better than to ally with the Sphere Builders since they were terrified of the Expanse as it was. Any which way, that could have led to the same incursion of Xindi-Reptilians being sent to the past to develop a bio-weapon, though the date and place they were sent to and who went back to stop them would have changed.
Regardless, it's far simpler to say that the KT and PT explored different areas of space rather than saying Nero's incursion in the 23rd Century somehow unmade an entire nebula, M-class planet, and the old alien civilization that had resided on it. I mean, really, it unmade those but the Eugenics Wars still happened and Khan still launched out on the Botany Bay? If it could change things that much, I doubt there would have been a United Federation of Planets in the first place for Nero to encounter.
So, yeah, Pegg's explanation is bull.
But recreating an entire universe? No supernova would have the energy equivalent of the Big Bang, which is basically what that would have to be. And again, if it could change things from the Big Bang onwards, the chances that Nero and Spock arrived in a universe that close to the one they left would be negligible. They could just as easily have ended up in a realm like the Undine's fluidic space, or the extradimensional realm the Sphere Builders are from, nothing like the universe as we know it, and they would have died almost immediately. And even if they created a universe like ours, there are millions of years of history that could have changed before the 23rd Century to create a radically different universe. Like the Voth retaining control of Earth and making sure mammals never evolve, the Organians dying out instead of evolving into energy beings, the Preservers deciding not to seed humanoid DNA on worlds throughout the galaxy, or ancient empires like the Tkon, the Iconians, the Talosians, or Sargon's species made different decisions that changed entire sectors of the galaxy, leading to the failure of sentient life evolving on planets like Vulcan, Andoria, Tellar, and Earth.
Yeah, I know, handwaveium. But some really sloppy handwaveium from someone who claims to be a Trekkie.
But the Trek we see on screen is a direct result of those actions having already taken place. The future affecting the past affecting the present. We see the results of the changes before the changes occur - All is predestined.
The Kelvin Timeline, we are seeing the death and birth of a new timeline from the actions on screen.
Star heaven.
Or maybe star hell, because it was a naughty supernova that didn't obey the laws of physics.
Or the crazy robots with the blender arms.....
The First Contact-Enterprise-1st Season of TNG Borg loop is arguably a predestination paradox, as is Data's head being left behind in 1893 San Francisco. But Voyager had a few instances of the timeline being changed utterly without changing random components from the Big Bang onwards: Kes being around for the Year of Hell and afterwards instead of Seven of Nine in 'Before and After'; Harry Kim and Chakotay from 2390 stopping Voyager from getting destroyed in 'Timeless'; Voyager successfully stopping the destruction of the 29th Century Sol System in 1996 in the 'Future's End' two parter, successfully severing a temporal loop; the entire 'Year of Hell' two parter being averted with the destruction of Annorax and his timeship; the averting of the future where Voyager is still making its way back to Earth where Icheb and Naomi Wildman are adults in 'Shattered'; and the averting of another timeline where it took Voyager decades longer to get home when Janeway traveled back from 2404 in 'Endgame'.
Not to mention the whole affair the Prophets pulled off with Akorem Laan in the DS9 episode 'Accession' where they brought him forward from the 22nd Century to have history record him as disappearing, then reinserted him back into the 22nd Century while changing only the fact that he wrote more poems; the severing of a temporal loop of the Defiant being sent to the 22nd Century on the planet Gaia in 'Children of Time'; the very similar ENT episode 'E2'; the severed temporal loop of Molly O'Brien being sent alone to the 21st Century and recovered as an adult in 'Time's Orphan'; not to mention the variety of futures Miles O'Brien averted during his temporal jumping around in 'Visionary'.
So not all is predestined. There were numerous changes that didn't remake the entire universe, just overwrote the timeline from the point of the temporal incursion instead of remaking the entire universe from its point of creation - the Big Bang - up to the point of the temporal incursion in 2233, which is what Pegg is saying happened and created new planets, species, nebulas and whatnot while keeping things similar enough that a UFP, Klingon Empire and Romulan Star Empire still exist, let alone Kirk's parents and his gestation up until the point Nero showed up. Not to mention the Eugenics Wars and Khan's fleeing aboard the Botany Bay happened on schedule.