IO9 says STO is the Best Look at the Future of the Star Trek Universe

bwleon7 · September 2017

"Star Trek: Discovery is set 10 years before the events of the original Star Trek, but that wasn’t always going to be the case. It was almost an anthology show that was going to take fans from the pre-Kirk Federation into Star Trek’s future. If you’re disappointed Discovery is solely stuck in the past instead, you really should play Star Trek Online."

"it even at one point answers the question of what the hell actually happened to that fleet of Dominion warships Sisko got the Prophets to disappear in “Sacrifice of Angels” (they dumped it into the “present” of the game, because the Prophets are TRIBBLE)."

"It’s kind of weird that right now, in the franchise’s 51st year, a video game has been the only real window into what Star Trek’s future might look like—something I, like many other fans, hoped to see out of Discovery when it was first announced. But as far as windows go, the view has been surprisingly enjoyable."

http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-best-look-at-the-future-of-the-star-trek-universe-c-1811171544

I know they don't want to get into trouble with Paramount and CBS but I wonder if Cryptic can market STO as a look at the future of the ST universe . A lot of people like myself want to see what is going on after Kirk, Picard, Sisko and Janeway, not what happened before them.

legendarylycan · September 2017

it's true - the prophets ARE ****

hawku001x · September 2017

highlord83 · September 2017

So the future of Star Trek is asleep at the wheel Admirals sending fast battlecruisers packed with pillage hungry murder machines on diplomatic missions and research forays?

The only reason the flag of freedom isn't flying on my ships is Cryptic not letting me do so. :P

mirrorchaos · September 2017

The whole article is like a large joke, i don't mean that it's terrible but rather funny. Someone complaining that we are getting a prequel for Trek and the article writer mentions that STO is the only lifeline forwards, full of mass murdering admirals where exploration is irrelivent so long as some poor sod is the target of phasers and torpeodes. Where starfleet the Empire and the Romulans are full of alien ships with very alien boff layouts and doff layouts and the job of starfleet captain is to explore, research and seek out races peacefully, where conflict should be the last resort.

Unknown · September 2017

This content has been removed.

starswordc · September 2017

> @crashdragon said:
> Picard : Does anyone remember when we were explorers?

In context he was talking about having to be a diplomat instead, as I recall.

I also recall Kirk openly and unironically saying, "I'm a soldier, not a diplomat," in "Errand of Mercy".

artan42 · September 2017

starswordc wrote: »

> @crashdragon said:
> Picard : Does anyone remember when we were explorers?

In context he was talking about having to be a diplomat instead, as I recall.

I also recall Kirk openly and unironically saying, "I'm a soldier, not a diplomat," in "Errand of Mercy".

And as we know he was incorrect. He is neither. He's an explorer. His redshirts cover the former and the TOS Ent did not have anyone trained as a diplomat on board.

jonsills · September 2017

artan42 wrote: »

starswordc wrote: »

> @crashdragon said:
> Picard : Does anyone remember when we were explorers?

In context he was talking about having to be a diplomat instead, as I recall.

I also recall Kirk openly and unironically saying, "I'm a soldier, not a diplomat," in "Errand of Mercy".

And as we know he was incorrect. He is neither. He's an explorer. His redshirts cover the former and the TOS Ent did not have anyone trained as a diplomat on board.

KIRK: How do you fight a thing like that?

McCOY: Maybe you're a soldier so often that you forget you're also trained to be a diplomat. Why not try a carrot instead of a stick?

- TOS: "Metamorphosis"

starswordc · September 2017

> @artan42 said:
> And as we know he was incorrect. He is neither. He's an explorer. His redshirts cover the former and the TOS Ent did not have anyone trained as a diplomat on board.

Nice double standard. You don't get to take screen-canon over Roddenberry's behind-the-scenes comments in one thread (https://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/comment/13266629/#Comment_13266629) and then do the opposite here.

artan42 · September 2017

jonsills wrote: »

artan42 wrote: »

starswordc wrote: »

> @crashdragon said:
> Picard : Does anyone remember when we were explorers?

In context he was talking about having to be a diplomat instead, as I recall.

I also recall Kirk openly and unironically saying, "I'm a soldier, not a diplomat," in "Errand of Mercy".

And as we know he was incorrect. He is neither. He's an explorer. His redshirts cover the former and the TOS Ent did not have anyone trained as a diplomat on board.

KIRK: How do you fight a thing like that?

McCOY: Maybe you're a soldier so often that you forget you're also trained to be a diplomat. Why not try a carrot instead of a stick?

- TOS: "Metamorphosis"

We all know what McCoy is using diplomat as a euphemism for, and carrot

.

starswordc wrote: »

> @artan42 said:
> And as we know he was incorrect. He is neither. He's an explorer. His redshirts cover the former and the TOS Ent did not have anyone trained as a diplomat on board.

Nice double standard. You don't get to take screen-canon over Roddenberry's behind-the-scenes comments in one thread (https://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/comment/13266629/#Comment_13266629) and then do the opposite here.

I've not mentioned Roddenberry nor any BtS material at all. I've looked at the context of the show (mildly incorrectly as jonsills pointed out) where, despite dialogue, the visual presentation and story do not support that particular interpretation of Kirks character. As the opening credits state, he is on a five year mission to seek out new life and new civilisations and to go boldly where no one has gone before, ergo, he's an explorer, it's literally his mission statement.

However I will concede he is also a diplomat as Jon ably pointed out and thus contradicts himself there (Kirk not Jon). Or alternatively Kirk understand how to speak metaphorically or figuratively and is obviously not claiming to be an actual solider as, for one thing, he's on a ship not on the ground which would make him a sailor.
Prior to becoming a command officer he was a weapons officer, not even security (which is the closest thing Starfleet has to a marine and the only people in SF who could reasonably be refereed to as soldiers).

mirrorchaos · September 2017

I used to called Kirk a "Bar room brawler" because he is more the type to have his buttons pushed more easily during difficult confrontations than say Picard who is more inclined to let the insults go over his head. Sisko and Archer are more on the same level as Kirk in a lot of ways.

Starfleet officers 80 years later call the type of diplomacy Kirk and others like him used to do for Starfleet as "Cowboy diplomacy", because these Starfleet officers were more inclined to throwing punches than sitting down around a table and working out the differences.

Despite the opposite sides of the diplomatic coin, they end up with the same ending assuming a correct resolution: a greater understanding of new life and a greater understanding of one self in the process.

No Disrespect to any of those captains but Kirk was less inclined to a diplomatic solution than a tactical option if he could get away with it.

starswordc · September 2017

> @artan42 said:
> I've not mentioned Roddenberry nor any BtS material at all. I've looked at the context of the show (mildly incorrectly as jonsills pointed out) where, despite dialogue, the visual presentation and story do not support that particular interpretation of Kirks character. As the opening credits state, he is on a five year mission to seek out new life and new civilisations and to go boldly where no one has gone before, ergo, he's an explorer, it's literally his mission statement.
>
> However I will concede he is also a diplomat as Jon ably pointed out and thus contradicts himself there (Kirk not Jon). Or alternatively Kirk understand how to speak metaphorically or figuratively and is obviously not claiming to be an actual solider as, for one thing, he's on a ship not on the ground which would make him a sailor.
> Prior to becoming a command officer he was a weapons officer, not even security (which is the closest thing Starfleet has to a marine and the only people in SF who could reasonably be refereed to as soldiers).

My apologies, I assumed you were referring to the oft-repeated Roddenberryism that Starfleet isn't a military organization.

However, it still doesn't fit the evidence. First, in "Errand of Mercy" Kirk very definitely is on a military mission (countering local Klingon aggression in kind), and second, Starfleet really doesn't have any distinction between service branches: even ground forces use what are traditionally naval ranks. (Which is probably a function of how capturing planets basically involves gaining space superiority, given how precisely orbital bombardment can be used in the 'verse, but I digress.) Starfleet additionally never refers to its personnel as sailors (or even spacers, a term I've seen in other science fiction), but Kirk said "soldier", which is fine as a general term for regular combatant forces.

mhall85 · September 2017

bwleon7 wrote: »

"Star Trek: Discovery is set 10 years before the events of the original Star Trek, but that wasn’t always going to be the case. It was almost an anthology show that was going to take fans from the pre-Kirk Federation into Star Trek’s future. If you’re disappointed Discovery is solely stuck in the past instead, you really should play Star Trek Online."

"it even at one point answers the question of what the hell actually happened to that fleet of Dominion warships Sisko got the Prophets to disappear in “Sacrifice of Angels” (they dumped it into the “present” of the game, because the Prophets are ****)."

"It’s kind of weird that right now, in the franchise’s 51st year, a video game has been the only real window into what Star Trek’s future might look like—something I, like many other fans, hoped to see out of Discovery when it was first announced. But as far as windows go, the view has been surprisingly enjoyable."

http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-best-look-at-the-future-of-the-star-trek-universe-c-1811171544

I know they don't want to get into trouble with Paramount and CBS but I wonder if Cryptic can market STO as a look at the future of the ST universe . A lot of people like myself want to see what is going on after Kirk, Picard, Sisko and Janeway, not what happened before them.

It's cool that STO gets this "tip of the hat," but in order for this to happen, STO has to be accepted as canon.

And, sorry, I don't think Cryptic has crossed that threshold of worthiness. "Midnight" came close, but I've been fairly disappointed by the storylines and writing since the end of the Iconian War. It's just been... clunky.

And this iO9 article kinda misinterprets the development of Discovery. The closest the show came to the anthology idea was Bryan Fuller using that has his first pitch. And CBS rejected it, because it would be too expensive, and too much of a risk (for them, anyway). In other words, it was never going to be that. That's not to say we won't see post-Nemesis/post-Hobus Trek again.

artan42 · September 2017

starswordc wrote: »

My apologies, I assumed you were referring to the oft-repeated Roddenberryism that Starfleet isn't a military organization.

Not there, no. I mean it's not a military, that's explicit in the show, it's just a well armed exploration fleet that does border protection but that's not where I was going here, just pointing out Kirk's a cowboy but he's not a soldier. Even Sisko couldn't be said to be a soldier really, and he spent nearly five years at war in the Federations only combat vessel (well, other than the Vengeance).

starswordc wrote: »

However, it still doesn't fit the evidence. First, in "Errand of Mercy" Kirk very definitely is on a military mission (countering local Klingon aggression in kind)

YMMV on that still. Border patrols are not solely military functions, but I'm not going to argue the gist, Starfleet is a militia after all, they are responsible for Federation security however its clear its just a diversion form his route rather than his full time job as by the next episode he's either mapping an uncharted planet (by broadcast) or on Triskelion (by stardate).

starswordc wrote: »

and second, Starfleet really doesn't have any distinction between service branches: even ground forces use what are traditionally naval ranks. (Which is probably a function of how capturing planets basically involves gaining space superiority, given how precisely orbital bombardment can be used in the 'verse, but I digress.)

Well that's because it dosn't have service branches. It has departments of the Starfleet so they're not going to have different ranks. MACO was the only organisation with different ranks and that wasn't even part of Starfleet. And completely dissolved by the time Starfleet was formed (Federation Starfleet, not Earths).

highlord83 · September 2017

Starfleet being a military force or not is a circular argument. It has ranks, is a uniformed service, and enters into combat in defense of the Federation, but at the same time behaves like civilians, lacks a the hardened edge one would expect in a Navy, and actively keeps it's more militarized members out of the chain of command.

The confusion has an easy answer. Roddenberry stated that he sees Starfleet more as a space Coast Guard than a Navy. Which means that exploration, humanitarian missions, diplomacy and "coastal defense" is it's M.O. and not projecting power as a combat force.

It's absolutely ludicrous, and it keeps biting the Federation in the TRIBBLE. Even worse, the people living on the Frontier keep paying the price for peace while the comfortable and insulated-from-reality core world population keeps wondering why people can't just get along and salve their poor ideals with more useless philosophy and poetry.

Which, in my opinion, is why MACO and Omega Commandos exist, and why I think the entrenched Starfleet university professors pretending to be flag officers don't like them much.

themadrigogs · September 2017

mhall85 wrote: »

bwleon7 wrote: »

"Star Trek: Discovery is set 10 years before the events of the original Star Trek, but that wasn’t always going to be the case. It was almost an anthology show that was going to take fans from the pre-Kirk Federation into Star Trek’s future. If you’re disappointed Discovery is solely stuck in the past instead, you really should play Star Trek Online."

"it even at one point answers the question of what the hell actually happened to that fleet of Dominion warships Sisko got the Prophets to disappear in “Sacrifice of Angels” (they dumped it into the “present” of the game, because the Prophets are ****)."

"It’s kind of weird that right now, in the franchise’s 51st year, a video game has been the only real window into what Star Trek’s future might look like—something I, like many other fans, hoped to see out of Discovery when it was first announced. But as far as windows go, the view has been surprisingly enjoyable."

http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-best-look-at-the-future-of-the-star-trek-universe-c-1811171544

I know they don't want to get into trouble with Paramount and CBS but I wonder if Cryptic can market STO as a look at the future of the ST universe . A lot of people like myself want to see what is going on after Kirk, Picard, Sisko and Janeway, not what happened before them.

It's cool that STO gets this "tip of the hat," but in order for this to happen, STO has to be accepted as canon.

And, sorry, I don't think Cryptic has crossed that threshold of worthiness. "Midnight" came close, but I've been fairly disappointed by the storylines and writing since the end of the Iconian War. It's just been... clunky.

And this iO9 article kinda misinterprets the development of Discovery. The closest the show came to the anthology idea was Bryan Fuller using that has his first pitch. And CBS rejected it, because it would be too expensive, and too much of a risk (for them, anyway). In other words, it was never going to be that. That's not to say we won't see post-Nemesis/post-Hobus Trek again.

Yeah, if you imagine a hypothetical series set sufficiently after Nemesis, how much of STO's story could be absorbed? Some is harmless, like Shon and the Enterprise F, some are fine possibilities that they might want to overwrite, like the founding of New Romulus, some are probably best overwritten, like the Klingon's conquering the Gorn or the Borg arcs, and some are nearly impossible to use, like the return to the Delta Quadrant. Then, once you lose the Delta Quadrant, the rest of the story just collapses in on itself. I like what they've done within the context of the game (I really liked the way they threaded multiple plots together with Kal Dano, for instance), but I don't see how much of it could survive in canon. In order to get as much on-screen content into the game as possible, they've had to sacrifice too much of what makes the galaxy interesting to explore.

artan42 · September 2017

themadrigogs wrote: »

some are fine possibilities that they might want to overwrite, like the founding of New Romulus

Why? The destruction of Romulus is a canon event, there's probably fallout from that in any hypothetical ST series set in the future from NEM. That would likely include a new Romulan state of some sort.

themadrigogs · September 2017

artan42 wrote: »

themadrigogs wrote: »

some are fine possibilities that they might want to overwrite, like the founding of New Romulus

Why? The destruction of Romulus is a canon event, there's probably fallout from that in any hypothetical ST series set in the future from NEM. That would likely include a new Romulan state of some sort.

I just meant that particular state. I imagine any new hands would want a lot of freedom. The people that crewed the Enterprise F (assuming it was set after the F) is no big deal. How a Romulan civil war plays out is a much bigger deal. It's definitely something I'd like to keep, but if you are talking about things from STO likely to be adopted as canon, I wouldn't consider it safe from revision by any means.

As for the destruction of Romulus, sure we have to accept it as canon... but if someone new came along and decided to just throw that part out and move on, they wouldn't get a sustained argument from me.

starkaos · September 2017

artan42 wrote: »

themadrigogs wrote: »

some are fine possibilities that they might want to overwrite, like the founding of New Romulus

Why? The destruction of Romulus is a canon event, there's probably fallout from that in any hypothetical ST series set in the future from NEM. That would likely include a new Romulan state of some sort.

We are assuming that the destruction of Romulus occurred in the Prime Universe and not some other parallel universe. So until the hypothetical ST series is created that proves that Romulus is destroyed or isn't destroyed, then both possibilities are equally valid. The destruction of Romulus is a canon event, but we don't know which universe it happened in since we only have a few minutes in what is assumed to be the Prime Universe.

Using a sacrificial parallel universe would protect the Prime Universe from being rewritten assuming that changing the past changes the future like we have been led to believe for decades as far as Star Trek is concerned. Time travel in Star Trek 2009 works exactly like in every other instance of time travel in Star Trek. There is no need to use excuses like branching timelines or dimensional travel to a parallel universe that looks like the 23rd Century. So instead of Old Spock and Nero coming from the Prime Universe, they came from the unaltered Kelvin Universe where Kelvin Kirk got to know his father.

starswordc · September 2017

highlord83 wrote: »

Starfleet being a military force or not is a circular argument. It has ranks, is a uniformed service, and enters into combat in defense of the Federation, but at the same time behaves like civilians, lacks a the hardened edge one would expect in a Navy, and actively keeps it's more militarized members out of the chain of command.

The confusion has an easy answer. Roddenberry stated that he sees Starfleet more as a space Coast Guard than a Navy. Which means that exploration, humanitarian missions, diplomacy and "coastal defense" is it's M.O. and not projecting power as a combat force.

It's absolutely ludicrous, and it keeps biting the Federation in the ****. Even worse, the people living on the Frontier keep paying the price for peace while the comfortable and insulated-from-reality core world population keeps wondering why people can't just get along and salve their poor ideals with more useless philosophy and poetry.

Which, in my opinion, is why MACO and Omega Commandos exist, and why I think the entrenched Starfleet university professors pretending to be flag officers don't like them much.

I've consistently seen the Dominion War as a breaking point in this regard, much like World War II was for the United States: we didn't really maintain standing armies or a strong peacetime intelligence establishment before that, thinking we still had our oceans to insulate us from the world at large. That world died conclusively at Pearl Harbor (if indeed it had ever existed). Similarly, officers assigned to the front lines of the Dominion War who weren't prepared to think of themselves as soldiers first and foremost, died, and the ones who survived and made it their career are now the service's senior personnel.

And so nowadays I frequently write an interservice rivalry between the blueshirts of the Science department and the redshirts (with the poor bloody goldshirts caught in the middle).

mhall85 · September 2017

starkaos wrote: »

artan42 wrote: »

themadrigogs wrote: »

some are fine possibilities that they might want to overwrite, like the founding of New Romulus

Why? The destruction of Romulus is a canon event, there's probably fallout from that in any hypothetical ST series set in the future from NEM. That would likely include a new Romulan state of some sort.

We are assuming that the destruction of Romulus occurred in the Prime Universe and not some other parallel universe. So until the hypothetical ST series is created that proves that Romulus is destroyed or isn't destroyed, then both possibilities are equally valid. The destruction of Romulus is a canon event, but we don't know which universe it happened in since we only have a few minutes in what is assumed to be the Prime Universe.

Using a sacrificial parallel universe would protect the Prime Universe from being rewritten assuming that changing the past changes the future like we have been led to believe for decades as far as Star Trek is concerned. Time travel in Star Trek 2009 works exactly like in every other instance of time travel in Star Trek. There is no need to use excuses like branching timelines or dimensional travel to a parallel universe that looks like the 23rd Century. So instead of Old Spock and Nero coming from the Prime Universe, they came from the unaltered Kelvin Universe where Kelvin Kirk got to know his father.

"Parallels" set the idea of branching timelines into canon, long before the KT movies. Going by the evidence presented in that TNG episode, there is a timeline that has a fully-intact Romulus.

I don't think that should be the "Prime" timeline, though. I don't like retconning the Kelvin Timeline out of existence, and if you remove its tie to the Prime timeline (namely, Prime Spock), you're undercutting its legitimacy.

mhall85 · September 2017

themadrigogs wrote: »

mhall85 wrote: »

bwleon7 wrote: »

"Star Trek: Discovery is set 10 years before the events of the original Star Trek, but that wasn’t always going to be the case. It was almost an anthology show that was going to take fans from the pre-Kirk Federation into Star Trek’s future. If you’re disappointed Discovery is solely stuck in the past instead, you really should play Star Trek Online."

"it even at one point answers the question of what the hell actually happened to that fleet of Dominion warships Sisko got the Prophets to disappear in “Sacrifice of Angels” (they dumped it into the “present” of the game, because the Prophets are ****)."

"It’s kind of weird that right now, in the franchise’s 51st year, a video game has been the only real window into what Star Trek’s future might look like—something I, like many other fans, hoped to see out of Discovery when it was first announced. But as far as windows go, the view has been surprisingly enjoyable."

http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-best-look-at-the-future-of-the-star-trek-universe-c-1811171544

I know they don't want to get into trouble with Paramount and CBS but I wonder if Cryptic can market STO as a look at the future of the ST universe . A lot of people like myself want to see what is going on after Kirk, Picard, Sisko and Janeway, not what happened before them.

It's cool that STO gets this "tip of the hat," but in order for this to happen, STO has to be accepted as canon.

And, sorry, I don't think Cryptic has crossed that threshold of worthiness. "Midnight" came close, but I've been fairly disappointed by the storylines and writing since the end of the Iconian War. It's just been... clunky.

And this iO9 article kinda misinterprets the development of Discovery. The closest the show came to the anthology idea was Bryan Fuller using that has his first pitch. And CBS rejected it, because it would be too expensive, and too much of a risk (for them, anyway). In other words, it was never going to be that. That's not to say we won't see post-Nemesis/post-Hobus Trek again.

Yeah, if you imagine a hypothetical series set sufficiently after Nemesis, how much of STO's story could be absorbed? Some is harmless, like Shon and the Enterprise F, some are fine possibilities that they might want to overwrite, like the founding of New Romulus, some are probably best overwritten, like the Klingon's conquering the Gorn or the Borg arcs, and some are nearly impossible to use, like the return to the Delta Quadrant. Then, once you lose the Delta Quadrant, the rest of the story just collapses in on itself. I like what they've done within the context of the game (I really liked the way they threaded multiple plots together with Kal Dano, for instance), but I don't see how much of it could survive in canon. In order to get as much on-screen content into the game as possible, they've had to sacrifice too much of what makes the galaxy interesting to explore.

Yep.

I like the Enterprise-F, and since it's licensed by CBS, it's damn near canon as it is. If it shows up as such on screen, as a nod to Cryptic and the STO community... that would be great, actually.

Still, there's a ton I'd want out of canon... all the way down to the name "Undine." I loathe that name, LOL. It sounds like underwear to me. I like the idea of the Iconians returning, and I like the idea of Hobus being an artificial event that was caused through malicious intentions. And, I like the idea of the Vaadwaur, and Voyager causing a lot of damage to the DQ from an interstellar geopolitical perspective. There are good nuggets.

I'd want the show, or whatever, to have the freedom to explore these things on their own terms, though.

jonsills · September 2017

"Undine", in fact, was the name the alchemist Paracelsus gave to his supposed spirits of water (he believed each of the four classical elements had its own native spirits, with the undine representing Water, gnomes Earth, sylphs Air, and salamanders Fire). It seems a fair name to stick on a species native to something called "fluidic space". Can't just keep calling them Species 8472, after all...

starkaos · September 2017

mhall85 wrote: »

starkaos wrote: »

artan42 wrote: »

themadrigogs wrote: »

some are fine possibilities that they might want to overwrite, like the founding of New Romulus

Why? The destruction of Romulus is a canon event, there's probably fallout from that in any hypothetical ST series set in the future from NEM. That would likely include a new Romulan state of some sort.

We are assuming that the destruction of Romulus occurred in the Prime Universe and not some other parallel universe. So until the hypothetical ST series is created that proves that Romulus is destroyed or isn't destroyed, then both possibilities are equally valid. The destruction of Romulus is a canon event, but we don't know which universe it happened in since we only have a few minutes in what is assumed to be the Prime Universe.

Using a sacrificial parallel universe would protect the Prime Universe from being rewritten assuming that changing the past changes the future like we have been led to believe for decades as far as Star Trek is concerned. Time travel in Star Trek 2009 works exactly like in every other instance of time travel in Star Trek. There is no need to use excuses like branching timelines or dimensional travel to a parallel universe that looks like the 23rd Century. So instead of Old Spock and Nero coming from the Prime Universe, they came from the unaltered Kelvin Universe where Kelvin Kirk got to know his father.

"Parallels" set the idea of branching timelines into canon, long before the KT movies. Going by the evidence presented in that TNG episode, there is a timeline that has a fully-intact Romulus.

I don't think that should be the "Prime" timeline, though. I don't like retconning the Kelvin Timeline out of existence, and if you remove its tie to the Prime timeline (namely, Prime Spock), you're undercutting its legitimacy.

Parallels had nothing to do with branching timelines. A branching timeline would be where I decide to drink Coke instead of Pepsi so there would be a new universe created where I drink Pepsi instead of Coke. Parallels deals with an infinite number of realities so that any possible outcome will happen. So there is an infinite number of Star Trek universes, an infinite number of Star Wars Universes, an infinite number of Game of Thrones universes, etc.

Troi: What do you mean, quantum realities?
Data: For any event, there is an infinite number of possible outcomes. Our choices determine which outcome will follow. But there is a theory in quantum physics that all possibilities that can or could happen do happen in alternate quantum realities. For instance, in a different quantum reality, Captain Riker may have chosen to sit at the other end of the table. While in another reality, the Captain may be standing.
Beverly: So at this moment, there are an infinite number of Enterprises... and an infinite number of Doctor Crushers having this discussion.
Data: Yes. Although on some of those Enterprises, there may not be a Doctor Crusher...

The problem with the branching timeline theory is that it violates the law of conservation of energy since every time a choice is made, a completely new universe has to be created. With there being an infinite number of realities that were created during the Big Bang, then it doesn't require a new universe to be created every time a choice is made since all possible outcomes happen. So in one parallel universe, I drink Coke and in another parallel universe I drink Pepsi and everything else in those parallel universes are completely identical.

dalolorn · September 2017

starkaos wrote: »

mhall85 wrote: »

starkaos wrote: »

artan42 wrote: »

themadrigogs wrote: »

some are fine possibilities that they might want to overwrite, like the founding of New Romulus

Why? The destruction of Romulus is a canon event, there's probably fallout from that in any hypothetical ST series set in the future from NEM. That would likely include a new Romulan state of some sort.

We are assuming that the destruction of Romulus occurred in the Prime Universe and not some other parallel universe. So until the hypothetical ST series is created that proves that Romulus is destroyed or isn't destroyed, then both possibilities are equally valid. The destruction of Romulus is a canon event, but we don't know which universe it happened in since we only have a few minutes in what is assumed to be the Prime Universe.

Using a sacrificial parallel universe would protect the Prime Universe from being rewritten assuming that changing the past changes the future like we have been led to believe for decades as far as Star Trek is concerned. Time travel in Star Trek 2009 works exactly like in every other instance of time travel in Star Trek. There is no need to use excuses like branching timelines or dimensional travel to a parallel universe that looks like the 23rd Century. So instead of Old Spock and Nero coming from the Prime Universe, they came from the unaltered Kelvin Universe where Kelvin Kirk got to know his father.

"Parallels" set the idea of branching timelines into canon, long before the KT movies. Going by the evidence presented in that TNG episode, there is a timeline that has a fully-intact Romulus.

I don't think that should be the "Prime" timeline, though. I don't like retconning the Kelvin Timeline out of existence, and if you remove its tie to the Prime timeline (namely, Prime Spock), you're undercutting its legitimacy.

Parallels had nothing to do with branching timelines. A branching timeline would be where I decide to drink Coke instead of Pepsi so there would be a new universe created where I drink Pepsi instead of Coke. Parallels deals with an infinite number of realities so that any possible outcome will happen. So there is an infinite number of Star Trek universes, an infinite number of Star Wars Universes, an infinite number of Game of Thrones universes, etc.

Troi: What do you mean, quantum realities?
Data: For any event, there is an infinite number of possible outcomes. Our choices determine which outcome will follow. But there is a theory in quantum physics that all possibilities that can or could happen do happen in alternate quantum realities. For instance, in a different quantum reality, Captain Riker may have chosen to sit at the other end of the table. While in another reality, the Captain may be standing.
Beverly: So at this moment, there are an infinite number of Enterprises... and an infinite number of Doctor Crushers having this discussion.
Data: Yes. Although on some of those Enterprises, there may not be a Doctor Crusher...

The problem with the branching timeline theory is that it violates the law of conservation of energy since every time a choice is made, a completely new universe has to be created. With there being an infinite number of realities that were created during the Big Bang, then it doesn't require a new universe to be created every time a choice is made since all possible outcomes happen. So in one parallel universe, I drink Coke and in another parallel universe I drink Pepsi and everything else in those parallel universes are completely identical.

You do realize they're essentially two ways of describing the same phenomenon, though? None of the branches are being created on the fly, they're all there to begin with.

alexmakepeace · September 2017

dalolorn wrote: »

starkaos wrote: »

mhall85 wrote: »

starkaos wrote: »

artan42 wrote: »

themadrigogs wrote: »

some are fine possibilities that they might want to overwrite, like the founding of New Romulus

Why? The destruction of Romulus is a canon event, there's probably fallout from that in any hypothetical ST series set in the future from NEM. That would likely include a new Romulan state of some sort.

We are assuming that the destruction of Romulus occurred in the Prime Universe and not some other parallel universe. So until the hypothetical ST series is created that proves that Romulus is destroyed or isn't destroyed, then both possibilities are equally valid. The destruction of Romulus is a canon event, but we don't know which universe it happened in since we only have a few minutes in what is assumed to be the Prime Universe.

Using a sacrificial parallel universe would protect the Prime Universe from being rewritten assuming that changing the past changes the future like we have been led to believe for decades as far as Star Trek is concerned. Time travel in Star Trek 2009 works exactly like in every other instance of time travel in Star Trek. There is no need to use excuses like branching timelines or dimensional travel to a parallel universe that looks like the 23rd Century. So instead of Old Spock and Nero coming from the Prime Universe, they came from the unaltered Kelvin Universe where Kelvin Kirk got to know his father.

"Parallels" set the idea of branching timelines into canon, long before the KT movies. Going by the evidence presented in that TNG episode, there is a timeline that has a fully-intact Romulus.

I don't think that should be the "Prime" timeline, though. I don't like retconning the Kelvin Timeline out of existence, and if you remove its tie to the Prime timeline (namely, Prime Spock), you're undercutting its legitimacy.

Parallels had nothing to do with branching timelines. A branching timeline would be where I decide to drink Coke instead of Pepsi so there would be a new universe created where I drink Pepsi instead of Coke. Parallels deals with an infinite number of realities so that any possible outcome will happen. So there is an infinite number of Star Trek universes, an infinite number of Star Wars Universes, an infinite number of Game of Thrones universes, etc.

Troi: What do you mean, quantum realities?
Data: For any event, there is an infinite number of possible outcomes. Our choices determine which outcome will follow. But there is a theory in quantum physics that all possibilities that can or could happen do happen in alternate quantum realities. For instance, in a different quantum reality, Captain Riker may have chosen to sit at the other end of the table. While in another reality, the Captain may be standing.
Beverly: So at this moment, there are an infinite number of Enterprises... and an infinite number of Doctor Crushers having this discussion.
Data: Yes. Although on some of those Enterprises, there may not be a Doctor Crusher...

The problem with the branching timeline theory is that it violates the law of conservation of energy since every time a choice is made, a completely new universe has to be created. With there being an infinite number of realities that were created during the Big Bang, then it doesn't require a new universe to be created every time a choice is made since all possible outcomes happen. So in one parallel universe, I drink Coke and in another parallel universe I drink Pepsi and everything else in those parallel universes are completely identical.

You do realize they're essentially two ways of describing the same phenomenon, though? None of the branches are being created on the fly, they're all there to begin with.

But if all the branches existed to begin with, that implies predetermination, which conflicts with basic observations of physics. If all events are predetermined, then we can no longer state cause and effect. Under such a system, all events happen because they were predestined to happen--objects cannot longer influence one another. For example, if I pick up a pencil and then let it fall to the floor, I could not say that it fell to the floor because of the Earth's gravitational pull. That would imply that the Earth can influence the behavior of the pencil--that it can change the outcome of events--which is impossible if events are predetermined.

But if objects cannot influence each other, why does everything that we observe behave as if they can? The shape, size, composition, and movements of planets are all consistent with gravity; water demonstrates properties consistent with the electromagnetic force of polar molecules; light can be emitted, bent, and delivers energy when it hits something. Basically, if all events are predetermined, there's no reason for physics to make sense, because our system of physics runs entirely on objects exerting influence over one another.

Now, it's possible that amidst an infinite sea of universes guided by random, predetermined events, we just happen to exist in one where things appear to make sense. We're dealing with infinity, after all. But why does it always make sense? I can be completely certain that if I let go of that pencil, it will fall to the floor. It won't fly to the ceiling, or turn around and jab me in the eye, or just disappear. Total physical anarchy makes life impossible, but a few anomalies here and there aren't fatal. Nobody's going to die if grains of sand disappear now and again, or the rocks suddenly turn pitch black for a while. Even if chunks of creature's bodies randomly exploded every once in a while, that wouldn't be enough to prevent life as a whole from thriving. It's way, way more likely that we would live in a universe where things mostly make sense than one where things always make sense but have no underlying causation.

But we always see the universe behave in a predictable manner. We don't see grains of sand disappear, or rocks turn pitch black, and my pencil certainly isn't going to stab me in the eye. Taken in aggregate, humans have made billions of billions of observations about the physical world (so have animals, but they can't report their findings), and they all point to a system of physics that behaves in a logical, predictable way that is consistent with objects exerting influence over one another. But that's impossible in a system that runs on predetermined events

Therefore, it is incredibly unlikely (even by the standards of infinity) that we live in a universe that's moving on a predetermined path. There is a mountain of evidence that points to a system that is incompatible with predetermination, and no evidence against that system. The odds that a predetermined system just happened to shake out such that everything in the whole universe behaves in apparent contradiction to that predetermined system are so ludicrously slim that they're not even worth considering. The most logical conclusion is that events are not predetermined, so having all timelines present at the start of the universe doesn't make sense.

starkaos · September 2017

dalolorn wrote: »

starkaos wrote: »

mhall85 wrote: »

starkaos wrote: »

artan42 wrote: »

themadrigogs wrote: »

some are fine possibilities that they might want to overwrite, like the founding of New Romulus

Why? The destruction of Romulus is a canon event, there's probably fallout from that in any hypothetical ST series set in the future from NEM. That would likely include a new Romulan state of some sort.

We are assuming that the destruction of Romulus occurred in the Prime Universe and not some other parallel universe. So until the hypothetical ST series is created that proves that Romulus is destroyed or isn't destroyed, then both possibilities are equally valid. The destruction of Romulus is a canon event, but we don't know which universe it happened in since we only have a few minutes in what is assumed to be the Prime Universe.

Using a sacrificial parallel universe would protect the Prime Universe from being rewritten assuming that changing the past changes the future like we have been led to believe for decades as far as Star Trek is concerned. Time travel in Star Trek 2009 works exactly like in every other instance of time travel in Star Trek. There is no need to use excuses like branching timelines or dimensional travel to a parallel universe that looks like the 23rd Century. So instead of Old Spock and Nero coming from the Prime Universe, they came from the unaltered Kelvin Universe where Kelvin Kirk got to know his father.

"Parallels" set the idea of branching timelines into canon, long before the KT movies. Going by the evidence presented in that TNG episode, there is a timeline that has a fully-intact Romulus.

I don't think that should be the "Prime" timeline, though. I don't like retconning the Kelvin Timeline out of existence, and if you remove its tie to the Prime timeline (namely, Prime Spock), you're undercutting its legitimacy.

Parallels had nothing to do with branching timelines. A branching timeline would be where I decide to drink Coke instead of Pepsi so there would be a new universe created where I drink Pepsi instead of Coke. Parallels deals with an infinite number of realities so that any possible outcome will happen. So there is an infinite number of Star Trek universes, an infinite number of Star Wars Universes, an infinite number of Game of Thrones universes, etc.

Troi: What do you mean, quantum realities?
Data: For any event, there is an infinite number of possible outcomes. Our choices determine which outcome will follow. But there is a theory in quantum physics that all possibilities that can or could happen do happen in alternate quantum realities. For instance, in a different quantum reality, Captain Riker may have chosen to sit at the other end of the table. While in another reality, the Captain may be standing.
Beverly: So at this moment, there are an infinite number of Enterprises... and an infinite number of Doctor Crushers having this discussion.
Data: Yes. Although on some of those Enterprises, there may not be a Doctor Crusher...

The problem with the branching timeline theory is that it violates the law of conservation of energy since every time a choice is made, a completely new universe has to be created. With there being an infinite number of realities that were created during the Big Bang, then it doesn't require a new universe to be created every time a choice is made since all possible outcomes happen. So in one parallel universe, I drink Coke and in another parallel universe I drink Pepsi and everything else in those parallel universes are completely identical.

You do realize they're essentially two ways of describing the same phenomenon, though? None of the branches are being created on the fly, they're all there to begin with.

The end result is the same, but the method getting to that point is completely different. One has an infinite number of universes created during the Big Bang while the other has new branches being created on the fly. So the branching timeline theory might start with one universe, but end up with an infinite universes.

alexmakepeace wrote: »

dalolorn wrote: »

starkaos wrote: »

mhall85 wrote: »

starkaos wrote: »

artan42 wrote: »

themadrigogs wrote: »

some are fine possibilities that they might want to overwrite, like the founding of New Romulus

Why? The destruction of Romulus is a canon event, there's probably fallout from that in any hypothetical ST series set in the future from NEM. That would likely include a new Romulan state of some sort.

We are assuming that the destruction of Romulus occurred in the Prime Universe and not some other parallel universe. So until the hypothetical ST series is created that proves that Romulus is destroyed or isn't destroyed, then both possibilities are equally valid. The destruction of Romulus is a canon event, but we don't know which universe it happened in since we only have a few minutes in what is assumed to be the Prime Universe.

Using a sacrificial parallel universe would protect the Prime Universe from being rewritten assuming that changing the past changes the future like we have been led to believe for decades as far as Star Trek is concerned. Time travel in Star Trek 2009 works exactly like in every other instance of time travel in Star Trek. There is no need to use excuses like branching timelines or dimensional travel to a parallel universe that looks like the 23rd Century. So instead of Old Spock and Nero coming from the Prime Universe, they came from the unaltered Kelvin Universe where Kelvin Kirk got to know his father.

"Parallels" set the idea of branching timelines into canon, long before the KT movies. Going by the evidence presented in that TNG episode, there is a timeline that has a fully-intact Romulus.

I don't think that should be the "Prime" timeline, though. I don't like retconning the Kelvin Timeline out of existence, and if you remove its tie to the Prime timeline (namely, Prime Spock), you're undercutting its legitimacy.

Parallels had nothing to do with branching timelines. A branching timeline would be where I decide to drink Coke instead of Pepsi so there would be a new universe created where I drink Pepsi instead of Coke. Parallels deals with an infinite number of realities so that any possible outcome will happen. So there is an infinite number of Star Trek universes, an infinite number of Star Wars Universes, an infinite number of Game of Thrones universes, etc.

Troi: What do you mean, quantum realities?
Data: For any event, there is an infinite number of possible outcomes. Our choices determine which outcome will follow. But there is a theory in quantum physics that all possibilities that can or could happen do happen in alternate quantum realities. For instance, in a different quantum reality, Captain Riker may have chosen to sit at the other end of the table. While in another reality, the Captain may be standing.
Beverly: So at this moment, there are an infinite number of Enterprises... and an infinite number of Doctor Crushers having this discussion.
Data: Yes. Although on some of those Enterprises, there may not be a Doctor Crusher...

The problem with the branching timeline theory is that it violates the law of conservation of energy since every time a choice is made, a completely new universe has to be created. With there being an infinite number of realities that were created during the Big Bang, then it doesn't require a new universe to be created every time a choice is made since all possible outcomes happen. So in one parallel universe, I drink Coke and in another parallel universe I drink Pepsi and everything else in those parallel universes are completely identical.

You do realize they're essentially two ways of describing the same phenomenon, though? None of the branches are being created on the fly, they're all there to begin with.

But if all the branches existed to begin with, that implies predetermination, which conflicts with basic observations of physics. If all events are predetermined, then we can no longer state cause and effect. Under such a system, all events happen because they were predestined to happen--objects cannot longer influence one another. For example, if I pick up a pencil and then let it fall to the floor, I could not say that it fell to the floor because of the Earth's gravitational pull. That would imply that the Earth can influence the behavior of the pencil--that it can change the outcome of events--which is impossible if events are predetermined.

Where is there predetermination with an infinite number of universes? Since there is an infinite number of universes, then every possible outcome will be achieved due to probability. So if I am confronted by a choice between Coke and Pepsi, 40% of the time I will choose Coke, 40% of the time I will choose Pepsi, 19.9999% of the time I will choose to walk away, and 0.0001% of the time I will make some weird choice. Of course some outcomes are not possible due to our fundamental character. For example, I will not decide to go on a crime spree and every version of me with the same fundamental character will not do it as well. However, there are some versions of me with a different fundamental character that would go on a crime spree.

dalolorn · September 2017

alexmakepeace wrote: »

dalolorn wrote: »

starkaos wrote: »

mhall85 wrote: »

starkaos wrote: »

artan42 wrote: »

themadrigogs wrote: »

some are fine possibilities that they might want to overwrite, like the founding of New Romulus

Why? The destruction of Romulus is a canon event, there's probably fallout from that in any hypothetical ST series set in the future from NEM. That would likely include a new Romulan state of some sort.

We are assuming that the destruction of Romulus occurred in the Prime Universe and not some other parallel universe. So until the hypothetical ST series is created that proves that Romulus is destroyed or isn't destroyed, then both possibilities are equally valid. The destruction of Romulus is a canon event, but we don't know which universe it happened in since we only have a few minutes in what is assumed to be the Prime Universe.

Using a sacrificial parallel universe would protect the Prime Universe from being rewritten assuming that changing the past changes the future like we have been led to believe for decades as far as Star Trek is concerned. Time travel in Star Trek 2009 works exactly like in every other instance of time travel in Star Trek. There is no need to use excuses like branching timelines or dimensional travel to a parallel universe that looks like the 23rd Century. So instead of Old Spock and Nero coming from the Prime Universe, they came from the unaltered Kelvin Universe where Kelvin Kirk got to know his father.

"Parallels" set the idea of branching timelines into canon, long before the KT movies. Going by the evidence presented in that TNG episode, there is a timeline that has a fully-intact Romulus.

I don't think that should be the "Prime" timeline, though. I don't like retconning the Kelvin Timeline out of existence, and if you remove its tie to the Prime timeline (namely, Prime Spock), you're undercutting its legitimacy.

Parallels had nothing to do with branching timelines. A branching timeline would be where I decide to drink Coke instead of Pepsi so there would be a new universe created where I drink Pepsi instead of Coke. Parallels deals with an infinite number of realities so that any possible outcome will happen. So there is an infinite number of Star Trek universes, an infinite number of Star Wars Universes, an infinite number of Game of Thrones universes, etc.

Troi: What do you mean, quantum realities?
Data: For any event, there is an infinite number of possible outcomes. Our choices determine which outcome will follow. But there is a theory in quantum physics that all possibilities that can or could happen do happen in alternate quantum realities. For instance, in a different quantum reality, Captain Riker may have chosen to sit at the other end of the table. While in another reality, the Captain may be standing.
Beverly: So at this moment, there are an infinite number of Enterprises... and an infinite number of Doctor Crushers having this discussion.
Data: Yes. Although on some of those Enterprises, there may not be a Doctor Crusher...

The problem with the branching timeline theory is that it violates the law of conservation of energy since every time a choice is made, a completely new universe has to be created. With there being an infinite number of realities that were created during the Big Bang, then it doesn't require a new universe to be created every time a choice is made since all possible outcomes happen. So in one parallel universe, I drink Coke and in another parallel universe I drink Pepsi and everything else in those parallel universes are completely identical.

You do realize they're essentially two ways of describing the same phenomenon, though? None of the branches are being created on the fly, they're all there to begin with.

But if all the branches existed to begin with, that implies predetermination, which conflicts with basic observations of physics. If all events are predetermined, then we can no longer state cause and effect. Under such a system, all events happen because they were predestined to happen--objects cannot longer influence one another. For example, if I pick up a pencil and then let it fall to the floor, I could not say that it fell to the floor because of the Earth's gravitational pull. That would imply that the Earth can influence the behavior of the pencil--that it can change the outcome of events--which is impossible if events are predetermined.

But if objects cannot influence each other, why does everything that we observe behave as if they can? The shape, size, composition, and movements of planets are all consistent with gravity; water demonstrates properties consistent with the electromagnetic force of polar molecules; light can be emitted, bent, and delivers energy when it hits something. Basically, if all events are predetermined, there's no reason for physics to make sense, because our system of physics runs entirely on objects exerting influence over one another.

Now, it's possible that amidst an infinite sea of universes guided by random, predetermined events, we just happen to exist in one where things appear to make sense. We're dealing with infinity, after all. But why does it always make sense? I can be completely certain that if I let go of that pencil, it will fall to the floor. It won't fly to the ceiling, or turn around and jab me in the eye, or just disappear. Total physical anarchy makes life impossible, but a few anomalies here and there aren't fatal. Nobody's going to die if grains of sand disappear now and again, or the rocks suddenly turn pitch black for a while. Even if chunks of creature's bodies randomly exploded every once in a while, that wouldn't be enough to prevent life as a whole from thriving. It's way, way more likely that we would live in a universe where things mostly make sense than one where things always make sense but have no underlying causation.

But we always see the universe behave in a predictable manner. We don't see grains of sand disappear, or rocks turn pitch black, and my pencil certainly isn't going to stab me in the eye. Taken in aggregate, humans have made billions of billions of observations about the physical world (so have animals, but they can't report their findings), and they all point to a system of physics that behaves in a logical, predictable way that is consistent with objects exerting influence over one another. But that's impossible in a system that runs on predetermined events

Therefore, it is incredibly unlikely (even by the standards of infinity) that we live in a universe that's moving on a predetermined path. There is a mountain of evidence that points to a system that is incompatible with predetermination, and no evidence against that system. The odds that a predetermined system just happened to shake out such that everything in the whole universe behaves in apparent contradiction to that predetermined system are so ludicrously slim that they're not even worth considering. The most logical conclusion is that events are not predetermined, so having all timelines present at the start of the universe doesn't make sense.

Causality and predetermination aren't mutually conflicted, though. You're implying that predetermination requires complete randomness - this is not the case. (Well, somewhere out in the multiverse there probably are universes where things flatly refuse to make sense, but let's focus on our small corner of it for the time being.)

First we get the laws of physics and their associated physical constants. These govern how everything else works - establish a set of boundaries from which everything else is formed. For every set of physical laws and every set of starting conditions, there will be a vast set of universes following from that set - every possible outcome of every possible event will be mapped, forming a structure that we might more intuitively interpret as branching timelines. (Hence my initial comment.)

The thing is, we don't know which branch we're in. We can't know (among other reasons, there's the fact that such knowledge would be self-invalidating) - we can, however, make educated guesses such as starkaos' probability assessment above. The universe around us is predictable because we have gained an (admittedly limited) understanding of the laws and structures that were formed in that "first moment", of the various ways in which things can work. In a sense, we're managing to narrow down the list of branches we might be located on, and assess how many of those branches contain a certain event (be it microscopic or macroscopic).

alexmakepeace · September 2017

starkaos wrote: »

Where is there predetermination with an infinite number of universes? Since there is an infinite number of universes, then every possible outcome will be achieved due to probability. So if I am confronted by a choice between Coke and Pepsi, 40% of the time I will choose Coke, 40% of the time I will choose Pepsi, 19.9999% of the time I will choose to walk away, and 0.0001% of the time I will make some weird choice. Of course some outcomes are not possible due to our fundamental character. For example, I will not decide to go on a crime spree and every version of me with the same fundamental character will not do it as well. However, there are some versions of me with a different fundamental character that would go on a crime spree.

Not because of an infinite number of universes--because of all universes being present at the beginning. If all universes existed at the beginning, and they are all unique, that implies that events have been "mapped out" at the beginning, which requires predestination.

Or are you thinking of this in terms of an time starting with infinite number of "blank" universes that unfold freely? They're not permutations of one another, they are completely independent even if they follow the same path?

dalolorn wrote: »

alexmakepeace wrote: »

dalolorn wrote: »

starkaos wrote: »

mhall85 wrote: »

starkaos wrote: »

artan42 wrote: »

themadrigogs wrote: »

some are fine possibilities that they might want to overwrite, like the founding of New Romulus

Why? The destruction of Romulus is a canon event, there's probably fallout from that in any hypothetical ST series set in the future from NEM. That would likely include a new Romulan state of some sort.

We are assuming that the destruction of Romulus occurred in the Prime Universe and not some other parallel universe. So until the hypothetical ST series is created that proves that Romulus is destroyed or isn't destroyed, then both possibilities are equally valid. The destruction of Romulus is a canon event, but we don't know which universe it happened in since we only have a few minutes in what is assumed to be the Prime Universe.

Using a sacrificial parallel universe would protect the Prime Universe from being rewritten assuming that changing the past changes the future like we have been led to believe for decades as far as Star Trek is concerned. Time travel in Star Trek 2009 works exactly like in every other instance of time travel in Star Trek. There is no need to use excuses like branching timelines or dimensional travel to a parallel universe that looks like the 23rd Century. So instead of Old Spock and Nero coming from the Prime Universe, they came from the unaltered Kelvin Universe where Kelvin Kirk got to know his father.

"Parallels" set the idea of branching timelines into canon, long before the KT movies. Going by the evidence presented in that TNG episode, there is a timeline that has a fully-intact Romulus.

I don't think that should be the "Prime" timeline, though. I don't like retconning the Kelvin Timeline out of existence, and if you remove its tie to the Prime timeline (namely, Prime Spock), you're undercutting its legitimacy.

Parallels had nothing to do with branching timelines. A branching timeline would be where I decide to drink Coke instead of Pepsi so there would be a new universe created where I drink Pepsi instead of Coke. Parallels deals with an infinite number of realities so that any possible outcome will happen. So there is an infinite number of Star Trek universes, an infinite number of Star Wars Universes, an infinite number of Game of Thrones universes, etc.

Troi: What do you mean, quantum realities?
Data: For any event, there is an infinite number of possible outcomes. Our choices determine which outcome will follow. But there is a theory in quantum physics that all possibilities that can or could happen do happen in alternate quantum realities. For instance, in a different quantum reality, Captain Riker may have chosen to sit at the other end of the table. While in another reality, the Captain may be standing.
Beverly: So at this moment, there are an infinite number of Enterprises... and an infinite number of Doctor Crushers having this discussion.
Data: Yes. Although on some of those Enterprises, there may not be a Doctor Crusher...

The problem with the branching timeline theory is that it violates the law of conservation of energy since every time a choice is made, a completely new universe has to be created. With there being an infinite number of realities that were created during the Big Bang, then it doesn't require a new universe to be created every time a choice is made since all possible outcomes happen. So in one parallel universe, I drink Coke and in another parallel universe I drink Pepsi and everything else in those parallel universes are completely identical.

You do realize they're essentially two ways of describing the same phenomenon, though? None of the branches are being created on the fly, they're all there to begin with.

But if all the branches existed to begin with, that implies predetermination, which conflicts with basic observations of physics. If all events are predetermined, then we can no longer state cause and effect. Under such a system, all events happen because they were predestined to happen--objects cannot longer influence one another. For example, if I pick up a pencil and then let it fall to the floor, I could not say that it fell to the floor because of the Earth's gravitational pull. That would imply that the Earth can influence the behavior of the pencil--that it can change the outcome of events--which is impossible if events are predetermined.

But if objects cannot influence each other, why does everything that we observe behave as if they can? The shape, size, composition, and movements of planets are all consistent with gravity; water demonstrates properties consistent with the electromagnetic force of polar molecules; light can be emitted, bent, and delivers energy when it hits something. Basically, if all events are predetermined, there's no reason for physics to make sense, because our system of physics runs entirely on objects exerting influence over one another.

Now, it's possible that amidst an infinite sea of universes guided by random, predetermined events, we just happen to exist in one where things appear to make sense. We're dealing with infinity, after all. But why does it always make sense? I can be completely certain that if I let go of that pencil, it will fall to the floor. It won't fly to the ceiling, or turn around and jab me in the eye, or just disappear. Total physical anarchy makes life impossible, but a few anomalies here and there aren't fatal. Nobody's going to die if grains of sand disappear now and again, or the rocks suddenly turn pitch black for a while. Even if chunks of creature's bodies randomly exploded every once in a while, that wouldn't be enough to prevent life as a whole from thriving. It's way, way more likely that we would live in a universe where things mostly make sense than one where things always make sense but have no underlying causation.

But we always see the universe behave in a predictable manner. We don't see grains of sand disappear, or rocks turn pitch black, and my pencil certainly isn't going to stab me in the eye. Taken in aggregate, humans have made billions of billions of observations about the physical world (so have animals, but they can't report their findings), and they all point to a system of physics that behaves in a logical, predictable way that is consistent with objects exerting influence over one another. But that's impossible in a system that runs on predetermined events

Therefore, it is incredibly unlikely (even by the standards of infinity) that we live in a universe that's moving on a predetermined path. There is a mountain of evidence that points to a system that is incompatible with predetermination, and no evidence against that system. The odds that a predetermined system just happened to shake out such that everything in the whole universe behaves in apparent contradiction to that predetermined system are so ludicrously slim that they're not even worth considering. The most logical conclusion is that events are not predetermined, so having all timelines present at the start of the universe doesn't make sense.

Causality and predetermination aren't mutually conflicted, though. You're implying that predetermination requires complete randomness - this is not the case. (Well, somewhere out in the multiverse there probably are universes where things flatly refuse to make sense, but let's focus on our small corner of it for the time being.)

First we get the laws of physics and their associated physical constants. These govern how everything else works - establish a set of boundaries from which everything else is formed. For every set of physical laws and every set of starting conditions, there will be a vast set of universes following from that set - every possible outcome of every possible event will be mapped, forming a structure that we might more intuitively interpret as branching timelines. (Hence my initial comment.)

The thing is, we don't know which branch we're in. We can't know (among other reasons, there's the fact that such knowledge would be self-invalidating) - we can, however, make educated guesses such as starkaos' probability assessment above. The universe around us is predictable because we have gained an (admittedly limited) understanding of the laws and structures that were formed in that "first moment", of the various ways in which things can work. In a sense, we're managing to narrow down the list of branches we might be located on, and assess how many of those branches contain a certain event (be it microscopic or macroscopic).

The problem is that physics is based entirely on objects exerting influence over each other. But how can an object change another object if events are predetermined? It's logically impossible for events to be predetermined and for objects to alter the outcome of events--the two are direct contradictions. As such, the laws of physics require freedom to alter the course of events in order to function. Otherwise, they just don't work.

starkaos · September 2017

alexmakepeace wrote: »

starkaos wrote: »

Where is there predetermination with an infinite number of universes? Since there is an infinite number of universes, then every possible outcome will be achieved due to probability. So if I am confronted by a choice between Coke and Pepsi, 40% of the time I will choose Coke, 40% of the time I will choose Pepsi, 19.9999% of the time I will choose to walk away, and 0.0001% of the time I will make some weird choice. Of course some outcomes are not possible due to our fundamental character. For example, I will not decide to go on a crime spree and every version of me with the same fundamental character will not do it as well. However, there are some versions of me with a different fundamental character that would go on a crime spree.

Not because of an infinite number of universes--because of all universes being present at the beginning. If all universes existed at the beginning, and they are all unique, that implies that events have been "mapped out" at the beginning, which requires predestination.

Or are you thinking of this in terms of an time starting with infinite number of "blank" universes that unfold freely? They're not permutations of one another, they are completely independent even if they follow the same path?

Infinite number of "blank" universes that unfold freely. If there is an infinite number of universes, then by sheer probability, any universe will be created. There might be a set of laws that govern every universe which limit the types of universes that were created and is separate from the laws that govern each universe, but we would have to escape our universe to determine if those laws exist. For example, the barriers between each universe might be impenetrable so demons from a dimension that looks like Hell invading our universe is impossible or the laws governing every universe make time travel impossible.

If everything has to be "mapped out" at the beginning, then predestination requires the existence of an entity that could be classified as God.

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