**Spoilers** For those of you have seen the new Star Trek, what do you think will happen next?

I don’t think they can fix the timeline (i’ve heard this theory in other places). All the red matter was destroyed at the end of the movie, and the technology isn’t such that they can do anything about it, unless of course Spock Prime decides to make more.

I think they’ll have a Klingon story, pretty straightforward. or they’ll get fancy and have some quasi-Borg storyline.

The “timeline got altered” mechanism was designed as a way to reboot the franchise without actually violating the established canon. It was done intentionally so that they could make new TOS-era movies. The old time line is gone. Everything that ever happened before this new movie has now never happened – except in old-Spock’s memory. There will be no “fixing” of the time line. This is now the real time line, and any future movies will go from here on out.

The franchise has been rebooted, just like the Batman movie franchise was rebooted with Batman Begins and The Dark Knight – none of the previous four movies happened in the new timeline established by these two movies. None of the previous 10 Star Trek movies, nor five of the six TV series have happened or will happen. (Enterprise still happened, because it took place “before” the the point at which timeline was altered)

the last time they tried to merge an “old” timeline and a “reboot”, we got Superman Returns. meh.

this is a great way to do it.

@MrItty Not if they have a multiverse setup, and indeed they have as evidenced by “mirror, mirror” and “in a mirror darkly”, episodes in which they travelled to alternate realities, in that case that would only be one of many existing timelines, like the branch of a tree. Independent, but the others still exist.
Meaning they can change the timeline by travelling back to before the temporal incursion by the hollow Nero and prevent it, though that would only have the effect of them ending up in an alternative reality, without actually altering their own.
In essence, the new series would take place entirely in a mirror universe.

@ragingloli yeah, there was an episode of TNG with Worf all about those branches. Like Season 5 or 6. Good episode.

I’m just worried that one of my favorite characters will never exist now. Unless Tuvok’s parents were among the 10,000 Vulcans saved, he will never be born! That would make me very sad because he is an inspired character.

@KatawaGrey maybe…duh duh duh….he’s new Spock and Uhuru’s love child!!!

@eponymoushipster: Well, he is black…

@eponymoushipster that means the outcome can not be Tuvok, as black + white = mulatto

@ragingloli you never know. maybe his genes just worked that way.

btw, has anyone noted that the actress who played Uhuru isn’t black, but hispanic? i mean, i don’t care, i think she did a great job, but since it was such a breakout role at the time, is anyone offended by this?

Another note, they can not simply erase entire timelines, because that would result in temporal paradoxa, in this instance, the future Spock would have never existed, couldn’t have had created the black hole through which nero travelled and thus nero could not have altered the timeline in the first place, leading to the future Spock existing after all, and so on.

@ragingloli: Well, we’ve never met Tuvok’s parents. Perhaps he is not a full black Vulcan, though I imagine there wouldn’t be as heavy an emphasis on race with Vulcans as there is with humans. I’m still hoping his parents made it off.

@eponymoushipster: I didn’t realize she was hispanic, though I did think she didn’t look as if she as much of an African descent as the original Uhura.

@KatawaGrey i believe she’s from the Domincan Republic by descent. So, that could be part of it, genetically speaking. I mean, i didn’t know until i read the article. I just found it interesting. :)

@eponymoushipster: Now that I know that, I am a little miffed. She did such a good job that I can’t be too angry though. It does bother me that non-white actors are passed off as damn near anything. If you watch a movie about Japanese people, you will see the credits are full of Chinese names. A movie about any single Middle Eastern country will be filled with Indians. I know that this has to be done, but it still bothers me just a little.

Anyway, back to the question at hand. Will the Federation try and prevent the destruction of Romulas? If they did, would this completely reverse the timeline?

@KatawaGrey if they do attempt to prevent it, it’ll be like back to the future. they’ll have to leave a note for someone 129 years in the future.

of course, they could also use it as a tactical advantage.

@KatawaGrey I don’t think it would reverse the timeline if they did, since they are already on a different temporal branch independent of the original. The nero from the incursion is effectively from a parallel universe , and they would probably have their own nero, who might not jump back through time since the new spock would act differently as well. Even if he did jump back in time to wreak havoc, all this would cause is another branch in time

but then again, the writers never took the matter of time trave so seriously.

@ragingloli: This is very true. Also, it just occurred to me that because Vulcan was destroyed, it’s entirely possible that they could not come up with the technology necessary to stop the destruction of Romulas.

PARADOX!

They talk about it in the movie…. this new “timeline” is just an “alternate”.... in other words they set it up so that they could do a whole new series with a new storyline, and it wouldn’t have any bearing on the existing canon…. alternate universes so to say.

As for the next movie, I expect to see Klingons. They eluded to war with the Klingons (which the federation was on the brink of or was in with the Klingons if I remember my trek timeline right). They COULD try to introduce some new species or something, but I don’t expect they will. The borg also seem like a long shot to make an appearance. I doubt the romulans as well, as the Federation barely knew them up until the time of the Next Generation era…. This would be AFTER the war that was to have happened between the Romulans and the Federation in the “Enterprise” series….

If you’re a betting man, put your money on the Klingons.

OH, before I forget…..... since it’s an alternate time line….. if they make it to 3 movies…. I think we can probably look forward to a little guy named Khan.

@westy81585 that is if they discover their vessel in this timeline.

@westy81585: I think maybe this whole thing will cause the Federation to look into relations with the Romulans. I am honestly beginning to wonder if they will try and prevent the destruction of Romulas or at least begin evacuation much sooner in this timeline.

@KatawaGrey btw, it is spelt “Romulus”

@ragingloli: Thanks. I wasn’t actually familiar with the myth until after I saw Nemesis. Is “Romulan” the correct spelling?

@ragingloli this is not a “parallel universe” set up, like in the Worf episode Parallels or in Mirror, Mirror. This is an alternate-timeline setup, like in City on the Edge of Forever and Yesterday’s Enterprise. That is, the “real” timeline is changed. It is not a reveal that there exist other universes similar-but-different to our own. The only difference is that we’re following the point of view of the characters in the changed-timeline rather than the original-timeline.

Just like Yesterday’s Enterprise resulted in a brand new timeline that we were stuck with (ie, alternate-Tasha giving birth to Sela, who didn’t exist before this episode), the 24th century events in this movie have resulted in a brand new timeline as well. In City on the Edge of Forever, Kirk & co were the last remnants of the original time line (supposedly thanks to the Guardian, in reality thanks to a plot device), and were able to go back to before McCoy screwed things up.

The only way to fix this now would be to have someone go back to the point at which Nero appeared in the 23rd century and prevent him from destroying the Kelvin. (Just like in Back to the Future II, they couldn’t go forward to stop Biff from going back in time, they had to go back to when Biff appeared in the new timeline)

@MrItty Well I (and many others) disagree with you. But I think it’s pretty clear they put it in like that to leave open the idea that the original/regular cannon was not changed. (ala so they could do new series/movies based on it without having to fix anything).

@westy81585 You can disagree all you want. But you’re still wrong. :-P How can “original/regular cannon not change”, if the Spock from the original timeline no longer exists in the original universe/timeline?

If you actually watch all the various timeline/universe stories, it’s very obvious, and not at all ambiguous. There are two different kinds of these shows/movies. The “alternate timeline” and the “parallel universe” stories.

The Parallel Universe stories follow the theory that “whatever can happen, does happen.” Every time there’s a choice to be made, a new separate universe is created, so that both options are taken, in different universes. That’s what and Parallels, Mirror, Mirror, and all of MM‘s DS9 sequels are. Two different universes that exist independent of each other, with characters crossing back and forth. Both (or all) universes continue to exist, and the challenge is for our characters to find their way back to the universe from which they come.

The Alternate Timeline stories have someone travel through time, thus affecting the timeline and changing history. In Yesterday’s Enterprise, the Enterprise-C travels forward, disappearing from its own time period, thus changing the history of the Enterprise-D crew. In City on the Edge of Forever, McCoy travels back in time and saves Edith Keeler, thus changing all of history so that the Federation never even existed. In Past Tense, Sisko, Bashir, and Dax travel back in time and get involved in the Bell Riots, thus changing all of the history of Kira, Odo, etc. In all of these Alternate Timeline stories, we are talking about one timeline/universe, that has its history changed. In most cases, something happens that restores the original timeline, by going back to the point of the change and preventing that change (Enterprise-C goes back to when it left, Kirk stops McCoy from saving Edith, Sisko completes Bell’s roll in the Riots, etc). But not always. The timeline remains altered, in small ways, in some cases: alternate-Tasha appears in the past and mates with a Romulan to produce Sela, Sisko takes the place of Gabriel Bell in the history books, etc.

All of these stories have something in common – if they’re traveling through time, it’s an Alternate Timeline story. If they’re just crossing universes at the same time period, it’s a Parallel Universe story. Star Trek, by the fact that Spock & Nero traveled back in time and changed history, is an Alternate Timeline story.

There you go. I’ve made my case. You can continue to say “I disagree”, but it doesn’t change the fact that you’re “opinion” isn’t correct. If you do choose to continue to disagree, please at least provide something to back up your opinion, as I have done here.

I thought the Federation didn’t know what Romulans even looked like in Kirk’s early days. They were all shocked to find that they looked like Vulcans in the first season episode, “Balance of Terror.”

I know. My inner nerd is showing.

@AstroChuck Kind of true…. In ToS they spoke occasionally of a war between humans and Romulans many years prior (I forget the exact length of time, but I want to say a century or more). And that since the cease fire there had been absolutely no communication between the two. In Enterprise, in the episodes leading up to the series’ end, they began eluding to that war…. They had planned to show that war, but the series obviously got canned before they had a chance too.

@Mritty Ok easy…. In Star Trek Voyager they interacted with the Federation of however many 100 years into the future multiple times. In that future the Federation was actually able to spot alterations in the timeline via somehow “secluded from the timeline” ships. Those ships then traveled back in time or otherwise “fixed” history. I’d like to think that the destruction of Vulcan, one of the founding planets of the Federation and a pivotal piece in Star Trek cannon, would have warranted a response.

Plus they elude to it in the movie, that they’re now in some kind of “alternate timeline” The use of “alternate” implies that the original is still intact in some way. Again though, I believe they fully plan to continue forth with this “new timeline” and make movies based on it (aka I don’t foresee them trying to fix the timeline, except maybe in a “final” sequel).... But I believe they implied that it was an alternate universe now, so that they could continue to make Star Trek series’ (on tv probably) based on the original cannon….. In fact if you read the comic that preludes this movie, it very largely interacts with tNG and it’s characters (More specifically the Enterprise E and Data).

They wanted to reboot the series, and make it so they could ignore the restrictions of the original cannon (like at such and such, this happens, while over here, this happens). They don’t have to worry about that anymore. Plus, as much as they want to reboot the series, I find it hard to believe they would go to such great lengths to totally obliterate the original cannon for it.

@westy81585
Good point. The fact the time police did not repair the timeline suggests that this agency has never been established in the first place, which might indicate that the movie took place in an alternate reality (parallel universe) from the beginning, not just from the temporal incursion onwards.

Also, Spock had a good twenty years on Kirk. He was fifty in “Journey to Babel” and had served aboard the Enterprise thirteen years earlier with Captain Pike.

Plus I don’t remember Uhura looking that hot.

What is also possible is that the future spock (and with him, nero) did not just time travel, but also switched reality.

And what happened to Finnegan?

i really hope that for the next movie the writers choose a scenario that does not lead to so many temporal paradoxa.

@westy81585 the “Future Time Police” was one of Voyager’s most idiotic contrivances, seeing as how these time-cops were apparently interested in ONLY the USS Voyager, and no other ship, ever. Take a look at every other series and the multitude of “temporal incursions”, and note the complete lack of any Time Cops setting things right.

@ragingloli I actually like this idea. It’s a good compromise, and there’s precedent for it to boot – in the Mirror episodes of Enterprise, we found out that the USS Defiant from The Tholian Web didn’t just disintegrate when the sector of space was destabalizing. Instead it both traveled backwards in time about a hundred years and crossed over to the Mirror Universe. I’m perfectly content with the idea that Spock & Nero might have done something similar. ... In fact, that’s exactly what I’m going to choose to believe happened. Thanks for that! :-)

@MrItty Well i think this can be explained by the time traveller undoing changes to the timeline themselves and therefore making dispatching a time ship unnecessary, or the agency employed more subtle means, e.g. covert agents, like in the temporal cold war, to make the timeline stay intact, or that the changes to the timeline are too minor to make a correction worthwhile.

@ragingloli Can’t say I agree with that – the creation of Sela led directly to both an attempted assassination of a Klingon official (via brainwashed Georgi) not to mention the Klingon Civil War. I’d call both of those fairly substantial changes…

@MrItty: Didn’t we encounter the time police in both Deep Space 9 and Enterprise? I know we did in DS9 at least once during the episode “Trials and Tribble-ations” where they end up on the Enterprise during the episode “The Troubles with Tribbles.” I stopped watching Enterprise midway through the series because my disgust was simply too much to swallow so I’m not entirely sure about this, but weren’t there time police in that series? Didn’t they contact Archer for some reason or another?

There was a temporal cold war in enterprise, but it was such a dumb plotline they dumped it quick.

@eponymoushipster: Was it, by any chance, the plot line the sunk the whole damn series? I’m considering trying to watch the whole series through just so I know what I’m talking about during these discussions.

I think it’s completely reasonable to assume that Spock and Nero popped over to a different universe. Or, wait, here’s an interesting thought, maybe they came from a different universe and this universe is the primary Star Trek universe that got messed with…

@KatawaGrey We saw “Temporal Investigators” in DS9. But they were present-day Federation officials whose only job was to interview people to see if they should be punished for violating the timeline. They were not the Future Cops from the 30th century (or whatever) that actively interfered with and reset the timeline themselves.

Enterprise did indeed feature the idiotic “Temporal Cold War” timeline. This one involved multiple “factions” of time travellers, including the Federation. I suppose a case could be made that the Federation faction was made up of the Future Time Cops that seemed to pester Janeway only, but that still doesn’t explain why they never got involved with any other ship/captain/series.

Isn’t of completely reasonable to assume that since the Nimoy Spock knows the future of Romulus that he arranges for the “red matter” to be delivered to the star that destroyed their world in time this avoiding Nero’s brutal attacks on Vulcan so now the old timeline has been restored?

@AstroChuck “Spock Prime”

@KatawaGrey yes, pretty much. The Suliban story, with the four species race (whose name evades me) – and the never named, never shown shadowy dude who wanted to destroy Earth and Starfleet, etc., so there’d be no Federation. yeah that storyline. They released at the start of the last season (i think) that it was tanking, and disposed of a multi-season story arc in like 2 episodes.

then they made the series finale an episode of TNG, which was really funny.

@AstroChuck No, that’s not reasonable, for two different reasons:
1) The red matter was destroyed by the destruction of Nero’s ship at the end of the movie.
2) Spock Prime does not “know the future of Romulus”. He knows only what happened in his universe, the “original” universe. The temporal incursion originated in the original universe, which is now inaccessble. It would have to be prevented there. The future-Nero of this new altered universe is not required to cause the creation of this new altered universe, so preventing him from going back in time would have no effect.

(See also the reason Doc & Marty had to go back to 1955 (again) in Back to the Future II, rather than going head to the future to stop Old Biff – because they were already in the alternate universe – going ahead would only put them farther ahead in the same altered universe)

@eponymoushipster I think it was the “Zindi”?

@MrItty yep, you’re right. Insects and manatees flying spaceships. awesome.

@epony- If you were as big a nerd as I am you’d have read the official prequel graphic novels and known that Spock witnessed Romulus’s destruction, so he knows exactly what’s going to happen when that star goes nova.

@AstroChuck i think that you meant to direct that at @MrItty.

They show in the movie as well, that Spock Prime witnesses it’s destruction.

@AstroChuck again, he knows only what happened in the ORIGINAL universe. Now that time has been changed, he knows nothing about what will happen. He didn’t know that Kirk wasn’t captain of the Enterprise. He didn’t know that Vulcan was going to be destroyed. He can make some educated guesses, of course, but once the timeline has been altered, all bets are off – anything that he experienced in his original life may or may not happen.

@epony- Sorry, you’re right.

@MrItty- Stars going nova are natural occurences, so of course he knows what will happen to Romulus. Good point about the red matter, though.

@AstroChuck not in the Star Trek universe they’re not. Not always. Go have another look at Star Trek Generations, and you’ll see several stars that went Nova due to individual actions rather than naturally occuring phenomena.

Is it likely the star near Romulus will still go nova? Absolutely. Is it certain? Not even remotely. Hell, for all we know, the various blackholes that Nero created in this altered timeline may have already affected the gravitation constant of the universe (or some other such technobabble nonsense) so that the star won’t go nova any more.

Me thinks that you are reaching here.

Of course I’m reaching. We’ve just spent an insane amount of time debating the intracies of a completely fictional universe. Isn’t this what we Trek fans do? :-)

By way of point, there was a very good article (though it seems i’ve lost the link) that explained that a supernova couldn’t destroy a planet, unless the planet was literally NEXT TO the star going supernova. Apparently, a more realistic “problem” here would have been a gamma ray flare or something to that effect.

Spock Prime saying it “endangered the entire galaxy” was quite a bit of hyperbole.

@eponymoushipster yeah i found that dumb too. Apart from the fact that a supernova has a limited range, just like any other explosion, the resulting shockwave and matter ejection could maximum have a speed of c, probably a lot less, meaning that any effects on the galaxy would take centuries and millennia, millions of years even, to manifest.

Or maybe Spock meant that the supernova threatened a major faction in the alpha quadrant, namely the Romulans, that were crucial in defeating the Dominion, and that without the Romulans, the Dominion might act up again. but then again, the Borg where always a much greater threat to the galaxy than the Dominion cold ever be, and the Feds would stand no chance against them in a full blown invasion, with or without the Romulans

My guess is, the writers of the movie were just dumb idiots, as evidenced from the fact that the overall plot and characters were pretty dumb, especially the hollow shell nero, and the jump into Vulcan’s atmosphere from orbit without being incinerate during atmospheric entry, and the implosion of Vulcan that Spock could see from a planet several star systems away that looked like it was a large moon in local orbit.
Also i facepalmed at this: Kirk is ejected on the next best planet (which is, i thing erroneously, referred to as Class M, which actually was more likely a Class P planet) and oh, what coincidence, he lands in front of Old Spock’s feet. And oh what coincidence, on the same planet they meet Scotty. And oh what coincidence, he happens to have a transporter that can transport them to the enterprise that should already be several light years away, while travelling at warp.
I mean, this was just ridiculous, and shows the inability of the writers to create a good plot. I was disgusted.

Well, which do you find more difficult to believe- a supernova that destroys planets or surviving entering a black hole and going back in time?

@ragingloli well, the thing at the end with the warp core and the black hole, pushing the ship away couldn’t happen either. there’s no air to create a shockwave like that. the force of the blast would be minimal, it would mostly be light.

@AstroChuck – obviously, it’s just a movie, but still..

@eponymoushipster Just commenting on the shock wave at the end… there wouldn’t need to be air for a shockwave to push them outward.

(It was still far fetched though as engines that can push you at such and such the speed of light should be significantly stronger than any “explosion”)

@ragingloli: Lighten up, it’s Star Trek. It’s supposed to be full of plot holes big enough to drive a double decker bus through. That’s why we trekkers are so damn good at justifying anything!

@KatawaGrey to my knowledge, star trek never had plot holes as big as in the new movie.

@ragingloli: Maybe not as obvious, but how feasible is it that all those species can interbreed? How can Changelings take any shape no matter how big or small? How did all those new and interesting species pop up in Enterprise that had never been seen or mentioned before? Star Trek is rife with little devices and ideas and details that just don’t mesh. They may not be huge plot twists, but they’re still there.

@ragingloli I’m sorry to say your “knowledge” is impossibly small if that’s true. Have you ever actually watched an episode or movie?

Let’s see, off the top of my head:
* “Universal Translators” that work for every species ever, regardless if we’ve ever met them… except when they don’t.
* The “Anti-time” anomaly in All Good Things that travels backwards in time from the moment it’s created…. except that the future folks didn’t see it as they were creating it, and did see it several hours thereafter.
* The Klingons have purple blood in The Undiscovered Country – that is in fact how the assassin is identified. They have never had purple blood before or since.
* The hundreds of times the timeline gets changed…. for everyone but the bridge crew of whatever show we’re watching, so that they can be around to fix it.
* Data’s cat is male from the moment he gets it… until it gives birth.
* Going “Faster than warp 10”, which would mean you occupy every spot in the universe at the same moment, “evolves” people into lizards
* When your “DNA is rewritten”, your entire appearance completely changes, instantaneously.
* The Q know nothing about humanity, because they’ve never bothered dealing with them until Encounter at Farpoint, except that Amanda Rogers’s parents were Q who took human form on Earth a good 20 years earlier.
* The Federation know nothing at all about the Borg, because they’re clear on the other side of the galaxy, until Q helpfully tosses them across the galaxy to meet them. Except that Seven of Nine’s parents left on a voyage to study them 20 years ago, and got themselves assimilated for their troubles.

And those were off the top of my head. Were there plot holes in the new movie? Absolutely. Were they more egregious than anything else in Trek? Not even close.

@MrItty- None of those are from Star Trek. Ths is no Trek but TOS.

@AstroChuck oh okay, you want to deal only with the show that included:
a planet-eating monster
a giant space ameoba
recreations of Lincon and Kahless
the green/silver lizard thing
and, oh yes, Spock’s brain-less remote controlled body.

Right. No plot holes in TOS. Nope, not a one.

That sounds about right. ;)

A Mutant Lost collective of the Borg are infested with Tribbles, and a new terror is born!

Boribbles!!!