Star Trek

[Sparky Prime]

They actually say it in the film. In continuity. I forget where (probably in the conversation with the two Spocks) but I'll watch it again tonight.

You mean this conversation?:

Spock: We must gather with the rest of Starfleet... to balance the terms of the next engagement.
Kirk: There won't BE a next engagement! By the time we've "gathered," it'll be too late! But you say he's from the future - knows what's gonna happen? Then the logical thing is to be unpredictable!
Spock: You're assuming that Nero knows how events are predicted to unfold. The contrary, Nero's very presence has altered the flow of history, beginning with the attack on the U.S.S. Kelvin, culminating in the events of today, thereby creating an entire new chain of incidents that cannot be anticipated by either party.
Uhura: An alternate reality.
Spock: Precisely. Whatever our lives might have been, if the time continuum was disrupted, our destinies have changed.

Alternate reality works as an another way to say alternate timeline within this context, although I'd argue this is not an accurate use of the term alternate reality, as it is meant to be a synonym for a parallel universe. And again, behind the scenes the writers have gone on to clarify that this is meant to be a parallel universe to the original Star Trek timeline, allowing both to exist simultaneously rather than just an altered timeline. Which is something these characters cannot possibly know as they have no knowledge of the universe Nero came from, and isn't how time travel has ever been shown to work in Star Trek.

[Shockwave]

No that's not it. I'll have to watch it again when I get home but there was something somewhere that states it more clearly.

Although really we're just quibbling over semantics at this point. I mean really what's the difference between "reality" and "timeline". Our timeline is what we perceive our reality to be. In any other reality, that timeline is reality to that continuity.

Shockwave
-Seriously, what's the difference between these three words?

[Sparky Prime]

Although really we're just quibbling over semantics at this point. I mean really what's the difference between "reality" and "timeline". Our timeline is what we perceive our reality to be. In any other reality, that timeline is reality to that continuity.

It's not semantics when each term has it's own distinct meanings to refer to different concepts. A timeline isn't what we perceive reality to be, a timeline is simply a chronological order of events. You change an event on a timeline, it creates a new timeline following that change. But that reality remains the same regardless of whether or not you perceive such a change.

[Shockwave]

At best, "Alternate timeline" would simply refer to events that happen in an alternate reality. To the people living in those alternate timelines that is their reality, which is no less reality to them then ours is to us. Therefore, for all intents and purposes, alternate timelines ARE alternate realities.

Shockwave
-Wishes I could live in an alternate timeline where the reality of this conversation never happened.

[Sparky Prime]

At best, "Alternate timeline" would simply refer to events that happen in an alternate reality. To the people living in those alternate timelines that is their reality, which is no less reality to them then ours is to us. Therefore, for all intents and purposes, alternate timelines ARE alternate realities.

No, that's not how it works. An alternate reality can essentially be an alternate timeline when compared to another reality, but that doesn't make an alternate timeline the same thing as an alternate reality. With your example here, of course their reality would be no less reality to them as ours is to us. That's like saying their home(reality) is their home as our home(reality) is our home, only their furniture(timeline) is a bit different. But even if we were to rearrange the furniture in our home, it would still be our home, and their house wouldn't be effected by it as it's a completely separate thing.

Shockwave
-Wishes I could live in an alternate timeline where the reality of this conversation never happened.

So instead somehow the timeline would unfold where this conversation would be imagined?

[Shockwave]

At best, "Alternate timeline" would simply refer to events that happen in an alternate reality. To the people living in those alternate timelines that is their reality, which is no less reality to them then ours is to us. Therefore, for all intents and purposes, alternate timelines ARE alternate realities.

No, that's not how it works. An alternate reality can essentially be an alternate timeline when compared to another reality, but that doesn't make an alternate timeline the same thing as an alternate reality. With your example here, of course their reality would be no less reality to them as ours is to us. That's like saying their home(reality) is their home as our home(reality) is our home, only their furniture(timeline) is a bit different. But even if we were to rearrange the furniture in our home, it would still be our home, and their house wouldn't be effected by it as it's a completely separate thing.

The most I'll cop to here is that an alternate reality would caused by an alternate timeline, but that's still semantically splitting hairs more than I care to. And I get that this is probably a result of your English degree (if I'm not mistaken, you've said that was your focus) and that you like to use the English language as accurately as it's meant to be. And I can understand and respect that, and have even tried that on occasions myself. Unfortunately, most people, even those who's first language is English don't speak it the way it's intended or as accurately. This is why we wind up with songs like Alanis Morissette's Ironic where nothing she sings about is actually ironic but at best coincidental (I'm also betting that coincidental would have made a terrible song title).

Either way, what we have here with NuTrek is a separate sequence of events from the original canon. It is both a new timeline AND reality and continuity but all the original stuff all still happened. The new doesn't cancel out the old. And I'm not sure that it ever did. The John De Lancie book, Q Squared revisits the alternate timeline that was created in "Yesterday's Enterprise", which implies that the continuity continued even after the C went back. It just continued separately of the "main" TNG continuity that we saw in the series.

Shockwave
-Wishes I could live in an alternate timeline where the reality of this conversation never happened.

So instead somehow the timeline would unfold where this conversation would be imagined?

Well played my friend, well played

Shockwave
-This is all kind of a moot point for me since I don't really believe that time travel is possible anyway.

[JediTricks]

Parallels doesn't involve time travel, while Yesterday's Enterprise does, that's the singular difference. Otherwise, these are the same thing, you're simply observing them from different points of view, Parallels views it from the diverging point of Worf passing through the event, while Yesterday's Enterprise views it from years after the diverging point when the Ent-C disappeared and shifted through time.

You're wrong on this. Episodes like "Yesterday's Enterprise" shows that time travel overwrites events of a single universe, while "Parallels" shows that alternate timelines can also exist within their own separate parallel universes, or "quantum realities" as the episode referred to them as. And some of the quantum realities shown in Parallels did have their divergences years earlier as well. By the end of the episode, Worf was on an Enterprise where Riker was captain after they'd failed to save Picard from the Borg, Worf was his first officer and he was married to Deanna Troi. Alexander had never been born and instead he had some kids who were several years old already with Deanna. Bajor had apparently overthrown the Cardassian occupation by themselves and had become aggressive towards the Federation. Cardassia may have even joined the Federation as we saw a Cardassian officer on the bridge. Wesley Crusher had already graduated from Starfleet Academy and was the tactical officer and I think Data had blue eyes in that reality.

I disagree, they are the same thing, just viewed from different perspectives. The alternate timeline of Yesterday's Enterprise was told through the perspective of the single universe, but was not itself stating that it was the only universe. Parallels was the same thing only each one of those "quantum realities" was a separate divergence from a separate point expressing the multiple parallel universes thing, and Worf had broken loose from his own universe to hop from one to another, experiencing life through the shoes of other Worfs (I think the episode might have said he was actively displacing them, and that they weren't coming back once he was gone, but that's not the issue). But they're the same thing.

so it's much closer to New Coke Trek's concept since that is also just 2 timelines. But otherwise they're the same thing, it's not like Mirror Mirror where everything was always different, where personal motivations are flip-flopped.

The amount of different timelines isn't at all relevant. Time travel alters the universe in which they live in with "Yesterday's Enterprise". While what Worf experiences in "Parallels" are alternate timelines that exist as parallel universes, separately from his own universe. Which is more similar to the Mirror universe as an example of a drastically different parallel universe. It's not the same thing at all, time travel caused alternate timelines and parallel universes are two very different concepts.

I don't remember anything in Parallels saying that, and official materials state the episode was written with a quantum mechanics concept known as "sum over histories": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_integ ... rpretation

No, they're correct, both are time travel-created alternate universes, the only difference is that Yesterday's Enterprise created an alternate timeline when the Ent-C went forward in time, while New Coke Trek was created when the Nerada and the Jellyfish went backwards in time, but each created a divergent timeline which is an alternate reality and they're not different in concept, only that Yesterday's Enterprise alternate timeline was corrected while New Coke Trek wasn't.

No, you're misunderstanding. The writers have said, behind the scenes, that NuTrek is a different reality than the original Trek universe. According to them, the original universe continues to exist as it was despite the changes to the timeline, unlike what was shown in "Yesterday's Enterprise". So it's not just a time travel created alternate timeline, it's a time travel created alternate timeline and parallel universe. Again, these are two very different concepts.

They are the same thing, just viewed from different perspectives. From the perspective of the people living in Universe A who are able to view the changes like Spock and Guinan, the timeline change of New Coke Trek creates Universe B by overwriting Universe A just as the timeline changes of Yesterday's Enterprise created its own change; but viewed from a larger point of view, Universe A didn't cease to exist when the Narada went back in time, it continued on parallel to Universe B, only Universe A was now minus the Narada and the Jellyfish who now reside in Universe B. They are now parallel universes with different divergent points, and in fact Universe B actually can ONLY exist as a separate universe because otherwise it would be an impossible paradox, the events that created the Narada going back in time and destroying Vulcan now are changed, erased from that universe so the Narada cannot later exist and go back in time and repeat this to self-fulfill, so it only could have come from an alternate universe.

In fact, when the events of Yesterday's Enterprise conclue, our heroes are now in a 3rd universe divergent from the one at the beginning before the Ent-C was thrust into a time rift, and that's trackable because of Tasha Yar and her daughter, things which never happened before that event. That was not a self-fulfilling prophecy, the Enterprise C went down originally in a different battle that didn't have the ship disappear into a rift and reappear to fight on and leave Tasha Yar as a prisoner to the Romulans.

This is all kind of a moot point for me since I don't really believe that time travel is possible anyway.

We're all traveling through time right now, we're just experiencing it in a linear forward direction. But we've seen evidence of quantum doubling from particles approaching the speed of light, of gravity's affect on time, and other time-warping events, just not backwards-moving time travel... yet.

[Shockwave]

Yeah... I don't really beleive that speed is related to time travel either. I do beleive that it's related to the PERCEPTION of time travel. Our eyesight is light based. If you're going at light speed, you'll be going as fast as you can see, essentially causing things to seem to you like they're standing still when in fact you're still moving at the speed of light. And then, if you break the light barrier and get into "warp" speeds, time would APPEAR to reverse because we would be going faster than we can see. But it wouldn't actually be going backwards.

Shockwave
-That's my belief and I know that 99% of the current scientific community disagrees with me.

[JediTricks]

Yeah... I don't really beleive that speed is related to time travel either. I do beleive that it's related to the PERCEPTION of time travel. Our eyesight is light based. If you're going at light speed, you'll be going as fast as you can see, essentially causing things to seem to you like they're standing still when in fact you're still moving at the speed of light. And then, if you break the light barrier and get into "warp" speeds, time would APPEAR to reverse because we would be going faster than we can see. But it wouldn't actually be going backwards.

Shockwave
-That's my belief and I know that 99% of the current scientific community disagrees with me.

The test I was mentioning above observed a particle in 2 quantum states at once, it was observed on both sides of a splitter panel while approaching the speed of light, it appeared on the left and right side briefly because it existed as both at the same moment, it wasn't cleaved in twain.

The majority believe that backwards time travel is impossible, I believe, that Einstein's special theory of relativity proves it's impossible because it only gives the ability to go backwards in time to something moving faster than the speed of light which the same theory says is impossible. Thus, if you were somehow able to breach the speed of light and go faster than it, it's beyond perception, you would be arriving before you left - that's the basis of Star Trek's warp drive, in the pilot it's even referred to as a time warp, and what makes backwards time travel possible at much higher warp speeds.

I know what you mean though, if you travel for 8 seconds, that should be 8 seconds at a singular distance over that speed, but apparently the math says the physics of FTL (faster than light) travel are not as simple as sublight travel and thus supports backwards time travel above light speed for that 8 seconds if you were somehow to breach that universal top speed - although there's not a consensus as to whether that 8 seconds of time travel could extend beyond the time you started 8 seconds prior.

[Sparky Prime]

I disagree, they are the same thing, just viewed from different perspectives. The alternate timeline of Yesterday's Enterprise was told through the perspective of the single universe, but was not itself stating that it was the only universe. Parallels was the same thing only each one of those "quantum realities" was a separate divergence from a separate point expressing the multiple parallel universes thing, and Worf had broken loose from his own universe to hop from one to another, experiencing life through the shoes of other Worfs (I think the episode might have said he was actively displacing them, and that they weren't coming back once he was gone, but that's not the issue). But they're the same thing.

I don't understand where you are getting this "same thing viewed from different perspectives" idea from. They aren't the same thing at all, and as such perspective doesn't apply. The base concept behind each of these episodes is very different, and that's the whole point here. "Yesterday's Enterprise" involved time travel that resulted in an alternate timeline. "Parallels" involved shifting to parallel universes, separate from Worf's own reality. That's not the same thing at all. And just because Worf experienced several alternate realities makes no difference here.

I don't remember anything in Parallels saying that, and official materials state the episode was written with a quantum mechanics concept known as "sum over histories": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_integ ... rpretation

Yeah, a wiki article is still not that reliable. And the production notes I've seen said that the theory this episode was based on was the "Many-Worlds Interpretation". Essentially a quantum mechanic theory stating that everything that could possibly have happened but didn't happen in our universe, did happen in another universe. And that is pretty much exactly how the episode itself explained it:

Deanna: What do you mean, quantum realities?
Data: For any event there is an infinite number of possible outcomes. Our choices determines which outcomes will follow. But there is a theory in quantum physics that all possibilities that can happen, do happen, in alternate quantum realities.
Worf: And somehow I have been - shifting, from one reality to another?
Data: That is correct.
Deanna: How did this happen?
Data: When Worf's shuttlecraft came into contact with the quantum fissure, I believe its warp engines caused a small break in the barriers between quantum realities. Worf was thrown into a state of quantum flux. He immediately shifted into other realities.

They are the same thing, just viewed from different perspectives. From the perspective of the people living in Universe A who are able to view the changes like Spock and Guinan, the timeline change of New Coke Trek creates Universe B by overwriting Universe A just as the timeline changes of Yesterday's Enterprise created its own change; but viewed from a larger point of view, Universe A didn't cease to exist when the Narada went back in time, it continued on parallel to Universe B, only Universe A was now minus the Narada and the Jellyfish who now reside in Universe B. They are now parallel universes with different divergent points, and in fact Universe B actually can ONLY exist as a separate universe because otherwise it would be an impossible paradox, the events that created the Narada going back in time and destroying Vulcan now are changed, erased from that universe so the Narada cannot later exist and go back in time and repeat this to self-fulfill, so it only could have come from an alternate universe.

Again, I don't see where you're getting this idea of different perspectives from, because there is a huge difference between an alternate timeline and a parallel universe. It's not the same thing at all. And how you're describing an alternate timeline isn't accurate here. Changing the timeline of Universe A wouldn't result in a Universe B. Rather, it would still be the same Universe A, only then it would be timeline B, overwriting original timeline A. That's how time travel has always been shown to work in Star Trek, such as in episodes like "Yesterday's Enterprise". That's why the only way to fix something that created an alternate timeline is to restore original events in the timeline, or at least get it close enough. It doesn't create a parallel universe that allows both to exist simultaneously. Yet, despite this, that is how the writers of NuTrek did it so that it's both a new timeline and a parallel universe, with out the understanding that isn't how time travel is shown to work in Star Trek.

Impossible time paradox's is what generally happens with such time travel stories and not always explained. To borrow a phrase from another series that involves a lot of time travel, it's "wibbily wobbly timey wimey...stuff" that makes time travelers like that somehow the exception to alterations in the timeline. But a time paradox like this has never been explained to be a parallel universe, because that would make it the result of a parallel universe changing another universe rather than simply time travel.

In fact, when the events of Yesterday's Enterprise conclue, our heroes are now in a 3rd universe divergent from the one at the beginning before the Ent-C was thrust into a time rift, and that's trackable because of Tasha Yar and her daughter, things which never happened before that event. That was not a self-fulfilling prophecy, the Enterprise C went down originally in a different battle that didn't have the ship disappear into a rift and reappear to fight on and leave Tasha Yar as a prisoner to the Romulans.

No, that's not a 3rd universe, that is a time paradox resulting in two Tasha Yar's existing within the same timeline.