# What's the recommended way of watching Star Trek?



## Gundam Eclipse (Feb 19, 2013)

Been wanting to get into Star Trek for a while, and finally decided to do so after hearing Cumberbatch is in Into Darkness >3>;
I have so far acquired the 2009 movie, and as far as I understand that movie and the upcoming one can be watched without having seen the rest of it.
However, the universe does interest me, which is why I wanna get into it.

So, echoing the title:
What's the recommended way of watching Star Trek?


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## LightyKD (Feb 19, 2013)

Considering that the movies are set in a alternate timeline than the show (except Enterprise whose events take place in both timelines) you don't exactly have to watch the series. BUT, if you do, I recommend you watch it historically and in this order...

- Enterprise
- The Original Series
- Next Generation
- Deep Space nine
- Voyager

Also, if you can, read the "Romulan Wars" (The Good That Men Do, Kobiyashi, Romulan Wars 1 and 2) Enterprise Novels before starting the Original Series. They explain a lot. And for those of you who are about to get on my case for suggesting novels. My thing is this. if they fill in a major spot in the Star Trek Universe that is not explained in the TV show and don't break TV cannon too much (i.e. minor things here and there) then I consider them cannon until something on screen disproves the novel. in the case of the Enterprise novels I'm suggesting, they do a damn good job explaining the time after the end of ENT and before the start of TOS.


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## xist (Feb 19, 2013)

Gundam Eclipse said:


> So, echoing the title:
> What's the recommended way of watching Star Trek?


 
Not sure there really is one, beyond trying each TV series (the original, Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise) and seeing what you enjoy. As you mention the new movies totally re-invent Star Trek "mythology" so any relationships would be merely a knowing wink to fans, rather than essential knowledge.

Just dip into each in turn.....they're different enough, yet similar enough to be enjoyable, although some are quite dated.


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## Jamstruth (Feb 19, 2013)

A lot of the episodes are stand alone so pick whatever seems to interest you in my opinion. Pick a series you like and watch a few standalones or serials.

Personally I'm a fan the Next Generation since that was what I used to watch as a kid with me Dad but they all have their good points (I never really got all the hate on Enterprise for instance). Borg episodes from TNG are some of my favourites. High stakes and the crew are just as clueless about the Borg as you are in the audience.


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## Species8472 (Feb 19, 2013)

Enterprise takes place in an alternate timeline itself. But it doesn't significantly change until the 2009 movie. So I second LightyKD's recommendation. As for the movies. Do not watch Generations (#7) before watching The Next Generation, or Nemesis (#10) before watching Voyager, although the later is just a minor cameo.
Personally I couldn't stand the original series until I got into The Next Generation.


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## Lacius (Feb 19, 2013)

As you already mentioned, the 2009 film and the upcoming 2013 film can be watched without being familiar with the rest of the Star Trek universe. However, if you're interested in getting into Star Trek, you can either watch them in order of release or in chronological order.

Chronological order:

Star Trek: Enterprise (2151-2155)
Star Trek: The Original Series (2265-2269)
Star Trek: The Motion Picture (2270s, not worth watching)
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (2285)
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (2285)
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (2286, 1986)
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (2287, not worth watching)
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (2293)

Star Trek: The Next Generation (2364-2370)
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (2369-2375)
Star Trek VII: Generations (2371, 2293)

Star Trek: Voyager (2371-2378)
Star Trek VIII: First Contact (2373, 2063)
Star Trek IX: Insurrection (2375)
Star Trek X: Nemesis (2379)
*Star Trek 2009 (2387, Alternate 2258)*
*Star Trek: Into Darkness (Alternate 2259)*

In order of release:

Star Trek: The Original Series (1966-1969)
Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979, not worth watching)
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)

Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994)
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989, not worth watching)
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993-1999)
Star Trek VII: Generations (1994)

Star Trek: Voyager (1995-2001)
Star Trek VIII: First Contact (1996)
Star Trek IX: Insurrection (1998)

Star Trek: Enterprise (2001-2005)
Star Trek X: Nemesis (2002)
*Star Trek (2009)*
*Star Trek: Into Darkness (2013)*

There are also some TOS and TNG movies after each respective series ended. If I were you, I would watch the second TNG movie _First Contact_, which is a time travel movie revolving around the discovery of warp drive and interstellar space-travel in 2063 and setting the stage for Star Trek, and then I would try watching the series in either one of those orders.

Note: Some people who start watching Star Trek end up not appreciating The Original Series and skip all but the most notable episodes of it.



Species8472 said:


> Enterprise takes place in an alternate timeline itself. But it doesn't significantly change until the 2009 movie.


Enterprise does not take place in an alternate timeline. The alternate futures shown in Enterprise are the alternate timelines. The timeline of Enterprise is the prime timeline in which the following series take place.


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## caribou007 (Feb 19, 2013)

Take it slow and enjoy it. The original series has a lot of charm and quality to it. Begin with both TOS and The Next Generation. TOS episodes don't have to be watched in order, although they really should. TNG on the other hand, should be watched in order. TNG and Deep Space Nine were a highly respected platform with very high production value that allowed the actors, writers, directors and guest directors and fans to explore different genres such as action, suspense, drama, comedy, detective mystery, spy thriller, homage and classic trek with the familiar Star Trek universe. DS9 premiered half-way through TNG, and canonically at the same period of time as TNG. Personally, I watched TOS and TNG since I was a young child, and although I was aware of DS9 when it premiered on TV, and I had had some glimpses of it, I never watched any of it. This really helped me imagine what life would have been like for the crew of a starship like the Enterprise from TOS, or the Enterprise-D from TNG, and how crew members aboard the Enterprise-D would have been aware of DS9, although they would not have been on DS9. This was important for me because, like a crew member on the Enterprise, what life aboard Deep Space Nine would be like was left mostly up to my imagination. It wasn't until I was a young man that I watched DS9, so there's a significant time gap there, that separated the two for me emotionally. I was then able to imagine what life would have been like, at the same period of time in canon, but for the crew members of Deep Space Nine. Technically, all episodes of TNG and especially(!) DS9 should be watched in order. With DS9, strictly in order. And since DS9 premiered half-way through TNG's run, it would be more interesting to be aware of how that played out for audiences at the time, as there are canon events that affect both shows' story arcs. I strongly recommend you enjoy TNG and DS9 the way I did, by finishing TNG and then starting DS9 later. The TOS films can be watched whenever you feel like it, they are excellent Star Trek. Technically, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock should be seen before Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, but it's not really that important. Star Trek III takes place immediately after Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and they should be watched in that order, however, I strongly recommend against watching them back-to-back as they are not meant to be seen that way. They are each directed by two different people and represent different styles of Star Trek, with STII having the feel of an action movie and STIII having the feel of the original series, with a different pacing that long-time fans are more likely to appreciate. I have recently watched all the TOS movies, and I left out Star Trek V: The Final Frontier because I didn't want to taint the experience - it's reputation is very bad and you may want to avoid it until you are really curious. The TNG movies should be watched in order, after finishing TNG; and, since they premiered while DS9 was still running, could be watched relative to the episode run of DS9 to catch subtle references to canon events between the movies and the DS9 episodes. There's really no need to bother with Voyager or Enterprise at all, they're really not that good. The animated series can be enjoyed for fun whenever you feel like it, it was good! Just don't rush it, because you enjoy Star Trek much more when you become familiar with the canon and comfortable with the fiction, so that the fiction doesn't get in the way of the storytelling and emotional underpinnings of the canon episodes, however, you can also appreciate the art episodes that are more about what you can do when you take a familiar story and add a stylistic twist.​​"Sail", with spectacular footage from Star Trek II and III​


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## Gahars (Feb 19, 2013)

Don't watch Enterprise. 
Skip Voyager. 
As heretical as this may sound, you probably don't need to watch Star Trek The Original Series, at least not in its entirety. It was groundbreaking in its time, absolutely, and some of the episodes still hold up tremendously well... unfortunately, many don't. You're probably better off finding the best ones online and avoiding the rest.
Skip The Animated Series
Watch Star Trek II - IV, VI (These films are made with the cast of The Original Series)
Watch Star Trek The Next Generation (Skip Season 1 at all costs. Season 2's a bit iffy still, but a marked improvement nonetheless)
Skip Deep Space 9, just watch Babylon 5. In fact, just watch Babylon 5 anyway.
Skip the Star Trek TNG films (with maybe the exception of First Contact. It's not a good Star Trek movie, but it's an alright movie on its own)
Watch Star Trek 2009
Alright, that should about cover it. Happy Trekking.


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## DinohScene (Feb 19, 2013)

Personally I'd loved Voyager and Enterprise.
TOS TAS and TNG are great for nostalgic purposes.
DS9 I didn't watch to much.

As for the films.
All of them are great

Of Enterprise I really fucking LOVED the Xindi part (season 2 last ep till last ep from Season 4)
Imho it was one of the best seasons in the whole of Star trek.


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## Maxternal (Feb 19, 2013)

Gahars said:


> skip as much star trek as you can find an excuse to.









At least he mentioned the original series of movies which had only once been suggested previously.


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## Lacius (Feb 19, 2013)

Gahars said:


> Don't watch Enterprise.
> Skip Voyager.
> Skip Deep Space 9
> Skip the Star Trek TNG films (with maybe the exception of First Contact. It's not a good Star Trek movie, but it's an alright movie on its own)


Don't listen to Gahars. Enterprise isn't the best, but it's good and worth watching. Voyager and DS9, however, are two of the best series, and they're definitely worth watching. The TNG movies aren't bad either.



DinohScene said:


> DS9 I didn't watch too much.


DS9 really picks up at or around the start of the war. I highly recommend you watch it.



DinohScene said:


> Of Enterprise I really fucking LOVED the Xindi part (season 2 last ep till last ep from Season 4)
> Imho it was one of the best seasons in the whole of Star trek.


The Xindi stuff was the only thing I didn't like about Enterprise.


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## mysticwaterfall (Feb 19, 2013)

Enterprise has about a dozen or show episodes worth watching. Otherwise, the rest is forgettable.

Voyager and DS9 are definitely worth watching. DS9 picks up especially after the war, and Voyager has quite a few great Borg episodes.

I would agree with Gahars though that the the first season of TNG is terrible though. As is Star Trek 1 and 5. I would certainly avoid those.


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## Gahars (Feb 19, 2013)

Maxternal said:


> At least he mentioned the original series of movies which had only once been suggested previously.


 
"Skip as much bad Star Trek as you can find an excuse to" is more like it.

I love Star Trek, believe me, but I'm not blind to the fact that it's not all gold. As a franchise, it's somewhat schizophrenic - at its best, it's some of the greatest material science fiction has ever had to offer (Take a look at, say, Tapestry). At its worse? Some of the shlockiest, most cringe-inducing stuff put to television (Take your pick - Spock's Brain, Turnabout Intruder, Threshold, A Night In Sickbay, Genesis, etc. etc.). 

If someone is interested in the franchise, why would you recommend they wade through the worst it has to offer? Do you just want to kill their enthusiasm for it?


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## Maxternal (Feb 19, 2013)

Yeah, Start Trek 5 isn't exactly something you'll miss out on. The first movie, though, I have a personal, *baseless* theory that it shows the origin of the borg.

but like I said ... completely baseless ...


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## DinohScene (Feb 19, 2013)

Lacius said:


> DS9 really picks up at or around the start of the war. I highly recommend you watch it.


 
I've seen DS9 yes.
Yes all of the episodes.
I just didn't got really into it.
I like the diversity of the cast as in the different races.





Lacius said:


> The Xindi stuff was the only thing I didn't like about Enterprise.


 
I loved it.
I've seen it on telie and 3 times on me laptop ;p
The times I watched it on me laptop I skipped nights just to watch it all lol


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## Hadrian (Feb 19, 2013)

For me The Original Series, the rest is so much more enjoyable that way as you get most references and the history also it's a lot more entertaining and contains less wank. I do admit watching TNG is much better once you've seen all of TOS, just the little hints here and there.  If you desire more TOS then sure give the Animated Series ago, it's a lot better than people give it credit for though it's short episodes does mean the stories are rushed. Some episodes are bad...really bad but others are very enjoyable but really only for those who are gay for TOS.

Then the movies...the even numbered films are the good ones with exception to Nemesis which was horrible. The odd numbered ones are watchable compared to Nemesis, man Nemesis was fucking awful.
The Next Generation...it's a slog to get through the first series, second gets better and then it gets really good.
Can't watch Deep Space 9 or Voyager, just bore me to tears. The characters just do nothing for me, TNG had some very good characters that kept me watching even through those two dull series.
Enterprise...it has it good episodes and it's bad.

All in order I just prefer TOS, just has more heart and I like the characters more. There's probably 5 kind of episodes at most and then they are recycled over and over but I enjoy it nonetheless.


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## Hadrian (Feb 19, 2013)

Gahars said:


> In fact, just watch Babylon 5 anyway..


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## p1ngpong (Feb 19, 2013)

Whats with all the hate for Enterprise? It ended abruptly and stuff but it was pretty good, season 2 and 3 were actually pretty damn awesome. I agree that you can skip a lot of ToS, a lot of episodes have aged badly. Other than that I don't think its worth skipping any of the films, none are more than two hours long so its not exactly a huge investment of time just to watch them. 



Maxternal said:


> Yeah, Start Trek 5 isn't exactly something you'll miss out on. The first movie, though, I have a personal, *baseless* theory that it shows the origin of the borg.
> 
> but like I said ... completely baseless ...


 
Dude... mind fucking blown.


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## smf (Feb 19, 2013)

Gundam Eclipse said:


> However, the universe does interest me, which is why I wanna get into it.
> 
> So, echoing the title:
> What's the recommended way of watching Star Trek?


 
The Star Trek reboot did reference some things from the movies that featured the original cast, so I'd watch those first. The even numbered ones are regarded better than the odd numbered ones, so don't be disheartened if you find them hard going but they are worth watching. Star Trek the motion picture is considered the worst, but it re-establishes the characters and the new Enterprise so that you won't feel like you've missed out by not watching the series.

I can't recommend watching any of the TV series, I found most of them unwatchable at the time. They are more like soap operas.

The movies with the next generation cast are more like TV movies, they range from okish to pretty dire.


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## Lacius (Feb 19, 2013)

Maxternal said:


> Yeah, Start Trek 5 isn't exactly something you'll miss out on. The first movie, though, I have a personal, *baseless* theory that it shows the origin of the borg.
> 
> but like I said ... completely baseless ...





Spoiler



It has been stated in the Voyager episode _Dragon's Teeth_ that the Borg have been around for at least 900 years, so _Star Trek I_ does not deal with the origin of the Borg.

However, it is possible that the cybernetic race that repaired V'Ger was the Borg, especially since Voyager 6 was on the other side of the galaxy at the time (which could have been the Delta Quadrant). However, there's no reason to really think this.


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## Maxternal (Feb 19, 2013)

Lacius said:


> Spoiler
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Time travel. Think time travel.


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## DinohScene (Feb 19, 2013)

Maxternal said:


> Time travel. Think time travel.


 


Spoiler



I blame Q for it!


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## DS1 (Feb 19, 2013)

Watch Deep Space Nine
....
Profit.

Honestly it'd be fine to watch random episodes of Next Generation and Deep Space Nine if you want to get the best of Trek (DS9 has a pretty good overall storyline). Throw in some of the more popular episodes of the original so you have background on the characters who appear in the reboot movies.


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## Lacius (Feb 19, 2013)

Maxternal said:


> Time travel. Think time travel.


There's no reason to think time travel occurred. And in regards to the second hypothesis, last time I checked, the Borg weren't the kind of people to make repairs and send things on their way.


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## smf (Feb 19, 2013)

Lacius said:


> The timeline of Enterprise is the prime timeline in which the following series take place.


 
That is the problem, the following series no longer take place.


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## Maxternal (Feb 19, 2013)

Maxternal said:


> like I said ... completely baseless ...


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## Gahars (Feb 19, 2013)

The "Borg created V'ger" idea was a big part of William Shatner's Star Trek novels (where Kirk is miraculously revived after Genesis and takes Kirk's Gary Stu elements and cranks them up to 11).

Take that for what you will.


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## Lacius (Feb 19, 2013)

Gahars said:


> The "Borg created V'ger" idea was a big part of William Shatner's Star Trek novels (where Kirk is miraculously revived after Genesis and takes Kirk's Gary Stu elements and cranks them up to 11).
> 
> Take that for what you will.


Star Trek novels are essentially fanfiction. To each his own though.



smf said:


> That is the problem, the following series no longer take place.


Did you not watch the Enterprise finale?


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## 431unknown (Feb 19, 2013)

smf said:


> That is the problem, the following series no longer take place.


 
Umm yes they do. Everything that took place did and everything taking place in the rebooted movies is now an alternate time line.


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## Gahars (Feb 19, 2013)

Lacius said:


> Star Trek novels are essentially fanfiction.


 
...Exactly.


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## smf (Feb 19, 2013)

431unknown said:


> Umm yes they do. Everything that took place did and everything taking place in the rebooted movies is now an alternate time line.


 
Star Trek has been time travelling since TOS http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Time_travel_episodes, I don't believe they have a handle on what the prime time line actually is.


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## Gahars (Feb 19, 2013)

smf said:


> Star Trek has been time travelling since TOS http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Time_travel_episodes, so there can't really be a prime and alternate time line. There is only the time line at the end of the episode.


 
Not quite.


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## RedCoreZero (Feb 19, 2013)

Tie yourself into your couch,so you won't get away.


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## Lacius (Feb 19, 2013)

smf said:


> Star Trek has been time travelling since TOS http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Time_travel_episodes, so there can't really be a prime and alternate time line. There is only the time line at the end of the episode.


There are many timelines. The "prime" timeline refers to the timeline in which 99.9% of the franchise takes place; the other timelines are considered alternate timelines. Because the 2009 movie was such a big deal, it and the 2013 movie are informally referred to as "the alternate timeline." The "one timeline at the end of the episode" is just the timeline we continue to follow, and that's why it's referred to as the prime or main timeline.

Edit: It should also be noted that without alternate timelines and realities, you've got quite a few paradoxes to resolve.


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## smf (Feb 19, 2013)

Lacius said:


> The "one timeline at the end of the episode" is just the timeline we continue to follow, and that's why it's referred to as the prime or main timeline.
> 
> Edit: It should also be noted that without alternate timelines and realities, you've got quite a few paradoxes to resolve.


 
If you go by the book by 2370 there are 285,000 different quantum realities. However they only introduced that concept later on, some of the earlier time travel assumed a single reality. If prime is the timeline we continue to follow then the end of the 2009 movie is the new prime. The fact that the authors refer to it as an alternate time line just shows they are making it up on the spot as there aren't just two and none of them can really be considered prime.


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## smf (Feb 19, 2013)

Gahars said:


> Not quite.


 
Yes, they did that but they also have written episodes like there are only 1 time line and in other places suggest there are over 200 thousand time lines. They just make up what they feel like on the day.


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## Lacius (Feb 19, 2013)

smf said:


> some of the earlier time travel assumed a single reality.


No, not necessarily. They've just only been concerned with their own reality.



smf said:


> If prime is the timeline we continue to follow then the end of the 2009 movie is the new prime.


If you'd rather call the events of the new movie the "prime timeline" and the events of the other 99.9% of the franchise the "alternate timeline" just because the movies are the only new things coming out right now, then be my guest. The new movies are the first time two timelines will likely be concurrently followed, although I guess you're right that the concurrence has yet to be seen until a new Star Trek series comes out or something. The point is that multiple realities and timelines exist at the same time. I don't care what you label them.



smf said:


> Yes, they did that but they also have written episodes like there are only 1 time line and in other places suggest there are over 200 thousand time lines. They just make up what they feel like on the day.


Never once has anyone in Star Trek said "There is only one reality" or "There is only one timeline," and alternate realities have been established to exist since Mirror, Mirror. Just because characters sometimes only concern themselves with fixing the timeline, getting back to one's own reality, etc. doesn't mean they're saying there's only one reality.


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## 431unknown (Feb 19, 2013)

Maxternal said:


> Time travel. Think time travel.


 
Watch First Contact again and then go watch the Enterprise episode Regeneration. The Borg after failing to assimilate Earth try to set up a beacon to inform the Collective of that time to come  Picard thwarts that attempt. Now jump to Archers time and the Borg found in the Arctic are successful Even tho Archer stops the  immediate threat the Collective of that time are informed about Earth and were even mentioned by Archer to possibly arrive sometime during the TNG/DS9/VOY time of the 24th century.

As for what order to watch Trek as a whole in, watch TOS, then movies 1-6, TNG ,DS9, VOY, then the TNG movies, Enterprise and then the reboot. If you want to watch TAS do so, but nothing in there as of yet pertains to anything in the main series and I doubt it ever will.

DS9 is my favorite of the franchise and considered by some to be the black sheep, the series only realy picks up during the Dominion war.

The books are shit and not even considered Canon if you read any take note of this as it has been stated many times by the various people in charge of Trek.

Most of my favorite episodes are from the TNG/DS9/VOY era and Enterprise had some decent stories aswell.


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## 431unknown (Feb 19, 2013)

smf said:


> Star Trek has been time travelling since TOS http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Time_travel_episodes, I don't believe they have a handle on what the prime time line actually is.


 
No shit Dick Tracy.


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## Lacius (Feb 19, 2013)

431unknown said:


> DS9 is my favorite of the franchise and considered by some to be the black sheep, the series only realy picks up during the Dominion war.


I think Voyager is the black sheep of Star Trek. I'm laughed out of the room virtually every time I mention that Janeway is my favorite captain.


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## 431unknown (Feb 19, 2013)

Lacius said:


> I think Voyager is the black sheep of Star Trek. I'm laughed out of the room virtually every time I mention that Janeway is my favorite captain.


 
No way man it's gotta be Sisko for me. I mean he punched Q in the face. That was pretty bad ass in my book.

Janeway was pretty bad ass to tho she really knew how to screw the Borg queen over.


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## Gahars (Feb 19, 2013)

Lacius said:


> I think Voyager is the black sheep of Star Trek. I'm laughed out of the room virtually every time I mention that Janeway is my favorite captain.


 
Well, when the entire premise of the show hinges on her stupidity and rashness, it's easy to understand why she's not exactly well liked.

Now, we're all free to have our own opinions when it comes to best Captain. However, the answer is Picard.


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## Lacius (Feb 19, 2013)

Gahars said:


> Well, when the entire premise of the show hinges on her stupidity and rashness, it's easy to understand why she's not exactly well liked.


Could you give me an example?


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## 431unknown (Feb 19, 2013)

All the Captains were good.


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## Guild McCommunist (Feb 19, 2013)

On the topic of the movies, the 2009 film is good that it stands on its own. It's actually a completely separate universe from TOS (Nero interferes with the timeline by killing Kirk's father and other things in the movie) so while it shares the same characters, plot points are completely original and there's some slightly different development in characters. Of course it has nods to TOS but you can watch it with basic Star Trek knowledge and be fine.

I'd suggest TNG because it has aged better than TOS and it's also one of my favorite TV shows of all time. Very well written, great characters, great scripts. However the first season or two is pretty boring. General rule of thumb is that the series is good once Riker grows a beard. Also the other rule of thumb is SPOILER ALERT after Tasha dies.

On Voyager, I never _hated_ it, there are some logic gaps when it comes to a few of Janeway's decisions (mostly the major plot points) but episodic I think it's alright.

I really just wasn't a fan of DS9, it just felt so slow and quite honestly it rips a bit from Babylon 5 (which I don't even like). It's different, whether you like it or not.

Enterprise, in general it's rather mediocre, the entire show just feels like it's tryhard TOS. Like they'll bruise your arm over all the nudges going "Hey, remember TOS?" That being said, there's a few interesting episodes. Through the Mirror Darkly (I believe it's called that) is pretty interesting. Alternate dark universe stuff. Although even that is an incredibly strong nudge towards a TOS episode and even features the Enterprise B.

As a whole Star Trek is a fantastic series but I feel it's hard to get into currently. It can be a bit dated at times. However the special effects are generally quite well aged as they used models instead of CG and the writing is timeless. TNG just fits the best area of having aged well and not being cheesy compared to TOS. Hell even some episodes apply today. There's an episode basically about gay rights and it's still very relevant today.

My whole advice: Watch select, important episodes of TOS (I can't give a list but the one with Khan, the one on racism, and the one where Kirk and Spock are sent back to pre-WWII are excellent), watch Star Trek II, watch TNG, try watching Voyager and see if you like it, and watch the latest Star Trek flick.


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## Sychophantom (Feb 19, 2013)

Ignore Enterprise, or at least if you watch it, never NEVER NEVER watch the series finale.

Why does no one mention the Animated Star Trek series? Watch that, preferably under the influence.

Actually, that advice goes for all of Star Trek.


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## Lacius (Feb 19, 2013)

Gahars said:


> Well, when the entire premise of the show hinges on her stupidity and rashness, it's easy to understand why she's not exactly well liked.





Guild McCommunist said:


> On Voyager, I never _hated_ it, there are some logic gaps when it comes to a few of Janeway's decisions (mostly the major plot points) but episodic I think it's alright.


You guys, what's wrong with Janeway? D:


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## 431unknown (Feb 19, 2013)

Guild McCommunist said:


> On the topic of the movies, the 2009 film is good that it stands on its own. It's actually a completely separate universe from TOS (Nero interferes with the timeline by killing Kirk's father and other things in the movie) so while it shares the same characters, plot points are completely original and there's some slightly different development in characters. Of course it has nods to TOS but you can watch it with basic Star Trek knowledge and be fine.
> 
> I'd suggest TNG because it has aged better than TOS and it's also one of my favorite TV shows of all time. Very well written, great characters, great scripts. However the first season or two is pretty boring. General rule of thumb is that the series is good once Riker grows a beard. Also the other rule of thumb is SPOILER ALERT after Tasha dies.
> 
> ...


 
Space Seed, Let That Be Your Last Battlefield, and Patterns of Force are the episode titles respectively.



Sychophantom said:


> Ignore Enterprise, or at least if you watch it, never NEVER NEVER watch the series finale.
> 
> *Why does no one mention the Animated Star Trek series?* Watch that, preferably under the influence.
> 
> Actually, that advice goes for all of Star Trek.


 

I did.


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## Gahars (Feb 19, 2013)

Lacius said:


> Could you give me an example?


 
To go with just one example...

Stranding the ship in the Delta Quadrant in the first place by blowing up the Array before they use it... rather than, say, phasing some torpedoes over and setting them to detonate only after they escaped. Instead, she just blows it up and strands everybody light years away from home.

It's the worst kind of contrivance - obviously the writers needed to find someway to get everyone lost in space, but they had to ignore the mechanics of their universe to do it. Janeway has to be an idiot for the plot to work.


----------



## DinohScene (Feb 19, 2013)

Sychophantom said:


> Ignore Enterprise, or at least if you watch it, never NEVER NEVER watch the series finale.
> 
> Why does no one mention the Animated Star Trek series? Watch that, preferably under the influence.
> 
> Actually, that advice goes for all of Star Trek.


 
I've mentioned TAS.
Besides I got a DVD box of TAS here .__.


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## Lacius (Feb 19, 2013)

Gahars said:


> Stranding the ship in the Delta Quadrant in the first place by blowing up the Array before they use it... rather than, say, phasing some torpedoes over and setting them to detonate only after they escaped. Instead, she just blows it up and strands everybody light years away from home.


Considering the Kazon would have let them take their time in blowing up the Array while simultaneously using it to get home.


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## DinohScene (Feb 19, 2013)

Gahars said:


> Stranding the ship in the Delta Quadrant in the first place by blowing up the Array before they use it... rather than, say, phasing some torpedoes over and setting them to detonate only after they escaped. Instead, she just blows it up and strands everybody light years away from home.


 
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.


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## Gahars (Feb 19, 2013)

Phasing the torpedoes over and using to go home would take all of... what, a minute or two at most?

And the Kazon can't do jack shit with technology (they're so bad the Borg rejected them outright), so there's no risk of them disarming the torpedoes in any way, shape, or form. They could set the timer for an hour and not have to worry.



DinohScene said:


> The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.


Like the members of her crew who were needlessly endangered. A good captain might've considered that.


----------



## LightyKD (Feb 19, 2013)

OK people lets deal with this right now. Enterprise takes place in BOTH time lines. Enterprise happens in the prime line but when Prime-Spock enters the Beta universe, it happens AFTER the events of Enterprise (in the Beta universe) meaning that until stated otherwise, the events of Enterprise STILL happened in the beta timeline. That's why I say that if someone wanted to only watch the new movies, they should watch Enterprise first then move onto the movies.


BTW: Enterprise is the best Trek EVER followed by DS9...just saying


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## 431unknown (Feb 19, 2013)

Gahars said:


> Phasing the torpedoes over and using to go home would take all of... what, a minute or two at most?
> 
> And the Kazon can't do jack shit with technology (they're so bad the Borg rejected them outright), so there's no risk of them disarming the torpedoes in any way, shape, or form. They could set the timer for an hour and not have to worry.
> 
> ...


 
I know she was so fucken bad... Thats why she got promoted to Admiral upon Voyagers return.





LightyKD said:


> OK people lets deal with this right now. *Enterprise takes place in BOTH time lines.* Enterprise happens in the prime line but when Prime-Spock enters the Beta universe, it happens AFTER the events of Enterprise (in the Beta universe) meaning that until stated otherwise, the events of Enterprise STILL happened in the beta timeline. That's why I say that if someone wanted to only watch the new movies, they should watch Enterprise first then move onto the movies.
> 
> 
> BTW: Enterprise is the best Trek EVER followed by DS9...just saying


 
Nobody said it wasn't


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## Lacius (Feb 19, 2013)

Gahars said:


> Phasing the torpedoes over and using to go home would take all of... what, a minute or two at most?
> 
> And the Kazon can't do jack shit with technology (they're so bad the Borg rejected them outright), so there's no risk of them disarming the torpedoes in any way, shape, or form. They could set the timer for an hour and not have to worry.
> 
> ...


I wasn't aware the Voyager crew knew the first thing yet about how to use the Array to get home. That's also ignoring the fact that they had to disperse torpedoes without the Kazon blowing them up and configure the Array without the Kazon interfering, and all while being under attack by a fleet of Kazon ships.

Edit: I also suggest you re-watch The Voyager Conspiracy in which they talk about tri-cobalt weapons being required for the destruction of the Array.


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## LightyKD (Feb 19, 2013)

431unknown said:


> I know she was so fucken bad... Thats why she got promoted to Admiral upon Voyagers return.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
LMFAO! I'm glad that i wasn't the only person who hated Janeway! As for her promotion, I hated that as well but, mostly because I don't think she should have been promoted due to her committing genocide. yes, the Borg are horrible but it still does not justify genocide.


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## 431unknown (Feb 19, 2013)

LightyKD said:


> LMFAO! I'm glad that i wasn't the only person who hated Janeway! As for her promotion, I hated that as well but, mostly because I don't think she should have been promoted due to her committing genocide. yes, the Borg are horrible but it still does not justify genocide.


 
Considering the whole galaxy didn't like the Borg I doubt anyone gave 2 shits about  them getting fucked up.


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## DinohScene (Feb 19, 2013)

Gahars said:


> Phasing the torpedoes over and using to go home would take all of... what, a minute or two at most?
> 
> And the Kazon can't do jack shit with technology (they're so bad the Borg rejected them outright), so there's no risk of them disarming the torpedoes in any way, shape, or form. They could set the timer for an hour and not have to worry.
> 
> ...


 

Prime directive.
Even tho Janeway violated it many times she still kept to it.
Unlike Chakotay...


As for the Kazon.
They might be inferior to the Borg but remember, Guerilla warriors inflict the most damage sometimes.


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## Lacius (Feb 19, 2013)

LightyKD said:


> because I don't think she should have been promoted due to her committing genocide.





Spoiler



Technically speaking, it wasn't done with the explicit purpose of genocide, and it was Janeway's alternate future self who did it, not the one who got promoted.


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## Gahars (Feb 19, 2013)

Evidently, the crew was capable of using the array - they were right about to until the self-destruct sequence went awry.

As for the torpedo, there would be no need for dispersal - they could teleport them right to the array. We've seen crews do this in both TNG and Voyager (later on), so there's no reason it couldn't have worked right then and there.



DinohScene said:


> Prime directive.
> Even tho Janeway violated it many times she still kept to it.
> Unlike Chakotay...


 
So... she didn't keep to it. Plus, blowing up the array counts as a violation of the Prime Directive (one of the characters explicitly states this in the scene).


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## Guild McCommunist (Feb 19, 2013)

Um, the Borg survive the end of Voyager. They have like... Star Trek: First Contact.

Also the idea of a Borg Queen is completely contradictory to the idea of the Borg. They're supposed to be a leaderless, powerful mass. They have no weakness. There's no single Borg you could kill and end them all. That's what made them cool and powerful. Having a queen is just kinda dumb.

To be fair while I don't believe Voyager was terrible they had fucking Tuvix as an episode.


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## LightyKD (Feb 19, 2013)

431unknown said:


> Considering the whole galaxy didn't like the Borg I doubt anyone gave 2 shits about them getting fucked up.


 
That may be true but, we're talking about the Federation. The hope and combination of all the good intentions of out galaxy. We are also talking about future humans who are supposed to be above such petty things as racism, nationalism and more importantly, genocide. Sorry but what Janeway did was inexcusable. ESPECIALLY since she knew about the Borg Queen's relationship with the Borg. all she had to do was disable the Queen and allow the rest of that species to figure out life for their selves but no... she had to blow them all up and send them to the Bajoran prophets.


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## Lacius (Feb 19, 2013)

Guild McCommunist said:


> Um, the Borg survive the end of Voyager. They have like... Star Trek: First Contact.


While I don't think it's likely that all the Borg were killed, First Contact takes place before the events we're talking about.


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## Guild McCommunist (Feb 19, 2013)

Lacius said:


> While I don't think it's likely that all the Borg were killed, First Contact takes place before the events we're talking about.


 
I swore it had Admiral Janeway in it as a cameo.



LightyKD said:


> That may be true but, we're talking about the Federation. The hope and combination of all the good intentions of out galaxy. We are also talking about future humans who are supposed to be above such petty things as racism, nationalism and more importantly, genocide. Sorry but what Janeway did was inexcusable. ESPECIALLY since she knew about the Borg Queen's relationship with the Borg. all she had to do was disable the Queen and allow the rest of that species to figure out life for their selves but no... she had to blow them all up and send them to the Bajoran prophets.


 
The Federation aren't crusading good guys. This is more highlighted in TNG where the Prime Directive comes into play. An entire planet as advanced as us currently could be committing mass genocide and they'd do shit because of the Prime Directive.

There's also a shitload of bureaucracy in the Federation and other issues. They're generally good guys but they're a bit more grey in TNG and later on.


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## Lacius (Feb 19, 2013)

Guild McCommunist said:


> I swore it had Admiral Janeway in it as a cameo.


That's Nemesis.


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## LightyKD (Feb 19, 2013)

Guild McCommunist said:


> I swore it had Admiral Janeway in it as a cameo.


 
You're thinking about Nemesis.


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## 431unknown (Feb 19, 2013)

LightyKD said:


> *That may be true but, we're talking about the Federation. The hope and combination of all the good intentions of out galaxy*. We are also talking about future humans who are supposed to be above such petty things as racism, nationalism and more importantly, genocide. Sorry but what Janeway did was inexcusable. ESPECIALLY *since she knew about the Borg Queen's relationship with the Borg*. all she had to do was disable the Queen and allow the rest of that species to figure out life for their selves but no... she had to blow them all up and send them to the Bajoran prophets.


 
Yeah thier "good intentions" were to fuck the Borg up for the sake of all the other species. Needs of the many and such nonsense.

They select a new Queen upon the death of the one before. It's stated in a few episodes. The queen is eternal.


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## Gahars (Feb 19, 2013)

Guild McCommunist said:


> Also the idea of a Borg Queen is completely contradictory to the idea of the Borg. They're supposed to be a leaderless, powerful mass. They have no weakness. There's no single Borg you could kill and end them all. That's what made them cool and powerful. Having a queen is just kinda dumb.


 
That's another thing I don't like about the Voyager... it neutered the Borg. The Borg Queen (who may or may not have originated in First Contact, but the problem still stands) is just the tip of the iceberg. The crew encounters them constantly and outwits them every time; you can only beat an enemy so many times before he stops being threatening and starts becoming ineffectual.

Also, the difference between Q from TNG to Q on Voyager... don't get me started.


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## Guild McCommunist (Feb 19, 2013)

LightyKD said:


> You're thinking about Nemesis.


 


Lacius said:


> That's Nemesis.


 
Ah, that's my bad.

But then the question is raised, why didn't the death of the Borg Queen in First Contact kill them all? Or the one in Voyager?


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## Lacius (Feb 19, 2013)

Gahars said:


> Evidently, the crew was capable of using the array - they were right about to until the self-destruct sequence went awry.
> 
> As for the torpedo, there would be no need for dispersal - they could teleport them right to the array. We've seen crews do this in both TNG and Voyager (later on), so there's no reason it couldn't have worked right then and there.


Pretending that it wouldn't have taken long for the crew to use the Array to get home, there was no feasible way for them to have their cake and eat it too. Despite their lack of technological advancement, the Kazon could have easily interfered with the placement of torpedoes around the Array. I also refer you back to my previous comment about tri-cobalt devices being required.



Gahars said:


> So... she didn't keep to it. Plus, blowing up the array counts as a violation of the Prime Directive (one of the characters explicitly states this in the scene).


There's no question that Janeway violated the Prime Directive when she blew up the Array. Sometimes the Prime Directive is a piece of shit that says you shouldn't covertly fix a planet's atmosphere to save millions of lives just because those lives haven't yet come up with warp travel.


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## Maxternal (Feb 19, 2013)

Lacius said:


> While I don't think it's likely that all the Borg were killed, First Contact takes place before the events we're talking about.





			
				Borg Queen said:
			
		

> You think in such three-dimensional terms. How small you've become.


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## Lacius (Feb 19, 2013)

Gahars said:


> That's another thing I don't like about the Voyager... it neutered the Borg. The Borg Queen (who may or may not have originated in First Contact, but the problem still stands) is just the tip of the iceberg. The crew encounters them constantly and outwits them every time; you can only beat an enemy so many times before he stops being threatening and starts becoming ineffectual.


Voyager didn't encounter the Borg that much, and when they did, Voyager was usually no match. If I recall in TNG, it was pretty easy to outwit the Borg. There was also an episode where it was implied that uploading a single paradoxical file to one drone could possibly bring down the whole collective. Voyager didn't neuter the Borg.



Gahars said:


> Also, the difference between Q from TNG to Q on Voyager... don't get me started.


Picard was male. Janeway was female. It's understandable that Q would treat them differently.



Guild McCommunist said:


> Ah, that's my bad.
> 
> But then the question is raised, why didn't the death of the Borg Queen in First Contact kill them all? Or the one in Voyager?


The death of the Borg Queen only kills those Borg with a direct active link to her at the time, apparently. Only the Borg on the Enterprise-E died when she died because that was her mini-collective from the future. She was not in contact with the Borg of that period nor the Borg in her century she had just left. Although the Queen dies in Endgame and Unimatrix 01 collapses, we see other Borg ships still functional. There's no reason to think the Borg are extinct, and there's no reason to think the Borg Queen couldn't be reborn the same way she has been other times.


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## Gahars (Feb 19, 2013)

Lacius said:


> Pretending that it wouldn't have taken long for the crew to use the Array to get home, there was no feasible way for them to have their cake and eat it too. Despite their lack of technological advancement, the Kazon could have easily interfered with the placement of torpedoes around the Array. I also refer you back to my previous comment about tri-cobalt devices being required.


 
They could phase torpedoes inside of the array, and the use of a timer would mean that the Kazon wouldn't have had enough time to do anything about it.

As for the Tri-cobalt device bit, that seems very ret-conny... plus, what would stop them from teleporting the tri-cobalt devices?



> There's no question that Janeway violated the Prime Directive when she blew up the Array. Sometimes the Prime Directive is a piece of shit that says you shouldn't covertly fix a planet's atmosphere to save millions of lives just because those lives haven't yet come up with warp travel.


 
Oh, I'm not arguing with that - my point was that she didn't keep to it as Dinoh was saying.


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## Maxternal (Feb 19, 2013)

I have unfortunately not seen the end of Voyager but at least in First Contact it seemed to me that the queen, rather than being a organic brain at the center with other mechanical implants, that when all her organic parts were washed away she had a machine instead of a brain. She seemed more like a machine made to represent the collective mind of the borg, not a living thing that happened to control them.


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## Guild McCommunist (Feb 19, 2013)

Okay, the fact that we're getting so particular about the Array in Voyager shows it's bad writing. They just tried to shoehorn in some moral choice but it just left the whole thing so open that it basically paints Janeway as an idiot. Considering all the crazy bullshit maneuvers they can pull in Star Trek, it's completely possible they could've just rigged some way to activate the Array and detonate it remotely.

The fact that Janeway wouldn't try just shows she's an idiot. I mean they can make a Borg human again and do all this crazy shit in future episodes of the show but they can't rig up a few bombs with timers?


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## Lacius (Feb 19, 2013)

Gahars said:


> As for the Tri-cobalt device bit, that seems very ret-conny... plus, what would stop them from teleporting the tri-cobalt devices?


It's established in the Voyager pilot that they needed and used tri-colbat devices. Also, beaming torpedoes wasn't something we saw as possible until much later in the series when a torpedo was beamed aboard a Borg vessel. Before that, it was common knowledge that anti-matter couldn't be beamed. Regardless, the Kazon fleet could have easily interfered with both the process of beaming torpedoes and the process of using the Array to get home, let alone the process of, well, not being blown up by a Kazon fleet.



Maxternal said:


> I have unfortunately not seen the end of Voyager but at least in First Contact it seemed to me that the queen, rather than being a organic brain at the center with other mechanical implants, that when all her organic parts were washed away she had a machine instead of a brain. She seemed more like a machine made to represent the collective mind of the borg, not a living thing that happened to control them.


The Borg Queen is both organic and cybernetic. She was not fully functional after her flesh was melted away. She's also less a controller of the Borg collective (although she has that ability) and more a facilitator of the collective.



Guild McCommunist said:


> Okay, the fact that we're getting so particular about the Array in Voyager shows it's bad writing. They just tried to shoehorn in some moral choice but it just left the whole thing so open that it basically paints Janeway as an idiot. Considering all the crazy bullshit maneuvers they can pull in Star Trek, it's completely possible they could've just rigged some way to activate the Array and detonate it remotely.
> 
> The fact that Janeway wouldn't try just shows she's an idiot. I mean they can make a Borg human again and do all this crazy shit in future episodes of the show but they can't rig up a few bombs with timers?


Except that what you guys are describing had never been done before in the Star Trek universe, and you're neglecting the fact that Voyager was under attack by a Kazon fleet at the time.


----------



## Gahars (Feb 19, 2013)

Lacius said:


> Voyager didn't encounter the Borg that much, and when they did, Voyager was usually no match. If I recall in TNG, it was pretty easy to outwit the Borg. There was also an episode where it was implied that uploading a single paradoxical file to one drone could possibly bring down the whole collective. Voyager didn't neuter the Borg.


 
This website says otherwise.

They made a big show about them being no match for the Borg... and yet this one ship managed to get one up on them over and over and over again. The producers kept using the Borg because they were big ratings boosters (from what I've read), but diminishing returns sunk in quickly.

In TNG, on the other hand, the Borg damn near conquered the Federation. They were far from being easy to outwit, and they were menacing because they were so rarely seen - it meant that much more when they showed up again. (There was the storyline with Hugh, but they made it clear that it was a special chance that they'd likely never have again. Besides, the focus of that episode was more on the ethical dilemma facing Picard than anything else.) 



> Picard was male. Janeway was female. It's understandable that Q would treat them differently.


 
It goes beyond just treating them differently because of their gender. Q was always a trickster, but in TNG, he was more of an enigma. Some days he would feel like helping the crew of the Enterprise; other days, he would dick around with them as a joke. The same being that would introduce mankind to the Borg in the first place was also the one that would help Picard understand the "tapestry" of his own life.

Then comes Voyager and he... wants to marry Janeway? And now he's having a kid? What?

The writers took the wackiness up to 11 while ignoring the rest, and his character suffered for it.


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## Gahars (Feb 19, 2013)

Lacius said:


> It's established in the Voyager pilot that they needed and used tri-colbat devices. Also, beaming torpedoes wasn't something we saw as possible until much later in the series when a torpedo was beamed aboard a Borg vessel. Before that, it was common knowledge that anti-matter couldn't be beamed. Regardless, the Kazon fleet could have easily interfered with both the process of beaming torpedoes and the process of using the Array to get home, let alone the process of, well, not being blown up by a Kazon fleet.


 
For the first part, see the below response.

How would the Kazon have interfered? They're technological capabilities were extremely, extremely, extremely limited (like, so limited the Borg wouldn't touch them with a ten foot pole). They could shoot, sure, but the Voyager had shields and wouldn't have needed all that much time to set everything up and skedaddle.



> Except that what you guys are describing had never been done before in the Star Trek universe, and you're neglecting the fact that Voyager was under attack by a Kazon fleet at the time.


 
Not quite. They did that by the third season of TNG (and in the fourth), so it had already been well-established.


----------



## Lacius (Feb 19, 2013)

Gahars said:


> This website says otherwise.
> 
> They made a big show about them being no match for the Borg... and yet this one ship managed to get one up on them over and over and over again. The producers kept using the Borg because they were big ratings boosters (from what I've read), but diminishing returns sunk in quickly.
> 
> In TNG, on the other hand, the Borg damn near conquered the Federation. They were far from being easy to outwit, and they were menacing because they were so rarely seen - it meant that much more when they showed up again. (There was the storyline with Hugh, but they made it clear that it was a special chance that they'd likely never have again. Besides, the focus of that episode was more on the ethical dilemma facing Picard than anything else.)


I didn't say Voyager didn't have more episodes involving the Borg than TNG. Compared to the rest of the series, however, Voyager didn't have that many episodes that were about the Borg. Also consider that many of the episodes on that list don't exactly count as "encountering the Borg" episodes (including but not limited to _The Raven_). As far as I can see, you've only got about four "encountering/battling the Borg" episodes, and it was made very clear that Voyager was typically no match for them each time. I saw no "neutering" of the Borg in Voyager. If anything, I thought the Borg were more menacing in Voyager.



Gahars said:


> It goes beyond just treating them differently because of their gender. Q was always a trickster, but in TNG, he was more of an enigma. Some days he would feel like helping the crew of the Enterprise; other days, he would dick around with them as a joke. The same being that would introduce mankind to the Borg in the first place was also the one that would help Picard understand the "tapestry" of his own life.
> 
> Then comes Voyager and he... wants to marry Janeway? And now he's having a kid? What?
> 
> The writers took the wackiness up to 11 while ignoring the rest, and his character suffered for it.


The relationship between Q and Janeway had both its serious moments and its silly moments. I saw no change in Q's character.



Gahars said:


> How would the Kazon have interfered? They're technological capabilities were extremely, extremely, extremely limited (like, so limited the Borg wouldn't touch them with a ten foot pole). They could shoot, sure, but the Voyager had shields and wouldn't have needed all that much time to set everything up and skedaddle.


Despite how the Borg viewed the Kazon, they had weapons and shields, and an attack by a Kazon fleet isn't exactly a picnic. I refer you to _Maneuvers_ in which a fleet of Kazon ships was indeed a threat to Voyager.



Gahars said:


> Not quite. They did that by the third season of TNG (and in the fourth), so it had already been well-established.


Could you be more specific about what was done in those episodes? I don't recall those things happening in either of those episodes.


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## Gahars (Feb 19, 2013)

Lacius said:


> I didn't say Voyager didn't have more episodes involving the Borg than TNG. Compared to the rest of the series, however, Voyager didn't have that many episodes that were about the Borg. Also consider that many of the episodes on that list don't exactly count as "encountering the Borg" episodes (including but not limited to _The Raven_). As far as I can see, you've only got about four "encountering/battling the Borg" episodes, and it was made very clear that Voyager was typically no match for them each time. I saw no "neutering" of the Borg in Voyager. If anything, I thought the Borg were more menacing in Voyager.


 
That's kind of splitting hairs. Whether or not the episodes focus around them entirely, they still appear far more as a threat in Voyager than in any other series. To be fair, I think it's also a matter of the audience learning about the Borg. The more light you cast on a monster, the less scary it is.

I think the Borg were at their best when they were a faceless collective indiscriminately harvesting and converting whatever lay in their path. There was mystery surrounding them, which aided the dread.

In Voyager, on the other hand, explained as much as it could, which deflated a lot of the tension and dread. Would the shark in Jaws be as menacing if we saw him clearly and learned that his name was Bruce, he worked a 9-5 temp job on the weekdays, and loved sightseeing? Probably not.



> The relationship between Q and Janeway had both its serious moments and its silly moments. I saw no change in Q's character.


 
They had "serious" moments, but they weren't executed all that well, and they paled in comparison to his appearances in, say, "Tapestry" (I know I keep bringing it up, but damn, that's a great episode) or "All Good Things". The version on Voyager, I thought, was shallower - He appeared less because the writers had great ideas for how to use him, but more because "Well, the fans like Q, so I guess we have to fit him in somewhere."



> Despite how the Borg viewed the Kazon, they had weapons and shields, and an attack by a Kazon fleet isn't exactly a picnic. I refer you to _Maneuvers_ in which a fleet of Kazon ships was indeed a threat to Voyager.


 
They were a threat, sure, if they stuck around and twiddled their thumbs. They would have had more than enough time to plant the explosives and escape.



> Could you be more specific about what was done in those episodes? I don't recall those things happening in either of those episodes.


 
I'm using Wikipedia to refresh my memory a bit, but Legacy shows the crew teleporting a torpedo to detonate at a remote location while Captain's Holiday shows that an object can be destroyed outright via transporter. Either way, this functionality was demonstrated well before the events of Voyager's first episode.


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## Lacius (Feb 19, 2013)

Gahars said:


> To be fair, I think it's also a matter of the audience learning about the Borg. The more light you cast on a monster, the less scary it is.


I think that's probably what's going on here.



Gahars said:


> They were a threat, sure, if they stuck around and twiddled their thumbs. They would have had more than enough time to plant the explosives and escape.


Again, while under attack by a fleet? Probably not. Things get complicated when you combine transporters and having your shields up, for starters. The presence of a hostile Kazon fleet made it impossible to do what you're suggesting. I also doubt that timed torpedoes, let alone timed tri-cobalt devices, were pre-prepared. To say the least, timing was most definitely an issue.



Gahars said:


> I'm using Wikipedia to refresh my memory a bit, but Legacy shows the crew teleporting a torpedo to detonate at a remote location while Captain's Holiday shows that an object can be destroyed outright via transporter. Either way, this functionality was demonstrated well before the events of Voyager's first episode.


I'm going to have to re-watch these episodes, because the only times I recall timed torpedoes being beamed somewhere are in much later Voyager episodes like _Dark Frontier_.


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## Gahars (Feb 20, 2013)

Lacius said:


> Again, while under attack by a fleet? Probably not. Things get complicated when you combine transporters and having your shields up, for starters. The presence of a hostile Kazon fleet made it impossible to do what you're suggesting. I also doubt that timed torpedoes, let alone timed tri-cobalt devices, were pre-prepared. To say the least, timing was most definitely an issue.


 
I don't know, I think at this point you're splitting hairs with the timing - we're not talking hours, we're talking minutes, minutes which the Voyager easily had. Also, the fact that none of the characters even mentions the idea is pretty tell. You'd think such an option would spring to mind for these trained officers who don't want to be stranded in the Delta Quadrant. But no, the writers didn't even try to handwave the option away. (As for setting the torpedoes issue, it's not like the present where some guy might have to climb down and manually set up a timer - for the Federation, such a thing would take a few swipes on a computer terminal).

You mentioned that they wouldn't have been able to use the array a bit before, and there's another point I want to address - the drama doesn't make sense if they couldn't use it. The whole decision is supposed to be a loaded choice for Janeway; she had to choose between getting her crew home or saving the people from the Kazon. Ultimately, she does the "right" thing, but the consequences lay heavy on her soul. Every time she loses a member of her crew, she bears the responsibility for that. (That's the idea they were going for anyway.)

The problem is, if they never had a chance to go back home in the first place, then it doesn't work. Instead the choice is between leaving and destroying the Array... or leaving and not destroying the Array. That's hardly much of a moral quandary; Janeway shows a willingness to defy the Prime Directive elsewhere, so it's not like this should cause her to lose much sleep.

So, either Voyager could use the array and the writers didn't fully consider the rational alternatives available to the crew, or Voyager couldn't use the array and the writers just bungled the stakes. It's a lose-lose.



> I'm going to have to re-watch these episodes, because the only times I recall timed torpedoes being beamed somewhere are in much later Voyager episodes like _Dark Frontier_.


 
Fair enough... though it does make you wonder, if they could do it in later Voyager episoes, that should mean the ship was capable of it beforehand. They upgraded the ship here and there, but from what I remember, it was pretty much just the warp drive and engine.[/quote]


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## Nah3DS (Feb 20, 2013)

just watch Star Wars


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## Lacius (Feb 20, 2013)

Gahars said:


> I don't know, I think at this point you're splitting hairs with the timing - we're not talking hours, we're talking minutes, minutes which the Voyager easily had. Also, the fact that none of the characters even mentions the idea is pretty tell. You'd think such an option would spring to mind for these trained officers who don't want to be stranded in the Delta Quadrant. But no, the writers didn't even try to handwave the option away. (As for setting the torpedoes issue, it's not like the present where some guy might have to climb down and manually set up a timer - for the Federation, such a thing would take a few swipes on a computer terminal).


No, I don't think Voyager had those minutes with the Kazon fleet present. It also could have been in the magnitude of half an hour or hours.


Gahars said:


> You mentioned that they wouldn't have been able to use the array a bit before, and there's another point I want to address - the drama doesn't make sense if they couldn't use it. The whole decision is supposed to be a loaded choice for Janeway; she had to choose between getting her crew home or saving the people from the Kazon. Ultimately, she does the "right" thing, but the consequences lay heavy on her soul. Every time she loses a member of her crew, she bears the responsibility for that. (That's the idea they were going for anyway.)
> The problem is, if they never had a chance to go back home in the first place, then it doesn't work. Instead the choice is between leaving and destroying the Array... or leaving and not destroying the Array. That's hardly much of a moral quandary; Janeway shows a willingness to defy the Prime Directive elsewhere, so it's not like this should cause her to lose much sleep.
> So, either Voyager could use the array and the writers didn't fully consider the rational alternatives available to the crew, or Voyager couldn't use the array and the writers just bungled the stakes. It's a lose-lose.


I wasn't trying to say earlier that the Voyager crew didn't have the ability to use the Array to get home; I was saying that it could have been minutes or hours before they successfully figured out how to use it effectively (and safely). Keep in mind that the Array killed over a dozen people the first time.


Gahars said:


> Fair enough... though it does make you wonder, if they could do it in later Voyager episodes, that should mean the ship was capable of it beforehand. They upgraded the ship here and there, but from what I remember, it was pretty much just the warp drive and engine.


No, that's a fair point. I was just pointing out that, as far as I knew, that ability was come up with later/retconned, particularly when it had been established before that antimatter and antimatter weapons could not be beamed.


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## Guild McCommunist (Feb 20, 2013)

Okay, point is that Voyager isn't as good as TNG and it never will be.

Watch Voyager if you really liked TNG and wanted more modernish Star Trek. It ain't perfect but it has its episodes.


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## BORTZ (Feb 20, 2013)

Wait you guys are serious? 

Im out of here.


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## ProtoKun7 (Feb 20, 2013)

The first Star Trek series I watched was TNG and I've actually been going through all of Enterprise again recently; I'm onto season 4 again. Enterprise is actually good despite what people think (but that finale really could've gone better). My favourite TV shows will remain the 24th century (TNG, DS9, VOY) but the others aren't without their charm.

Of the films, First Contact is one of my favourites, and I really enjoyed XI too. I'm looking forward to XII and I was pleased that the alternate timeline was written in (which does indeed allow the new films to occur without affecting the other shows). All of the other shows still happened, and because Enterprise took place before the critical divergence event, it happened in the same way in either reality.

Too bad the Enterprise E hasn't shown up more. It's a beautiful ship and it's ashame no Sovereign class ships at all made it into DS9 because it's the right time frame for it.


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## Lacius (Feb 21, 2013)

ProtoKun7 said:


> Too bad the Enterprise E hasn't shown up more. It's a beautiful ship and it's a shame no Sovereign class ships at all made it into DS9 because it's the right time frame for it.


I never really thought about that. I was satisfied with the DS9 crossovers in _First Contact_ and _Insurrection_, but you're right that we should have seen more Sovereign class ships considering the Federation was at war and they were the most advanced ships at the time.


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## ProtoKun7 (Feb 21, 2013)

Lacius said:


> I never really thought about that. I was satisfied with the DS9 crossovers in _First Contact_ and _Insurrection_, but you're right that we should have seen more Sovereign class ships considering the Federation was at war and they were the most advanced ships at the time.


I've even imagined what a new season of TNG would've been like if the Enterprise E were involved. Mostly involving a lot more beauty shots of it.


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## wrettcaughn (Feb 24, 2013)

Frakkin' nerds...  Y'all need to get some reall sci-fi


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## ProtoKun7 (Feb 25, 2013)

>Battlestar Galactica
>calls us nerds


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## wrettcaughn (Feb 25, 2013)

ProtoKun7 said:


> >Battlestar Galactica
> >calls us nerds


>reads facetious post linking a series that never existed
>suggests post was serious


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## smf (Mar 3, 2013)

Lacius said:


> Never once has anyone in Star Trek said "There is only one reality" or "There is only one timeline," and alternate realities have been established to exist since Mirror, Mirror. Just because characters sometimes only concern themselves with fixing the timeline, getting back to one's own reality, etc. doesn't mean they're saying there's only one reality.


 
Well it's not exactly that simple. They haven't said "there is only one reality", but things they did implied that & won't work without it. I realise it's inconvenient for the new theory.

http://io9.com/5238315/6-theories-of-time-travel-in-star-trek

With the new theory of time travel then there would be no reason to go back in time to correct mistakes made by someone else going back in time because it wouldn't affect you anyway and there would be no way to get to the same alternate universe.

It makes a good story though.


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## Lacius (Mar 3, 2013)

smf said:


> With the new theory of time travel then there would be no reason to go back in time to correct mistakes made by someone else going back in time because it wouldn't affect you anyway and there would be no way to get to the same alternate universe.


When you're in an alternate timeline, there is very much incentive to go back in time and correct mistakes.

Also, the link you provided demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of time travel in Star Trek.


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## smf (Mar 4, 2013)

Lacius said:


> When you're in an alternate timeline, there is very much incentive to go back in time and correct mistakes.
> 
> Also, the link you provided demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of time travel in Star Trek.


 
You can't misunderstand time travel in Star Trek because whether you like it or not they make different stuff up all the time to make it fit the story, there is nothing to understand.

The latest thing they are saying is that if you go back in time and change things then that creates a new time line, so the stuff that happened the first time round still happens. So if someone bad goes back in time and kills you then you can't go back and stop it happening for two reasons. One you are dead in the time line where you were killed, so you don't exist to go back in time anyway. In the original time line you can't know you were killed in the alternate time line.

Making first contact a complete waste of time. They were worried the borg were going to prevent first contact which would prevent everything from happening, but it would only affect that one time line and there is already a time line where the borg has taken the universe anyway so who cares? Or maybe the writer just misunderstood time travel in Star Trek?


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## Lacius (Mar 4, 2013)

smf said:


> Making first contact a complete waste of time. They were worried the borg were going to prevent first contact which would prevent everything from happening, but it would only affect that one time line and there is already a time line where the borg has taken the universe anyway so who cares? Or maybe the writer just misunderstood time travel in Star Trek?


Using First Contact as an example, it doesn't matter that the prime timeline wouldn't have been affected. A.) The Borg still went back in time to assimilate Earth in the past, which is a bad thing. That's not the kind of thing Starfleet captains tend to ignore because it won't affect them. B.) The Enterprise-E was caught in a temporal wake that resulted in them being in the timeline in which the Borg succeeded.


----------



## ComeTurismO (Mar 4, 2013)

Oh, It's pretty simple. You just watch it. I recommend it watching it while you have the lights off.


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## smf (Mar 4, 2013)

Lacius said:


> Using First Contact as an example, it doesn't matter that the prime timeline wouldn't have been affected. A.) The Borg still went back in time to assimilate Earth in the past, which is a bad thing. That's not the kind of thing Starfleet captains tend to ignore because it won't affect them. B.) The Enterprise-E was caught in a temporal wake that resulted in them being in the timeline in which the Borg succeeded.


 
It doesn't explain Yesterdays Enterprise, which was TNG series 3 as they only decided that time travel worked differently in series 7.

First Contact isn't logical at all, there would have been better times for the borg to colonise the earth than the time when first contact happened. It would have been better to go back to before the Vulcans had developed space travel. But that wouldn't have made such a good story.


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## Lacius (Mar 4, 2013)

smf said:


> You'd have thought those points would have come up earlier than when they eventually introduced the concept of multiple timelines though.
> 
> It doesn't explain Yesterdays Enterprise, which was TNG series 3 as they only decided that time travel worked differently in series 7.


Actually, Yesterday's Enterprise employs the multiple timelines concept. Natasha Yar's presence on the Enterprise-C in the prime timeline is analogous to elderly Spock's presence in the alternate timeline created in the 2009 movie.


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## smf (Mar 4, 2013)

Lacius said:


> Actually, Yesterday's Enterprise employs the multiple timelines concept. Natasha Yar's presence on the Enterprise-C in the prime timeline is analogous to elderly Spock's presence in the alternate timeline created in the 2009 movie.


 
The Enterprise D changes, which wouldn't happen with multiple time lines. With the multiple timeline concept there would be a timeline where things had changed but you wouldn't have any knowledge about it, which Guinan does. Sending the Enterprise C back wouldn't change the state of the new time line either, as the events had already taken place. All you could do at that point by sending it back is create another time line.

In fact Natasha Yar suddenly appearing seems more likely they were thinking that there was only one time line. Spock appeared because he travelled from the future, while Natasha appeared because past events no longer happened.


----------



## Lacius (Mar 4, 2013)

smf said:


> The Enterprise D changes, which wouldn't happen with multiple time lines. With the multiple timeline concept there would be a timeline where things had changed but you wouldn't have any knowledge about it, which Guinan does. Sending the Enterprise C back wouldn't change the state of the new time line either, as the events had already taken place.


No, I'm afraid you aren't following what's possibly happening in the episode.

Timeline 1: The Enterprise-C (TL1) isn't pulled into the future because no future exists to be pulled into. The ship is destroyed, and the events of the prime timeline take place as we've already seen. Sela doesn't exist.
Timeline 2: The Enterprise-C (TL2) is pulled into the future of Timeline 1. There likely isn't any reason for the Enterprise-C (TL2) to return to this timeline. The war with the Klingons occurs. This is the alternate future depicted in _Yesterday's Enterprise_.
Timeline 3: The Enterprise-C (TL3) is pulled into the future of Timeline 2. The events of the past shown in _Yesterday's Enterprise_ happen here. The Enterprise-C (TL3) is sent back and is destroyed, and the rest of the timeline follows almost identically to Timeline 1. Sela exists.
Another possibility:

Timeline 1: The Enterprise-C (Unified TL) is pulled into the future of Timeline 1 and skips over that amount of time. The war with the Klingons occurs. This is the alternate future depicted in _Yesterday's Enterprise_.
Timeline 2: The Enterprise-C (Unified TL) returns from the future of Timeline 1. The events of the past shown in _Yesterday's Enterprise_ happen here. The Enterprise-C (Unified TL) is sent back and is destroyed, and the rest of the prime timeline follows. Sela exists.
Guinan's ability to sense the possible timelines has nothing to do with anything literally "changing." You're right that the state of the timeline in which there was a war with the Klingons isn't going to change; the events of that timeline already took place. That doesn't make what they were trying to accomplish by sending the Enterprise-C back any less meaningful.


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## smf (Mar 4, 2013)

Lacius said:


> Guinan's ability to sense the possible timelines has nothing to do with anything literally "changing." You're right that the state of the timeline in which there was a war with the Klingons isn't going to change; the events of that timeline already took place. That doesn't make what they were trying to accomplish by sending the Enterprise-C back any less meaningful.


 
Well they didn't write it like there were multiple time lines. They make it appear as if there is only one time line, which can be affected by time travel.

"The _Enterprise_-D encounters a rift in space-time while on a routine mission. As they monitor the anomaly, the heavily damaged USS _Enterprise_-C, a ship believed destroyed more than two decades earlier, emerges. At that occurrence, the _Enterprise_-D undergoes a sudden and radical change: it is now a warship and the Federation is at war with the Klingons. Worf has disappeared and Tasha Yar mans the tactical station. None of the crew notice the change, but Guinan senses that reality has changed, and has a meeting with Captain Picard. She says, for example, that there are supposed to be children on the ship, leaving Picard greatly surprised."

I'm not going to drink the kool-aid on this one. You can try to explain it with the revisionary multiple time line concept, but it doesn't fit.

Yar going back in time because she was supposed to be dead in the future suggests that by sending the Enterprise-C back the timeline will revert and she will cease to exist.


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## Lacius (Mar 4, 2013)

smf said:


> Well they didn't write it like there were multiple time lines. They make it appear as if there is only one time line, which can be affected by time travel.
> 
> "The _Enterprise_-D encounters a rift in space-time while on a routine mission. As they monitor the anomaly, the heavily damaged USS _Enterprise_-C, a ship believed destroyed more than two decades earlier, emerges. At that occurrence, the _Enterprise_-D undergoes a sudden and radical change: it is now a warship and the Federation is at war with the Klingons. Worf has disappeared and Tasha Yar mans the tactical station. None of the crew notice the change, but Guinan senses that reality has changed, and has a meeting with Captain Picard. She says, for example, that there are supposed to be children on the ship, leaving Picard greatly surprised."
> 
> I'm not going to drink the kool-aid on this one. You can try to explain it with the revisionary multiple time line concept, but it doesn't fit.


Well, the fact remains that the episode would be paradoxical without the multiple timelines. You also haven't given any reason to think that your idea of it being a single timeline is anything more than a rule you're projecting onto the episode. Is time travel perfect in Star Trek? Are they always clear about how time travel works? No. There are various time travel episodes that take some real stretches of the imagination in order for the paradoxes to be resolved (ex. _Time and Again_). But that doesn't change the fact that you're arguing for a concept that precludes the involvement of time-travel duplicates with an episode that specifically sets up a story arc revolving around the presence of a time-travel duplicate from another existing timeline.

Edit: In regards to your episode synopsis, please keep in mind that Star Trek is a television show. Things "changed" from the point of view of the viewer. The crew of the Enterprise-D in the alternate timeline experienced time as a linear series of events in that timeline.


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## smf (Mar 4, 2013)

Lacius said:


> You also haven't given any reason to think that your idea of it being a single timeline is anything more than a rule you're projecting onto the episode.


 
I have, you just don't want to accept it. How about Yar going back in time because she was supposed to be dead in the future suggests that by sending the Enterprise-C back the timeline will revert and she will cease to exist, so she would rather die in battle than have her original death take place.



Lacius said:


> Is time travel perfect in Star Trek? Are they always clear about how time travel works? No. There are various time travel episodes that take some real stretches of the imagination in order for the paradoxes to be resolved (ex. _Time and Again_).


 
Why are you trying to project the current theory of time travel in Star Trek onto episodes that are clearly not written with that in mind if you don't believe it's perfect? That was my point that they just make stuff up on the spot & they could easily just change their mind again. The number of times they have on screen suggested that time travel creates multiple time lines is a lot less than the number of times they have time travelled and implied that there was a single time line.



Lacius said:


> But that doesn't change the fact that you're arguing for a concept that precludes the involvement of time-travel duplicates with an episode that specifically sets up a story arc revolving around the presence of a time-travel duplicate from another existing timeline.


 
If you accept that time travel is possible (which is obviously up for debate, especially by people who get paid a lot of money to drag out research) then a single time line could still have time travel duplicates, I'm not sure why you think it precludes it? With scifi they don't need science, they just have to write a script.

They are obviously trying to appease the fans by suggesting that the new time line in the Star Trek reboot is not the prime one. However if fixing the borg taking over an alternate timeline is important, then why doesn't future spock destroy the new timeline where Vulcan is destroyed? Especially as he supposedly goes to a lot of trouble to reduce the number of time lines.


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## Lacius (Mar 4, 2013)

smf said:


> I have, you just don't want to accept it. How about Yar going back in time because she was supposed to be dead in the future suggests that by sending the Enterprise-C back the timeline will revert and she will cease to exist, so she would rather die in battle than have her original death take place.


She went back with the Enterprise-C because she wanted her death to mean something. She was either going to die on the Enterprise-D in the Klingon attack, be killed by a tar monster (in an alternate timeline, so not mutually exclusive), or die a meaningful death on the Enterprise-C. She was also enamored with what's-his-name.



smf said:


> Why are you trying to project the current theory of time travel in Star Trek onto episodes that are clearly not written with that in mind if you don't believe it's perfect? That was my point that they just make stuff up on the spot & they could easily just change their mind again.


Because the multiple timelines approach is the only one that makes logical sense. Most time travel episodes of Star Trek, regardless of what they might imply on the surface, can be rationalized with the multiple timelines approach. It should also be noted that this "current theory" as you call it is nothing new.



smf said:


> If you accept that time travel is possible (which is obviously up for debate, especially by people who get paid a lot of money to drag out research) then a single time line could still have time travel duplicates, I'm not sure why you think it precludes it?


 
I don't think you understand that it would be a paradox for time-travel duplicates to exist if there's only one timeline. The Grandfather Paradox is the most famous example of a paradox caused by time travel without a multiple worlds approach.

If I go back in time and shoot my grandfather before my father is born, then I will never be born. If I'm never born, then I won't go back in time to shoot my grandfather, so then my dad will be born, and I will be alive to go back in time...

The multiple worlds interpretation of time travel and the Novikov self-consistency principle are the only two ways to resolve paradoxes, and the Novikov self-consistency principle is itself a paradox.



smf said:


> They are obviously trying to appease the fans by suggesting that the new time line in the Star Trek reboot is not the prime one.


"Prime" is just a name given to the timeline followed by the episodes we see. By definition, the 2009 film isn't the prime timeline since it's not what we follow on the shows. You're free to call it whatever you want; all the timelines we've seen are equally real.



smf said:


> However if fixing the borg taking over an alternate timeline is important, then why doesn't future spock destroy the new timeline where Vulcan is destroyed? Especially as he supposedly goes to a lot of trouble to reduce the number of time lines.


What are you talking about?


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## smf (Mar 4, 2013)

Lacius said:


> She went back with the Enterprise-C because she wanted her death to mean something. She was either going to die on the Enterprise-D in the Klingon attack, be killed by a tar monster (in an alternate timeline, so not mutually exclusive), or die a meaningful death on the Enterprise-C. She was also enamored with what's-his-name.


 
But the on screen reason she gave was that she was supposed to be dead, which doesn't make sense if you have multiple time lines as you're supposed to be whatever you are now with no regard to any other time line.



Lacius said:


> I don't think you understand that it would be a paradox for time-travel duplicates to exist if there's only one timeline. The Grandfather Paradox is the most famous example of a paradox caused by time travel without a multiple worlds approach.


 
It's only a paradox if you expect it to be scientifically possible, but Star Trek is fiction and relies on plenty of things that aren't possible (not just now but ever).



Lacius said:


> If I go back in time and shoot my grandfather before my father is born, then I will never be born. If I'm never born, then I won't go back in time to shoot my grandfather, so then my dad will be born, and I will be alive to go back in time...


 
I know the paradox, but time travel is like magic in a story. It doesn't have to make sense. With a single time line then you have travelled back in time, your matter exists just in a different time. Therefore killing your grandfather will have no effect on yourself, when you return to your time then you'll find it different but you'll be the same because you were in the magic time travel bubble Doctor Who & Quantum Leap goes with that theory, Back To The Future on the other hand does the same mix and match theory as Star Trek.



Lacius said:


> The multiple worlds interpretation of time travel and the Novikov self-consistency principle are the only two ways to resolve paradoxes, and the Novikov self-consistency principle is itself a paradox.


 
Time travel is an unresolvable paradox. I don't know why anyone would pretend anything different (unless you're being paid a lot of money to do research so you can have an easy life at the expense of the gulible).



Lacius said:


> "Prime" is just a name given to the timeline followed by the episodes we see. By definition, the 2009 film isn't the prime timeline since it's not what we follow on the shows. You're free to call it whatever you want; all the timelines we've seen are equally real.


 
It's what we follow now though. They are scared to call the new stuff the new prime just because they know trekkies would be upset. All timelines aren't equal, prime is the one true timeline or you wouldn't bother calling it something different.



> What are you talking about?


 
The Temporal Cold War in Enterprise should close off the rebooted time line if it's not considered the prime one. Instead of repairing the time line back to prime he's decided to let it go and rebuild the Vulcan colony. It doesn't make sense, except it means they can keep making films without upsetting old fans too much.

Travelling back in time will always violate the Temporal Prime Directive as you will consume oxygen and let out carbon dioxide. Eat, drink etc. However because of the magic status of time travel, it's only ever plot points that can change history.


----------



## Lacius (Mar 4, 2013)

smf said:


> But the on screen reason she gave was that she was supposed to be dead, which doesn't make sense if you have multiple time lines as you're supposed to be whatever you are now with no regard to any other time line.


In regards to the other timeline, she was right; Tasha was supposed to be dead.




smf said:


> It's only a paradox if you expect it to be scientifically possible, but Star Trek is fiction and relies on plenty of things that aren't possible (not just now but ever).


 
There's a difference between something being a paradox and something being scientifically unknown/improbable. We understand time travel to sometimes be paradoxical in the same way we understand that A=A is a logical absolute.




smf said:


> I know the paradox, but time travel is like magic in a story. It doesn't have to make sense.


 
Sure, time travel doesn't have to make sense. I'm telling you the only way it can make sense.



smf said:


> With a single time line then you have travelled back in time, your matter exists just in a different time. Therefore killing your grandfather will have no effect on yourself, when you return to your time then you'll find it different but you'll be the same


I don't think you understand that the paradox is that one's matter is now in two places at once forever. For example, if I go back in time to stop a friend from getting shot, by your rules, there are now two me's: one who went back in time to save a friend and one who didn't have to go back in time because his friend wasn't shot. That's a paradox without multiple realities.



smf said:


> Time travel is an unresolvable paradox. I don't know why anyone would pretend anything different (unless you're being paid a lot of money to do research so you can have an easy life at the expense of the gulible).


Multiple timelines and realities makes it so time travel is not paradoxical.



smf said:


> The Temporal Cold War in Enterprise should close off the rebooted time line if it's not considered the prime one.


The Temporal Cold War isn't a problem. It was people from alternate futures interacting with the present.



smf said:


> It doesn't make sense, except it means they can keep making films without upsetting old fans too much.


Last time I checked, Prime Spock neither has a way to go back in time and stop the destruction of Vulcan, nor does he have a way to regrow Vulcan.


----------



## kehkou (Mar 4, 2013)

Stoned of course.


----------



## smf (Mar 4, 2013)

Lacius said:


> In regards to the other timeline, she was right; Tasha was supposed to be dead.


 
Yes she was supposed to be dead in the other time line but she was supposed to be alive in the time line she was in. There was no justification for her to go back, it would violate the Temporal Prime Directive. She was just as likely to prevent the Enterprise-C stopping the war. 



Lacius said:


> In regards to the other timeline, she was right; Tasha was supposed to be dead.


Sure, time travel doesn't have to make sense. I'm telling you the only way it can make sense.
[/quote]

No, it makes no sense either way. Especially as the majority of episodes were written without considering it.



Lacius said:


> In regards to the other timeline, she was right; Tasha was supposed to be dead.


I don't think you understand that the paradox is that one's matter is now in two places at once forever. For example, if I go back in time to stop a friend from getting shot, by your rules, there are now two me's: one who went back in time to save a friend and one who didn't have to go back in time because his friend wasn't shot. That's a paradox without multiple realities.
[/quote]

It's magic, when you return to your time it sorts itself out. See paradox solved.



> The Temporal Cold War isn't a problem. It was people from alternate futures interacting with the present.


 
That is exactly what happened in Star Trek 2009.



> Last time I checked, Prime Spock neither has a way to go back in time and stop the destruction of Vulcan


 
Why can't he build another ship that can time travel?


----------



## smf (Mar 4, 2013)

Lacius said:


> In regards to the other timeline, she was right; Tasha was supposed to be dead.


 
She was dead in the prime time line but she was supposed to be alive in the alternate time line. There was no justification for her to go back, it would violate the Temporal Prime Directive. She was just as likely to prevent the Enterprise-C from stopping the war. Besides by going back all Enterprise-C was going to do was create another time line, or are alternate timelines only selectively created when you travel back in time?



Lacius said:


> Sure, time travel doesn't have to make sense. I'm telling you the only way it can make sense.


 
No, it makes no sense either way. Especially as the majority of episodes were written without considering it.



Lacius said:


> I don't think you understand that the paradox is that one's matter is now in two places at once forever. For example, if I go back in time to stop a friend from getting shot, by your rules, there are now two me's: one who went back in time to save a friend and one who didn't have to go back in time because his friend wasn't shot. That's a paradox without multiple realities.


 
It's magic, when you return to your time it sorts itself out. See paradox solved. All temporal issues are resolved at the end of an episode, maybe there is something special about that time?



Lacius said:


> The Temporal Cold War isn't a problem. It was people from alternate futures interacting with the present.


 
That is exactly what happened in Star Trek 2009.



Lacius said:


> Last time I checked, Prime Spock neither has a way to go back in time and stop the destruction of Vulcan


 
Why can't he build another ship that can time travel?


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## BORTZ (Mar 5, 2013)

eyes closed and choose something else to watch.


----------



## Gahars (Mar 5, 2013)

BortzANATOR said:


> eyes closed and choose something else to watch.


 






You rang?


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## BORTZ (Mar 5, 2013)

Gahars said:


> You rang?


MUCH BETTER


----------



## Gahars (Mar 5, 2013)

BortzANATOR said:


> MUCH BETTER


 
Suck it, Guild.


----------



## Guild McCommunist (Mar 5, 2013)

Gahars said:


> Suck it, Guild.


 
Statistics show Babylon 5 is a bad show with terrible haircuts.


----------



## Gahars (Mar 5, 2013)

Guild McCommunist said:


> Statistics show Babylon 5 is a bad show with terrible haircuts.


 
If that's what you have to tell yourself, Guild, go ahead. I don't want to have anymore sleepless nights.


----------



## BORTZ (Mar 5, 2013)

Statistics say that i was being sarcastic


----------



## Gahars (Mar 5, 2013)

BortzANATOR said:


> Statistics say that i was being sarcastic


 
Statistics say that you can't ruin this for me!


----------



## Lacius (Mar 5, 2013)

smf said:


> There was no justification for her to go back


The justification to go back was the fact that she was going to die from the Klingon attack anyway. She was also aware of her meaningless death in another timeline. She also knew that going back with the Enterprise-C would result in dying a meaningful death. She also liked that one dude.



smf said:


> it would violate the Temporal Prime Directive.


That hasn't stopped people in the past, pun intended.



smf said:


> She was just as likely to prevent the Enterprise-C from stopping the war.


What?



smf said:


> Besides by going back all Enterprise-C was going to do was create another time line, or are alternate timelines only selectively created when you travel back in time?


The Enterprise-C going back in time was going to create an alternate timeline with or without her. However, Tasha wanted her death to mean something, at least for once.

As for your question about alternate timelines only being created when you go back in time, that depends on how you look at it. One could argue that all backwards time travel results in alternate realities; we just seem to subjectively call them "alternate timelines" if they're different enough. As for forward time travel, that depends on whether or not you're skipping over time in your own reality or merely transporting to an alternate reality that happens to be temporally ahead of your own.



smf said:


> No, it makes no sense either way. Especially as the majority of episodes were written without considering it.


A multiple realities interpretation of time travel allows time travel to make sense, and it can be applied to most (if not all) instances of time travel in Star Trek. It's also not as new a concept as you're implying.



smf said:


> It's magic, when you return to your time it sorts itself out. See paradox solved. All temporal issues are resolved at the end of an episode, maybe there is something special about that time?


Asserting a paradox is magically resolved doesn't resolve the paradox.



smf said:


> That is exactly what happened in Star Trek 2009.


Yes it is. And?



smf said:


> Why can't he build another ship that can time travel?


Perhaps you should re-watch the movie.



Gahars said:


> You rang?


I started watching Babylon 5 since you mentioned it. We'll see how it goes.

On an unrelated note, I re-watched those episodes of TNG you cited (from Wikipedia) during our conversation about beaming torpedoes earlier, and neither episode you mentioned had anything to do with what we were talking about. Ain't no thang.


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## Gahars (Mar 5, 2013)

Lacius said:


> I started watching Babylon 5 since you mentioned it. We'll see how it goes.
> 
> On an unrelated note, I re-watched those episodes of TNG you cited (from Wikipedia) during our conversation about beaming torpedoes earlier, and neither episode you mentioned had anything to do with what we were talking about. Ain't no thang.


 
Whatevs, man, whatevs. 

And glad to hear you're starting B5. Quick warning, though - Babylon 5 suffers from TNG-Syndrome. The first season is kind of weak and uneven - it struggles to deliver on its potential, but the promise is there. It takes a little while for the show to find its footing, and some of the episodes really, really suffer for it. (And you skip the pilot movie "The Gathering" outright - everything important from it is handily restated when it's necessary)

It also had to contend with a really low budget, and while the writing overall was very strong, it can't always mask the limitations.

It's definitely worth powering through, though - Like TNG, once it figures itself out, it's a blast all the way to the end. One of the reviewers from the AV Club is doing a retrospective on the series, starting with the First Season - he separates spoilers from the main text, so it can make a helpful viewing guide.

With all that said, enjoy the ride.


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## XDel (Mar 5, 2013)

I suggest watching it while standing on your head, or while having a cat lick butter off your feet. I dunno why, but it helps.

Having said that, I feel that the best Star Trek movie experience can be had in the films with Spock and Kirk, all but Generations of course. That's just a badly made film all around.

 Also I will warn you that Part 1 is PURE sci-fi. It is by no means and action film (like the latest incarnations). If you understand the method of getting them, I HIGHLY suggest watching the Fan Edit:

http://fanedit.org/ifdb/component/c...tings/fanfix/617-star-trek-the-v-ger-incident

  Other than that, I honestly have to say that the new one was a breath of fresh air to me. Then again I'm more of a Star Wars fan that a Star Trek fan, so I am not as keen about keeping things in conformity with the written timeline in the books or what have you. Then again Star Trek never was that good about continuity.


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## smf (Mar 5, 2013)

Lacius said:


> The Enterprise-C going back in time was going to create an alternate timeline with or without her. However, Tasha wanted her death to mean something, at least for once.


 
The whole point was to send Enterprise-C back so that the war never happened, if you're saying that the prime time line was created by sending Enterprise-C back then the paradox is that nobody in the Klingon War timeline could have any concept about it being wrong for Tasha to be alive, so she wouldn't have a reason for her death to mean something. I know why you want to explain the episode with multiple time lines, but the writers at the time wouldn't have agreed with you on that.



Lacius said:


> As for forward time travel, that depends on whether or not you're skipping over time in your own reality or merely transporting to an alternate reality that happens to be temporally ahead of your own.


 
Forward is less of a problem to explain as we're all travelling forward in time and it's entirely possible to slow down the local appearance of time. Transporting to an alternate reality is another case of magic.



Lacius said:


> A multiple realities interpretation of time travel allows time travel to make sense, and it can be applied to most (if not all) instances of time travel in Star Trek. It's also not as new a concept as you're implying.


 
It's relatively new, I don't think they mentioned it until parallels.



Lacius said:


> Asserting a paradox is magically resolved doesn't resolve the paradox.


 
Why not? It works for the multiple time line theory, which creates as many paradoxes as it solves.



Lacius said:


> Yes it is. And?


 
So they'll fix it like they fixed all the other problems like they did in the Temporal Cold War.



Lacius said:


> Perhaps you should re-watch the movie.


 
Why? Did they introduce some magic that meant that it was impossible to get rid of that timeline?



XDel said:


> Having said that, I feel that the best Star Trek movie experience can be had in the films with Spock and Kirk, all but Generations of course. That's just a badly made film all around.


 
I agree the original cast movies from wrath of khan onwards are better than all the TNG cast movies.

Star Trek The Motion Picture has similar issues to the TNG cast movies. It's like an episode of the original series, strung out with dialogue and model shots (which is because that is exactly what it was). I do think it's worth watching as it was originally made, it's better than Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (which IMO is the worst of them all). Even Star Trek III: The Search For Spock has some redeeming qualities.


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## Lacius (Mar 5, 2013)

smf said:


> if you're saying that the prime time line was created by sending Enterprise-C back then the paradox is that nobody in the Klingon War timeline could have any concept about it being wrong for Tasha to be alive, so she wouldn't have a reason for her death to mean something.


That's not what a paradox is.



smf said:


> Forward is less of a problem to explain as we're all travelling forward in time and it's entirely possible to slow down the local appearance of time. Transporting to an alternate reality is another case of magic.


 
I'd like to hear your rationale for calling it "magic." The concepts of time travel and alternate timelines seem to fit pretty well in the genre of science fiction.



smf said:


> Why not? It works for the multiple time line theory, which creates as many paradoxes as it solves.


 
Again, you don't seem to understand what a paradox is or how the multiple timelines approach resolves paradoxes and doesn't create any new ones. I'd like to hear a single example of a paradox caused by the multiple timelines approach. I'd also like to hear how you resolve the paradoxes of a single timeline approach (aside from saying "It's magic; who cares?").



smf said:


> Why? Did they introduce some magic that meant that it was impossible to get rid of that timeline?


Again, I think you need to re-watch the film. Pay close attention to the method of time travel used. You also still don't seem to understand that there's no "getting rid" of timelines.


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## wrettcaughn (Mar 5, 2013)

ITT: Pseudo-geeks who are putting wayyy more thought into Star Trek time travel than the writers ever did.


Also,
Once you visit the past, you can never return to the same present due to chaos theory...


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## Engert (Mar 5, 2013)

I thought this page was about Star Trek, which this is the only one i've seen while laying on my leather chair, having a beer (that's the recommended way of watching it by the way) but now i see that it's about time travel paradoxes.
Yes i'm interested. Looks like smf is having some trouble. 
The video below should clear it up for you. To understand this video you must first be a Windows user and have a PHD in Quantum Mechanics. Once you got those, then it shouldn't be a problem to absorb all the info in this video.


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## Lacius (Mar 5, 2013)

Engert said:


> I thought this page was about Star Trek, which this is the only one i've seen while laying on my leather chair, having a beer (that's the recommended way of watching it by the way) but now i see that it's about time travel paradoxes.
> Yes i'm interested. Looks like smf is having some trouble.
> The video below should clear it up for you. To understand this video you must first be a Windows user and have a PHD in Quantum Mechanics. Once you got those, then it shouldn't be a problem to absorb all the info in this video.


Engert, your video has nothing to do with alternate timelines; it only deals with wave-particle duality.


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## Engert (Mar 5, 2013)

I disagree.
It has everything to do with alternate timelines.


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## Lacius (Mar 5, 2013)

Engert said:


> I disagree.
> It has everything to do with alternate timelines.


And are you able to articulate how?


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## Engert (Mar 5, 2013)

I could but you didn't either. Okay let me start first.
An alternate timeline is actually an alternate universe. So to resolve time travel paradoxes such as 'you go back in time and kill your grandfather', when you come back to your present you will be in an alternate universe where your grandfather is dead but you're alive. And the reason how he died is not because you shot him but it's resolved in that universe by other means, such as he might have died from an accident. That's how everyone in that universe understands his cause of death.
So, all of this derives from quantum mechanics and it's a theory of course. What's not a theory and what's very real is that experiment that you see in the video is reproducible every time. We are just not smart enough yet to figure out why. Maybe in 1000 years? So from that arises the question, since matter can be a wave or a particle shouldn't the universe be a wave or a particle? Shouldn't the universe be here and there in the same time? Thus resolving time travel paradoxes.


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## wrettcaughn (Mar 5, 2013)

Engert said:


> I could but you didn't either. Okay let me start first.
> An alternate timeline is actually an alternate universe. So to resolve time travel paradoxes such as 'you go back in time and kill your grandfather', when you come back to your present you will be in an alternate universe where your grandfather is dead but you're alive. *And the reason how he died is not because you shot him but it's resolved in that universe by other means, such as he might have died from an accident. That's how everyone in that universe understands his cause of death*.
> So, all of this derives from quantum mechanics and it's a theory of course. What's not a theory and what's very real is that experiment that you see in the video is reproducible every time. We are just not smart enough yet to figure out why. Maybe in 1000 years? So from that arises the question, since matter can be a wave or a particle shouldn't the universe be a wave or a particle? Shouldn't the universe be here and there in the same time? Thus resolving time travel paradoxes.


That is the most retarded time travel theory I've ever been privy to...


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## Engert (Mar 5, 2013)

wrettcaughn said:


> That is the most retarded time travel theory I've ever been privy to...


 
This doesn't have all the movie glitter that you'd expect but it's just a theory based on some dudes who calculate integrals in their head.


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## Lacius (Mar 5, 2013)

Engert said:


> I could but you didn't either. Okay let me start first.
> An alternate timeline is actually an alternate universe. So to resolve time travel paradoxes such as 'you go back in time and kill your grandfather', when you come back to your present you will be in an alternate universe where your grandfather is dead but you're alive. And the reason how he died is not because you shot him but it's resolved in that universe by other means, such as he might have died from an accident. That's how everyone in that universe understands his cause of death.


That's not even close to the alternate realities approach to paradoxical time travel. To use the grandfather example correctly:

Timeline 1: No one arrives from the future to kill my grandpa (TL1) because no future exists for someone to arrive from. My grandpa (TL1) is alive to conceive my father (TL1) who conceives me (TL1). I (TL1) build a time machine (TL1) and travel back in time, and my actions form Timeline 2.
Timeline 2: I (TL1) arrive from the future (of TL1) and kill my grandpa (TL2), which causes my father (TL2) and me (TL2) not to be born. The paradox is resolved because there are two realities.



Engert said:


> So, all of this derives from quantum mechanics and it's a theory of course. What's not a theory and what's very real is that experiment that you see in the video is reproducible every time. We are just not smart enough yet to figure out why. Maybe in 1000 years? So from that arises the question, since matter can be a wave or a particle shouldn't the universe be a wave or a particle? Shouldn't the universe be here and there in the same time? Thus resolving time travel paradoxes.


Wave-particle duality and the superposition of particles has little if anything to do with alternate timelines as we're talking about them. The results of the double-slit experiment can in part be explained by a multiple worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, but the double-slit experiment doesn't necessarily lead to a MWI conclusion. Not at all, in fact.


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## wrettcaughn (Mar 5, 2013)

Engert said:


> This doesn't have all the movie glitter that you'd expect but it's just a theory based on some dudes who calculate integrals in their head.


Just explain to me how the bolded portion I quoted from you above makes any sense whatsoever...



Lacius said:


> That's not even close to the alternate realities approach to paradoxical time travel. To use the grandfather example correctly:
> 
> Timeline 1: No one arrives from the future to kill my grandpa (TL1) because no future exists for someone to arrive from. My grandpa (TL1) is alive to conceive my father (TL1) who conceives me (TL1). I (TL1) build a time machine (TL1) and travel back in time, and my actions form Timeline 2.
> Timeline 2: I (TL1) arrive from the future (of TL1) and kill my grandpa (TL2), which causes my father (TL2) and me (TL2) not to be born. The paradox is resolved because there are two realities.


Maybe I'm just daft, but I don't see the paradox there...unless you're for some reason seeing "timelines" like Back to the Future where Marty starts fading and forgetting how to play the guitar...


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## tronic307 (Mar 5, 2013)

Lacius said:


> There are also some TOS and TNG movies after each respective series ended. If I were you, I would watch the second TNG movie _First Contact_, which is a time travel movie revolving around the discovery of warp drive and interstellar space-travel in 2063 and setting the stage for Star Trek, and then I would try watching the series in either one of those orders.
> 
> 
> Note: Some people who start watching Star Trek end up not appreciating The Original Series and skip all but the most notable episodes of it.
> ...


 
Enterprise's timeline was contaminated by the Borg temporal incursion in First Contact. Also, Enterprise is the only series that would play out the same way in the Abramsverse.


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## Engert (Mar 5, 2013)

wrettcaughn said:


> Just explain to me how the bolded portion I quoted from you above makes any sense whatsoever...


Wretcaugh, 
i will try to explain with as much as i know. I work with some of these people but i'm not one of them. These are all theories (which are based on something) which may be proved to be correct or incorrect hundreds of years from now. I will also try to answer some of Lacius points.
To make sense of this sentence
*And the reason how he died is not because you shot him but it's resolved in that universe by other means, such as he might have died from an accident. That's how everyone in that universe understands his cause of death*
just think for a minute that you are a three dimensional entity being sent to a two dimensional world. The people in the two-dimensional world don't look at space like you do. So if you see a person laying flat on the street walking about, you can then pull him out of his 2-d world, take him into your 3-d world, flip him and lay him flat on the street again. What you did here is flipped his heart from left side to right side. This would be considered unacceptable in the 2d world and all they see when you put your hand into their world is a distortion in their space time, they don't see your hand. So where i'm going with this is that the text in bold can be resolved by higher dimensions. 11 to be exact. Or 12 depending on the theory. So time-travel paradoxes are resolved by multiple realities existing in higher dimensions.
So again, these are just theories which i didn't make up, i just like them because they are based on something real, quantum mechanics which we don't understand. 
Once we understand quantum mechanics then we can build mass relays to find out what happened to Protheans and hopefully not a shitty ending made by Canadians. (Last sentence is flamebait by the way  )


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## Lacius (Mar 5, 2013)

tronic307 said:


> Enterprise's timeline was contaminated by the Borg temporal incursion in First Contact.


The short answer is no, that's not correct, but it depends on how you look at it. Because the Borg's temporal incursion didn't violate causality in any way (they failed), you have an infinite number of timelines that are occurring identically:

Timeline 1: No Borg or Enterprise-E arrive from the future because no future has happened yet. The warp flight in 2063 is successful. The timeline happens very similarly to what we've seen in the prime timeline (the episode _Regeneration_ doesn't occur, for example). In an effort to assimilate Earth in the past, the Borg go back in time. The Enterprise-E (probable) or another ship follows it in an effort to stop the Borg. Timeline 2 is created.
Timeline 2: The Borg and the Enterprise-E (or another ship) come from the past and influence the first warp flight. The warp flight is still successful. The timeline happens very similarly to Timeline 1. The Borg of the present go back in time. The Enterprise-E (probable) or another ship goes back in time to stop it. Timeline 3 is created...
This keeps going, and because only minor changes are being made to the timelines, a state of "temporal equilibrium" is reached in which an infinite number of timelines all happen identically in contrast to the finite number of timelines (TL1, for example) that were different and/or didn't involve time travel. The events of _First Contact _are something like the Borg and Enterprise-E of Timeline 599423 going back in time and interacting with the past of Timeline 599424. The Enterprise-E's past likely includes the interactions they had with the past. Since there are an infinite number of identical timelines involving the interactions of the Borg and Enterprise-E from the future, there is a 100% chance that their past includes the things they were about to identically do in the past. Hopefully that makes sense.



tronic307 said:


> Also, Enterprise is the only series that would play out the same way in the Abramsverse.


This is correct.



Engert said:


> Wretcaugh,
> i will try to explain with as much as i know. I work with some of these people but i'm not one of them. These are all theories (which are based on something) which may be proved to be correct or incorrect hundreds of years from now. I will also try to answer some of Lacius points.
> To make sense of this sentence
> *And the reason how he died is not because you shot him but it's resolved in that universe by other means, such as he might have died from an accident. That's how everyone in that universe understands his cause of death*
> ...


Nothing you've said in bold has any basis in reality or quantum mechanics.


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## wrettcaughn (Mar 5, 2013)

Engert said:


> Wretcaugh,
> i will try to explain with as much as i know. I work with some of these people but i'm not one of them. These are all theories (which are based on something) which may be proved to be correct or incorrect hundreds of years from now. I will also try to answer some of Lacius points.
> To make sense of this sentence
> *And the reason how he died is not because you shot him but it's resolved in that universe by other means, such as he might have died from an accident. That's how everyone in that universe understands his cause of death*
> ...


And where are you getting a "2-D" world from?


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## Engert (Mar 5, 2013)

wrettcaughn said:


> And where are you getting a "2-D" world from?


Well the 2d world is something we can relate to since we are higher dimension beings. So if there was a 2-d world with people living in it, you'd be God. 
What we don't understand so far is dimensions higher then 3 or 4 if you include time. So the 2d example is used to explain something that appears magical like the text in the bold above.


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## Lacius (Mar 5, 2013)

Engert said:


> Well the 2d world is something we can relate to since we are higher dimension beings. So if there was a 2-d world with people living in it, you'd be God.
> What we don't understand so far is dimensions higher then 3 or 4 if you include time. So the 2d example is used to explain something that appears magical like the text in the bold above.


Saying something that doesn't make sense and then saying "I don't know how it makes sense but anything is possible," doesn't cause what you said to make any sense. I could claim that a trans-dimensional unicorn that burps time exists, and I could use the same rational you're using to defend that claim. That doesn't mean either claim makes sense.


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## Engert (Mar 5, 2013)

Lacius said:


> Saying something that doesn't make sense and then saying "I don't know how it makes sense but anything is possible," doesn't cause what you said to make any sense. I could claim that a trans-dimensional unicorn that burps time exists, and I could use the same rational you're using to defend that claim. That doesn't mean either claim makes sense.


 
But see this is where you haste just because you want to haste. I think we've been down this road before you and I in another thread. You can't use a trans-dimensional unicorn and then base a theory from there because it doesn't exist. But a 2-d world exists. Draw something on paper. That's 2d.
If that world was alive, you'd be master of their universe, their 2-d universe. So when you have something that exist, like a 2-d world then you base a theory from there.


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## Lacius (Mar 5, 2013)

Engert said:


> But see this is where you haste just because you want to haste. I think we've been down this road before you and I in another thread. You can't use a trans-dimensional unicorn and then base a theory from there because it doesn't exist. But a 2-d world exists. Draw something on paper. That's 2d.
> If that world was alive, you'd be master of their universe, their 2-d universe. So when you have something that exist, like a 2-d world then you base a theory from there.


Had you actually read my post, you would have read that I could use your 2D analogy to defend my unicorn in the same way you're using it to defend this nonsense about self-correcting time travel and alternative grandpa deaths.


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## Engert (Mar 5, 2013)

Lacius said:


> Had you actually read my post, you would have read that I could use your 2D analogy to defend my unicorn in the same way you're using it to defend this nonsense about self-correcting time travel and alternative grandpa deaths.


 
I did read your post.
But again you are using a unicorn a legendary/mythical animal in a world of calculations.


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## Engert (Mar 5, 2013)

Lacious like i said earlier, i didn't come up with this. I just like it because it's based on Quantum Theory which we don't understand but we can demonstrate it in experiments.
Here are some of the critics of this theory:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_wavefunction

It's a theory in its infancy, something that may take millennia to prove.


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## Lacius (Mar 5, 2013)

Engert said:


> Lacious like i said earlier, i didn't come up with this. I just like it because it's based on Quantum Theory which we don't understand but we can demonstrate it in experiments.


You haven't shown any connection between your ideas in bold and quantum theory.


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## wrettcaughn (Mar 5, 2013)

Claiming multiple timelines exist simultaneously is quite a reach.  I have no doubt that there can be multiple timelines, however, I am of the belief that only one can exist at any given time.

Say you were to travel to the future...  The events inbetween your departure from the present and your arrival in the future have only been altered by your not taking part in them.  You could return back to the moment you left and live out events of the "timeline" up to the point they begin to diverge from your glimpse of the future due to your now taking part in them.  In short, you can travel into the future and return to the same present day...

Now say you travel to the past...  The moment you arrive in the past, "your" present day no longer exists.  There is no returning to it.  You are now part of a _new_ timeline.  The more of an impact you have in the past, the more the "present day" will diverge from what you previously lived.

Now let's say you kill your grandfather and disrupt the chain of events leading up to your existence...  You continue to exist because those events _did _happen prior to your travels...


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## Engert (Mar 5, 2013)

Lacius said:


> You haven't shown any connection between your ideas in bold and quantum theory.


 
Really? hahahaha.
WOW !


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## Engert (Mar 5, 2013)

wrettcaughn said:


> Now say you travel to the past... The moment you arrive in the past, "your" present day no longer exists. There is no returning to it. You are now part of a _new_ timeline.


 
Yes wrettcaugh, that's what some of the people say in this theory. What you call a timeline they call an alternate universe. And they don't see time as an arrow, one-directional, they see it frame-by-frame like a movie reel, but scrambled. Each frame is floating randomly in no particular order.


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## Lacius (Mar 5, 2013)

wrettcaughn said:


> Claiming multiple timelines exist simultaneously is quite a reach.


Sure, and I'm not claiming that multiple timelines and realities exist or can exist. I'm claiming it's the only way for backwards time travel to make sense.



wrettcaughn said:


> however, I am of the belief that only one can exist at any given time.


I'll let you reread that and figure out what the problem with that statement is.



wrettcaughn said:


> Say you were to travel to the future... The events inbetween your departure from the present and your arrival in the future have only been altered by your not taking part in them.


Correct, but I wouldn't use the word "altered" because the future hadn't happened yet; nothing changed because there was nothing to change from.



wrettcaughn said:


> You could return back to the moment you left and live out events of the "timeline" up to the point they begin to diverge from your glimpse of the future due to your now taking part in them. In short, you can travel into the future and return to the same present day...


Let's pretend you traveled to 2043 from 2013. In 2043, everyone acts like you disappeared in 2013. If you travel back in time to 2013 and live out your life normally, you have created an alternate reality in which you didn't disappear for 30 years:

Timeline 1:
2013: You (TL1) disappear because you skipped ahead to the future.
2043: You (TL1) arrive from the past. You (TL1) haven't aged a day. Everyone (TL1) is shocked to see you because you disappeared. You (TL1) travel back to 2013, causing Timeline 2 to form.

Timeline 2:
2013: You (TL2) travels to the future (TL2). You (TL1) arrive here from 2043 (TL1). You (TL1) live out your life normally.
2043: You (TL2) arrive from the past. You (TL2) haven't aged a day. Everyone (TL2) is shocked to see you so young. You (TL2) is also greeted by an older version (TL1) of yourself who lived your life.




wrettcaughn said:


> Now say you travel to the past... The moment you arrive in the past, "your" present day no longer exists.


Actually, the reality in which you came from has to still exist. Otherwise, it has the potential for a paradox.



wrettcaughn said:


> There is no returning to it.


Possibly, depending on your method of time travel. If you went through a wormhole from 2013 to 1913, your 2013 would still exist as you left it on the other side of the wormhole no matter what you do in 1913. Depending on whether or not you violate causality, your 2013 might even include your actions in 1913 already. This is a ridiculous thought experiment, but imagine in 2013 you tie one end of a giant rope around the Earth and the other end around a spaceship. Presumably, your spaceship and rope are immune to the gravitational effects of a wormhole. You then fly the spaceship through a wormhole to 1913. You blow up the Earth in 1913. What is your rope attached to? Without alternate realities, this would be a paradox. In fact, your rope is still attached to Earth on the 2013 end in a reality where you never arrived and blew it up.



wrettcaughn said:


> You are now part of a _new_ timeline. The more of an impact you have in the past, the more the "present day" will diverge from what you previously lived.


In regards to the new reality you're helping to form, yes. But your old reality still exists.



wrettcaughn said:


> Now let's say you kill your grandfather and disrupt the chain of events leading up to your existence... You continue to exist because those events _did _happen prior to your travels...


Correct. In your home reality that still exists.


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## Engert (Mar 5, 2013)

Skip directly to minute 32:30.
Some interesting concepts visualized by CGI.


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## wrettcaughn (Mar 5, 2013)

Lacius said:


> Sure, and I'm not claiming that multiple timelines and realities exist or can exist. I'm claiming it's the only way for backwards time travel to make sense.
> 
> 
> I'll let you reread that and figure out what the problem with that statement is.
> ...


Correct me if I'm misunderstanding you, but the way you through around the term "alternate reality" makes it sounds like you believe all of these realities exist simultaneously...  If that's the case, my next question would be "Where?"  Where do these alternate realities exist?  Another "plane" of existence?  On another "invisible" spectrum?  Another time-space continuum?  Because that sounds more in line with _faith_ than science, and what I mean by that is science has no means of proving any of those things even remotely exist (aside from _visual_ spectrums...) so any "knowledge" of their existence in them is a matter of faith rather than science.

As far as wormholes, they are irrelevant.  You are making presumptions based on a sci-fi approach to how wormholes work and Star Trek (especially) is incredibly inconsistent regarding this.

So, seeing as there is little actual science involved, your approach to time travel has to be a little more pragmatic.  The first thing to contemplate is...there are no true paradoxes.

The most common time travel "paradox": Man goes back in time and alters events in a way that prevents any future time travel, which in turn, prevents him from ever going back in time in the first place...
There is no paradox here because the moment the man arrives in the past (let's say 1960) any events taking place between 1960 and his "present day" no longer exist.  He's essentially pressed the reset button on that period of time.  The events_ leading_ to his being in the past have been erased, but that doesn't change the fact that he's in the past (which has now become the present).  The man is simply the only remnant of that "reality".

So this leads to the most frightening prospect of time travel...
At the press of a button, we all cease to exist as we are now.
Should the traveler(s) travel to a time prior to our births, there will of course be the chance that we will never exist.
Grasping at theories like multiple universes or alternate timelines (in my opinion) are no different then believing in an afterlife.  Our consciousness makes it impossible to imagine that one day we could be playing videogames and suddenly cease to exist the instant someone 3000 miles away decides they want to travel back in time (because, as you said, *the future doesn't* *exist*)...  So someone decided that if there were divergent timelines, they could continue to live out the rest of their lives as if nothing had ever happened...while in some other universe, that time travel actually has consequences.  No different from someone deciding that if they go to heaven/hell/purgatory/whatever after they die...their consciousness will never cease to exist.

And now I would love for someone to tell me precisely how wrong I am while following it up with exactly why and how they definitively know the answer.


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## tronic307 (Mar 5, 2013)

Lacius said:


> The short answer is no, that's not correct, but it depends on how you look at it. Because the Borg's temporal incursion didn't violate causality in any way (they failed), you have an infinite number of timelines that are occurring identically:
> 
> Timeline 1: No Borg or Enterprise-E arrive from the future because no future has happened yet. The warp flight in 2063 is successful. The timeline happens very similarly to what we've seen in the prime timeline (the episode _Regeneration_ doesn't occur, for example). In an effort to assimilate Earth in the past, the Borg go back in time. The Enterprise-E (probable) or another ship follows it in an effort to stop the Borg. Timeline 2 is created.
> Timeline 2: The Borg and the Enterprise-E (or another ship) come from the past and influence the first warp flight. The warp flight is still successful. The timeline happens very similarly to Timeline 1. The Borg of the present go back in time. The Enterprise-E (probable) or another ship goes back in time to stop it. Timeline 3 is created...
> ...


The Borg may have been thwarted in preventing first contact, assimilating Earth, or even altering the trajectory of Zefram Cochrane's warp flight, but the timeline remains contaminated, as the crew of the Enterprise-E did a less than thorough clean-up job: In the Enterprise episode "Regeneration", Borg drones were discovered 90 years later in the Arctic. These drones assimilated the scientists who discovered them, along with their transport, made their way into space, and were able to transmit Earth's spatial coordinates to the Borg in the Delta Quadrant which, conveniently, would not be received before the 24th century, thus entertaining the possibility of a temporal causality loop or predestination paradox.
If you throw in the many-worlds interpretation, nullify the causal loop and allow the Enterprise-E to return to an unaltered future, (how?) any timeline with the events of "First Contact" in its history must diverge from the "Prime" (Enterprise, Abramsverse). Nero's 2233 incursion merely compounded the Borg incursion of 2063. If the temporal incursion of 2233 created an alternate reality, how is the 2063 incursion any different?


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## Lacius (Mar 6, 2013)

wrettcaughn said:


> Correct me if I'm misunderstanding you, but the way you through around the term "alternate reality" makes it sounds like you believe all of these realities exist simultaneously... If that's the case, my next question would be "Where?" Where do these alternate realities exist? Another "plane" of existence? On another "invisible" spectrum? Another time-space continuum?


You're applying a spacial concept to something that deals with different states of the same matter and space-time. That's like asking "When are the other realities?" It's nonsensical, like your statement about there only being "one timeline at a time." If I had a wormhole that led to my living room 10 minutes in the past, I stepped through that wormhole and trashed the place, and then I returned to my reality where my living room weren't trashed, both living rooms are in the same spacial location.

Dealing with the broader implications of alternate realities that you're trying to allude to, I don't have those answers. In the absence of evidence, I don't even accept the claim that alternate realities exist. I'm only arguing that it's the only way we know of for backwards time travel to make sense. On an unrelated note, the multiple worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics and/or time travel doesn't even violate conservation of matter/energy.



wrettcaughn said:


> Because that sounds more in line with faith than science, and what I mean by that is science has no means of proving any of those things even remotely exist (aside from visualspectrums...) so any "knowledge" of their existence in them is a matter of faith rather than science.


It would be faith if I accepted the claim that alternate realities exist without reason. I don't accept that claim.



wrettcaughn said:


> As far as wormholes, they are irrelevant. You are making presumptions based on a sci-fi approach to how wormholes work and Star Trek (especially) is incredibly inconsistent regarding this.


There's quite a lot of science involved in the concept of wormholes, and they're permitted by the Einstein field equations of general relativity. All you have to do is account for a negative energy density, which is absolutely possible. Wormholes are also the most feasible form of possible time travel, as far as we understand.



wrettcaughn said:


> The first thing to contemplate is...there are no true paradoxes.


Boldly asserting there are no paradoxes doesn't resolve those paradoxes.



wrettcaughn said:


> The most common time travel "paradox": Man goes back in time and alters events in a way that prevents any future time travel, which in turn, prevents him from ever going back in time in the first place...
> There is no paradox here because the moment the man arrives in the past (let's say 1960) any events taking place between 1960 and his "present day" no longer exist. He's essentially pressed the reset button on that period of time. The events leading to his being in the past have been erased, but that doesn't change the fact that he's in the past (which has now become the present). The man is simply the only remnant of that "reality".


That's a paradox, and now you're the one violating concepts like the law of conservation of matter/energy. I understand what you're trying to argue about possible time travel, but you're failing to comprehend the paradox. If time travel were just like a VCR, then altering the events that lead to time travel erase the act of time travel. For example:

March 5: I pick an apple and eat it.
March 6: I build a time machine.
March 7: I step inside my time machine and go back in time to March 5.
TIMELINE RESETS

March 5: I pick an apple and am about to eat it when, in a blinding flash of light, I arrive from the future and shoot the guy and then myself.
March 6: No one builds a time machine.
March 7: No one steps inside the time machine to go back in time to March 5. 
TIMELINE RESETS

March 5: I pick an apple and eat it.
March 6: I build a time machine.
March 7: I step inside my time machine and go back in time to March 5.
And that goes on forever.

Alternatively:

March 5: You and I meet up. We decide that if a particular wall is red when we look at it on March 6, we're going to go back in time to March 5 and paint it yellow. If it's yellow on March 6, we're going to paint it red, all regardless of what it is on March 5.
March 6: We see the wall is red.
March 7: We go back in time to March 5 with yellow paint.
TIMELINE RESETS

March 5: You and I meet up. We decide that if a particular wall is red when we look at it on March 6, we're going to go back in time to March 5 and paint it yellow. If it's yellow on March 6, we're going to paint it red, all regardless of what it is on March 5. Meanwhile, we arrive from the future and paint the wall yellow.
March 6: We see the wall is yellow.
March 7: We go back in time to March 5 with red paint.
TIMELINE RESETS

March 5: You and I meet up. We decide that if a particular wall is red when we look at it on March 6, we're going to go back in time to March 5 and paint it yellow. If it's yellow on March 6, we're going to paint it red, all regardless of what it is on March 5. Meanwhile, we arrive from the future and paint the wall red.
March 6: We see the wall is red.
March 7: We go back in time to March 5 with yellow paint.
And the timeline resets forever. The problem is that time moves linearly. What happens on March 9? However, things like wormholes potentially allow objects (and people) to move to different points in time. This doesn't change the directional flow of time for the universe. I refer you back to my rope around the Earth example, because it really exemplifies how backwards time travel is paradoxical, with or without a rope, if you assume causality can be violated but there aren't multiple realities. You have yet to resolve those paradoxes. If you think someone can go back in time and prevent him or herself from being born without it a.) causing a paradox, or b.) involving alternate realities, then you don't know what a paradox is.



wrettcaughn said:


> So this leads to the most frightening prospect of time travel...
> At the press of a button, we all cease to exist as we are now.
> Should the traveler(s) travel to a time prior to our births, there will of course be the chance that we will never exist.


For the reasons I mentioned above, this is not how time travel would work because a.) You're not interrupting the directional flow of time for the rest of the universe, and b.) it has the potential to be paradoxical.



wrettcaughn said:


> Grasping at theories like multiple universes or alternate timelines (in my opinion) are no different then believing in an afterlife.


You're right that belief in alternate realities and timelines isn't much different from belief in an afterlife. Good thing I don't accept any of these claims as true. It is true, however, that a multiple realities approach is the only one that resolves the paradoxes and is, as far as we know, physically possible if time travel is possible.



wrettcaughn said:


> And now I would love for someone to tell me precisely how wrong I am while following it up with exactly why and how they definitively know the answer.


You're wrong when you say backwards time travel isn't paradoxical without a multiple realities approach the same way I know A=A is always true. I've demonstrated the time travel paradoxes pretty clearly, and you haven't resolved them yet. If you can resolve the paradoxes another way, be my guest.



tronic307 said:


> The Borg may have been thwarted in preventing first contact, or even altering the trajectory of Zefram Cochrane's warp flight, but the timeline remains contaminated, as the crew of the Enterprise-E did a less than thorough clean-up job: In the Enterprise episode "Regeneration", Borg drones were discovered 90 years later in the Arctic. These drones assimilated the scientists who discovered them, along with their transport, made their way into space. and were able to transmit Earth's spatial coordinates to the Borg in the Delta Quadrant which conveniently would not be received before the 24th century...


You seemed to have missed the entire point of my response, which was that because causality was never violated, there's a near 100% chance that the timeline the Enterprise-E originally came from also included the events of Regeneration. I suggest you reread my post. Based on how the time travel likely occurred as I explained it, if someone who had witnessed the events of Regeneration had also been on the Enterprise-E, it would have looked like the timeline weren't changed in any way.



tronic307 said:


> thus entertaining the possibility of a temporal causality loop or predestination paradox.


Infinite timelines like the ones I described involving First Contact can sometimes give the illusion of a causality loop or a predestination paradox. The only requirement is that there is an initial catalyst in a timeline that leads to the series of events that appears to be a causal loop. For example:

Timeline 1: I (TL1) build a time machine, grab a gun, and go back in time to scare my friend at a time and place I know he's going to be.
Timeline 2: I (TL1) arrive from the future, trip, and accidentally shoot my friend (TL2) in the past. Seeing my friend shot by a mystery figure, I (TL2) travel back in time with my gun to prevent this tragedy.
Timeline 3: I (TL2) arrive from the future, trip, and accidentally shoot my friend (TL3) in the past.  Seeing my friend shot by a mystery figure, I (TL3) travel back in time with my gun to prevent this tragedy.
Now you have an apparent causal loop. If causality isn't violated or a series of events leads to a situation in which causality isn't violated, what appears to be a causal loop on the surface can appear. The above example and how I described First Contact demonstrate this.



tronic307 said:


> If you throw in the many-worlds interpretation, nullify the causal loop and allow the Enterprise-E to return to an unaltered future, *(how?)*


A wormhole necessarily allows for the travel between altered and unaltered realities and timelines. I refer you to my rope-around-the-Earth "example."



tronic307 said:


> If you throw in the many-worlds interpretation, nullify the causal loop and allow the Enterprise-E to return to an unaltered future, (how?) any timeline with the events of "First Contact" in its history must diverge from the "Prime" (Enterprise, Abramsverse). Nero's 2233 incursion merely compounded the Borg incursion of 2063. If the temporal incursion of 2233 created an alternate reality, how is the 2063 incursion any different?


I'm not entirely sure what you're asking. Depending on how you look at it, the 2063 incursion isn't any different from the events of the 2009 film. Backwards time travel necessarily formed alternate timelines. The difference is the Enterprise-E's own past includes their actions in past with the Borg; nothing was changed because of the infinite loop of identical timelines. You're right that there had to have been a prime timeline that catalyzed the whole thing in which time travel from the future didn't occur, but it's statistically irrelevant. I refer you back to my explanation of First Contact. Had someone on the Enterprise-E been around during the events of Regeneration, they would have remembered the Borg being there because their past already includes the Borg incursion. That's the only difference; Prime Spock's past does not include the Nero incursion.


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## wrettcaughn (Mar 6, 2013)

Your entire comprehension of time travel requires that it make sense which is flawed in and of itself.


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## tronic307 (Mar 6, 2013)




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## smf (Mar 6, 2013)

Lacius said:


> That's not what a paradox is.


 
You're not seeing the paradox that the Klingon war timeline happened first, the timeline where she died was only created when the Enterprise-C was sent back. However she made her decision based on knowledge on facts that hadn't happened and were from a different timeline. It's just as big a paradox in the multi timeline universe as the single timeline universe.

"magic" is when something unexplainable props up the story. Going back in time is a perfect example of that. Characters have "magic" interactions, where only things that help the plot along will change events in the future. While just existing in the past is likely to have huge implications, due to the butterfly effect. Things happen because the writers say they happen, not because it makes any form of sense. "magic" can just as easily be used to gloss over why a time traveller in the past doesn't necessarily cease to exist as soon as they change something that would affect them being born or attempting to go back in time.

But both theories applied to Star Trek rely on "magic".



Lacius said:


> Sure, and I'm not claiming that multiple timelines and realities exist or can exist. I'm claiming it's the only way for backwards time travel to make sense.


 
Both theories require purposefully misinterpreting events that have happened in various Star Trek stories. Therefore their must be some other explanation, maybe it's all a computer simulation or a dream someone had in a shower?

I tend to ignore everything non Kirk related in Star Trek, because it makes as much sense as Battlestar Galactica 1980. And kirk never had to rely on multiple time lines. The multiple time line for me is when they jumped the shark.

From tvtropes: "What the non-linear aliens in the Bajoran wormhole or the Q must think of all this is probably best left for fan fiction." I'd like to know what you think of that.


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## Lacius (Mar 6, 2013)

smf said:


> You're not seeing the paradox that the Klingon war timeline happened first


I'll let you think about why this statement is nonsensical. Regardless, I explained earlier how this isn't even the case. I refer you back to my breakdown of the timelines in Yesterday's Enterprise. For those two reasons, it is not a paradox. The only way it is a paradox is if you don't employ a multiple timelines approach.



smf said:


> "magic" is when something unexplainable props up the story.


There is a difference between unexplained and supernatural, and it doesn't matter how unexplained something is in order for me to identify unresolved paradoxes.



smf said:


> Both theories require purposefully misinterpreting events that have happened in various Star Trek stories. Therefore their must be some other explanation, maybe it's all a computer simulation or a dream someone had in a shower?


Your interpretation necessarily requires that you have unresolved paradoxes. My interpretation eliminates those paradoxes, and apparently all without misinterpreting any events. If you have a better way to resolve the paradoxes of backwards time travel, please share. Positing that everything in the Star Trek universe is just a dream is fine (Far Beyond the Stars), but we're assuming that's not the case, and you still haven't gotten remotely close to making sense of backwards time travel or eliminating paradoxes. That's all this conversation is about.



smf said:


> From tvtropes: "What the non-linear aliens in the Bajoran wormhole or the Q must think of all this is probably best left for fan fiction." I'd like to know what you think of that.


The Q have always been shown to experience time linearly in the same way humans do but sometimes have the ability to travel to different points in time. The wormhole aliens are an awful concept, particularly when they've been shown to experience events linearly. When a being beyond time moves from a state of non-understanding to a state of understanding, that's an experience of time in a linear fashion.


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## Engert (Mar 6, 2013)

wrettcaughn said:


> Your entire comprehension of time travel requires that it make sense which is flawed in and of itself.


 
Wrettcaughn, did you get a chance to watch that video i posted?
What do you think?


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## smf (Mar 6, 2013)

Lacius said:


> I'll let you think about why this statement is nonsensical. Regardless, I explained earlier how this isn't even the case. I refer you back to my breakdown of the timelines in Yesterday's Enterprise. For those two reasons, it is not a paradox. The only way it is a paradox is if you don't employ a multiple timelines approach.


 
No, it's only a paradox with multiple timelines. With a single timeline it makes sense that while the enterprise-C is in the future then the war happened, but when it's in the past the war didn't happen. Therefore she died first, the enterprise-C appeared in the future and the universe flipped and now there was a war and she was alive, she decided her death this time should mean something and then Enterprise-C went back and in the future she was dead again. Her reintroduced death in Skin Of Evil wouldn't affect her on Enterprise-C as going back in time is like transporting, she is no longer the same matter.

With a multiple time line universe the Klingon war happened first, and only after the Enterprise-C was sent back did the time line happen where she died and was written out of the series. The paradox is that while the viewer knew that she was going to die and be written out in Skin of Evil, nobody in the Klingon war timeline could know about it as it hadn't happened yet.

You haven't covered that in your breakdown because it would disprove your theory.



Lacius said:


> Your interpretation necessarily requires that you have unresolved paradoxes. My interpretation eliminates those paradoxes, and apparently all without misinterpreting any events. If you have a better way to resolve the paradoxes of backwards time travel, please share. Positing that everything in the Star Trek universe is just a dream is fine (Far Beyond the Stars), but we're assuming that's not the case, and you still haven't gotten remotely close to making sense of backwards time travel or eliminating paradoxes. That's all this conversation is about.


 
Your interpretation necessarily requires you to ignore the paradoxes that the multiple timeline creates by ignoring or misinterpreting on screen events. There is no better way to resolve the paradoxes because they were created by writers who didn't (and can't) consider all the implications of backward time travel.

The writers are just too scared of the fans to reboot the entire universe.


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## Lacius (Mar 6, 2013)

smf said:


> No, it's only a paradox with multiple timelines.


Boldly asserting so doesn't demonstrate how.



smf said:


> With a single timeline it makes sense that while the enterprise-C is in the future then the war happened, but when it's in the past the war didn't happen. Therefore she died first, the enterprise-C appeared in the future and the universe flipped and now there was a war and she was alive, she decided her death this time should mean something and then Enterprise-C went back and in the future she was dead again.


It only makes sense if you ignore the paradox, which means it doesn't make sense. If the Enterprise-C were destroyed, then Tasha dies on the planet with the tar monster. If the Enterprise-C isn't destroyed, Tasha Yar goes back in time to fight the Romulans and the Enterprise-C is destroyed. If the Enterprise-C were destroyed, then Tasha dies on the planet with the tar monster. If the Enterprise-C isn't destroyed, Tasha Yar goes back in time to fight the Romulans and the Enterprise-C is destroyed. It's essentially the Grandfather Paradox. A multiple realities approach resolves the paradox.

Without a multiple realities approach or a self-contingency principle, you have a paradox because you can't have Tasha experience A and B. You're arguing that it's past, present, and future. She either does X or she doesn't. If you can resolve the Grandfather Paradox without a multiple realities approach or a self-contingency approach, please share. I understand that no one's asking me to, but if all you're going to do is repeat yourself and argue against strawmen without adding anything new or resolving your paradoxes, then I'm probably not going to continue this conversation.



smf said:


> With a multiple time line universe the Klingon war happened first, and only after the Enterprise-C was sent back did the time line happen where she died and was written out of the series. The paradox is that while the viewer knew that she was going to die and be written out in Skin of Evil, nobody in the Klingon war timeline could know about it as it hadn't happened yet.


Reread my post dealing with the possible breakdowns of timelines in Yesterday's Enterprise. Ignoring the fact that saying "this timeline happened *first*" is a nonsensical statement, which you apparently didn't figure out when I had you mull over that statement, my breakdowns of the timelines actually show this to be a moot point because it doesn't happen like you're saying I said it did, particularly in my first breakdown. What you're doing is called a strawman fallacy.



smf said:


> Your interpretation necessarily requires you to ignore the paradoxes that the multiple timeline creates


You haven't accurately described a single paradox caused by a multiple timelines approach, nor have you reconciled the paradoxes without that approach.


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## Maxternal (Mar 6, 2013)

The time travel thing is all Q's fault.

/argument


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## smf (Mar 7, 2013)

Lacius said:


> Boldly asserting so doesn't demonstrate how.


 
I have, you're ignoring it.



Lacius said:


> Without a multiple realities approach or a self-contingency principle, you have a paradox because you can't have Tasha experience A and B. You're arguing that it's past, present, and future. She either does X or she doesn't. If you can resolve the Grandfather Paradox without a multiple realities approach or a self-contingency approach, please share. I understand that no one's asking me to, but if all you're going to do is repeat yourself and argue against strawmen without adding anything new or resolving your paradoxes, then I'm probably not going to continue this conversation.


 
I'm repeating myself because you keep ignoring the paradox that is only produced with multiple time lines.

With a single time line you could argue that one person somehow retains knowledge of the previous events that have temporarily not happened when the universe flipped. But with multiple time lines this doesn't happen.



Lacius said:


> Reread my post dealing with the possible breakdowns of timelines in Yesterday's Enterprise. Ignoring the fact that saying "this timeline happened *first*" is a nonsensical statement, which you apparently didn't figure out when I had you mull over that statement, my breakdowns of the timelines actually show this to be a moot point because it doesn't happen like you're saying I said it did, particularly in my first breakdown. What you're doing is called a strawman fallacy.


 
It's not nonsensical for a timeline to happen first, you can't go back in time and create a new timeline until the events in the original time line have taken place. If you're saying that a time line is created before the events that caused it to be created, then that is a new theory as it involves a detachment of cause and effect. If you aren't assuming a linear cause and effect then multiple time lines aren't required to resolve the grandfather paradox. The way Star Trek 2009 is written assumes linear cause and effect. For Old Spock to have memories of his adventures with Old Kirk, they must have happened before he meets Young Kirk & it's his actions in the old time line that create the new time line. Therefore all the stories in the original cast movies happened first.

The Klingon war has to happen first for it to make any sense in a multiple time line universe. She can't die in the new time line until the Enterprise-C is sent back to stop the war. Knowing about those events is the opposite of the Grandfather paradox, because of that it's incompatible with any theory that resolves the Grandfather paradox.

See "Reverse Grandfather Paradox".

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TemporalParadox



Lacius said:


> You haven't accurately described a single paradox caused by a multiple timelines approach, nor have you reconciled the paradoxes without that approach.


 
I have, you're ignoring it. You can't resolve all the paradoxes because the writers have made it impossible. I don't think you've considered that & so you are convinced that it's actually possible to explain it paradox free. Pointing out the paradoxes in Star Trek with a retrofitted multiple time line theory doesn't require me to come up with a theory that resolves them, it's pointless anyway as the writers can keep on making mistakes that introduce paradoxes with any theory I come up with.



Lacius said:


> I'll let you think about why this statement is nonsensical. Regardless, I explained earlier how this isn't even the case. I refer you back to my breakdown of the timelines in Yesterday's Enterprise. For those two reasons, it is not a paradox. The only way it is a paradox is if you don't employ a multiple timelines approach.


 
You're mistaken & I've proved it enough. You either don't understand the multiple time line theory or you're not prepared to see the paradoxes caused by applying it to certain Star Trek stories. There is no theory that can be applied to both our universe and the Star Trek universe. While we can observe our universe and perform tests on it, the only evidence we have for the Star Trek universe is the flawed story lines we've inherited from decades of different writers.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TimeyWimeyBall
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Retcon


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## xist (Mar 7, 2013)

By jove, Enterprise was randomly on and i caught 20 minutes of it yesterday....Linda Park is indeed foxy in the "In a Mirror, Darkly" episodes.


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## ProtoKun7 (Mar 7, 2013)

ITT: No one understands time travel as well as me.

@xist: Yes indeed; the Mirror Universe has that habit.


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## Lacius (Mar 7, 2013)

smf said:


> I'm repeating myself because you keep ignoring the paradox that is only produced with multiple time lines.
> 
> With a single time line you could argue that one person somehow retains knowledge of the previous events that have temporarily not happened when the universe flipped. But with multiple time lines this doesn't happen.


You've neither a.) demonstrated a real paradox with the multiple timelines approach (see below), nor b.) reconciled the paradoxes with your single timeline approach.



smf said:


> The Klingon war has to happen first for it to make any sense in a multiple time line universe. She can't die in the new time line until the Enterprise-C is sent back to stop the war. Knowing about those events is the opposite of the Grandfather paradox, because of that it's incompatible with any theory that resolves the Grandfather paradox.


Right, and I've referred you numerous times to my breakdown of Yesterday's Enterprise in which the timeline in which Tasha is killed by the tar monster "happens first" as you define it. Stop attacking strawmen.



smf said:


> You can't resolve all the paradoxes because the writers have made it impossible.


Well, I've apparently resolved each one that has come my way. If you're going to argue that I can't resolve a paradox with the multiple timelines approach or that the writers made it impossible, you're going to have to demonstrate this.

Again, however, I'm not arguing that time travel in Star Trek is perfect. Some episodes require some bold assumptions for the paradoxes to be resolved at all, but we haven't talked about any of those episodes.



smf said:


> Pointing out the paradoxes in Star Trek with a retrofitted multiple time line theory doesn't require me to come up with a theory that resolves them


Arguing that there are paradoxes in a multiple timelines approach but not with a single timeline approach requires that you come up with a concept that resolves the paradoxes of a single timeline approach. It also requires that you demonstrate the paradoxes with a multiple timelines approach. Fake paradoxes you've made up for the purposes of strawman arguments don't count. 



smf said:


> While we can observe our universe and perform tests on it, the only evidence we have for the Star Trek universe is the flawed story lines we've inherited from decades of different writers.


That doesn't mean the paradoxes can't be resolved.


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## smf (Mar 8, 2013)

Lacius said:


> You've neither a.) demonstrated a real paradox with the multiple timelines approach (see below), nor b.) reconciled the paradoxes with your single timeline approach.


 
I don't need to reconcile it, only prove that the writers had previously used a single timeline theory when they wrote the episode.



Lacius said:


> Right, and I've referred you numerous times to my breakdown of Yesterday's Enterprise in which the timeline in which Tasha is killed by the tar monster "happens first" as you define it. Stop attacking strawmen.
> 
> 
> Well, I've apparently resolved each one that has come my way. If you're going to argue that I can't resolve a paradox with the multiple timelines approach or that the writers made it impossible, you're going to have to demonstrate this.


 
Tar monster can't happen first. I'm not attacking a strawman, I'm attacking how you twist events to make them fit your theory.

You say:



Lacius said:


> Actually, Yesterday's Enterprise employs the multiple timelines concept. Natasha Yar's presence on the Enterprise-C in the prime timeline is analogous to elderly Spock's presence in the alternate timeline created in the 2009 movie.


 
This is not the same thing at all. Spock travelled backwards in time to get to the alternate timeline & it was his actions in the future that created the timeline. We have no evidence at all that Natasha manipulated time to arrive in the Klingon war.
If you have a better explanation of the timeline then please share it (or link to it as I've searched and can't find it).



Lacius said:


> Again, however, I'm not arguing that time travel in Star Trek is perfect. Some episodes require some bold assumptions for the paradoxes to be resolved at all, but we haven't talked about any of those episodes.


 
I hate to think how twisted your logic has to be to resolve those episodes within a multiple time line universe, when a simple episodes like this requires so much misinterpretation on your part.



Lacius said:


> Arguing that there are paradoxes in a multiple timelines approach but not with a single timeline approach requires that you come up with a concept that resolves the paradoxes of a single timeline approach. It also requires that you demonstrate the paradoxes with a multiple timelines approach. Fake paradoxes you've made up for the purposes of strawman arguments don't count.
> 
> 
> That doesn't mean the paradoxes can't be resolved.


 
Again, I don't need to resolve any paradoxes to prove the multiple time line theory wrong. This is the whole point about theories, you can only ever disprove them.

You can't resolve the paradoxes because you cannot introduce anything into the Star Trek universe. To do that you need to get a job as a writer for the next movie.


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## Lacius (Mar 8, 2013)

smf said:


> Tar monster can't happen first. I'm not attacking a strawman, I'm attacking how you twist events to make them fit your theory.


 


Lacius said:


> No, I'm afraid you aren't following what's possibly happening in the episode.
> 
> *Timeline 1: The Enterprise-C (TL1) isn't pulled into the future because no future exists to be pulled into. The ship is destroyed, and the events of the prime timeline take place as we've already seen. Sela doesn't exist.*
> Timeline 2: The Enterprise-C (TL2) is pulled into the future of Timeline 1. There likely isn't any reason for the Enterprise-C (TL2) to return to this timeline. The war with the Klingons occurs. This is the alternate future depicted in _Yesterday's Enterprise_.
> ...


Talking about what happened *first* in regards to backwards time travel is as nonsensical as asking where the other realities are spatially. By definition, these timelines are concurrent, and that's not at all paradoxical, particularly when causality isn't being violated. Even if it weren't nonsensical, what you're claiming I said isn't at all what I said. Happy strawmanning.


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## smf (Mar 8, 2013)

Lacius said:


> Talking about what happened *first* in regards to backwards time travel is as nonsensical as asking where the other realities are spatially.


 
You're getting confused between local time and causation, First refers to causation & it makes perfect sense.



Lacius said:


> By definition, these timelines are concurrent


 
Who's definition? Concurrent is pretty meaningless when time is only a local manifestation. I'm not aware of any Star Trek TV or movie that explains how the universe works in that level of detail. They tend to stick to how it's observed within the timeline, not the universe structure that supports it.



Lacius said:


> and that's not at all paradoxical, particularly when causality isn't being violated.


 
Your version of the timelines does actually violate causality. The Enterprise-C doesn't get pulled forward in time, a temporal rift is created by the battle and it travels 22 years into the future.

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Temporal_rift

"In 2344, the USS _Enterprise_ -C drifted through a symmetrical temporal rift, which itself was formed through the intense energy discharges of weapons fire as the ship defended the Klingon outpost at Narendra III from a Romulan attack."

It's the Enterprise-C getting destroyed in battle that prevents the Klingon war shown in Yesterday's Enterprise. Only when the Enterprise-C returns through the rift can it be destroyed. Even if it is sitting in the rift for 22 years waiting for the rest of the universe to catch up, it hasn't been destroyed in the battle.

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Narendra_III

"In 2344, the outpost was attacked and destroyed by four Romulan warbirds, an assault which was later known as the Battle of Narendra III. The Federation starship USS _Enterprise_-C responded to the outpost's distress call, but was also lost in the battle. This course of action was considered as an act of honor by the Klingon Empire, which led to the signing of a new peace treaty. "

However if we continue reading.

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Temporal_rift

"The _Enterprise_-C's actions in the past had the effect of returning the timeline to normal,"

It fundamentally violates multiple time line theory.

memory alpha could be misrepresenting events, but I'll let you take that up with them.

It seems to me that the writers were thinking of time travel in a single timeline universe, they might introduce paradoxes because they didn't do a good enough job but multiple time lines doesn't really fix it.

For instance, only one of your timelines can be prime, while you seem to be mixing between your timeline 1 & 3.

The only way I can see multiple time line working is if the episode starts and ends with prime and the bit in the middle is a previous timeline where the Klingon war occurred.



Lacius said:


> Even if it weren't nonsensical, what you're claiming I said isn't at all what I said.


 
I quoted you in context, can't do any better than that.



Lacius said:


> Happy strawmanning.


 
How is the Chewbacca defence working for you?


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## Lacius (Mar 9, 2013)

smf said:


> You're getting confused between local time and causation


You don't seem to understand that causality is a temporal concept.



smf said:


> Who's definition? Concurrent is pretty meaningless when time is only a local manifestation. I'm not aware of any Star Trek TV or movie that explains how the universe works in that level of detail. They tend to stick to how it's observed within the timeline, not the universe structure that supports it.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I refer you back to my breakdown of Yesterday's Enterprise. It clearly doesn't violate causality at all how you describe, and that's a strawman.


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## ProtoKun7 (Mar 10, 2013)

ENTERPRISE-C TURNS UP
SHUNTS A NEW TIMELINE IN THAT GUINAN NOTICES
ENTERPRISE-C NICKS ALTERNATE LIEUTENANT YAR
ENTERPRISE-C RETURNS
TIMELINE COLLAPSES
GUINAN SPOTS THAT EVERYTHING IS FINE AGAIN
TIMELINE RETROACTIVELY ALWAYS HAD ALTERNATE YAR IN IT
GUINAN EXISTS ALONG AN EXTRA TEMPORAL PLANE MAKING HER SENSITIVE TO THIS SORT OF THING
DON'T QUESTION THE TIME LORD
I KNOW ALL


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## Lacius (Mar 10, 2013)

ProtoKun7 said:


> ENTERPRISE-C TURNS UP
> SHUNTS A NEW TIMELINE IN THAT GUINAN NOTICES
> ENTERPRISE-C NICKS ALTERNATE LIEUTENANT YAR
> ENTERPRISE-C RETURNS
> ...


 
If sending the Enterprise-C back in time prevents Yar from traveling back in time with the Enterprise-C because she dies on Vagra II, then Yar shouldn't be on board the Enterprise-C. It's a paradox if you don't employ a multiple realities approach. It's a form of the grandfather paradox. The act of time travel has prevented the act of time travel. Without the act of time travel, the act of time travel happens. With the act of time travel, the act of time travel is prevented. Without the act of time travel, the act of time travel happens. With the act of time travel, the act of time travel is prevented. Without the act of time travel, the act of time travel happens...


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## ProtoKun7 (Mar 10, 2013)

No, multiple timelines are supported. Yar left that timeline aboard the Enterprise-C, so whatever became of that timeline didn't affect her as she was no longer in it.


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## smf (Mar 10, 2013)

Lacius said:


> I refer you back to my breakdown of Yesterday's Enterprise. It clearly doesn't violate causality at all how you describe, and that's a strawman.


 
It clearly does violate causality. Causality is the relationship between the cause and the event. You changed the cause of why the Enterprise-C went into the future from what is described in the episode and what is accepted canon.

It's not a strawman to point out that your timeline has different causality than what happened in the episode.



Lacius said:


> If sending the Enterprise-C back in time prevents Yar from traveling back in time with the Enterprise-C because she dies on Vagra II, then Yar shouldn't be on board the Enterprise-C. It's a paradox if you don't employ a multiple realities approach. It's a form of the grandfather paradox. The act of time travel has prevented the act of time travel. Without the act of time travel, the act of time travel happens. With the act of time travel, the act of time travel is prevented. Without the act of time travel, the act of time travel happens. With the act of time travel, the act of time travel is prevented. Without the act of time travel, the act of time travel happens...


 
Can you explain how Yar's presence on the Enterprise-C changes whether it can go through the rift?

In a single time line universe the grandfather paradox would only be relevant if she existed after the Enterprise-C was destroyed, because this is the cause of the peace treaty being signed. Just going through the rift wasn't enough as they could have just warped out of the battle.


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## Lacius (Mar 11, 2013)

ProtoKun7 said:


> No, multiple timelines are supported. Yar left that timeline aboard the Enterprise-C, so whatever became of that timeline didn't affect her as she was no longer in it.


I'm not sure what you're arguing. If you're arguing that there are not multiple concurrently existing realities/timelines, then you're arguing for:

a.) self-consistency, which by definition isn't happening in _Yesterday's Enterprise_

b.) a never-ending cycle of Yar either dying (and not going back in time) or living (and subsequently going back in time). I refer you to my previous _painted wall_ example.

Since both of those things are paradoxes (and A wouldn't apply if it weren't), that only leaves concurrently existing realities.



smf said:


> It clearly does violate causality. Causality is the relationship between the cause and the event. You changed the cause of why the Enterprise-C went into the future from what is described in the episode and what is accepted canon.
> 
> It's not a strawman to point out that your timeline has different causality than what happened in the episode.


You haven't given a single example of causality being violated with a multiple timelines approach. Neither of my rundowns of the timelines in _Yesterday's Enterprise_ violates causality, and only one includes an unsubstantiated presupposition. Regardless, my rundowns are irrelevant. Where's the paradox in any interpretation of a multiple timelines approach to _Yesterday's Enterprise_? What you described with Guinan being aware of the timeline in which Yar died isn't a violation of causality. I'd define causality here, but you've already done it.



smf said:


> Can you explain how Yar's presence on the Enterprise-C changes whether it can go through the rift?


I didn't claim that Yar's presence inherently changed anything. The Enterprise-C's actions in the past do, however, make a difference.



smf said:


> In a single time line universe the grandfather paradox would only be relevant if she existed after the Enterprise-C was destroyed, because this is the cause of the peace treaty being signed. Just going through the rift wasn't enough as they could have just warped out of the battle.


By going back in time, regardless of whether or not Yar is there, the Enterprise-C's presence creates a timeline in which the Enterprise-C doesn't arrive in a dystopian future and go back in time to prevent it. At the very least, it creates a timeline in which Yar does not go back in time.

The grandfather paradox, in short, is a very specific example of one's actions in the past preventing one taking those actions in the past. The Enterprise-C's actions in the past prevent Yar from going back in time. That's the paradox. For example:

March 1: I build a time machine.
March 2: I go back in time.

March 1: I arrive from the future and destroy the time machine.
March 2: I don't go back in time.

March 1: I build a time machine. No one travels back in time to destroy the time machine.
March 2: I go back in time.

...

That's a paradox. Backwards time travel has to be self-consistent or employ multiple concurrently existing realities for it to be paradox-free. I'm not sure why ya'll aren't getting this. Imagine a timeline is like a car that comes to a fork in the road. If you're arguing for a single timeline, then the car (in the end) ultimately goes right or left. Yar's death by the tar monster and Sela's existence are mutually exclusive in a single reality approach. Referring back to my previous examples, what color is the wall ultimately? What is the rope tied to?


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## smf (Mar 11, 2013)

Lacius said:


> I'm not sure what you're arguing. If you're arguing that there are not multiple concurrently existing realities/timelines, then you're arguing for:
> 
> a.) self-consistency, which by definition isn't happening in _Yesterday's Enterprise_
> 
> ...


 
You haven't been reading what I have been saying. I am arguing for what the writers intended when they created the episode, whether that produces paradoxes or not. If they wrote it with self-consistency but made a mistake which meant it couldn't happen like that, then self-consistency still applies. Fans can't make changes or add events to resolve the paradoxes. If the franchise owners authorize officially authorise revising the episodes with then that would be ok, but they would have to admit it first. They could for example just say that all time travel episodes were training exercises that took place on the holodeck.



Lacius said:


> You haven't given a single example of causality being violated with a multiple timelines approach. Neither of my rundowns of the timelines in _Yesterday's Enterprise_ violates causality, and only one includes an unsubstantiated presupposition.


 
Your unsubstantiated presupposition violates causality, because it affects the cause of the Enterprise-C going forward in time.



Lacius said:


> Regardless, my rundowns are irrelevant. Where's the paradox in any interpretation of a multiple timelines approach to _Yesterday's Enterprise_? What you described with Guinan being aware of the timeline in which Yar died isn't a violation of causality. I'd define causality here, but you've already done it.


 
If you only use events that happen in the episode but interpret them within a multiple time line universe, then the prime time line is created at the end of the episode when the Enterprise-C is sent back. Prime is the timeline where the tar monster kills Yar. Having this kind of knowledge is known as reverse grandfather paradox and is incompatible with multiple time line universes. Guinan would have to be able to predict the future to be sensitive to a time line that hadn't been created yet.

You seem to be suggesting that Yar dies because of the tar monster in two different time lines, but those timelines have 20 years to diverge. If there was a timeline where the Enterprise-C wasn't pulled forward in time then whatever caused that to happen is just as likely to stop Yar being killed by the tar monster.



Lacius said:


> By going back in time, regardless of whether or not Yar is there, the Enterprise-C's presence creates a timeline in which the Enterprise-C doesn't arrive in a dystopian future and go back in time to prevent it. At the very least, it creates a timeline in which Yar does not go back in time.


 
The timeline is only create by going back in time in a multiple time line universe, when switching between theories you need to adjust to this type of thing as well. The Klingon war timeline is only closed by the Enterprise-C being destroyed.

The Enterprise-C might go back in time anyway, grandfather paradox only covers specific things that can't happen anyway (like you being born because your grandfathers DNA is required). If we saw the battle then we might have more clues as to what the writers were thinking. Speculating on whether she was present in the canon of the prime time line after going back through the rift is pointless. But in terms of the dialogue in the episode the Klingon war timeline is a temporary timeline that only exists while the Enterprise-C is in the future.

I've noticed you apply causality with much greater rigidity in an opposition theory than you do in your own.


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## Lacius (Mar 11, 2013)

smf said:


> You haven't been reading what I have been saying. I am arguing for what the writers intended when they created the episode, whether that produces paradoxes or not. If they wrote it with self-consistency but made a mistake which meant it couldn't happen like that, then self-consistency still applies. Fans can't make changes or add events to resolve the paradoxes. If the franchise owners authorize officially authorise revising the episodes with then that would be ok, but they would have to admit it first. They could for example just say that all time travel episodes were training exercises that took place on the holodeck.


I don't care what the writers intended. I'm merely resolving the existing paradoxes. Fortunately, the writers were vague enough about the implications of time travel that what I'm offering fits the canon.



smf said:


> Your unsubstantiated presupposition violates causality, because it affects the cause of the Enterprise-C going forward in time.
> 
> If you only use events that happen in the episode but interpret them within a multiple time line universe, then the prime time line is created at the end of the episode when the Enterprise-C is sent back. Prime is the timeline where the tar monster kills Yar. Having this kind of knowledge is known as reverse grandfather paradox and is incompatible with multiple time line universes. Guinan would have to be able to predict the future to be sensitive to a time line that hadn't been created yet.


First of all, that's only one interpretation of how the timelines are structured in a multiple realities approach; I posted two of them. Second, that's not a violation of causality as you defined it. As I already explained, Guinan's knowledge of the timeline in which Yar died isn't a violation of causality, with or without the existence of timelines that led up to the war timeline that were nearly identical to the prime one. I don't know how many times I have to tell you to reread my post.



smf said:


> You seem to be suggesting that Yar dies because of the tar monster in two different time lines, but those timelines have 20 years to diverge. If there was a timeline where the Enterprise-C wasn't pulled forward in time then whatever caused that to happen is just as likely to stop Yar being killed by the tar monster.


If the Enterprise-C hadn't been pulled into the future, it's unlikely the timeline would have been much different from the prime one in which the backwards time travel happened. Even if it were, that's irrelevant to the causality conversation we're having.



smf said:


> The Enterprise-C might go back in time anyway, grandfather paradox only covers specific things that can't happen anyway (like you being born because your grandfathers DNA is required).


I think you need to do some research on what the grandfather paradox broadly describes. If the Enterprise-C doesn't go back in time, Yar lives to go back in time. If the Enterprise-C does go back in time, Yar dies and the events leading to her time travel don't occur.



smf said:


> Speculating on whether she was present in the canon of the prime time line after going back through the rift is pointless.


I wasn't aware we were speculating that. Sela exists. This specific paradox is also the reason why a multiple timelines approach is required. You seem to have missed the entire point of this conversation.



smf said:


> But in terms of the dialogue in the episode the Klingon war timeline is a temporary timeline that only exists while the Enterprise-C is in the future.


First of all, no, the dialogue doesn't explicitly state that. Second, even if it had, that doesn't mean they weren't wrong. Third, if they had said that, that wouldn't resolve the paradoxes.



smf said:


> I've noticed you apply causality with much greater rigidity in an opposition theory than you do in your own.


I suggest you reread my descriptions of how a multiple timeline approach can lead to the illusion of self-consistency in regards to causality. You haven't given a single example of causality being violated in either of my multiple timelines approaches. With or without the catalyst timelines I described in my first breakdown, your points about Guinan and Yar don't necessarily have anything to do with causality.


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## Engert (Mar 11, 2013)

I'd like to open a thread on people's interpretations on movie endings. Inception for example.


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## Tuddles (Mar 11, 2013)

first series is campy but perfect 60s show watch it, all other st series are turds long live the 60s

btw i got a borg lady bot


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## smf (Mar 11, 2013)

Lacius said:


> I don't care what the writers intended. I'm merely resolving the existing paradoxes. Fortunately, the writers were vague enough about the implications of time travel that what I'm offering fits the canon.


 
The writers weren't vague on this though, what you're saying doesn't fit the canon. It's like you've rewritten history and made your mind up on it. Nothing I say is going to change it, because you're blind to criticism.



Lacius said:


> First of all, that's only one interpretation of how the timelines are structured in a multiple realities approach; I posted two of them. Second, that's not a violation of causality as you defined it. As I already explained, Guinan's knowledge of the timeline in which Yar died isn't a violation of causality, with or without the existence of timelines that led up to the war timeline that were nearly identical to the prime one. I don't know how many times I have to tell you to reread my post.


 
I have, read it. I've repeatedly pointed you towards Reverse Grandfather paradox as to why Guinan cannot know about Yar at that point in the time line, you're just not accepting it. Your extra timeline violates causality & you need that to resolve Guinan.



Lacius said:


> If the Enterprise-C hadn't been pulled into the future, it's unlikely the timeline would have been much different from the prime one in which the backwards time travel happened. Even if it were, that's irrelevant to the causality conversation we're having.


 
It's very relevant. Making up events to force the onscreen events to fit a multi time line universe are likely to create a butterfly effect that we can't predict.



Lacius said:


> I think you need to do some research on what the grandfather paradox broadly describes. If the Enterprise-C doesn't go back in time, Yar lives to go back in time. If the Enterprise-C does go back in time, Yar dies and the events leading to her time travel don't occur.


 
Again you're arguing that there is any significance to Yar being on the Enterprise-C when it goes back through the rift. Grandfather paradox is only relevant when an event can only happen if you're not there because what you're doing would prevent you from being there. Her time travel has no bearing on the Enterprise-C going back through the rift.



Lacius said:


> I wasn't aware we were speculating that. Sela exists. This specific paradox is also the reason why a multiple timelines approach is required. You seem to have missed the entire point of this conversation.


 
The entire point of this conversation is that I say that the stories should be left alone and we can discuss the writers mistakes, while you want to make up paradoxes that don't exist to justify a multi time line universe that introduces paradoxes that you then deny. When I point them out you change your story and then say I'm building strawmen. I think that covers it.

Your whole point about needing multiple time lines because yar needs to be on the Enterprise-C when it goes back, relies on the assumption that yar is on the Enterprise-C when it gets back to the battle and the timeline doesn't just repair itself. I wouldn't expect you to speculate that because it doesn't fit in with your blinkered view that Star Trek can be explained with multiple time lines if you rewrite events enough. You can also rewrite events enough that multiple time lines aren't required, but what is the point in rewriting anything? Are you really just trying to win the No-Prize? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-Prize



Lacius said:


> With or without the catalyst timelines I described in my first breakdown, your points about Guinan and Yar don't necessarily have anything to do with causality.


 
Without a made up timeline that introduces paradoxes itself, then the problem with Guinan is reverse grandfather paradox as she knows about events that haven't happened in any of the time lines that have currently been created. I assume you've not bothered to research that.


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