Overthinking Alternate Universes
May. 17th, 2009 02:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
4thofelevenTwo incredibly fan-wanky theories about Star Trek, both old and new, both of which occurred to me in the middle of the night:
New Trek: There’s obviously a lot of changes between classic trek and the new movie, and not all of them can be explained by Nero’s actions. Kirk being a jerk, sure. Uniform differences, ehh, chalk it up to butterfly effect. But there seem to be changes even before Nero arrives – the captain of the USS Kelvin recognises him as a Romulan, even though in classic Trek the first visual sighting of Romulans wouldn’t occur for decades. Nero’s only just arrived – he can’t have caused changes to the timeline already!
Or could he? It occurs to me that after the film, oldSpock is likely to warn Starfleet about some of the threats it will face in the next few decades: NOMAD, V’ger, the Doomsday Machine… and the Whale Probe.
So, rather than a broken down Bird-of-Prey with a renegade crew mounting a spur of the moment mission to grab some humpbacks from the 20th century, Starfleet organises a proper team to ensure there’s some whales on Earth before the probe arrives. They probably don’t go to the 20th century – it’s easier to avoid detection if you go a few centuries further back, and there’d be more whales to grab anyway. They certainly won’t let Gillian Taylor come back to the future with them.
Taylor remains in the twentieth century. The ripple affects from her continued presence, and those of any descendants she has, subtly alter the timeline, so that by the time Nero arrives, his actions have already had an effect. Nothing major, but enough that Starfleet already knows about Romulans before “Balance of Terror”.
Second, less serious theory: “Mirror, Mirror”. The ISS Enterprise seemingly has exactly the same crew, despite a culture of routine assassination. How do the two universes stay in sync with each other so perfectly?
It occurred to me that TOS’s high mortality rate among redshirts is what keeps the Enterprise and its evil counterpart’s crew identical. Redshirts being struck by lightning moments after beamdown is simply the universe compensating for their evil counterpart’s assassination!
New Trek: There’s obviously a lot of changes between classic trek and the new movie, and not all of them can be explained by Nero’s actions. Kirk being a jerk, sure. Uniform differences, ehh, chalk it up to butterfly effect. But there seem to be changes even before Nero arrives – the captain of the USS Kelvin recognises him as a Romulan, even though in classic Trek the first visual sighting of Romulans wouldn’t occur for decades. Nero’s only just arrived – he can’t have caused changes to the timeline already!
Or could he? It occurs to me that after the film, oldSpock is likely to warn Starfleet about some of the threats it will face in the next few decades: NOMAD, V’ger, the Doomsday Machine… and the Whale Probe.
So, rather than a broken down Bird-of-Prey with a renegade crew mounting a spur of the moment mission to grab some humpbacks from the 20th century, Starfleet organises a proper team to ensure there’s some whales on Earth before the probe arrives. They probably don’t go to the 20th century – it’s easier to avoid detection if you go a few centuries further back, and there’d be more whales to grab anyway. They certainly won’t let Gillian Taylor come back to the future with them.
Taylor remains in the twentieth century. The ripple affects from her continued presence, and those of any descendants she has, subtly alter the timeline, so that by the time Nero arrives, his actions have already had an effect. Nothing major, but enough that Starfleet already knows about Romulans before “Balance of Terror”.
Second, less serious theory: “Mirror, Mirror”. The ISS Enterprise seemingly has exactly the same crew, despite a culture of routine assassination. How do the two universes stay in sync with each other so perfectly?
It occurred to me that TOS’s high mortality rate among redshirts is what keeps the Enterprise and its evil counterpart’s crew identical. Redshirts being struck by lightning moments after beamdown is simply the universe compensating for their evil counterpart’s assassination!
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no subject
on 2009-05-17 09:29 am (UTC)I loved Mirror, Mirror! It was the inspiration of probably my favourite Star Wars fanfic ever. I know Enterprise wasn't the best addition to the series, but it gave me one of my best fic ideas. :D
But back to your question: Yeah, I think you can fanwank it that Old Spock gave the alt-Federation the information they needed to prepare for Nero's attack. But the more likely explanation is the Doylian one that it was continuity error.
no subject
on 2009-05-17 09:57 am (UTC)no subject
on 2009-05-17 11:09 am (UTC)no subject
on 2009-05-19 10:34 pm (UTC)