Questions have been pouring in about the temporal anomalies in the new movie, Star Trek, to the point that one fan (whom we thank sincerely) provided a copy for examination.
Michael Stackpole has mentioned that the line editors of the Star Trek universe are not terribly concerned about continuity. If writers place the same characters in different places at the same time, that's not a problem. The same might be said of their concepts of time and time travel. In three previous movies and uncounted episodes of the several television series (including the animated adventures) there have been time travel stories told, and the methods for traveling through time as well as the theories of time themselves have been inconsistent. Some, such as DS9's Bell Riots story, have been brilliant. Others, such as Voyager's first season temporal fiascos, earn responses from cringing to shouting at the screen. Thus any new time travel story from the Star Trek producers raises warning flags as well as hope. Will they get it right again this time, or is it going to be yet another disaster?
As it happens, they may have done well, but the answer will take some extensive explanation. More intriguingly, they have in one fell swoop erased everything nearly from the beginning, and given themselves a clean slate on which to write new stories.
Midway through the film, we are given in flashbacks the distant future, a time when of the original characters only Ambassador Spock still lives. Romulus is destroyed; Spock was minutes too late with his black hole generator to save it. He still created a black hole to stem the expanding supernova, and then his ship was caught in it, along with a Romulan mining vessel commanded by a very angry Captain Nero.
Nero's ship emerges one hundred fifty-two years in the past, and immediately has a confrontation with a ship whose first officer, George Kirk, takes command and orders an evacuation of everyone including his wife who is at that moment delivering their son James Tiberius. Thus from the moment of Jim Kirk's birth, all of history is different; his father dies saving the crew, he becomes a rebellious teen, and Captain Pike eventually encourages him to join Star Fleet.
Spock, coincidentally, emerges twenty-three years after Nero, at just about the time Kirk is completing his training and butting heads with the younger Spock, who is very upset that this cadet cheated at the Kobayashi Maru test he administered. Through circumstances, Kirk, the young Spock, McCoy, Uhura, Sulu, Checkov(!), and Scotty are gathered together aboard the Enterprise under Captain Pike. Confronting Nero, Pike leaves Spock in command and makes Kirk First Officer before boarding Nero's ship and being taken prisoner.
The movie makes a point of letting us know, largely through information provided by the older Spock, about some of the little things that are different; the big things are obvious. Vulcan is destroyed, and Spock's mother is killed along with most of the population (Sarek is saved). Ultimately, Kirk takes command of the Enterprise from the younger Spock and working with that Spock saves Earth and destroys Nero's highly advanced ship. He earns a commendation and is officially promoted to captain of the Enterprise, putting the world at something not too unlike the original beginning of the original series (although with enough differences that diehard fans will report them).
The big question is what this drastic event does to time itself, that is, what sort of anomaly do we have in the end? It is evident that history has been changed (thus not fixed time), and probable that this is the history of the world (neither parallel nor divergent dimension theory), and thus happening under replacement theory. What sort of anomaly is created? Before we reach that, though, there are several smaller questions, the first of which has to do with Montgomery Scott's transwarp teleportation equation, which we will address next time.
Comments
I suspect the universe in what Trekkers call Memory Alpha saw Romulous destroyed and Ambassodor Spock and Nero sucked up by a black hole - NEVER TO BE SEEN AGAIN. Vulcan still exists.
But, in the convolusions of Brane Cosmology, it is possible for Spock to interact with the past of the Memory Alpha universe while simultaneously affecting an infinite number of alternate universes.
I like the movie, but I wish it were never made. It gives me a headache.
MY big peeve is how can Spock's ship survive a supernova when an entire planet/system is destroyed? How soon after Romulus is destroyed did Nero find out and dive towards the supernova In Search Of exacting revenge on Spock, who seeming just created the black hole?
The black hole appears to have pierced infinte layers of branes. In some of them Spock possibly emerged BEFORE Nero, seconds after, thousands of years later, or even simultaneously - THAT would be messy.
...And in one variation, Spock emerges AFTER George Kirk destroys the Kelvin. He valiantly rescues shuttle 37 and becomes James T. Kirks stepfather...."You little rugrat! You better come back with my ship! It's one of a kind! We won't see one like it for another 129 years!"
Thanks again, BillHoo, for the comments. You appear to be interpreting the film under some form of parallel dimension theory, in which the other universes already exist but are altered by the arrivals of Spock and Nero, both of whom arrive in all such universes at randomly different times. It strikes me that that would also include future arrivals, which would also be interesting.
You are correct about the anomaly of Spock's ship surviving the supernova. Two points might be suggested. The harmonic shielding developed in TNG allowed Enterprise to escape the Borg by entering a star's corona, which would be impossible for most matter; and the red matter creating the black hole was launched forward from the ship and so might have cleared the path ahead.
My analysis favors replacement theory (q.v.), in which case there is only one universe, and Spock has changed it.
--M. J. Young
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