Star Trek (2009) and Temporal Mechanics

Well, it seems the news in films recently has been overshadowed by the new Star Trek. J. J. Abrams and his crew certainly put together a fine film, one that speaks to both Trek audiences and casual movie-goers. This is one to remember, and for many reasons.

This article will not review the film, since that has been done by so many on the web already. Instead, this article will take a close look at the temporal phenomenon presented in the film and ask the questions of what lies ahead for Trek.

First, Star Trek and time travel are not strangers one to another. To date, every television franchise has featured some form of time travel, some of the them multiple times. Even the movies get in on the action. But the new film has taken a sharply different approach to the material. Before we can look at that, we must look at a few principle theories of time travel, or rather theories of temporal mechanics, how time works.

Paradoxes

It's hard to track down where time travel first occured in fiction. Certainly, it's been around for a while. Some science fiction franchises even make it their premise (most famously in Doctor Who). Whenever a character, or group of characters, travels through time, either forward or backward, the issue of temporal paradoxes comes into play.

Predestination paradox

Perhaps the most famously used paradox, predestination paradoxes work this way. A character remembers something from his past: a gift given to him, some special action performed, whatever. In the present, he encounters something that sends him back in time, where he encounters his younger self. Remembering his own past, he performs the action he remembers to his younger self (most often an item given). This puts his past on track to produce his present, thus maintaining the timeline.

Basically, a predestination paradox states that a character MUST return to his past in order to preserve the timeline. The idea is that the character was MEANT, or PREDESTINED, to go back.

Pogo paradox

But sometimes, characters travel back in time to stop certain events from happening. A plague, an assassination, the death of a loved one, etc. Pogo paradoxes occur when the event is averted, and the character returns to his present, but find the world unchanged.

The idea is that something happens to preserve the timeline, in spite of the traveler's actions. Basically, the traveler went back, only to go forward again, or to "pogo."

Grandfather paradox

Ever wonder why some children look little like their parents, but closely resemble their grandparents? Well, maybe they went back in time and. . .

Perhaps this one defines itself.

Altered Realities

Whenever time travel occurs in fiction, the event almost always asks questions about the effect. What happened to those we left behind? If we changed the past, where are our friends and family in the present? To this end, younger writers should perhaps avoid crafting too many time travel tales. It gets very complicated very quickly. Star Trek is certainly no stranger here, either, as we'll see in a minute.

Replacement Reality

To date, this is the most common conception in time travel fiction. A character travels to his past, changes something, whether great or small, and thus alters his present. He returns to a world radically different from the one he left.

Many depictions of time travel occur this way. In Back to the Future, Marty McFly journeys to his father's past and keeps his dad from getting hit by a car. The problem is this was the event that made his mother fall for his father. By preventing the collision, Marty removed the romance, thus his parents never married in his own present. The key to the film was the photograph Marty had. The longer he stayed in his father's past, the more his family faded from the photograph, erased from existence by his actions in the past.

In other words, altering the past, alters your present. The timeline has shifted, but the new reality replaces the original one.

Split Timeline

In the grand scheme of things, this is a very recent creation. If it were not for the popularity of the Legend of Zelda video game series, and the controversy concerning its timeline, this view likely would remain only in the fringe of timeline theories. That's not to say it wouldn't occur, of course.

In a split timeline scenario, a character who travels back in time changes something. The timeline changes, but the original timeline continues to exist. Essentially, the character has not only rewritten his own history, but created a parallel universe. Both universes share most of the same elements, even extensive histories.

Split timelines are not found commonly in Western fiction. Some have been suggested, but most suggestions do not stand well against intense scrutiny. Interpretation is always the key.

The Trek Connection

So what does this mean for the new movie? Well, Star Trek has used time travel several times. James T. Kirk was cited for seventeen unique temporal violations by Starfleet's Department of Temporal Investigations (Deep Space Nine's episode "Trials and Tribble-ations"). The "light-speed breakaway factor" was known as a reliable method of time-travel during the Original Series. And every crew of every television franchise experience time-travel.

But in every case, it was Replacement Reality. Look at them carefully. "Trials and Tribble-ations" presents a good case. Sisko and the Defiant crew went back in time, specifically to the Original Series episode "The Trouble with Tribbles," to prevent a Klingon agent from killing Kirk with a Tribble. Sisko and his crew weren't worried about creating a new timeline in a new universe (split timeline), they were worried about altering the timeline they came from. So they had to prevent the agent from carrying out his plan.

The movie Star Trek First Contact is another great example, and perhaps the strongest. The Enterprise-E watches a Borg Sphere enter a temporal vortex. What do they see when the ship disappears and they look at Earth? A planet populated completely by Borg. No split timelines there. A completely altered reality. So they follow the Borg Sphere through the vortex to correct the damage and set the timeline back on track.

Well, that takes us to J. J. Abrams's new film. Without spoiling the movie too much, we know that the Narada disappeared into a black hole and returned to normal space in the distant past. Spock's ship followed it, but was too late to stop the Narada from altering the timeline. The entire Trek history from James Kirk's time changed slightly. Kirk still takes command of Enterprise, but the events that put him there differ slightly from established canon.

Is this proof of a split timeline?

At the surface, it looks that way. The problem is that we simply don't have any proof. We know the timeline has been altered. We know the events have changed, even if just slightly. But we don't know that the original timeline, called the Prime Reality, still exists alongside it. Did the Narada create a new timeline in a new universe, or has it simply replaced the original timeline? There's no evidence either way.

Proof could have occured at the end. Spock could have taken a ship, (any ship - he's smart enough to fix it up correctly) gone through a black hole or something, and returned to the Prime Reality. But this didn't happen. Spock chose to lead a new colony of Vulcans. No proof for either Replacement or Split.

It will take another movie or two or three to establish a split, and such a film would need to feature the Prime Reality. Such may never occur. We're meant to look at Star Trek as a new film, a new beginning. It's a reboot and reimagining of the franchise, not a strict continuation.

Until further notice, split timeline remains undecided, though still a likely contender.