Random thought for Verus purposes

[Simon_Jester]

The bottom line is that there is no reason to assume a rational connection between parallel universes in Star Trek. Their nature is entirely a matter of writer's fiat.

So... in-setting when people talk about Nero's arrival "altering the timeline" or whatever, it's just delusional gibberish? OK. Duly noted.

[Stark]

Don't be a smartass. While it's clearly the author trying to speak to the audience directly, there's no reason why some 22 year old xenolinguist would have ANY FUCKING IDEA what she's talking about. This is why dialogue isn't evidence.

[Darth Wong]

The bottom line is that there is no reason to assume a rational connection between parallel universes in Star Trek. Their nature is entirely a matter of writer's fiat.

So... in-setting when people talk about Nero's arrival "altering the timeline" or whatever, it's just delusional gibberish? OK. Duly noted.

You're a fucking idiot. You're still assuming that the other timeline the person is talking about is necessarily perfectly coincident with the other TV shows in a technical sense, hence interpreting the character in that context. Your whole argument is massively circular; you keep citing things in the movie but interpreting them with this assumption: the same assumption you're trying to prove.

The only reason you know that these universes are connected at all is out-of-universe, ie- the films and TV shows have the same name and some of the same characters, so you figure they have to be the same universe even though other recent successful franchise reboots have also recycled characters. You are completely ignoring the possibility that it's a franchise reboot without giving ANY reason whatsoever other than to repeatedly assume it isn't.

[Simon_Jester]

Don't be a smartass. While it's clearly the author trying to speak to the audience directly, there's no reason why some 22 year old xenolinguist would have ANY FUCKING IDEA what she's talking about. This is why dialogue isn't evidence.

She's not the only one who mentions the subject, though; Spock does too. He might not know what he's talking about, either, of course, since he's not actually a physicist as far as I can remember. He certainly knows a lot of physics, and he's considered qualified as a science officer.

But that doesn't mean he's qualified to comment on whether Nero's history represents an "alternate timeline" with a concrete point of divergence from his own, or whether Nero comes from a completely different universe with a history and a set of technologies that need bear no resemblance to his own. Nero could be from a universe as different from the Abrams-movie Star Trek universe as the Star Wars or Babylon 5 settings as far as he knows, the presence of Romulans identical to the ones he knows and loves notwithstanding.
_____

You're a fucking idiot. You're still assuming that the other timeline the person is talking about is necessarily perfectly coincident with the other TV shows in a technical sense, hence interpreting the character in that context. Your whole argument is massively circular; you keep citing things in the movie but interpreting them with this assumption: the same assumption you're trying to prove.

Now that you mention it, yes. So I've decided to switch sides and explore the implications of the "completely separate, disconnected, were never connected at any point" interpretation.

Although I must take exception to the claim that I am a "fucking idiot;" I don't quite agree on that.
______

The only reason you know that these universes are connected at all is out-of-universe, ie- the films and TV shows have the same name and some of the same characters, so you figure they have to be the same universe even though other recent successful franchise reboots have also recycled characters. You are completely ignoring the possibility that it's a franchise reboot without giving ANY reason whatsoever other than to repeatedly assume it isn't.

OK. Stipulate that the two universes are completely disconnected, though. We now need an explanation for why there is a (more or less) identical version of Spock in the universe Nero comes from and the universe Nero comes to. And why Nero is quite familiar with both the USS Enterprise (familiar enough to see a Constitution-class ship and check to confirm that it is the Enterprise), and how Nero knows who Kirk is.

Given that Nero comes from a universe that had nothing whatsoever to do with the history of the Abrams-movie Star Trek universe, those would be extremely remarkable coincidences.

[Ted C]

Now that you mention it, yes. So I've decided to switch sides and explore the implications of the "completely separate, disconnected, were never connected at any point" interpretation.

Although I must take exception to the claim that I am a "fucking idiot;" I don't quite agree on that.

Get used to it. If you get into an argument with Mike, you will almost certainly get called a "fucking idiot" or worse. You just have to let that kind of thing roll off of you if you're going to play the debate game on this forum.

[Ted C]

OK. Stipulate that the two universes are completely disconnected, though. We now need an explanation for why there is a (more or less) identical version of Spock in the universe Nero comes from and the universe Nero comes to. And why Nero is quite familiar with both the USS Enterprise (familiar enough to see a Constitution-class ship and check to confirm that it is the Enterprise), and how Nero knows who Kirk is.

Given that Nero comes from a universe that had nothing whatsoever to do with the history of the Abrams-movie Star Trek universe, those would be extremely remarkable coincidences.

Simple Answer: Nero does not come from a universe that had nothing to do with the history of the Abrams-movie universe. Nero is from an alternative future of the new continuity, which includes its own Abramsy versions of Kirk, Spock, and the Enterprise.

[Simon_Jester]

Simple Answer: Nero does not come from a universe that had nothing to do with the history of the Abrams-movie universe. Nero is from an alternative future of the new continuity, which includes its own Abramsy versions of Kirk, Spock, and the Enterprise.

Good one; I like that explanation.

What about the Mirror Universe? The Mirror Universe isn't quite as problematic as the Abrams-movie universe, because it at least has a different history. Invaders from one universe don't automatically know what happened in the past of the other. But it still has the identical-characters problem. That's damnably hard to explain in either the "separate universe" or "parallel universe" explanation.

Get used to it. If you get into an argument with Mike, you will almost certainly get called a "fucking idiot" or worse. You just have to let that kind of thing roll off of you if you're going to play the debate game on this forum.

Oh, I'm not angry about Mike calling me a fucking idiot. I just think he's wrong; I know a lot of people who would most probably have noticed by now if I were a fucking idiot.

[Batman]

Simple Answer: Nero does not come from a universe that had nothing to do with the history of the Abrams-movie universe. Nero is from an alternative future of the new continuity, which includes its own Abramsy versions of Kirk, Spock, and the Enterprise.

Good one; I like that explanation.

What about the Mirror Universe? The Mirror Universe isn't quite as problematic as the Abrams-movie universe, because it at least has a different history. Invaders from one universe don't automatically know what happened in the past of the other. But it still has the identical-characters problem. That's damnably hard to explain in either the "separate universe" or "parallel universe" explanation.

You're either really stupid or intentionally trolling. The Mirror Universe would be a divergent timeline of THAT iteration of the Trek franchise.
Methinks somebody's trying to shift goalposts.

Oh, I'm not angry about Mike calling me a fucking idiot. I just think he's wrong; I know a lot of people who would most probably have noticed by now if I were a fucking idiot.

You are. Or at least you are if you can't see the difference between the Abrams movie's connection to classic Trek as opposed to Classic Trek's mirror universe.

[Darth Wong]

OK. Stipulate that the two universes are completely disconnected, though. We now need an explanation for why there is a (more or less) identical version of Spock in the universe Nero comes from and the universe Nero comes to.

Because they copied the character from the old Star Trek. Duh. Writers copy things from one story to another all the time; it does not imply that both stories must take place in a consistent reality.

And why Nero is quite familiar with both the USS Enterprise (familiar enough to see a Constitution-class ship and check to confirm that it is the Enterprise), and how Nero knows who Kirk is.

Given that Nero comes from a universe that had nothing whatsoever to do with the history of the Abrams-movie Star Trek universe, those would be extremely remarkable coincidences.

You're doing it again: you're asking for an in-universe explanation: a method which implicitly assumes that we're talking about one giant connected universe which must necessarily be rational.

Honestly, you're being as thick as a brick here: you have internalized this assumption of a rationally consistent meta-universe to the point that you seem to be completely incapable of letting it go, even for the purpose of argument. It's borderline pathological: you're living up to all of the worst stereotypes of the fanatical Trekkie.

Do you understand how logically deficient your argument is? Let me break it down for you: you are assuming that because there is some overlap between set A and set B (in this case, the recycling of certain characters), then there must be more overlap between set A and set B (in this case, you believe that all technical data must be consistent). Why? There is absolutely no logical rule which states that partial overlap between set A and set B necessitates complete overlap between set A and set B, or even 1% greater overlap than that which is already observed.

Are you capable of understanding the above paragraph? If you're not sure what it means, I can only suggest that you need to go back to school, pronto.

[Stark]

I don't even really see how you can determine that Old Spock is 'identical' to TNG Spock. He's played by the same guy... and... that's it. He doesn't drop any big clues and he talks almost exclusively of his (nonsensical) science mission and his relationship with Kirk. He doesn't even mention he'd been working for reunification.

Nero being familiar with Enterprise is asinine; there are any number of possible universes EVEN SHOWN IN TNG where the same goddamn ship ended up in the same place. Spock already remembered Kirk, so it's obviously a universe where Enterprise was famous.

[montypython]

To use the example of 'Sliders', each universe is its own consistent reality without affecting the others, even the TNG episode 'Parallels' encompasses that point.

[Simon_Jester]

You're either really stupid or intentionally trolling. The Mirror Universe would be a divergent timeline of THAT iteration of the Trek franchise.
Methinks somebody's trying to shift goalposts.

No. I'm really not kidding here. The Mirror Universe makes just about as much sense as a completely unrelated timeline as the Abrams Universe does. It shares all the same things (common history in, say, the 20th century; certain specific people with very familiar names and basic personality types, laws of physics that happen to be very accomodating to particle-of-the-week scenarios, a poorly developed art of engineering).

If the Abrams Universe can be a completely unrelated timeline that isn't connected to the, ah, Roddenbury Universe at any point in spacetime, I see no reason to assume that the Mirror Universe couldn't be, either. That doesn't mean the Mirror Universe isn't in "fact" a parallel, and is a completely unrelated timeline whose resemblances are nothing but a coincidence. It just means that it could be. I have no clue and no way to resolve the issue off the top of my head. Sure, plenty of people have claimed the Mirror Universe is a parallel and not an unrelated one, but how do I know they know what they're talking about, or that they aren't making an honest mistake in-setting?

The reason I brought it up is because I realized yesterday that Mike is right about the fact that I don't really have a reason based on deductive logic to assume the universes are in parallel. Yes, they share a lot of features, so many as to be uncanny, but I can't actually prove that they were ever the same timeline in their own history. Assuming parallel universes doesn't make the uncanny similiarities go away, because I'd still have to come up with some explanation for the existence of, say, Pavel Chekov in a universe that changed before he was born.
________

Oh, I'm not angry about Mike calling me a fucking idiot. I just think he's wrong; I know a lot of people who would most probably have noticed by now if I were a fucking idiot.

You are. Or at least you are if you can't see the difference between the Abrams movie's connection to classic Trek as opposed to Classic Trek's mirror universe.

Well, then I must disagree with you too. At least on being a fucking idiot. I could easily be wrong about Star Trek stuff, but I'm quite confident that I'm not an idiot, fucking or otherwise.

=========

I don't even really see how you can determine that Old Spock is 'identical' to TNG Spock. He's played by the same guy... and... that's it. He doesn't drop any big clues and he talks almost exclusively of his (nonsensical) science mission and his relationship with Kirk. He doesn't even mention he'd been working for reunification.

True. He might be the same guy for all I know, but I have no reason to assume that he must be.

Nero being familiar with Enterprise is asinine; there are any number of possible universes EVEN SHOWN IN TNG where the same goddamn ship ended up in the same place. Spock already remembered Kirk, so it's obviously a universe where Enterprise was famous.

Good point. I'm not sure it's asinine, but it isn't a very convincing argument by any stretch of the imagination. I should have thought of that.

Although at least (unlike the identical characters in widely separate, unrelated universes thing) it has a possible explanation: Nero comes from this universe's future, not Roddenbury's, so he knows a lot about this universe's Enterprise. Which might explain how he could look at it and not think "Good God! What have they been feeding their engineers? That thing is three times the size of the real one!"

=========

OK. Stipulate that the two universes are completely disconnected, though. We now need an explanation for why there is a (more or less) identical version of Spock in the universe Nero comes from and the universe Nero comes to.

Because they copied the character from the old Star Trek. Duh. Writers copy things from one story to another all the time; it does not imply that both stories must take place in a consistent reality.

True. But since I'm at least still interested in in-story explanations, I like Ted C's: that Nero doesn't come from the Roddenbury Universe at all; he comes from an (alternate) future of the Abrams Universe. That would explain why he knows the history of the Abrams Universe. From an in-story point of view, the fact that the two universes contain many similar characters is merely a strange coincidence.
_________

You're doing it again: you're asking for an in-universe explanation: a method which implicitly assumes that we're talking about one giant connected universe which must necessarily be rational.

Well, I'd like such an explanation; if that kind of thing didn't make me happy I wouldn't be here in the first place.

But I don't really believe that there has to be one, because weirdness happens. Maybe the in-universe explanation is "there is no explanation within the universe, it's just one of those weird improbable cosmic mysteries."

I think that from an in-universe point of view, it's the equivalent of Dawkins' famous watch on the beach- a thing so unlikely to occur that a reasonable person might wonder where it came from, given a perspective that let them see it.

From an out-of-universe point of view the explanation is trivial; from an in-universe view it doesn't exist at all. But I like doing in-universe analysis of fictional settings as a hobby, so I think of these weird questions for some reason.
_________

Do you understand how logically deficient your argument is? Let me break it down for you: you are assuming that because there is some overlap between set A and set B (in this case, the recycling of certain characters), then there must be more overlap between set A and set B (in this case, you believe that all technical data must be consistent). Why? There is absolutely no logical rule which states that partial overlap between set A and set B necessitates complete overlap between set A and set B, or even 1% greater overlap than that which is already observed.

If A and B are divergent copies of the same set, it would seem that they should share at least the same laws of physics, and therefore have roughly the same parameters on what technology is possible in theory, even if the technical data is different in details for some reason.

But, as you've said before, I have no evidence that A and B are divergent copies of the same set. The overlap between them may be a pure coincidence. In which case I think it's interesting and worth remarking on because it's so unlikely there'd even be that much overlap. But as I said above, that could just mean that (in-setting) it's just a weird cosmic mystery with no explanation, because the only explanation that exists is out-setting.

[Ted C]

Simon, maybe you just need to think of the reboot as "much more distantly parallel" than the "mirror universe". After all, technology in the mirror universe is essentially identical to that of the classic Trek timeline.

Reboot-Trek technology, on the other hand, is radically different from classic Trek technology. You might even conclude that the laws of physics that govern those technologies aren't the same in the reboot universe. The reboot universe probably even has its own mirror universe that follows the same technological pattern.

You really need to adopt a different mindset and stop trying to reconcile the inconsistencies you perceive. NuTrek is an entirely separate beast -- start adjusting.

[Surlethe]

True. But since I'm at least still interested in in-story explanations, I like Ted C's: that Nero doesn't come from the Roddenbury Universe at all; he comes from an (alternate) future of the Abrams Universe.

Dude, an in-story explanation only works if they're the same story. To search for an in-story explanation, you have to be assuming that they come from the same story universe. That is the assumption everybody is asking you to question.

[Samuel]

The Mirror Universe makes just about as much sense as a completely unrelated timeline as the Abrams Universe does. It shares all the same things (common history in, say, the 20th century;

In Enterprise Phlox was going over the historical records between the two and commentating on the differences- he mentions that Shakespere is the same, but other things are presumably divergent.

[Simon_Jester]

True. But since I'm at least still interested in in-story explanations, I like Ted C's: that Nero doesn't come from the Roddenbury Universe at all; he comes from an (alternate) future of the Abrams Universe.

Dude, an in-story explanation only works if they're the same story. To search for an in-story explanation, you have to be assuming that they come from the same story universe. That is the assumption everybody is asking you to question.

Yes. My point was that Nero's knowledge of the past has an in-story explanation if Nero comes from within Abrams' own story (which is what Ted C) suggested. And since Nero is a character of Abrams' creation, it seems unlikely that he would not be from Abrams' future... unless there were a connection between the Abrams universe and the Roddenbury universe.

There need not be any such connection; there is no evidence I can use to demonstrate such a connection by deductive logic. I infer the connection from similarities between the two settings, and I strongly suspect that Abrams meant to imply such a connection. But, to reiterate:

The differences between the Abrams story and the Roddenbury story need not have an in-story explanation.* I freely admit this.**

*Aside from "yeah, look at that ineffable mystery of the cosmos! Isn't the universe weird? Tum-te-tum... hey, look over there!" which is nothing more than an in-story admission of the lack of an explanation.

**I still hold the "connection" explanation as more plausible than the "no connection" explanation, but only in the sense that I find one thing inductively more probable than another. For instance, I might find "my friend will meet me at six" more probable than "my friend is playing a practical joke on me," even though I have no specific evidence that can confirm or deny either explanation outright.

I have questioned the assumption I made before, but questioning an assumption is not the same thing as rejecting it categorically.