XPost: rec.arts.sf.movies, alt.tv.star-trek.tos, rec.arts.sf.written   
   XPost: alt.tv.sevendays   
   From: throopw@sheol.org   
      
   :: The time travel paradigm used in the new Star Trek movie is that of a   
   :: splitting timeline:   
      
   : Um, no, Star Trek uses a "rewrite time" model.   
      
   Often, yes.  But they really mostly use a "whatever any author comes up   
   with that's convenient to the plot without bothering to think it through"   
   model.  Near as I can tell.   For examples of the multiple timelines   
   model, isn't the "Evil Federation" universe supposed to be one that   
   diverged early in Federation history?  And in Newtrek, the whole thing   
   about the quantum hole and the multiple enterprises?  With some admixtures   
   of "whatever happens has already happened" unchangeable spacetime models   
   upon occasion.  And so on and so on.   
      
   Of course, the multple-timelines model can subsume them all.  If the   
   story seems to be "timeline can't hange it's already happened", then it's   
   just that you *didn't* switch to an alternate timeline.  If the enterprise   
   disappears from above the Guardian and Spock records an altered history   
   on the tricorder, that's because the outside universe got swapped to the   
   alternate timeline, and they only had to go back and un-tamper because   
   they didn't understand what was going on, they really didn't have to,   
   and the Guardian was just screwing with them.  And so on and so on.   
      
      
   Wayne Throop   throopw@sheol.org   http://sheol.org/throopw   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)