Strange New Worlds season 2 - SPOILERS

[Ryujin]

We must define timelines differently then. To me, any actual change results in a different timeline. Timeline 1: Eugenics Wars in 1992-1996. Timeline 2: Eugenics Wars in 2040s(?). When they pull the "it was meant to be this way all along" card like they do in some episodes, like the DS9 episode "Past Tense" where Sisko and Bashir turn out to be the cause of the "Bell Riots," an historical event to Sisko and Bashir. When they look it up, they see a picture of Sisko as Bell. That works infinitely better than whatever "time asserts itself" explanation was given. But I'm a huge fan of Doctor Who so I probably think about time travel way more than most nerds.

It would be so much easier if they just accepted that it is an alt-history that leads to an alt-future. Every 20-30 years they'll just need to update the timeline so things that the show says happened in years the real world has already passed are now some little distance in the future.

I don't know that you've thought about time more than most nerds. Do different decisions result in different timelines, resulting in near infinite possibilities? Do timelines only diverge for major events? Is there just one elastic timeline that, if changed, will eventually find its way back to the original course? Maybe it's something of all three?

 

[overgeeked]

I don't know that you've thought about time more than most nerds.

More than some, less than others. It's a specialty of Doctor Who fandom. It comes up a lot.

Do different decisions result in different timelines, resulting in near infinite possibilities?

According to the many-world interpretation of quantum mechanics, yes. Infinite possibilities, not near infinite. Each decision point is an ever-branching timeline. Each subsequent decision is also an ever-branching timeline.

Do timelines only diverge for major events?

Not according to MWI. Every decision.

Is there just one elastic timeline that, if changed, will eventually find its way back to the original course?

According to this episode, apparently that's how the Star Trek universe works...despite the alternate timelines they've put forth.

Maybe it's something of all three?

In this episode, it's clearly stated as an elastic timeline. In others, not so much. Especially the alternate timeline episodes and movies. In other shows, definitely not. In the real world...who knows. Or, to get cheeky, "Who nose?"

 

[MarkB]

I don't know that you've thought about time more than most nerds. Do different decisions result in different timelines, resulting in near infinite possibilities? Do timelines only diverge for major events? Is there just one elastic timeline that, if changed, will eventually find its way back to the original course? Maybe it's something of all three?

And it's something that franchises like to play with. The Terminator went with closed timeloop, Terminator 2 did diverging timelines, and Terminator 3 had the "time is elastic and will self-correct" concept.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Okay this is really weird.

https://trekmovie.com/2023/07/03/st...ada-will-continue-broadcasting-on-ctv-sci-fi/

So we won't be able to watch Star Trek ad free soon in Canada, at least until it gets put on Paramount+, but it'll still be on the Channel CTV Sci Fi and CTV's streaming app (the one with commericials).

Also unlike Cravetv which you can get as a chord cutter, you need to be subscribed to CTV Sci Fi to stream it on the CTV app.

The upside is this confirms CTV will still have all of Prodigy's episodes, which might include season 2.

 

[Stalker0]

Ha. I couldn't care less if the timelines match, but I get others do. What I like is a good story.... To be clear, within a show, consistency matters, but ToS was fifty plus years ago.

It comes down to how much does this change really impact the cannon of the show?

In terms of the core events we care about: Eugenics War happens, WWIII....Cochrane invents warp travel, Archer -> Federation -> Kirk yadda yadda, all the main beats seem to be intact.

I took this more as a chance to update the show based on the current year. Its a bit weird to talk about the 90s being a wartorn land when....well obviously that isn't true. The show is updating itself for its modern audience, and its not really shattering cannon to do it (just shifting the dates aroudn a bit) so I don't see any problem.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Maybe, and it won't hurt anything. It's made up fiction. Let's just hope people are still enjoying good tvs, or 3d holodecks then, instead of trying to find water.

"It's made up fiction" is a  terrible excuse for poor storytelling. It justifies everything without justifying anything.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It comes down to how much does this change really impact the cannon of the show?

In terms of the core events we care about: Eugenics War happens, WWIII....Cochrane invents warp travel, Archer -> Federation -> Kirk yadda yadda, all the main beats seem to be intact.

I took this more as a chance to update the show based on the current year. Its a bit weird to talk about the 90s being a wartorn land when....well obviously that isn't true. The show is updating itself for its modern audience, and its not really shattering cannon to do it (just shifting the dates aroudn a bit) so I don't see any problem.

I can live with it, but it was by no means necessary.

 

[billd91]

I took this more as a chance to update the show based on the current year. Its a bit weird to talk about the 90s being a wartorn land when....well obviously that isn't true. The show is updating itself for its modern audience, and its not really shattering cannon to do it (just shifting the dates aroudn a bit) so I don't see any problem.

I generally agree. You see the same things happening with comics that are trying to maintain long continuities. I guess Kitty Pryde is an adult now, but she was a teenager for a loooooong time. How many people remember it was still the CARTER administration when she became an X-man?

 

[Zaukrie]

"It's made up fiction" is a  terrible excuse for poor storytelling. It justifies everything without justifying anything.

I literally said I care about good stories.... So, wut are you talking about? We disagree on the importance of canon across fifty years of lightly connected tv shows. It sure didn't hurt James Bond to start over again.... You care about whether a fictional war took place in the nineties or fifty years later. I don't. Neither of us is wrong, it's preference over fiction.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I literally said I care about good stories.... So, wut are you talking about? We disagree on the importance of canon across fifty years of lightly connected tv shows. It sure didn't hurt James Bond to start over again.... You care about whether a fictional war took place in the nineties or fifty years later. I don't. Neither of us is wrong, it's preference over fiction.

To me, making that kind of unnecessary change makes it a bad story, at least to some degree. You want a different history? Write a new story in a new universe. People do it every day.