A Question of Time.

      No Comments on A Question of Time.

Prepare for a bit of geekiness.

Since I was around ten years old I’ve been pretty into Star Trek, with phases where I’ve gotten more or less interested in it. This mostly surrounded the original series and the Next Generation — a bit of DS9, but no Voyager or Enterprise (though I’ve read through the series’ synopsii). Until the reboot, I’d never actually caught a film in the theaters. Possible spoilers ahead.

The reboot starts it all over in a pretty rough and literal way: The villain goes back in time and changes the original cast’s lives entirely. The main complaint for both movies can safely be the lens flare, but the way they handled the change was pretty decent given the fact I hate time travel and Star Trek together (which makes First Contact being my favorite TNG film kind of ironic). This has quite a few echoes that could readily be explored:

– Starting with TNG: Which characters would even exist? Whose ancestors died with Kirk’s father? The 1701-D cast could be almost entirely different, and even if the characters were the same they will be different.

Now, back to TOS:

– Harry Mudd was a tricky, slick man. Where does he end up? (Aside from the brief reference to him in Into Darkness)

– Is the Squire of Gothos actually a Q? (Yes.)

– What happens when the Naked Time virus strikes this version of the Enterprise?

– What happens to Talos IV, the planet that Spock tried smuggling Christopher Pike to after his accident?

– In this timeline, Kirk grows up entirely on Earth (or so it seems). Therefore, he doesn’t witness the slaughter on Tarsus IV; does Kodos get away with being a mass murderer?

– What happens with our new wonky Spock and the mother creature from Devil in the Dark?

– What happens to the City on the Edge of Forever?

Now, the films, in order:

– Current Kirk and crew. V’Ger.

– Genesis; Carol Marcus and Kirk’s relationship is entirely changed. Khan is no longer a threat to the Genesis Project. Does it even get off the ground without David and Carol Marcus?

– Well, that obviously removes the third movie entirely…

– What happens when that probe shows up looking for the whales?

– We’ll pretend Sybok dies in this timeline and avoid The Final Frontier entirely. That alien just stays locked up on Sha Ka Ree.

– Praxis will presumably still explode; Kronos (Qo’Nos?) will still need bailing out. But without the Vulcans backing UFP, what will happen in the mean time between the Romulans, Klingons, and UFP?

– Generations: The timeline is moved up from the Starfleet perspective. Perhaps the 1701-B launches earlier than in the original timeline; it is therefore entirely prepared when it comes across the El-Aurian ships. Or perhaps unavailable entirely. Either way, the ribbon/Nexus can stay stupid only in the original timeline.

This would theoretically bring us back to TNG, but we know from TNG that the 1701-C fought to the death against some Romulans and that brought about peace with the Klingons (post-Khitomer). Due to increased aggression, what would change there? Would the C survive due to being more battle ready? The impact of this would echo into the TNG time period.

How different is Picard? Crusher? Troi? (My guess: More camel toe) What about Data?

Does Scotty end up in the transporter stasis they recovered him from? Is Farpoint handled differently? (Presumably, All Good Things… ends up the same way…)

Two other benefits of this: Enterprise, the show, doesn’t change. It was before the events of the reboot. So we won’t have to rehash that. Voyager, the show, could be avoided entirely by changing the Federation and Cardassian alliance in a way that avoids the Maquis problem.

If I had one Star Trek wish, it would be that they’d have a (really good) TNG in the reboot timeline… for the 50th anniversary in two years.

For some fun, James McAvoy could be Picard.