My Take on JJ-Timeline Post New Movie

So, I've been giving myself aneurysms trying to slowly piece together the new alternate timeline for Star Trek in hopes of running a campaign at some point. Here's what I've got so far with a lot more that needs typed up.

Here's some facts so far:

According to backstory, during the time between Nero showing up to wax the Kelvin and him actually catching Spock, Nero and his crew were captured and imprisoned by the Klingons on Rura Penthe. When they finally escaped, the Narada took them to V'ger. Apparently, after the destruction of Romulas in the Prime timeline, Nero took the ship to the Romulan's secret Borg research place and refitted his simple mining ship into the giant doom vessel we know it as. Nero then uses V'ger to calculate when and where Spock will emerge. There is also one story that claims that V'ger made the Borg has a means of assimiliating more knowledge more quickly. In any case, there's some connection between the two.

Fast forward to the end of the movie and my current plot thoughts:

Since V'ger was programmed to learn everything, it would stand to reason that while it was near the Narada, it would tap into it and drain everything it could from the databanks. Therefore, it would stand to reason that V'ger would have some, if not fairly complete knowledge of the original Prime timeline. That raises the question then, assuming the above is true, what would V'ger do now?

Would it race off to the Delta Quandrant to stop the Borg, knowing what they will become?

Will it return to Earth early in order to provide them with the knowledge it has gained of the alternate timeline?

Does V'ger attempt to go commune with the Q Continuum?

What impact does all of this have on Gary Mitchell (read Q-Squared) and Q?

Do Federation scientists, studying leftover bits of the advanced Romulan technology discover similarities between it and the Borg tech that Zephram Cochrane had as a result of First Contact and/or Capt. Archer's encounter with the Borg during "Enterprise?"

If said similarities are found, how does that further change the timeline?

What does the destruction of Vulcan at the hands of a Romulan do for overall Vulcan/Romulan relations?

Does Future Spock use this knowledge to attempt to complete his goal of reunifying the two species?

Are the Borg of this timeline sent a message from the Narada before it is destroyed? If so, what does it contain?

So, here are some additional thoughts.

1) At the minimum, the Narada would contain the Romulan perspective on everything that has happened in the Prime Timeline as well as any major events, ie. the Dominion and various other wars, the Borg, etc. V-Ger would access that data and immediately begin returning to Earth in order to meet "the creator." Upon arriving there, V-Ger would once again mind-meld with Spock-Prime. The question is, then what?

2) Given that both the Federation and the Klingons have taken losses to their fleets due to Nero, the Romulans emerge from seclusion early. They conduct negotiations with the Orion Syndicate to begin attacking the Klingons. The Orions are primarily tasked with occupying the Federation to keep them from aiding the Klingons. The Romulans begin attacking Klingon outposts with their new Bird of Prey (see Battle of Icarus IV).

3) With the changes going about the Alpha Quadrant, Starfleet starts getting pressured to become more militant. Under Admiral Pike, Starfleet forms it's new Strategic Operations Command tasked with overseeing the increased military presence to be established. Meanwhile, the remnants of the Vulcan Science Academy take over a section of Starfleet Academy on Earth and help establish the Federation Science and Exploration Council.

4) Several months after the Battle of Vulcan, Federation scientists, studying the remains of the plasma drill left from the Narada make a startling discovery. The technology in that device has many similarities to the crashed spaceship discovered in 2153 (the Borg Sphere from First Contact.) A new joint venture between Strategic Operations and the Science Council begins studying the technology more indepth, hoping to be better prepared for when the strange cybernetic aliens finally reappear. The shipyards at Utopia Planetia begin to develop a new extreme long-range scout/science vessel to explore towards the Delta Quadrant and hope to establish an early warning. Members of the Vissian scientific community are also brought in to help develop omicron radiation based weapons in hope they will prove more effective based on the reports of Dr. Phlox during his tenure as Chief Medical Officer aboard the Enterprise.

5) To keep their contract with the Klingons, the Orions begin raiding the wreckages at Rura Penthe and Vulcan to draw the attention of the Federation.

6) Following the battle with the Narada, the Enterprise puts into Spacedock for repairs and refitting. The officers spend the time on leave and assisting at Starfleet Academy. While there, Kirk encounters Gary Mitchell but due to having his tenure there cut short, there relationship remains purely acquiantance.

7) Over growing concerns about the geological damage to the West Coast following the actions of Nero, Vulcan scientists along with members of the American Continent Institute form a geological team to investigate the issue. The team is headed up by Doctor Theodore Haskins. Starfleet begins making plans to move its headquarters from San Francisco if necessary.

8) To finalize the tests of their new Bird of Prey, the Romulans attack the Klingon outpost at Narendra III. Starfleet sends a vessel to assist. Both the vessel and the outpost are destroyed. Relations improve between the Federation and the Empire and an alliance against the Romulans is formed.

9) Spock-Prime and the other Vulcans establish their new colony. In order to expedite the repopulation process, certain more radical elements uncover the research of Arik Soong and begin work on genetically engineering members of their race. Sarek takes a new wife.

10) After the repairs and refit are complete, the Enterprise heads off to lead the task force against the Romulans based at Khitomer.

My biggest current quandry is deciding just how much Spock-Prime would be willing to "cheat" and in what regards would he do so.

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Originally Posted by Hadeshorn

My biggest current quandry is deciding just how much Spock-Prime would be willing to "cheat" and in what regards would he do so.

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Depends really. Now that Vulcans have no homeworld will he push for the Genesis device knowing what happened next?

On that subject when kirk does encounter the Botany Bay will he 'cheat death' by destroying it or allow events to happen but maroon Khan's followers elsewhere? After all its logical to preserve the Vulcan species especially now that there is no guarantee that his Katra would be rejoined...

And that leads to the Whales. Its possible that Spock-prime may well have commited future Gillian Taylor's works to memory, but even if he didn't he could repopulate the species and have Earth ready to deal with the incoming probe.

But all this aside changes to the timeline are inalterable and changes to these events could be even more dangerous.

If only he knew where the Guardian of Forever is before anybody else and allow himself an opportunity t set things right. Oh wait... He does!

Logic dictates therefore that he use the Guardian to set things right just as they did with Edith Keeler, and return the timeline to its original configuration, which could be easy during the decades when Nero doesn't even think Spock will be arriving... Actually that could be a kick arse RPG setting.

Hell, Spock computed the trajectory for a time-warp from memory. After dying. And coming back. If there's anybody who could single-handedly restore the timeline, or preempt everything in the next 125 years, it would be him.

On the other hand, doing so would be against the spirit (and possibly the letter) of the Prime Directive.

As good at what he does as Spock is, I don't think it's possible to repair the timeline; the branch point of the divergence of the two timelines (wow, talking like Dr. Who here, or at least Reed Richards) is the appearence of the Narada and it's attack on the Kelvin. It took pretty much everything the Enterprise had to stop it, and unless Spock can convince Kirk to undo his whole life in the chance to recreate the Prime timeline. And if he could, they would more than likely create a 3rd timeline, closer to the Prime timeline, but with more lens flare and Abrahms stuff.

I've done a bit more research and considering the ideas I've already put in place, so to speak here are my follow-ups.

1) The Enterprise doesn't encounter the Botany Bay. With it stationed at Khitomer to assist in the war with the Romulans, it is nowhere near Starbase 12 when it passes through that sector. If anything, the Vulcans track it down to study the Augments to assist the repopulation of the Vulcan race.

2) Given that fact, along with the status of the Klingon Empire, the Genesis project is allowed to continue, largely unmolested. There is, however, the issue of whether or not Kirk encounters and impregnates Carol Marcus or not. Right now, I'm leaning towards no.

3) As far as Spock using the Guardian of Forever to "restore time," I think he would pass. Spock generally is a fan of not breaking the Temporal Prime Directive. Besides, he would be aware that going back and altering the past would A) create a predestination paradox and B) run the risk of making things far worse.

4) With V'Ger arriving decades earlier than in the Prime Timeline and the knowledge that the Borg will be headed towards the Alpha Quadrant, Spock-Prime has much bigger issues to attend to. The issue in there, is whether V'Ger uses the knowledge gained from the Narada and the mindmeld with Spock to go deal with the Borg. Most likely, if it does, the Borg would be reassimilated, reprogrammed and possibly eliminated all together.

5) As Tricky commented, Spock would be unable to stop the Narada at this time. His only hope would be to somehow use the Guardian of Forever to go back to the Prime Timeline and stop Nero there, which would wreck all kinds of havoc on the Prime Timeline. I've already given myself enough brain drain working on this, trying to figure out that mess would be crazy.

Just a nit about the Botany Bay: it's highly unlikely anyone knows about it. Kirk had no idea who's ship it was, at least until he met Kahn

But Spock-prime does.

One of the other ideas I'm been bantering around in my head the past couple days has involved the Romulans. I got hooked up with a 60 day trial of Star Trek Online which takes place 25 years after Nemesis but still in the Prime timeline. Part of the major stories going on there involves the Romulans and Remans. Admiral Janeway does some exploring and comes to the conclusion that the Hobus star exploding and wrecking havoc was the result of the Romulans experimenting with subspace weapons and had Spock not stopped the destructive wave, it would have continued on and destroyed much more of the Alpha and Beta quadrants. I'm thinking that this timeline's Romulans are a lot saltier and might get involved with things like subspace weapons, thelaron radiation and all sorts of other things that decent galactic powers avoid.

A good friend of mine suggested that I use Spock-Prime as the focal point for the campaign and have him establish the characters as a sort of black ops group to deal with things that he knows about from the other timeline, ie. Khan, Humpback whales, etc.

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Originally Posted by Hadeshorn

A good friend of mine suggested that I use Spock-Prime as the focal point for the campaign and have him establish the characters as a sort of black ops group to deal with things that he knows about from the other timeline, ie. Khan, Humpback whales, etc.

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Now thats a good idea. the main difficulty for you as narrator however is to make sure that things are different enough that your players dont just copy Kirks exploits. Perhaps you could take a leaf out of Enterprise books and have a shadowy temporal cold war with mysterious adversaries hounding your players (they may even be 29th century Timefleet trying to reset this temporal incursion and 'technically' on the same side)

I was going to post a defence of my suggestion that Spock Prime would use something like the Guardian of Forever. But then I realised the fatal flaw in my theory.

Law of Narration.

Spock Prime is a secondary Character, he might have all the information, but when it coes down to it Sylar-Spock is the amin character, and plot revolves around the main characters.

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Originally Posted by Dan Gurden

the main difficulty for you as narrator however is to make sure that things are different enough that your players dont just copy Kirks exploits.

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I can see your point there. Something that will help greatly is the fact that this timeline is SOOOOO vastly different. The other added bonus of using Spock-Prime as the "contact" is that it allows me to draw on pretty much every show, movie and book for idea/inspiration.

I could have them explore the Typhon Expanse, do scouting/research for the Genesis Project, go rescue Q from the Source Wall, etc. The Temporal Cold War is in interesting idea as well, likely something to throw in the mix.

Plot twist for your players:

 

The Spock-Prime they've been working for/with is actually a Temporal Cold war agent...against the FED!

I don't think you'd need Khan to get the knowledge of making Augments, besides he's best left to drift into the unexplored depths of the galaxy, until he's thawed out and asked to join a team of unique individuals to...

oh wait, that's Captain America; hard to keep all those Super Soldiers straight.

Also, would the time fleet get involved? Sure, there is a new alternate present to deal with, but the integrity of the Prime timeline is stable (or is it? crossovers?) No sense messing with the time line further. Of course, on the other hand, what is the TimeFleet like in the JJ-timeline.......:D

I'm a little reluctant to toss the Temporal Cold War into this too much, mostly cause I don't want the constant headache of rewriting everything when the group completely hoses the timeline. I don't mind a bit of adaptation but....

Another idea I'm toying around with is having one of Nero's crew survive. The most likely avenues for that are either having not escaped from Rura Penthe or realizing that Nero was batshit crazy and escaped on a shuttle during either the Battle of Vulcan or at the invasion of Earth. That person could then make his way back to the Romulan Empire and spin all kinds of stories and in turn bring them knowledge of advanced technology. Imagine the 23rd century Romulans having the singularity generators or advanced cloak technology. Perhaps he gives them insight into finding additional allies for the Romulans, say the Hirogen or the Taurhai.

I have to admit, my ideas have started to be influenced by the abundance of Star Trek Online I've been playing the past few days.

So I've been thinking more about the Temporal Cold War and I might be warming up to the idea, no pun intended.

Going with my want to have one of Nero's crew escape, perhaps one of them is a Changeling/Undine/Suliban. One of the factions involved in the TCW could have intentionally orchestrated the events between Nemesis and JJ-Trek for the express purpose of creating a new timeline. Their reasoning behind it all was that a new timeline would give them new potential allies in the fight.

This would explain a lot of things. Why the Romulans were experimenting with subspace weapons and Borg technology, how Red Matter was created, etc. While I want to limit the time travel stuff as much as possible, this does sort of fill in the rest of the blanks and give me an ultimate "antagonist" to play against Spock-Prime. Knowing that the other side is "breaking the rules" will justify Spock taking more drastic measures in this timeline.

That's an interesting idea: a member of Nero's crew becoming basicly the anti Spock Prime with only one goal in mind: Protect the Empire! (from it's enemies, itself, and the supernova) If you wanted TCW involvement, perhaps he is a temporal agent, or maybe he was saved at the last second by one (that would limit time travel; he's on his own, perhaps with something to prove his story to current era Romulans). He now acts as an advisor to the Praetor, leading the Star Empire to both un-imagined new technologies and undreamed of glory and conquests, forcing Spock prime to take a similar role to prevent Romulan supremacy.

But what is the end goal, if there IS TCW stuff afoot? Perhaps a more miltaristic Starfleet, secretly lead to new levels of tech and discovery by Spock Prime, goes to war with a greatly empowered Star Empire, eventually leading to the fall of both governments and the rise of a new power (klingons? Borg? Dominon? some new or forgotten race, like the Husnock?)

Interesting thought, concerning the never seen Husnock: Thanks to Time travel, the effect can sometimes create it's own cause. With the changes in the Timeline, they weren't wiped out by an angry Douwd. In their future, they realize what happened to them (somehow) and decide to change the timline to fit their needs, leading them to attempt to start a second Romulan War!

I was hypothesizing something similar with regards to the Temporal Cold War and the Na'kuhl: That they came from a timeline in which Vulcan's diaspora never happened, so the Romulans never came to Romulus and bred with their ancestors, the proto-Remans. That the Hobus explosion happened in the 'original' timeline is an indicator that that entire timeline and its subsidiaries are hostile to their revanchist goals; they could be trying to create timelines just to snarl the various Federations and versions of Romulus against each other.

Some more ideas I've tossed about and am trying to work out.

1) The main antagonist is the Mysterious Humanoid who assisted the Suliban back in the 22nd Century. Since he has limited time manipulation, he seems a likely candidate.

2) At first, he wanted to set about creating as many alternate timelines as possible in order to have more versions of his "minions." He has since figured out that doing so also creates more people that he has to work against. Now he is trying to gather various peoples and technologies together to create *working title* the Eraser Weapon. And no, not the stupid rail gun from that really bad movie. The EW combines transphasic, quantum, chronometric, thalaron, subspace and who knows what else to create the ultimat effect: erasing something from all times, permanently. In other words, if his agents zap say... Jim Kirk with it then Capt. Kirk never exists in any timeline, ever.

3) During his time in the blackhole/time portal, Spock-Prime is visited by the Starfleet agents from the 31st Century. They sort of explain what is going on and recruit him to the cause. That is why the lag between Nero arriving and Spock arriving. They needed Spock to arrive at a certain point, otherwise Nero would have captured him and destroyed the Federation.

4) The Undine, or Species 8472, are actually the next step in evolution/genetic engineering from the Suliban. Certain parties used Eugenics theories combined with Changeling DNA to further evolve the Suliban.

5) Nero and certain members of his crew were actually Undine infiltrators working for the MH. That explains Nero's irrational behavior in the past, ie. not caring that Romulas hadn't been destroyed yet and could possibly be saved.

The obvious corollary is that the Mysterious Humanoid is remains of someone who found out how to deflect the Eraser Weapon... mostly.

Of course, it begs the obvious question: how does the Eraser Weapon tell what counts as 'Jim Kirk'?

I don't know that it really matters on how it knows. It just does. When you are capable making a device that effects space and time to that degree, the details just don't matter. In fact, I'd even go a little rules lawyer and say that in the various rulebooks it flat out says that technology this advanced doesn't have to be explained.

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Originally Posted by Hadeshorn

I don't know that it really matters on how it knows. It just does. When you are capable making a device that effects space and time to that degree, the details just don't matter. In fact, I'd even go a little rules lawyer and say that in the various rulebooks it flat out says that technology this advanced doesn't have to be explained.

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Well yes, you and the rulebook are right. But also no. As Narratoor its probably a good idea to have some vague idea of what it does (even if its a throwaway technobabble description), because players have that weird tendancy to throw a spanner into the works mid-game and you dont want to get derailed by the right question at exactly the wrong moment. ;)

No arguments on that one. After I made my previous post, I thought about it a bit more and came to mostly the same conclusion.

How's this for starters:

The device removes things from the blueprints of the universe at the point of origin. Since there is no "that thing" at the point of origin, it can never exist, no matter the timeline.

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Originally Posted by Hadeshorn

No arguments on that one. After I made my previous post, I thought about it a bit more and came to mostly the same conclusion.

How's this for starters:

The device removes things from the blueprints of the universe at the point of origin. Since there is no "that thing" at the point of origin, it can never exist, no matter the timeline.

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OK... So now add the meaningless technobabble to make that;

"The device erases the existance of it target from temporal existence, causing an existential paradox that converges all timelines and manifests as total erasure of the target from all reality."

I wanted to add the phrase 'known timelines' but I guess I can leave that out as your get-out clause.

You have watched Voyager; Year of Hell right?

Since every version of everything exists simutaneously on various quantum levels, the device analyzes the "Basal Quantum Frequency"( the quantum signature that is inherient in all the various incarantions of the target) of it's target and it creates an "Inverse Quantum Flux" that erases the target. And all variations of the target. Everywhere, Everywhen. :rolleyes:
(how's that?)

So, if you shoot Jim Kirk, peaceful farmer in the Iowa agriculture combine on Earth 232, you take out both Captain James T. Kirk, Admiral Jami T. Kirk, Proconsul Jamus Tiberious Kirk, Captain Unit JTK, Shipmaster Jamul T, Ka'rk, and so on.

I have not seen Year of Hell, but I will add it to my "research list." I've been going through a few of the Enterprise episodes to get the info I need on the Suliban and the TCW.

Combining both of your theories, I've got this:

The device determines the Basal Quantum Frequency of the target. Upon doing so, it fires a Inverse Quantum Flux into the Point of Origin of all universes. The interaction between the Flux and the Point of origin creates an existential paradox thus erasing all incarnations of the object from every reality, permanently.

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Originally Posted by Hadeshorn

I don't know that it really matters on how it knows. It just does. When you are capable making a device that effects space and time to that degree, the details just don't matter. In fact, I'd even go a little rules lawyer and say that in the various rulebooks it flat out says that technology this advanced doesn't have to be explained.

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I'm not asking how it works, or for technobabble. I'm asking what counts as 'Jim Kirk.' I'm asking how 'Jim Kirk' works.

For example, if you shot Will Riker with it, would it also erase Thomas Riker? Does it leave a person-shaped lacuna in space and time, or do events collapse to accomodate the absence? How similar, genetically, would other Riker children in alternate realities have to be to be affected by this device? What about a Will Riker from a universe where his mother ate completely different things during her pregnancy, leading to identical genetic structure but differing absolute molecular identity? Does it erase or redistribute all the molecules that were ever part of you?

Secondarily, wouldn't the very existence of such a weapon preclude the continued existence of... existence? Somewhere in the multiverse, this device is created (or even deposited at the beginning of time from the future of a particular timeline). From that point on, every time someone doesn't fire it in one universe (or even accidentally discharges it), it is fired in the necessarily branching, the positive deleting the first negative. Ultimately, you can't not have fired it at everything, because the effect of any timeline in which you have fired it spills over into the ones in which you have not.

I think you've officially turned my brain into Jell-O.

Maybe I'm not versed enough in temporal/quantum mechanics/theory or maybe you're reading way too much into this. In either case, I only partly understand what you are trying to point out. The things I don't understand are making me want to go caveman rage and start smashing my computer.

However, trying to answer you:

1) Events would collapse to accomodate the absence. Any and everything that had been influenced by that person or thing would be uninfluenced. Thing of it in terms of a reverse Butterfly Effect. If there never was a Butterfly, the tsunami never happened. Hopefully that answers that.

2) Because of the concept of the "original universe" any alterations from Universe to Universe wouldn't matter. Think of it in terms of say.. comic books. If Superman got zapped with this thing, it would erase all Supermans and all derivatives thereof. So, no Superman, no Conner Kent (Kon-El), no Ultraman, no Superboy Prime, no Superman Red-Son, etc. Thus, anything that any of them had ever influenced is suddenly altered to having never encountered the version they encountered.

Hopefully that helps answer some questions.

1. So it removes that sperm from existence, does it preclude another sperm from fertilizing that egg? If another fertilizes it, does it preclude Rikermom from naming the result 'Will'?

2. Of that list, I've only read Red Son. It was light on the multiversal physics. So, um... yeah. Doesn't help.

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Originally Posted by Hadeshorn

1) Events would collapse to accomodate the absence. Any and everything that had been influenced by that person or thing would be uninfluenced. Thing of it in terms of a reverse Butterfly Effect. If there never was a Butterfly, the tsunami never happened. Hopefully that answers that.

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You REALLY need to watch Year of Hell. Your weapon is the main enemy starship and all these erasures can make quite significant deviations to the present (none of which are observable/recordable).

For example. Erase Jim Kirk. He was not there to save Earth. The Federation is now based on Vulcan and humans are a dying species made up of the few off-worlders at the time Earth was detroyed, the legacy of the Enterprise dies out as there is no legendary captains exploits... Sybok becomes a significant force with 'god' on his side... No Eneterprise C to save the Klingons on Nerada III and the Fedration is ravaged by contant war with the Klingons, etc (a bit extreme I know, but you get the drift)

And if your game takes place in the TNG era and this happens, the crew go from Bridge crew on a Sovereign Starship to refugees on a rag tag flet and dont notice.

And your players may have seen the episode and will have an edge on you. A slightly different take would be to erase the target from existence but retain the 'shape' of the timeline. So erase Kirk and the events that kirk took centre stage are maybe those of a healthy Fleet Captain Pike (going with the original casting here for ease of use).

And Temporal mechanics are SUPPOSED to give you a headache if you think about them too hard. Thats why Lucsey and Dulmer of the DTI have worried looks on their faces when they investigate temoral incursions and Kirk gets off scott free just winging it...

Its on my to do list for tonight.

The setting is 6 months post Star Trek. I figure that gives the Enterprise time to get repaired and shipped back out and a few other background details to have taken place, ie. Spock taking charge of Section 31, the Romulans to figure out that the Klingons are ripe for the picking, etc.

I'm going to check those episodes out and post afterwards.

You also could take a look on LUG's All our yesterdays. It features time travel in Star Trek. It's a bit dated and probably hard to get for an reasonable price.
IMHO it could give you some insights for your time problem.

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Originally Posted by Captain Otto

You also could take a look on LUG's All our yesterdays. It features time travel in Star Trek. It's a bit dated and probably hard to get for an reasonable price.
IMHO it could give you some insights for your time problem.

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I found it at Amazon...the new ones are a bit pricey, but the 2nd hand ones are pretty reasonable.

Amazon "All Our Yesterdays"

So far I've watched the first half of Year of Hell.

Definitely giving me some ideas.

More to follow once I finish the 2nd half.

Now, I may get in trouble for asking such a thing, but is there any chance that the owners of the LUG material may sell PDF formats of the LUG books?

The LUG materials are owned by WOTC. The chance of WOTC selling .PDFs, even if they had the rights from Paramount, is approximately 0.0%

If you have a Bittorrent client, some of the TNG books are available on Kick-Ass Torrents in a bundle with a bunch of Decipher stuff. All Our Yesterdays is not among them.

Oy.

Yeah, I don't see how I can write this timeline without including something about the Krenim. At the very least, I would think they would be something that Spock-Prime would be concerned about. I guess now I need to figure out the "end goal" of the Mysterious Humanoid is.

I think my next piece of research will be Shockwave 1 and 2.

Maybe it could look like he is trying to make the timeline worse when in fact he is trying to correct something?

So, I'm thinking about taking out the Mysterious Figure from the plot line and taking some more pages from STO and having the Iconians be the main antagonists of the story.