The Conundrum of Star Trek’s Mixed up Timeline

As everyone knows by now, all the history of “Star Trek” is completely screwed up and has been screwed up for years, possibly decades, because of all the time travel episodes. J.J. Abrams’ “Star Trek” movie essentially wiped out the history of Star Trek (the original series), Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Star Trek: Voyager. However, the history of Star Trek: Enterprise remains intact because the reset point occurs after the first Enterprise has returned to Earth and the United Federation of Planets has been formed.

Among the many time paradoxes that the reset introduces is the question of whether the Federation still meets the Borg and whether the Borg still go back in time to attack the Earth. If Picard still meets Q do they meet at the same point in history and under the same circumstances as in the original series (that is, ST:TNG).

If Zefrem Cochrane is still floating around somewhere in space, trapped by an alien entity that is lonely, will he be found by Captain Kirk and crew? Will Tuvok be born and thus serve upon Voyager? Will Chakotay still join the Maquis? Will Guinan befriend Picard? Will Worf be rescued from the Khitomer colony by Sergey Rozhenko? The future of the Klingon Empire depends on these and other questions, as do the futures of multitudes of peoples scattered across the galaxy.

I am reminded of the two-part Voyager story “Year of Hell”, where Voyager encounters a non-Federation timeship whose captain is determined to create a timeline where his people’s enemies don’t exist (or are defeated) and his wife survives. No matter what the alien captain does, he only makes matters worse.

The lack of logic that complicates the Star Trek timeline may provide plenty of opportunity for revisiting old storylines but I suspect that — should the franchise enjoy an extended lease on life due to the Abrams Reset — future writers will simply develop new storylines and characters. Fans generally seemed to like the re-interpretation of Kirk and Company (despite some grumbling from revisionist reactionaries in the wings) but Star Trek is not about the crew, it’s about the experience of exploring humanity’s possible future as we move out into the galaxy.

How will we choose to interact with alien civilizations should we find the means to contact and communicate with them? Will human paradigms suffice to propel us to the lead position that Gene Roddenberry and his successors have imagined? Will alien races be similar enough to us that we can actually interact with them in a human-like society such as the Federation?

It can be argued (and probably has been by his fans many times over) that Michael J. Straczynski’s Babylon-5 takes a different approach to exploring human interaction with alien societies. Not all of the alien cultures Stracynski’s humanity interacts with think in human terms — or, as seems to be implied by the final episode — humanity hasn’t yet learned to think in the same terms as more advanced alien species.

There are certain milestones in the history of Star Trek which changed the course of the franchise’s priorities. For example, “Star Trek: Generations” killed off Captain Kirk — thus eliminating him from any probably future impact on the future, or the past. Symbolically the movie handed off the cinematic chapter of the franchise to the TNG crew but they do not appear in as many movies as the original cast. Nor do the TNG movies create an interesting story arc such as the ST II, III, and IV which essentially follows the evolution of Spock’s character from a place where he is sort of stuck (in fact, it’s Kirk who acts like he feels trapped in “The Wrath of Khan” but Spock’s place at the academy highlights the lack of growth in the character’s career as a source of stories) to a place where he can be the center of interesting and compelling dramatic sub-plots.

Some people have suggested through the years that Kirk was not complex enough to be a really interesting character. His complexity arose from the evolving sequence of events into which he was thrust: first we were told he had a brother (and nephew); then we were told he had a son; then the son was killed by Klingons. Spock, on the other hand, early on received the complexity of being half-human (after the first pilot) who was struggling to cope with the bridge between his humanity and his alien heritage. The conflict between Vulcan and Earth in Spock’s bloodline was not fully resolved until the scene in “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home” where Spock and Sarek bid farewell to each other: Spock finally embraces his humanity without sacrificing his Vulcanity. Sarek seems perplexed by Spock’s choice.

Of course, the character of Sarek is also complex. In the Abrams Reset we find that Sarek is more willing and open to talk to his son about emotions and how they affect Vulcans. I think the Abrams’ interpretation of Sarek reflects decades of people questioning the motives and values of the Vulcans. The re-interpretation of Sarek attempts to reconcile the conflict between Logic and Emotion within the Vulcan culture all at once, raising and answering the questions that were encountered through many episodes of various series in the franchise.

This new interpretation of Vulcans removes much of the doubt and perhaps all of the curiosity that fans might have felt originally. It is almost as if the writers were saying, “We’re changing this all-too-familiar universe but we cannot change what the Vulcans are or what we have learned about them.” Spock remains the only chaotic focal point — the only character capable of change and evolution — in the Vulcan corner. Hence, the Vulcans are dismissed and sent off to rebuild their culture and civilization.

A Vulcanless or Vulcan-lite Federation may provide for some interesting new storylines. The Vulcans were never really pivotal in the majority of Star Trek story arcs but Vulcan characters were often pivotal. If Vulcans are removed from the common experience of the characters, should not Vulcan characters take on a new social and political value that moves the writers to consider new implications of their presence? Maybe the destruction of Vulcan has created an opportunity to revitalize the Vulcan mystique.

A Borg-less Star Trek provides some opportunity for rediscovering the larger part of the galaxy with a different point of view. That’s not to say that the Borg should be ignored. But rather, perhaps new lessons can be learned before the Federation meets Q and the Borg. Maybe the Federation can prove its worth to the Q Continuum in a different way. But perhaps I am looking at this the wrong way. The Borg have become so intrinsically part of the Star Trek franchise that producers routinely invoke them to revive sagging ratings.

Maybe the Abrams Reset provides an opportunity to scale back the Borg and make Star Trek less about defeating the Borg and more about discovering other possible alien threats to humanity. Symbolically, the Borg represent what we could become if we allow our dependence upon machines to proceed — if we seek consensus at the expense of individual choice. But now having addressed that issue Star Trek is free to look at other alien threats that actually represent threats from within.

We need the time travel episodes to help us reset the board or redraw the boundaries of our imagination so that we can continue playing the game without having to paint ourselves into logical corners. Star Trek’s time travel is the eraser that wipes the slate clean and says, “Okay, let’s start over and see where else we can boldly go.”