Grand Unification Theory (Part 4)

Timelines, and universes.

So, it took me three parts (1, 2, 3) but I've broken it all down to wormholes.

Now, we toss in the next ingredient.
Tangent timelines, and alternate realities.

I figure, they're exactly the same thing.
And, that anything that has said otherwise has been some smoke and mirrors.

But, let's start with looking at how Trek has tackled the subject over the years....

Well, of course, there was the mirror universe from Classic Trek's "mirror, mirror", that was the first.

Then, in "The Tholian Web", there was a "spatial interphase", where the fabric of space overlapped with an unknown amount of parallel universes (I seem to recall either "unlimited", or "infinite", being in there, but none of the usual sources will confirm it).

Then, it would later turn out that the interphase from "Tholian Web", connected to the mirror universe, and in the past, in Archer's time in "In A Mirror Darkly".

Then, in TNG's "Parallels", Worf became unstuck from reality, and encountered...well, a shitload of parallel timelines, and Geordi techno-babbled forth the theory of quantum time.

So...if "unlimited", or "infinite", was indeed mentioned in "Tholian Web",...they kinda nailed it decades ahead of time.

So, if there are all these parallel timelines, and they all have their own mirror universes, and the mirror universes have their parallel timelines....well, it all cancels out, doesn't it?
"The mirror universe", is but one of many parallel quantum-timelines.

And "Tholian web", set that all up.

Also, any altered timeline created by time-travel in Trek is an alternate timeline.

Trek can't have it both ways.
Time can't fraction when they need it to, but be changeable when they want it to.

The way I look at it, every time our heroes create a timeline alteration in their favor....they split off into a tangent timeline, and vanish forever from their timeline of origin.

Spock can't help to create the JJ-timeline, but then also think when he saved the whales, he came back to the exact same Starfleet.

Ditto Picard in "First Contact".

In fact, every Trek time-travel story from "the naked time", onward has to be re-examined.
...but don't worry, I'm not going to do that here.
Have fun with that your own self.

But...when I do my own quick calculation on it...the only way I can see that the characters square it....is to just not care.

Like, in Voyager's "Deadlock", when Harry Kim died, but also got replaced by a time-copy.
Everyone was basically like "eh, good enough".

The Starfleet officer attitude to time-travel seems to be, deal with the universe you find yourself in...but if you manage to create one you find beneficial...go with it.

Of course, this conflicts with the vaunted "temporal prime directive", and the existence of the department of Temporal Investigations.

But...a lot of bullshit about Starfleet as an organization is just plain screwey, so...fuck it.

Anyway, if Kirk and company don't seem to care that there's a universe where the whale-probe killed everyone they ever knew....why should we sweat it?
Let's move on.

But, what about exotic alternate universes?

Well, seems to me, in an infinite web of alternate quantum-timelines, you wouldn't just see timelines where Elvis lived, Hitler won, and Van Gogh got put on lithium, but...ones where when the very laws of reality formed at the moment of the big bang, they went askew, creating radically different universes.

And in these, you'd have wacky things like The Q Continuum, the world of the clicky-things from TNG's "Schisms", that universe filled all up with honey from Voyager's "Scorpion", and wherever the fuck Lazarus from "The Alternate Factor", ended up.

If fractional time can make all those, and fractional time is part of "the multiverse", and "universe", really describes everything that is, then, the multiverse is the universe, and there are no "other universes".

So, timelines and "universes", are the same thing.

In Trek.

But, any timeline that splits off of Trek is part of the Trek multiverse too.

And, bammo, Trek has vicariously connected to Transformers, G.I Joe, and Ghostbusters, via "Infestation".

And, directly to X-Men, and The Legion Of Superheroes.

And that branches out to everything they connect to, and everything they connect to, and so on....

Which, covers pretty much everything.

And, putting them all into the Trek multiverse puts them under Trek rules.

Which, all fits in pretty well.

Star Wars hyperdrive is just some variation on warp/wormhole drive.
And that gets the job done just the same.

Teleporters are teleporters, rayguns are rayguns, and so on, and so on....

It only gets a bit hinky....when we get into magical beings....

And, that's coming up next, in "Gods, wizards, wands, spellbooks, and Lovecraft".