I am currently working on a new item for my website. I'm attempting to make a list of all known alternative universes/dimensions/continuums and timelines, and I need your help.
First, what is the difference between a dimension, a universe and a continuum anyway?
I have compiled this list of alternative places: the Q Continuum Time exists but the Q are immortal, space is non-existant, only the minds of the Q are present. Fluidic space Home of Sp. 8472. Anything else known? What would "Fluidic Space" actually be? Antimatter Continuum A universe built of antimatter. Contact between "identical" matter and antimatter causes total annihilation for both the matter and antimatter universes. From that very silly "The Alternative Factor". the Mirror Universe Alternate timeline or alternate universe/dimension? Subspace? Is subspace also an alternate reality? We heard of creatures living inside subspace in TNG.
Any more universes or dimensions?
[ December 29, 2001: Message edited by: Harry ]
Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :
"Yesterdays' Enterprise" Klingon War Alternate Reality
"Parallels" Multiple Quantum Realities
"Assimilated Earth" Alternate Reality (ST:FC)
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
All Good Things: Alternative past timeline where the Enterprise is destroyed, and alternative future timeline where it wasn't destroyed in First Contact. You could argue that the original timeline never happened once the anti-time anomoly was destroyed, and that the alternatve future was in fact the original future, and the timeline we are currently in is now an "alternative" one, altered by Picard blabbing the events of this story to the crew.
Generations: Tiny alternative timeline where the Soran succeeds.
I've always been off the opinion that when the Enterprise-C went back in time in Yesterday's Enterprise, is also altered the timeline, so that the 50 year silence period was greatly reduced. Future episodes (such as Redemption) show that Starfleet has knowledge of what the Romulans were up to prior to "The Neutral Zone".
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
Okay, okay I know about all the different timelines from the Chronology book. Have there since been any major timeline-changing episodes, apart from the DS9 Mirror Universe eps? I choose not to talk about Enterprise yet, because it is still unclear what's exactly going on.
Is there anyone here who actually understands that anti-time blahblah and what it had to do with the past, present and future in AGT?
I was also wondering if there were ever any other 'other dimensions' and stuff like that in TOS or the modern series?
I just remember the "Counter-Clock Incident" episode of TAS. Could that continuum where time flowed backwards have had anything to do with the anti-time phenomenon?
[ December 29, 2001: Message edited by: Harry ]
Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :
Doubtful.
There aren't too many other Alt-Timeline episodes, although there are otherdimensional shows, like the VOY ones about Fluidic Space and Chaotic Space and Photonic Space (Oh, and the 'Interspace' that the original Defiant disappeared into in "The Tholian Web."
And the Alt-Timeline in DS9 when the Defiant crashes and we meet the descendants of the crew.
And the time-bending in "Sound of Her Voice" just came to mind.
There's also a lot of fanfic and RPG stuff about Alternate Universes. I could dig some of that up.
[ December 29, 2001: Message edited by: First of Two ]
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Not to be unbearably pedantic, but a dimension isn't the same thing as a universe. Strictly speaking, it's a direction, a measurement. An object which extends in more dimensions than the ones we can percieve doesn't exist in a different universe. Just this one, in directions we can't see.
Of course, this particular definition, while I'd say technically correct, is ignored by everyone. So it isn't really that important.
Posted by The Red Admiral (Member # 602) on :
There's plenty of these, here's some.
'Non Sequitur': Kim sort of existed for a while in an alternate/artificial timeline.
'Deadlock': An alternate Voyager, existing in an alternate/parallel timeline.
'Before and After': Kes saw her life run backwards and saw, interacted within and affected the timeline as she went backwards.
'Future's End': 'That horrible Braxton paradox' - the writers made a right mess of that, and again in 'Relativity'.
'Timeless': Kim and Chakotay in the other future timeline'
'Year of Hell': Timeline Hell!
'Shattered': Chakotay visits several points in time (this possibly counts)
$$$ 'Endgame': The future Janeway etc.
Others... (TNG)
'Time Squared': The other Picard from the other alternate timeline.
'Cause and Effect': A repeated slice of the timeline. (sort of counts)
'Tapestry': Q induced more than one variant to the timeline for Picard.
DS9..
'Past Tense': Picard and Bashir affected the timeline in the 21st century, hence creating a new one.
'Visionary': The Chief witness several future timelines, some were eventually changed.
'The Visitor': The future Jake lived a lifetime in another timeline.
'Trials and Tribble-ations': Minor infringements to the timeline were probably made.
'Children of Time': An alternate timeline created, and then destroyed.
Hope this helps
Posted by Ryan McReynolds (Member # 28) on :
quote:Originally posted by Sol System: Not to be unbearably pedantic, but a dimension isn't the same thing as a universe. Strictly speaking, it's a direction, a measurement. An object which extends in more dimensions than the ones we can percieve doesn't exist in a different universe. Just this one, in directions we can't see.
Coincidentally, I just happen to be reading The Elegant Universe by Dr. Brian Greene at the moment... specifically, the section describing why string theory requires an eleven-dimensional spacetime.
Great book. It's like A Brief History of Time on crack.
Posted by targetemployee (Member # 217) on :
I think that it would be very interesting to see what names are given to the dimensions and then compare that list with an alien. The result of that discussion could be rather amusing. I am of the opinion that as there are many different species of intelligent beings, there are just as many different ways of saying the same things.
I know that we have named three of the dimensions: length , width , and volume . Have we arrived at a name for the fourth dimension? And have we decided on the number of dimensions? And, does an understanding of dimensions, helpe us to expand our current understanding and create new understandings?
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
The four dimensions we can grasp are x,y,z (space) and t (time).
quote: Generations: Tiny alternative timeline where the Soran succeeds.
Actually, the timeline where Soran succeeds is the main timeline, since he didn't actually alter the flow of time in the universe; he just blew up a couple of stars. The altered timeline began when Picard and Kirk came out of the Nexus to stop him. The original timeline was never restored.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
I think TE was referring to a fourth spatial dimension...
And there's no such thing as an "original" and an "altered" timeline. You have a single timeline, and it splits into two futures. Neither one is "original" or "altered". They're just separate. If anything, you'd have to call the Soran-is-unsuccessful timeline the "right" one, because that's the one the rest of Trek takes place in afterwards.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Visit the Enterprise Forum and you'll find the theory that TOS, TAS, TNG, DS9, And VOY are all an alternate timeline
No, seriously.
I would add the Celestial Temple to the list. It apparently exists outside space-time with only occational minglings. It reminds me of the Q-Continuum in some respects. Time is messed up and apparently sort of happens all at once, but not really. One wonders if they they can see all time line variations or if their reality changes everythime someone (or they themselves) mess with the timeline.
Speaking of which, add the timeline created in "The Visitor" when Sisko "died" and apparntly the Dominion War never happened.
Posted by Woodside Kid (Member # 699) on :
quote: They're just separate. If anything, you'd have to call the Soran-is-unsuccessful timeline the "right" one, because that's the one the rest of Trek takes place in afterwards.
I never said that it wasn't the "right" timeline, TSN. But it was the original one, in the sense that it was the timeline in place when the film began. If Picard had succumbed to the enticements of life in the Nexus, that timeline would still be in place, and, presumably, everyone on Earth would have been assimilated because Picard and the E-E wouldn't have been there to prevent it in "First Contact." That timeline ceased to exist in its unaltered state when Picard brought Kirk out of the Nexus. Everything that takes place afterwards in the Trek universe takes place in a different timeline. As I stated in my original post, this is not a restoration of a timeline changed (by accident or intent). It is the creation of an entirely new series of events by changing a point in the past.
In the type of scenario you describe, for example, I have two futures, depending on whether or not I step off the curb and get killed by a bus. That is not what happens in "Generations." The movie scenario has my brother coming back in time from next week to keep me from stepping off the curb, because he knows I've already been killed.
The key is the point of view of the observer. It may be a choice of two futures at Soran's point in the timeline, but Picard's actions in the Nexus are well past that point (as are we, watching the film). He's not selecting a possible future; he's altering an unpalatable past. Not the same animal at all.
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
'If you'd like to know, I can tell you that in your universe you move freely in three dimensions that you call space. You move in a straight line in a fourth, which you call time, and stay rooted to one place in a fifth, which is the first fundamental of probability. After that it gets a bit complicated, and there's all sorts of stuff going on in dimensions thirteen to twenty-two that you really wouldn't want to know about."
--The Guide Mark II, "Mostly Harmless"
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Well, you could call it "original" because it's the first one we see in the movie, or because it happens first from Picard's POV, or whatever, but that's still not accurate. From an objective POV, you have a single timeline up until the point where Picard and Kirk emerge from the Nexus. At the point, the timeline branches into one where they emerge, and one where they don't. Both of these timelines have an equal claim to being the continuation of their parent timeline. Neither one is "original" or "altered".
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Only if you're going for the "a new reality is created with every decision" theory. Trek goes for whatever theory is wants to at that time. So "Parallels" goes for that idea, but something like "Yesterday's Enterprise" has an alternative reality replacing the original, and then itself getting replaced by a "restored" timeline.
As an aside, PAD used the first theory with the second idea in "Q Squared", when he had a reality where the warship Enterprise-D came across the Enterprise-C a few hours later than it did in the altered reality from "Yesterday's Enterprise". In that universe, the war with the Klingons-timeline was actually the "correct" one.
I always thought that the fourth dimension was time. Although thinking about it, I might have got that from Douglas Adams, and he did have a tendancy to make stuff up. Did he remove that from his anus, or was he quoting scientific theory?
Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
That means there is an alternate version of me who decided not to read this frelling thread and reply to it. He is by far luckier
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
We can "see" four dimensions. Out of those four, the first three are spatial, and the fourth one is time.
But you can also talk about a fourth spatial dimension beyond the three we already see.
When someone says "fourth dimension", you just have to know what they're talking about. It could be either of the above.
Posted by mrneutron (Member # 524) on :
quote:Originally posted by TSN: When someone says "fourth dimension", you just have to know what they're talking about.
...And when they say "Fifth Dimension" you start singing "The Age of Aquarius" and "Let the Sunshine In"... Posted by Austin Powers (Member # 250) on :
That sounds like truly one-dimensional thinking to me...
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I know about all the different timelines from the Chronology book. Have there since been any major timeline-changing episodes, apart from the DS9 Mirror Universe eps? I choose not to talk about Enterprise yet, because it is still unclear what's exactly going on.![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
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