TransWikia.com

Why was it acceptable to provide the alternative timeline with trans-warp beaming equations/formula?

Science Fiction & Fantasy Asked by Jared on December 13, 2020

Stated in the Star Trek (2009) movie, Montgomery Scott had postulated trans-warp beaming to allow an object or person to travel large distance by beaming from one location to the next.

What I didn’t understand was, spoilers:

Why was it ok for classic Spock to reveal this information and not other things? Seems like a pretty big violation of his time-code ethics.

5 Answers

It was not acceptable. As a matter of fact, it was in direct violation of the Temporal Prime Directive - Regulation 157, Section 3 (Paragraph 18): Starfleet officers shall take all necessary precautions to minimize any participation in historical events. (DS9: "Trials and Tribble-ations")

  • Federation Temporal Policies normally forbid any time traveler from interacting with or changing through action, any period, past or future by a member of Star Fleet.
  • The goal of the Temporal Prime Directive is to maintain the future as it was known and to promote a future which ensured the continued existence of the Federation.

The Temporal Prime Directive was a fundamental Starfleet principle.

All Starfleet personnel are strictly forbidden from directly interfering with historical events and are required to maintain the timeline and prevent history from being altered. It also restricts people from telling too much about the future, so as not to cause paradoxes or alter the timeline. The Temporal Prime Directive is directly related to the Prime Directive.

So why did he do it?

  • From Prime Spock's perspective, the timeline had already suffered catastophic changes with the arrival of the Narada from the future-Prime timeline. Mere scans of the ship had carried a variety of future tech to this new timeline, at a far earlier period than they were previously developed.

  • Along with the harm the Narada caused, the ships it crippled or damaged in battle and with the destruction of Vulcan, Prime Spock thought he would be able to mitigate further damage to the timeline by bringing Kirk and Spock back together.

  • Prime Spock reasoned that like in his timeline, the interactions of Kirk, Spock and the legendary crew of the Enterprise would be enough to stop the Narada and prevent further temporal contamination or the destruction of Earth and the heart of the Federation.

From our perspective, this new timeline bears less resemblance to the Federation of the Prime Universe but the Federation still exists and since Prime Spock did not appear to be able to return home, he considered the use of the Trans-Warp beaming technology to be a viable price to pay to save the Federation at large. He probably believes the Federation will grow to resemble his Federation farther into the future.

It was not an ideal situation, nor choice, but if the Temporal Police still existed, they would probably be forced to allow the changes which took place because they were part of a major transformative event. Unfortunately we don't know if the Temporal Police will exist/do exist in the Star Trek 2009 universe's future.

Correct answer by Thaddeus Howze on December 13, 2020

Spock was trying to repair the damage done to the timeline by Nero.

Spock would have determined that he had to get the Kirk back on the Enterprise to get things as close to the old timeline as possible.

Answered by djm on December 13, 2020

One thing to consider here is why did the temporal police in the prime universe allow the timeline to be altered in the first place?

Considering this assumption, one solution is that it was just beyond their control, or beyond their capacity to amend.

As it stands the temporal police seems useless if such a universe altering event can just slip by them.

Answered by Randolph Holmes on December 13, 2020

It's because this can't possibly affect the future that Classic Spock knows.

This is a parallel universe (Of the alternate timeline variety), and events have shaped themselves such that they are already out of alignment with what historically should be happening.

The temporal prime directive only applies to an intact timeline. Spock Classic knows that Kirk is supposed to be on the Enterprise at that very moment, and that Vulcan should not be so...destroyed. So he's already well aware that history has been irreversably altered.

This is in keeping with the ending where it is revealed:

In short: The temporal prime directive no longer applies because this is no longer the timeline he remembers or came from.

Answered by Zibbobz on December 13, 2020

The problems arose because ST:TNG writers took it upon themselves to make these additions. They had to find a way to explain the direction they wanted to take Star Trek to. The first four movies closely followed story-lines begun in TOS. The more recent movies are predicated on the screwed up story-lines created by JJ Abrams.

Answered by Frank C Moreno on December 13, 2020

Add your own answers!

Ask a Question

Get help from others!

© 2024 TransWikia.com. All rights reserved. Sites we Love: PCI Database, UKBizDB, Menu Kuliner, Sharing RPP