[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by Solitaire1

The following is my own view on the new Star Trek movie and its resulting timelines (I'll put it in a spoiler for those who've not seen the movie):

Spoiler:

The way the movie presented it, I think that there are the following timelines:

- When Nero and Crew (N&C) reappears the timeline splits in two and these are the results:

-- Timeline One: N&C does not appear. This is the original timeline.

-- Timeline Two: N&C reappears. The beginning of the movie takes place in this timeline.

- When Spock-Prime reappears, once again the timeline splits in two with the following resulting timelines:

-- Timeline One: Original timeline, neither N&C and/or Spock-Prime reappear.

-- Timeline Two: N&C does appear but Spock-Prime does not reappear. Again, the beginning of the movie takes place in this timeline.

-- Timeline Three: N&C and Spock-Prime both reappear. This is the timeline where the movie takes place.

To me, once N&C and Spock-Prime left the original timeline they can never return to it.

I am not sure I completely agree...

Spoiler:

I think it is fairly well established in Star Trek that simply going to the past does not in itself alter the timeline. At some point the person who went into the past has to do something to significantly alter the timeline. In the case of the movie, this clearly happens when Nero is responsible for the death of Captain Kirk's father. Lets say The Enterprise E had followed Nero back to the past and defeated him before he took this action, then they and Spock Prime could have returned to their original time line.