I’m sure there’s a valid reason, but I’ve got no idea what it is. Why “Kelvin?” Is that a reference to a character in the original Star Trek continuity?
So the timeline of the new Trek movies starts with the villain Nero going back in time. When he gets there, he destroys a ship called the USS Kelvin. That ship was not destroyed in the original Star Trek timeline, so the new timeline is called that because the Kelvin’s destruction was the first major point of divergence that lead to the other changes in that timeline
Canonically, Nero started in the OG/main timeline, in the 24th century (Some time after DS9/Voyager, or the movies with Picard like nemisis.) He was the captain of a mining ship, then there was a star that went kaboom; and destroyed the romulan homeworld.
Old Spock was working as an ambassador and was bringing Magic Red Stuff™ to stop the supernova by creating a black hole or something. In any case, they arrived way too late, Romulus was destroyed anyway, the supernova was stopped (not how physics works, but okay,); and the Jellyfish (Old-Spock’s ship) and the Narada (Nero’s ship) were sucked into a black hole. the black hole sent them back in time; the Narada to an earlier point, Old-Spock to a not-so-recent timeline.
The USS Kelvin was destroyed after Spock came back, responding to a distress single and getting the shit kicked out it. the Kelvin, incidentally, was commanded by George Kirk, James T. Kirk’s father. (in the OG timeline, George was present in Kirk’s life, etc. Which completely changed Kirk’s nature.)
Nero’s and Spock’s presence irrevocably altered that timeline, creating a different universe. Because the Kelvin was where things started diverging significantly, and because Fans are fairly simple minded… (sorry.) … this timeline is now called the ‘Kelvin timeline’
Out of universe, Abrams found that the OG lore background was far to restricting, and didn’t allow him his much-abused lenses-flares. so he threw a tantrum and created a new timeline that would allow him his, “creative” liberties.
Abrams wanted to have Starkiller Base blow up Coruscant in “The Force Awakens” but he wasn’t allowed so he made up Hosnian Prime as an indistinguishable stand-in. He seems to really like blowing up a key planet whenever he takes over a setting.
Shoulda blown up Coruscant. I never liked that place anyway.
Too much sand?
/s
In the movie where he said the star threatened the entire galaxy I kinda giggled and had a think about it. I figured the only way it would threaten the galaxy would be the political implications.
Now if someone found a way to detonate Sag A*…
They did that in Andromeda. Used a shit loading nova bombs to turn a black hole into a white hole.
Yeah. The science makes as much sense there too.
It’s called the Fahrenheit timeline in North America,
In Canada anybody born after 1990 says Celcius timeline. Everyone before uses Fahrenheit
Actually, the Rankine timeline would probably be a better comparison.
Absolutely!
Because the first thing Nero does when he arrives back in time is destroy the USS Kelvin (the ship where Kirk’s father is killed), and thus setting that universe off onto its new timeline. It could have been called anything, but someone decided on that one thing.
They need to stop putting Hemsworth in charge of ships. They keep getting destroyed by time traveling bad guys.
Apparently one of the first changed events in the timeline was that the ship that went back in time attacked the USS Kelvin.
https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Kelvin_timeline#Nomenclature
Because JJ Abrams uses the name Kelvin in a lot of his works. I think it was his grandfather or something. But in Star Trek specifically, it is the name of the ship around which the events that the divergent timeline started.
