It looks like Paramount Pictures and CBS Studios won’t be pulling an Obamacare and embracing the haters’ nomenclature with Star Trek. While previous Star Trek series and movies all existed in a single line of continuity — running (setting aside some time travel hijinks) from the launch of the Enterprise NX-01 in 2151 through the Dominion War in the latter half of the 24th century — 2009’s Star Trek created a divergent timeline, caused by attacks on Federation planets and ships by the bitter, time-travelling Romulan, Nero. This new timeline has been derisively labeled the “Abramsverse” after Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness director J.J. Abrams, who many blame for the perceived Star Wars-ification of the Star Trek movie series. But now CBS has an official name for the schismatic timeline: the Kelvin Timeline.
The new name was revealed by Star Trek Online lead designer Al Rivera on Twitter.
FYI, "Kelvin Timeline" is the official name for that universe timeline according to CBS.
— Al Rivera (@CaptainGeko) June 21, 2016
The Star Trek MMORPG recently confirmed that Kelvin Timeline stuff would be folded into the game. However, Abramsverse material will not be replacing the Prime timeline ships and characters. Instead, there will be overlap, caused by a “strange temporal anomaly” in the wake of the Hobus supernova explosion.
CBS providing an official name for the Kelvin Timeline (named after the ship Nero destroyed after first emerging from the wormhole into the past at the beginning of 2009’s Star Trek) leads to all sorts of interesting speculation about the upcoming 2017 Star Trek series coming to CBS All Access. Does CBS creating an official name suggest the show will be set in the Kelvin Timeline? Or is this a marginalization, reducing the new Star Trek movies to little more than a severe temporal anomaly in the eyes of CBS and its Prime Universe Trek?
We don’t know for sure yet. Even rumors and leaks from inside the upcoming Star Trek production have been sharply divided on whether it would be set in the original timeline or in the Abramsverse.
At least this new official label suggests CBS is giving some serious thought on how to balance the original Trek timeline against the Abrams—sorry, Kelvin Timeline.
