All Our Yesterdays...haunting...

I was falling asleep last night and was thinking about the remastered version of this episode and was completely left haunted by the image of the planet being destroyed...

Brilliant enhancement of the episode.

It left me wondering whether the people did stay alive in the past or was it a sort of holodeck that was destroyed along with the planet. After all, if they can return to the library, there's a connection with the present...

 

I love this episode, but wouldn't sending billions of people into the planet's past to escape the supernova alter the fragile series of events that led to the development of the Atavachon in the first place? Think about how much McCoy changed Earth's history in COTEOF just by preventing the death of one person.

 

How do you think they were able to invent the Atavachron except by the support of their future selves guiding their own history to its invention?

(See also: ``Compounded Interest'', Mack Reynolds.)

 

Perhaps that is exactly what they want. By going into the past they can influence and accelerate the progression of technology, hopefully to a point where in the future they may be able to escape their solar system or reverse the natural aging of a star or whatever is necessary to ensure their survival as a species.

 

Or were the people who travelled back already part of the planet's history before they went, predestined to contribute to the makeup of their present civilisation?

 

I like the episode simply because it had a different spin on time travel than most of the other time travel episodes.

Perhaps fitting into the flow of history could have been part of the process of being prepared. Maybe death from not being prepared was a way of eliminating paradoxes.

 

Actually, when they "prepare" you, they're murdering someone in the past whose place you then take.

Now THERE's a plot twist!

 

?

Zarabeth was prepared, but she did not take the place of anyone.

 

I wasn't serious, ya silly.

 

Jocularity on a Star Trek message board? Surely you can't be serious!

 

Yes!!

 

This episode was so-so for me. The whole prepared idea wasn't my favorite. Seemed too easy and obviously not explained. The acting and guests were terrific though.

 

The episode kind of makes me mad because at the beginning, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy don't just say that they're aliens as an explanation to Atoz and what were they even doing on an apparent non-spacefaring planet anyway?

 

You'd think they wouldn't give the Prime Directive much more than a brush over considering the planet is about to be destroyed anyway. Can't contaminate a species that is going to be extinct in a few hours.

 

Don't call me Shirley.

 

How dare you post something that would be misunderstood. That is the kind of thing that happens on that intrawebs place, not here in real life....

 

Does leave the question what the gang was supposed to accomplish, visiting a world in its last couple hours. Find the remaining Sarpeidonites and go ``HA-haw'' at them?

 

Record everything possible. Sift through it all later to see if there is something the Federation can use. Hold onto their cultural record as another "lost species". Starfleet loves finding lost cultures and recording everything about them.

 

That's a good point. The opening Captain's Log suggests they're beaming down to find out why they aren't detecting any people, when a whole population was known to be there a short while ago.

It must have gone like this:

CAST: Wouldn't we just explain that we have a starship that will be beaming us up soon?

DIRECTOR: Of course. But if you say that, we don't have a show.

 

The opening log does suggest that Starfleet has previously studied this place with the Prime Directive kid gloves on, and is now paying a somewhat morbid final visit, expecting to see billions die. However, Kirk is surprised to find that there are no victims in evidence any more, and goes to investigate.

As for the heroes telling that they don't need to be saved... Why would they tell Mr Atoz that? They want to be rescued - that is, they want to know how everybody else was rescued. There isn't much time, so playing along will pay off, while trying to explain will only waste that precious time.

Timo Saloniemi