Tomorrow is Yesterday

[Magellan]

I just can't make any sense of it

It's already hard enough to understand Kirk letting Capt(or Major according the credits) Christopher access to the ship. I guess I can accept Kirks momentary lapse of judgement perhaps as the after effects of the black star(and the needs of the plot). I'm even willing to accept that Bones couldn't concoct some 23rd century roofies to confuse all Christophers memories.

But how can the ending make any possible sense.

Option 1. As the travel through time everything seems to return to its "in time" state. Hence beaming Christopher back into his own body as if nothing happened. This sorta explains the absence of the other Enterprise because there is somehow only one now...err the one flying around.....maybe? But if Christopher loses his memory why doesn't Kirk and co. ? I think this is what the writer was going for but I can't wrap my head around how it is supposed to work.

Option 2. Alternate timeline version. Kirk was full of crap and they just killed Christopher. Still doesn't make sense to me. They clearly didn't travel further back than the Enterprises original arrival in this timeline. Christopher is only even in the plane to intercept the Enterprise. It has to exist in this timeline also but where is it? Why does it vanish?

 

[ZapBrannigan]

When the Enterprise came back from its trip around the sun, there were two copies each of Captain Christopher and the Air Police Sergeant. I think the copies who knew too much were beamed into oblivion. So option 2 for me. ''

The Enterprise disappears from the prior timeline (to which we return to ditch the two guys), because that earlier version of the Enterprise is the one that left to fly around the sun, and is thus one and the same as the returning Enterprise.

Put another way, the ship was not duplicated the way Christopher was, because it did not exist here prior to its arrival at the beginning of the episode.

 

[Maurice]

In other words: it makes not a lick of sense.

 

[Tracy Trek]

I've always wondered how beaming Christopher or the other guy into their own bodies in a slightly earlier time is going to make them forget.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

I've always wondered how beaming Christopher or the other guy into their own bodies in a slightly earlier time is going to make them forget.

They don't really get beamed into their own bodies. Their mass and density would instantly double, and they would die. What happens is,

1. The Transporter dematerializes the man on the pad.

2. The Transporter scans the destination and finds that "he" is already there. The machine doesn't know there are two of him.

3. Having found that transport appears to be complete (even though it never got started), the Transporter disposes of the disassembled matter stream by spewing it into space (this is like a steam valve, because everything has to go somewhere), and it wipes the pattern buffer that held his re-assembly instructions.

Thus the copy who knew too much is gone.

 

[Magellan]

When the Enterprise came back from its trip around the sun, there were two copies each of Captain Christopher and the Air Police Sergeant. I think the copies who knew too much were beamed into oblivion. So option 2 for me. ''

The Enterprise disappears from the prior timeline (to which we return to ditch the two guys), because that earlier version of the Enterprise is the one that left to fly around the sun, and is thus one and the same as the returning Enterprise.

Put another way, the ship was not duplicated the way Christopher was, because it did not exist here prior to its arrival at the beginning of the episode.

But aren't Capt Christopher and Air policeman just as much the same ones that are already there as the enterprise is. Shouldn't they just disappear from wherever they are also The Enterprise clearly returns to a point after which it had previously arrived or Christopher wouldn't be flying around looking for them.

And why go through all the trouble of destroying the photos? If returning/eliminating Christopher causes him to fly home in the F-104 dismissing the Enterprise as a radar glitch there are now no photos in existence to need destroying.

I'm gonna need a whiteboard to sketch this out.......

 

[Mytran]

Actually, at the point at which Kirk & crew are ready to return their two "guests" (and taking in mind later Trek time travel stories) we could easily speculate that a separate timeline has been created to branch off from the original. In that case, there are indeed two Captain Christophers and two Guards - one set from the original timeline, and one from the alternate history created by Kirk's bumbling, in which there was no Shaun Christopher to head up the Earth-Saturn mission.

Kirk & Sulu's mission still makes sense then, since they would naturally want to mop up any evidence of their involvement in the alternate timeline. However, it does go to show what a serious misjudgement Kirk went on to make in that he didn't return his guests to the "new" timeline, instead bringing them along for the ride. At this stage he was really screwed - he couldn't bring them with him to the future, and he could no longer return them to the alternate timeline (since the Enterprise was already in the timewarp on the way back to the "prime" timeline)

So instead (as ZapBrannigan describes) he lies to his guests and humanely executes them. Although not really, since they carried on living in his own timeline. So he didn't really kill them at all - from a certain point of view...

 

[Guy Gardener]

In Voyager they call the process "integration" which is used by 29th century timecops to contain temporal contamination.

Integration causes a gestalt of memories from both time lines to blend into one another.

Either this is when integration was invented, or 29th century Timecops were off to the side, helping out, making sure that the bad science in practice here, didn't cock up like it should have done.

 

[T'Girl]

^ Just this, they (separately) dematerialized Christopher on the ship and Christopher in the cockpit, intergrated the two patterns (which were essentually the same), and rematerialized Christopher in the cockpit.

This is basically what the transporter operator intended to do with Riker in Second Chances before a reflection of one of the patterns sent it back to the surface, resulting in two Rikers.

The Enterprise officers might have decided that Christopher retaining his memories of his time on the ship was irrelevant, the idea that he would use what he saw to alter the future didn't make much sense to begin with.

And he wouldn't have had anything in the way of physical evidence to use in a report. The airplane was undamaged and if they beamed him prior to his activating his camera there'd be no photos. Even if the camera was activated, according to Spock the images were poor.

If he wanted to retain his flying status it likely he would have kept his mouth shut on his experiences on the ship.

Similar with the Air Policeman, he was in the corridor ... then he was in the corridor. He had this memory of his interaction with two men in the computer room, then he was in a room where he was fed chicken soup, then he was in the corridor. No time had passed. What is he going to tell his superiors?

 

[Scotchy]

Maurice: "it makes not a lick of sense"

Bing!!

 

[telerites]

If I remember correctly, Land of the Lost did a replacement of the Marshalls that always bothered. Enik explained it but I didn't get it. That nutty Altrusian

This TOS episode definitely not near the top of my list for many reasons. Yeah I'm dense I didn't get the replacement and I thought it was unfathomable that Spock was able to determine that Christopher's life was so insignificant that they could just keep him there until it was discovered that he would have a son who was important.

Just thinking about all of the interactions, Christopher will have in his life with both people he knows and those he doesn't would be incalculable. Just think, Christopher is driving and because his car is there, it may prevent an accident from the car that would be there if he weren't - how does that then impact all of those involved and those they may interact with in the future. Just one example albeit possibly a poor one but still I don't think Spock could do it. No way that level of detail of one person's life would be recorded so that one could be 100% certain the timeline is not disrupted.

Kirk's fight scene was hilarious and not in a good way - his human projectile move could have been planned better

 

[T'Girl]

Bashir: "Does any of it make sense?"

Garak: "Doctor, it all makes sense."

Bashir: "Even the parts that don't?

Garak: "Especially the parts that don't"

>

 

[Timo]

The disappearing of the "first" Enterprise needs no special explanation. There could well have been two starships there simultaneously: the "first" one was blind as a bat, and occupied with Christopher's jet - but also stated to be climbing rapidly. The "beaming down" of Christopher from the "second" starship would have confused him long enough to allow even the wounded "first" ship to escape unseen, and of course the "second" ship would not have made any mention of whether the "first" was around or not, but would have been prepared to remain invisible to both radars and eyeballs.

Count me in on the "Kirk humanely killed the superfluous copies" camp. He comes up with this "solution" only after finding out that Christopher is too stubborn a person to contain in the 23rd century, and then comes up with it pretty much immediately. Kirk, not Spock who would be the more likely to understand time travel. OTOH, Kirk does need to travel back in time to compensate for the original getting sighted and the subsequent botched-up attempt at covering it up; briefly confusing Christopher in his jet achieves that elegantly enough. So there now are two Enterprises that managed to escape unseen, and both those timelines are now free to proceed and never loop back.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tracy Trek]

I think the "Kirk humanely kills the superfluous copies" makes sense as well. However if someone who has never watched it before, it would appear that they are being beamed into their own earlier selves. Because a transporter pattern is super-imposed over their images in the film.

These original series episodes were remastered a while ago. Because when I saw this episode on TV years ago, they didn't actually show it flying around the sun (unless that was a scene that was cut for syndication) when they were trying to go back to their own time.

 

[Mytran]

The remastered FX in this episode do illustrate the action far more dramatically than the original, where there is no Sol at all (presumably it was just off-camera)

As for the vanishing "original" Enterprise, Timo's single-timeline notion more or less bears out with the events seen in the episode: Just prior to (Enterprise) Christopher's return his counterpart on the plane is informed over the radio "you should be close enough now for visual contact" and 20 seconds later the Enterprise is gone from the pilot's POV. This would seem to differ from the original events where the Enterprise was still visible 20 seconds later (albeit in the distance). However, there is enough wiggle room for (re)interpretation, since the effects of the Transporter beam could have distracted Christopher's attention at the crucial moment, allowing Enterprise(2) to veer off into the clouds as planned; Planebound Christopher (having missed this) would have had no reason to follow a pursuit course.

The trouble is that you then have 2 Enterprises free to navigate a return course to the 23rd Century, and no reason for them both not to do it successfully.

Since there clearly was only ONE Enterprise which returned to its own time at the end of the episode (the one which crushed a plane with its tractor beam, indulged in espionage and kidnapping), where did the other one go?

This is where a branching timeline model comes in handy, and also matches up with Spock's odd line about the Enterprise "logically moving back in time". To me, this indicates that after spinning around the sun, the Enterprise was able to "piggy back" along the path of the time warp used by themselves earlier in the episode, a time warp which ran backwards in time from the 23rd century at one end to 1969 at the other. However, due to the extra level of control they have this second time around, they can choose NOT to re-enter the timeline at the 1969 end but "bounce" back and travel forward in time. This "bounce" is the point at which the timelines diverge, specifically when Captain Christopher is momentarily distracted by the (timewarp) Enterprise's transporter beam. Without it, he (in the branching timeline) pursues the Enterprise, with the resulting events playing out as we see in the episode, with a timeline being created which has no Shaun Christopher on the Saturn probe.

Does that make sense to anyone? It is kinda late here in the UK!

 

[Drone]

^ Just this, they (separately) dematerialized Christopher on the ship and Christopher in the cockpit, intergrated the two patterns (which were essentually the same), and rematerialized Christopher in the cockpit.

This is basically what the transporter operator intended to do with Riker in Second Chances before a reflection of one of the patterns sent it back to the surface, resulting in two Rikers.

The Enterprise officers might have decided that Christopher retaining his memories of his time on the ship was irrelevant, the idea that he would use what he saw to alter the future didn't make much sense to begin with.

And he wouldn't have had anything in the way of physical evidence to use in a report. The airplane was undamaged and if they beamed him prior to his activating his camera there'd be no photos. Even if the camera was activated, according to Spock the images were poor.

If he wanted to retain his flying status it likely he would have kept his mouth shut on his experiences on the ship.

Similar with the Air Policeman, he was in the corridor ... then he was in the corridor. He had this memory of his interaction with two men in the computer room, then he was in a room where he was fed chicken soup, then he was in the corridor. No time had passed. What is he going to tell his superiors?

I agree that the process you describe that was used seems to agree with what we saw and what Kirk described to Christopher would be the result. However, I certainly get the sense that neither he or the cop were left with any memories at all of their experiences, certainly aboard Enterprise and not even having seen anything suspicious after being beamed back. Christopher's transmission afterwards is that he thought he had seen something but then dismissed it, as nothing, in his sense, could have moved that quickly out of view. The policeman's beam in took place just as he would have looked into the room to see Kirk and Sulu, but the split second delay means he saw nothing.

I guess I'm saying that of what I've read so far, Guy's explanation seems to most neatly fit what we actually viewed. I think.

Count me in on the "Kirk humanely killed the superfluous copies" camp. He comes up with this "solution" only after finding out that Christopher is too stubborn a person to contain in the 23rd century, and then comes up with it pretty much immediately. Kirk, not Spock who would be the more likely to understand time travel.
Timo Saloniemi

So, a precursor, albeit altered circumstances somewhat, of what we were going to experience about 30 years later in Tuvix?

The remastered FX in this episode do illustrate the action far more dramatically than the original, where there is no Sol at all (presumably it was just off-camera)

As for the vanishing "original" Enterprise, Timo's single-timeline notion more or less bears out with the events seen in the episode: Just prior to (Enterprise) Christopher's return his counterpart on the plane is informed over the radio "you should be close enough now for visual contact" and 20 seconds later the Enterprise is gone from the pilot's POV. This would seem to differ from the original events where the Enterprise was still visible 20 seconds later (albeit in the distance). However, there is enough wiggle room for (re)interpretation, since the effects of the Transporter beam could have distracted Christopher's attention at the crucial moment, allowing Enterprise(2) to veer off into the clouds as planned; Planebound Christopher (having missed this) would have had no reason to follow a pursuit course.

The trouble is that you then have 2 Enterprises free to navigate a return course to the 23rd Century, and no reason for them both not to do it successfully.

Since there clearly was only ONE Enterprise which returned to its own time at the end of the episode (the one which crushed a plane with its tractor beam, indulged in espionage and kidnapping), where did the other one go?

This is where a branching timeline model comes in handy, and also matches up with Spock's odd line about the Enterprise "logically moving back in time". To me, this indicates that after spinning around the sun, the Enterprise was able to "piggy back" along the path of the time warp used by themselves earlier in the episode, a time warp which ran backwards in time from the 23rd century at one end to 1969 at the other. However, due to the extra level of control they have this second time around, they can choose NOT to re-enter the timeline at the 1969 end but "bounce" back and travel forward in time. This "bounce" is the point at which the timelines diverge, specifically when Captain Christopher is momentarily distracted by the (timewarp) Enterprise's transporter beam. Without it, he (in the branching timeline) pursues the Enterprise, with the resulting events playing out as we see in the episode, with a timeline being created which has no Shaun Christopher on the Saturn probe.

Does that make sense to anyone? It is kinda late here in the UK!

Yes, and I think that I intend not to look at the thread again lest I see something else that seems even more plausible. If one agrees too many times with different iterations, than that opinion won't have much currency in anyone's eyes!!!!

 

[TOSalltheway]

Just enjoy this visually striking and fun episode. Don't think about it too much, just enjoy it !

 

[The Old Mixer]

I'm of the camp that the time travel in this episode just makes no sense. I don't buy that Kirk was deliberately killing anyone...that's clearly not the intent of the episode. The intent seems to be that going back in time and beaming those individuals back to the points from which they were taken somehow magically undid the fact that they were taken at all. Makes zero sense. It's magic time travel, much like how in Superman: The Movie, they don't show Superman actually doing anything to change events when he turns back time...leaving us with the implication that the mere act of turning back time itself somehow magically stopped things from happening as they had before.

 

[Mytran]

Yeah, I tend to agree that DC Fontana probably had that in mind when she wrote this episode. It's an old trope in TV shows that can't be bothered to think of a more creative or logical way out of the mess (used also in McGann's Dr Who TV movie). In fact, Kirk more or less expresses this sentiment exactly in his final words to Captain Christopher:

KIRK: You won't have anything to remember, because it never would have happened.

If you can take the episode's apparent illogical approach to time travel in isolation and just ignore it, fine. The difficulty comes in that Trek uses time travel again and again in subsequent decades, and we can't just abandon them all!

Marsden - agreeing with one person's opinion after another is not a problem, since it shows an evolution of the discussion towards the "ultimate answer" (yeah I know, a pipe dream!) I myself went through lots of different iterations when this exact same subject came up last year:
http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=252382

 

[Shawnster]

It's all wibbly wobbly timey wimey.