Tomorrow is Yesterday

[Timo]

It naturally alters history, BTTF style, but only to the extent of creating the "once-around" time loop that results in the "second ship" sailing home in the end. The universe where the "first ship" was not saved from Christopher's spying eyes is a truncated one, only comprising the hours covered in the episode. That is, the rest of that timeline does not feature any out-of-time starships.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Uh... yeah....

 

[UnknownSample]

I figure Enterprise 2 could stay out of Enterprise 1's way. How is an interesting question. Beaming can be done from a great distance... It might be that this is a version of time travel in which no one object can actually exist in two places at the same time.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I figure Enterprise 2 could stay out of Enterprise 1's way. How is an interesting question. Beaming can be done from a great distance... It might be that this is a version of time travel in which no one object can actually exist in two places at the same time.

If Enterprise 2 just stays out of Enterprise 1's way, then how can Enterprise 1 beam up Christopher?

 

[Mytran]

It might be that this is a version of time travel in which no one object can actually exist in two places at the same time.

We don't see that in any other time travel study though; Picard, Janeway, O'Brien and others have all had conversations with their future selves.

 

[UnknownSample]

If Enterprise 2 just stays out of Enterprise 1's way, then how can Enterprise 1 beam up Christopher?

Why not?

 

[UnknownSample]

We don't see that in any other time travel study though; Picard, Janeway, O'Brien and others have all had conversations with their future selves.

That's right. TiY's time travel is different from any other kind we see later. TiY didn't have to maintain continuity with Next Gen. They didn't know there was going to be a Next Gen.

 

[Mytran]

TIY's presentation of time travel might appear to be different from later incarnations but in a rational universe that doesn't really make sense and so it can only be a perceived difference by us, the viewers.

Fortunately, discussions on this board have given rise to several plausible theories that allow TIY to coexist among its time travel story successors

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Why not?

After Christopher's merging beam-in, Christopher doesn't get beamed up, that's why. Enterprise 1 isn't even anywhere to be seen. Enterprise 1 is gone. History is "repaired." History has been changed, back to the way it's supposed to be.

 

[Greg Cox]

I'd like to know, too. While there are throwaway/filler "B plotlets" of sorts to some episodes, such as Spock's recovery in "A Private Little War" (as opposed to the "two A plots" of Kirok and Spock/McCoy running in parallel in "Paradise Syndrome", say), throwaway comedy as a filler isn't a TOS thing. Comedic relief is reserved for the conclusion.i

In hindsight, it may not seem like "a TOS thing," but they were still inventing TOS back then. Only eighteen other episodes had aired at that point, so the show was still a work-in-progress. Maybe the show tried to work in a comic subplot in this episode, decided it didn't work as well as they hoped, and seldom did it again?

My point being that it may stand out now, when you compare it to entire run of the series, but back then the show was still finding its voice. (Do we know if that subplot was D.C. Fontana's idea or Bob Justman's or someone else's?)

 

[Shawnster]

It's all wibbly wobbly timey wimey

 

[Captain Rob]

Temporal Prime Directive
In other words, it works because we say it does.

 

[UnknownSample]

After Christopher's merging beam-in, Christopher doesn't get beamed up, that's why. Enterprise 1 isn't even anywhere to be seen. Enterprise 1 is gone. History is "repaired." History has been changed, back to the way it's supposed to be.

I was saying the 2 Enterprises could be far apart from each other, with #1 perhaps missing #2's presence, possibly, with both still being able to beam Christopher in or out of his plane.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I was saying the 2 Enterprises could be far apart from each other, with #1 perhaps missing #2's presence, possibly, with both still being able to beam Christopher in or out of his plane.

Yeah, I got what you meant, but it just cannot happen that way.

 

[Timo]

Why not? The "first" Kirk beams the hapless pilot out, the "second" one beams him right back in, and the plane then breaks to pieces, ensuring the continuing silence of the witness...

Or, if we want to be nice, Christopher manages to bail out at the last moment despite having initially been oblivious to the damage suffered by the plane. Since Spock knows for a fact that the Starfighter is empty at that point, he makes no effort to spot the pilot, and turns off the scanner before Christopher's parachute balloons. "A flying saucer destroyed your plane? More like you pulled a few gees too many. Don't worry, though, we know those F-104s are crap. It's a wonder it held together that long."

Timo Saloniemi

 

[CorporalCaptain]

But that's explicitly not what happened. The first time, Christopher was beamed out only after the tractor beam was put on his fighter. There is no tractor beam the second time, so therefore the second time he could not have been beamed out by Enterprise #1.

 

[Timo]

How could we tell there's no tractor beam? Those were invisible in TOS, and the scene with the pilot being "beamed into himself" is not preceded by moments of calm that would establish the absence of the beam, or the exact timing of the action vis-á-vis the "first time around".

Timo Saloniemi

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Because the tractor beam made a loud noise and shone a bright light on Christopher's cockpit when it was used the first time.

 

[Timo]

That if any was a blink-and-you-miss-it moment. But it we want to, we can argue Kirk 1 briefly turned off the tractor beam so that it would not interfere with the transporter beam, and that's when Kirk 2 struck (and when Christopher swiftly lifted his visor again, too, for a better sighting of the UFO). It's all VFX anyway, with the transporter "freezing" the action, so the flow of time becomes ambiguous as well.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Yeah.... The tractor beam was so blink and you miss it that Christopher had to put his helmet shades down and his aircraft was already breaking up before Kirk ordered him beamed aboard, as per dialog.