Earth-centric because the physics of the Universe coalesce around individual humans from the planet Earth. I'm just glad that very little of his nonsense made into the episode.
How long before "The Man Trap" did McCoy know Kirk?
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Well yes, because McCoy saved Edith's life from the truck, and that was the first domino in a chain of events that led to the Nazis winning the war, altering Earth's history (her pacifist movement kept America out of the war). Kirk and Spock leapt back to a week before to find out what McCoy changed so they could prevent him from changing it.
It was only the history of Earth that was changed.
Playing in Ellison's sandbox could go two ways. If the Guardian is simply a time portal, then it would be awkward not to utilize it as such in further adventures. If the Guardian is something else, though, then this something else would have to be explicated somehow.
"City" as such gives our heroes no reason not to do a "Yesteryear" on the time donut. An extra adventure would be needed to teach our heroes (and the audience!) that the Guardian has a different functionality or agenda that is fundamentally incompatible with human time trips...
Timo Saloniemi
"City" as such gives our heroes no reason not to do a "Yesteryear" on the time donut. An extra adventure would be needed to teach our heroes (and the audience!) that the Guardian has a different functionality or agenda that is fundamentally incompatible with human time trips...
Timo Saloniemi
Yes, I have seen the episode. The underlying physics shouldn't care if it's been changed.
We were talking about Ellison's take on time travel, remember? And I was answering your question on why it was Earth-centric, remember? And my explanation was basically that I find a bias in having certain humans be focal points in time, that their very existence can cause the so-called "currents, eddies, [and] backwash" to gravitate toward them. That was my answer.
As for the episode, I think there is wiggle room for the Guardian to play a more active role, to help the primitives out of their temporal jam. I understand that that might not have been authorial intent but when has that ever stopped us?
In the two onscreen appearances of the Guardian Of Forever, it is involved in stories that could easily be seen as predestination paradoxes. Since such phenomena defy conventional logic, I think that the GOF's role is connected in ensuring that such weirdo events actually happen, in order to maintain the structure of the timeline.
Or something
Or something
But that's the problem of many worlds theory. The structure of the timeline is that everything that can happen does happen in at least one timeline. So there is no structure to maintain. The drama just comes from getting the heroes back to the alternate reality they prefer. The Mirror Universe existed before and after the Federation. The timeline(s) where Edith lived existed before and after McCoy's visit. McCoy didn't create a timeline by his actions; he was always part of it. Proximity to the Guardian just meant that everyone on the planet jumped tracks with him.In the two onscreen appearances of the Guardian Of Forever, it is involved in stories that could easily be seen as predestination paradoxes. Since such phenomena defy conventional logic, I think that the GOF's role is connected in ensuring that such weirdo events actually happen, in order to maintain the structure of the timeline.
Or something
Trek writers deceive the viewers but they can't have their cake and eat it when it comes to temporal mechanics. The only role of the temporal police should be to arrest time travellers as soon as they arrive but they aren't creating or destroying timelines.
While it is undeniable that we see parallel/alternate universes in Trek, I was not including them in my statement. Predestination paradoxes are explicitly part of Star Trek - that requires a single timeline, not multiple (although I like your terminology of "jumping tracks")
And I think the GOF lies, for its own purposes.
Many worlds does not exclude pre destination paradoxes as well, of course.
Parallel universes can freely exist alongside an interpretation of the cosmos that includes predestination paradoxes. However, they would play no part in time travelling adventures since the whole point of a predestination paradox is that it happens in the subject's original timeline.
Times Arrow was an enjoyable pre-destination paradox as was the DS9 overall arc. I actually prefer them as I find them to be more interesting but I think they require too much mental gymnastics for the writers (the German show Dark is great fun, as was Tenet both of which toy with both concepts).
I understand why the many worlds version is required for storytelling. I just feel that the writers are cheating by dressing it up as a version of time travel that has been thoroughly debunked as impossible by scientists. Year of Hell makes no sense at all. Nothing in the conclusion led Janeway to change her mind. We just jumped tracks to a timeline where she made a different choice. They didn't even reference the information given to them by Kes.
This is a very interesting question that I had to answer for my own Star Trek Timeline. I actually got into a friendly debate about this with John Byrne at Star Trek: Mission New York back in 2016. He had McCoy saying in his "Strange New Worlds" photoplay comic something like "But then I got to know Jim Kirk..." when talking about the time immediately following WNMHGB and I asked him why he believed that McCoy and Kirk first met when McCoy transferred aboard the Enterprise. He said that in his mind, McCoy's line in "The Man Trap" of "...Is that how you get women to like you? By bribing them?" read as McCoy and Kirk just getting to know each other.
Agreed. There is a definite rapport there, and they're teasing each other like old friends. ("What's the matter, Jim? Don't trust yourself?") For me, McCoy's comment that Bailey reminds Kirk of himself 11 years ago is the clincher. Eleven years is such a specific timeframe (as opposed to a round figure like 10 years) that in my mind that means that McCoy knew Kirk 11 years before TCM and was familiar with Kirk's career status at that point. Since I have "Corbomite" taking place in 2265... McCoy therefore likely met Kirk somewhere around 2254.
Now, this doesn't mean that Kirk and McCoy were serving together continuously from 2254-2265. In fact, since Kirk is unacquainted with McCoy's old flame Nancy Crater in "The Man Trap" and Bones has never met Kirk's old flame Areel Shaw in "Court Martial", we know that they likely weren't serving together for all that long before the Enterprise. So likely they met/served together, hit it off, became fast friends, and stayed in touch over the years, maybe even occasionally running into each other here and there. When Piper left as the Enterprise's CMO, Kirk requested McCoy to replace him.
Yes, and Carol is also previously acquainted with Spock.
I reversed the order of that, with the breakup occurring before Carol discovered that she was pregnant. I wanted to keep Carol as sympathetic as possible (because, Janice Lester aside, Kirk wouldn't be attracted to a bad person). And I didn't think that "I'm pregnant with your child, and therefore I'm breaking up with you" made Carol especially sympathetic.
BTW, the chronology of Jim and Carol's relationship made MUCH more sense to me once I moved Kirk's teaching stint at the Academy forward in time to 2257, right after the Farragut disaster.
Even though I didn't really agree with Goodman's chronology of Kirk and McCoy's first meeting in the book, I thought this was a very well done and well thought out scene.
YUP. And IIRC, every other Captain we see in TOS is middle aged. I have Kirk becoming the Captain of the Enterprise at 31, breaking the previous record held by Christopher Pike at age 32.
The Enterprise never traveled back to Earth on TOS. There were a few illusions that took place on Earth, but that's not really the same thing.
Kirk has more medals of honor than Spock. I analyzed this for my timeline a year or so back. To quote my own notes from the episode "Court Martial":
Kirk's service record is read aloud by the court computer and includes the following commendations: the Palm Leaf of the Axanar Peace Mission; the Grankite Order of Tactics (Class of Excellence); the Prentaries Ribbon of Commendation (Classes First and Second); as well as the following Awards of Valor: the Medal of Honor, the Silver Palm (with Cluster), a Starfleet Citation for Conspicuous Gallantry, and the Karagite Order of Heroism. The Making of Star Trek further adds that Kirk has been wounded in the line of duty three times and made the Honor Roll (presumably at Starfleet Academy).
As we later find out in TOS: "Whom Gods Destroy" that Kirk first visited Axanar "as a new-fledged cadet on a peace mission," it seems logical to assume that these awards and commendations were read out in the order that Kirk earned them. Therefore, Kirk earned all seven of these commendations (and possibly several more, as the reading of his record was cut off before completion) in between the years 2250 and 2267.
It is also worth noting that Kirk wears 12 separate decorations on his dress uniform. By contrast, Spock has nine separate decorations on his dress uniform, with three commendations read out by the court computer (The Vulcanian Scientific Legion of Honor and two Awards of Valor from Starfleet Command), while McCoy has four decorations on his dress uniform, with two commendations read out by the court computer (the Legion of Honor and a decoration from Starfleet Surgeons).
As we later find out in TOS: "Whom Gods Destroy" that Kirk first visited Axanar "as a new-fledged cadet on a peace mission," it seems logical to assume that these awards and commendations were read out in the order that Kirk earned them. Therefore, Kirk earned all seven of these commendations (and possibly several more, as the reading of his record was cut off before completion) in between the years 2250 and 2267.
It is also worth noting that Kirk wears 12 separate decorations on his dress uniform. By contrast, Spock has nine separate decorations on his dress uniform, with three commendations read out by the court computer (The Vulcanian Scientific Legion of Honor and two Awards of Valor from Starfleet Command), while McCoy has four decorations on his dress uniform, with two commendations read out by the court computer (the Legion of Honor and a decoration from Starfleet Surgeons).
Agreed. In my mind, Kirk would never sexually harass, or even consider romancing, someone under his direct command. That's why he was so torn up about his attraction to Janice Rand, why he was so embarrassed and uncomfortable when he had to go on a landing party with Helen Noel (he was flirtatious with her at that Christmas party when she was in civvies and he mistook her for a passenger), and why he was so embarrassed and uncomfortable again when Ms. Piper brought up Lt. Helen Johansson in front of Commodore Mendez in "The Menagerie." He knows that it's over the line. ("There are a million things in this universe you can have and a million things you can't have. It's no fun facing that, but that's the way things are." - Kirk to Charlie Evans, in "Charlie X.")
(The one spanner in the works for my theory here is that Kirk appears to be going to flirt with the Prime Universe Marlena Moreau -- his subordinate -- at the end of "Mirror, Mirror." But since we don't know WHAT Kirk said to her as the closing credits rolled, I'm assuming that he stopped himself before he said or did anything inappropriate.)
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Awesome analysis. I think both time travel episodes were set on Earth though so I guess they went back lat least twice.
Yeah, but neither "City on the Edge of Forever" or "Tomorrow is Yesterday" were planned trips to Earth. The most you could say is that they were somewhere in the neighborhood in TIY.
Weren't they on historical research when they intercepted Gary Seven?
So a year after he developed the the technique for grafting neural tissue to the cerebral cortex.*
* I've been watching Voyager and they name dropped McCoy in "Lifesigns", which I saw last night.
It's a work of art. Good job.
One theory as to why the Enterprise time travels back to Earth in both TIY and A:E, once in the reverse time vortex, the largest mass (i.e. the ship) will try to reverse its flow in both time and space. So, the ship wants to emerge out of the time vortex in the past to where it was at that time period. The largest mass (the ship) was assembled in Earth orbit some 25 years ago, and prior to that period, it was dispersed as raw materials mostly on Earth, so, the closest "average" location for most of the mass as a single unit was in low Earth orbit. For TIY, the ship was not prepared for the black star encounter and came out in low Earth orbit nearly crippled. For A:E, the ship was prepared for the entry into the black star (or some other high mass star) and the exit in low Earth, so, it was able to have shields up and be ready to immediately increase orbit.
You know, I suppose I should add in that reference someday soon...
Oh, thanks very much! I've been adding to it while watching the nightly Trek reruns on H&I. It's been a good way to catch up and/or refresh my memory quickly. Many of the VOY episodes I'm seeing for the first time.
I was originally going to stay away from the 24th Century show except where they directly connected with TOS, as I didn't think my conclusions would be very different from the Okudas, but it's been more of a challenge than I expected! Trying to nail down months for each episode has been interesting.
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