Lazarus Effect

[Henoch]

KIRK: This is a computer report of the evidence you gave at your first screening. It calls you a liar, Lazarus. For one thing, there's no planet at the location you said you came from. There never has been. If you want help from us, you'd better start telling the truth.
LAZARUS: You wouldn't believe me if I told you.
KIRK: Try us.
LAZARUS: All right. I distorted a fact in the interest of self-preservation, for my holy cause. I needed help, not censure. Freedom, not captivity for being a madman. I was afraid that's what you'd call me if I told you the truth.
KIRK: I'll have the truth now.
LAZARUS: My planet, my Earth, or what's left of it, is down there beneath us.
KIRK: What are you saying?
LAZARUS: My spaceship is more than just that. It's a time chamber, a time-ship, and I. I am a time traveller.
KIRK: And this thing you search for is a time traveler, too?
LAZARUS: Oh, yes. He's fled me across all the years, all the empty years to a dead future on a murdered planet he destroyed. Help me! Give me the tools I need to kill him! The crystals! Don't let him get away! Don't let him get away.

If we believe Mad-Laz is actually telling the truth (at least mostly the truth since he fails to mention that the monster is him from another dimension), then they are only traveling through time and not space. Lazarus said, "He's fled me across all the years, all the empty years to a dead future on a murdered planet he destroyed." So, they fled to "a dead future". Based on this and the "what's left (past tense) of it" line, I assume the current time on the episode is in the future for the two Lazari, and the initial event occurred far in the past. Why no ruins? Another idea is that early on, they traveled far into their own past, caused some sort of event that stopped the natural development of their civilization such that their races went extinct.

 

[Boris Skrbic]

Do we need Star Trek: Lazarus?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

If we believe Mad-Laz is actually telling the truth

And why should we do that?

 

[FormerLurker]

Mad-Laz (as I guess we're calling him from now on) is a true believer. Whatever he believes, he wants everyone else to believe as well. Even if it isn't the objective truth, he wants everyone to believe it. Therefore, mixed in with the obvious deranged ravings are some smatterings of reality. That the world Enterprise orbits is, or was, or will be, Mad-Laz's homeworld has a real chance of being one of those smatterings.

 

[Mytran]

That the world Enterprise orbits is, or was, or will be, Mad-Laz's homeworld has a real chance of being one of those smatterings.

Or at least he may sincerely believe that it's his original homeworld. After "winking" around the galaxy for an unspecified amount of time, how would he really know for sure?

 

[publiusr]

I never liked that it was a rinky dink saucer that was source of the fuss. The beginning of that episode made me think an invasion from another universe was about to break through. I can see the planet as something like Starkiller Base, with the saucer just as an interface?

 

[FormerLurker]

Or at least he may sincerely believe that it's his original homeworld. After "winking" around the galaxy for an unspecified amount of time, how would he really know for sure?

That would be part of his true believer-ship, wouldn't it?

I never liked that it was a rinky dink saucer that was source of the fuss. The beginning of that episode made me think an invasion from another universe was about to break through. I can see the planet as something like Starkiller Base, with the saucer just as an interface?

This sounds suspiciously like what Mad-Laz is afraid of, and trying to convince Our Heroes of.

 

[Mytran]

That would be part of his true believer-ship, wouldn't it?

Yes...seems I read your original post a bit too fast!

 

[johnnybear]

We know that Bele and Lokai of Cheron had very long lifespans against that of normal humans and Vulcans for that matter, so why couldn't Lazarus too?
JB

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ Lazarus said that his ship was a time machine. So even if he arrived in an apocalyptic future where his planet was in ruins, it doesn't necessarily follow that he LIVED through all that time. He could have simply jumped forward.

And besides, wasn't he confirmed as human in the episode? Humans don't live that long.

 

[Timo]

The best we get is Spock's initial orbital scan suggesting "apparently human". If Spock decides to be that uncertain, and McCoy never confirms anything, we could certainly speculate.

...In a similar situation, Spock decided Bele was "humanoid" instead, likewise based on a preliminary scan. So Lazarus might be closer to the human norm after all.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[johnnybear]

Flint was human too and look how long he'd lived!!! But I do think that Lazarus was hopping about in the temporal maelstrom to avoid his other self and eventually face him in the distant future for one final time!
JB