After the mind meld, Spock says the explosion in which Pike should have been injured was six months earlier.
TOS establishes no rate at which time passes between episodes. BoT could occur at any point relative to the accident.
Wait, what's the problem with the airing vs production order of BoT and The Menagerie? Air date order -6 months Pike's accident (according to SNW) X months The Menagerie 0 months Balance of Terror Production order -6 months Pike's accident (according to SNW) 0 months Balance of Terror X months The Menagerie As far as I can tell, there isn't any dialogue in The Menagerie that says when it occurs relative to Balance of Terror. Based on "subspace chatter about it for months" the Menagerie episode should occur within 12 months of Pike's accident but no sooner than a month. Plenty of room for Balance of Terror to happen before or after The Menagerie. IMHO.
I am sure his future self warned Pike about dangers of sharing information about the future. But I think Pike probably decided to recommend Kirk as his replacement after meeting him in this alt future.
Lots of potential changes. Just knowing that Enterprise survives with senior command staff is a big deal. Does he leave Spock off risky missions “because”? Warn the outpost before the date? (And why not - is history really that different if the outpost destroys the BoP?) Maybe it is if they don’t see the Romulans. Really allow multiple outposts and lives to be lost by not acting? The two givens are he cannot be there and Spock must live. They’re actually a bit contradictory as he can’t control events if he is not there. It does NOT mean Kirk has to take on Enterprise- in fact his loss of the Farragut makes him a weaker candidate!
Actually, it does not. Kirk never actually loses the Farragut. This alternate timeline doesn’t happen now that Pike has experienced it and returned to his own time (per the rules of time travel as presented in the story).
Correct - except that Pike presumably remembers the fool who lost his space ship despite being told to get out of the area. I know, it won’t work that way, and yes, that’s not what TOS would say but it is what he would remember. Will he act on that?
Looking up his service record in the “present” (from which we can infer Pike will have a continuing interest in Kirk’s career, with an eye towards guiding Kirk) is a plausible way for Pike to “act on that”, non?
I think Trekkies are kind of overly fascinated with Old Pike letting on that Spock is a big deal, historically. Looked to me like Reasonable Space Dad Pike was a lot more disturbed by seeing his friend maimed than he was concerned with preserving future history so that Burnham could do whatever it is she apparently did with the Vulcans in the 32nd century. I appreciated the fact that they haven't backtracked on Pike's processing of his destiny - the season started with him getting past his fear for himself, and they bookend that by his struggling with not being able to help other people as he'd like to. He's over the self-concern.
If Pike does retain any memories of what Romulans look like he may well keep his mouth shut for obvious reasons. The extreme similarity to Vulcans could, shall we say, be seismic in its impact on Starfleet and Federation attitudes. In TOS seven to nine years later we see no evidence of racist or disruptive attitudes outside of Kirk's crew but Stiles can't have been the only officer in Starfleet to become a raging bigot at the notion that Romulans and Vulcans are cousins and largely identical. Pike either retained no concrete memories of their appearance or decides to be tight-lipped. I can't blame him. Starfleet has enough on its plate.
He remembers Kirk's error with the Farragut but also Kirk later on had the resourcefulness to go get a fake fleet. Pike overall likes Kirk and will probably take Kirk under his wing and mold him a bit to be a better captain. But any future information that he got out of it like what Romulans look like, etc will probably be kept to himself so he doesn't have to travel back in time and tell his past self to keep quiet. IMHO.
Isn't it inferred through all the series that time travel has happened that they aren't to use information to alter future events? I know Spock mentions it a few times in TOS, at the very least.
I'll have to look it up but I'm sure Janeway quotes the Temporal PD a few times before breaking it in the following scene. Certainly in Endgame, maybe in the one with Braxton trying to temporal bomb the ship