By allowing Keeler to live, he would've changed the fate of trillions of beings across hundreds of years.
What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?
- Thread starter Amasov
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By allowing Keeler to live, he would've changed the fate of trillions of beings across hundreds of years.
Read 'Starship Troopers' by Robert A. Heinlein
A teacher asked the question: what would the city fathers say of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
And what was the reply? To the question?
A teacher asked the question: what would the city fathers say of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
And what was the reply? To the question?
Edith Keeler doesn't exist in a vacuum. There is now a truck driver who has to live with causing that death and may have changed his future in unknown ways.
There is only one timeline in Star Trek, and Kirk altered it to cause her death-- it doesn't matter if McCoy altered it first.
They pretty much murdered him, too... and logic.
The temporal prime directive doesn't prevent time travel, just interfering in the timeline... like selling them the formula for transparent aluminum and stuff.In TOS they even authorized the ship to use the slingshot effect around the Sun to go back to the year 1968 and conduct research. Some Temporal Prime Directive. They were winging it in Kirk's time.
The entirety of the franchise disagrees with you. From "Mirror, Mirror" to CBS retreading "Mirror, Mirror".
Not even close. Fun episode. Not philosophically deep.
The point is that once McCoy saved her, the timeline changed, and Kirk couldn't interfere with it by killing her. He should have just brought her into the 23rd century; or Spock could have said "you don't want to go into politics, you want to go home and re-think your life."
The moment you insert yourself in the past, you are causing changes that you can't account for. McCoy's bum from "City..." probably also caused issues in the timeline. Maybe his family reports him missing, where he was never missing before. Which diverts resources from some other important police matter at the time.
Kirk's decision was made with the best information he had at his disposal.
No indication from the Guardian of Forever that that was a viable option. Plus, why would she even listen to Spock? A weird hobo she found in her basement.
Disappearance would also grossly affect the timeline. A large group of people would not have been exposed to what had actually happened.
It really all comes down to a simple question: did Kirk have the right to change the future for trillions of beings across a vast swath of space across hundreds of years?
Then why would Kirk have to restore it? Obviously McCoy's changing the 20th century timeline, affected the 23rd century instantly.
It's Star Trek, not Bill&Ted&Doc&Marty's Excellent Adventure Back to the Future, for the Peabody and Sherman Awards.
It changed their 23rd century. The one that they wanted to return to. Honestly, if they had the ability, which it seemed they didn't, they could spend thousands of years skipping across the dimensions trying to find the one similar to their own without the mistakes that had been made.
What is wrong with Star Trek being fun?
It doesn't matter. That was the NEW timeline; and so changing it by deliberately killing someone, was no different than killing them if it hadn't changed.
Again, THERE IS ONLY ONE TIMELINE IS STAR TREK.
When McCoy changed 20th century Earth history by saving Edith Keeler, the Enterprise of the 23rd century instantly disappeared, while Kirk and the landing-party were protected by the Guardian's temporal field.
So McCoy didn't just create a new timeline, while the old one remained intact and unchanged.
The incidence of violating its own fundamental values-- not only moral principle, but also scientific plausibility.
Beaming someone into their past self, doesn't make sense to erase their memory of the future; neither does the Enterprise's suddenly vanishing from being originally in Earth's atmosphere in the opening scene, just because they played with their slingshot. DC Fontana didn't think it through very well.
Again, no. Star Trek ain’t that deep.
Gene lost control and was bitter about it, like anyone would be.
That was accidental. Kirk couldn't restore the timeline by killing anyone, just because he didn't like it. That's Playing God.
He didn't. McCoy did.
Kirk didn't have to right to kill any one person, regardless.
Once McCoy changed the timeline, Kirk had to take Edith Keeler as he found her: alive.
Spock's tricorder-record of her obituary, was from the original timeline.
He didn't HAVE to do anything other than restore history. The story required she die so that the Star Trek universe would happen and they'd all exist.
I know some want to handwring and soapbox about Kirk stopping McCoy from saving her, but the next 337 years of recorded history depended on it going down that way. The Guardian didn't give Kirk and Spock any other options.
I know some want to handwring and soapbox about Kirk stopping McCoy from saving her, but the next 337 years of recorded history depended on it going down that way. The Guardian didn't give Kirk and Spock any other options.
Whatever repercussions he was running away from when he and 84 loyal followers chose to sneak away on a sleeper ship rather than face life on Earth after he was defeated or deposed.
Nope. When McCoy changed the timeline there was no more history for James Kirk. All of Kirk's as he knew it after Keeler was saved was erased. Apparently nothing of humanity even existed by the 23rd Century
Kirk did not find any history after the moment of divergence created by McCoy saving Edith.
It's interesting that you appear to have changed the subject. Was that to deflect away from Khan fleeing Earth in humiliation after his defeat?
That would murder everyone in the new timeline, who wasn't there in the old one.
Just like Janeway did in "Endgame."
Which shows the moral breakdown of the episode, by Playing God to decide who lives and who dies.
Those writings were erased when McCoy changed the timeline. The Guardian didn't hand out licenses to kill.
