'City' and 'Yesteryear'

[BillJ]

Question:

If Thelin was Kirk's XO during 'City' (in the 'Yesteryear' timeline), who went back in time with Kirk?

Without some type of computer expert, Kirk would've went back with no clue as to what McCoy did to the timeline. Plus, no way to find out until it was too late.

Or have I missed something?

 

[Therin of Andor]

Without some type of computer expert, Kirk would've went back with no clue as to what McCoy did to the timeline. Plus, no way to find out until it was too late.
Or have I missed something?

Thelin is a science officer. Why assume he's not a computer expert?

Why assume that Thelin had to go time travelling on Earth. It's unlikely he'd be chosen, since how would he hide his complexion and antennae?

Why assume that "City" had to happen in both timelines?

 

[BillJ]

*sigh*

Thelin's skin color was why I would assume that he couldn't go back. Guess I didn't spell that one out. Can't just hide the antenna under a wool cap.

Since the Guardian exists in both timelines, I would assume that both timelines are fairly consistent. Also, they seem fully aware of the power that the Guardian has.

 

[Timo]

One would think that masking Thelin's grayish skin would only require a bit of powder from McCoy's well-equipped man-purse...

In any case, a lot of the TOS adventures might have happened slightly differently if there wasn't a high-ranking cold-blooded (or sometimes hot-blooded) touch telepath aboard. But we're not really talking about diverging timelines here. Just as with the Mirror Universe, we are talking about converging timelines. All those universes that result in Thelin being there with Kirk in "Yesteryear" are valid, even if they are otherwise radically different from "our" timeline (say, "their" Kirk is married to the President of Venus, the only surviving habitable planet in the Sol system).

So, how would "City" go if Spock were replaced by Thelin? No touch telepathy needed in that episode, nor cold-blooded logic - Kirk is the one who has to act callous there. It would suffice for Thelin to be able to make the same deductions Spock did about the role of Edith Keeler, who would still be the kingpin to the events. That is, the crazed McCoy would gyrate to Keeler's place no matter who was traveling with Kirk, and would try and save Keeler at the crucial juncture. So essentially, we're talking about the same events, the same episode.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[diankra]

*sigh*

Thelin's skin color was why I would assume that he couldn't go back. Guess I didn't spell that one out. Can't just hide the antenna under a wool cap.

Since the Guardian exists in both timelines, I would assume that both timelines are fairly consistent. Also, they seem fully aware of the power that the Guardian has.

If you assume that Thelin didn't accompany Kirk because of the disguise problems, then a sensible second choice would be Scotty... who'd surely be capable of improvising a way of accessing the Tricorder for the crucial info.

 

[Frodo Lives]

Or perhaps in Thelin's timeline the original mission to the Guardian planet went smoothly, and McCoy was able to avoid shooting himself up with the Cordrazine, thus there was no need for Kirk or anyone to travel back in time and meet Edith Keeler.

Or perhaps Thelin managed to tackle Bones before he jumped through. Either way, the outcome is the same - well, except for Kirk having loved and lost, but it's not like he ever mentioned Edith Keeler after City in the regular timeline anyhow. Whether witnessing her death fundamentally changed him is debateable.

 

[Kelso]

As others have said, Thelin wouldn't have needed a major disguise... he wasn't blue.

Slightly off topic... but I've always assumed that Thelin was half-human. Am I alone in this?

 

[Broccoli]

*sigh*

Thelin's skin color was why I would assume that he couldn't go back. Guess I didn't spell that one out. Can't just hide the antenna under a wool cap.

Since the Guardian exists in both timelines, I would assume that both timelines are fairly consistent. Also, they seem fully aware of the power that the Guardian has.

If you assume that Thelin didn't accompany Kirk because of the disguise problems, then a sensible second choice would be Scotty... who'd surely be capable of improvising a way of accessing the Tricorder for the crucial info.

Nah, Scotty would be too busy selling drugs.

 

[Timewalker]

They would have to have gone down to the planet in the alternate "City" episode and met the Guardian, because otherwise how would they have known it was a time portal where they could do historical research in "Yesteryear"? It wasn't obvious to them from the ship; all they knew was that there were "time waves" happening. They didn't know the cause.

 

[Timo]

...Of course, the alternate Kirk could have been assigned to the "Yesteryear" mission because the heroic Captain Tracey and his trusted Sciene Officer Boma had discovered the Guardian of Forever a few years back, just before tragically succumbing to the Doomsday Machine that was ultimately defeated by Commodore Mendez and his starship Constellation.

There's nothing in "Yesteryear" to suggest that Kirk or Spock have been through the "City" adventure specifically, really. There's merely the knowledge that this is a time portal.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Timewalker]

But wouldn't Starfleet want to keep knowledge of the Guardian to as few people as possible? If Captain Tracey found it, surely his ship would be the one doing historical research, not the Enterprise.

(And no matter what alternate histories we're talking about, I just can't put "Boma" and "trust" and "Tracey" together and have it make sense )

 

[Therin of Andor]

As others have said, Thelin wouldn't have needed a major disguise... he wasn't blue.

Except that was an error caused by the colourblindness of the guy approving the colour palette. I have DC Fontana'a script and her directions called for blue.

I've always assumed that Thelin was half-human. Am I alone in this?

Thanks to ENT's "The Aenar", we now have a canonical explanation, recently taken up by "The Chimes at Midnight" (in the second "Myriad Universes" omnibus).

And may I share a silly escapade of Captain Therin's?:
http://www.geocities.com/therinofandor/Tabloid.html

 

[pookha]

put that stocking cap and some powder on his face and hands and thelin could pass.
but even then i agree scotty could be of help.

 

[Timo]

Except that was an error caused by the colourblindness of the guy approving the colour palette. I have DC Fontana'a script and her directions called for blue.

Sure. But then again, we could argue that the Borg are insectoid rather than humanoid, because that's what the script used to call for before budget reality set in.

I guess we don't really stand to lose anything if we accept Thelin's face as grayish-pink, or Captain Rixx' complexion as atypical of Bolians, or Kang's TOS face as flatter than his DS9 face. We might also accept the varying number of digits in the Tellarite paw as sign of racial-mixture variation, and postulate all sorts of fun stuff regarding the changing antennae of the Andorians. We always complain how only the humans are shown to be diverse - so why not allow for a bit of diversity in the aliens even when it's somewhat unintentional?

On the third hand (since this is a TAS thing anyway), grayish-pink might well be accepted as blue in the TAS context. After all, Spock's face looks bright yellow in many of the shots and switches between pink and tan in all the others.

Timo Saloniemi