Zor Kahn was not named as the inventor of the atavachron.
All Our Yesterdays question
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^ No, but he could have invented the "travelers have to be prepared" process. I find that very likely.
^ I don't see it that way at all. This was just a different spin on time travel in the wild west of TOS time travel methods. The Guardian of Forever, lightspeed breakaway, cold engine restart, atavachron: all are different and have their own idiosyncrasies.
This episode was written by a real-world librarian. It's set in a library, and Atoz of course stands for A to Z, the alphabet. You could easily rewrite it as a fantasy involving a magic library in which people escape some evil by hiding in the pages of its books.* The obvious complication is that getting out of the books won't be as easy as going in; maybe it has something to do with getting flattened to fit on the pages. That way of looking at the episode fits together so well in my mind, that I can't assume that it isn't how the episode is supposed to be looked at metaphorically.
* - (Dr. Who actually did that, however AFAIK unintentionally and coincidentally, in "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead," with the same complication about getting out being harder than going in.)
This episode was written by a real-world librarian. It's set in a library, and Atoz of course stands for A to Z, the alphabet. You could easily rewrite it as a fantasy involving a magic library in which people escape some evil by hiding in the pages of its books.* The obvious complication is that getting out of the books won't be as easy as going in; maybe it has something to do with getting flattened to fit on the pages. That way of looking at the episode fits together so well in my mind, that I can't assume that it isn't how the episode is supposed to be looked at metaphorically.
* - (Dr. Who actually did that, however AFAIK unintentionally and coincidentally, in "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead," with the same complication about getting out being harder than going in.)
Superfriends did it as well. Unfortunately I can't remember the name of the ep.
From string-searching through the episode capsules on Wikipedia, it looks like it's S3E13A "Fairy Tale Of Doom":
Toyman develops a device that can project anyone into the pages of a storybook. He forces Hawkman to chase him into Jack and the Beanstalk, Cheetah forces Wonder Woman to chase her into Alice in Wonderland and Brainiac forces Superman to chase him into Gulliver's Travels and the three villains trap the three Super Friends in the three treacherous fairy tales. However when Batman, Robin and Green Lantern catches on, they and Black Vulcan trick Giganta, Grodd and Captain Cold into helping them rescue their teammates by claiming that Cheetah and the others are still trapped inside the books.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Super_Friends_episodes#Season_3:_1978
Awesome.
I think I remember watching that one.
First, Trek was still playing around with what effects time travel might have, as opposed to the dull matter-of-fact time travel of the 24th century shows. Here's as much sense as the AOY version makes (keeping in mind that no versions of time travel actually do make much sense):
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Vulcans went through a fundamental transformation that humans did not. Why didn't McCoy transform? Because there was no transforming to do. Humans are basically the same as a few thousand years ago, except for a veneer of learning and civilization. Our basic nature is the same as then. Why didn't McCoy become a savage? Because in ST TOS terms, McCoy already IS a savage. It depends how you mean the word.
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Remember, in Earth terms, Spock never became a "savage". Whatever that means. Spock gets jealous. He speaks angrily. He's more easily provoked. Yet stays articulate. Call that savage? I don't. No human would.
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In Vulcan terms, the time they've been transported to has a Vulcan race which is in a state of savagery... in other words, like humans. At this point, human and Vulcan men get jealous, get territorial about women, and get less logical when losing their tempers. It's nothing new that McCoy has that potential, but now Spock does too.
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Spock just "joins the human race", that's all. To a Vulcan, that is the same as becoming a barbarian.
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About your idea that Vulcans are not born logical, that it's completely learned, it's not true. Teaching is needed to hone their disciplines, but it's heavily implied that after whatever transformation Vulcans originally put themselves through, suppression of feeling became to a large extent their basic nature. In nature vs. nurture terms, it's a combination of both.
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Vulcans are taught to suppress their emotions and its a strict discipline because it goes against their nature. If it was natural for Vulcans to be logical any Vulcan could take and pass kolinarhu.
First of all, I go by TOS over and above anything that might conflict with it. I'm not changing in that regard. I started watching in early 1967, and if they try to change things in a later series, I am uninfluencable. (Unless it's some little unimportant thing.) Just saying that to get it out of the way.
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You drastically simplify things here, when I had already tried to get across that it's nowhere near as simple as being logical by nature or by learning. As I said, it's both. TOS lets us know this in bits and pieces over those 3 years. If it were just something they learned, it wouldn't take an extreme event to rip away their emotional control. Pon Farr wouldn't be needed. The This Side of Paradise spores wouldn't have been such caused such a drastic and meaningful transformation. They definitely imply both nature and nurture. It's a mixture.
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In the deepest sense, it's not "natural" for anyone to be logical... not humans, Vulcans, anybody. The Vulcans definitely did this to themselves, on purpose. The transformation millennia (?) ago, however it was achieved, was not total. They're still flesh and blood, not living robots. They struggle with feeling... but they definitely have a big head start on US. Ingrained "natural" (not a good word for this) suppression is not complete or total, and some work is needed.
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It's a recent, popular idea that Vulcans only control emotion because they can't handle it like we wonderful humans can... but I have never heard this onscreen, and it goes against the point of Vulcans in TOS, as an example of another alternate way than humans took, that solves the problem of human violence, and an opportunity for critique of human society.
I've always thought that Zor Khan was in Sarpeidon's past, probably when the Atavachron was first invented. The people who went back in time knew how to assemble it over the many centuries I'd guess and Khan used it to punish his enemies!
JB
JB
McCoy did seem more cranky and irritable than usual when he was in that cave.
IIRC, at one point, when he was confronting Zarabeth (btw, Mariette Hartley looked like she was in great form
) about whether she was lying to them about their ability to get back, McCoy did get physically aggressive with her. That's when Spock got rough with McCoy.I don't know if McCoy's losing his cool was supposed to be interpreted as him becoming more uncivilized because of the time travel just like Spock, although I doubt that was the writer's intention. In any case, McCoy did not, at all, act like a gentleman. Maybe his behavior was just a sign that he was desperate to get out of there.
That's because I'm taking a fundamentally Trumpian approach to this thing. Clearly, we're being lied to: the "facts" of the matter not only fail to make sense, they are outright contradicted in the sense that we never see the destructive effects of failing to Be Prepared, or left unsupported in the sense that nobody gets killed on return regardless of state of preparedness.
And I'm agreeing with you that there are none.
And perhaps some do, and get killed for their offense, or are otherwise quietly dealt with. But Zarabeth buys into the story that she cannot return, and OTOH nobody would wish to return to the exact timepoint where our heroes interact with Mr Atoz because that's Doomsday, so we get no confirmation either way.
At the very least, she could have been moved to a more hospitable planet with relative ease, without ever bothering the atavarchon. I doubt there would have been any benefit to returning her to her native time where Zor Khan rules and apparently hates and destroys anything and everything dear to Zarabeth.
Or then the lie was told to stop people from crowding or abusing the atavarchon. But it would be a very comforting lie for the Magistrate, as he might otherwise feel bad about leaving behind his native time, no matter how doomed.
That would have every chance of backfiring, though. Evacuation into the past is simple as such, and if the evacuees are distributed, they won't affect anything for better or worse. If they were to be tasked with affecting, they would have to be concentrated and allowed to cross-communicate, and still any single group could undo the good work of the others.
I wonder how much effort it would take to make a mess of the atavarchon itself. Zor Khan may have been a recent leader or one from the deep past. I doubt he operated before the primitive era where the Magistrate took his retirement, though - unless he got the atavarchon from aliens or future people. And the machine can span whole millennia, so it can always help people undo its own birth history unless the aliens-or-looped-genesis model is used.
Timo Saloniemi
...As for the "born logical" thing, that's sort of separate from the Vulcan issue. Vulcans are born wild, and learn moderation. Logic is just another field of study for them, and can be learned or practiced without moderation. Hitler or Tamerlane were just as logical as Spock at his best, just without the moderation part. (None of the three were pacifists or even moderates in the use of violence, though - while Spock may have recommended caution in dealing with godlike enemies, he always favored displays or use of lethal force against enemies Kirk could beat.)
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
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