All Our Yesterdays
- Thread starter Falconer
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IIRC, Shatner wrote something about TI being a depressing ending to the series.
All fully agreed and understood. I meant that it's clear by implication and logic that Atoz prepared Kirk for whatever time he chose for him before attempting to wheel him on through. As for Kirk didn't die, so he must not have been prepared, either the preparation was harmless if you didn't go through (logical), or McCoy reversed it, unseen to us.
One of the most interesting things to me about AOY - which for my money is a top 20 entry at least complete with one of the best titles in Star Trek - is that Atoz doesn't seem to realize that KSM don't belong on Sarpeidon at all, let alone in its past. Necessary to heighten the mystery and further the plot, but somewhat odd for someone who is so otherwise fastidious.
Towards the end of an initial first draft, after the real Atoz accidentally dies via electrocution, Zarabeth asks Kirk why he (Atoz) did irrational things because "he was a good man -- and a wise man." Kirk responds that he thinks it was because Atoz was no longer sane, and Zarabeth replies to him, looking at Atoz: "He'd been alone too long."
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The Atavachron on the planet Sarpeidon shouldn't know anything about ancient Vulcans or how to turn a modern Vulcan into an ancient Vulcan. I note that many Starfleet members have traveled back in time in a number of episodes and movies and there is no mention of them being prepared to survive in the past or unprepared when they return to the present, so we have no clues from other productions about how the Atavachron prepares people to survive in the past or how or even if it is necessary.
There is a fan theory that Vulcans have a subconscious telepathic mass mind that encourages modern Vulcans to be rational and unemotional, and which in pre Surak times may have encouraged Vulcans to be highly emotional. In "The Immunity Syndrome" Spock felt the death of 400 Vulcans over a distance of some light years. And thus I suppose that Spock could have been in subconscious contact with the Vulcan mass mind over distances of tens, hundreds, and thousands of light years, and so its telepathic influence could have helped Spock remain unemotional during his time on the Enterprise.
So possibly when sent back in time 5,000 years, to before the reforms of Surak, the influence of the pre logical highly emotional Vulcan mass mind would tend to make Spock highly emotional.
Wasn't it also the M5 and Gary Seven's PC?
This whole "preparing" business fails to convince because there is zero sign that it would actually work, or even exist.
No character ever suffers from being either prepared or unprepared. No passage through time is affected by preparedness or lack thereof. Instead, certain characters are afraid to even attempt a passage through time because they were told stories about this preparation thing.
Which makes sense, because the first known use of the device was for banishment. Zor Khan did not want Zarabeth to return, or even attempt to return. Apparently, poor Khan was somehow unable to gun down, behead, boil or grind to pulp Zarabeth by conventional means, so none of those would help in stopping her from returning, either. But the fear of dying in the attempt apparently would.
Mr AtoZ doesn't appear to be a spiritual descendant of Zor. But he may have inherited the machine from Zor nevertheless, complete with the preparation functionality that completes the banishment. Or then without that function, but with the precedent of the lie that keeps the customers from doing further time travel and thereby messing up Sarpeidon's past (and quite probably undoing the invention of the atavachron and the salvation of the populance).
Yet even if the preparation functionality did exist, it obviously has broken down at some point, because nothing stops any of our heroes from returning, and nothing but unpleasant local conditions seems to threaten their existence if they fail to return.
The haphazardly written story works regardless of how one rationalizes away or otherwise ignores the preparation nonsense. What suffices is not taking the librarian for his word...
Timo Saloniemi
No character ever suffers from being either prepared or unprepared. No passage through time is affected by preparedness or lack thereof. Instead, certain characters are afraid to even attempt a passage through time because they were told stories about this preparation thing.
Which makes sense, because the first known use of the device was for banishment. Zor Khan did not want Zarabeth to return, or even attempt to return. Apparently, poor Khan was somehow unable to gun down, behead, boil or grind to pulp Zarabeth by conventional means, so none of those would help in stopping her from returning, either. But the fear of dying in the attempt apparently would.
Mr AtoZ doesn't appear to be a spiritual descendant of Zor. But he may have inherited the machine from Zor nevertheless, complete with the preparation functionality that completes the banishment. Or then without that function, but with the precedent of the lie that keeps the customers from doing further time travel and thereby messing up Sarpeidon's past (and quite probably undoing the invention of the atavachron and the salvation of the populance).
Yet even if the preparation functionality did exist, it obviously has broken down at some point, because nothing stops any of our heroes from returning, and nothing but unpleasant local conditions seems to threaten their existence if they fail to return.
The haphazardly written story works regardless of how one rationalizes away or otherwise ignores the preparation nonsense. What suffices is not taking the librarian for his word...
Timo Saloniemi
Wasn't Sulu supposed to be in the Spock role originally?
The 'prepare' thing was just a device to make sure they couldn't bring Zarabeth back. But an explanation could be that humans/Vulcans didn't need the preparation like the Sarpedians. As pointed out humans jumped through time regularly through Star Trek.Maybe the Avatchronthingy mussed up the molecules so you needed prepping if travelling through time using it.
To make ATOZ not look like a psychopath perhaps he could have questioned Kirk and asked if they had been prepared and Kirk just replied Yes for the heck of it just to get the info out of ATOZ.
To make it more realistic a couple of months could have of passed.here Zarav\beth and Spock could have shacked up with McCoys blessing (as in the original script). Maybe McCoy could have passed the spot and heard Kirk calling warning them they would die. And you know they could start looking ill or something. Then Spock could go back with McCoy and try to get prepared but too late.to get back to Zarabeth.
Yeh the stuff about Spock going primitive always didn't make sense. Even if it were some sort of group telepathic thing thing surely distance and years of Spock's training and civilisation would have countered that.
The 'prepare' thing was just a device to make sure they couldn't bring Zarabeth back. But an explanation could be that humans/Vulcans didn't need the preparation like the Sarpedians. As pointed out humans jumped through time regularly through Star Trek.Maybe the Avatchronthingy mussed up the molecules so you needed prepping if travelling through time using it.
To make ATOZ not look like a psychopath perhaps he could have questioned Kirk and asked if they had been prepared and Kirk just replied Yes for the heck of it just to get the info out of ATOZ.
To make it more realistic a couple of months could have of passed.here Zarav\beth and Spock could have shacked up with McCoys blessing (as in the original script). Maybe McCoy could have passed the spot and heard Kirk calling warning them they would die. And you know they could start looking ill or something. Then Spock could go back with McCoy and try to get prepared but too late.to get back to Zarabeth.
Yeh the stuff about Spock going primitive always didn't make sense. Even if it were some sort of group telepathic thing thing surely distance and years of Spock's training and civilisation would have countered that.
Different rules for different situations or computers! The Atavachron wasn't only a time machine but a device for sending people away to other safe places during the final days of that planet! Zor Khan was a despot from a previous time period of Sarpeidon as Spock remembered reading about him in the library but I doubt he was in control of the population just before the coming Beta Niobe apocalypse!
JB
JB
I don't recall ever discussing this ep much here before. Other than Friday's Child I believe it's my favorite KSM episode. There are a few nitpicks, although they don't distract much from the ep as a whole:
1. Spock's line about Zarabeth at the end is an all-time classic, but . . . I doubt she was buried by anyone.
2. It always bugged me that the Atavachron didn't have more security. I mean, we know a ruthless dictator was in charge of it at one point.
3. No one addresses the potential problems with sending the population of an entire planet back into the past. It seems like someone, deliberately or not, would have changed something that affected the future.
1. Spock's line about Zarabeth at the end is an all-time classic, but . . . I doubt she was buried by anyone.
2. It always bugged me that the Atavachron didn't have more security. I mean, we know a ruthless dictator was in charge of it at one point.
3. No one addresses the potential problems with sending the population of an entire planet back into the past. It seems like someone, deliberately or not, would have changed something that affected the future.
The Sarpeidons obviously projected a future time where their world would no longer exist and so were prepared for it's destruction many centuries earlier! Creating time technology instead of space flight may have seemed much easier to them! Zor Khan may have captured his world and used or threatened the Atavachron's properties as a weapon against the people! 
JB
JB
I guess the preparation (scam?) deals with #3 nicely enough. Once in the past, everybody is alone and unable to travel further. And in Trek, time is robust: isolated individuals would have little influence on it.
As for Zor Khan, I rather fancy the scenario where he was the original inventor (that is, he owns the IP rights thanks to executing all the engineers afterwards), and Sarpeidon just grasped this preexisting opportunity when it was realized that the Sun would blow up in two weeks. The machine may have been dusted off after spending three centuries on the far shelf of a giant warehouse at the local Area 51.
If it really is but one machine, though, perhaps the only way to handle the logistics of emptying an entire planet would be to start retroactively. Perhaps the population was culled by time tampering first, after (before?) which the elite was allowed to escape to the past.
Timo Saloniemi
As for Zor Khan, I rather fancy the scenario where he was the original inventor (that is, he owns the IP rights thanks to executing all the engineers afterwards), and Sarpeidon just grasped this preexisting opportunity when it was realized that the Sun would blow up in two weeks. The machine may have been dusted off after spending three centuries on the far shelf of a giant warehouse at the local Area 51.
If it really is but one machine, though, perhaps the only way to handle the logistics of emptying an entire planet would be to start retroactively. Perhaps the population was culled by time tampering first, after (before?) which the elite was allowed to escape to the past.
Timo Saloniemi
The sun was so close to Nova that perhaps any security Personnel for the atavacron had been sent to the Past already. Once Mr AtoZ had determined that there was nobody left to send he probably sent the security people to their destinations. Perhaps the silliest thing about the whole episode is the coy way the teaser is played out where neither the Enterprise people or Mr AtoZ will come out and say directly what they mean. They talk in this circular way until the Enterprise people accidentally get sent into the past without knowing where they are and what the purpose of the library is.
Never really thought about this before but at the end of act 1 of City on the edge of forever Enterprise is gone and they are on a dead world and they mention the fact that the only possibility they have is to fix the future or at least live out their lives the past. And in all our Yesterdays the entire planets population has decided that their best chance is to live out their lives in the past
Never really thought about this before but at the end of act 1 of City on the edge of forever Enterprise is gone and they are on a dead world and they mention the fact that the only possibility they have is to fix the future or at least live out their lives the past. And in all our Yesterdays the entire planets population has decided that their best chance is to live out their lives in the past
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It seemed the atavachron station was staffed well enough. It's just that the staff consisted of holograms or perhaps androids, which as such is par for the course for Star Trek... What more would the place have needed?
Although it may be that the additional Atozes were not holograms as such, nor androids, but mistaken for one or the other by our heroes who have their own (fairly limited) ideas about technology. Quite possibly, the "replicas" Atoz refers to could be actual Atozes, from other moments of time, multiplied as needed with the help of the time machine...
Timo Saloniemi
Although it may be that the additional Atozes were not holograms as such, nor androids, but mistaken for one or the other by our heroes who have their own (fairly limited) ideas about technology. Quite possibly, the "replicas" Atoz refers to could be actual Atozes, from other moments of time, multiplied as needed with the help of the time machine...
Timo Saloniemi
No, it's Spock in the original outlines and in all of the script drafts.
I think so, too.
Trek trivia: Zor Kahn the Tyrant doesn't appear until the first draft. Prior to that, in the revised story outline, Zarabeth's last name was... zor Kahn.
From the initial story outline:
Whilst I agree with all of the above regarding being 'prepared', up to now I always took it to be a genuine necessity, watching the episode and Atoz's comments at face value.
Kirk does appear to feel faint/touches his brow immediately prior to re-entering the portal to return to the present. I took this to mean he started feeling the effects of being 'unprepared'
I also thought Spock and McCoy didn't feel the effects of being unprepared as early as Kirk, due to being sent further back in the past. They would have felt it soon, but no doubt returned to the present before any effects started to take place.
Also, we don't know *how* a person dies from being 'unprepared'...
Kirk does appear to feel faint/touches his brow immediately prior to re-entering the portal to return to the present. I took this to mean he started feeling the effects of being 'unprepared'
I also thought Spock and McCoy didn't feel the effects of being unprepared as early as Kirk, due to being sent further back in the past. They would have felt it soon, but no doubt returned to the present before any effects started to take place.
Also, we don't know *how* a person dies from being 'unprepared'...
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Spock doesn't "revert to his primitive self". He becomes emotionally akin to the Vulcans that existed at that ancient time. This is pre-Surak so they don't have the mental logical carapace. Given that the Vulcan mind-community extends countless light years into space (viz. The Immunity Syndrome), it is not inconceivable that Spock ends up on the primitive bandwagon.
Humans 5,000 years ago are essentially humans now. And McCoy is already emotional, as Spock delights in pointing out.
As for why the phaser doesn't work, all we know is that it doesn't. It might have been the cold (and before "Enemy Within" is brought up, Sulu et. al. only use the campfire setting of the phaser once, early on. Why not when it's getting colder?)
Finally, this episode is not fanfiction. It is canon. Jean Lisette Aroeste got paid to write it. And it's one of the best episodes of the series, so I'm glad she did. The fact that a woman wrote it does not make it less than canon somehow.
Aroeste also wrote "Is there in Truth no Beauty", which I suppose you'd also call "fanfiction" since Spock gets to display emotions there, too. That's also one of my favorite episodes of Season 3.
Anyway, please let me know if I am reading to much into what you wrote, but I found it offensive as is, and that's why I'm a little hot under the collar.
I just reread the script -- the only discussion of what preparation means comes when Kirk is in the past. It may well be that the preparation is some sort of adaptation thing that wouldn't apply to Kirk or his crew.
An analogy -- in Niven's story, "Bird in the Hand", the protagonist lives in a future where pollution is rampant and the climate has been wrecked. People have adapted to the smog. He goes to the past and accidentally erases the internal combustion engine, and when he gets back to the future, everyone is asphyxiating because the air is too pure.
So maybe there is a component vital to the Atozians but not to humans/Vulcans so no preparation is needed.
An analogy -- in Niven's story, "Bird in the Hand", the protagonist lives in a future where pollution is rampant and the climate has been wrecked. People have adapted to the smog. He goes to the past and accidentally erases the internal combustion engine, and when he gets back to the future, everyone is asphyxiating because the air is too pure.
So maybe there is a component vital to the Atozians but not to humans/Vulcans so no preparation is needed.
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