How long before "The Man Trap" did McCoy know Kirk?

[ChallengerHK]

As for getting the original timeline band (which took several seasons to accumulate) back together only many years earlier in the new timeline all at once suspends all reason.

The only way I can justify this in my mind is the City on the Edge "currents of time" idea. I've never liked that explanation, but if true it would explain the notion that this group of people are destined to be together.

 

[Timo]

They lampshade this concept in the movie so heavily that the lampstand is bent on a figure-fortyseven... Yes, there's Destiny at play, and out of all the possible universes, the one we get to watch will always gyrate towards bringing the same faces together. Even if those faces actually aren't quite the same.

Timo Saloninemi

 

[Pauln6]

Nothing suggests Sulu would have been a cadet there, though. Apparently he was the scheduled replacement helmsman, rather than one of the last-minute additions. Chekov is not addressed as Cadet, either - indeed, the only Cadets in the movie dialogue are Kirk and Uhura.

Timo Saloniemi

Yikes it's true! So, if Chekov was 17 in the movie and was from last year's batch, assuming he was smart enough to graduate in 3 years, he would have joined the academy at 13! Take that Wesley Crusher!

It's also a fair point to say that in many worlds theory, everything can happen somewhere and Spock just happened to be in the universe where the gang all got together, where the laws of physics are different, where Starfleet is sexist, where warp speed works differently etc etc.

It's the many worlds version of, 'a wizard did it.' ;-D

Poor McCoy has a messy divorce in every universe.