Is there a major contradiction in "The City on the Edge of Forever"?
- Thread starter Adam La Forge
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How long would they wait anyway? The guardian did say "then you would be returned. It would be as if none of you had gone."
So really, like 5 minutes before Scotty asks the guardian?
They could have written them as being gone longer, I suppose. Made only a day pass for the landing party, or made the five minutes they were gone according to the clock seem longer to the landing party than it was.
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From the crew that was left behind their point of view was that Kirk and Spock disappeared for just a moment.
Right before Kirk and Spock leaves...
KIRK: Scotty, when you think you've waited long enough, each of you will have to try it. Even if you fail, at least you'll be alive in some past world somewhere.
Kirk and Spock step into the Guardian. Moments later, Kirk and Spock step out of the Guardian.SCOTT: What happened, sir? You only left a moment ago.
The problem is that point 3 is (in my opinion) not quite correct. They do not restore the time-stream to the way it should be. The car accident only happens because Keeler sees Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. This could not happen in the original time stream, where no one from the 23rd century interfered. So the "solution" that they realized at the end was not quite the way it should be. Keeler died, but Kirk/Spock/MyCoy interfered in the cause of her death.
The crucial question is: How did Edith Keeler die in the original time stream, when no one from 23rd century interfered? She could not have died from that car accident, because that car accident only happened because of Kirk/Spock/McCoy. Perhaps she died from some other cause between that event and World War II. But if this is the case, then the fact that McCoy saved her would have had no important impact on humanity because Keeler died before WWII anyway. This contradicts what we saw in the middle of the episode, when we learned that McCoy's saving her does indeed change the course of WWII. Therefore, the question how Edith Keeler was originally supposed to die does not appear to have any convincing answer that would be in line with the total episode.
Yeah, this is possible. However, the story of the episode would have been more convincing if the cause of Edith Keeler's death shown at the end of the episode was not related to Kirk, Spock, or McCoy. E.g., she could have crossed the street to arrive somewhere else, and not because she saw them.
Yeah, right, at about 32 minutes of the episode, Spock says that she died from a car accident in that same year (1930). So, in the original time stream (without intervention from the 23rd century), there must also have been a car accident with Keeler. But that essentially means that there are two different car accidents (with different causes) in two different time streams: one car accident in the original time stream without intervention from the 23rd century, and then the car accident we see at the end of the episode, where Keeler tries to cross the street to arrive at Kirk, Spock, and McCoy's position.
The episode would be more convincing if the car accident we see at the end would be of the same kind as the car accident in the original time stream. That is, the car accident should not be caused in any way by the presence of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy.
The important point in the flow of time is that Edith was killed by a car at that moment. We don't know what caused her to be hit by the car originally, only that McCoy (who shouldn't have been there) saved her and broke time. Kirk prevented McCoy stepping in and Edith died - at the proper time. The exact details don't matter. A million little things in our lives have us in places at certain times. Kirk wasn't with her in the original scenario, so anything or anyone could have been there to get her to the right spot. The only thing that is different in the timeline is those weeks where Kirk, Spock and McCoy were in 1930. Everything before and after is exactly how it was. Even the bum who died was probably never going to live beyond that point. Hell, he could have rushed out to save her and was also killed.
The strong inference in the final version of CotEoF is that in the original, unaltered timeline, Keeler goes to the movie, returns, walks across the street, and is hit by the truck. In the McCoy-altered timeline, she goes to the movie, returns, crosses the street, McCoy exits the mission and sees her about to be hit and McCoy pushes her out of the way. In the Kirk, Spock, and McCoy-altered timeline, she and Kirk go to the movie, return, Kirk crosses the street when he hears McCoy is inside the mission, he intercepts McCoy as he exits the mission and prevents him from saving Keeler as she crosses and is hit by that same truck.
In the view of the storytellers, Kirk has “restored the timeline” ie, gotten Keeler hit by that truck again. But even they reveal that the exact event is not the point. It is the result. Spock tells Kirk when he saves Keeler from falling down the steps that she might have died right there, and in his view, that presumably would have been fine. Her death at approximately this time is the “focal point” in history, not the exact way it happens.
It is a very linear view of history which is fine and consistent. It is literary however, but not realistic. History reflects the workings of a complex system not always best described by linear forces.
In the view of the storytellers, Kirk has “restored the timeline” ie, gotten Keeler hit by that truck again. But even they reveal that the exact event is not the point. It is the result. Spock tells Kirk when he saves Keeler from falling down the steps that she might have died right there, and in his view, that presumably would have been fine. Her death at approximately this time is the “focal point” in history, not the exact way it happens.
It is a very linear view of history which is fine and consistent. It is literary however, but not realistic. History reflects the workings of a complex system not always best described by linear forces.
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How do you know there even was an original time stream in which Kirk, Spock, and McCoy did not travel back in time?
This is a time-travel episode. There is a time machine in it. Maybe no timeline is free from interference by its usage.
At the end, the Guardian says, "All is as it was before." If one takes that literally, then it means that in the original timeline they were to interfere in the past, just as they did.
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Yeah, it's in essence an upside-down "butterfly effect" story.
In this case: Thing that Was Supposed to Happen is prevented by someone who's not supposed to be there, disrupting The Way Things Are Supposed to Be; by preventing that prevention, Thing happens (more or less on schedule, even though some smaller details differ) and The Way Things Are Supposed to Be is restored.
Yes, and no.
The scene in question is directly due to her and Kirk walking down, with him telling her to stay in that position (side of the street) while he goes to find the missionary and she decides to cross the street because she sees him and some other guy trying to pin down that third guy who happens to be the missionary guy who's also McCoy BTW.
Had McCoy not shown up in the first place, she still would have jaywalked while looking stoned or whatever at some point and would have got just as splattered faster than the time it takes to cook a compact disc inside a microwave oven (note to self, don't cook compact discs in microwave ovens.)
Or she would have found another missionary to run after before getting run over.
Startrekland is just lucky that her death lined up with Spock's newspaper as close to as perfectly as possible.
Otherwise, you'd end up with something like this:
BONUS:
The fun begins at 0:29, do not let the length of the entire video fool you as it takes about half a minute to start seeing a marshmallow peep begin to puff out while in the microwave. It's pretty gross when you start to think about it... like this:
(dang thumbnails that endeavor to spoil the thrill...)
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Which I thought made Spock's later criticism of Kirk catching Keeler as she stumbles on the stairs silly.
(Edith has just gone up a flight of stairs.)
KIRK: Edith.
EDITH: Are you following me, sir?
KIRK: With ulterior motives. Does that please you?
EDITH: I hope it means (she stumbles on the step and Kirk catches her, while Spock watches.) Oh! How stupid! I've been up and down those stairs a thousand times. I could have broken my neck.
(Spock goes back into room 21 as she kisses Jim, and re-emerges when Kirk comes down the stairs again.)
SPOCK: Captain, I did not plan to eavesdrop.
KIRK: No, of course you didn't.
SPOCK: I must point out that when she stumbled, she might have died right there, had you not caught her.
KIRK: It's not yet time. McCoy isn't here.
SPOCK: We're not that sure of our facts. Who's to say when the exact time will come? Save her, do as your heart tells you to do, and millions will die who did not die before
Um, no, Spock. You just read her obituary earlier. Keeler dies in a car accident. She doesn't die breaking her neck while climbing stairs.
Actually, I rather tend to agree with Spock here. The important thing is that Keeler has to die. Even though she died from a car accident in the original time stream, they could not be sure that this will happen again: First, Kirk and Spock had already influenced Keller, and second, it was not sure that they would succeed in stopping McCoy from helping her. Therefore, death from stumbling over the stairs would have been a safe alternative. (All that is of course very sad, but that is just the drama inherient to the episode.)
Spock is also warning Kirk that if his first instinct is to rescue the woman, as he so clearly demonstrated (and I daresay ours would be the same, were we there when she tripped), he might not be able to allow her to die when the time does come.
Assuming she did die on the stairs, what possible reason might it be said she was killed in a car accident?
Assuming she did die on the stairs, what possible reason might it be said she was killed in a car accident?
Excellent points, especially on that statement by the GOF! Whatever the author's original intentions might have been, the episode eventually produced comes across to me as a classic predestination paradox. In fact I suspect that the GOF is itself the result of such temporal shenanigans, which it seems to confirm with this statement to Kirk:
I am my own beginning, my own ending.
Such powers are not necessary - the GOF was just trying to manipulate Kirk & Spock into following McCoy into the past (to complete the time loop) so all it had to do to was spout a few poetic lines to the landing party and block off their communications to the Enterprise. Humanoids are such easy marks!
There was a short story in one of the Strange New Worlds collections (Volume II, "Triptych") which supposes that, in actuality, Kirk whiffed it and Keeler lived, so Scotty led a second team through, they met up with Kirk and also failed, and finally Uhura went back with the remainder of the landing party, and it was all three groups (two of them off-screen) that contributed to the ending as we saw it.
Now I’m imagining Uhura driving a truck and mowing down Edith Keeler…
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