In the Log One novelization of Yesteryear, Erickson is the crewman who accompanies Kirk and Spock through the Guardian and Bates is the crewman who researches Sarek's history on the ship.
But in the novel The Fire and the Rose, it is Bates who goes through the Guardian with Kirk, while Erikson is the crewman who researches Spock's history.
If anyone has TAS on DVD or Blu-ray can you check what the Yesteryear text commentary says, if anything, regarding the names of these two characters?
Yes, I chatted to DRG3 about this.
The episode, as aired, is not clear who is Erikson and who is Bates. The "Log" adaptation by ADF features a much older, white-haired(?) man as Historian Erikson, IIRC, who does not resemble the younger man with Kirk in the episode.
DRG3 realised his error after receiving my emails about the booklet for the View-Master ("Mr. Spock's Time Trek"), which was also based on the original script. It is
much clearer that the redshirt in the episode is
Erikson, with Mr Bates as the ship's records officer. Without access to the "Yesteryear" script (or the View-Master booklet), DRG3 used the episode and the "Log", and had to choose - and managed to switch the two characters - but he wasn't too worried in the end, since his "Crucible" books deliberately ignore other Pocket novels' continuity, and the trilogy involves a TAS episode with time travel changes anyway, so it is just another time-slip complication. (Along with a timeline where the sehlat dies too early.)
I recall realising, many years earlier, that all three travellers to Orion should have gone back the the Guardian with Spock/Selek to Vulcan - otherwise the Kirk and Erikson/Bates left behind with Thelin don't ever get back to their correct Enterprise.
The script is also very clear that Mr Thelin is a
blue-skinned Andorian. (He has since been retconned by several novels as an Aenar.)
