TAS: Did I-Chaya's Death Really Change Nothing?

[Emperor Norton]

GUARDIAN: The traveller is returning.
KIRK: I sent the others up to the ship. What happened?
SPOCK: One small thing was changed this time. A pet died.
KIRK: A pet? Well, that wouldn't mean much in the course of time.
SPOCK: It might, to some.

In the original timeline up to that point, I-Chaya did not die. However, that episode altered that part of history. Not necessary that anyone could tell, but does it really stand to reason that you could alter something like that and yet history goes exactly the same outside of the change?

If nothing else, it's food for thought, because I understand it's a TV show so some realism can be ignored where they don't want it in the narrative, but the butterfly effect is a huge thing in reality. You could make the argument that Star Trek thereafter really is a different universe.

 

[Lance]

It's a fair point. It's a death which means nothing in the grander scheme of universal causality, but it changes something in Spock. His childhood pet never died in the original timeline, now both versions of him feel the pain. Although I suspect the presence of his older self possibly helped soften the impact on his younger self and maybe avoid any potential bumps in the timeline. It's a localized, personal thing.

 

[Timo]

His childhood pet never died in the original timeline

I wonder. The clawed teddy bear must have died eventually in all universes. Did it die of le-matya wounds before the "Yesteryear" tampering, too - only more slowly and painfully because young Spock didn't have the clarity of mind to get it euthanized?

As regards the robustness of history, we can probably blame it on the mechanisms of time travel. When traveling back to the future, the heroes must choose a path from a forking "tree of time". There are so many forks in that path that a left turn close to the start (say, a dead pet) can always be compensated for by three right turns closer to the finish. Perhaps it's a property of most time machines that they choose the path that takes the heroes back to a "present" that is the least altered? And it is for this reason that any tampering with the past must be pretty extreme (say, outright murder of a very important person, rather than just a little chat with him on the pros and cons of a certain important decision in his life) in order to allow the heroes to reach a visibly altered present.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Push The Button]

DTI? Section 31?

 

[Timo]

Hmm. These organizations are supposedly controlled by humans. It's a bit difficult to believe in them carefully and painstakingly stamping out the effects of a dead pet but allowing galactic-scale military and political quakes (ST4 and the like) to get through on the thin excuse of "history always having been intended to happen that way"...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Push The Button]

Hmm. These organizations are supposedly controlled by humans. It's a bit difficult to believe in them carefully and painstakingly stamping out the effects of a dead pet but allowing galactic-scale military and political quakes (ST4 and the like) to get through on the thin excuse of "history always having been intended to happen that way"...

Timo Saloniemi

Sorry Timo, I was joking. Section 31, a DS9 invention I believe, is credited with being involved in a lot of behind-the-scenes things in all of the series that really are just continuity errors or plot points that weren't fully explained. I added the DTI because we're also talking about a timeline change.

 

[Timo]

Yeah, forgot to add the "I'm dead serious" smiley to the response myself.

Then again, while "S31" in any post is a definite cue for mirth, DTI is being taken seriously in some circles (I like Christopher Bennett's work even if I don't always agree with his rationalizations), so I sort of want to explore the options anyway.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

What I don't get is this:

If I-Chaya didn't die in the original timeline, then why does Spock remember Selek - his older self - before going back in time and fixing things? Spock remembers the visit from "Selek" in the past, and that Selek looked like he does now, but this is before they go back through the Guardian. And there was no real Selek - that was strictly a false identity made by Spock.

So that implies that the events of this episode were always part of history...

 

[The Old Mixer]

but the butterfly effect is a huge thing in reality.

Is it? It might be, if time travel existed.

 

[Emperor Norton]

What I don't get is this:

If I-Chaya didn't die in the original timeline, then why does Spock remember Selek - his older self - before going back in time and fixing things? Spock remembers the visit from "Selek" in the past, and that Selek looked like he does now, but this is before they go back through the Guardian. And there was no real Selek - that was strictly a false identity made by Spock.

So that implies that the events of this episode were always part of history...

*Spock's Nose Bleeds*

(Bioshock Infinite Reference)

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

What I don't get is this:

If I-Chaya didn't die in the original timeline, then why does Spock remember Selek - his older self - before going back in time and fixing things? Spock remembers the visit from "Selek" in the past, and that Selek looked like he does now, but this is before they go back through the Guardian. And there was no real Selek - that was strictly a false identity made by Spock.

So that implies that the events of this episode were always part of history...

Plotting error more than anything else. On the other hand, if Spock recalled Selek after entering the Guardian, perhaps it suggests time travelling Spock instantly remembers actions already taken by another Spock from a slightly earlier alternate timeline.

Maybe one could argue that we the audience were watching the "change in progress" timeline, instead of the one where pre-time travelling Spock (in the episode) already knows the false identity of Selek, etc.

Then again, the main plot was the central drive of the episode, so logical, supportive details--that would help make sense of it all took a back seat.

 

[T'Girl]

Spock remembers the visit from "Selek" in the past, and that Selek looked like he does now

"Our" Spock also had a visitor from the future, however in our Spock's timeline the pet didn't die. I'Chaya could have still been live on Vulcan at the time the episode took place, but cease to exist when Spock emerge from the Guardian at the end of the episode. Erased from time.

Spock would retain the memories of the animal through to the time he left for Starfleet, and during visits home. But to his family the animal died in Spock's youth.

 

[F. King Daniel]

It seems that what Spock tells his younger self in "Yesteryear" about the path of logic is what he remembers Sarek originally telling him, which is what we see in the 'Selek'-free ST'09 version of events.

*time travel headache*

 

[T'Girl]

^ Why would the Abrams-verse be cousin Selek free?

The Enterprise has the same bridge crew, Kirk met Carol, and Khan made a appearance. Why not the guardian of forever too?

All this has happen before ... and will happen again.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ There may not even be a need for a nuSelek.

Assuming Spock and Kirk are about the same age, then Spock's life took place entirely after the divergence in 2233. So perhaps in the Abrams timeline, Spock's kahs-wan was a bit different. Maybe he wasn't attacked and almost killed. So there'd be no need for present day Spock to go back and save him.

 

[Marsden]

GUARDIAN: The traveller is returning.
KIRK: I sent the others up to the ship. What happened?
SPOCK: One small thing was changed this time. A pet died.
KIRK: A pet? Well, that wouldn't mean much in the course of time.
SPOCK: It might, to some.

In the original timeline up to that point, I-Chaya did not die. However, that episode altered that part of history. Not necessary that anyone could tell, but does it really stand to reason that you could alter something like that and yet history goes exactly the same outside of the change?

If nothing else, it's food for thought, because I understand it's a TV show so some realism can be ignored where they don't want it in the narrative, but the butterfly effect is a huge thing in reality. You could make the argument that Star Trek thereafter really is a different universe.

I think you have the answer in your question, it mattered to Spock.
It didn't cause galaxy wide changes, (rain did not turn to donuts,) but Spock was changed.

It's also a predestination paradox because he always saves himself. But since I'm assured paradoxes largely work themselves out, (and he isn't his own grandpa) then it really didn't affect anyone else.

Spock's verbalization of "It might, to some." speaks volumes to me, it seems like Spock is really quite upset at the death of his pet and Kirk's lack of response to it I attribute to Shatner reading into a tape recorder in a hotel and Filmation's expressive animation.

I really like the episode, and I think it handles the time travel very well, the much larger "effects" were noticed when Spock didn't save himself. If you really want to pick a nit, the Enterprise should arguabley have ceased to exist due to all of the times Spock was the primary savior of the ship, Immunity Syndrome for example.

 

[Lance]

What I don't get is this:

If I-Chaya didn't die in the original timeline, then why does Spock remember Selek - his older self - before going back in time and fixing things? Spock remembers the visit from "Selek" in the past, and that Selek looked like he does now, but this is before they go back through the Guardian. And there was no real Selek - that was strictly a false identity made by Spock.

So that implies that the events of this episode were always part of history...

This is a very, very good point and one that has never occurred to me before. Spock does rather imply that "Selek" has always been a part of the timeline and that the events of 'Yesteryear' are therefore fated to always happen... and yet, I-Chaya's death is presented as unexpected and something which didn't happen in Spock's original timeline...

 

[T'Girl]

Selek is the variable in the "time loops." He has the capasity to create small change (or really large ones) in the past. Our Spock must have done something different, he apparently wasn't at the point in time he thought he was, although he did get the date correct.

In the previous time loop Cousin Selek might have been clearer about the timing of events, left the house sooner, and saved both young Spock and I'Chaya.

 

[Push The Button]

but the butterfly effect is a huge thing in reality.

Is it? It might be, if time travel existed.

I was watching The World Wars on History Channel. There was a WW1 British infantryman that had an opportunity to shoot Adolf Hitler, but he decided not to. Hitler was working as a battlefield messenger, running from trench to trench, and was unarmed. This Brit had him dead in his rifle sights and was close enough to have easily killed him. Butterfly effect indeed, that one moment of well intentioned mercy would later cost tens of millions of lives.

 

[Marsden]

but the butterfly effect is a huge thing in reality.

Is it? It might be, if time travel existed.

I was watching The World Wars on History Channel. There was a WW1 British infantryman that had an opportunity to shoot Adolf Hitler, but he decided not to. Hitler was working as a battlefield messenger, running from trench to trench, and was unarmed. This Brit had him dead in his rifle sights and was close enough to have easily killed him. Butterfly effect indeed, that one moment of well intentioned mercy would later cost tens of millions of lives.

Assuming that there wasn't another madman ready to take his place. That's a big assumption.