"Tomorrow Is Yesterday"

Technically I suppose one could believe the chronometer is hooked to the ship sensors and somehow the sensors can monitor the flow of both time and space (something they would need to do if you are able to warp time and space)

 

Actually, that is more or less what was suggested in the original plot memo!
From http://www.orionpressfanzines.com/articles/tomorrowisyesterday.htm :

This solution clearly employs the version of time travel where you "rewind" time and replace your earlier self in the timeline.
That's a much tidier solution for this story, but would be at odds with time travel stories later in the franchise.

 

Well, basically they've replaced logic with nonsense... but at least it's entertaining nonsense.

 

That episode, while fun to watch makes one suspend all belief in reality. First, my main problem with it is that Spock would actually consider that the United States military would explode a nuclear weapon in the air over its own territory, not just in some remotely located testing ground... and second, wouldn't they need the Presidents authorization to use it? In the words of Mr. Spock himself, "That is most illogical."

 

Kirk to Spock;

"Mr Spock, what do you calculate the odds are of any producer on TOS ever thinking anyone would be examining these episodes under million power magnification 55 years later?"

Spock: <lifts eyebrow sarcastically>

 

The writers actually got this mostly correct. The Enterprise would've been considered hostile after crushing Christopher's F-104. The fighters that were coming behind Christopher would've been the ones to try and nuke the Enterprise if she stuck around but I'll give Spock some slack in probably not having full sensors to scan for nuclear weapons on the F-104 to not be able to tell the difference.

https://www.atomicheritage.org/location/nevada-test-site

On January 27, 1951, nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site (NTS) officially began with the detonation of Shot Able, a 1-kiloton bomb, as part of Operation Ranger. Between 1951 and 1992, the U.S. government conducted a total of 1,021 nuclear tests here. Out of these tests 100 were atmospheric, and 921 were underground. Test facilities for nuclear rocket and ramjet engines were also constructed and used from the late 1950s to the early 1970s.​

https://www.airforcemag.com/article/0712nuclear/

In April 1956, Eisenhower signed an “Authorization for the Expenditure of Atomic Weapons in Air Defense.” It gave the military advance authority to use nuclear arms in some instances when defending against aerial attack in the United States, such as when an aircraft “commits a hostile act” or one “manifestly hostile in intent.”

Air Defense Command’s chief, Gen. Earle E. Partridge, accidentally revealed the existence of the policy in a 1957 interview with US News and World Report. It caused little stir at the time.

The Air Force was also eager to demonstrate that nuclear air defense arms would not endanger those on the ground because the weapons were of sufficiently small kilotonnage and would be used at high altitudes. Thus, the service arranged with the Atomic Energy Commission to test fire a weapon from a specially outfitted F-89 during a July 1957 nuclear test series at the Nevada Test Site...

..With the exception of the Cuban Missile Crisis, when interceptors ferried the arms to dispersal airfields, interceptors were not allowed to be airborne with the weapons. Protocol required that the first aircraft making contact with unknowns carry conventional arms. Follow-on interceptors would be equipped with nuclear arms.​

 

US F-104's were never operationally armed with the AIR-2 Genie atomic rocket, just tested. The F-89 Scorpion, F-101B Voodoo, and the F-106 Delta Dart...now those were deployed as AIR-2 platforms.

 

If there had been a nuke on board, was there any danger of the tractor beam triggering the weapon?

Duranium Hull... Is Duranium related to uranium?

Google says that it is a naturally found element. Number 235 on the periodic table.

Would Enterprise have survived a close nuking if her shields were down?

 

That's correct. The two flights that were scrambled (but still a bit aways and their composition not announced on screen) could easily have been fighters that could be armed with nukes.

 

... still it would have been an insane thing to do. An airburst with the resultant EMP would have caused havoc, maybe not as much as today, but I think by 1968 they already knew and kept that information highly classified for years. A ship from the future would consider that common knowledge, like we do today.

 

Insane today but apparently acceptable back then. From Spock's POV it would be common knowledge that during this time the US Air Force was equipped with nuclear air-to-air missiles and pre-authorized to engage and not afraid to use it over US soil. Maybe you're mistaking the Enterprise appearing over 1990's US? From the airforcemag article:

The Air Force was also eager to demonstrate that nuclear air defense arms would not endanger those on the ground because the weapons were of sufficiently small kilotonnage and would be used at high altitudes. Thus, the service arranged with the Atomic Energy Commission to test fire a weapon from a specially outfitted F-89 during a July 1957 nuclear test series at the Nevada Test Site.

Col. Arthur B. Oldfield, ADC’s public information officer, recounted later that Partridge instructed him at the time to trumpet Genie’s introduction. The general, he said, “wanted the weapons ‘out in the open.’ ” Five ADC officers heard about this assignment and volunteered to stand beneath the Genie blast, dubbed “Shot John.”

The Genie was detonated at a designated “air zero”—18,000 feet above the five volunteers and one Air Force photographer. The officers stood next to a hand-lettered “ground zero–population five” sign that Oldfield had fashioned from shirt cardboard.

Maj. Norman Bodinger radioed a narration to the operation’s command center. He was interrupted temporarily by the shock wave. After the observers recoiled momentarily, they excitedly shook hands and extended congratulations all around.

This test, almost unimaginable today, garnered considerable favorable news coverage. “They said all they experienced was ‘a sudden rush of air and a clap like thunder,’ ” reported the New York Times the next day. The volunteers “remained on the spot an hour after the detonation, with Geiger counters, and said radioactive fallout was almost undetectable.” Time described a “fireball,” which gave way to a “rosy, doughnut-shaped cloud.”​

 

How do you (Noname Given) know that they did end up in the year that they came from?

I don't know if Starfleet noticed the Enterprise had been missing, but they certainly noticed its arrival at (where did they arrive at?).

The voice from Starfleet doesn't mention whether the Enterprise has been missing for a period of time or whether the Enterrpise is where it is expected to b eor hundred of lightyears away from where it should be. That is highly annoying.

 

I suppose the old faithful trope "our records from that time are fragmentary" could be employed in order to cover that oversight...
Spock certainly thinks that the crazy 20th Century humans would be foolish enough to launch a nuke at them!

 

Also, as far as we know, there was no USAF mission utilizing the Saturn V stack in our reality. If Trek has those, there should be little doubt that the Genie would be deployed on the F-104 operationally; that the AIM-26 would be routinely carried by a variety of interceptors; and that aircraft-carried nuclear weaponry might in fact enjoy great popularity when attempts at deploying nukes in space were thwarted by malevolent space aliens...

Timo Saloniemi

 

for time to play out that their earlier adventure never happened, Kirk would have had to have also have destroyed or integrated with the younger Enterprise before it tractored Christopher.

 

Which they basically did, both in the original plot sketch (above) and in the finished episode. It's just not made explicit what happened to the other Enterprise in the episode, perhaps a hangover from the original concept where the crew appeared to have "re-wound" time.

 

Why the "first" Enterprise would disappear from Christopher's Mk 1 Eyeball Scan and radar alike is not all that difficult to explain. The ship was about to make a recovery in any case, and would have ascended away from the interceptor and perhaps engaged radar-thwarting shields mere dozens of seconds after the moment where the "first" Kirk made the decision to use the tractor beam instead.

The "second" Enterprise confusing Christopher with the beam-superpositioning at that crucial moment (from the secure heights of outer space) would buy the "first" one those seconds, allowing it to ascend without ever engaging the tractor beam, and that would be that. No real chance of the messed-up "first" ship spotting the "second", either, before the "second" one proceeded to the future*.

It's too bad that they did the beam-merging trick in the exact wrong order, though. They were coming in from the future: surely it would have been natural to beam down the Sergeant first? And beaming him down into himself, aka confusing the "first" Sergeant at a crucial moment so that he wouldn't notice the "first" heroes stealing the radar tapes, would nicely erase those tapes from the resulting timeline. Now they stop Christopher from spotting the ship first, but the tapes are still there - and now the "first" heroes never beam down to recover the tapes!

(Or perhaps they still do, after reaching the safety or orbit? But they would do it in a slightly altered fashion now that they weren't caught by Christopher, and thus Spock couldn't really calculate the right moment to mess with the Sarge, not in advance anyway. But he does take his sweet time, potentially to scan. Perhaps he plays chess with live pieces there, observing brief glimpses of timelines and calculating the cascades of events, then intervening?)

Tmo Saloniemi

* ...which now might enjoy the presence of two Enterprises. A single-timeline, BTTF style model works there, after all, but it would lack a mechanism for erasing either of the two ships after all was said and done.

 

It was said that they went back in time to before the episode events, then time travel forward from the past into the future, so, first Capt. Christopher then the Sergeant.

 

If there were two Enterprises in the future, and week to week we never knew which one we were watching, that could explain a lot of inconsistency.

 

Consider that "like" clicked ten thousand times.

Indeed. Which simply is the wrong way to do it, for no discernible reason. Spock offers no rationale for going "beyond yesterday" as such, and it's pretty difficult to conjure up one, too.

If you notice you have been dribbling mud on the floor, surely sweeping it up while you retrace your steps is the efficient way to go? (Unless Spock gives us an action analogous to leaving your muddy shoes at the door. But he doesn't.)

Timo Saloniemi