Butt would she have dumped Kirk like Gillian Taylor did?
Powerful scene when McCoy finally sees the tricorder readings from the alternate history where he is trapped back in time.
Was Kirk the CAUSE of Edith Keeler's death?
- Thread starter NTRPRZ
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Butt would she have dumped Kirk like Gillian Taylor did?
Powerful scene when McCoy finally sees the tricorder readings from the alternate history where he is trapped back in time.
I assumed the same. It describes little, and yet a lot, when he says "I was made to offer the past in this manner. I cannot change." with his Westminster Dog Show voice.
Well, you could approach this from the multiverse standpoint, where the Guardian's planet jumps through the timelines.
Timeline A - Everything up to the point where McCoy jumps the shar...goes back in time.
Timeline B - Nazis win the war.
Timeline C - Almost but not quite identical to timeline A.
As far as Timeline A is concerned, Kirk et al. beamed down to the planet and never returned...or the planet disappeared...or versions of our heroes from a different timeline showed up after completing the mission.
Rather similar to Trek '09, in which Old!Spock and Nero et al. go through the red hole and from the Primeverse perspective are never seen again.
Timeline A - Everything up to the point where McCoy jumps the shar...goes back in time.
Timeline B - Nazis win the war.
Timeline C - Almost but not quite identical to timeline A.
As far as Timeline A is concerned, Kirk et al. beamed down to the planet and never returned...or the planet disappeared...or versions of our heroes from a different timeline showed up after completing the mission.
Rather similar to Trek '09, in which Old!Spock and Nero et al. go through the red hole and from the Primeverse perspective are never seen again.
Keep this in mind as you watch the death scene of Edith as it is presented to us in this episode. First off, Edith is out on a date with Kirk! If Kirk had never existed in this time, would Edith have gone to the movie? Maybe, (after all remember she's a big Clark Gable fan), but look at what happens. Kirk and Edith SAFELY cross the street together. At this point, Edith mentions McCoy, which causes Kirk to flip out and run BACK across the street, telling Edith to stay put. At this point, Edith is naturally curious as to what is going on. She sees the three futuremen having a reunion on the other side of the street and HER ATTENTION IS DISTRACTED BY IT. This is what causes her to fail to notice the car bearing down on her. Without the presence of Kirk, Spock and McCoy, there is no reason for Edith not to pay attention to oncoming traffic or to recross a street she has already crossed safely. So how exactly did the original accident take place?
FYI, scene 81 in Ellison's original script established that there were bootleggers' (this was during Prohibition after all) beer trucks barreling down the streets at unsafe speeds, which sets up the truck which hit Edith. This doesn't solve the predestination paradox problem, but it does explain the why of the speeding truck.
There is no "original" that had to be recreated. Time does not "happen again," that is a subjective experience. The event is "reflexive," just like "Assignment Earth."
Is this episode just a Science Fiction "adventure" or is this trying to be a metaphor, at all? For example, the nugget of truth of having to be accepting of the painful realities of life, or even the notion that you can't unscramble eggs. That things happen for a reason? ... Or is that line of thought reading too deep into it?
I think the phrase "Back to the Future" is taking on a whole new meaning.
I read this last winter, well worth buying the iBook.
Sure, I see no reason why it can't be.
I usually consider three sources as containing metaphors for all aspects of life. One is intentionally so, the other two are not. But I won't get into that, as it's not related to the subject at hand.
I think the reason why it is so popular, is the question whether the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the few or the many and how Kirk deals with it.
ST II-TWOK may have spelled it, but frankly Spock is the captain of the Enterprise in this film and therefore the safety of his crew and ship came first, thus his decision was both inevitable and logical.
In the episode it's a completely different setting. Kirk acts on behalf of the many, but this goes against every human and emotional instinct.
Not only is Edith a remarkable and compassionate woman worthy to be saved, but he has fallen in love with her and Kirk would have even saved the homeless guy who fatally picked up McCoy's phaser.
Already the teacher of Alexander the Great, Aristoteles, thought about the problem: Why care for people you never meet and know and sacrifice someone dear and next to you on their behalf?
What Kirk does here is a remarkable act of sacrifice but still he will have to live with it for the rest of his life. I just hope none of us will ever find him- or herself in a similiar position.
Bob
Yes, they made it across safely, after a truck almost hit them. There was a different truck that had to stop to let them by, that could have been the truck to hit her. Damn bootleggers! Prohibition is Bad!
Cause is hard to assign. Edith caused the need for her death but being such a good person. If that isn't bizzare logic, I don't know what is. And the bum, being unimportant, doesn't alter history with his death. Maybe he was the one that distracted Edith as she crossed the street and got killed. Maybe he would have been the driver of the truck that killed her. You can do this all day. It reminds me a little of the IChaya's death caused nothing thread, did that guy's death change nothing? He didn't even have a name, the credits list him as "rodent"
Again, I interpret this brand of time travel to mean that Kirk, Spock, and McCoy were always there.
Let's call 1930 up until the moment McCoy first jumped through the Guardian of Forever the "original" timeline and the point after Kirk says, "Let's get the hell out of here" onwards as the "repaired" timeline. In my opinion, there is no difference between these two. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy were present in 1930 in both the original timeline and the repaired timeline. They just didn't know it, but they ALWAYS were a part of the circumstances surrounding Edith's death, which let the Allies win WWII. Thus, the distinctions of "original" and "repaired" are meaningless. There was only ever one timeline because they were there all along.
Edith never had an "original" death. She always died curiously crossing the street, wondering why Kirk, Spock, and McCoy were hugging each other. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy were always supposed to be there to make sure she died.
Had it become necessary to dispatch Edith Keeler himself, because of what McCoy had done (rather than relying on a drunk driver to do The Deed), I'm confident that Edith Keeler would've lived. He would've had Spock Mind-Meld with her, to alter her life's course and that would've been that. Yes, Spock would've prefered doing otherwise, but we all know how persuasive Kirk can be. It's one of those things where hindsight is 20/20, I know, but we're talking about the same Vulcan who took it on his own initiative to impose a well-intentioned mindmeld on The Good Captain - in his sleep - just to get him over his infatuation with an android robot in a tight skirt!
Just how long were Kirk Spock and McCoy in the past? The Guardian presented the past in a 'vcr-fast-forward' way, so I've always assumed that the span between McCoy jumping through the portal, and Kirk Spock and McCoy returning, would be relative to the time spent in 1930. So, up until the traffic accident, the new time-line would have been in effect until this final piece was in place. Much like being on a road trip and taking a wrong exit, the folks in the car wouldn't 'resume' their trip until they got the car back on the highway. So, the altered time-line is the equivalent of the time spent looking for the on-ramp, so to speak.
Scotty said "You only left a moment ago." upon the mens' return, so obviously Kirk and Spock arrived in 1930 well before McCoy did, which we know from watching the episode. So McCoy was only in the past a very short time.
It's amazing that Kirk and Spock weren't more noticeably overwhelmed by the situation, because realistically they had no idea where to go and what to do. That makes it seem a little odd that Kirk allowed himself the distraction of Edith, given the consequences of failure. Though, if Kirk hadn't gotten involved with her, the follow-up events (resulting in the accident) would have never occurred. He both unintentionally set up the circumstances in the street, and held McCoy back from helping Edith, so as a result of all this, maybe Kirk was responsible after all. McCoy may have been the catalyst...but that is all.
Another thing I've always wondered about is just what happened after the accident? All three men return to their time in uniform, so I assume they must have left the scene of the accident, and went back into the Mission to gather up their stuff, and Spock grabbed his tricorder and smashed up the memory circuit he built. But how did they find the Guardian portal? As I recall (and I may be wrong), Kirk and Spock came through from a different location than McCoy did.
Scotty said "You only left a moment ago." upon the mens' return, so obviously Kirk and Spock arrived in 1930 well before McCoy did, which we know from watching the episode. So McCoy was only in the past a very short time.
It's amazing that Kirk and Spock weren't more noticeably overwhelmed by the situation, because realistically they had no idea where to go and what to do. That makes it seem a little odd that Kirk allowed himself the distraction of Edith, given the consequences of failure. Though, if Kirk hadn't gotten involved with her, the follow-up events (resulting in the accident) would have never occurred. He both unintentionally set up the circumstances in the street, and held McCoy back from helping Edith, so as a result of all this, maybe Kirk was responsible after all. McCoy may have been the catalyst...but that is all.
Another thing I've always wondered about is just what happened after the accident? All three men return to their time in uniform, so I assume they must have left the scene of the accident, and went back into the Mission to gather up their stuff, and Spock grabbed his tricorder and smashed up the memory circuit he built. But how did they find the Guardian portal? As I recall (and I may be wrong), Kirk and Spock came through from a different location than McCoy did.
All of this does bring up the idea of why the Guardian was created in the first place? What would it have been used for? Were the "ruins that extended to the horizon" indicative of something that went wrong? If so, it appears that the Guardian may have been immune to the consequences if its own existence! That's interesting...
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