What year does "City on the Edge of Tomorrow" happen in?
- Thread starter MAGolding
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Finding out who is responsible for replacing Richard Dix with Clark Gable is not important. The fact that the broadcast episode has someone talking about a Clarke Gable movie in a year said to be 1930 puts Star Trek in an alternate universe to our universe.
As I wrote in my post number one, either:
Your post saying:
does not, repeat NOT, offer a alternate third in universe explanation for the difference between Star Trek history and Earth history in our universe. It may be interesting to know who is responsible for creating this difference between Star Trek history and Earth history in our universe, but that doesn't affect the fact that this difference, along with many others, puts Star Trek in an alternate universe which diverged from ours before Star Trek was made in the 1960s.
Yes, Orion is visible in the night sky in the northern hemisphere winter. This might mean that BK613's identification of the month as May might not be correct. If it is some other month, what are the two holidays marked in red?
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So, apropos of nothing, here's possibly where the title comes from, as found in Ellison's March 21, 1966 story outline, p.11:
[…]they find themselves in Chicago of 1930, on Old Earth.
It is, literally, the city on the edge of Forever…
Linked to a tall-spire city on a frozen mountain peak across the stars and hundreds of years in the future, another city on the opposite edge of Forever, by the tenuous thread of life called Kirk and Spock and Beckwith.
It is, literally, the city on the edge of Forever…
Linked to a tall-spire city on a frozen mountain peak across the stars and hundreds of years in the future, another city on the opposite edge of Forever, by the tenuous thread of life called Kirk and Spock and Beckwith.
Or, you know, you can just write off the calendar page as a minor detail that no one thought would have this much attention paid to it 50+ years later. You don't have to rewrite the Gregorian calendar and the entire history of WWII to explain it.
The first words that Kirk and Edith Keeler say to each other:
In this thread we came to the consensus that COTEOF was likely in February or March of 1930, based on the clothing, weather references, and the fact that Alnitak is visible in the night sky. The calendar page and the Clark Gable thing you just have to shrug at and ignore.
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Fisrt of all, I identified the calendar page as June not May (and I was not the first to do so). Secondly, we know that the calendar page is that of a 30-day month, proceeded by a 31-day month and followed by a 31-day month.This might mean that BK613's identification of the month as May might not be correct. If it is some other month, what are the two holidays marked in red?
(See the image in this post by Maurice,) Ignoring the short names that are covered up in that image (which most likely May, June and July) the other possibilities are April, September, and November. None of those produced holidays that occur on the dates in question.
KIRK: "February 23rd, 1936. Six years from now." This and "Would you care to try for Thirty?" unambiguously put the show somewhere in 1930.
The calendar page has been hanging there, moldering and untouched, since June 1922, because it's nobody's job to change it, and possibly the team of horses held some meaning for Edith, like it was painted by her brother or something.
EDITH: We can talk about that later. I have to go. My young man is taking me to a Clark Gable movie.
MCCOY: A who movie?
EDITH: A Clark Gable. Don't you know?
Clark Gable was working as an uncredited extra at the time, but the dialogue is easily explained. Clark Gable was Edith's cousin or something, and he wrote to tell her what films he could be spotted in. She then jokingly called anything with him in it a Clark Gable movie, and her jaunty "Don't you know?" was part of the joke, that only she understood. But it was still funny to her.
It was 1930.
The calendar page has been hanging there, moldering and untouched, since June 1922, because it's nobody's job to change it, and possibly the team of horses held some meaning for Edith, like it was painted by her brother or something.
EDITH: We can talk about that later. I have to go. My young man is taking me to a Clark Gable movie.
MCCOY: A who movie?
EDITH: A Clark Gable. Don't you know?
Clark Gable was working as an uncredited extra at the time, but the dialogue is easily explained. Clark Gable was Edith's cousin or something, and he wrote to tell her what films he could be spotted in. She then jokingly called anything with him in it a Clark Gable movie, and her jaunty "Don't you know?" was part of the joke, that only she understood. But it was still funny to her.
It was 1930.
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Yes, I can write off the calendar page as a minor detail that no one thought would have this much attention paid to it 50+ years later. Or I can take the calendar page seriously as a vital clue.
What do you mean by rewriting the Gregorian calendar? What exactly defines the Gregorian calendar in your mind? I remind you that the rules of the Gregorian calendar are almost totally the same as the rules of the Julian calendar. And when the Julian calendar was used by all Christians in Europe in the Middle Ages there were numerous local variations. For example, several different dates were used for the new year - England began the year on March 25 for almost 600 years I think. And different places counted the years from different calendar eras. The Anno Domini system counting the years from AD 1 that was devised in AD 525 didn't begin to catch on in Europe until the reign of Charlemagne c. 800, and Portugal didn't adopt Anno Domini dating until 1422. So Anno Domini dating isn't necessary for the Gregorian calendar.
And what do you mean about rewriting the entire history of WWII? Try remembering what you know about the history of WWII. Let me quote from "The City on the Edge of Forever":
Obviously the timeline where Nazi Germany conquered the world in the Second World War is an alternate universe to our universe where Nazi Germany lost. But the Star Trek timeline of Kirk and Spock where Nazi Germany also lost must also be an alternate universe to our universe, because Nazi Germany must have come much closer to winning in the Star Trek universe than in our universe.
I know that Nazi Germany must have come much closer to winning World War Two in the alternate universe of Star Trek than in our alternate universe, because Spock says that delaying the entrance of the United States into the war by months or years after whatever date the USA entered the war in the Star Trek universe was enough to give Germany time to win.
Spock says that Germany used A-Bombs carried by V-2 rockets to conquer the world.
What do you know about Fat Man and Little Boy, the first two American atomic bombs used in World War II?
Little Boy, dropped on Hiroshima August 6, 1945, was a uranium gun-type design, weighing 9,700 pounds, 10 feet long and 28 inches in diameter. Fat Man, dropped on Nagasaki August 9, 1945, was a plutonium implosion-type design, weighing 10,800 pounds, 10 feet 8 inches long and 60 inches in diameter.
https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/little-boy-and-fat-man
And for almost a decade most American and Russian fission bombs were similarly sized. In the early 1950s Dr. Theodore Taylor at Los Alamos worked on designing many new types of fission bombs,including small lightweight fission bombs, including the Davy Crocket small artillery round that weighed only 60 pounds and was only 12 inches across.
And what do you know about the A-4 rocket that was publicly known as the V-2?
The V-2 had a height of 14 meters (45 feet 11 inches) and a diameter of 1.65 meters (5 feet 5 inches). The warhead contained 1,000 kilograms (2,200 pounds) of the explosive amatol. The maximum range of the V-2 was 320 kilometers (200 miles).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-2_rocket#Unfulfilled_plans
So the V-2 rocket could hit targets no more than 200 miles into enemy territory, and could not carry atomic bombs that were as heavy and large as the early fission bombs, let alone the huge early fusion bombs. The Germans couldn't have conquered the world with A Bombs carried on V-2 rockets.
Unless Star Trek happens in an alternate universe where the Germans started developing large rockets and atomic bombs at the same time, way back in the 1930s, designed together so that the rockets were large and long ranged enough to carry the small and light enough A bombs far enough to conquer the world. Those alternate universe German rockets would have been much larger and more powerful than the V-2 rockets in our universe but would have had the same name.
Therefore Star Trek happens in an alternate universe where an alien from other space or a time traveler from the future got Nazi Germany working on a dual project to develop small lightweight atomic bombs and large powerful intermediate range or intercontinental ballistic missiles to carry them and gave them the technical specifications they needed, and where the Germans almost succeeded before being defeated in the alternate World War Two.
In "Patterns of Force" Earth historian John Gill has taken over the planet Ekos and recreated a Nazi government there:
Professional historian John Gill and Spock agree that their Nazi Germany was a very efficient state. But in our history Nazi Germany was actually, and fortunately, very inefficient. So Star Trek must happen in an alternate universe where a space alien or time traveler from the future made Nazi Germany many times as efficient as the Nazi Germany in our universe, and knowing technical details about ICBMs with atomic warheads began an efficient program to develop them in an effort to conquer Earth, and was stopped barely in time. This hypothetical space alien or time traveler from the future may have possessed Hitler and/or other top Nazis.
In "Bread and Circuses":
Spock says that six million persons died in Earth's first world war in the alternate universe of Star Trek instead of the much larger number killed in our universe's first world war from 1914-1918:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties
Spock says that eleven million persons died in Earth's second world war - which is apparently the one with Hitler and Nazi Germany according to "The City on the Edge of Forever" - a small fraction of the much larger number killed in our universes's second world war from 1939-1945:
So clearly the second world war was very different in the alternate universe of Star Trek, with one difference being the much smaller number of people - only eleven million - killed in the second world war in the Star Trek universe.
Since the creators of Star Trek did not bother to depict the world wars accurately, they more or less accidentally or deliberately put Star Trek in an alternate universe which diverged from our universe at least as early as World War One.
I am not the person you should accuse of rewriting the entire history of WWII.
I am not telling you that you have to acknowledge the obvious fact that Star Trek happens in an alternate universe which diverged from ours at least as early as World War One. And I think that in return you should not tell me that I have to shrug at and ignore the calendar page and the mention of "a Clark Gable movie".
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^ Star Trek's universe seems to have different laws of physics, too. If you want to get technical about it. 
And there's telepathy, and it can reach across the stars (The Menagerie, The Immunity Syndrome), and humans have a defect in their nervous system that lets you pinch their shoulder to render them unconscious.
And there's telepathy, and it can reach across the stars (The Menagerie, The Immunity Syndrome), and humans have a defect in their nervous system that lets you pinch their shoulder to render them unconscious.
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I've always been happy enough to interpret Spock's death tallies as being those as a result of despotism, as that was the subject of he and McCoy's conversation in Bread And Circuses. It also erases the apparent discontinuity with the quoted 600 million dead in WW3 from ST:FC
However, I can't argue with the limited range of the V2 and the incredible inefficiency of the Nazi state, compounded by the fact that any well read historian would think that aping Nazi Germany was a good idea on any level!
Star Trek may have diverged from our own timeline as far back as the 19th century, when the escapades of a certain time travelling android...
Perhaps humans mutated the gene that allowed telepathy (communication across subspace) during the fallout of WW3.^ Star Trek's universe seems to have different laws of physics, too. If you want to get technical about it.
And there's telepathy, and it can reach across the stars (The Menagerie, The Immunity Syndrome), and humans have a defect in their nervous system that lets you pinch their shoulder to render them unconscious.
As for the nerve pinch, maybe the Vulcans' touch-telepathic nature probably has something to do with it. Do we ever see a non Vulcan effectively use the nerve pinch on a human? McCoy certainly couldn't and he had Spock's katra in his head!
When you're insisting that the year of 1930 in the ST Universe is the equivalent of 1933 in ours. But I think you knew that.
When you're denying the obvious creator intent that the World War II of the ST Universe was the same World War II that most of the creators and viewers of ST lived through. And again, I think you knew that.
You're way out in the weeds here, but if it makes you happy, go for it. Just don't expect me to ever be convinced by your theories.
I can understand that. I have an old Chinese Calendar on one of my walls from 1993 that I leave there because I like the picture on it.
Who says he was the lead? Only that he is present in the movie, and she likes him.
If I call one of the Avenger movies a Scarlet Johanson movie, that does mean she is the lead?
I draw the line at "Voyager" being called the "Harry Kim and the Kimtones" series.
Definitely the Janeway & Seven show with special guest the Doctor from S5 on.
Only odd thing is that I always thought that Kirk meant the star that would be on Orion's left, not left as you look at the constellation. Meaning that if I pointed at you and said, "The left most belt-loop on your pants" you wouldn't think I was talking about your right side.
Well, Japan is on the West of the USA which is on the West of Europe, yet Japan is in the East...
Not sure that's how the term "Blank Picture" usually works.
Johanson isn't one of the leads in the Avengers movies?
But she'd have to be his family or friend, because he was an uncredited extra in 1930. I say cousin and pen pal.
