The death of the bum must have been inconsequential—or Kirk, Spock and McCoy did arrive at a third (or fourth) history, but so close to their own that they could not tell. (Or the Guardian could splice them into the new history and consider it inconsequential, since a different Kirk, Spock and McCoy arrived back at the "prime" timeline where a bum didn't die.)
There is an excellent essay in one of the later Best of Trek books called "The Disappearing Bum" that speculates on the possible consequences of the bum's death.
The author looks at it this way: When Kirk and crew went to find George and Gracie in the 1980s (no mention of Janeway & crew in the '90s because this was pre-Voyager), why weren't they mobbed by adoring Star Trek fans?
The answer goes all the way back to the disappearing bum. The author speculates that the bum had a family to take care of, and when he never came back from stealing the milk, his family concluded that he'd abandoned them. The oldest boy was forced to become the man of the family, before he was really ready to be a grownup. He and the rest had a hard life, and as the years went by, the boy grew into a bitter man who got along as best he could with an incomplete education and not much formal work experience. He drifted across the country, turning to crime, and one night in the early 1950s, he had an encounter with a Los Angeles police officer named Gene Roddenberry - a fatal encounter.
The Gene Roddenberry in this timeline died many years before he ever created Star Trek - and thus there were no adoring fans present during the events of the fourth TOS movie.
That's but one person's speculation about what effect, if any, the bum's death might have had on history. I'm sure there have been many others.
Kieko--for refusing to compromise with teaching to her class and mentioning the Prophets, even as a side mention--
I disagree with you here. The subplot was obviously a nod to the ongoing controversy of God in the classroom, including prayer in schools and teaching Creationism alongside evolution. I think Keiko was right to stand her ground on her own moral principles. If I'm remembering the episode correctly, it was her own private school, and not governed by a Bajoran Board of Education. If the classroom was governed by a B.B.o.E., then the board would have been equally right to fire her. But it seemed to me like Winn was trying to force her will on something not within her jurisdiction. I've not seen it in 20 years though.
I agree with Melakon's assessment. Kai Winn should have arranged for a Bajoran religious class to be taught on the space station and left the science class alone.
If it's about 'restoring the timeline', though, it's an impossible goal. You can get something that's somehow 'close enough', but McCoy saved Edith Keeler and then had a whole relationship with her across a significant span of time during which she was supposed to be already dead. Everything she did in that time altered the timeline somehow. Not to mention everything McCoy did. Even the simple fact that her death came as the result of a different traffic accident than it was supposed to be could easily cause far reaching changes (for instance, the second driver is so terribly affected by having run her over that he quits his job and takes up a cause of his own, causing major timeline changes).
The episode says nothing whatsoever about McCoy having any kind of contact with Edith after saving her. He does in the Crucible novel (I'm re-reading that now), but that novel isn't canon. And I don't understand where you get the 'second driver' from. Why should the driver be different?
I think Keiko was right to stand her ground on her own moral principles.
Keiko was obviously going out of her way to be culturally offensive to the Bajorian people. All Kia Winn was really asking was for Keiko to use a small number of indigenous Bajorian terms in her lesson plan.
With two exceptions, all the children in the class room were Bajorian.
So what? It wasn't a Bajoran school, and it wasn't the Bajoran equivalent of Sunday school. If Kai Winn wanted the kids to learn about the Prophets, she should have sent them to wherever it is the Bajoran kids go to learn about that.
So why did he steal the damaged Enterprise anyway?
It was the ship he and his crew knew the best, in terms of what its capabilities were.
Kirk probably had enough of the equivalent of money he could have bought his own small crew private yacht.
I doubt a private yacht would come with the phasers, shields, other defenses, plus advanced computer capabilities they needed.
Keiko was absolutely right to refuse to teach religion in the classroom. Kids should learn science in school and religion in sunday school, and it would be a disservice to the children's right to form their own ideas about the universe to confuse the two.
Yep. I once taught an astronomy class to a roomful of Grade 3 and 4 kids (during my B.Ed. practicum). This was at a public school, but since Red Deer is in one of the bible belt regions of this country, the teacher felt it was perfectly appropriate to force the kids (and me) to start the day with the Lord's Prayer - and she hadn't intended to teach astronomy at all. The reason it happened was because she offered me the chance to teach a science class and astronomy was what I knew best.
Things went well until the Q&A time, and then one of the kids asked how the Universe began, and that led to a question about God... and here's me, a first-year atheist education student whose supervising teacher had the say of whether or not I'd pass the course and get to stay in the program - and she was already unethical enough to force religion on kids in a public school. I know what I wanted to say, but had to dance all around it in this situation. Finally I told them that for questions about God, they should ask their parents.
So in the case of this episode, I applaud Keiko's refusal to back down.
