WI the Enterprise overshot its engines while returning home to their century in "Tomorrow is Yesterday" to the year 2366 shortly after the TNG episode "Yesterday's Enterprise?" What will happen to the 23rd century after the Enterprise disappeared?
If "Yesterday's Enterprise" is to serve as a guide, all of Federation (and regional) history would have changed. It's impossible to know exactly what the results would be, but we can speculate based on what the absence of Kirk, the Enterprise, and her crew, might mean if they were left out of key moments in history. Consider how the following events might've occurred without the Enterprise: "The Doomsday Machine" - without Decker's suicide-by-shuttlecraft accidentally revealing a way to deactivate the alien machine, it could have devasted the Rigel system and beyond. "The Changeling" - without Spock mind-melding with Nomad, and Kirk persuading Nomad to self-destruct, this probe might have been even more destructive than Decker's Planet Killer. "The Immunity Syndrome" - without the good ship Enterprise being in the neighborhood to investigate the fate of Gamma 7A and the Starship Intrepid, the rogue space amoeba may have had time to gather energy and multiply. TMP - When V'ger came calling, what would Earth have done without the refit Enterprise and Spock to mind-meld with V'ger? (aka "Where Nomad Has Gone Before".) TVH - Assuming Earth did survive all that, how would it have fared against the Whalesong Probe without Kirk and his merry band of renegades stealing a Klingon scoutship? TUC - Without Kirk on the scene, would the Enterprise-B (or whatever it would be called) have been able to survive the Nexus and rescue Guinan? So, without Kirk and company and their mighty starship, the Federation and the Galaxy might've been in deep doo-doo.
It's intresting to speculate just how pivotal the Enterprise was in each of those situations. For example could the crew of the Starship Bonhomme Richard have figured out how to stop the planet killer? Who's to say that Engineer Yolanda and Science Office McAllister couldn't have come up with something? Again... Nomad. Why are we assuming that the crew of the Starship Miranda wouldn't be able to find a solution? Really when you think about it the combination of blind-shit luck and utter brilliance has to happen to OTHER ships and crews on a regular basis... given the absolute volume of space that we are talking about.
There was a DC comic, celebrating the 20th anniversary of ST, where the E did overshoot on the way back from "Tomorrow is Yesterday" and ended up in the movie era, interacting with their two-decade-older selves. They got back via the Guardian.
Unless some other ship had someone in command whose name roughly corresponded with the name "Jackson Roykirk", they wouldn't stand much of a chance against Nomad.
Unless his name roughly paralleled that of the creator of Tan-Ru, the "other half" of the "fused" AI. "John Jacob Jingleheimerschmitt...Hey, his name is my name, too!" Sincerely, Bill
Can folks name any examples of other captains, and other starships that were pivitol. I know the shows were about Enterprise/Voyager/Deep Space Nine and obviously they had to be the center of attention, but surely some others made a difference.
I remember that one - it was great! Damn I used to love getting the comics and reading them. There used to be a poster here called Ensign Barclow or something similar and I ALWAYS just referred to him as "Ensign Bearclaw". His actual name was kinda dumb and unpronounceable.
Just as an aside.. IIRC, in a novilization of TMP, Roddenberry wrote in his intro that the chronicled voyages of the Starship Enterprise were just that.. Just one of the many stories of valor that could be told from Starfleet.. So he was basically backing up your ascertion above...
Not to mention confusing. At first, I didn't know what was meant by that until I opened the thread. Oh, unless that was the point.
Someone did a fan-video on Youtube where this happened, it took "Yesterday's Enterprise"'s story but edited in Kirk and co instead of the Enterprise-C.
Considering how many times Kirk pissed in the Klingon's oatmeal, his going missing might have meant peace with them by YE instead of the war we saw. However, the Romulan cloaking device might not have been got hold of by the Federation, so that aspect might have been more dangerous.
Eh, it's easy to think that the Feds would have just sent in someone else to get the cloak if Kirk wasn't around.
Ah, but no one else could have succeeded. Unless Robau was still alive. He would have gone in, ripped the thing out with his bare hands and conked the Romulans over their heads with it like Moe.
I wonder what DID happen to Robau in the original timeline? No Nero, so he wouldn't have died then...but there *does* seen to be some symmetry to events between the two universes (Pike in a chair....Kirk, Spock, etc on the Enterprise...) Makes me wonder if Robau doesn't get impaled by some *other* Romulan captain! Lol.