One thing I never understood, is when McCoy changed history, and Starfleet as we know it never existed, the Enterprise never existed, etc. then Kirk and Spock and the landing party would never have been on that planet with the time portal. So they wouldn’t have been in a position to go back in time themselves to change history back to what it should have been.
Maybe I’m missing something. Of course, based on that idea I just noted, then there’s no storyline for the episode.
It was the field effect of being in close proximity to the Guardian. Since that was the device manipulating time, the whole planet was basically a paradox.
At least, that’s how I understood it.
Time travel gives me a headache!
“...when McCoy changed history, and Starfleet as we know it never existed, the Enterprise never existed...Kirk and Spock...would never have been on that planet with the time portal. So they wouldn’t have been in a position to go back in time themselves to change history back to what it should have been.
Maybe I’m missing something.... [Dilbert San Diego, post 4]
The author of the web essay does touch on this, just past half way through his own text.
Paradoxes are an inescapable but central feature of time-travel stories, even before one attempts to address the moral implications.
Mostly, they are ignored, except when they aren’t - in the latter case, the story can become more confusing than ever. The early Doctor Who plots ignored them but the latter-day re-imagining (?) that began with Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor tackled some head-on, causing many of us fans to become more lost than we were.
Star Trek TV episodes and film plots usually used a light treatment, that leaned heavily on Gene Rodenberry’s goofy utopian outlook, or romantic/sentimental mush.
There aren’t any truly final, fully satisfying answers; some fans find it all endlessly fascinating and go about the motions of endless debate that can’t resolve the muddle. Others find it annoying, sometimes to the point where they can no longer summon that “suspension of disbelief” necessary to enjoyment of the show.
Many forum members have a strong sense of “should have been.” It leads us to deplore the messy and murky nature of reality, and strive to impose what we think is proper orderliness on situations. Sometimes this results in success and progress. Sometimes it only causes us to become yet more frustrated.
That problem is common in time travel scenarios. In Michael Crichton's novel "Timeline," one group of scientists travels back to the year 1357, where they (of course) get into trouble. A second group of scientists is sent back to rescue them. I thought, "Why not just send the second group to arrive just before the first group arrived?" The second group could warn the first group, and they could both return to the present immediately, avoiding the trouble. Unfortunately, that way the storyline both occurred and did not occur.
I suspect that time travel, if it is possible, requires a multiverse.
#4 Time stood still on the planet by the time portal.
It wouldn’t be Star Trek without plot holes.