Edith Keeler Must Die

[Zeus-cat]

Hopefully lots of Star Trek fans here that know what the thread title means. One thing that has always bugged me about this episode is that to Kirk, Spock and McCoy, Edith Keeler is dead the instant they travel back to their normal time regardless if she walks in front of that truck or not. As soon as they travel back to their time she would have been dead for hundreds of years even if she had lived another 50 years after she met Kirk. I know they see her get killed and that is traumatic. And her life was cut short, but literally everyone they met on that trip was dead the instant they jumped back (or is it forward) to their own time. Do they mourn anyone else? Do they even mention anyone else? Ugh, another reason to hate temporal mechanics.

 

[luke strawwalker]

Hopefully lots of Star Trek fans here that know what the thread title means. One thing that has always bugged me about this episode is that to Kirk, Spock and McCoy, Edith Keeler is dead the instant they travel back to their normal time regardless if she walks in front of that truck or not. As soon as they travel back to their time she would have been dead for hundreds of years even if she had lived another 50 years after she met Kirk. I know they see her get killed and that is traumatic. And her life was cut short, but literally everyone they met on that trip was dead the instant they jumped back (or is it forward) to their own time. Do they mourn anyone else? Do they even mention anyone else? Ugh, another reason to hate temporal mechanics.

True, but as another starship captain (IIRC) once wisely observed, "If we felt the death of anyone as keenly as we do that of a friend, human history might be a lot less bloody."

Same thing is true of Zarabeth (Spock's girlfriend back in the Ice Age on Sarpeidon)... She was long dead the moment Spock and company returned to the Sarpeidon library, just before their star went nova... Spock even reflects as much...

Later! OL JR

 

[Winston]

Hopefully lots of Star Trek fans here that know what the thread title means. One thing that has always bugged me about this episode is that to Kirk, Spock and McCoy, Edith Keeler is dead the instant they travel back to their normal time regardless if she walks in front of that truck or not. As soon as they travel back to their time she would have been dead for hundreds of years even if she had lived another 50 years after she met Kirk. I know they see her get killed and that is traumatic. And her life was cut short, but literally everyone they met on that trip was dead the instant they jumped back (or is it forward) to their own time. Do they mourn anyone else? Do they even mention anyone else? Ugh, another reason to hate temporal mechanics.

Fantastic episode. A question I've had for a while - is this the only episode where Kirk, or anyone else, uses the word "hell" as when he said curtly at the very poignant ending, "Let's get the hell outta' here." Censors were much more restrictive back then.

Trivia about the then-scandalous Kirk-Uhura kiss; corporate physically came down to the set about it while it was being shot; Roddenberry compromised and said to shoot it with and without the actual kiss contact and decide at the dailies; it was the end of the day and about to go into expensive crew overtime which they definitely would not do; as a delaying tactic Shatner kept asking for retakes so he could get everything just right; when they finally shot the no-contact version at the last possible moment in the last shooting day, Shatner crossed his eyes as he looked at the camera (in the direction of the Platonian telekinetically forcing the kiss), something not noticed until the dailies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato's_Stepchildren

 

[falingtrea]

Hopefully lots of Star Trek fans here that know what the thread title means. One thing that has always bugged me about this episode is that to Kirk, Spock and McCoy, Edith Keeler is dead the instant they travel back to their normal time regardless if she walks in front of that truck or not. As soon as they travel back to their time she would have been dead for hundreds of years even if she had lived another 50 years after she met Kirk. I know they see her get killed and that is traumatic. And her life was cut short, but literally everyone they met on that trip was dead the instant they jumped back (or is it forward) to their own time. Do they mourn anyone else? Do they even mention anyone else? Ugh, another reason to hate temporal mechanics.

I believe they could not go back until she died. Otherwise history was changed so much because she lived that where the crew came from would not be the same. Time paradox is a whole subject by itself. So many if/then scenarios that you could follow any story line you want to get to the same place.

 

[luke strawwalker]

Funny... I thought when I read the title that this would be a thread about building a rocket like the one Spock referred to when explaining the temporal diversion he discovered centered on Edith Keeler-- "A growing, pacifist movement that prevented the United States from entering World War II... giving Germany the time to complete their heavy water experiments... With the atom bomb and their V-2 rockets to carry them, Germany won the war and ruled the world..." (I wonder if this is how the "mirror universe" came to be, and the "Terran Empire"?? Would make a great storyline).

Granted it'd have to be a highly modified V-2... probably a new version of it, to lift an atom bomb... the B-29 could just barely manage... in fact, originally they planned to use British Lancasters, since they were proven to be able to lift massive weight (the Blockbusters and "Earthquake bombs" used against the Nazi submarine pens along the French coast and other targets inland...) The B-29's were running behind in development and experiencing all sorts of technological problems, all of which were worked out in plenty of time to prove them reliable in combat before the need arose for an atomic bomber, so the idea of using Lanc's faded away...

Guess such a modified V-2 would have looked something like this... just a non-naval version of it, anyway...
https://www.rocketryforumarchive.com/showthread.php?t=46230&highlight=Canadian+Arrow
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Later! OL JR

 

[Kirk G]

Luke,
If you have not already, you should read the sequel to the Zarabeth story, "Yesterday's Son"...in which Spock, Kirk and the enterprise go to the Oracle planet again, and this time use it to travel back to that Mr. Atoz library doomed planet, to find the son that Spock fathered. It is a very thoughtful exploration of how the two men, father and son, would react to each other, AND to the consequences of messing with a time-stream. I'm not sure, but I think it is about book #12 or #18 of the Star Trek Logbook series. It is considered in canon.

PS: For the others who enjoy this sort of thing, the book "City on the Edge of Forever" by Harlan Elison, discusses and reprints the original teleplay for that Hugo winning episode in GREAT detail... why he had the falling out with Gene Roddenbury over it, why he asked for his name to be removed from the episode, and what WOULD have and WOULD NOT have happened in his original version.

As for the "Let's get the HELL outta here" line from Kirk at the end of the episode: It's the first time profanity was used in a primetime network show, and it was allowed specifically because of the huge emotional punch that it conveyed...and was not considered to be excessive nor used without weight or importance. I remember sitting watching this episode air with my family, and my mother reacting to the use of the word, "LANGUAGE" (in a sing-song, disapproving tone) but my father (a deeper thinker) reacted differently, just saying quietly, "yeah". I've never forgotten it.

 

[Daddyisabar]

If Edith Keeler would not have died this is what the beautiful Flis Kit Nantucket Sound would look like! It would be called the Polka Musik Sound on Eva Braun's Vinyard. The Horror!

 

[luke strawwalker]

If Edith Keeler would not have died this is what the beautiful Flis Kit Nantucket Sound would look like! It would be called the Polka Musik Sound on Eva Braun's Vinyard. The Horror!


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Way Kewl...

Later! OL JR

 

[Winston]

is this the only episode where Kirk, or anyone else, uses the word "hell" as when he said curtly at the very poignant ending, "Let's get the hell outta' here." Censors were much more restrictive back then.

Yep, it was:

https://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/The_City_on_the_Edge_of_Forever_(episode)

"The network heavily objected to Kirk's last line, 'Let's get the hell out of here.' and wanted it to be removed from the episode. The word 'Hell' was used four times in The Original Series, the other three being 'Space Seed', when Kirk quotes Milton, 'It is better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven', 'The Alternative Factor', when Lazarus tells his counterpart, 'I'll chase you into the very fires of hell!' and 'The Doomsday Machine', when Decker describes the berserker as 'right out of hell.' 'City on the Edge of Forever' marks the only time that the word was used as an expletive."

 

[Winston]

If Edith Keeler would not have died this is what the beautiful Flis Kit Nantucket Sound would look like! It would be called the Polka Musik Sound on Eva Braun's Vinyard. The Horror!


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Very cool, as always!

 

[Astro-Baby]

Ah ha...the old 'regression problem' of temporal mechanics. In short can you alter the past to change the future.....or can you ?

If this fascinates you as mucha s it fascinates me you should read whats probably the last word in time travel science fiction on this which is a short story by Heinlein called 'By His Bootstraps' ...the essnce is you can go back but you are forced by events to follow what has already gone before, not by any mystic force, just events happening around you force you to the same decisions. Its a great story despite its age and very human and funny, charming even.

Asimov in 'The End of Eternity' imagines changes can affect the future but they die out over time, so you could go back and push Edith under a bus and it might affect the outcome of WW2 but in a few hundred years there would be no difference in the outcome....ie it doesnt matter WHICH monkey first comes down from the tree...the future will be homo sapiens. Its one of my fave time travel reads and love the way the time manipulators almost always bitch about their jobs in the book and moan a lot. In one of the bitching sessions one of the characters moans that they contantly have to weed space travel out of the future and that someone should effect a change that gets rid of it once and for all because its so pointless for humans and a pain to get rid of then goes on to rant that every time you weed out space travel it leads to a drug addiction epidemic or a slave society or some other horror which requires even more work in changing the past to sort out. Its very much like the office I work in at times.

A third alternative is exposited in 'Collision with Chronos' by Barrington Bayley, and its a far bleaker view of time travel, you can go back to the past but its essentially dead. Intelligence lives within the 'Now Wave' which sweeps forward in time and only what happens in the now is mutable so you can do things with cause and effect....in the past there is life but no intelligence. In the future there is nothing...the now wave hasnt reached it yet. Life AND intelligence only exists inside the now wave. Brrrrrr thats cold and pours a bucket of water over any time travel possibilities at all...forget watching Dr Who after reading this

Ps theres another Captain Kirk which deals with changing the future...'Assignment :Earth'.