Skip to main content

In Star Trek, why does Capt. Christopher lose his memory when the Enterprise beams him into his fighter jet?


In the Star Trek episode, "Tomorrow is Yesterday," the USS Enterprise is thrown back in time to the 20th Century of Earth. The crew saves the life of an Air Force pilot, Captain John Christopher, by beaming him aboard.


Fearing Christopher could disrupt the timeline if returned to Earth after glimpsing the future, Kirk decides Christopher must stay with the Enterprise. After Science Officer Spock later discovers that the pilot's own as-yet-unborn son will play an important role in a future space mission to Saturn, Kirk realizes he must return Christopher to Earth, but without any knowledge of Enterprise or other future events.


When the Enterprise moves forward in time again, it beams Christopher back into his F-104 fighter jet at the very instant after he was beamed off his jet. When Christopher returns to his fighter, he has no memory of being aboard the Enterprise.


Why does he have no memory of events aboard the Enterprise?


This seems like a plot hole to me. (Or a plot device made up by scriptwriters who didn't want an Air Force pilot knowing about the future.)



Answer



From the episode's script, it seems that the writers tried to address this problem, but their explanation is, in my opinion, very unsatisfactory:



CHRISTOPHER: Slingshot effects are fine for you people. How do you propose to return the Sergeant and me?



SPOCK: Logically, as we move faster and faster toward the sun, we'll begin to move backward in time. We'll actually go back beyond yesterday, beyond the point when we first appeared in the sky. Then, breaking free will shoot us forward in time, and we'll transport you back before any of this happened.


KIRK: You won't have anything to remember, because it never would have happened.



No, it doesn't make any sense. But that's the canon explanation: going back in time erased Christopher's memories of everything that happened since the point he was sent back to.


The only piece of in-universe explanation I can speculate on is this: since nobody onboard the Enterprise lost their memories, it must have had something to do with being beamed off of the ship while it was undergoing the slingshot. The transporter bypassed the ship's warp field's temporal normalization actuators, or something like that. Technobabble is the best answer I think we could expect in this instance.


Time travel in Star Trek is hopelessly inconsistent: exhibit A.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

harry potter - Do the Kwikspell courses work?

In Harry Potter we are introduced to Kwikspell course in The Chamber of Secrets (and never hear about it again). We see Filch taking courses, presumably by mail. The descriptions of Kwikspell make me think it is for people who are weak in magic (kind of like how Neville was supposed to be when he was younger), but had magic in them nonetheless. However, Ron's comments later in the chapter make it sound like it is mainly for Squibs to learn magic. However, it is strongly implied through out all the books that Squibs are essentially Muggles, and will never be able to do magic. How then is a Kwikspell course supposed to work? Do we have any information to know if it works at all? Is it a scam? An answer from any level of canon is welcome. Answer Kwikspell courses are (probably) useful to some wizards, but not to squibs. The Kwikspell course literature comes with two testimonials. Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes: ‘I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke...
Post a Comment
Read more

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.
Post a Comment
Read more

languages - Do we ever see written English in the Star Wars films?

In Empire Strikes Back , we see a transcription of what R2's beeps and bloops mean, but it's not English (sorry for the low quality, it's from the 2004 DVDs): I'd assume it's what Basic looks like when written, but is there some point in the the Star Wars films we see written English instead? (This sort of spun off from a discussion in How do people understand astromech droids? .) Answer At one point there was English but it has been phased out in subsequent versions of the films. Chris Gould at DVD Active did a comparison of all versions of each of the Star Wars films, and in his comparison of Episode 4 , there are a couple of screenshots showing how the power gauge for the Death Star tractor beam was changed. I imagine there are probably more to be found in his other comparisons but I haven't got around to reading those yet.
Post a Comment
Read more

Was the "pure soul" of Harry's what had really hurt Voldemort?

In the Order of the Phoenix, Voldemort possesses Harry, and it hurts. Greatly. I think that Dumbledore explained that it was because Voldemort's rotten soul was incapable of assimilating Harry's pure soul, that Voldemort didn't understand the love and friendship etc that Harry has in his heart. But, I think it was a lie. Remember that in Deathly Hallows, while looking for information regarding Horcruxes, it is discovered that it is in fact possible to merge a soul fragment back, but that the process was extremely painful. Now then, if Voldemort tried to possess Harry, and Harry had a fragment of Voldemort's soul, I think that it could have been the true cause of Voldemort's pain: the fact of having his soul so close of another fragment. I think that Dumbledore knew that fact, but had to lie to Harry because it was inappropriate to let him know that he had one of Voldemort's soul fragments at the moment. Is that right? Or was it truly the pure soul of Harry's...
Post a Comment
Read more