City on the Edge of Forever

[soleft]

Cindy Sheehan has been bringing up thoughts about Edith Keeler, the tragic heroin of one of Star Treks greatest episodes.

The peace movement Keeler was leading, which she continued to lead when McCoy prevented her from being killed in an accident, seems comparable to the movement we're starting now. In the show, because of that peace movement the US doesn't enter WWII and Hitler wins, obliterating history in his path.

But the difference is that Kirk and Spock saw Keeler's salvation as the key to everything. As if there weren't a million other choices made down the line. As if people like Prescott Bush weren't around creating entirely different reasons to appease Hitler.

I like to think that Keeler's peace movement and a decision to enter a war that in actuality needed to be fought could have co-existed. Just because Cindy Sheehan is protesting this sham of a war doesn't means she won't stand up to fight for the county when its needed.

If Kirk and Spock hadn't been so short sighted and lazy, they could have saved Keeler and changed something else in the course of history. They could have left Keeler alive and well in her little town and headed north to Connecticut.

[villager]

1. they should've figured out a way to get Prescott Bush on skid row

...in that episode, and history would've been vastly improved.

Still, the greatest "Trek" episode of them all...

[edbermac]

2. No! No! No!

Any respectable Trekker knows you CANNOT interfere with the course of history!

Save Edith and go to Berlin and kill Hitler?! They'd NEVER do that!

A photon torpedo up your keester for that! ;)

[unblock]

6. any respectable trekker knows you give LIP SERVICE to this

but in truth, the prime directive is violated almost as often as it is mentioned. it's just that they feel reeeeeeally bad about it....

[soleft]

10. Yeah, like the Humpback whales!!!

Captain, we've got Whalesong!

[skygazer]

3. That has always bothered me about that episode

And I love the episode - it's one of the greatest Star Trek episodes ever but the idea that this one woman's quest for peace caused such repercussions bothered me a lot. It almost seemed to be saying that pacifists were the problem!

There was much about the original Star Trek that bothered me, though - Balance of Power was particularly disturbing, an episode that was very recognizable as a Vietnam allegory in which the Enterprise ended up arming a peaceful people to give them a chance against the other guys who were being armed by the Klingons (read Communists). Never struck me as a particularly imaginative or satisfactory solution.

[soleft]

4. Even Joan Collins didn't get it

She was on some awards show a while back, or maybe it was a Star Trek anniversary special, she said her character was a Nazi sympathizer.

:spank:

[lakemonster11]

7. The same thing happens in the alternate universe.

In "Mirror, Mirror," our Kirk convinces mirror Spock to try to get the Terran Empire to stop conquering the universe and start working for peace. Over a century later, in the mirror universe on DS9, we find that Spock succeeded in making the Empire peaceful, only to leave them defenseless against the forces of the Alliance (the Klingons, Cardassians, and Bajorans), who conquer and enslave them.

I don't think that it's necessarily saying that pacifists are the problem. I think it's just saying that we don't always know what the consequences of our actions will be.

I would still argue that it's important to do what we think is morally right, and damn the consequences. If being pacifist causes us to be conquered by an alien race, then at least we have the moral higher ground.

[skygazer]

8. Interesting

I didn't know that about DS1 - was never able to watch regularly. The continuity was always a fun thing with Star Trek.

[Terran]

12. I agree completely.

Someone we all detest, Newt Gingrich, actually wrote a novel set in a world in which the US never fought in WW2, and one outcome of that was that Liberalism never gained a foothold in US politics after the war ended. The US in his 1960's was much the same a the US in the 1930's. And as much as I hate this guy, I can see how his idea might be right. So one might imagine that while WW2 was a very bad thing in and of itself, it may have had some positive outcomes. Hitler provided the worst possible role model for the world, and the world recoiled in horror. It may have made a lot of racists in the US re-examine their beliefs.

[Blue-Jay]

5. Quick! Write to Harlan Ellison!

He probably didn't think of that plot twist!

[Orsino]

9. Proof of Mayberry Machiavelli's involvement...

...in mucking about with the timeline:

http://www.mayberry.com/tagsrwc/wbmutbb/startrek/city3.htm

[El Fuego]

11. I realize now that episode was freeperish

I know it was written by Harlan Ellison. I don't know his agenda, but it is a total freeper show. Edith Keeler the peace-nik was shown to be wrong, and her death was supposed to save the world from liberalism. Moral of the episode: War is always the best and most noble option. We have to kick butt, just because.

It's one of my favorite episodes, but now I see it in a different light.