The title comes from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Act V, sc v, fatalistically describing the inevitability of death and banality of life:
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Shakespeare has a long history with Trek. Apart from Picard’s interest in his plays, the Bard’s words have lent themselves to episode titles, including TOS: “The Conscience of the King” (Hamlet), “Dagger of the Mind” (Macbeth), “All Our Yesterdays” (Macbeth), ST VI: The Undiscovered Country (Hamlet), VOY: “Mortal Coil” (Hamlet).
In TNG: “The Defector”, Picard performs Henry V, and Data and he do the same in “Emergence”. Picard uses the excuse of the away team being actors performing A Midsummer Night’s Dream in “Time’s Arrow”. In DS9: “Improbable Cause”, Garak and Bashir debate Julius Caesar. In ENT: “In a Mirror, Darkly” the similarities between Shakespeare’s plays between the Prime and Mirror Universe are mentioned. Various bits of Shakespeare are quoted as well, notably General Chang, a Shakespeare aficionado in ST VI and Spock quoting Hamlet in DIS: “Perpetual Infinity”.
The Stardate is 1581.2, whereas last episode it was 2393.8, and it was stated that 1224.3 was four months prior to that. Pelia says she still has a bunker in Vermont in case this “‘no money, socialist utopia’ thing” doesn’t work out, echoing explicitly for the first time the fan view that yes, the Federation economy is basically socialist in nature. She has a painting she claims is a fake and says the Louvre can stop calling her, indicating that at least the institution and some art survived World War III. Her artifacts have labels identifying them as the property of the Archeology Department.
La’An spars with M’Benga. The doctor was shown to be a proficient fighter in SNW: “The Broken Circle”, and actor Babs Olusanmokun is a 2nd-degree black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. On the wall of the gym we see Klingon-esque weapons on the wall, including a few that look like variants of the standard bat’leth and mek’leth.
The dying stranger tells La’An there has been an attack in the past, and shows her a holographic diagram which we’ve seen on the main viewer of the 29th Century Federation timeship USS Relativity (VOY: “Relativity”), using the TCARS interface (as opposed to LCARS). This indicates he’s either from the 29th or 31st Centuries, as Agent Daniels used a similar interface in ENT. At some point between the 31st and 32nd Century, following the Temporal Cold War the Temporal Accords included a complete ban against time travel (DIS: “Die Trying”).
The blurry ripple that accompanies the change in history is reminiscent of the visual effect used to signal a shift into an alternate timeline in TNG: “Yesterday’s Enterprise”. The disappearance of the time agent and La’An’s continued existence in this altered timeline is attributed to her holding on to his device.
Kirk is wearing a different badge insignia, and identifies the ship as the United Earth Fleet ship Enterprise. Spock is in command of a Vulcan ship, the Sh’Rel, so this timeline doesn’t appear to have a Federation, and the Vulcans are losing a war with the Romulans.
It’s of note that of Kirk’s two appearances in SNW so far, they have both been alternate timelines versions - which still jibes with Prime Kirk’s claim in TOS: “The Menagerie” that he only met Pike once, when he took over command of the Enterprise.
La’An says Starfleet has regulations to deal with situations like this. Given the Temporal Cold War impacted at least the 22nd Century, that doesn’t surprise me. The Department of Temporal Investigations was first seen in DS9: “Trials and Tribble-lations” and the licensed novels say it was first created in 2270. As we find out later, the DTI doesn’t exist yet in SNW’s time, but La’An implies that regulations dealing with time travel exist. That means Starfleet acknowledges the existence of the phenomenon, rejecting the 22nd Century Vulcan Science Directorate’s determination of that time travel is impossible (ENT: “Cold Front”).
Despite Kirk’s identification of being in New York, mid-21st Century, they’ve landed in Toronto, specifically Yonge Dundas Square. Kirk claims never to have been to Earth at all, having been born in space on the USS Iowa. His counterparts were born in Iowa, USA, in the Prime Universe 2333 and on the USS Kelvin in the Kelvin Timeline. Kirk says in his time Earth was a battleground, occupied and now a ruin. Earth is filled with clouds of ash that won’t clear for a thousand years and has underground lunar habitats.
Kirk says indignantly to La’An asking him about revolving doors, “I’m from space.” In ST IV, when Gillian Taylor asks Kirk if he’s from outer space, he replies, “No, I’m from Iowa. I only work in outer space.”
Kirk hustles chess for cash. Kirk has been established to be an excellent chess player ever since TOS: “Where No Man Has Gone Before”. Kirk beat Spock regularly at 3D Chess (he calls the 2D version “idiot’s chess”), and in this timeline he also kept beating his XO, a woman.
Kirk points out that if they fix La’An’s timeline, they’ll destroy his, which is consistent with the model of the Trek timeline as a palimpsest - overwritten rather than branched.
Addressing Kirk’s worry that he won’t even exist in La’An’s timeline, she says she’s heard stories about Kirk from his brother Sam (who was still a member of the crew last time we checked). Kirk and La’An both remember the bridge explosion - one of the longest in the world destroyed soon after completion - from their timelines, so this isn’t the nexus point. The bridge seems to be fictional, as I can’t identify a real world bridge in Toronto that resembles it.
La’An identifies the charring on the wreckage as that left by a photonic bomb, a technology that won’t be developed for at least a century. Photonic technology was first seen in ENT: “The Expanse” as a precursor to photon torpedoes, using variable yield antimatter warheads, so the timeline is consistent.
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Kirk says he spent 6 months in a Denobulan prison with a Vulcan cellmate, and learned to make plomeek soup (TOS: “Amok Time”) in the toilet. Kirk was a terrible driver in the Prime timeline as well (TOS: “A Piece of the Action”). Kirk says his middle name, Tiberius, was his grandfather’s, same as in the Kelvin Timeline.
Kirk says that Sam is his brother’s middle name (George Samuel Kirk Jr.) and most people call him George. La’An scoffs and says nobody calls him George. In TOS: “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” the android duplicate of Kirk notes that only Kirk calls his brother Sam. Kirk mocks La’An’s name as “Noonien-Soong” who was, of course, Data and Lore’s creator (TNG: “Datalore”).
Kirk has never heard of the Noonien-Singh name, which is telling (we find out why later). While in TOS: “Space Seed” he didn’t recognize Khan by sight and he was briefed by Spock once it was apparent who Khan was, we don’t see anything in the episode to indicate he didn’t know the name.
Sera, the girl who helps them, is streaming it on an iPhone 14 Pro. The restaurant they talk in is the real-life Lakeview Restaurant. She believes the bridge was blown up by aliens who want Earth to remain disunited and to slow down human progress. One of the pictures she shows them is a TOS-era Romulan Bird of Prey which Kirk recognizes. La’An doesn’t, because it will be about 6 to 7 years before the Romulans emerge from their space with that ship (TOS: “Balance of Terror”). In Kirk’s timeline, a few days from now, a cold fusion reactor will destroy Toronto, a Romulan first strike.
Kirk says they need to find an engineer from the “stone ages” to help them build a cold fusion detector. In TOS: “The City on the Edge of Forever” Spock tries to build a mnemonic circuit from what he sarcastically calls “stone knives and bear skins.”
True to her story, Pelia’s bunker as the words “The Archeology Department” graffitied on the door. Pelia says she has a terrible memory for faces, which may explain why she doesn’t remember meeting La’An.
Kirk says someone at the Apple Store taught him to use DuckDuckGo, which is a search engine designed to maintain privacy of searches. La’An is being very cagey about her origins, perhaps to maintain the Temporal Prime Directive. Pelia claims she (in this time) is not an engineer and hasn’t taken a math class since Pythagoras made it up (about 1500 years prior to the present). Pythagoras is often called the father of mathematics.
Tritium does indeed make phosphor glow through beta decay, and has a limited half-life. Tritium based phosphor lighting lasts for about ten years. I’m not sure that this particular detection method with the watch would work, though.
La’An suggests Kirk can live in her timeline. In “Yesterday’s Enterprise” the alternate Tasha travels to the Prime Timeline and survives the erasure of her timeline to eventually birth Sela (TNG: “Redemption II”), so there is precedent for this.
The cold fusion reactor is housed in the Noonien-Singh Institute for Cultural Advancement and La’An’s DNA opens the door. Sera is from the future, and her people - the Romulans - have been slowing human progress, but she wants to go further and for once, a Kirk bluff doesn’t work the way he intended.
Sera’s target is the child Khan Noonien-Singh, and for the first time this firmly retcons the timeline of the Eugenics Wars and Khan’s era as being pushed up to the 21st Century instead of 1996. Sera says that she was told to do so because of a computer simulation, much like Ziggy from Quantum Leap calculated changes in history. If Khan dies, the Federation never forms - and that explains why Kirk doesn’t know the name.
Sera’s explanation that this was “supposed to happen in 1992” and time itself is pushing back against attempts to change it, events reinserting themselves, now provides an explicit mechanism as to why the chronology of the Eugenics Wars has changed. This also now implies that the Project: Khan file dated 1996 that was in Adam Soong’s hands (PIC: “Farewell”) may be related to this current Khan, or the product of another altered history.
As she is fatally wounded, Sera activates an implant and turns to dust. The light on the temporal device turns from red to green, perhaps indicating that the timeline has been restored. Older viewers like me will remember the time travel series Voyagers! from 1982, whose protagonists also used a handheld device called an Omni that had red/green light indicators to show if something was wrong with the timeline.
The child Khan, appearing about 8-10 years of age, seems to be of South Asian heritage as the actual Khan would be. He is part of a cohort of at least 6 other children of various ethnicities, likely all genetically engineered.
A lingering question is what happens to the alternate Kirk’s body. If we take the idea that a person out of time is protected from timeline changes like the alternate Tasha was, then alt-Kirk’s body would still exist, a mysterious John Doe. For what it’s worth, La’An is still wearing the now anachronistic diver’s watch.
Agent Ymalay from the DTI introduces herself, and confirms the stranger was a DTI agent, cautioning her against discussing what she just experienced lest she undo the timeline.
La’An calls Prime Kirk, who is at this point still a lieutenant and confirms his birthplace as Riverside, Iowa. In reality, Roddenberry never established where in Iowa Kirk was born, so the town of Riverside just claimed it as his future birthplace. This is the first time it’s been established on screen.
Small note here: this should be 2500 years prior, unless this episode is taking place around the year 1000 CE.
Thanks! Typo corrected.
So what gives here? Precisely why Jim Kirk seemingly insists both here and in "Little Girls" that most people call his big brother George while it's clear that everyone calls him Sam can have a few possible explanations.
One is the easy out: temporal war shenanigans.
Two is that Jim's in error - he's never been the only one who calls George "Sam", and that erroneous belief is what the android picked up.
Three (and my preferred explanation) is to remember that after Korby smugly says that Android Kirk can't be outthougt, Kirk says "There are some interesting differences." Kirk at this point has tried to implant a racist thought in Android Kirk's head so Spock will realize it's not really him. The idea that he is the only one who calls George "Sam" is another implant, and one Kirk is using as a control question to see if a lie could be incepted into the android's memory. So the error confirmed to Kirk that his racist suggestion would likely have been implanted as well.
I also like this because it clears up another inconsistency - the android says Sam has 3 sons, but in TOS: “Operation: Annihilate!” he appears only to have one. In third context this would have been another checksum Kirk used to verify that his false statements were incepted.
undefined> Two is that Jim’s in error - he’s never been the only one who calls George “Sam”, and that erroneous belief is what the android picked up.
I like this explanation. I like the explanation that James had always called his brother Sam because he had a hard time saying 'George' when he was little. And so James has established himself as 'the only person who calls him 'Sam' and that may even have been factually true for some time.
But at some point, perhaps when joining Starfleet. George got tired of being associate with that other George Kirk and he missed his brother calling him Sam and so he got a new posting on a new ship and the first time they asked "name" he said "Sam." And now everyone calls him Sam. Something that James Kirk might know about, but also doesn't consider it valid because only James calls him Sam even if that isn't technically true - it's true enough for James and therefore true enough for the Android to pick up on.
undefined> As she is fatally wounded, Sera activates an implant and turns to dust.
Thus keeping up the rule that the first time anyone from the federation learns of the appearance of a Romulan is the Balance of Terror.