Annotations for *Star Trek: Strange New Worlds* 2x03: "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" (SPOILERS) - Star Trek: Website
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. (Continued in comments)
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