Currents and Eddies
It was Spock in the original Star Trek series episode, “City on the Edge of Forever,” who postulated a theory about currents and eddies in time. It was a necessary theory for the storyline. Doctor McCoy had accidently injected himself with a drug that caused severe psychotropic effects. In his madness McCoy transported himself down to a planet where a strange time portal took him into 1930s New York. Conveniently Spock had been recording the images of the time portal on his “tricorder.” McCoy somehow changed history, which resulted in the sudden deletion of the universe and the Enterprise, leaving only the landing party on the planet with the time portal. Kirk asks the portal to replay time, whereby he and Spock jump through the portal just before the moment when history changed, hopefully to prevent McCoy’s bumble and to right history.
Kirk worried that they might have landed in some far off continent weeks, months, or years before McCoy arrived and would have no idea how to find him even if they were nearby. This is where Spock concocted his theory about currents and eddies in time. The theory seems to suggest that if history is like an ocean current following a predictable stream, certain moments in history run counter to that current creating an eddy of sorts. These are the moments that could trap a temporarily insane McCoy and could also draw Kirk and Spock into that same eddy. It would not be possible, for instance, for Kirk and Spock to have landed in Berlin on Kristallnacht while McCoy landed in New York at the doorstep of Edith Keeler (played by Joan Collins). They all would be trapped by the same whirlpool. Spock’s theory proved true, and, of course, they fixed history. The universe was made whole again, and the Enterprise was back in orbit ready to take its merry crew on another adventure.
When science fiction writers need a logical solution to an illogical problem, concocting such a theory or a new law of physics is a convenient tool in their arsenal. Standard fiction writers, and especially historical fiction writers don’t have that luxury. For us the world is round and it revolves around the Sun. When someone drops an apple, it must hit the ground.
Nevertheless, I am intrigued by Spock’s theory. I’ve often noticed that places, themes, and seemingly unrelated events cluster as if caught in an eddy of time. It is an old superstition that “deaths come in threes.” My dog died, a week later my mother died, six months later my dad died. My world suddenly changed forever. The year 1949, often labeled “The Year of Shocks” by historians, witnessed the establishment of East and West Germany, the Berlin Blockade, the atomic bomb in the Soviet Union, the fall of Nationalist China, and a host of other momentous events. The world changed forever.
Maybe Spock’s theory has merit. I wouldn’t want to suggest that some metaphysical force is responsible for clustering events. It is not as though a deity arbitrarily decides, “Hey, it’s 1871, I’ll make the Parisian’s revolt and form a commune, and then I’ll have Mrs. O’Leary’s cow knock over a lantern.” If I am postulating something, it might be a challenge to our Euro-centric linear point of view. We tend to think of time as a purely linear thing with sixty second minutes, sixty minute hours, twenty-four hour days, . . .. Events, both major and minor, simply are notches along that steady, dependable, predictable time line.
The problem with our tidy and neat time keeping system is that it is a human invention. It is a system superimposed over the facts of history. Regardless of a system of minutes, days, months, and years, historical events follow their own pace. History is like a freeway. Time keeping is the posted 70mph speed limit, which is supposed to keep traffic moving at a steady, even, predictable pace. Historical events, however, are made up of a BMW flitting down the road at 90mph, a Prius ambling along at 55, and a half-rusted Crown Victoria lurching from 65 to 80 and back to 70. At some point the BMW, the Prius, and the Crown Vic will all meet up on the same stretch of road, hopefully avoiding a collision. That is the moment that creates Spock’s eddy. It is a random phenomenon.
https://www.bluewatertales.com
Kirk worried that they might have landed in some far off continent weeks, months, or years before McCoy arrived and would have no idea how to find him even if they were nearby. This is where Spock concocted his theory about currents and eddies in time. The theory seems to suggest that if history is like an ocean current following a predictable stream, certain moments in history run counter to that current creating an eddy of sorts. These are the moments that could trap a temporarily insane McCoy and could also draw Kirk and Spock into that same eddy. It would not be possible, for instance, for Kirk and Spock to have landed in Berlin on Kristallnacht while McCoy landed in New York at the doorstep of Edith Keeler (played by Joan Collins). They all would be trapped by the same whirlpool. Spock’s theory proved true, and, of course, they fixed history. The universe was made whole again, and the Enterprise was back in orbit ready to take its merry crew on another adventure.
When science fiction writers need a logical solution to an illogical problem, concocting such a theory or a new law of physics is a convenient tool in their arsenal. Standard fiction writers, and especially historical fiction writers don’t have that luxury. For us the world is round and it revolves around the Sun. When someone drops an apple, it must hit the ground.
Nevertheless, I am intrigued by Spock’s theory. I’ve often noticed that places, themes, and seemingly unrelated events cluster as if caught in an eddy of time. It is an old superstition that “deaths come in threes.” My dog died, a week later my mother died, six months later my dad died. My world suddenly changed forever. The year 1949, often labeled “The Year of Shocks” by historians, witnessed the establishment of East and West Germany, the Berlin Blockade, the atomic bomb in the Soviet Union, the fall of Nationalist China, and a host of other momentous events. The world changed forever.
Maybe Spock’s theory has merit. I wouldn’t want to suggest that some metaphysical force is responsible for clustering events. It is not as though a deity arbitrarily decides, “Hey, it’s 1871, I’ll make the Parisian’s revolt and form a commune, and then I’ll have Mrs. O’Leary’s cow knock over a lantern.” If I am postulating something, it might be a challenge to our Euro-centric linear point of view. We tend to think of time as a purely linear thing with sixty second minutes, sixty minute hours, twenty-four hour days, . . .. Events, both major and minor, simply are notches along that steady, dependable, predictable time line.
The problem with our tidy and neat time keeping system is that it is a human invention. It is a system superimposed over the facts of history. Regardless of a system of minutes, days, months, and years, historical events follow their own pace. History is like a freeway. Time keeping is the posted 70mph speed limit, which is supposed to keep traffic moving at a steady, even, predictable pace. Historical events, however, are made up of a BMW flitting down the road at 90mph, a Prius ambling along at 55, and a half-rusted Crown Victoria lurching from 65 to 80 and back to 70. At some point the BMW, the Prius, and the Crown Vic will all meet up on the same stretch of road, hopefully avoiding a collision. That is the moment that creates Spock’s eddy. It is a random phenomenon.
https://www.bluewatertales.com
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