The Guardian of Forever is not a super-machine

Cafe Society
1

That is, it isn’t something like a Krell machine.

I watched City on the Edge of Forever for the umpeenth time the other night, and had a flash of revelation.

I suspect we all think that the Guardian was the centerpiece of the once advanced civilization that was on its planet. That it was the height of advancement. That it survives, like the Krell machinery, because it was built robust. I mean, why not? The ability to travel through time is not only a great scientific advancement, but a source of immense power.

My “flash of insight” is that, instead, the Guardian is a kiosk from some long-destroyed shopping mall. Consider how it works - it shows historical periods as a series of speedy images. It can’t be used for precise travel to time or space. (“I was made to offer the past in this manner. I cannot change.”) Even in Kirk’s time, time travel is more precise than that. Who would create such a useless machine?

Some cheap novelty machine manufacturer, that’s who. Assume instead that the Guardian is just a toy. Put a quarter in and make a wish. But instead of your fortune, the machine can send you back in time. And when you’re time is up, it returns you. Obviously, the machine yanked Kirk, Spock and McCoy back, they didn’t initiate travel at their end.

The machine is a giant reality-based role playing game. Go back in time, change something, and watch the results. That would explain why the landing party wasn’t immediatly poofed out of existance when the time stream changed. Your friends with you get to see the changes, then they try their own changes. Endless hours of enjoyment! See how much YOU can alter the present! Only a quarter!

When at the end, the Guardian says “Many such journeys are possible. Let me be your gateway.” it isn’t some lonely sentient machine, or a friendly alien offering to help. That’s its sales pitch!

Because of the way the Guardian was made, it will be sitting there until the end of the universe. Worlds may change, galaxies disintegrate, but a the Guardian always remains.

2

Sorry little buddy, look at the sign: “No one under 48” may change the past."

3

Grin!

(To be momentarily serious, the fanwank explanation is that there were interfaces that let you connect to the Guardian, but they’ve decayed. It’s like finding an old radioactive mess, which is all that’s left of a nuclear power reactor. All the generators are gone, and only the hot fuel-sludge remains.)

(Hey, look at the thing. It looks partly melted!)

Just squirtin’ around, I would say the Guardian is a paradox singularity. It can do anything…and not do the same thing, at the same time. Kirk is happily married to Edith…in a world under Nazi domination. He also let her die and came back to the Enterprise.

“Many such journeys are possible.” Including self-contradictory ones!

(Also, it must have stopped working since Kirk visited it, otherwise the Federation would have used it to prevent the Borg from attacking, very much the same way the Borg tried to prevent Cochrane from developing the Warp Drive.)

(“Niven’s Law” is a bitch.)

4

I’ll put tootsie pops under my feet and pass the sign. What could go wrong?
I bet that’s how the planet became deserted. Some stupid kid went back in time and changed everything. But still, the Guardian remains, awating the next customer. Just as in The Arsenal of Freedom.

5

Stuff like this is why I read the Dope.

I really should keep a list of this sorta “golden fanwanked” stuff that pops up every few months or so.

But I am a lazy bastard so there ya go…

6

In the animated series, it still was working. In a bit of Saturday-morning level of story plotting, Spock “couldn’t be in two places at once” and so he, as a child, died because he, as an adult, couldn’t save himself.

And the rather good short story Mind Sifter used the Guardian.

But in the real universe, it does appear to have been forgotten.

7

Just stay away from the thing unless you want an Andorian as your first officer.

8

Check his antennas first. You don’t wank a* fake* Andorian first officer!