If you insist on ignoring multiverse theory every time you time travel, I’ll just have to deal with it. I promise you I won’t like it, but I’ll deal with it.
Kirk falls in love with a woman of the 1930s. Huh. How does he know she isn’t his grandmother? He doesn’t until the end of the episode when he discovers that either she dies or more people die at the hands of Hitler than what originally happened in history.
Though Spock doesn’t say so, choosing the needs of the many over the wants of the few/one/Kirk is — according to research I do when I don’t have time to watch a whole episode but still don’t want to ruin specific episodes for myself — a major part of Vulcan philosophy.
What I see — because this character (played by Joan Collins) is so forward-thinking and condemned by the sake of humanity’s history and future to die/not meet the president — is that they could just take her into the future with them and not let her live out the rest of the 1930s. I’m sure she would understand. Getting hit by a car? Not so much.
Starfleet Academy Course Suggestion: She Might Be Your Grandmother And Other Ethical Quandaries Of Time Travel
In celebration of National Poetry Month 2017, I have retroactively composed the following sonnet from the perspective of the forward-thinking dame after she has died (but before she has accepted it) and made aware of the full circumstances of her death.
Sonnet 14
If I had lived beyond my time,
would I have ever known the cost?
Would I've been burdened by that crime
of so much life and living lost?
Might I have lived beyond my time
and to myself been later rhyme?
What purpose does my losing serve
that I'm denied my lasting nerve?
If I had lived in my own time,
and known full well the consequence,
I would have picked a difference.
Might I have lived in my own time
either on my term or on yours?
If not my time, why not yours?