I don't own Star Trek.
My apologies; I accidentally uploaded a different chapter earlier for this one.
Strangely Compelling.
As he stared at the images displayed by the so-called 'Guardian of Forever,' James Kirk had watched as the history he had only read about in books and learnt about straight out of the classroom was being displayed in front of him. He could claim the images being presented by the Guardian was nothing more than holograms, but they looked too real to be holographic and he knew they were anything but.
The possibilities of travelling through time, across eras and light-years until they arrived in historic moments of Earth's past (and why just Earth? Surely Mr Spock himself would be interested in gathering information relating to Vulcan's past; the continuous wars across the planet as the ancient Vulcans fought themselves before Surak developed his philosophies and the Time of Awakening dawned? What about Qo'Nos, Romulus, Betazed, Orion, and dozens of other worlds Starfleet hadn't yet encountered and made contact with?) were amazing and endless, and for a moment Kirk entertained the idea of contacting Starfleet to despatch investigation and science teams to this planet and venture in and out of time and visit dozens of worlds to add to Starfleet's knowledge of the universe.
"Strangely compelling, isn't it?" Kirk had asked.
And it was.
The thought that with the Guardian of Forever, Starfleet would not only have access to time travel but they would be using it in a more direct and simplistic way than the slingshot manoeuvre, and they would have a new frontier to explore. As he continued to stare, transfixed into the Guardian of Forever, the explorer in Kirk wanted nothing more than to step through, with the desire of meeting icons like Leonardo DaVinci, Abraham Lincoln, President Kennedy, Zefram Cochrane before the Phoenix's first warp flight and first contact with the Vulcans….
He was sure his companions and shipmates felt the same.
With the Guardian of Forever, they could visit dozens of places and times. They could witness the time of the dinosaurs on Earth while palaeontologists from various institutions and archaeologists used the sentient portal to visit the histories of thousands of worlds to discover if their theories were correct.
With the Guardian, so much of the universe would be opened up to them.
Unfortunately, because they were transfixed by the sight of what the Guardian was offering them all, none of them was prepared for what happened
before McCoy had come running, screaming hysterically, throwing accusations around madly. As soon as McCoy ran through the Guardian, they had lost all contact with the ship. It had taken Kirk and the rest of the landing party a short time to work out what the doctor had done; their experiences with Captain Christopher and the risk to history he potentially represented since without his son, there would be no Federation.
Granted, while Christopher's son hadn't actually created the Federation, he had set in motion the events which would ensure its conception, but the landing party had been mystified; what had McCoy done which had changed history so drastically the Enterprise itself vanished? The only way to answer the question was to travel back in time, see what was going on and hopefully find a solution.
When Kirk and Spock had gone through the time portal, they'd needed to change their clothes since both of them were so underprepared for the time travelling back to the 20th century. Kirk had said the Guardian of Forever and what it offered was compelling, but learning that Edith Keeler and falling in love with her would lead to something so horrifying…
It had been virtually impossible for him not to fall in love with Edith; highly intelligent, tough, courageous… and yet she was so compassionate and beautiful. She worked hard at the mission to ensure everyone who came here ate well, were kept warm and dry as well as comfortable. He had just fallen in love with Edith, only to discover the cruellest twist of fate; Edith Keeler's peace movement would have risen to ensure the United States of America kept out of the Second World War and would have ensured that Nazi Germany was never defeated.
But if Edith had died, the war would have been won. Kirk had heard tales of one person being a catalyst for change, and while his career within Starfleet had revealed some of those catalysts, people like captains, navigators, doctors in science and medicine, engineers, but even after meeting Captain Christopher and knowing about what his son would be doing, Kirk did not like how Edith was destined to die so the Second World War ended the way Kirk knew. It was like a pebble being dropped in a lake, the water rippling in every direction.
Edith living would have ensured the Second World War was never won by the Allies. It baffled the mind completely, that a woman who wasn't a scientist, wasn't a diplomat, or what someone would consider noteworthy or important enough to have such an effect.
But Edith meant everything to Kirk; he had never imagined or expected he would be interested in a woman as much as he had with Carol Marcus. Letting her die… it shattered him.
Time travel through the Guardian of Forever was no longer compelling. When he had viewed the images picked out of Earth's history, Kirk had been looking forward to stepping through the portal, which seemed a better and more reliable method of time travel than the slingshot effect. But after what had happened….
No, Kirk would need to spend a lot of time recovering from this blow before he even thought of using time travel again, if ever.