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I have been thinking* episode and the dialogue from the semi concious Dr McCoy raised some questions.

McCoy gave the impression that he thought was drugged, under an hallucinic effect or in a 'God Game'. Was he right?

After all, what is more likely? That the act of McCoy jumping through a gate causes a mass time disruption which eliminates the Enterprise, but not Kirk and Spock. Or that the self proclaimed 'Gaurdian' manipulated their perceptions into acting out a morality play?

Does this make Kirk's decision about Edith any more or less real?

If the whole thing is a simulation, does it make a difference? If it does, then what?

*On and off for the last three years. Yes, I think slowly.

Three years here and you posted this in the wrong forum. Maybe you should have thought about it some more.

Whack into PST.

oh man that was epic

i have one question about McCoy though. Did any one think that Doctor McCoy was playing favorites when it came to the rouge Daleks. He seemed intent on killing just the Lord Daleks.

Well no seriously i dont know anything about Star Trek
Star Wars however woooo Star Wars. And for anybody who doesnt get my joke, Doctor Who, and StarGate

You're overthinking the problem, Dworkin. The episode's situation is straightforward: there is no illusory manipulation or simulation on the part of the Guardian taking place but an actual disturbance in the space/time continuum which resulted in an alteration of history.

McCoy's reasoning is valid given the state he's in as the effects of the cordrazine are wearing off. He's regaining lucidity and long-term memory but was as yet totally unaware that he had actually traveled in time. Given the lack of that data-point, he tries to fill in the gap with the most logical answer available to him: that he's either drugged or demented.

McCoy's actions altered history, erasing the Enterprise from existence while leaving Kirk, Spock and the landing party intact. It can be presumed, and the script mechanics certainly suggest, that some property of the Guardian insulates it and its machinery from any changes in the time continuum. Kirk and co., being near the epicentre of the Guardian's field, would have also been insulated from temporal change.

If the Guardian didn't have such a temporal protection field, wouldn't McCoy's making a change erase McCoy himself, and thus effectively undo whatever change he made?

Even if it was all a game, Kirk was entirely unaware of it and his feelings for Edith was plainly very real. He thought he was allowing a real woman whom he loved to die for the sake of history. Regardless of the veracity of the scenario, his sacrifice (and his grief afterwards) were entirely real.

I don't know if this is helpful to the discussion, but the street corner on which Kirk's girlfriend dies is the same corner where Seinfeld stole the bread from the old lady.