Studios don’t inform someone they think might sue them, I suspect. They consult with their OWN lawyers and if they decide they have a case, they move forward WITHOUT consulting someone who MIGHT have grounds to sue them.

I seem to recall Peter David using the Guardian of Forever in Imzadi. I wonder if he or other Star Trek novelists (including Shatner and his team) had permission. Or if the animated series had permission to use the GoF. Or the video games.

It seems to me that the studio may well have thought that if Ellison was going to contest use of the Guardian of Forever, he would have done it one of the last ten or twenty times it was used without his permission.

First Contact.

Right. Does anyone else remember that First Contact was a time travel movie? Who didn’t love First Contact? It had a great plot. And you know what made it great? The time travel was secondary. They were all about stopping the Borg, not anything else. (Funny historical sidebar – it’s also the last time the Borg were actually still scary.)

So, while it’s risky, I’d just like to toss out that the time travel actually adds an element of hope that I was missing.

Also, I’d like to react to the “Spock’s on the Guardian’s planet doing scentific research” theory. Have we gone stark raving mad? Where was Spock when we last saw him? Romulus. With who? The Romulans. In what capacity? Diplomat. He’s not a science officer anymore, people.

So more likely, Spock will be walking down a street and he’ll see a couple of guys talking. And his advanced Vulcan hearing (leaving out for the moment that Leonard Nimoy is actually wearing hearing aids now) will pick up “that will be the end of Kirk!” and some maniacal laughter. “Huh,” he’ll think, “that’s weird.”

But because he really loves Kirk (nature of that love to be debated at another time please) he’ll follow them anyway, all the way to the Guardian. Presto.

Just my two cents.

#1: They shouldn’t have existed until at least 2366. Enterprise aside, “The Naked Now” was when they discovered time travel was possible.

#2: They don’t come until *after* a problem has already occurred to investigate it after the fact. They wouldn’t have appeared in any episode unless they specifically wanted to show them.

As far as the other “time corps” is concerned (I assume that #413 is referring to “Future’s End”), they appeared when, as far as they were concerned, Voyager had *already* caused a major catastrophe in the 30th Century. Hardly a minor mission.

I Googled Bart LaRue. he sadly passed away in 1990.

If the GoF IS used, I have a suggestion for a voice.
Did anyone see Heavy Metal (The cartoon)? The guys that did the opening VO (and several characters in the film as well) was named August Schellenberg. I think he would be a worthy replacement for Mr. LaRue to voice the Gaurdian. (Assuming HE’s still kicking, that is! lol)

As to whomever said to just make it an Iconian Portal and not a GoF, think of it this way. The iconian portals were portrayed as being primarily technological, i.e., as being built by someone’s hand. The portals were also not portrayed as TIME TRAVEL devices, merely as an alternate means of Point-A-to-Point-B transportation.
The GoF is ALIVE, as far as being a sentient, albeit immobile, being, if perhaps an artificial one…

“Off camera, we don’t know what happened to Spock and the story itself, or events after the fact in ‘Yesteryear’. He could have been punished. His parents might have reported the incident to The Time Corps or a Vulcan equivalent. They would have sent officers, through time to correct what he did.”
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You bring up some very interesting points.

Logic would dictate that probably nothing happened to Spock. The shuttle accident never happened after the timeline was repaired; therefore, the folks in the “real” timeline should have no memories of anything other than their pasts in the “correct” timeline.

That is what has always bugged me about “CotEoF” and that episode of Enterprise where they met their descendants, in which T’Pol rightly pointed out, “Then why do we remember them?” Did the memories just fade over time?

Time travel: It’s a conundrum, I tell you, a conundrum, and an especially tricky one at that!

And I’m telling y’all, there is WATER coming from the sky in ATL!! Swear to Vulcan!! WTF izzat?

Peace. Live long and prosper.
The Vulcanista }:-|