Star Trek episode "All Our Yesterdays"

"All Our Yesterdays"

Season 3, Episode 23.

I know that this episode is the basis for two Star Trek novel sequels that I read way back in high school. Yesterday's Son and Time for Yesterday written by A.C. Crispin. The first one has the honor of being the first Star Trek novel to hit the New York Times Bestseller list.

The star Beta Niobe is about to go nova. They are checking out a power source on a planet where the people have all disappeared. It is the library. The Librarian, Mr. Atoz (get it--Atoz? A to Z?), is taking care of the Records Room. All the people escaped into past eras of the planet's history.

Kirk is transported to some Three Musketeer-type era. Spock and McCoy get transported to a frozen wasteland in the planet's ice age. Spock and McCoy find shelter thanks to a girl. She knows about the time portal. I know according to the sequel novels that Spock fathers a son, Zar, with this woman, Zarabeth. Zarabeth was imprisoned in this ice age for fighting against a tyrant, she says.

Kirk manages to walk back through the portal eventually, but three hours have passed in both time periods. Time moved for Kirk there as well as here. Spock starts to become emotional, the weirdest thing about this episode, and Bones surmises that Spock is reverting to his barbarian ancestry because in this timeline of five thousand years ago, Vulcan is savage and barbaric--somehow Spock's present mental condition and control is based on what is happening on Vulcan right now? Is his control then somehow tied to the planet? They escape before the star goes nova.