Spock asks them for their help in saving the world and they selflessly give it, despite there being no more humpbacked (people?) whales in the future. Their decision is basically mirrored by Gillian deciding to tag along which I thought was a nice touch. They wouldn't have first-hand knowledge of the probe and even if there was some sort of whale legend passed down through the generations what possible harm does it do to the story by omitting it? They can't do anything about it until they get back to the future anyway and that helps to keep the suspense factor up, if Spock says "it visited Earth thousands of millennia ago and they told it to jog on, problem solved" then the outcome is never in doubt.
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