TOS' incorrect world war I/II dead

Discussion in 'Star Trek - The Original & Animated Series' started by trekkist, Nov 4, 2013.

  1. Mr. Laser Beam

    Mr. Laser Beam Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    May 10, 2005
    Location:
    Confederation of Earth
    Originally there wasn't supposed to even be an ECON. It was China. All references to the ECON were originally China. They must not have wanted to piss off the Chinese government or fans, so they changed it at the last minute. (Source: ST:FC commentary track)

    And given what the ECON looked like in "Encounter at Farpoint", that's not hard to believe.
     
  2. Warped9

    Warped9 Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Aug 3, 2003
    Location:
    Brockville, Ontario, Canada
    Or that TOS is an alternate history and not the same as ours.

    Firstly, is there a Star Trek television series in TOS' 20th century?
     
  3. Melakon

    Melakon Admiral In Memoriam

    Joined:
    Nov 22, 2012
    Location:
    Melakon's grave
    If there is, then Roberta Lincoln should have been watching it. Or Uhura should have picked it up along with those radio transmissions in "Tomorrow is Yesterday".
     
  4. Avro Arrow

    Avro Arrow Vice Admiral Moderator

    Joined:
    Jan 10, 2003
    Location:
    Canada
    Spock: It appears to be a giant amoeba, sir.

    Kirk: Mr. Scott, rig up the blu-ray player. Let's see how we get out of this one!
     
  5. T'Girl

    T'Girl Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Aug 20, 2009
    Location:
    T'Girl
    Now combine that with EMP from the wide spread use of nuclear weapons.

    Consider this possibility, if he were just referring to combat deaths, his figure for the second world war would seem still much too small.

    Now for the longest time people thought the death count for Americans in the Korean war was about 54,000, it was only decades later that there was a study and it was found that the actual number was about 37,000.

    When Spock said that there were 11 million (combat) deaths in the second world war, maybe he was right?


    :)
     
    Last edited: Nov 8, 2013
  6. Shon T'Hara

    Shon T'Hara Commander Red Shirt

    Joined:
    Nov 11, 2010
    Is there any evidence that what we saw in Farpoint was the Eastern Coalition? The only description of it I recall is that it's a courtroom from the Post Atomic Horror. For all we know the United States broke apart some time after the Bell Riots and the Eastern Coalition was one of the successor states which allied itself against the the Empire of Montana when WWIII broke out.

    Assuming that ECON=China just smacks of Yellow Peril.
     
  7. Mr. Laser Beam

    Mr. Laser Beam Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    May 10, 2005
    Location:
    Confederation of Earth
    Remember TNG's "The Royale"? It contained a US flag with 52 stars, which placed it anywhere from 2033 to 2079. 2079 was over 20 years AFTER the end of the war. Therefore, the US survived the war intact.

    "Eastern" could indeed have meant something like Eastern Europe (although the Farpoint scenes definitely had a lot of Chinese influence), but it's not the eastern *US* - we know that much.

    Although I admit the ECON could have been a rogue element operating *within* the US, kind of like those militia wackos. Especially since the logo on the soldiers' helmets (the guys who sniff drugs to keep them under control) is supposed to be Colonel Green's emblem...and Green is apparently American. (Also, in the barely-readable onscreen text from the Defiant logs in IAMD, Green is indeed a militia leader, kind of like the ultimate ultra-radical eco-terrorist.)

    Don't look at me, I'm not the one who wrote the damn thing. As I said, it's on the audio commentary. And nobody 'assumed' anything; there were just some last-minute rewrites done, that's all.
     
  8. Nerys Myk

    Nerys Myk A Spock and a smile Premium Member

    Joined:
    Nov 4, 2001
    Location:
    AI Generated Madness
    Is "alternate universe" the answer to every bonehead mistake the writers made?
     
  9. Warped9

    Warped9 Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Aug 3, 2003
    Location:
    Brockville, Ontario, Canada
    Okay.
     
  10. RPJOB

    RPJOB Commander Red Shirt

    Joined:
    Apr 11, 2012
    For me, every episode, book, comic, movie exists as a glimpse at an alternate universe. Some of them we have seen before and so they exist in the same universe. Others, show no obvious connection.

    Was Khan a product of eugenics or genetic engineering? The answer is yes, depending on which universe we're watching.

    Is there a 50 foot clone of Spock on the planet Phylos? Sure, just not in all universes.

    Was Kirk a drunken frat boy or a stack of books with legs while at the Academy. Again, the answer is yes to both.

    I much prefer the Klingons as depicted in The Final Reflection as opposed to the drunken, amoral biker gang we got in TNG/DS9. Does that mean that Ford's Klingons aren't real Klingons? Nope, they're just as real as any Klingon ever has been, which is to say, not at all. The same goes for Diane Duane's version of the Romulans as compared to the so called "official" version.

    If the owners of Star Trek have allowed someone to legally publish or produce something with the name Star Trek on it, it counts. I'd even go so far as to include the fan films in that. If they're not issuing a cease and desist order then it's showing at least a degree of acceptance.

    If something contradicts something that has come before I simply shift it to an alternate universe and carry on. Much easier to deal with than trying to wedge everything into one "prime" universe *Which is a dumb concept to begin with. It feels like we're back to imagining the Earth is the center of the universe.)
     
  11. Shaka Zulu

    Shaka Zulu Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Mar 28, 2013
    Location:
    Bulawayo Military Krral
    ECON is the EASTern COalition, a moniker most likely referring to the People's Republic of China, Russia, and North Korea (originally, the enemy was supposed to be the People's Republic of China, but as Paramount wanted to sell the movie(s) in China, it was just changed to the less specific ECON.)