What's Earth like in the 24th Century?
- Thread starter Arpy
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Clean and safe for all inhabitants, unlike now.
I surely hope those 1.5 trillion aren't all living on earth!
It's either just like the 23rd century we saw in Star Trek Into Darkness (which I prefer to think), or it's like the planet from TNG's "Haven" (as latter-day Gene Roddenberry liked to think)
Let's hope!
I was also thinking about the New Atlantis project, and other macro-engineering projects proposed over the years. In Roddenberry's novelization of TMP, the Straight of Gibraltar was dammed, drying up large sections of the Mediterranean Sea for habitation - and maybe powered by hydroelectricity? Similar real world projects conceive of creating artificial seas in Africa.
I like to imagine Earth is rather spectacular in the future.
Let's hope not!
I got the number by multiplying 5 billion per home planet x 150 member worlds x 2 to account for all colonies. Given that the real word UN estimate for Earth by 2100 is 11.2 billion, I think the 5 billion figure is conservative. As is the mere x2 for all colonies of each member world.
I was also thinking there may be parts of the planet left fallow in memoriam to WWIII and the lessons of the past. Can you imagine how many people were killed when BosWash was attacked?
Conversely, there may be large metropolises in places that today are either small towns or are nothing at all, started by refugees fleeing radioactive fallout from cities more familiar to us.
From DS9 (rat pack episode) I believe the Federation population would be more like 800 billion to one trillion.
It's safe to say that all areas/nations on Earth will be "developed nations" by that time, what we've seen in developed nations today is a reduction in birth rates and populations would decline without outside immigration. Perhaps the population of Earth would be in the one to two billion range. We don't hear of large families, one and two children seem the norm. Many of today's large cities would be considerably smaller or in some cases completely gone.
Immigration would come from off-world, and there would be ongoing emigration to other established worlds, and to new colonies. Aliens from in and out of the Federation would live on Earth in large numbers, but the majority of it's inhabitants would still be Humans
Everyday life on Earth would be stable and comfortable. There would be quiet little villages where nothing ever happen, and a few dozen mega-cities where everything happens.
Food would be abundant and cheap, employment would be near universal, crime would be rare, politics would be calm.
.
It's safe to say that all areas/nations on Earth will be "developed nations" by that time, what we've seen in developed nations today is a reduction in birth rates and populations would decline without outside immigration. Perhaps the population of Earth would be in the one to two billion range. We don't hear of large families, one and two children seem the norm. Many of today's large cities would be considerably smaller or in some cases completely gone.
Immigration would come from off-world, and there would be ongoing emigration to other established worlds, and to new colonies. Aliens from in and out of the Federation would live on Earth in large numbers, but the majority of it's inhabitants would still be Humans
Everyday life on Earth would be stable and comfortable. There would be quiet little villages where nothing ever happen, and a few dozen mega-cities where everything happens.
Food would be abundant and cheap, employment would be near universal, crime would be rare, politics would be calm.
.
Interestingly, Boston seems unharmed when Barclay is shown living there in VOY. That is, structures from the 19th and 20th centuries survive, and they would not after a massive "conventional" (that is, nuclear) attack. Nor would there be much chance of them having been rebuilt that way, when we so frequently see that the builders of the future have no particular respect for ancient skylines and freely insert modern buildings into old neighborhoods, instead of (re)creating "museum cities".
Then again, Riker in ST:FC only said that "major" cities would have been destroyed. BosWash comes nowhere near the top twenty even today, and the mid-21st century of Trek might see it left even farther behind.
As for population, in ST:FC Data declares that Earth's population after the Borg time tampering is nine billion. His delivery heavily suggests this is an unexpected number. Whether because Earth's population in the 2370s is anything but 9 billion, or because Data is surprised to see the population remain the same even when it has been totally Borgified, we can only guess...
Since everybody has replicators (it's made pretty clear that all other means of preparing the daily meal are considered eccentric), everybody supposedly has access to the side benefits, too - if a genuine Ming vase or a Harley Davidson bike is needed, it can be procured at the push of a button, while a new house might take four pushes. A replicator can't produce more time or more space (if we don't count new floors or basements!), but it can produce everything else, and the only thing we know to be artificially limited is its ability to produce certain designs of weapons (DS9 "Field of Fire").
Further, if people really make all their sandwiches by replicator, it follows that energy is not a limiting factor: either it's infinitely cheap and abundant, or replicators use very little of it and thus make energy shortages or prices in other applications irrelevant, as the replicator can always step in and take over.
The replicator also does the dishes, so there's no such thing as domestic waste. Why all this wouldn't hold true in industrial scale, I can't imagine.
When we add the fact that holographic entertainment was a big part of Janeway's childhood already, we can safely argue that people in the 24th century are in no way dependent on nature. Except when they get hit by hurricanes, that is. So the only relevant defining element of 24th century would probably be imagination...
Then again, most people we see are conservatives, even when the arch-conservatives leave to found farming colonies in deep space. Perhaps utter freedom finally allows us to stop trying to be free?
Timo Saloniemi
the ability to exercise complete control over weather systems would not be limited to places like Risa. The world's most powerful militaries are actively pursuing it in the present day - even the private sector to lesser degrees, so it is safe to assume that people in the 24th century will not contend with weather severe enough to cause catastrophe.
I don't see why. Its population and size even today is humble in global terms, and Riker isn't a known anglophile who would elevate the city above its absolute standing on historical grounds only. "Important" or "once important" is not the same as "major".
OTOH, we saw no London landmarks that would need to have survived WWIII. There's a generic "capitol" style dome that may or may not be one of Wren's works, and that's it. So perhaps London really was leveled and then rebuilt, or then a new city was named London and decorated with a replica of St. Paul's or something.
In contrast, the US cities shown to survive have "non-landmark" old buildings in evidence, structures much less likely to have been rebuilt or copied. And Cambridge is shown to have survived with so many of the old buildings, shamelessly hemmed in by modern ones, that the "outdoor museum" rebuilding-after-total-destruction model is unlikely there, too.
Perhaps cities with a valid claim to being major today, such as Cairo, Istanbul or Shanghai, indeed utterly ceased to exist? No doubt many other cities outside Europe or the US grew in size while European/US ones did not, just as is likely to happen in our reality, thereby moving the little towns like London off Riker's endangered list by WWIII.
Except that Earth specifically and explicitly still suffers from tornadoes, as in "True Q". Sure, that one was probably supernatural, but it was not recognized for one by anybody at the time, meaning natural ones must have continued to exist. And if there are tornadoes, how come hurricanes or typhoons could be under control?
Timo Saloniemi
In a nuclear war, you bomb the most populated cities? Because that's tactically useful?
The major cities in a nuclear war would include ones that house the governments that have access to nuclear weapons. You bomb your political (and militaristic) enemies first.
That would include London.
Haven doesn't take place on a planet. Based on context, I'll assume you meant to say Justice.
We've only seen a handful of post WWIII Earth cities/towns in ST:
To name a few
London
Paris
San Francisco
Mojave
Cambridge
Of those I would consider only two would be considered major cities Paris and London. Besides population and geographical size are of minor importance when it comes to determining if a citiy is a major one. Other factors come into play.
As for most of Earth's major cities being destroyed like with anything different cities could have had varying degress off destruction, there was a bit of overstating the actual devastation that occured, not to mention what is taught in history lessons can vary depending on where you are raised.
To name a few
London
Paris
San Francisco
Mojave
Cambridge
Of those I would consider only two would be considered major cities Paris and London. Besides population and geographical size are of minor importance when it comes to determining if a citiy is a major one. Other factors come into play.
As for most of Earth's major cities being destroyed like with anything different cities could have had varying degress off destruction, there was a bit of overstating the actual devastation that occured, not to mention what is taught in history lessons can vary depending on where you are raised.
Like Harry Kim and Travis Mayweather? Don't buy the propaganda, Zombs. Earth is a powerhouse of intelligent kind people living an existential dream.
I think travel plays a bigger part in people's lives in the future as well. Today many of us never "get" to travel, either "as much as we'd like to" or ever. Many do, but I think if more people got to, the world would feel very different, as it does today vs before there airplanes.
In a future where you could work from anywhere and energy is cheap, I imagine there being much more mobility overall.
Some people perhaps spending their entire lives in transit, whether literally on large transports ever touring the heavens, or simply going from home/project to new home/project, year after year.
Still others, finding Earth or Tellar so lovely, perhaps spend most of their time relishing in them and sharing them with travelers to.
Travis Mayweather isn't from the 24th century.
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