The depiction of London in In to Darkness.

My biggest disappointment with how London (and its surroundings) were depicted in STID was the use of the word 'royal' in the children's hospital where the little girl is a patient.

I was really hoping Britain would be over that hereditary nonsense by the time the 23rd century rolls round :-)

 

The system of peerage has been around for a while. Especially in the wake of a possible power vacuum after WW3 and the Eugenics Wars I would imagine that some leaders would still cling to that.

 

It may just be that they didn’t want to change the name of the hospital. If something has been called the Royal Something for centuries, why change it to the Something, just because the monarchy no longer exists? Many folk are fond of tradation.

 

Yes, that's a good point - never occurred to me.

 

Also a good point.

 

Also: Who says to monarchy doesn't exist anymore? There might be no Nation-States anymore. No capitalism. No money. But I guess even in the future, they probably try to preserve their cultural heritage.

In most modern European democracies, former aristocrats still have their noble title in their names, and sometimes live in the castle of their ancestors. Even if they don't hold any meaningfull power or privilige from their title anymore.

A futuristic England might still have monarchy in a purely representative, local function. And in a post-scarcity world, that would actually be even less controversial, since there is no undeserved amount of ressources "wasted" on people who don't deserve it on anything but heredity.

 

As for "super generic", how isn't London that today already? It's a place with buildings. Some are old and some are new. Every layer features a couple of "wow buildings", just as everywhere and everywhen. Those may look different in different cities, but every city worth the name has those. From any distance, the skyline is just more of the same-o: steeples, domes and glass-walled skyscrapers.

Anybody wanting to see "special" always can, by focusing on the specific "wow buildings" (be they big or almost unnoticeably small).Or by identifying the exact ratio of parkland or waterways to urbanization, or whatever. But it's all in the eye of the beholder. And no city today really strives for "identity" in this respect: there's no ban on glassy highrises or generic bizarrely shaped eyecatchers. London, Paris, New York, Mexico City, Beijing... a visiting Vulcan would have a hard time telling those apart today.

Timo Saloniemi

 

There’s the city and the city. And yes, the square mile is not very populated in terms of people living there...but largely cos it’s bloody expensive. The Barbican is there though. There isn’t an Apeths worth of difference between the city and the city though, London is bigger and the city is in many ways just another borough. There would be more people actually living there, but expensive flats tend to get left empty by very rich people. And there could be more space if that wasn’t the case. Housing is a mess in London.

 

Wasn't the Great Fire of London in 1666?

 

It was indeed!!!!


dJE

 

First bit: Traditions die hard.

Second bit: No reason why nation-states would cease to exist. Individual U.S. states didn't vanish when the U.S.A. was formed, did they? Same story here.

Indeed, there are one or two ENT episodes which openly mention existing nations still being around. Makes sense - they're just members of the United Earth government. And, kicking it up one level, United Earth is still around even after the formation of the Federation - it's just a member OF said Federation.

 

1. Countries still do exist in the Trek future of Earth. "England" and "France" are still distinctive places. But at the same time it's made abundantly clear the Earth is politically unified, and Nation States don't exist in the current form as an institution of power.

2. I alread argued for the Trek future of England still having a monarchy - purely out of traditional reasons, but without any power

 

Again, this is not how it works. The United States of America is politically unified, yet individual States still exist to deal with purely local matters. Same story here. The government of United Earth deals with issues that affect the whole planet, but individual nations remain to handle their own local affairs. And it's the same with the Federation - the UFP is a state in and of itself, but there are still member worlds (including Earth) which deal with their own matters.

 

I wasn't too big of a fan of the cold, gray future shown in the first two JJ Treks either. It almost made me miss when they used the Tillman Water Reclamation Plant for everything!

 

I really don't see how this differes from what I said?
"England" and "France" still exist in the Trek universe, and also still use different languages. But neither country collects taxes, or has a standing army, or does foreign relations with other countries or that kind of stuff. They're not "Nation States" in the traditional sense anymore. More like cultural entities, but politically probably just some sort of "districts" of a united Earth. If you insist they could still bear the label "States". But they're not "Nation States" in the current political definition anymore.

 

Political definitions are...political.
A state with a shared language, and broad culture and history? With reference to historical borders? I mean granted ‘historical borders’ can often mean ‘when last conquered’ but can also mean ‘when this bunch of areas decided they all had more in common than not’, but that pretty much defines a nation, and eventually a nation state. That’s the balancing act. A little bit of small n Nationalism is simply a shared cultural background, and can be a good thing. A big dollop of the big N version, and a superiority complex, leads to bad things. But systemically denying the existence of a culture or its right to continue existing in broadly the same manner is also the same as a dollop of big N nationalism. Homogenising the world is the same whether you do it for ideology or empire building. I don’t want to be lumped into the ‘Anglosphere’ because Britain, England, and even Londoner are all different cultural identities that do and should exist. I think the EU is a great idea, as long as it doesn’t eradicate the cultural differences that are what make Europe a good place. On balance, I prefer the ‘EU’ to ‘The Anglosphere’ precisely because of shared cultural history, and linguistic journeys....Germanic, Norman French, Latinate...Sanskrit ultimately.
A future earth in Trek will have these nation states for precisely the same reason the federation has worlds...Vulcan, Andorian etc.
Cultural identity is only a problem when you use it to smack someone else’s about, tell them they can’t have it, and start telling them to do things your way or else. With the caveat that there are some things that should be unacceptable as a human culture in general.

 

Why would state or provincial governments even exist in a world of high speed communications and central planning? For all we know, representative governance may be have been abolished in favor of a true democracy: one person, on vote, and that, once you elect a leader, said leader would choose his/her/its political appointed bureaucrats.

 

Because, regardless of technology, the simple inefficiencies of bureaucracy will make it impossible to directly govern an area that gets too large. You couldn't run a country the size of, say, the USA or Canada without breaking them up into smaller parts. (And you certainly couldn't have an entity the size of the Federation without having its individual member world governments intact. Hell, that wouldn't even work on Earth alone.)

Regardless of which 'level' - state/province, nation, planet, federation, whatever - you will always have to let the individual parts run their own local affairs, the federal government handles national issues, the planetary government deals with what affects the whole world, the interstellar government handles ITS unique issues, and on up the line. That's the "least inefficient" way to run any government.