What happened on Earth between 2063 and 2079, and after? How was United Earth founded?

[Timo]

Well, Data, not being an Earthling, would have every reason to refer to all Earth languages as "obscure" by default - save for English, which by some cosmic accident has attained some sort of interstellar relevance.

Whether Picard speaks French (and, say, Bashir speaks Farsi or Sisko speaks some sort of Cajun that not even his own son could decipher without the UT) is not dependent on the status of the French language as such...

The USA was not affected by the Eugenics Wars.

The USA was not affected by WWII, either. Not if you arrived in California half a year after the war concluded (like Janeway apparently did), and not on any of those sixteen or so well-separated days when the newsstands still had headlines at least tangentially relevant to the already concluded war.

The history of Earth in Trek is different, and Trek isn't always shy to demonstrate this ("Past Tense", say). It's not a conceit or a contradiction if Earth gets shown without altering the street signs much or adding too many CGI craters, though: regardless of the quirks of history, most days just end up being mundane. Even in the 1940s or the 1990s.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Guy Gardener]

People live in places like nagasaki and Los Alamos today so the ongoing effects of a limited number of nuclear weapon can't be the apocalpse we've been lead to believe.

Were the Vulcans "allowed" to help with the clean up? Odds are that Man was just going arm up again and try harder to kill his neighbours again, with space man tech, as soon as they considered anyone else had something worth hating.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Were the Vulcans "allowed" to help with the clean up?

Earth was hardly in a position to oppose them at that time.

 

[Timo]

I gather if there was opposition, the Vulcans could take one of two opposite views: just leave, since there was nothing riding on the place, or then quickly act, lest the Andorians turn this into another proxy war.

How they might act is unknown. But if this "postapocalyptic" Earth had poor communications (no USAF MP patrols knocking on Cochrane's door, say), then they probably would just do precision attacks against the insurgents, eliminating them without anybody actually noticing.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tenacity]

That’s the part I honestly don’t think is realistic. It suggests reason but a lack of reason would have gotten us there in the first place

Except "us" didn't start a war, a portion of "us" did. And the majority of "us" had clean hands.

Thereby not being a Third World War in the way we imagine one.

I would imagine the Star Trek third world war as a multi-nation war that involved some use of nuclear weapons, and that all told resulted in 600 million dead.

One person in fifteen.

The dead would include deaths subsequent to the war, but as a result of it. Radiation, starvation, disease.

A war that the world (not the warring nations) were able to recover from within a several decades. Recovery meaning economically and socially.

Were the Vulcans "allowed" to help with the clean up?

How much could the Vulcans really do? The numbers of their starships wouldn't be infinite, and they would have other matters concerning them.

 

[Arpy]

Except "us" didn't start a war, a portion of "us" did. And the majority of "us" had clean hands.

Our hands are not clean. They’re not as dirty as, but we do elect, and support, our representatives in government. And there are even more opportunists post crisis ready to grab power than there are pre-crises having to earn it.

I would imagine the Star Trek third world war as a multi-nation war that involved some use of nuclear weapons, and that all told resulted in 600 million dead.

One person in fifteen.

The dead would include deaths subsequent to the war, but as a result of it. Radiation, starvation, disease.

A war that the world (not the warring nations) were able to recover from within a several decades. Recovery meaning economically and socially.How much

That’s the war they’re asking you to buy. I’m saying that it doesn’t jibe with how a Third World War is feared to go. A nuclear war between the Americans and Russians or Chinese would be more catastrophic than the rosy depiction Star Trek offers here.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Except "us" didn't start a war, a portion of "us" did. And the majority of "us" had clean hands.I would imagine the Star Trek third world war as a multi-nation war that involved some use of nuclear weapons, and that all told resulted in 600 million dead.

One person in fifteen.

The dead would include deaths subsequent to the war, but as a result of it. Radiation, starvation, disease.

A war that the world (not the warring nations) were able to recover from within a several decades. Recovery meaning economically and socially.How much could the Vulcans really do? The numbers of their starships wouldn't be infinite, and they would have other matters concerning them.

One ship, transporting a thousand tons of irradiated soil into space every 80 seconds for a month, is barely intervening.

Handing over a few industrial replicatiors to make a trillion tons of fertile topsoil is definitely interference.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Earth was hardly in a position to oppose them at that time.

The Vulcans had a non interference policy, which the humans and the federation will one day inherit (Ent Communicator?). Earth doesn't even have running water, and the Vulcans want to open a dialog with governments that do not exist, becuase Zephram Chocrane impressed them.

The Vulcans stop themselves becuase "helping" the humans is dangerous costly and arduous.

 

[Arpy]

^ and not an invalid view given we just got out of a nuclear holocaust. Might have been a safe bet to take in Orion casinos that the humans would finish themselves off with antimatter.

 

[FreddyE]

DATA: That's from an obscure language called French.
PICARD: Mister Data, the French language for centuries on Earth represented civilisation.
http://www.chakoteya.net/NextGen/104.htm

I just love that part! So well played by Patrick Stewart..you're unsure for a moment if he's gonna bite of Datas head.

 

[Arpy]

I just love that part! So well played by Patrick Stewart..you're unsure for a moment if he's gonna bite of Datas head.

Yes, let us all take bite of Data’s head, as we all take bite of the body and blood of Christ in Holy Communion. Amen.

 

[Charles Phipps]

Is it wrong I would love for it to be the Vulcans setting up massive number of refugee camps, vaccination centers, food distribution, and basically every form of Vulcanian relief possible--only to have people like Archer talk smack about them? I mean, I'm entirely comfortable with the Vulcans being responsible for pulling humanity back from the Fallout years rather than saying we did it because we're special.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

A nuclear war between the Americans and Russians or Chinese would be more catastrophic than the rosy depiction Star Trek offers here.

Indeed.

It just defies all logic that only a hundred years after a global thermonuclear war, there's no sign of that war ever having happened. Most of the world's major cities were in ruins, and only a short time after that, they're all rebuilt? It doesn't work that way. It CAN'T. It would take a hundred years just to rebuild ONE CITY, let alone all of them.

And even then: How can you rebuild when there's nothing left to rebuild with?

 

[Arpy]

Indeed.

It just defies all logic that only a hundred years after a global thermonuclear war, there's no sign of that war ever having happened. Most of the world's major cities were in ruins, and only a short time after that, they're all rebuilt? It doesn't work that way. It CAN'T. It would take a hundred years just to rebuild ONE CITY, let alone all of them.

And even then: How can you rebuild when there's nothing left to rebuild with?

“Optimism.”

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The Vulcans had a non interference policy, which the humans and the federation will one day inherit

The Prime Directive does not prohibit giving aid to worlds that request it.

 

[Charles Phipps]

Indeed.

It just defies all logic that only a hundred years after a global thermonuclear war, there's no sign of that war ever having happened. Most of the world's major cities were in ruins, and only a short time after that, they're all rebuilt? It doesn't work that way. It CAN'T. It would take a hundred years just to rebuild ONE CITY, let alone all of them.

And even then: How can you rebuild when there's nothing left to rebuild with?

It's why we should tell Archer and Trip to stop being so damned racist to the Vulcans who saved us from radiation sickness.

The Prime Directive does not prohibit giving aid to worlds that request it.

Plus, it is canon to a certain extent as T'Pol says that Peter Weller's character in TERRA PRIME would have died if not for Vulcan medicine.

 

[Guy Gardener]

The Prime Directive does not prohibit giving aid to worlds that request it.

What does that aid look like?

A lowley Starship captain on a survey mission hands over advanced technology and a commitment for 300 years of free labour from the entire resources of their home world without really looking into whether these new alien friendlies are poorly disguised assholes?

Or...

Ambassadors and a Treaty, clearly defining their relationship moving forward, if it's in the homeworld's interest to do so, after months of conversation.

 

[Nightdiamond]

It just defies all logic that only a hundred years after a global thermonuclear war, there's no sign of that war ever having happened. Most of the world's major cities were in ruins, and only a short time after that, they're all rebuilt? It doesn't work that way. It CAN'T. It would take a hundred years just to rebuild ONE CITY, let alone all of them.

And even then: How can you rebuild when there's nothing left to rebuild with?

Our hands are not clean. They’re not as dirty as, but we do elect, and support, our representatives in government. And there are even more opportunists post crisis ready to grab power than there are pre-crises having to earn it.

That’s the war they’re asking you to buy. I’m saying that it doesn’t jibe with how a Third World War is feared to go. A nuclear war between the Americans and Russians or Chinese would be more catastrophic than the rosy depiction Star Trek offers here.

Except "us" didn't start a war, a portion of "us" did. And the majority of "us" had clean hands.

There's Colonel Green. Who often attacked the opposing side during treaty negotiations. Said to have murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent people. From the show, he looks and sounds very American to me.

With the show itself, it's half clear, half vague about when and how all of this is going on. Wiki tries to clean it up, but it still looks clunky. I think maybe the novels do a more detailed job of it.

And then there's First Contact saying that within 50 years after the Vulcan contact, poverty, war,and illness will all be gone. But throw in the "post atomic horror" that happens about 10 years later.

Then TNG says earth is still recovering from WW3 in the 22nd century, around 2130. It said things were still crazy.

So much stuff has gotten thrown in the WW3/Eugenics/First Contact mix, it's a mess.

It's so weird that someone who wouldn't want personal conflict in the future, wrote so much conflict happening in the future.

 

[Charles Phipps]

What does that aid look like?

A lowley Starship captain on a survey mission hands over advanced technology and a commitment for 300 years of free labour from the entire resources of their home world without really looking into whether these new alien friendlies are poorly disguised assholes?

Or...

Ambassadors and a Treaty, clearly defining their relationship moving forward, if it's in the homeworld's interest to do so, after months of conversation.

That would be how it work except for all the hundreds of time Starfleet has been shown giving grain, medicine, or replicators.

It's so weird that someone who wouldn't want personal conflict in the future, wrote so much conflict happening in the future.

To be fair, Roddenberry lived through WW2 and was a pilot during it. That can give you a skewered idea of humanity.

 

[Shawnster]

The Prime Directive does not prohibit giving aid to worlds that request it.

Tell that to Sarjenka. Oh, wait, she doesn't remember asking for help.

Then TNG says earth is still recovering from WW3 in the 22nd century, around 2130. It said things were still crazy.

Only because we trust the speakers to know history. Perhaps Picard really didn't know much about that time period. And Data gave a wrong date for his only graduation from the Academy, so we know his memory is faulty. Do you really trust Q to be accurate? A few weeks later he put pig-like creatures in 18th century French uniforms.