Spoilers New Picard TV Series and Litverse Continuity (may contain TV show spoilers)

I mean, ultimately this is just a function of the fact that the real-life space program has accomplished less in real life by this time than the TOS writers imagined. If PIC is to speak to an audience today, it has to depict the space program as less-advanced than the TOS writers thought it would be.

Star Trek: First Contact established that World War III happened approximately ten years before 5 April 2063. The novel The Lost Era: The Sundered established that it started with the "May Day Horror" of 2053.

Maybe I missed something, but I think the newspaper headline was a bit more ambiguous than explicitly establishing this is the first mission out of Earth orbit since Apollo 17.

 

From what I remember, the whole, supposed "2026" start-date for World War III comes from a barely-visible onscreen graphic in the ENT episode "In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II," which posits that the conflict begins due to "[Genetic] manipulation" and "[Human] genome enhancement" (and which gets the year of Zefram Cochrane's first-contact flight completely wrong):

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/m...ision/latest?cb=20060216201416&path-prefix=en

 

That may be a nod to the novel Federation which depicted the Optimum movement which was about genetic purity. Though parts of that novel are inconsistent with First Contact, parts could still fit.

I'm more inclined to see 2026 as the start of the war since that was featured, or at least intended to be, however imperfectly, in canon. I'd also have a hard time seeing something that only lasted a few months as a World War. Plus while we don't get a lot of info about WWIII, there's enough in canon to indicate it had to last a few years at least.

 

Definitely. That doorway with the swirling blue plasma was the clincher for me. The body-jumping trick is new but we're clearly heading into "Assignment: Earth" territory.

Needless to say, I'm thrilled. Been waiting decades for onscreen Trek to revisit that episode.

 

Nope. Not buying it. There's no way a global thermonuclear war could possibly last 27 years. Hell, I doubt it could even last 27 minutes.

And even leaving out the obvious nuclear angle - for the moment - the Ares missions to Mars (VOY "One Small Step") occur in the 2030's. You can't exactly have those going on when a world war is raging, could you?

Now, I can definitely buy 2026 as the start of a 'cold war'-style buildup which will eventually lead to WW III in 2053. I mean, the Eastern Coalition has to come from somewhere, right? Perhaps 2026 is the year when the ECON begins its rise to power. I would have no problem with that.

 

Well I don't think the War was a hot war that entire time. It probably went hot and cold. Periods of fierce fighting, periods of failed cease fires. We know Col Green would lure does with false promises of peace for instance. Probably just started in 2026, then the final end of the war was 2053.

 

The term "cease fire" wouldn't really apply to a nuclear war, would it? That would imply that the war could go on, stop, then start again.

Only way a nuclear war would stop is when it's all over, and the world is rubble.

And as I said, the Ares missions are due to start in the 2030s. How could that possibly happen if World War III was going on?

For that matter, why is the Europa mission such a thing in 2024, when the Ares missions - to Mars, which is much closer - haven't even happened yet? I mean, AFAIK we don't know what the full, complete Ares Mars lander looked like, but it probably wasn't the flashy spaceshippy thing that the Europa spacecraft is.

 

I never thought of the entire was as one long string of nuclear attacks. I always just assumed parts of the war were carried out with more conventional weapons and we know drugs were used with soldiers to keep them fighting. We know nuclear weapons were used at times as well, but I never thought that's all that was used. Perhaps they were only used closer to the end as some sort of final attempt to win the war. We don't know the details obviously. Even the novels don't dig too deep into that.

 

Seems i may have not been totally wrong in this post

https://trekmovie.com/2022/03/27/sh...s-handling-time-travel-and-the-eugenics-wars/

 

...Seriously? With nuclear weapons involved?

 

Why do people assume nuclear weapons were the only weapons used in the war? We know from "Encounter at Farpoint" that drugged soldiers were used too. So obviously some form of conventional weaponry had to be used. You wouldn't need to used drugged soldiers to fight in a war where just nuclear weapons were used.

Now we can debate the years of the war. But even just from canon I got the distinct impression it lasted a few years at least. But I never believed nuclear weapons were the only thing used. In First Contact, Lily believes ECON has attacked their camp when the Borg attack, and what the Borg used weren't nuclear weapons, so that's another reason I don't believe nuclear weapons were the only thing used.

If WWIII was just solely a nuclear war also, I don't think Montana would look as 'nice' as it did either.

And don't forget the whole WWIII was just a month came from a novel, not a canon source. I'm more inclined to go with the barely seen graphic from an actual canon source than a novel. And you could interpret the novel in another way, that perhaps in 2053 is when both sides resorted to using nuclear weapons. The so called May Day of Horror could have been when the war finally ended because both sides started to use nuclear bombs. Perhaps the war was being waged too long and someone finally decided to 'push the button.' And then finally a cease fire was called after both sides were reduced to radioactive rubble (though I'm still not inclined to think ICBMs would have been used extensively because parts of Earth were obviously spared, if mass use of ICBMs occurred I don't think Montana would have looked as nice as it did).

 

The nukes may have just been a last resort by one of the sides, and anti-missile defenses may have countered a lot of them. Which would explain why many major US cities seem to still be intact in the 23rd/24th centuries.

Riker only said 600 Million Dead. If it was a true nuclear war, I think the number would be way higher.

Plus, if the US had used its entire arsenal, Cochrane wouldn't have had a missile to use.

 

Yeah, I just figured nukes were used a bit more sparingly. We know they were used, sure. But there's no reason to believe WWIII was just a nuclear war, and in fact there is evidence to the contrary. Drugged up soldiers were used so there had to be some sorts or ground armies used. I just don't see how the war was only a month. That doesn't even leave enough time to mobilize an army like that.

Like I said, you could probably rethink the so called May Day of Horror as being the time when nuclear weapons were finally used. Maybe the sides finally got sick of a long drawn out war and thought this would finally end it in their favor. But because of the extensive damage and loss of life that is what finally ended the war.

 

My takeaway from all this is that it's time to bring back the Stargazer series.

 

Because there's still this prevailing mental image that "World War III" automatically means a global nuclear Armageddon, the end of everything.

We can't even conceive of a third world war that ISN'T nuclear, because that's all anybody ever talks about - and all that movies like The Day After, Damnation Alley, Threads, etc. ever show.

 

There was a military fiction novel published last year, titled 2034 which depicts a third world war which in which nuclear weapons are used, but it doesn't result in The End of Everything.

 

Well, on the plus-side, it appears that Greg Cox's Khan-trilogy is safe for the moment, at least regarding Isis...again, for the moment. It was actually nice to see brand-new agents introduced in canon instead of just bringing back Gary, Roberta, and his "cat," although of course who knows what the upcoming episodes are gonna establish about Isis's fate, here (if anything).

 

Terry Mathalas suggested on twitter or some Q&A somewhere (geez I gotta start screencapping this stuff, it gets immediately lost) the Eugenics Wars hadn't happened yet, and he imagined them being in the near future of PIC's 2024. That said, the latest episode had Adam Soong working on banned genetic engineering stuff suggested the Eugenics Wars might have occured so... not sure. Guinan not knowing Picard suggests this is a weird pocket timeline created from a future without incursions into the past sooo... could be anything.

 

I think strategic ambiguity on when the Eugenics Wars took place is the best choice for PIC. If you're trying to appeal to a mass audience and you're trying to link the world of Star Trek to our real world, then I think it's best to just depict a 2024 that's very close to real life and to avoid the question of the 1990s and the Eugenics Wars altogether.