Khan and the Eugenics War

I'm glad that we aren't the same reality as Star Trek because 21st century Earth in Star Trek seems like a shit show. Granted our reality is a shit show, but hopefully we won't have to deal with WWIII.

 

Star Trek is in our reality only when it wants to be.

 

Our universe and the prime universe diverged maybe in the 1960's. No need to recon dates to try to realign the PU.

 

Maybe we're the Mirror universe.

 

I'm going to happily pretend that SNW is our future.

 

spoilers for Picard Season 2

Spoiler

Maybe the showrunners are telling us once there is no Europa mission (very likely considering we're nowhere near capable enough techwise to send people to Mars, let alone to near Jupiter's moon) that brings back a marvelous microbe in 2 years that we're on our way to a Confed future. Oh well, at least we're safely assured to be ruling the galaxy in 400 years and annihilating everyone we meet, even the Borg.

 

What exactly did Pike say again that has sparked this whole thing??? There have been some mistakes when writers have brought it up. (Ds9) But generally it has all fit. But I forgot exactly what Pike said and am not going to go into Disney's crappy app right now...lol

 

Essentially what they were calling the Second Civil War became the Eugenics Wars and finally World War III.

I got the impression that the Second Civil War escalated, augmented humans get involved at some point and the war spreads to other countries, and finally went nuclear. A lot of it could be tied to the real world rise of fascism in several western countries.

 

That's the impression I got from Picard season 2 finale & SNW premiere. It's pretty obvious TPTB plan to explore it in more detail. Remember when Meyer was making a Khan prequel and then it was suddenly scrapped? I'm thinking Kurtzman and Goldsman came up with their own idea...

 

Yep, whatever Khan does he does between 2022 and 2061, instead of the 1990s.

Continuity-obsessed fans are overly concerned with calendar references relative to other kinds of retcons. All this fussing about when Khan comes to power, when in 1982 the very nature and definition of who Khan is was completely rewritten with a few sentences of dialogue and people, for the most part, accepted it without challenge.

Star Trek - "Space Seed:"

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan:

When confronted with this, some fans insist that "selective breeding is a kind of genetic engineering," but the terms aren't used interchangeably. Nor is "eugenics." The writers just turned Khan from one thing into another in an eyeblink. And most folks nodded along.

 

I still don't think Picard retconned anything related to Eugenics Wars.

Disney?

 

The Eugenics War took place in the 1990s. Now, it doesn't. You have to twist the obvious intent of the writers completely out of shape to pretend that Soong's folder is a bit of trivia referencing a war that took place thirty years before the moment at which he retrieves it in desperation to revive his fortunes.

 

Maybe. @F. King Daniel posted this news in another thread.
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/eugenics-wars-show-snw-pic-spoilers.311291/#post-14139998

 

How much selective breeding would even be possible from the time the episode was written until the 1990s? Plus Khan is in his 30s, so he has to be born in the 60s. I don't think they put much thought into this.

 

I’m not saying SNW didn’t retcon it, it seems like it did, I’m just saying I don’t think Picard did it first.

 

When Trek uses actual science they generally simplify it and shorthand it. They compress research procedures and speed up events. Yeah, selective breeding takes generations.

There's a touch of that simplification in the second episode of SNW. I was just thrilled to see them trying to integrate some real science into Trek.

 

Unless and until SNW or a proposed Khan series explains further and explicitly, officially, unequivocally moves the timeline, my interpretation will be:

Khan comes to power in 1992 and is overthrown in 1996. (The first phase of what will become known as the Eugenics Wars.
Contingency plans are drawn up during that period for "our" side to develop its own genetic supermen, producing a funding document (dated June 7, 1996) for Project Khan, to create our own equivalents of Khan Singh.
The Shenzhen Convention outlaws such genetic research. Adam Soong files the report away.
2024 - Picard Season 2. Soong pulls out the document as part of his next plan.
2020's-50's: Second American Civil War blurs into the second phase of the Eugenics Wars and Colonel Green's early 21st century genocidal war culminating in World War III.
2063: FIRST CONTACT
2079: The Post-Atomic Horror (probably extends back in time to the immediate aftermath of WW III.

STAR TREK history then continues as chronicled until retconned further by future production.

Authorial and producers' intentions and statements made in interviews can inform commentary and speculation, but are hypothetical until they are properly realized onscreen. All preliminary concepts are provisional until they are executed.

Your mileage, of course, can and will vary.

 

Nah, the Second Civil War is ahead of us, then the Eugenics War involving Khan develops into the third world War.

It makes sense, while placing what Spock called a third world War in the 1990s makes none.

That's just silly. So they retconned it, as Myers suggests.

 

In the aftermath of 9-11, a number of conservative commentators were referring to the "Global War On Terrorism" as the Fourth World War, presumably counting the Cold War as the Third.

After Detente, editorialists wondered if the election of Ronald Reagan would spark a Second Cold War. After the Iron Curtain fell, we in the west started referring the Cold War as a single unbroken conflict running from ca. 1947-1991.

The Star Trek Universe is not our universe and never will be, so it is illogical to pretend it is. It is, as you have pointed out previously, fictional.

If posters here can insist to me with a straight face that, according to their definitions of canon, that the character Laurel Goodwin portrayed in "The Cage" is not named Yeoman Colt because she is not referred to by name in onscreen dialogue or in the credits, despite the understanding of those filming it in 1964, then we are free to ignore both the as yet unrealized behind the scenes production discussions (until they are realised onscreen) and the order of events you think is more logical.

I am free to prefer my own interpretation over yours, just as you are free to prefer yours over mine. On this topic, neither of us is necessarily right or wrong, or more justified than the other.

 

Just because Grin is critical of the Kurtzman Era of STAR TREK, that doesn't make him an "asshole". He makes fun of 'Trek for comedic value, long before Kurtzman took the helm of the franchise, not because he dislikes it. And, out of all the 'Trek shows that is being produced today, he actually likes LDs and SNW (don't know his opinion on PROD). But Grin is a fan of the franchise.