Which I don't, as that has been thoroughly retconned already.
Pre-fed, pre-Enterprise literature?
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Which I don't, as that has been thoroughly retconned already.
I recall Lilly demanding to know, back when she thought Picard and Co. were from this ECON faction, why they had broken the cease-fire. Cease-fires do not point to subjugation, but a conflict fought to a relative standstill with neither side capable of gaining the upper hand. Which is in keeping with my view of what WWIII would be like: no winners, everybody loses; the belligerants have largely fought themselves into irrelevancy, allowing for their quick replacement with more humane forms of government follow First Contact and Cochrane's vision of a better future.
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
Ok-I read that. I read all of the SNWs I could grab(starting with 5or6) when I worked at Borders-I'd just sit in the break room and read during lunch. I remember that story but I wasn't sure if that was the title. Thank you.
Oh, it could simply be two different interpretations of the same thing. There are often conflicting interpretations of history. Western history generally teaches that WWII began with the invasion of Poland in 1939, but Chinese history teaches that it began in 1931 when the Japanese invaded Manchuria. And you'll find plenty of historians who'll argue that WWII in Europe was just a continuation of WWI, so it wouldn't be too great a stretch to call them parts of the same war. It's possible that Vulcan historians see the Eugenics Wars as the first phase of a process of escalating conflict culminating in WWIII, even though human historians would define them as separate wars.
From Spock's "your last so-called world war", it almost sounds as if Vulcans would argue we had more than three World Wars, even after a bunch of conflicts are merged together. Which would be a good characterization of the situation, as many wars of the 1800s already had global reach and significance.
And certainly it is possible to read amused disapproval in the reactions of our human heroes when Spock expresses his own less than amused disapproval of human history... The entire teaser to "Space Seed" seems to consist of claims made by one of the heroes that get debunked the next second by another, with all the mistakes and corrections taken in good humor. So Spock's "interpretation" of Earth history would fit right in.
Of course, AFAIK, the book on this martial period of our pseudohistory is yet to be written from an alien point of view. It would be great fun to learn what the Vulcans really thought of us back then...
Timo Saloniemi
And certainly it is possible to read amused disapproval in the reactions of our human heroes when Spock expresses his own less than amused disapproval of human history... The entire teaser to "Space Seed" seems to consist of claims made by one of the heroes that get debunked the next second by another, with all the mistakes and corrections taken in good humor. So Spock's "interpretation" of Earth history would fit right in.
Of course, AFAIK, the book on this martial period of our pseudohistory is yet to be written from an alien point of view. It would be great fun to learn what the Vulcans really thought of us back then...
Timo Saloniemi
I see the Eugenics Wars as a kind of Cold War. Once Khan and his Augments were booted into space, it calmed down until someone else took over. Perhaps an al-Qaeda type organisation and thus the cold war continued until WWIII broke out.
I don't believe the "Eastern" in Eastern Coalition could have referred to any states in the US. As we know from "The Royale" (TNG), the USA *survived* the war, with its basic structure intact - it had 52 states up until 2079, over twenty years after the war ended. If it had fallen into civil war, this would of course be impossible.
And it seemed fairly obvious to me (assuming those scenes in "Farpoint" were what I think they are) that the ECON is China. Even ignoring the fact that the commentary for ST:FC specifically makes that connection.
Quite.
Especially since Vulcan itself was, at one point, much more violent than even the worst time period on Earth. And Vulcan took almost a millennium to rebuild after *its* final global war - whereas Earth took less than 1/10 that time (and, unlike Earth, Vulcan still has not completely recovered. All that desert is a direct result of the last Vulcan war - the nuclear bombardment and all that). Looks like we got our shit together a lot quicker than they did.
And it seemed fairly obvious to me (assuming those scenes in "Farpoint" were what I think they are) that the ECON is China. Even ignoring the fact that the commentary for ST:FC specifically makes that connection.
Quite.
Especially since Vulcan itself was, at one point, much more violent than even the worst time period on Earth. And Vulcan took almost a millennium to rebuild after *its* final global war - whereas Earth took less than 1/10 that time (and, unlike Earth, Vulcan still has not completely recovered. All that desert is a direct result of the last Vulcan war - the nuclear bombardment and all that). Looks like we got our shit together a lot quicker than they did.
Why? The United States has already has already undergone one civil war from which it emerged with its basic structure intact, if not expanded. It took far less than twenty years for the United States to be back to its pre-War number of states--historically, it was more or less overnight, with the capitulation of the southern faction. The situation might be different post WWIII since the language implied a standstill rather than any one victorious entity, but given that all Earth is eventually united, paving over far more longstanding and bitter conflicts, I don't see any reason why the United States couldn't be reconciled (once again) as a nation following a civil war--or rather, a World War with a domestic theatre.
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
Dialogue in "The Royale" places a 52-star flag as being in use between 2033 and 2079. I realize this was written before ST:FC ever existed as a film (and thus before we ever knew when WW III was over), but I think this makes it unlikely that the USA could have decreased in size at any point in the intervening time.
And if a civil war in the US had ever turned nuclear, that would have been a lot harder to recover from than the original Civil War ever was. True, it was surely a horrible blow to have US cities nuked during Trek's WW III, but with the country still united to effect a rebuilding, it would be possible for the USA to continue to exist. A nuclear civil war just might have destroyed it utterly, beyond all hope of recovery.
Whatever gave you that idea? Nuclear war doesn't create a planetary desert climate. On the contrary, nuclear winter would cool a planet's climate. And there's never been any indication that Vulcan hasn't always been a desert planet. Everything that's ever been written about Pre-Awakening Vulcan assumes it was already a desert world in Surak's time.
Though, interestingly enough, Spock's World presumes that Vulcan -- or, at least, the part of Vulcan that the Vulcan species originated from -- was originally a far more temperate climate, and that a planetary cataclysm in prehistoric times led to its desert climate.
You might have something there; it does suggest continuity. On the other hand, the northern faction in the American Civil War never stopped usign the same flag design (including the stars for rebel states) it had before and after the conflict, so Riker's comment only really reflects the period in which the symbol was in use by any one party (and possibly more, if the various factions thought they were the 'true' United States), and not necessarily the reality on the ground.
Given the devastating potential of such weapons, I don't think it would have made a difference where they came from; the destruction would have been the same if the missile was intercontinental or fired from just a few states over. As for reconcilliation, like I said: soon enough, everybody on the planet was unified, regardless of the nuclear conflict that had taken place. Clearly most people realized that the antagonisms of the past had to be set aside if they were to have any chance at a future. And, of course, there's the symbolic and nostalgic value of reconstituting a broken state; there was a lot of ill blood between the Germanies during the Cold War, but both sides were intent on reconciliation after the fall of Soviet power, trying to recapture the unity and prosperity they once had.
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
^ Still, though, I think there's *more* evidence that the "Eastern" refers to China than to anything else. Even leaving aside the commentary for ST:FC (which explicitly states the connection), it seems fairly obvious from Farpoint.
The "Eastern" could refer to a coalition of the Middle East and Far East. Think about terrorism now, and how in the Trekverse such terrorism could have come about as a result of Khan's Augments being booted offworld. China has a massive bluewater navy, getting larger all the time, and the midlde east have the tactical expertise and fuel. If they got together, there probably would be a devastating war.
The novel The Lost Era: The Sundered establishes the existence of something called the Muslim Bloc -- either a new state or a confederation of states that is predominantly Muslim (and thus presumably located within the Middle East) that is newly democratized. More likely that the Muslim Bloc would be on the United States's and European Union's side -- assuming, of course, that the United States and European Union have retained their liberal democratic natures in the years leading up to World War III and haven't turned into fascist dictatorships. (There's an idea for you -- what if the Eastern Coalition and its allies were actually the good guys and the US and its allies were the bad guys?!)
Why in the world would fundamentalist Islamist militants ally with an atheistic socialist state? Al-Qaeda considers us an enemy in part because we're a secular state, which they misinterpret as a state that represses religious freedom and is therefore a threat to Islam. Why would they ally with a state that genuinely does repress religious freedom?
Ah, but, don't you know that everyone who in any way is the least bit antagonistic towards the United States automatically possess all of the same motives?
And vice versa. China has no desire to stoke Islamic fundamentalism, given it's on-again, off-again conflict with the Uighur seperatists in Xinjiang and other western provinces, and it's generalized distrust of religious organizations that compete with its state apparatus for personal loyalty. I seem to recall that, after 9-11, China 'evicted' a lot of Muslims from its major eastern cities; I don't know if they've been let back in since.
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
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