What year does the Trek timeline stop resembling ours?

[Xerxes1979]

It is clear that much of trek history from 4 billion BCE to at least 1865 strongly resembles our own history. Trek allusions to human ancient literature and civilization seems to jive with ours.

Even with small micro differences in the timeline exist such as the existance of Edith Keiler or Data's head in San Francisco events such as the Second World War and the space race proceed in an arc relatively similar to our own.

Somewhere between Star Trek IV and and the Eugenics War a great schism occured with our timeline.

Using canon references what is your take on Trek timeline diveregence? What caused it and in what year? Was it Gary Seven's meddling? Was it caused by the Federation's own inadvertant timeline polution or was it something else? Something earlier? Did the events of Enterprise's temporal cold war alter 20th century history?

 

[Xelo]

I would say the early 1990's based on the Euginics Wars, but when you mention the Temporal Cold War it could be anytime in the past.

 

[Nerys Myk]

The 1960s

 

[Xerxes1979]

I would say the early 1990's based on the Euginics Wars, but when you mention the Temporal Cold War it could be anytime in the past.

Yes, but these earlier changes MUST be minor as there was still a Nixon to go to China and Armstrong to land on the moon, etc. We know the Voyager program was continued after Voyager II to create V'ger.

Big differences must have been evident to the public sometime in the 1980's even if Khan and other fictional characters and authors were born many years prior. When is the degree of difference self-evident?

 

[Forbin]

I don't seem to recall a suborbital nuclear platform exploding after being launched on a Saturn V in 1968...

 

[Xerxes1979]

I don't seem to recall a suborbital nuclear platform exploding after being launched on a Saturn V in 1968...

Perhaps the government is still for reasons unknown concealing the true nature and failure of Apollo VI and we just don't know about it yet.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ What does Apollo VI have to do with this? It was an unmanned test flight, everyone knows that.

 

[Xerxes1979]

^ What does Apollo VI have to do with this? It was an unmanned test flight, everyone knows that.

I was joking, however the rocket in that 1968 launch did develop upper stage malfunctions and failed to achieve proper orbit.


Anyways I don't remember Quark and Rom visiting 1947 Rosewell New Mexico either.

 

[What's his face]

When the pilot aired. That's when the timelines "diverged". There is no Star Trek tv show in the Star Trek universe.

 

[Nerys Myk]

^ What does Apollo VI have to do with this? It was an unmanned test flight, everyone knows that.

I was joking, however the rocket in that 1968 launch did develop upper stage malfunctions and failed to achieve proper orbit.


Anyways I don't remember Quark and Rom visiting 1947 Rosewell New Mexico either.

Thats because its classified

 

[Sci]

The earliest major difference would be in 1969, when in the STU, the US and USSR tried to weaponize Earth orbit and failed thanks to Gary Seven.

The next major break would be from 1992 to 1996, with the Eugenics Wars.

From there, things seem relatively similar again until the present day. The next major historical event comes in the 2030s. That decade, "Sanctuary Districts" -- really urban concentration camps -- for the unemployed, the mentally ill, and the handicapped develop, leading to the Bell Riots. And the next major event after that would be World War III in the 2050s, eventually leading to the invention of warp drive and First Contact in 2063.

 

[Pemmer Harge]

I prefer to pretend that there was no difference up to our time and that Star Trek is supposed to be a vision of our future. Let's just try to ignore the Eugenics Wars and other such stuff!

 

[Forbin]

Capt Christopher's son should have headed that first Saturn probe by now too, shouldn't he? No manned Saturn probes in our poor timeline!

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Capt Christopher's son should have headed that first Saturn probe by now too, shouldn't he? No manned Saturn probes in our poor timeline!

Perhaps.

Originally I thought the Saturn mission could have been unmanned, with Christopher leading the ground team overseeing it. But this put the lie to that theory.

I am forced to wonder, though, if the Saturn mission was in 2006, then why are we only just getting to Mars by 2032?

 

[Masao]

When the pilot aired. That's when the timelines "diverged". There is no Star Trek tv show in the Star Trek universe.

The pilot (at least the original one) didn't air until much later, but you're on the right track. The airing of the first episode of Star Trek was the critical event. (Also, Robert Kennedy's election to the presidency in '68 was also fairly important!)

 

[Myasishchev]

The Planck time of the Big Bang, given the profileration of nonexistent subatomic particles in the Trek universe.

Or four billion years ago, when our oceans were not seeded with humanoid DNA by the ancient humanoids.

Or between 10000 and 2000 BC, when ancient astronauts with godlike powers did not visit Greece.

Or when I wasn't raised amongst populations bombed out of existence in the mid-1990s.

Or when Voyager 6 wasn't launched. Or Voyagers 3-5, for that matter.

 

[Red Ranger]

The first divergence is when Flint is born. The timeline generally unfolds as it should, except that Flint is Brahms and other historical figures. Then the timeline changes again beginning in the 1960s with the Enterprise's arrival and involvement with Gary Seven, then again in the 1990s with the Eugenics Wars. Then it changes even more significantly from the 21st century onward. -- RR

 

[T'Girl]

First world war. Spock says in "Bread and Circuses" that six million died in the first and eleven million in the second.

We wish.

First world war took between twenty-five and thirty million people..

The second world war killed conservatively between fifty-eight and seventy million people. Military and civilian. Direct combat and it's total effects.

.

 

[Shawnster]

Plus, for the Eugenics Wars to take place in the 1990s there would have to be genetic supermen being conceived (naturally or artificially) in the 1960s (assuming Khan was in his 30s when he fled the Earth). I think for this to happen the entire state of biological and genetic science would have to be much further advanced in the 1960s Trek universe than ours.

Plus, when the Whale Probe visited Earth in the 23rd Century one of the cities mentioned was Leningrad. Either it was another city named Leningrad or St. Petersburg changes it's name BACK to Leningrad by then OR the city never reverted to St. Petersburg in the Trek universe.

 

[Sci]

Plus, when the Whale Probe visited Earth in the 23rd Century one of the cities mentioned was Leningrad. Either it was another city named Leningrad or St. Petersburg changes it's name BACK to Leningrad by then OR the city never reverted to St. Petersburg in the Trek universe.

Actually, the oblast (province) that St. Petersburg is in is still called Leningrad. We can easily assume that they're talking about Leningard Oblast, not the City of Leningrad.