Eugenics Wars.

[EJA]

"To Reign in Hell" has one character in it, a Dr. Gideon Hawkins, who apparently was once highly admired on Earth, but was forced to leave his practise in the wake of the Eugenics Wars. I'm kind of curious as to the story behind this.

And what do people think of my theory of anti-Augment fanatics distorting historical records to make the Wars a lot more devastating than they really were?

 

[Christopher]

And what do people think of my theory of anti-Augment fanatics distorting historical records to make the Wars a lot more devastating than they really were?

On the one hand, it's a bit far-fetched, because historians draw from multiple sources and it's implausible that any conspiracy could systematically alter every last piece of evidence to suit a particular lie. On the other hand, the reporting of history is always inexact and subject to bias; even without a systematic conspiracy, information can be misrepresented or reinterpreted to fit a prevailing narrative, although there could still be dissent over the interpretation. People can get things wrong without there being any deliberate evil behind it.

In this case, I don't think we have to resort to postulating a conspiracy; it could simply be a matter of how future historians define things. If we accept Greg's premise that a lot of the bad stuff that happened in the 1990s was a consequence of Augment machinations even if we didn't know it at the time, then it could be that future historians count all those things -- epidemics, local wars, ethnic cleansing incidents, etc. -- as part of the Eugenics Wars. And the casualty counts could include non-military fatalities as a result of the Augments' rule -- political executions, famines as a result of mismanagement, things like that.

 

[EJA]

The possibility has been mentioned on this forum of another war involving genetically enhanced humans being fought sometime in the future, comprising a theoretical second half of the Eugenics Wars. Thing is though, if someone had tried to create new Augments, wouldn't Roberta Lincoln have put a stop to it, having seen first-hand the results of such enhancement?

 

[Greg Cox]

The possibility has been mentioned on this forum of another war involving genetically enhanced humans being fought sometime in the future, comprising a theoretical second half of the Eugenics Wars. Thing is though, if someone had tried to create new Augments, wouldn't Roberta Lincoln have put a stop to it, having seen first-hand the results of such enhancement?

Maybe she tried, but something went wrong.

 

[Christopher]

The possibility has been mentioned on this forum of another war involving genetically enhanced humans being fought sometime in the future, comprising a theoretical second half of the Eugenics Wars.

I never said anything about "half." There could've been a series of eugenics-related conflicts stretching throughout the first half of the 21st century, which could explain why Spock conflated the EW with WWIII in "Space Seed," given that TNG placed WWIII in the 2050s.

Thing is though, if someone had tried to create new Augments, wouldn't Roberta Lincoln have put a stop to it, having seen first-hand the results of such enhancement?

Who's to say she would've succeeded? Gary didn't find out about Chrysalis until a whole passel of Augments had already been born. And it's been suggested above that the Augment embryos from ENT could've been Chrysalis creations that Gary never found out about. Aegis agents aren't infallible.

 

[Greg Cox]

Aegis agents aren't infallible.

Indeed. Sometimes they even get killed in random car accidents, or mistake a blonde secretary for a fellow agent.

Not to mention those times they accidentally beam onto starships from the future!

 

[William Leisner]

Aegis agents aren't infallible.

Indeed. Sometimes they even get killed in random car accidents, or mistake a blonde secretary for a fellow agent.

Not to mention those times they accidentally beam onto starships from the future!

Damn... they're actually kind of inept, aren't they?

 

[kkozoriz1]

There was still genetic tinkering going on by the time of Ent as evidenced by Elizabeth Tucker. Perhaps a second group escaped detection in the 1990's war. It doesn't necessarily have to be human eugenics alone. Perhaps another war was fought over human/alien genetic manipulation, successful or not.

 

[captcalhoun]

maybe Colonel Green's pogroms were classed as another Eugenics War...

 

[Myasishchev]

There was still genetic tinkering going on by the time of Ent as evidenced by Elizabeth Tucker. Perhaps a second group escaped detection in the 1990's war. It doesn't necessarily have to be human eugenics alone. Perhaps another war was fought over human/alien genetic manipulation, successful or not.

That's something I always wondered about, and wonder whether it's been touched on in TrekLit. It's believable that the human world government may have outlawed genetic engineering, but could every other species have had just as bad an experience as us that they'd agree to it, too?

It's easily the Federation's worst selling point. "To join us, you will have to give up any and all efforts to improve the health, longevity, and intrinsic quality of life of your species--indeed, any biological advancement whatsoever. Oh, no, it's totally for the best. Superior ability breeds superior ambition, after all. It's why we shoot people with above average intelligence or large penises. Why are you looking at me like that?"

Of course, I can see why Vulcans might eschew it. They're about as plausibly superhuman* as you could possibly get already (although how much more with a good iron heme, instead of an inferior copper substitute?). Betazoids are quite magically superhuman. But you'd figure, say, Tellarites would go after some of that stronger heart valve action.

*Ignoring the fact that the usual "twice as intelligent/three times as strong" metric doesn't remotely connote a superman. Dude, that's not even a Batman.

 

[EJA]

One thing that amazes me is how so many people keep talking about the EW novels depicting the Wars as being covert. But were they really all that covert? Khan was a well-known public figure in India; one of his fellow superhumans, who was a dictator in Serbia, even addressed an assembly of the UN in Geneva, where he was assassinated in a gas attack that also killed a large number of delegates and visiting tourists. As I've said before, my main problem is that ENTERPRISE repeatedly gave a casualty list for the Wars that was in the tens of millions, which doesn't tally with a) real-world history, or b) the depiction of the Wars in the novels.

 

[Christopher]

One thing that amazes me is how so many people keep talking about the EW novels depicting the Wars as being covert. But were they really all that covert? Khan was a well-known public figure in India; one of his fellow superhumans, who was a dictator in Serbia, even addressed an assembly of the UN in Geneva, where he was assassinated in a gas attack that also killed a large number of delegates and visiting tourists.

I agree. As I believe was stated above, the real goal was to keep the books consistent with history as perceived by Americans, and Americans are notorious for overlooking world events that don't directly involve them. There's no question that the novels' version of the Eugenics Wars would be known of by a huge percentage of the Earth's population.

And really, I don't think the books dwell on the idea that these events are somehow being covered up. There are some coverups going on, but it's not a pervasive element of the book. It's written in such a way that people (at least Americans) who want to believe the story is reconcilable with real history can do so, but I don't think it's incompatible with other interpretations. I think it's possible to reconcile Greg's novels with the concept of the Eugenics Wars happening at least somewhat overtly, even if the public hasn't yet come to recognize their events as being part of a systematic global conflict.

True, you have to fudge some things a bit to reconcile the novels with Enterprise, but that's no worse than having to fudge some things to reconcile "Space Seed" with The Wrath of Khan or "The Squire of Gothos" (which implicitly set TOS in the 28th century) with the 23rd-century setting of the rest of the series. The very idea of a consistent ST continuity is unattainable without a willingness to gloss over inconsistent details.

 

[Sci]

One thing that amazes me is how so many people keep talking about the EW novels depicting the Wars as being covert. But were they really all that covert? Khan was a well-known public figure in India; one of his fellow superhumans, who was a dictator in Serbia, even addressed an assembly of the UN in Geneva, where he was assassinated in a gas attack that also killed a large number of delegates and visiting tourists.

I agree. As I believe was stated above, the real goal was to keep the books consistent with history as perceived by Americans, and Americans are notorious for overlooking world events that don't directly involve them. There's no question that the novels' version of the Eugenics Wars would be known of by a huge percentage of the Earth's population.

I agree completely. The analogy I always make is with how many Americans are ignorant of the fact that the most devastating war since World War II was the Second Congo War, which involved eight countries, numerous independent armed forces, and led to five million deaths. This war was huge, and it happened between 1998 and 2003, yet most Americans have never heard of it or know of it only peripherally.

 

[JD]

So does that mean all of the nastiness over there was pretty much all one war? I thought it was just a bunch of tiny independent wars between different groups in each country. (And yes, I am aware I'm proving you're point, but I've been trying to become more aware of world events over the past couple years)

 

[kkozoriz1]

War is God's way of teaching Americans geography.
Ambrose Bierce

 

[DimesDan]

One thing that amazes me is how so many people keep talking about the EW novels depicting the Wars as being covert. But were they really all that covert? Khan was a well-known public figure in India; one of his fellow superhumans, who was a dictator in Serbia, even addressed an assembly of the UN in Geneva, where he was assassinated in a gas attack that also killed a large number of delegates and visiting tourists.

I agree. As I believe was stated above, the real goal was to keep the books consistent with history as perceived by Americans, and Americans are notorious for overlooking world events that don't directly involve them. There's no question that the novels' version of the Eugenics Wars would be known of by a huge percentage of the Earth's population.

I agree completely. The analogy I always make is with how many Americans are ignorant of the fact that the most devastating war since World War II was the Second Congo War, which involved eight countries, numerous independent armed forces, and led to five million deaths. This war was huge, and it happened between 1998 and 2003, yet most Americans have never heard of it or know of it only peripherally.

Well I've not heard of it in those terms and I'm not American so it's probably not just an American thing.

 

[F. King Daniel]

So... where do the guys from Infiltrator fit in to all of this? Riker's one-eighth Augment (or "Vare"), you know.

 

[Christopher]

So... where do the guys from Infiltrator fit in to all of this?

They probably don't. That was written before the modern book continuity came along.

 

[Sci]

So does that mean all of the nastiness over there was pretty much all one war?

I'm honestly not sure what you mean by "all the nastiness over there." Africa is a continent with 54 separate countries, after all, and there have been any number of armed conflicts within and between those countries since the end of the colonial era.

But specifically, the Second Congo War occurred in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly known as Ziaire) in central Africa, and lasted for five years. It was the largest war in African history and involved eight different countries.

 

[Gepard]

The only way there can be two versions of a single moment in time, by definition, is if they are simultaneous, in parallel timelines. But in this case, we're talking about a single timeline that forks into two branches in March 2233. Anyone in either of those branches travelling back in time to a date before 2233 will end up in the same timeline. And therefore it follows that either one could affect events in the other. And as I explained, we have multiple canonical examples of exactly that happening.

Which would allow Spock to return to the Prime timeline should he choose to.

That raises an interesting question -- if someone were to travel back to just before the March 2233 split and live forward from that point on, which branch of the timeline would they experience? Or would they be split in two and exist in both?

Which might explain why Spock wouldn't bother -- there would always be one of him in the JJ timeline no matter what he did, and from that Spock's point of view, trying to get back to the Prime timeline would always be a failure.