Dating the Eugenics Wars

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Also First Conatct confirms that the baddies in WW3 were the Eastern Coalition.

Well, no, Star Trek: First Contact confirms that the combatants against the United States in World War III were the Eastern Coalition. That doesn't mean they were necessarily bad guys -- hell, for all we know, maybe the United States was the one who was the bad guy!

We know, from the audio commentary, that the ECON is basically China. We also know what China was like in ST's WW III era, from the TNG pilot flashback scenes (Q's courtroom). Does that look like 'the good guys' to you?

Or perhaps there was no such division, if you believe the "there is no such thing as good and evil" crowd.

 

[MichaelJCO]

Also First Conatct confirms that the baddies in WW3 were the Eastern Coalition.

Well, no, Star Trek: First Contact confirms that the combatants against the United States in World War III were the Eastern Coalition. That doesn't mean they were necessarily bad guys -- hell, for all we know, maybe the United States was the one who was the bad guy!

Oh I'm open to the idea that the United States could have been the bad guys in Star Trek's WW3.Its just that we dont really have any evidence to indicate this. Whatever references are made about the US seem to be positive( even in the DS9 santcuary districst episdoes) and of course the Federation itself is based on the United States in part.

 

[Timo]

We know, from the audio commentary, that the ECON is basically China. We also know what China was like in ST's WW III era, from the TNG pilot flashback scenes (Q's courtroom). Does that look like 'the good guys' to you?

Umm, what?

Audio commentary isn't part of the Trek universe, thankfully. And nothing about Q's court seems to connect it to China. After all, the only Asiatic element in the court is a guy ringing a bell and another carrying documents: servants, essentially. Everybody else, significantly everybody in any position of power, is decidedly Caucasian. So the lion-decorated throne on which the red-clad judge presides would be more at home in the British Empire, with Asiatic people as its vassals or slaves...

ECON might be the US East Coast for all we currently know.

FWIW, the one known bad guy from the era, Colonel Green, looks decidedly Caucasian and has an English/American name.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Sci]

Also First Conatct confirms that the baddies in WW3 were the Eastern Coalition.

Well, no, Star Trek: First Contact confirms that the combatants against the United States in World War III were the Eastern Coalition. That doesn't mean they were necessarily bad guys -- hell, for all we know, maybe the United States was the one who was the bad guy!

We know, from the audio commentary, that the ECON is basically China.

No, we don't. We know from the audio commentary that the Americans' enemy in the 2063 era was originally going to be China, but that this was then changed to the Eastern Coalition. That does not mean that the Eastern Coalition was China or a Chinese-dominated alliance or imperium. That's one valid interpretation, but it's not canonical and other interpretations are also valid.

We also know what China was like in ST's WW III era, from the TNG pilot flashback scenes (Q's courtroom).

As Timo noted, the presence of Asians in servant roles doesn't necessarily indicate that Q's re-creation of a court from the Post-Atomic Horror was an indication of what 2070s China was like.

And I really don't think that the presence of a European-style heraldic eagle is an indication this is supposed to be Asia.

Sure, it could be China, but it's not necessarily so.

Or perhaps there was no such division, if you believe the "there is no such thing as good and evil" crowd.

You don't have to believe that there's no such thing as good and evil to believe that two bad guys can go to war and neither side be decent. Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union waged war upon one-another, and I sure as hell wouldn't say either one was morally superior to the other. Bastards fight each other, too.

Besides, that's the Post-Atomic Horror era, not the World War III era. Key word being "post." Even if that was China in the 2070s re-creation of Q's, that doesn't mean that China was like that before the war. Remember, Data established that World War III occurred approximately ten years before First Contact -- the early 2050s. That's twenty years' difference, more than enough time for a hypothetically decent Chinese society to have degenerated into barbarism as a reaction to atomic devastation from a hypothetically immoral American enemy.

Which is not to say that that's necessarily the case, either. Again, the point is simply that we don't know. America could have been the good guy, or it could have been the bad guy. No idea which. We shouldn't assume.

Also First Conatct confirms that the baddies in WW3 were the Eastern Coalition.

Well, no, Star Trek: First Contact confirms that the combatants against the United States in World War III were the Eastern Coalition. That doesn't mean they were necessarily bad guys -- hell, for all we know, maybe the United States was the one who was the bad guy!

Oh I'm open to the idea that the United States could have been the bad guys in Star Trek's WW3.Its just that we dont really have any evidence to indicate this.

Oh, sure. I'm not saying that it necessarily was, I'm saying it's a possibility. In other words: We don't know who the good guys and bad guys were in Star Trek's World War III and shouldn't assume that America was necessarily the good guy just 'cos it's America (nor that it wasn't).

Whatever references are made about the US seem to be positive( even in the DS9 santcuary districst episdoes) and of course the Federation itself is based on the United States in part.

Well, the good parts, anyway. The Federation isn't based on, for instance, the United States's history of violent conquest of Native American lands and its oppression of Native and African Americans, for instance, which were of course vital parts of American society and history.

FWIW, the one known bad guy from the era, Colonel Green, looks decidedly Caucasian and has an English/American name.

Timo Saloniemi

Excellent point. He also has an American Midwestern accent in his speaking appearance in ENT's "Demons"/"Terra Prime."

 

[Timo]

Data established that World War III occurred approximately ten years before First Contact

To nitpick, Data established that WWIII concluded at that date:

Data: "According to our astrometric readings we're in the mid twenty-first century. From the radioactive isotopes in the atmosphere I would estimate we have arrived approximately ten years after the Third World War."

It's suggested elsewhere ("A Matter of Time") that the nuclear exchange resulted in a nuclear winter, a feat that modern science thinks is difficult to achieve without truly massive use of explosives. OTOH, the exchange apparently left numerous landmarks in the western nations undamaged. Does this support the idea of a very brief but intense nuclear bombardment - or perhaps a prolonged and selective campaign where the nations trusted the strong defenses of their major cities and felt free to use nukes in great numbers as theater weapons?

Basically, we could have "whole populations being bombed out of existence" by nuclear weapons beginning in the 1990s and concluding in the 2050s, with just brief lulls in between. Or then this time period would see lots of conventional bombing but only one or two intense nuclear campaigns. Perhaps all the nuking happened in Khan's old war already, and the effects on the climate became only gradually felt, so that nobody was particularly worried in 1996 yet? This would allow the worst to be over long before 2063, so that the Montana we see is no different from the Montana of our universe.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Capt_Pickirk]

Dating the Eugenics Wars

I dated the Eugenics Wars once. Nice girl, but a bit silly.

 

[Phily B]

I like to think that the Eugenics War was like a cold war, and Khan was leader of an Illuminati type organisation, perhaps some kind of business leader. His dealings and infamy only coming to light years later.

 

[T'Girl]

From 1992 through 1996, absolute ruler of more than a quarter of your world ... The last of the tyrants to be overthrown ... supermen unaccounted for when they were finally defeated ... Would you reveal to war-weary populations that some eighty Napoleons might still be alive?

Basically, we could have "whole populations being bombed out of existence" by nuclear weapons beginning in the 1990s and concluding in the 2050s, with just brief lulls in between.

From dialog pulled from Space Seed, your approximately sixty years long year doesn't fit. Why would the general population be concerned in the least about tyrants who had disappeared fifty-five years ago reappearing? It would be similar to discovering in the year 2000 that a large number of Nazi leaders escaped at the end of the second world war. However, the population might very well be concerned at the end of the war in 1945 if the same revelation were made at that time.

(alternately) Spock: "Would you reveal to war-weary populations in 2053, that some eighty Napoleons from 1996, might still be alive?"

Why wouldn't you make that revelation? Big deal.

"Whole populations were being bombed out of existence" is part of what lead to "war-weary populations," both refers specifically to the events of the eugenics war, and not to the separate third world war of a half century later.

nuclear winter ... perhaps a prolonged and selective campaign where the nations trusted the strong defenses of their major cities and felt free to use nukes in great numbers as theater weapons?

But would even a large number of nuclear weapon, detonated over a protract period of time, say a half dozen per year over the course of decades, result in a nuclear winter? Or would the small number at any given time be insignificant to "overwhelm" the atmosphere and produce a resulting nuclear winter,

Also First Contact confirms that the baddies in WW3 were the Eastern Coalition.

Well, no, Star Trek: First Contact confirms that the combatants against the United States in World War III were the Eastern Coalition. That doesn't mean they were necessarily bad guys -- hell, for all we know, maybe the United States was the one who was the bad guy!

All First Contact confirms is that Lily mistakenly believes that the Econ's are firing on their camp. I don't believe that anywhere in Star Trek is it explicitly stated that America even participated in the third word war.

First Contact does confirm however that a missile complex on central Montana still exists subsequent to the war's end (and not as a vast field of bubbly green glass), and that Cochrane can indulge in a preferred form of travel (trains) that typically passes through major population centers.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

All First Contact confirms is that Lily mistakenly believes that the Econ's are firing on their camp. I don't believe that anywhere in Star Trek is it explicitly stated that America even participated in the third word war.

First Contact does confirm however that a missile complex on central Montana still exists subsequent to the war's end (and not as a vast field of bubbly green glass), and that Cochrane can indulge in a preferred form of travel (trains) that typically passes through major population centers.

Also, as TNG's "The Royale" showed, a 52-star flag is said to come anywhere from 2033 to 2079. The war was in 2053. FWIW.

 

[Sci]

All First Contact confirms is that Lily mistakenly believes that the Econ's are firing on their camp. I don't believe that anywhere in Star Trek is it explicitly stated that America even participated in the third word war.

First Contact does confirm however that a missile complex on central Montana still exists subsequent to the war's end (and not as a vast field of bubbly green glass), and that Cochrane can indulge in a preferred form of travel (trains) that typically passes through major population centers.

Also, as TNG's "The Royale" showed, a 52-star flag is said to come anywhere from 2033 to 2079. The war was in 2053. FWIW.

True. But, by the same token, it's highly improbable that the United States Air Force would have allowed two civilians to have retrofitted one of their ICBMs to serve as a testbed for warp drive -- which, to me, strongly implies that even if the United States still existed on paper, the federal government seems to have been rendered quite impotent for some reason. It may be a situation where the federal government still existed in theory, but its actual reach was quite limited. And certainly Bozeman, Montana, looks like much more of a semi-permanent camp site than it does a full-fledged city -- potentially indicating widespread poverty. And somehow, an American Colonel named Green was able to institute a program of killing anyone with illnesses or mutations as a result of radiation sickness in the 2050s, according to ENT's "Demons"/"Terra Prime."

So we have some very strong indications that the United States was a participant in World War III, that a segment of its populace was impacted by radiation from the use of nuclear weapons, and that the federal government, if it did not collapse, was rendered impotent in some areas of the country (to the point where Air Force missile silos were abandoned to civilians).

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

And certainly Bozeman, Montana, looks like much more of a semi-permanent camp site than it does a full-fledged city -- potentially indicating widespread poverty.

Was that actually Bozeman itself? I didn't think so. It was the camp that was being used by Cochrane's group, but there's no proof that the entire city looked like that. The location of the camp didn't have any city ruins in it; it was just a camp in the forest.

And somehow, an American Colonel named Green was able to institute a program of killing anyone with illnesses or mutations as a result of radiation sickness in the 2050s, according to ENT's "Demons"/"Terra Prime."

Just because Green was indisputably evil, doesn't mean the rest of the government was. Green could have been a rogue. And who's to say that he was a real Colonel? He could have just called himself that because he felt like it.

 

[T'Girl]

it's highly improbable that the United States Air Force would have allowed two civilians to have retrofitted one of their ICBMs to serve as a testbed for warp drive ...

It could be something as simple as a DARPA connection of some sort. If Cochrane's team is employed by, or financed through, a major aerospace companies advanced technologies research organization (like say Boeing Phantom works), then obtaining a old, possibly obsolete missile and preforming research on a military base would be easy.

And certainly Bozeman, Montana, looks like much more of a semi-permanent camp site than it does a full-fledged city

Data said that the missile complex was in central Montana, Boseman is in the south-west corner of the state. Cochrane launch site is Malmstrom AFB.

And the "semi-permanent camp site" is no different than the trailer towns that appear inside military bases whenever major civilian contractors are doing work on-base.

So we have some very strong indications that the United States was a participant in World War III, that a segment of its populace was impacted by radiation from the use of nuclear weapons

Radiation from the Japanese power plant that was damaged in the tsunami a few months ago appeared on the west coast of America within days, fallout from nuclear strikes in Asia would reach us just as fast.

 

[Sci]

it's highly improbable that the United States Air Force would have allowed two civilians to have retrofitted one of their ICBMs to serve as a testbed for warp drive ...

It could be something as simple as a DARPA connection of some sort.

If that were the case, Lily would not have had to spend six months scrounging for enough titanium to build a four-meter cockpit, as she complains in First Contact. And there would have been uniformed security and other personnel at the silo. It was clearly a silo that had fallen into non-military hands, and the project was clearly not being funded by any government. (This is confirmed in the non-canonical novel The Lost Era: The Sundered.)

And certainly Bozeman, Montana, looks like much more of a semi-permanent camp site than it does a full-fledged city

Data said that the missile complex was in central Montana, Boseman is in the south-west corner of the state.

Irrelevant. Episodes of ENT explicitly established that the community seen in First Contact was Bozeman, Montana. If Bozeman is in real life in southwest Montana, that just means that the Bozeman of the Star Trek Universe is in central Montana, or that Data misspoke.

Cochrane launch site is Malmstrom AFB.

There is no canonical or non-canonical evidence indicating this.

And the "semi-permanent camp site" is no different than the trailer towns that appear inside military bases whenever major civilian contractors are doing work on-base.

It is when everyone looks like they're from a third-world country.

So we have some very strong indications that the United States was a participant in World War III, that a segment of its populace was impacted by radiation from the use of nuclear weapons

Radiation from the Japanese power plant that was damaged in the tsunami a few months ago appeared on the west coast of America within days,

Yeah -- in such miniscule amounts as to be utterly meaningless.

fallout from nuclear strikes in Asia would reach us just as fast.

Which does not answer the question of how a mere colonel would be able to institute a program of genocide if the United States federal government were still a functional entity.

The cumulative effect of all those separate pieces of evidence is to strongly indicate that the United States was most probably a combatant in World War III, that the federal government experienced a period of declining power over its own territory, and that a portion of the U.S. population was exposed to radiation from the war.

 

[Timo]

From dialog pulled from Space Seed, your approximately sixty years long year doesn't fit.

Why not? Populations could be war-weary five years into a war that will last for fifty years more. The toppling of the supermen could have been a relatively minor sideshow in the entity later known as WWIII, an opening move after which the emphasis may have moved away from the supporting and opposing of eugenics.

"Whole populations were being bombed out of existence" is part of what lead to "war-weary populations," both refers specifically to the events of the eugenics war, and not to the separate third world war of a half century later.

The specificity is not there. Spock gives the general characteristics of the era when the Botany Bay was launched, the mid-1990s. These include this being the era of WWIII, and this being the era when whole populations were being bombed out of existence. But nothing precludes whole populations being bombed out of existence in the 1970s already (as happened in our universe), and this continuing through the 2010s and 2030s and finally 2050s. And nothing precludes the WWIII era from extending beyond the mid-1990s.

Only the dates and events regarding Khan and the other supermen are specifically given. And we don't even know if these events cover the entire Eugenics Wars business, or just one of the many Eugenics Wars; Spock might be counting WWII and various other pieces of nastiness (some part of our reality, some not) among those.

It was clearly a silo that had fallen into non-military hands, and the project was clearly not being funded by any government.

Cochrane did appear to be counting on partners or customers of some sort: his spacecraft, built after the titanium scarcity hit, had two spectator seats!

For all we know, Cochrane might have been funded by dozens of governments, few of which had any clear idea of what was going on in Montana by the time of the launch. OTOH, ICBMs would be a fairly trivial technology by the 2060s; after giving Cochrane's team access to one, USAF might have been content with guarding the perimeter of the ICBM field, a perimeter our heroes only violated with unstoppable transporters. The next scheduled visit by a government official (be it a corrupt feudal lord from an apocalyptic postwar realm or a squeaking clean officer from a well-organized national defense force) could have been weeks or perhaps months away.

Also, where does this "population hit by radiation" thing come from? We've heard of anarchy and (multiple) nuclear winters, but did we ever hear of radiation fallout problems?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Greg Cox]

I like to think that the Eugenics War was like a cold war, and Khan was leader of an Illuminati type organisation, perhaps some kind of business leader. His dealings and infamy only coming to light years later.

Hmm. You know, that's not a bad idea.

 

[Timo]

...It's too bad the historians of the time decided to keep Khan's possible survival a secret - for the very reason that his notorious existence hadn't been one!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Greg Cox]

Dating the Eugenics Wars

I dated the Eugenics Wars once. Nice girl, but a bit silly.

Hah!

Now I want to create a character named Eugenia Wars . . .

 

[Capt_Pickirk]

Dating the Eugenics Wars

I dated the Eugenics Wars once. Nice girl, but a bit silly.

Hah!

Now I want to create a character named Eugenia Wars . . .

You could create a crew where every character happens to be named after a key event in History. e.g. Captain 'First Contact', Chief Engineer 'Bajoran Occupation'. etc.

e.g. something like this, except more eloquent

The bridge of the starship 'U.S.S lolcat' was a nearly devoid of activity, aside from the science officer writing slash fic at his station and the navigator lying under his panel, pulling out wires to stop the constant beeping noises that were being made by it, there was nothing going on. Just then, Captain First Contact ran onto the bridge, phaser in hand, his shirt torn. It was his usual method of reporting for duty, something that his crew had gradually gotten used to. He slumped in his captain's Chair, placing the phaser precariously on the side of his chair. He looked over at his science officer, Mr. Vulcan Enlighte'nment, the lesser known cousin of Mr Spock, 'Mr Vulcan, bring up ships records, I'm bored.' the Captain asked.
'Yeah sure, Whatever Captain' the science officer complied, pressing a button on his console. A loud humming sound could be heard as a row of shelves producing a large number of vinyl records appeared next to the captain's chair. Captain contact flicked through the variety of records on display. 'Nah. Changed my mind. Put 'em back.' the captain decided.
Mr Vulcan let out a sigh, 'Fine then.' he pressed the button again, whilst muttering under his breath 'Human jerk'.

 

[Ultramann]

Greg Cox did an excellent job of explaining everything in his Khan novels, I see no reason to change the date or comeup with another interpretation. As far as the Abramsverse, keep in mind tha in the "regular" Trekverse there was a bleeppile of time travel into dang near all points of the past that came from after 2258, so nothing from the past can be assumed to be accurate at this point in the Trekulitmateverse. TUV?

 

[Sci]

And certainly Bozeman, Montana, looks like much more of a semi-permanent camp site than it does a full-fledged city -- potentially indicating widespread poverty.

Was that actually Bozeman itself?

According to the ENT episodes "Desert Crossing" and "Carbon Creek," yes, it was actually Bozeman itself. This is further reinforced in "In A Mirror, Darkly, Part I," where the landing of the Vulcan ship in the Mirror Universe is identified to be taking place in a subtitle in Bozeman, Montana.

And somehow, an American Colonel named Green was able to institute a program of killing anyone with illnesses or mutations as a result of radiation sickness in the 2050s, according to ENT's "Demons"/"Terra Prime."

Just because Green was indisputably evil, doesn't mean the rest of the government was.

I didn't say it necessarily did. I said it was possible.

My person hypothesis would be that the United States government collapsed and plenty of localities fell under the sway of local elites or local warlords, and that Green was among them. However, even if the government collapsed, the general populace retained their loyalty to the idea of the United States, and once social stability returned, the U.S. government was reconstituted, with the United States as a state being retroactively regarded as having continued to exist without a functional government for a period of time. (Think of the difference between a state and a government as being like the difference between a car and its engine.)

For all we know, Cochrane might have been funded by dozens of governments, few of which had any clear idea of what was going on in Montana by the time of the launch.

No. Governments don't invest millions of dollars into development of technology without a clear sense of what is going on. I work at a small business that produces a monthly newsletter for a federal agency; the federal government doesn't even issue contracts for something as minor as a newsletter without an exact sense of what's going on, constant progress reports, and very detailed communication and paperwork.

OTOH, ICBMs would be a fairly trivial technology by the 2060s;

Nonsense. Missiles capable of remotely entering another nation's airspace and delivering a nuclear warhead would never be considered a trivial technology in a world that lacks warp drive, deflector shields, and matter transporters.

after giving Cochrane's team access to one, USAF might have been content with guarding the perimeter of the ICBM field, a perimeter our heroes only violated with unstoppable transporters.

The problem with that is that we saw that the silo had no perimeter guards early in the film, and we saw Our Heroes violating the perimeter from the ground numerous times.

The next scheduled visit by a government official (be it a corrupt feudal lord from an apocalyptic postwar realm

If it's a corrupt feudal lord from an apocalyptic postwar realm, then that means that the United States has participated in the war and has either collapsed or become corrupt, just as I have postulated.

or a squeaking clean officer from a well-organized national defense force) could have been weeks or perhaps months away.

Bullshit. No well-organized national defense force would leave a missile silo in civilian, non-governmental control without someone else around to supervise, constantly.

Also, where does this "population hit by radiation" thing come from?

ENT's "Demons" and "Terra Prime."