I'm just going by the dialogue from First Contact.
Earth - 2063 Onwards - No Vulcans
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I'm just going by the dialogue from First Contact.
Its possible that the war was fought with antimatter warheads, thus reducing the amount of radiation from the war. Then again, the whole point of the Colonel Green situation mentioned in Terra Prime was that he was trying to weed out the folks that were exposed to radiation and in danger of polluting the gene pool.
First Contact suggests that most major cities in the world were destroyed along with their governments. That does not mean that nukes were the only weapons. Perhaps some form of orbital bombardment using mass drivers or high powered lasers or energy weapons did the bulk of the damage. San Francisco was apparently spared.
For the record, the premise of how the Alpha Quadrant would have evolved without the presence of Vulcans on the interstellar scene is the premise behind the Myriad Universes novel The Tears of Eridanus. In this timeline, Vulcans never united and returned to space after the wars that killed Surak, and Surak's teachings never spread.
The Andorian Empire became the dominant state in local space, and had subdued Tellarites and the Xindi while maintaining Earth and other worlds like Nausicaa as client states. They formed an economic bloc as a counterweight to the growing power of the Orion Free States, which then evolved into a sovereign state known as the Interstellar Union. The I.U.'s capital was Andor, and Andorii was its primary language; its military arm was the Interstellar Guard, which grew out of the Andorian Imperial Guard. The flagship was the Excelsior-class IUES Kumari II, commanded in the 2290s by Captain Hikaru Sulu, and other ships included the IUES Ravis, IUES Atlirith, and IUES Enterprise I.
The head of state was known as the Prefect of the Interstellar Union, and its founding document seems to have been known as the Charter of the Interstellar Union. Founding member worlds included Andor, Earth, Tellar, and Coridan, and later members included Yridia, Risa, Nausicaa, the Rigel system, Cait, Trill, and Orion. It clashed with the Klingon Empire, and by the 2290s, war seemed inevitable.
The Andorians in this timeline often considered themselves to have "lifted" Earth up from backwater status after making first contact in the mid-21st Century, though Humans often considered that an inaccurate and overly-simplistic analysis. No further details were given.
The Andorian Empire became the dominant state in local space, and had subdued Tellarites and the Xindi while maintaining Earth and other worlds like Nausicaa as client states. They formed an economic bloc as a counterweight to the growing power of the Orion Free States, which then evolved into a sovereign state known as the Interstellar Union. The I.U.'s capital was Andor, and Andorii was its primary language; its military arm was the Interstellar Guard, which grew out of the Andorian Imperial Guard. The flagship was the Excelsior-class IUES Kumari II, commanded in the 2290s by Captain Hikaru Sulu, and other ships included the IUES Ravis, IUES Atlirith, and IUES Enterprise I.
The head of state was known as the Prefect of the Interstellar Union, and its founding document seems to have been known as the Charter of the Interstellar Union. Founding member worlds included Andor, Earth, Tellar, and Coridan, and later members included Yridia, Risa, Nausicaa, the Rigel system, Cait, Trill, and Orion. It clashed with the Klingon Empire, and by the 2290s, war seemed inevitable.
The Andorians in this timeline often considered themselves to have "lifted" Earth up from backwater status after making first contact in the mid-21st Century, though Humans often considered that an inaccurate and overly-simplistic analysis. No further details were given.
Well, I'm not seeing the Andorians helping Earth in the cleanup from WW III like the Vulcans presumably did. So it could be that in that timeline, Earth really IS a backwater.
Assuming Earth even exists at all in that timeline...
I am aware of that, although it could be that Soval was glossing over things just a tad. IIRC, Soval didn't actively start to warm up to humanity until Forrest was killed.
Most boasting of any kind is done for relatively little reason, I've found.
Nope, still can't get behind that. It's not that I'm opposed to the idea, I literally can't see how it could have happened.
Just consider the rebuilding of the cities, for example. It takes years to build even one building (you doubt me? Look at how long it's taking to rebuild the World Trade Center area, for example - it's been 13 years, and they're not even close to finished); it would take a century or more, to completely rebuild even ONE major city like San Francisco, New York, etc. from scratch. And that's assuming near-perfect conditions, weather, a total lack of a world-destroying nuclear war, etc.
There's just no way this could all have been done, all over the planet, in only 50 years. And throw the post-WW III environment into that mix? If a city is destroyed in a nuclear war, it would take centuries to rebuild it. You'd have had to recover the industrial capability first, and that alone would take a millennium; and THEN you can rebuild.
Multiply that by the thousands upon thousands of cities in any developed country, and you get the sense of what's at stake here. How could all that have been done, all over the Earth, in a postnuclear environment, without help, in 50 YEARS? Think about it.
Assuming Earth even exists at all in that timeline...
In fact, I believe there's a scene with Sulu and Demora in which they refer to Earth as, quote, "gone." So perhaps Earth really was destroyed in that timeline's version of WW III and there was a human diaspora? Or maybe the Andorians, when they made first contact, considered Earth a lost cause and helped the survivors evacuate the planet.
I am aware of that, although it could be that Soval was glossing over things just a tad. IIRC, Soval didn't actively start to warm up to humanity until Forrest was killed.
Most boasting of any kind is done for relatively little reason, I've found.
Nope, still can't get behind that. It's not that I'm opposed to the idea, I literally can't see how it could have happened.
Just consider the rebuilding of the cities, for example. It takes years to build even one building (you doubt me? Look at how long it's taking to rebuild the World Trade Center area, for example - it's been 13 years, and they're not even close to finished); it would take a century or more, to completely rebuild even ONE major city like San Francisco, New York, etc. from scratch. And that's assuming near-perfect conditions, weather, a total lack of a world-destroying nuclear war, etc.
There's just no way this could all have been done, all over the planet, in only 50 years. And throw the post-WW III environment into that mix? If a city is destroyed in a nuclear war, it would take centuries to rebuild it. You'd have had to recover the industrial capability first, and that alone would take a millennium; and THEN you can rebuild.
Multiply that by the thousands upon thousands of cities in any developed country, and you get the sense of what's at stake here. How could all that have been done, all over the Earth, in a postnuclear environment, without help, in 50 YEARS? Think about it.
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Why not? I mean, the Andorians co-founded the Federation, too. And unlike the Vulcans, we have no canonical evidence that the Andorians were in the habit of turning less-powerful worlds into vassal states. There's no particular reason to suspect the Andorians would be any less willing to help Earth repair environmental damage from the Third World War.
No, there are numerous other references to Earth still existing in that timeline. When Demora says Earth is "gone," she's speaking metaphorically; Earth is no longer their home. Co-author Steve Mollmann has confirmed this on TrekBBS.
Re: World War III.
Given what we know about the consequences of a full-scale nuclear conflict in real life, I think it's safe to say that the nuclear exchanges in WW3 must have been extremely limited in nature. This is particularly the case given that we know numerous cities in the post-WW3 era are still physically intact -- Paris, London, San Francisco, New Orleans, New York City, Berlin, etc.
Obviously the Andorians are a proud warrior race, we've seen that many times. I don't see them having a lot of tolerance for weaker races. Especially Earth, being in the shambles that it was in ST:FC.
Yeah, it's true that Andor is a founding Federation member world, but that was in the main timeline, where Earth was already recovered and strong by the time they met. The Andorians would probably be much less tolerant of the weak, defeated Earth as seen in ST:FC. If that's the first image they have of humanity, it's not likely to leave a good impression on them.
Perhaps the war was fought with neutron bombs. Those would leave radiation, but not cause a lot of physical damage, amirite?
That's my read of the dialog in different episodes.
WW2 killed about 3 percent of the Human population, Star Trek's WW3 killed 6½ percent. With Europe and Japan after WW2 there was considerable assistance rebuilding from nations outside the war zone.
If the war was restricted to certain areas of the planet, much of the world's infrastructue would have been intact, along with 93 percent of the population.
It was never made clear exactly who participated in WW3, and who sat the war out.
From the end result death toll of 600 million (and not more), it seem likely that the local and international transportation systems was rebuilt quickly or largely not destroyed, they were able to move food and fuel around.
Only if Humans discovered that there was no one else in the Universe perhaps.
Without the Vulcans, first contact just would have been with someone else, likely the Denobulans.
So it's two things. What united Humanity wasn't just the Vulcans coming here, it was us going there, being able to travel outwards into the galaxy.
Without the Vulcans being of the Trek Universe, we still would have covered our part, and eventually contacted different aliens.
Is it known which species, other than Vulcans and Denobulans, had been contacted between 2063 and ENT?
Although ENT indicates that humans had been up to 90ly from Earth prior to 2151, the fact that there had been no obvious prior contact with virtually all of the species shown in ENT would indicate that the Vulcans kept humans away from most of the galactic neighbours for almost 90 years. Consequently most of the nearby species encountered in ENT seasons 1 and 2 could have been possible other first and early contacts, had the Vulcans not been around.
Although ENT indicates that humans had been up to 90ly from Earth prior to 2151, the fact that there had been no obvious prior contact with virtually all of the species shown in ENT would indicate that the Vulcans kept humans away from most of the galactic neighbours for almost 90 years. Consequently most of the nearby species encountered in ENT seasons 1 and 2 could have been possible other first and early contacts, had the Vulcans not been around.
Well, no. In "Journey to Babel," Ambassador Shras describes his people as "a violent race," but there's no evidence that they're a "warrior race." In "The Andorian Incident," T'Pol describes them as volatile and suspicions, and casts aspersions on them as resenting Vulcans' superior reasoning and technology. She claims that they are paranoid in their suspicion that the Vulcan government is spying on them from the monastery at P'Jem and that it intends to invade Andor... and yet at the end of "Incident," it turns out there is a spy station aimed at Andorian territory, and the Vulcans do try to invade Andor just three years later in ENT Season Four.
Meanwhile, we know from "Shadows of P'Jem" that the Andorians were backing an insurgent group against the Vulcan puppet government on Coridan, and that the Andorians were willing to provide military assistance to help protect Earth from the Xindi in the form of the IGS Kumari's participation in the final battle in Earth orbit in "Zero Hour" -- which is more than Vulcan can say for itself.
So there's really no evidence to back up the notion that Andorians are a "warrior race;" there's a lot of interaction with the Imperial Guard, but that no more tells us what Andorians are like as a whole than does interactions with the Vulcan High Command. And the Andorians have consistently shown a willingness to take risks to help non-Andorians who are noticeably less powerful -- "weaker" -- than they are.
The Andorians are not Klingons. There's really no reason to think they wouldn't help Earth if they had made first contact in 2063. It may be the case that that help would come at the cost of turning Earth into an Andorian vassal state, at least for a while -- but the Vulcans' help came at the cost of turning Earth into a Vulcan vassal state, at least until the NX-01 made its impact on the interstellar scene, so it's not like the Andorians would be any worse than the Vulcans.
And that's more or less what The Tears of Eridanus depicts: Andor helping Earth, Earth at first being an Andorian vassal state, and then Earth becoming more independent but joining an Andorian-centered liberal democracy called the Interstellar Union (as opposed to leading a Human-centered liberal democracy called the United Federation of Planets).
I really don't know enough to speculate. All I can really offer is the insight that the book The Lost Era: The Sundered depicts the opening volleys of World War III as happening through nuclear detonations that go off above some major cities, raining down radiation and death but often leaving the infrastructure intact. Other cities, such as Jerusalem, Mecca, Riyadh, etc., are out and out destroyed.
What's the diff?
Yes, Shran has helped Archer, but that was a personal thing - first to settle a debt, and then because they grew to be good friends. But who's to say what attitudes Andorians in general have towards humans? We only really hear from Shran on that point.
I suppose if the Andorians had turned up in ST:FC, they might have respected Zefram Cochrane and his work, but I'm still skeptical what they would think of humanity in general at that point. I mean, from the Andorian perspective, why would they help a society that almost destroyed itself? At least Vulcan had a world war similar to WW III. Did Andor? We have no idea. They might have thought that any species so weak and small-minded as to fight amongst itself (without a clear victor, no less) isn't worth helping.
At least by ENT's time, Shran was around to sway the Andorian perspective in Earth's favor, because he was friends with Archer and thus grew to understand humanity...
Being violent is not the same thing as making your society's central institution the military, or as embracing militarism and warfare and conquest as your central traits. They are related, but distinct; being "violent" is much more vague, and could just mean, for instance, that Andorians have a cultural propensity towards resolving interpersonal conflicts through duals like the one we saw in the Aenar trilogy.
I'm sorry, but bringing the flagship of the Andorian Imperial Guard into combat with an alien race powerful enough to destroy an entire planet is a policy decision whose motivations are obviously much bigger than just one starship commander's personal feelings. That kind of decision has to have been authorized by the government back home, because it would be incredibly dangerous for the Andorian Empire to make enemies of the Xindi if the super-weapon survives.
Add to this the fact that we know Andorians were risking their lives to assist the insurgency on Coridan against the Vulcan-controlled puppet government, long before Shran and Archer became friends.
The Andorians have a history of taking risks for "weaker" races.
^ IIRC, we never learned *why* the Andorians were supporting the Coridan rebels. Could be they just wanted the dilithium mines and the shipbuilding facilities (plus a chance to really stick it to the Vulcans, which is even more likely).
In any case, this is hardly a "history". The Andorians supported the Coridan rebels, yes, and helped Earth against the Xindi. But that doesn't exactly make a pattern.
Well, to be fair, Shran doesn't really seem to care what his government thinks. He could have simply decided on his own to help. (As for the Xindi: they hated humans so much specifically because the Sphere-Builders told them to. There's no evidence they would have tried to wipe out Andor like they did Earth. And even if they did - the Andorians had a much stronger military, they'd be ready for them.)
But getting back to the Earth situation: Like I said, what would the Andorians likely think of Earth as it appeared in ST:FC? A weak, defeated, bombed-out wasteland, with no strategic importance, and no clear victor in the war that happened only 10 years prior. Why would the Andorians be particularly impressed with that? What would Earth have to offer them?
Hell, you remember how Shran initially tried to steal the Xindi prototype and take it back home, specifically because the Andorian general ordered him to? That's as much an indication of official Andorian policy as anything else.
Oh well. The Tears of Eridanus exists, and that's something, anyway. I would have loved to see how first contact played out in that universe...
In any case, this is hardly a "history". The Andorians supported the Coridan rebels, yes, and helped Earth against the Xindi. But that doesn't exactly make a pattern.
Well, to be fair, Shran doesn't really seem to care what his government thinks. He could have simply decided on his own to help. (As for the Xindi: they hated humans so much specifically because the Sphere-Builders told them to. There's no evidence they would have tried to wipe out Andor like they did Earth. And even if they did - the Andorians had a much stronger military, they'd be ready for them.)
But getting back to the Earth situation: Like I said, what would the Andorians likely think of Earth as it appeared in ST:FC? A weak, defeated, bombed-out wasteland, with no strategic importance, and no clear victor in the war that happened only 10 years prior. Why would the Andorians be particularly impressed with that? What would Earth have to offer them?
Hell, you remember how Shran initially tried to steal the Xindi prototype and take it back home, specifically because the Andorian general ordered him to? That's as much an indication of official Andorian policy as anything else.
Oh well. The Tears of Eridanus exists, and that's something, anyway. I would have loved to see how first contact played out in that universe...
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But it's the only canonical data we have about Andorian policy towards less-powerful worlds. If the only data we have is two instances of them taking risks to help less-powerful worlds and no instances of them refusing, then at the very least we must concede that there's no reason to think they would refuse to help Earth, even if we don't think those instances are enough to be evidence they would.
Evidence? I can't think of any episode in which Shran indicates he doesn't care what his government thinks.
No way. You don't rise to become commander of your world's flagship if you're willing to plunge your planet into a war against a race so much more powerful than your own. That kind of irresponsibility simply wouldn't happen -- and if it did, Shran would have been removed from command immediately afterwards.
The Andorian government does not know that. From an Andorian perspective, there is a significant probability that going into combat against the Xindi Super-Weapon in defense of Earth would lead to Xindi retaliation against Andor if the allied fleet fails. If you're the Presider of the Parliament Andoria (the name of the Andorian head of government in the novels), it is your responsibility to assess risks in those terms, not to just assume your world is safe if you make a move against such a powerful species.
I mean, the Andorian Imperial Guard is stronger than the United Earth Starfleet, but there's no evidence that Andorians have the kind of technology needed to blow up a planet. Indeed, if they did, they wouldn't have tried to steal the Xindi weapon early in ENT Season Three. Going into open combat against the Xindi represents a significant planetary security risk for Andor.
That line of thinking could be applied to any species that makes contact with post-WW3 Earth -- including the Vulcans and Denobulans, who we know didn't assess Earth only in those terms.
There is absolutely no reason to think that the Andorians would not feel altruistic towards a suffering Earth -- and there is evidence that they might feel altruistic. Being a violent race does not preclude that.
Sure. It's an indication that when the Andorian government became aware of a race with technology that gave them the potential to pose an existential threat to Andor, that they wanted to have such a weapon themselves. (The equivalent of other nations like France and the United Kingdom wanting to develop their own nuclear weapons program after the United States dropped the atomic bomb.) It tells us absolutely nothing about how altruistic they might be to less-powerful races.
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And, again, let's not forget that the Andorian Empire was one of the founding member states of the United Federation of Planets. This is not insignificant, and cannot be attributed to the influence of just Shran. One guy cannot influence and entire society to such an extent, particularly someone who is only a starship commander and not the leader of a major social movement of some sort. If Andor helped create the Federation, then it must have already developed a political culture that embraced certain Federation values like freedom, universal rights, and social justice.
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Earth didn't have that technology either, and yet they managed.
But Vulcans and Denobulans are not the kind of species the Andorians are. Denobulans seem to be a very open and friendly people - I'm sure they'd help out anyone who asked, and enjoy doing it. And the Vulcans value logic above all else - from their POV, it would simply be illogical not to help Earth. The Andorians, OTOH, value strength, courage, prowess in battle. Earth had none of those things at that time.
I don't agree. Altruism requires the presence of compassion, caring, and respect for the weak, without expectation that it would be repaid. How can a violent race or people respect the weak?
The difference is, France and the UK didn't openly steal our nuclear secrets from us.
It's also 20/20 hindsight. As of ST:FC, the Andorians could not have been the founders of a state that wouldn't even exist for a hundred years! And a lot can change in so short a time.
Given the numbers who survived, Earth was unlikely to have been a "bombed out wasteland."
And with the lack of canon knowledge of the reasons for the war, it's participants, or it's outcome, it would be difficult to said that there was no clear victor following the end of the conflict.
Would that be a consideration or a requirement for the Andorians?
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