Dating the Eugenics Wars

[fireinthedust]

Or it could be that First Contact was flat wrong.

Yeah, but TWOK is... just such a bad... movie... compared to First Contact.

I mean, look at it: Khan is supposed to be this great tactician, but he can't even think beyond 2d for a space ship battle? And when in the whole movie does he make one single tactically sound decision? Or one that doesn't end in disaster?

Aside from classic quotes like "revenge is a dish best served cold... and it is very cold... in space!", and "Khaaaaaaaan!!!"; and the fact that a friend of mine thought I said "rathakhan", and that "rathakhan" was some Rastifarian or Islamic prisoner of conscience in Africa (so she kept saying "Free Rathakhan!")... and a number of nostalgic and other neat factors that make it fun-but-campy... it's not as sound or what have you as the later films. Looks great, great fake test Kirk cheated on, but yeah.

TOS isn't strictly speaking Cannon either: Klingon Foreheads then and now.

I'll add that the creation assumptions of TOS wouldn't have expected the franchise back then. It was just a show, albeit with vision.

TNG, otoh, is my personal favourite (along with the spin-offs, thank you very much!). However, by then the show was a Franchise, and continuity mattered a heck of a lot more than TOS.

Maybe we should just accept, if we're going to do this, that the show is a show and not future world history?

Or we could agree that something like WW3 devastated our historical records enough that we don't know what happened re: the Eugenics wars.

 

[BillJ]

TOS isn't strictly speaking Cannon either: Klingon Foreheads then and now.

How can TOS not be canon when every other spin-off has referenced it numerous times? Even the prequel used story elements from TOS.

I hate when fans of Modern Trek try to dismiss Star Trek... you know the only show actually called Star Trek. You can dismiss it when the modern shows drop everything they borrowed from it. But then there wouldn't be much left.

 

[UnknownSample]

It's "canon", not "Cannon"!! We're not talking about war equipment!! "Canon" is a religious word, having to do with being faithful to religious traditions.

The answer is to honor the great science-fiction concept of eugenics causing a future world war, and to forget the specific dating.

 

[Sci]

Yeah, but TWOK is... just such a bad... movie... compared to First Contact.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is a wonderful film that explores themes of mortality far more effectively than Star Trek: First Contact, or indeed any other Star Trek film.

I mean, look at it: Khan is supposed to be this great tactician, but he can't even think beyond 2d for a space ship battle?

Yes, how dare a villain have an Achilles' heel.

And when in the whole movie does he make one single tactically sound decision?

Well, amongst others, when he hijacks the Reliant, kills the Regula One crew, and damn near cripples the Enterprise.

TOS isn't strictly speaking Cannon either: Klingon Foreheads then and now.

Um, no, TOS is canon. The Star Trek canon is defined by Star Trek's owners, CBS, and it consists of:

- Star Trek (1966-1969)
- Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
- Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
- Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)
- Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)
- Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994)
- Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)
- Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993-1999)
- Star Trek: Generations (1994)
- Star Trek: Voyager (1995-2001)
- Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
- Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)
- Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)
- Star Trek: Enterprise (2001-2005)
- Star Trek (2009)

Period. No a matter of opinion or debate.

 

[Timo]

Archer was born in 2112, and his father Henry was presumably born in the 2070s (that's just my guess, however). So if that's correct, Archer's great-grandfather probably wouldn't have been born until the 2010s or 2020s.

But the father of Archer's grandfather's father (or, say, the father of Archer's grandmother's father's mother) would have been born sufficiently earlier - and he, too, would properly be called Archer's great-grandfather.

The piling up of "greats" is optional in such cases, at least in practice. You may say "great-great-great-grandfather" or "great-grandfather" and mean the same person.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[MichaelJCO]

Here's my take on the Eugenics Wars and World War III:

After Khan and the other tyrants were overthrown, the Eugenics Wars continued as a series of insurgencies and guerrilla wars that lasted into the 21st century. Future historians will call these conflicts World War III just as some historians today wish to call the Cold War World War III (incidentally, these same historians wish to call the War on Terror World War IV). In short, I'm saying that the Eugenics Wars and World War Three are one and the same.

Of course, there may be those in the 23rd century who wish to split the Eugenics Wars/World War III into their own separate conflicts, that's why Spock gives death tolls from Earth's "first three world wars". By the 24th century, this viewpoint may have gone out the window and the whole conflict is once again grouped together as WWIII.

I can see what you are saying but I still dont quite agree. The Eugenics War that happened from 1992-1996 could likely be considered a world war in that it involved major portions of the worlds countries. What it apparently didnt include-as did the War of 2053( ie WW3 )was a widespread nuclear exchange.Any war usually styled WW3 has to include something resembling a nuclear holocaust. The Eugenics War of 1992-1996 may have had a nuclear detonation or two but nothing like what happened in 2053 which IMO makes them seperate events with the Eugenics War perhaps WW2.5 but not WW3.

 

[MichaelJCO]

Also PLEASE stop using the "200 year" quote from DS9 to place the Eugenics War(s) in the 21st or 22nd century. TOS and ENT both confirm the war(s) were in the 20th century-1992-1996 to be exact!

 

[Timo]

I don't see an absolute necessity to ignore the DS9 bit completely - there's nothing to say that the Eugenics Wars couldn't have continued well into the 22nd century, what with the direct evidence from ENT "Terra Prime" that certain ideas of racial purity were still hugely important to Earthlings of that era.

The bigger in scope and more significant in impact the Eugenics Wars, the better we can accept that mankind would develop the deep fear and hatred that sends Richard Bashir to jail for making his son's life less awful.

Regarding the idea of World War Four or World War Five, Spock's exact words in "Space Seed" were these:

Spock: "The mid-1990s was the era of your last so-called World War."

Not, for example, "the era of the last of your so-called World Wars", in which case the word "last" could refer to a plural. If we're to accept Spock's knowledge of Earth history as valid, then the very last WW was ongoing in the mid-1990s, or had recently ended, or was about to begin. And we know that at least one WW ended in the 2050s, so that rules out the idea that the last WW had ended around the mid-1990s. So we're stuck with the idea that a war that began in or around the mid-1990s was the same as the one that ended in the 2050s, and we know from ST:FC that this war is explicitly known as the Third World War.

An expansive WWIII spanning five decades is thus the only possible interpretation if we accept that every character knows his stuff and is using the same terminology. But we can still choose whether WWIII is the same as Eugenics Wars, or whether the two merely overlap.

We can also dispute Spock's definition of the word "era". Was he speaking about the actual fighting of WWIII, or merely the events leading into the fighting of WWIII? We could define the Balkan unrest and the Sarajevo assassination as the "era" of WWI even though this violence preceded the conflict. Similarly, we could define the mid-1990s eugenics strife as the direct lead-in to WWIII even if the actual WWIII is historically defined as having started in 2012. And the longer the actual WW, the broader its "era" can be, preceding the start and lingering on after the end.

The idea of WWIV or WWV is right out, though. Spock must have been referring to something completely different when speaking of "the first three World Wars" in "Bread and Circuses". Or then he was dead wrong in that episode, or then in "Space Seed". The two aren't compatible - but either is compatible with the remaining bulk of evidence.

What it apparently didn't include-as did the War of 2053( ie WW3 )was a widespread nuclear exchange.

The war of 1990s-2050s would necessarily have included a widespread nuclear exchange - but not in the 1990s yet, it seems. Just like WWII didn't go nuclear until the bitter end.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[MichaelJCO]

I think that its entirely possible that the Eugenics War(s) and WW3 were related to each other in terms of countries/alliances involved,ideology,tactics etc. I also think that they may have come to be seen by some students of history as a single conflict spanning decades by the 23rd-24th centuries.
I just dont think there were seen that way by most people at the time and not even in the 22nd century. On Enterprise there are definite examples of people referring to the Eugenics Wars and WW3.Perhaps the terms are used interchangably but they seem to be referring to different events-especially when you consider the fact that the whole premise of Enterprise revolves around First Contact with the Vulcans 10 years after WW3.
The ( non-canon ) novel Federation refers to Colonel Green and the Optimum Movement trying not to make the mistakes that Khan and his followers made in the Eugenics Wars but they of course started WW3. I feel the 2 conflicts are related ( to what extent though ?) but are seen as a single event only by those who are comfortably far away from them in time. To contemporaries and near contemporaires I believe they would been seen as seperate conflicts.
My fondest wish is for a Star Trek novel spanning Star Treks 1960's-2060's that would address all these question!

 

[Mytran]

Just to throw this into the mix - what if the term "third world war" refers instead to a war mainly fought in Third World countries? That would allow some flexibility in the number of worldwide conflicts.

 

[CoveTom]

I'm pretty sure the writer admitted it was simply a mistake and that it was suppose to be three hundred.

Yes. That was Ronald D. Moore, and he said that when he wrote the script, he had in his head the line Khan spoke in TWOK about "On Earth... 200 years ago... I was a prince..." He failed to adjust for the difference in time between TWOK and DS9.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Just to throw this into the mix - what if the term "third world war" refers instead to a war mainly fought in Third World countries? That would allow some flexibility in the number of worldwide conflicts.

I don't think so. The Second World War wasn't like that, after all. And the First wasn't even called that until much later - AFAIK, not until after WWI was over.

As for the Third? There's probably considerable debate, in the Trek universe, over which war qualifies as that. Who gets to say what war is called World War III, after all? There may be Trek characters who firmly believe that WW III *was* the Eugenics Wars, and what we know as WW III was in fact WW IV.

Hell, there are some who argue that in real life, WW III has already been fought - some think it was the Cold War, others think it's the War on Terror.

 

[Rojixus]

Just to throw this into the mix - what if the term "third world war" refers instead to a war mainly fought in Third World countries? That would allow some flexibility in the number of worldwide conflicts.

I don't think so. The Second World War wasn't like that, after all. And the First wasn't even called that until much later - AFAIK, not until after WWI was over.

As for the Third? There's probably considerable debate, in the Trek universe, over which war qualifies as that. Who gets to say what war is called World War III, after all? There may be Trek characters who firmly believe that WW III *was* the Eugenics Wars, and what we know as WW III was in fact WW IV.

Hell, there are some who argue that in real life, WW III has already been fought - some think it was the Cold War, others think it's the War on Terror.

That's exactly the point I tried to make earlier. One man's Eugenics Wars is another man's World War III. At some point, 23rd century historians might have treated the Eugenics Wars as separate from World War III and 24th century historians may have lumped the two together, history is subjective like that.

 

[The Librarian]

It's possible that it's a similar situation to (first two) world wars, which some historians think of as being a second Thirty Years War, since they're so closely tied together. Perhaps from the 23rd and 24th century, most people just sort of think of the two wars are part of one greater whole, with only history buffs paying much attention to the which conflicts were officially where and when.

 

[T'Girl]

"Spock: "The mid-1990s was the era of your last so-called World War."

A "so-called" world war, as opposed to what? An actual world war? Perhaps Spock was making a commentary on the size of the wars in question, the scale of violence. In comparison to "world wars" that occurred on the surface of Vulcan.

In Spock's eyes, maybe only the war in the mid-2000's, with it's 600 million dead, truly qualifies as an actual world war.

And not a "so-called" world war.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ But like I said, there's no ironclad definition as to what exactly a "world war" is. Do either the Cold War or the War on Terror qualify as a possible World War III? They could. Some people believe it. Others do not. There's no absolute definition of the term.

We all used to think that 'World War III' must mean a world-destroying nuclear conflict that immediately ends all life, but that's no longer so cut-and-dried. Although that's still sharp in many people's minds so it may be that the term 'World War III' will never be used in practice, because it scares people too much...

So there is no such thing as an "actual" world war, because that would mean there is a concrete definition of what a world war should be, and there isn't one.