World War III wasn't a 27-year war unless it was such a slow burn that it took ten or twenty years to really reach a massive scale.
Does the United States still exist in the 23rd century?
- Thread starter Citiprime
- Start date
The Korean War is still going, after over 70 years [https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladi...korea-agree-in-principle-to-formally-end-war/].
Maybe from a strictly legal perspective but the actual war itself was a three-year conflict.
In my head WWIII was in 2053 and was specifically the nuclear exchange and everything leading up to it was different regional and international conflicts going by other names.
I mean, in fairness there can be ambiguity over when a war starts. Some historians would say that World War II started when Nazi Germany invaded Poland in September 1939. Others might argue it started when Japan invaded Manchuria. So I think there is wiggle room over exactly when it started, and there's wiggle room to allow for the idea that earlier wars may have bled into World War III. But the idea that it started in 2026 seems implausible given the preponderance of other indications and the relative unimportance attached to most okuadagrams.
It could. Smaller conflicts all grouped together due to the fragmentary nature of the records.
I'm sticking with my headcanon:
- 2026 was the year that saw the 'birth' of the ECON, which would ultimately lead to WWIII in 2053.
- As per the commentary track for ST:FC, and the courtroom scene in "Encounter at Farpoint"...the ECON is indeed China, or at least based around China.
- That would also explain the identity of Lee Kuan (a fictional 21st-century dictator, mentioned but never seen in TOS). In the novelverse, Lee is indeed the founder of the ECON.
- There were two sets of Eugenics Wars, one from 1992-96 and one in the 21st century. (Thus, "Space Seed" and TWOK are safe and do not need to be invalidated.)
- Any notion of a "second civil war" is total horseshit
- Pike's speech before the leaders of Kiley 279 (in the pilot episode) was not meant to be taken literally; he was intentionally embellishing/bullshitting his tale, to make an added impact on them
- 2026 was the year that saw the 'birth' of the ECON, which would ultimately lead to WWIII in 2053.
- As per the commentary track for ST:FC, and the courtroom scene in "Encounter at Farpoint"...the ECON is indeed China, or at least based around China.
- That would also explain the identity of Lee Kuan (a fictional 21st-century dictator, mentioned but never seen in TOS). In the novelverse, Lee is indeed the founder of the ECON.
- There were two sets of Eugenics Wars, one from 1992-96 and one in the 21st century. (Thus, "Space Seed" and TWOK are safe and do not need to be invalidated.)
- Any notion of a "second civil war" is total horseshit
- Pike's speech before the leaders of Kiley 279 (in the pilot episode) was not meant to be taken literally; he was intentionally embellishing/bullshitting his tale, to make an added impact on them
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That's silly. Why can't there be?
He doesn't seem to be the kind of guy to do that, it would undermine his point.
If one were so inclined, a passable argument could probably be put together to group what we think of as the First and Second World Wars as a single conflict: a lot of the themes were the same, and a lot of Germany's motivations were a direct result of the earlier conflict.
The Hundred Years War is the English (and I believe French) term for a series of conflicts fought between 1337 and 1453; with the perspective of a couple hundred years, the 20th Century could easily be conflated into a single event.
Conversely, I think the Napoleonic Wars of 1795 to 1815 were described as a "World War," so perhaps when Starfleet say "Third World War," they mean the 1939-45 conflict. OR perhaps
WW1 = 1795-1815
WW2 = 1910-1945
WW3 = 2001-2053?
Equally, he's not an historian, so perhps he's regurgitating his favourite holowriter's interpretation (how many people's understanding of the Napoleonics are based around Richard Sharpe, or of Pearl Harbour the Michael Bay film?), or what he learnt 30 years previously on his A-Level course?
dJE
He was presumably using historical footage in his presentional.
Why? Would it not be logical for World War III to be the merged spiraling of several local conflicts?
Oh, I still think the war was fought with China (maybe a Russian-Chinese-Iranian alliance…though you could swap North Korea in there if you like…if the war didn’t start with our obliteration of it), but I think by the time we’re in post-apocalyptic horror, what’s left of the major powers is splintered factions. The ECON is some bunkered down 50th president from the now most radioactive part of the country, refusing to admit fault and let the splintered factions try to move on.
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…for the lot of good it would have done them. If it weren’t for Zephram Cochrane opening up a new frontier and for the alien revelation, the factions would have fought each other for the limited non-radioactive resources left to ultimate extinction. …instead of cooperating with one another to escape this radioactive graveyard, and awe at alien brothers from the heavens…at fellow partners in the existential nightmare of life, at examples of hope for life after death.
EDIT:
…for the lot of good it would have done them. If it weren’t for Zephram Cochrane opening up a new frontier and for the alien revelation, the factions would have fought each other for the limited non-radioactive resources left to ultimate extinction. …instead of cooperating with one another to escape this radioactive graveyard, and awe at alien brothers from the heavens…at fellow partners in the existential nightmare of life, at examples of hope for life after death.
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Which can be edited however he chooses.
So can everything we’ve ever seen or heard in Trek. Didn’t you know the entire thing was Federation propaganda and the Klingons are actually the good guys?
^ There was a comic series awhile back that ran with that premise. I think they called it "Blood Will Tell".
That's not in the Novelverse. The reference to Lee Kuan being the founder of ECON comes from David Goodman's Federation: The First 150 Years which is not considered part of the Novelverse, and indeed directly contradicts the Novelverse on many matters.
The dictators mentioned by Garth of Izar in TOS include Lee Kwan and Crotus, who was later made an Andorian dictator from their Imperial history who gained notoriety in the collective history of the Federation.
