Eugenics Wars.

[Christopher]

In ENT "The Augments", Malik states that the Botany Bay was launched at the end of the Great Wars. Just thought this might be worth considering to those who reckon Khan was only involved in the "first Eugenics War."

It's also worth considering that people often misremember their history, or learn it wrong in the first place. It's unwise to assume that every offhand comment made by a character must be strictly accurate and truthful, especially if the character is not a recognized expert in the field under discussion.

I mean, heck, in "Space Seed," Kirk said he estimated Khan had been frozen for 200 years, but it's canonical that the 5-year mission ended in 2270, therefore we know that Kirk's estimate was off by nearly 75 years. (Which makes sense, because he didn't yet know the circumstances of the Botany Bay's launch, and the DY-class ships were in service for decades.)

 

[Galileo7]

1996 Earth looked normal in VOY "Future's End"...no Khan, no Eugenics War. Unfortunately, there was no mention in the episode of these events on Earth, however there was a display model of the Botany Bay class spaceship seen....maybe it was in design stages?

 

[Lieut. Arex]

Well, despite some outlying dates (ex. 900 years in "Squire of Gothos"), the preponderance of evidence in the series suggests it takes place in the late 22nd century. Kirk's "We estimate two centuries"; the Colonel's "...lock you up for two hundred years" and Kirk's "about right"; Mitchell's dating a poem from the 1990's as "the past couple of centuries". Khan repeats the two centuries in TWoK (okay, because Bennett, Meyer, etc. were copying the lines from "Space Seed"). It's only Decker's "over three hundred years" in TMP and TWoK's "In the 23rd century" that firmly set the time frame there. All subsequent series stuck by and large with that revision, with the occasional slip here and there.

 

[Christopher]

1996 Earth looked normal in VOY "Future's End"...no Khan, no Eugenics War.

No, 1996 Los Angeles looked normal in "Future's End." Study your history. The continental United States was effectively untouched by WWI or WWII, or indeed by any conflict between the Civil War and 9/11. For over a hundred years, even the biggest wars all happened Somewhere Else. So why should the Eugenics Wars have been any different? After all, Khan ruled "from Asia through the Middle East" according to "Space Seed." There's absolutely no inconsistency between the Eugenics Wars happening as described in TOS and Los Angeles looking normal in 1996. Particularly since the war ended in 1996.

Unfortunately, there was no mention in the episode of these events on Earth, however there was a display model of the Botany Bay class spaceship seen....maybe it was in design stages?

Now, that is tricky to reconcile with the EW novels' portrayal of the DY-100 as a top-secret project.

 

[Cybersnark]

No, 1996 Los Angeles looked normal

Which is itself pretty remarkable.

Now, that is tricky to reconcile with the EW novels' portrayal of the DY-100 as a top-secret project.

Wouldn't be the first "top-secret" project to be well-known to the conspiracy theorists.

Top secret doesn't have to mean no-one knows, it just has to mean no-one believes it. Come to think of it, that applies to the whole Eugenics War situation; how many people in the 80s and 90s in the real world posited a secret cabal of not-entirely-human conspirators secretly running the world from behind the scenes?

 

[EJA]

Anyone have any idea what the death toll is from the conflicts in the books?

 

[21Spike65]

Unfortunately, there was no mention in the episode of these events on Earth, however there was a display model of the Botany Bay class spaceship seen....maybe it was in design stages?

Now, that is tricky to reconcile with the EW novels' portrayal of the DY-100 as a top-secret project.

Wasn't the model in Starling's office? Being that Chronowerx was the leader in computer technology at this time, it's conceivable that it could have been at least tangentially involved in the DY-100 secret project. It's not like everyone and their brother would wander through Starling's office, see the model, and start asking questions.

Anyone have any idea what the death toll is from the conflicts in the books?

I don't recall there really being any death toll mentioned. We follow Khan, Seven, and others through different key points in time over the course of 4 years (for the second book on the war itself). I never got the impression that it was intended to be an exhaustive story of the Eugenics Wars, so it's likely there's stuff we didn't see, so I don't think there's any way to extrapolate a death toll from the books themselves.

 

[Greg Cox]

No, 1996 Los Angeles looked normal

Which is itself pretty remarkable.

Now, that is tricky to reconcile with the EW novels' portrayal of the DY-100 as a top-secret project.

Wouldn't be the first "top-secret" project to be well-known to the conspiracy theorists.

Good point. Lord knows I consulted enough "exposes" on Area 51 when I was writing that book . . . including one by our own Susan Wright. And I've seen plenty of articles and websites with illustrations of "top-secret" UFOs and spy planes.

In retrospect, I kind of wish I had tossed in a "Lone Gunman" type conspiracy theorist who keeps babbling about the "supermen" secretly taking over the world--but nobody believes him!

That would have been a funny bit.

 

[Angstromdweller]

Wasn't the model in Starling's office? Being that Chronowerx was the leader in computer technology at this time, it's conceivable that it could have been at least tangentially involved in the DY-100 secret project. It's not like everyone and their brother would wander through Starling's office, see the model, and start asking questions.

Actually, the model was in Rain Robinsons office.
http://voy.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/3x08/futuresend1_154.jpg

And not only that, there was a photograph of a launch as well.
http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/DY-100_class

 

[DEWLine]

So...not at all secret.

I have no problem with the Eugenics Wars having happened out in the open for all to see, in any case. No disrespect to Greg for the effort he put in, but the premise doesn't work for me.

 

[captcalhoun]

that photo's a shop they did for the chronology.

 

[Greg Cox]

So...not at all secret.

I have no problem with the Eugenics Wars having happened out in the open for all to see, in any case. No disrespect to Greg for the effort he put in, but the premise doesn't work for me.

No offense taken. There were plenty of different ways to deal with the Eugenics Wars. We just took the one that, at the time, seemed like the most fun . . . .

 

[BillJ]

that photo's a shop they did for the chronology.

It evidently appeared in the episode First Flight, hanging on the wall of the '602 Club'.

http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/File:DY_100_painting.jpg

 

[EJA]

Some of you might be interested to know that Star Trek Online has recently featured a character called Amar Singh, apparently a 25th century descendant of Khan. So, looks like Khan must've sired an heir at some point prior to his heading off into space!

And Greg, just out of interest, if you had to provide a rationalisation......where would you say those thousands of Augment embryos in ENTERPRISE came from?

 

[SicOne]

How many Eugenics Wars books were there? As far as I am aware of, there were the two Rise and Fall of KNS, followed by the To Reign In Hell book, so just the three, right?

 

[Christopher]

^Well, two Eugenics Wars books, one Khan-in-exile book, but yeah.

 

[Daddy Todd]

How many Eugenics Wars books were there? As far as I am aware of, there were the two Rise and Fall of KNS, followed by the To Reign In Hell book, so just the three, right?

Yes, just those three. And it's questionable if the third one counts as an EW book, as it takes place centuries later.

 

[Saquist]

I doubt that. Greg Cox as not a very good writer the few books I tried from him. That Q series was BLAND. I hating reading books where the most interesting thing is the information tie ins.

So far I've read only the preview on my Nook, but I really liked that little bit.
I couldn't possibly disagree with you anymore at all. The Avatar duo and Taking Wing are two of my favorite books I have ever read.

And the Mediocre writers:
John Vornholt
J.M. Dillard
David Mack

You're joking about that last one right.... you really have to be.

If you care about reading a good story These are not the guys to read. They are filler authors. Instead go after ...

A.C Crispin
Diane Carey
Peter David
L.A. Graf "Let's. All. Get. Rich. and. Famous."
Christie Golden
Keith R.A. DeCandido
Michael Jan Friedman
Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens
Jean Lorrah
Kristine Katherine Rusch
Howard Wienstien
Diane Duane

Christie Golden? I think you're only like the second or third person I've ever heard say they actually like her books.[/QUOTE]

Read the Raven...very good, from VOY. Woment tend to write characters better than men and she did Seven very well. She's not always a hit but she's worth trying.

David Mack was extremely mediocre. It's real easy let the characters we know them to be reflect off the names on the page and writers know that and let their riding ride..but certain author actually redevelop the characters in the book as though you've never met them. You are reminded what you like about them and press on to develop the plot with that character concept.

 

[Thrawn]

^ There is no VOY novel titled "The Raven"; just an episode, which she had nothing to do with.

And I think it's absolutely preposterous that women write characters better than men. Characters are what makes a story worth reading and following, and I've never been as interested in characters in a Trek story as I have been in Vanguard, Destiny, or The Sorrows Of Empire.

The difference is that Mack primarily characterizes using actions; he presents his characters with impossible situations and uses their actions to explain them to you, rather than internal monologuing.

And I found that Christie Golden took only the best aspects of the characters, and just ran them in monologues for pages upon pages; her writing was so sugar-coated and trite it was difficult to wade through. To use your own words, it may "remind you what you like about [the characters]", but if a writer doesn't balance that with character flaws and actual plot events that test the characters and make them stretch, what's the point? It's just an admiration for someone else's story, not a story worth telling.

EDIT: Though I'll admit, I haven't read Seven Of Nine, which Christopher mentions is probably the book you're referring to. I've read every single one of her other books, though, and didn't like any of them.

 

[Christopher]

Read the Raven...very good, from VOY.

You must mean Golden's novel entitled simply Seven of Nine, which was a followup to the episode "The Raven." (And which covered much the same ground as the later episode "Infinite Regress" -- and arguably did it better.)