I very much doubt there were millions or even hundreds of thousands of Augments. Khan and his generation were considered "young supermen" when they took over; they were a generation created in scientific experimentation, not yet a "production model" but a mere "pilot run". They took their sweet time to mature, and then spent three glorious years ruling the world. There wouldn't really be time to raise any further supermen in that short period of time, even though Khan's ilk would no doubt try and start anyway (explaining the rows upon rows of material on Cold Station 12 shelves).
Moreover, mankind at large apparently knew the exact number of completed Augments, so that at the end of the wars, it could be ascertained that no more or less than 80 were unaccounted for. That probably wouldn't be less than one percent of the total, or more than ten percent...
OTOH, I find it unlikely that Khan was the most prominent of the supermen, or else our heroes would have recognized him faster - and his original disappearance would have made far greater headlines. I mean, Hitler's charred corpse didn't quell rumors that he might still be alive after 1945; Khan apparently didn't even leave a fake corpse behind, or else our heroes would have commented on that.
More probably, Khan was one of the lesser princes, perhaps exactly because he was one of the more benevolent ones. He ruled mere millions and never raised enough ire that anybody would have been interested in hunting him down at the conclusion of the wars. He may have been one of the smarter Augments, with more futuristic technologies and key resources under his command, but he probably wasn't the person who'd make Time's Man of the Year cover in either 1993 or 1996.
We could just as well say that EW and WWIII had nothing to do with each other to begin with. There are only two Trek factoids that would tie them together, after all, and both can be tackled.
1) Spock says that the mid-1990s was the "era" of the last world war. McCoy responds by saying "Eugenics War". We can easily assume that McCoy was doing what he usually did with Spock's statements: correcting them. That is, Spock, who evidently had a flimsy grasp of Earth history, was mistaken about "the WWIII era" being a good name for all of the late 20th and early 21st century (thus including the mid-1990s), while the native McCoy knew that this specific sub-era was commonly called "the Eugenics Wars era" instead.
Indeed, this would well fit the spirit of the teaser and beginning of the first act of "Space Seed", where Kirk, Spock and McCoy compete in making bold statements that turn out to be dead wrong the very next moment. Kirk and Spock play that funny one-upmanship game with DY model specs, after exchanging "knowledge" on whether the ship could be of Earth origin or not, and then McCoy joins in with statements about whether there could be crew aboard, whether it could be alive, whether it could be human. Everybody is dead wrong, and everybody else takes perverse delight in this. Spock's "history lesson" would perfectly fit this general bill.
2) Archer in "Cold Station 12" says that the EW had a death toll in the 30-35 million range. Spock in "Bread and Circuses" says WWIII had a death toll of 37 million. But this could be a mere coincidence, as several separate late 20th century and early 21st century wars could plausibly have death tolls ranging in tens of millions.
Moreover, Spock was actually saying that those 37 million dead in WWIII would be the ones "familiar with" what the pseudo-Roman victims of despotism were experiencing. Considering Riker's later statement that WWIII killed 600 million people, Spock's 37 could be a simple subset, the figure of people killed by despotic orders and excluding all battlefield dead. For WWII, Spock gave 11 million, which could well represent the number of people executed in death camps or on the field by the Nazis and the Japanese (and by some minor players) for "reasons" of despotic whim. It can't be the total death toll of that war, though, as even the historically challenged Spock could not be that badly mistaken about numbers, his usual forte.
(For WWI, he gave six million, which is more difficult to explain as despotic whim. Any ideas on which 6-million-strong part of WWI casualties could be thus labeled?)
In the end, then, one could say that there were many wars between WWII and WWIII, one bunch of them being the Eugenics Wars where 30-35 million people died. There could have been other wars running in parallel, forming a continuum - but WWIII could still be a distinct entity, with a sharp beginning and ending in the 2050s.
Timo Saloniemi
Moreover, mankind at large apparently knew the exact number of completed Augments, so that at the end of the wars, it could be ascertained that no more or less than 80 were unaccounted for. That probably wouldn't be less than one percent of the total, or more than ten percent...
OTOH, I find it unlikely that Khan was the most prominent of the supermen, or else our heroes would have recognized him faster - and his original disappearance would have made far greater headlines. I mean, Hitler's charred corpse didn't quell rumors that he might still be alive after 1945; Khan apparently didn't even leave a fake corpse behind, or else our heroes would have commented on that.
More probably, Khan was one of the lesser princes, perhaps exactly because he was one of the more benevolent ones. He ruled mere millions and never raised enough ire that anybody would have been interested in hunting him down at the conclusion of the wars. He may have been one of the smarter Augments, with more futuristic technologies and key resources under his command, but he probably wasn't the person who'd make Time's Man of the Year cover in either 1993 or 1996.
I suppose the lingering resentment toward the collateral damage caused by Americans (and American nukes?) might have been a root cause of World War III, obviating the need to consoldiate the two wars.
We could just as well say that EW and WWIII had nothing to do with each other to begin with. There are only two Trek factoids that would tie them together, after all, and both can be tackled.
1) Spock says that the mid-1990s was the "era" of the last world war. McCoy responds by saying "Eugenics War". We can easily assume that McCoy was doing what he usually did with Spock's statements: correcting them. That is, Spock, who evidently had a flimsy grasp of Earth history, was mistaken about "the WWIII era" being a good name for all of the late 20th and early 21st century (thus including the mid-1990s), while the native McCoy knew that this specific sub-era was commonly called "the Eugenics Wars era" instead.
Indeed, this would well fit the spirit of the teaser and beginning of the first act of "Space Seed", where Kirk, Spock and McCoy compete in making bold statements that turn out to be dead wrong the very next moment. Kirk and Spock play that funny one-upmanship game with DY model specs, after exchanging "knowledge" on whether the ship could be of Earth origin or not, and then McCoy joins in with statements about whether there could be crew aboard, whether it could be alive, whether it could be human. Everybody is dead wrong, and everybody else takes perverse delight in this. Spock's "history lesson" would perfectly fit this general bill.
2) Archer in "Cold Station 12" says that the EW had a death toll in the 30-35 million range. Spock in "Bread and Circuses" says WWIII had a death toll of 37 million. But this could be a mere coincidence, as several separate late 20th century and early 21st century wars could plausibly have death tolls ranging in tens of millions.
Moreover, Spock was actually saying that those 37 million dead in WWIII would be the ones "familiar with" what the pseudo-Roman victims of despotism were experiencing. Considering Riker's later statement that WWIII killed 600 million people, Spock's 37 could be a simple subset, the figure of people killed by despotic orders and excluding all battlefield dead. For WWII, Spock gave 11 million, which could well represent the number of people executed in death camps or on the field by the Nazis and the Japanese (and by some minor players) for "reasons" of despotic whim. It can't be the total death toll of that war, though, as even the historically challenged Spock could not be that badly mistaken about numbers, his usual forte.
(For WWI, he gave six million, which is more difficult to explain as despotic whim. Any ideas on which 6-million-strong part of WWI casualties could be thus labeled?)
In the end, then, one could say that there were many wars between WWII and WWIII, one bunch of them being the Eugenics Wars where 30-35 million people died. There could have been other wars running in parallel, forming a continuum - but WWIII could still be a distinct entity, with a sharp beginning and ending in the 2050s.
Timo Saloniemi
), but Khan ain't no Clark Kent. Treble strength and double intelligence are individually terrifying, but collectively insignificant, and I should point out well within the bounds of human diversity as it stands. There walk among us "Augments" today. A Thousand Augment takeover scenario would suggest that all MIT has to do is pump its graduates full of steroids, and the world is theirs.
