Khan #1 Review

[Christopher]

Doesn't making Trek entirely an "alternate timeline" thing kind of detract from the point of the show which was to show humanity's potential? If it isn't OUR future, that kind of makes the whole thing feel a bit hollow.

Except any viewer who is actually sane and understands the difference between fiction and reality would already know that it's not our real future. It's a bloomin' TV show with actors on sets in front of cameras. Everyone knows that. So obviously it's not meant to be a literal proposal for what the future could be. It's an aspirational symbol, a representation of what a better future could look like, a model for the kind of future we can potentially build. It's not about "This event will happen on this date in exactly this way" -- it's about "This is the way human beings could live and treat each other in a better world, if we work hard enough to make such a world."

 

[Nob Akimoto]

Well sure, it's not a literal proposal, but the more you move the "present" away from reality, the less aspirational it seems and the more fantastical.

If Star Trek's 1990s were much much different from our own, at some point I think it starts to get into the realm of "well maybe that's why things are better in the future" and less "we can work hard and work toward a future like that".

 

[Ovation]

Well sure, it's not a literal proposal, but the more you move the "present" away from reality, the less aspirational it seems and the more fantastical.

If Star Trek's 1990s were much much different from our own, at some point I think it starts to get into the realm of "well maybe that's why things are better in the future" and less "we can work hard and work toward a future like that".

But Star Trek's 1960s were already "much different from our own" (unless you think there were sub-orbital nuclear platforms then, or that sometime between 1968 and 2267/85, nostalgia for the Soviet Union would be so strong as to re-baptize St. Petersburg into Leningrad, among other things). And I don't recall anything remotely resembling the Eugenics Wars in the 1990s (whichever version of them you want to choose).

 

[JarodRussell]

See, that's the problem when they keep getting into the past of a 50 year old TV show. On screen continuity violates real world continuity ever since, especially when it comes to Khan and the Eugenic Wars.

And by 2063, you can completely forget it.

Just keep moving forward.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Side note: There is a model of the Botany Bay (with its booster rockets) on Rain Robinson's desk in this episode.

And a model of... a Talosian.

It's all a Pike illusion!

 

[beamMe]

And I don't recall anything remotely resembling the Eugenics Wars in the 1990s .

You probably missed the grand opening of the Millennium Gate too, didn't you?

 

[Therin of Andor]

You probably missed the grand opening of the Millennium Gate too, didn't you?

And the launches of Voyagers 3, 4, 5 and 6.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Well sure, it's not a literal proposal, but the more you move the "present" away from reality, the less aspirational it seems and the more fantastical.

If Star Trek's 1990s were much much different from our own, at some point I think it starts to get into the realm of "well maybe that's why things are better in the future" and less "we can work hard and work toward a future like that".

But generally, Trek's late 20th and early 21st centuries seem to be worse then ours. So if the Trek humans can still achieve the future we've seen, that can still be inspirational for us. Something like: "they had a rougher start and look what they accomplished; we can work hard and work toward a future like that too!"

Granted, Trek's space program in our era did seem to be more advanced than our reality. All those extra wars and conflicts must have really spurred them forward in that area...

 

[Noddy]

I'm of the opinion that in the Trekverse, the present day and the recent past unfolded pretty much as they did in reality. So they've had stuff like 9/11, the War on Terror, the global economic recession, etc, etc. The question is, if this comic's depiction of the Eugenics Wars in the 90's is going to be as huge and cataclysmic as it looks like it will, extending into the very heart of Western civilization, how on earth can history between then and now still have happened the way we experienced it?

 

[Noddy]

The thing is, in real world history, 9/11 is the single worst act of terrorism ever committed on US soil. If an entire city got a nuke dropped on it nine years earlier, would 9/11 have had the same effect it did? And with Washington nuked, that would be the White House out of the picture.

 

[Ovation]

There is NOTHING to suggest that Trek's 20th and 21st centuries are the same as the real world (broadly similar, yes, but not even close to identical) and I really think people should let go of all the twists and turns and tortured reasoning to try and shoehorn reality into Trek's "past". It's a lot less exasperating to consider Trek's "past" as fundamentally different from our present.

 

[Greg Cox]

It's worth pointing out that the 1996 seen in "Future's End" was probably an alternate timeline anyway, since once Voyager restored the timeline, Braxton had never gone back in time at all and thus the 20th-century timeline resulting from Starling getting his timeship was undone, presumably replaced with the original version of history.

I remember John Ordover and I once spent an hour or so on the phone trying to figure out whether the events of "Future's End" had been erased from the timeline or not. In the end, we never did pin it down, which is why I largely ignored "Future's End" in my Eugenics Wars books . . ..

 

[Noddy]

Has anyone read #3 yet? It gets even worse....

 

[Christopher]

I remember John Ordover and I once spent an hour or so on the phone trying to figure out whether the events of "Future's End" had been erased from the timeline or not. In the end, we never did pin it down, which is why I largely ignored "Future's End" in my Eugenics Wars books . . ..

It was John's arguments on this BBS that convinced me that it had to be an alternate timeline. He and I didn't see eye to eye on very many things, but I think he was right about this one.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ So if it's an alternate timeline:

1) Why does Braxton, in "Relativity", remember it? Even if all existing Braxtons were temporally integrated, the Future's End homeless-Braxton would still have to exist in order for them to come and collect him. And if so, how alternate could that timeline be?

2) Why does the EMH still have his holo-emitter?

 

[Christopher]

^ So if it's an alternate timeline:

1) Why does Braxton, in "Relativity", remember it? Even if all existing Braxtons were temporally integrated, the Future's End homeless-Braxton would still have to exist in order for them to come and collect him. And if so, how alternate could that timeline be?

Because the writers of "Relativity" forgot that the Braxton at the end of "Future's End" had no memory of having gone back in time. It was a major continuity error, one of the many bad ideas in that episode.

I would conjecture, though, that the TIA officers were able to access that alternate timeline and retrieve its version of Braxton, which they "integrated" with the other version, giving him the memories of that timeline. It's a sloppy fix, but then, they're sloppy episodes.

2) Why does the EMH still have his holo-emitter?

The same reason the Tasha Yar from "Yesterday's Enterprise" was able to survive in the Prime timeline, or the slightly alternate Chief O'Brien still existed after "Visionary," or future Harry Kim's message survived at the end of "Timeless." If someone or something originating from an alternate timeline is removed from that timeline, it will usually survive the "erasure" of said timeline. The only exception I'm aware of (in TNG's "Time Squared") was when the objects that vanished had duplicates surviving in the primary timeline, in which case I assume they quantum-merged back with their other selves. If there's no duplicate counterpart, then the person or item can survive in the new timeline. (There's also Spock Prime and Nero in the Abramsverse, but that's different because the Prime timeline wasn't undone, but continued to coexist.)

 

[JarodRussell]

People always say the Prime timeline coexists, but that was never actually shown on screen.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ But everybody knows it's true anyway, because the writers said so.

And really, you couldn't actually show it...

 

[F. King Daniel]

People always say the Prime timeline coexists, but that was never actually shown on screen.

And all that stuff we see on-screen? Picard's Nexus fantasy.

 

[JarodRussell]

^ But everybody knows it's true anyway, because the writers said so.

And really, you couldn't actually show it...

Have Old Spock spell it out clearly. But you know why he didn't? Because it would have reduced the stakes. "Don't worry, my Vulcan is still intact." So why should I bother as a Prime universe fan? Mirror Universe episodes never interested me beyond the trash factor either.