Khan question

[Timo]

Apparently, the Augments were created by perfectly ordinary (if perhaps supervillainous) humans who wanted tools with an edge. That they grabbed power might have been an unexpected anomaly, or then part of the greater plan. That they held on to that power, rather than ceding it to their masters, must have been an anomaly, though.

Just having the supermen removed from dictatorial power would not end their originally planned usefulness. After 1996, they might well have been the shock troops of their masters, highly valued for their skills, but considered monsters and abominations by everybody else, and the wars would not end until the last of them was not merely subdued but at the very least neutered (or put in ice, rather literally) and preferably killed. And that might take decades of doing.

Of course, the war would probably go from high profile to low profile with the downfall of Khan, explaining why California wasn't all that interested in it any more in "Future's End".

Anyway, odds are, if the East had supermen, so did the West. It'd be uninspired to think that only one side in WWIII would have benefited from a bit of Augmentation...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[EJA]

"Space Seed" says that Khan was actually one of the more benevolent Augment dictators, and treated his subjects relatively well, and didn't get involved in any conflict until he was attacked....by whom? Other Augments? Or maybe his own subjects who, when they heard about the atrocities committed by Khan's brethren, became frightened that Khan would turn on them, and so rose up against his regime?

And what are the chances that Khan's empire did not include Iraq?

I wouldn't mind hearing the thoughts of some professional Trek authors on this whole matter; they always have something interesting to say. Christopher? KRAD?

 

[Satyrquaze]

Incidentally, I now believe that the Eugenics Wars occur around the 2040s, mainly because I reckon it stretches credibility a bit too far to have the current situation with the War on Terror, Iraq invasion, etc, happen after Khan.

Course, Khan clearly says in TWoK that he was from 1996.

 

[Mr Silver]

Khan may have been from 1996, but who knows when the Eugenics Wars really started, Khan could have seized power of Asia, the other Augments started to get nasty and he spent time fighting them and their allies, until he blasted off, meanwhile things cooled down slightly, Asia eventually became a Warzone and leading up to WW III, the Eugenics War broke out in full, ended rather swiftly, the Augments were defeated, Countries destablalised and Nuclear War broke out

 

[Satyrquaze]

So, we're going with the idea that Khan had nothing directly to do with the Eugenics War? Is that it?

 

[EJA]

And if Earth had DY-100s by 1996, how come spaceflight technology had regressed by the 2030s, with the Ares IV module in VOY "One Small Step"? That was a lot more primitive than the DY-100.

 

[C.E. Evans]

^^^
Kinda like how we went from manned vehicles capable of lunar landings in the 1960s to orbiters today?

 

[Galileo7]

^^^
Kinda like how we went from manned vehicles capable of lunar landings in the 1960s to orbiters today?

Sad, but so very true.

 

[T'Girl]

And by this time next year not even orbiters. (sigh)

 

[Timo]

And if Earth had DY-100s by 1996, how come spaceflight technology had regressed by the 2030s, with the Ares IV module in VOY "One Small Step"? That was a lot more primitive than the DY-100.

Was it? Earth to Mars within a week, that's how fast the rescue mission was said to be. That's actually better than DY-100, which was said to require suspended animation for interplanetary travel. Nobody would have to be frozen on a week-long trip to Mars, or a month-long one to Saturn...

Which is consistent with "Space Seed" where it was claimed that the DY-100 method of interplanetary travel was outdated in 2018 by propulsive improvements. When you have ship that's so much faster, you don't really need the luxury interiors of the Botany Bay...

The one oddity that stands out is the lack of artificial gravity aboard the Ares IV. Perhaps people still tended to shut it down when it wasn't really needed (that is, when there weren't accelerations in odd and inconvenient directions), because they simply liked freefall?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[FormerLurker]

That might have been more because of the limited crew complement on the Ares IV, if I remember the episode correctly. That was the one with Phil Morris, right?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ Yep.

And with a ship that small, with only three crewmembers, you really don't need artificial gravity.

Then again, all we saw of the Ares IV in operation was the command module in orbit. We don't know what the fully assembled ship looked like when it was on its way to Mars. There might have been some sections that were in gravity.

As for the DY-100: Is there any evidence that it was part of any Earth military? It could have been a privately owned ship, couldn't it? Thus whoever financed and built it might have had access to technology that the nations of Earth didn't yet. Hell, Khan himself might have had a hand in it.

 

[EJA]

There is of course the Eugenics Wars novels which explain how the Eugenics Wars happened within actual history of the 1990s, and therefore likely still the history of the 2000s from being the same as well.

I no longer go by anything in those books, seeing as how ENT contradicted them with its depiction of the Wars.

 

[Timo]

As for the DY-100: Is there any evidence that it was part of any Earth military? It could have been a privately owned ship, couldn't it? Thus whoever financed and built it might have had access to technology that the nations of Earth didn't yet. Hell, Khan himself might have had a hand in it.

It makes perfect sense that the Augments would originally have been created for a purpose. They might be good infantrymen, but they'd probably make for better strategists and scientists. Before they made themselves known in 1993, they probably worked for various governments all over the globe, churning out scientific and technological marvels and vast plans of world control for their masters.

OTOH, while DY-100 might have contained some "proprietary" elements, ships of that category certainly weren't secret, or unavailable to the great nations of Earth. "Space Seed" establishes that DY-100 represented the norm of a bygone day, and was soon replaced by something better, not by something worse.

The facts: DY-100 production ceased in the 1990s, and in 2018 something was introduced thanks to which it no longer took years to get from planet to planet. Put together, this would suggest significantly lower performance for the Botany Bay than for Ares IV. If there ever was a drop in performance, due to deep secrets being lost in the Eugenics Wars or something, it was over by 2018 and doesn't explain anything.

The timeline is unclear overall. We know the Augments went public in 1993 and the last of them ceased to be in a ruling position in 1996, but they might have been at work for various masters, or as their own masters, for unknown periods of times before and after. The Eugenics Wars might have been raging long before the Augments went public, and continued long after Khan's de-throning. Indeed, perhaps the Augments were designed as response to the Eugenics Wars, be it by the side that opposed eugenics (since they preferred genetic engineering), or by the side that supported it (because selective breeding was said to have featured in the creation of Khan).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

There is of course the Eugenics Wars novels which explain how the Eugenics Wars happened within actual history of the 1990s, and therefore likely still the history of the 2000s from being the same as well.

I no longer go by anything in those books, seeing as how ENT contradicted them with its depiction of the Wars.

I don't think it did.

 

[The Wormhole]

Aside from the fact that Enterprise intorduced the term "Augments" for Khan and his followers, which of course is never used in the books, I don't see how Enterprise contradicted the books either.

 

[Timo]

One argument put forth is that ENT specified 30-35 million casualties, while the books supposedly don't feature anything approaching this sort of mayhem (either in the form of conventional war or deliberate starvation or clandestine poisoning of populations or whatnot).

Another is that DY-100 in the books is some sort of a secret spacecraft significantly more advanced than "world standard", whereas "Space Seed" already established it was an old workhorse that represented the lowest end of Earth's spaceflight capabilities in the 1990s. Even if it were secret from the 1990s general population, competing spacecraft of similar performance would already be common, and supposedly not at all secret.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[EJA]

^Not to mention the fact that according to ENT, Khan was fully capable of creating perfectly good Augment embryos, whereas in the EW books they never got that far. Yup, I'd call those pretty valid reasons for ignoring the novels.

 

[T'Girl]

Or with going with the superior explanation in the various novels and ignoring small select potions of ENT.

Certain statement by individuals on ENT might be the result of mis-remembered history classes, or a lack of knowledge to start with. Soong had an agenda, so how much of what he said could be trusted?

 

[Timo]

Umm...

...The part backed by rows upon rows of Augment embryos?

...Or the part written down by numerous historians who then engage in scholarly debate on whether 30 or 35 million died? Mentioned by a variety of protagonists and antagonists, including Soong, Phlox and Archer?

The aired stuff forms a consistent whole. A few of the novels stick out like sore thumbs. If anything's going to be considered "rumor" or "interpretation", why not those? They could be "entertainment written for the 24th century audience", or something like that.

Timo Saloniemi