Along with the epic stakes rising, is the disaster porn. I noticed a lot of large scale disasters and destruction that increases with each series.
TOS started with the Eugenics war which killed 30 million. DS9 has the Breen attack earth. TNG makes WW3 a separate incident, 600 million killed. The Cardassians are decimated by the Dominion, close to a billion. The Xindi from Enterprise appear out of nowhere, and attack earth, 7 million.
Then the JJ movies has the entire planet Romulus destroyed, and later Vulcan.
The problem with all this is, the more destruction they showed the less I started reacting to it later. By the time they showed the Xindi attack, Romulas and Vulan being destroyed, I had almost no reaction.
I know I was supposed to, but so much of it was piled on at that point, that I just didn't.
In the opening of TOS episode "The Changeling":
KIRK: Any response from the Malurians, Lieutenant?
UHURA: Nothing since their original distress call, sir.
KIRK: What about the Federation science team working there? Doctor Manway had a special transmitter.
UHURA: There's nothing, sir. I'm scanning all frequencies.
KIRK: They have to answer.
SPOCK: Captain. They will not answer. The long-range sensor sweep of this system reveals no sign of life.
KIRK: That can't be. The last census reported a total inhabitation of more than four billion people.
SPOCK: I register no life readings at all, sir.
And later Earth is threatened with the same fate:
SPOCK: Even worse. Nomad just now made a reference to its launch point, Earth.
KIRK: Spock, do you think it's possible that it got a fix on Earth when it tapped the computers earlier?
SPOCK: I do not believe there is much beyond Nomad's capabilities.
KIRK: And we've shown it the way home. And when it gets there
SPOCK: It will find the Earth infested with imperfect biological units.
KIRK: And it will carry out its prime directive. Sterilise.
KIRK: Then you will continue to destroy that which thinks and lives and is imperfect?
NOMAD: I shall continue. I shall return to launch point Earth. I shall sterilise.
So the stakes got very large scale in some TOS episodes, and sometimes millions and billions of people died.
...
TOS started with the Eugenics war which killed 30 million... TNG makes WW3 a separate incident, 600 million killed...
In "Space seed":
SPOCK: No such vessel listed. Records of that period are fragmentary, however. The mid=1990s was the era of your last so-called World War.
MCCOY: The Eugenics Wars.
So Spock and McCoy established that the last so called world war on Earth is also known as the Eugenics Wars. Thus the list of world wars on Earth that was taught in schools when Spock and McCoy attended ends with the Eugenics Wars. The Eugenics Wars might be listed as the Second World War, the Third World War, the Fourth World War, the Fifth World War, the Sixth World war, etc., but it was certainly listed as Earth's last world war when Spock and McCoy studied Earth History (possibly on different planets).
The mid 1990s in the calendar sued in "Space Seed" should be defined as lasting from approximately 1993.333 to 1996.666 in that calendar. Since interplanetary (and possibly interstellar) space travel became much faster around the year 2018 (about 2016 to 2020?) in the calendar used in "Space Seed" the Eugenics Wars were about 19.334 to 27.666 years before the time when interplanetary travel became much faster and the earliest possible time when warp capable ships could have been introduced.
Spock also describes that era as:
SPOCK: Your Earth was on the verge of a dark ages. Whole populations were being bombed out of existence...
This implies that maybe hundreds of millions of people were killed in the Eugenics Wars. Possibly billions.
In "The City on the Edge of Forever":
SPOCK: This is how history went after McCoy changed it. Here, in the late 1930s. A growing pacifist movement whose influence delayed the United States' entry into the Second World War. While peace negotiations dragged on, Germany had time to complete its heavy-water experiments.
KIRK: Germany. Fascism. Hitler. They won the Second World War.
This shows that the Second World War in the history books used by Kirk, and possibly also by Spock and McCoy, was the one with Hitler and the Nazis and more or less the equivalent of the Second World War in our history and in our lists of World Wars. Which means that the Eugenics Wars must have been World War III, World War IV, or later, but were definitely the last in the list of world wars on Earth in the era of Kirk.
in "Bread and Circuses":
SPOCK: They do seem to have escaped the carnage of your first three world wars, Doctor.
MCCOY: They have slavery, gladiatorial games, despotism.
SPOCK: Situations quite familiar to the six million who died in your first world war, the eleven million who died in your second, the thirty seven million who died in your third. Shall I go on?
This directly states that Earth had at least three world wars. And strongly implies there may have been more than three.
Earlier in the episode:
KIRK: What era?
SPOCK: No sign of atomic power as yet, but far enough along for radio communications, power transportation, an excellent road system.
UHURA: Captain, both amplitude and frequency modulation being used. I think I can pick up something visual. It's a news broadcast using a system I think they once called video.
SPOCK: Television was the colloquial term.
And:
KIRK: Slaves and gladiators. What are we seeing, a twentieth-century Rome?
This indicates that the planet in "Bread and Circuses" seems to be approximately as advanced as Earth was at a time somewhere between 1901 and 2000 in the Earth calendar used in "Bread and Circuses". So possibly Spock listed the first three world wars in Earth's history, the ones that happened before the approximate Earth equivalent of the planet's stage of development..
The thirty seven million who died in Spock's Third World War are a horrifyingly large number, but seem far too few for World War Three as it was imagined when "Bread and Circuses" was being produced, and also far too few for the whole populations being bombed out of existence in the Eugenics Wars. Thus it seems logical to deduce that the Eugenics wars were listed as World War Four, World War Five, or whatever, but were definitely after World War Three in Spock's historical list.
So your statement:
...
TOS started with the Eugenics war which killed 30 million...
Seems to be to be an inaccurate deduction. I believe that the Eugenics Wars in which whole populations were bombed out of existence was a later world war than the Third World War on Spock's list of Earth conflicts, a Third World War in which "only" 37,000,000 and not 30 million people were killed and which was much less bloody than the Eugenics Wars.
When they chase a Borg sphere back in time in
Star Trek: First Contact:
DATA: According to our astrometric readings we're in the mid twenty-first century. From the radioactive isotopes in the atmosphere I would estimate we have arrived approximately ten years after the Third World War.
RIKER: Makes sense. Most of the major cities have been destroyed. There are few governments left. Six hundred million dead. No resistance.
Clearly this Third World War must have been much more devastating than the Third World War in Spock's list of Earth's world wars. Therefore the more or less official list of Earth's world wars must have changed between when Spock studied Earth history and when Data and the other officers of the E-D studied Earth history.
Maybe Spock's First World War was left off the list because it wasn't big enough, which would make Data's Third World War equal to Spock's Fourth World War or a later one.
Maybe Spock's First and Second World Wars were left off the list because they weren't big enough, which would make Data's Third World War equal to Spock's Fifth World War or a later one.
Maybe Spock's First, Second and Third World Wars were left off the list because they weren't big enough, which would make Data's Third World War equal to Spock's Sixth World War or a later one.
Maybe Data's list of Earth's world wars included the Third, Fifth, and Sixth World Wars on Spock's list, but not the First, Second, Fourth, and Seventh World Wars on Spock's list.
Perhaps it is possible that Earth's last world war, the Eugenics wars, happened sometime after the Third World War of
Star Trek: First Contact.
But if so, there would not be much time for it to happen between the Eugenics Wars and
Star Trek: First Contact or after
Star Trek: First Contact and before Earth became peaceful.
As I said above: the Eugenics Wars were about 19.334 to 27.666 years before the time when interplanetary travel became much faster and the earliest possible time when warp capable ships could have been introduced.
A little while later in
Star Trek: First Contact:
PICARD: A missile complex? ...The date? Mister Data, I need to know the exact date.
DATA: April fourth, two thousand sixty-three.
PICARD: April fourth?
RIKER: The day before First Contact.
On April 4th in the year 2063 in the calendar used in
Star Trek: First Contact, Zefram Cochrane makes the first test flight of a warp drive ship and the Vulcans land to make First Contact with Earth. This leads to the rebuilding of Earth and in most interpretations a rather swift end to wars on Earth which means that in most interpretations the Eugenics Wars could not happen many years after First Contact.
And once Zefram Cochrane has invented the warp drive Earth people are eventually going to start building warp drive ships. Warp capable ships are definitely going to make interplanetary travel much faster and easier than it was before. How long after
Star Trek: First Contact do you think it will be before Earth stars building warp capable ships? Five years? Ten years? Fifteen years? Twenty years?
What do they say about interplanetary travel in the era of the Eugenics Wars in "Space Seed"?:
MARLA: Captain, it's a sleeper ship.
KIRK: Suspended animation.
MARLA: I've seen old photographs of this. Necessary because of the time involved in space travel until about the year 2018. It took years just to travel from one planet to another.
Obviously sleeper ships wouldn't be used once warp capable ships come into use, and if that might be five to twenty years after First Contact in 2063, it might be about 2068 to 2083.
As I wrote above:
The mid 1990s in the calendar used in "Space Seed" should be defined as lasting from approximately 1993.333 to 1996.666 in that calendar. Since interplanetary (and possibly interstellar) space travel became much faster around the year 2018 (about 2016 to 2020?) in the calendar used in "Space Seed" the Eugenics Wars were about 19.334 to 27.666 years before the time when interplanetary travel became much faster and the earliest possible time when warp capable ships could have been introduced.
So 2068.00 to 2083.999 minus about 19.334 to 27.666 years puts the latest possible dates for the Eugenics Wars, Earth's last world war, in about 2040.334 to 2064.665 in the calendar used in
Star Trek: First Contact.
Data's statement that the Third World War happened approximately ten years before 2063 in the calendar used in
Star Trek: First Contact puts it in about 2052 to 2054 - in the calendar used in
Star Trek: First Contact.
The possible date range for the Eugenics Wars puts it before, during, or after the Third World War in
Star Trek: First Contact. But since the Eugenics Wars were the last of Earth's world wars they must have happened during or after the Third World War of
Star Trek: First Contact.
Thus the Eugenics Wars happened sometime during the period of about 1993.333 to 1996.666 in the calendar used in "Space Seed" and also sometime during the period of 2052.000 to 2064.664 in the calendar used in
Star Trek: First Contact. Thus the first years of the two calendars are separated by about 55.334 to 71.331 years.
And this proves that the number of deaths in the Eugenics wars were not retconned between "Space Seed" and
Star Trek: First Contact to multiply the number of deaths twenty times. Instead the dialog in the movies and episodes indicates that Spock's last world war, the Eugenics Wars, was after his Third World War and had a different and probably much larger number of casualties.
