I've been thinking about how the majority of Earth's history in Star Trek (both Prime and Kelvin) is influenced by the fact that the original show was made in the 1960s. Due to a (in my opinion, rightful) predilection towards maintaining a consistent canon there has been reluctance to alter or retcon Earth's history to match the ensuing 50+ years.
While I appreciate this, it does cause some oddities. Weird choices for the look and function of future tech (looking at you PADDs!), inconsistencies that require big stretches to reconcile (or are outright ignored), and a sort of disconnect with the viewer. Star Trek is no longer the future that could be, rather the future that wasn't to be.
So, while I love the Prime timeline and want it to continue in TV I think it would be an interesting exercise to see how the future would develop from a modern present, whether thats in the form of a book, comic, limited mini-series, what have you. I also don't think that Prime events and characters need to be juryrigged into this new quantum reality, so unlike the books which tried to squeeze the Eugenics Wars into being a shadow conflict which presented itself to the public as the First Gulf War, unrest in the Balkans, the collapse of the USSR, etc if Khan and the Eugenics Wars don't make sense they don't need to exist.
So if the goal is to create stories around a group of human and alien explorers belonging to an egalitarian, post-scarcity and post-labor society centered around an Earth that "got better" how would that go? How could Star Trek be birthed from our current world?
Most science fiction outside of Trek with our Earth as its historical backdrop present gloomy futures, the one great enduring part of Trek is the idea that humans have the ability to be better as a whole.
This whole discussion is based on a false premise. The false premise is that
Star Trek history is the same as our history up until the 1964-1969 production and broadcasting of TOS, and then begins to diverge from ours. No doubt that is what the creators of various
Star Trek productions imagine.
But because various writers had bad memories or inadequate historical knowledge or were careless, and because the staff didn't notice and correct all of their errors, Earth history in
Star Trek before the 1960s is also different from real history just like Earth history in the fifty years from 1969 to 2019 in
Star Trek is different from real history.
So when did the alternate universe of
Star Trek diverge from our universe? This is where it gets interesting.
There are many inaccurate historical statements in various
Star Trek productions, some of which are so wrong they can only be explained by
Star Trek happening in an alternate universe. But there are many other historical statements in various
Star Trek productions which seem to be correct and indicate that
Star Trek had not yet diverged from ours when those historical events happened. And there is no period of time that all of the accurate historical statements are before, and all of the inaccurate statements are after, as you would expect if the alternate universes of
Star Trek and our history diverged at one point in time.
Instead the accurate and the inaccurate historical statements are both scattered across centuries and millennia of Earth history. One or more accurate historical statements are followed by one or more inaccurate historical statements which are followed by one or more accurate historical statements which are followed by one or more inaccurate historical statements which are followed by one or more accurate historical statements and so on and so on through the ages of Earth history.
So the universe of
Star Trek seems to get different from ours and then become the same as ours and then become different, over and over.
And it seems like it is extremely improbable for two alternate universe to ever become the same again, once they have started to diverge. Let alone the same two alternate universes doing it over and over.
The odds against two universes, once separated, becoming the same again should be many times higher than the odds against getting a royal fizzbin according to Kirk in "A Piece of the Action".
KIRK: Yes, but what you're after is a royal fizzbin, but the odds in getting a royal fizzbin are astron. Spock, what are the odds in getting a royal fizzbin?
SPOCK: I have never computed them, Captain.
KIRK: Well, they're astronomical, believe me. Now, for the last card. We'll call it a kronk. You got that?
Therefore there must be some, probably conscious, force that makes our universe and that of
Star Trek become similar again once they start to drift apart. Possibly that force acts to make many universes become more like ours, or possibly it acts to make many universes more like that of
Star Trek, which might indicate that God is a
Star Trek fan.
And it should be noted that some
Star Trek events considered to be past events might still be future events.
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.
SPOCK: Of course. Your attempt to improve the race through selective breeding.
The Eugenics Wars in roughly 1993.33 SS to 1996.66 SS (Space Seed calendar) will be the last of Earth's world wars.
And:
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.
In
Star Trek: First Contact Picard and his crew travel back in time to Earth on the day before 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.
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.
DATA: Precisely.
So the Third World War was approximately 10 years before 2063 in the First Contact calendar, or about 2053 FC.
And apparently the Third World War abut 2053 FC will be the last world war on Earth:
RIKER: It is one of the pivotal moments in human history, Doctor. You get to make first contact with an alien race, and after you do, everything begins to change.
LAFORGE: Your theories on warp drive allow fleets of starships to be built and mankind to start exploring the Galaxy.
TROI: It unites humanity in a way no one ever thought possible when they realise they're not alone in the universe. Poverty, disease, war. They'll all be gone within the next fifty years.
Therefore both the Eugenics Wars in roughly 1993.33 SS to 1996.66 SS (Space Seed calendar) and the Third World war in about 2053 FC (First Contact calendar) must be the last of Earth's world wars, meaning that they are the same conflict. And that means that roughly 1993.33 SS to 1996.66 SS is the same era as about 2053 FC (First Contact calendar), making year one in the Space Seed calendar about 58 to 65 years after year one in the First Contact calendar, and making 2018 SS, when space travel becomes much faster, about 2076 to 2083 FC, which may be approximately when Earth's first warp drive ships are launched.
And of course it is uncertain what dates the Eugenics Wars and First Contact have in
Anno Domini dating.
Therefore, not only do the Eugenics wars happen in an alternate universe to ours, but they could happen in a date which might still be sometime in the future in AD 2019.
