USSR in the 24th century?
- Thread starter EJA
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True enough - and many things about Sulu might suggest Asian nationality, just like many things about Uhura hint at African nationality. But Sulu is an American, or at least San Franciscoan; we never learn that Uhura would actually have ties to the continent of Africa.
So quite possibly Scotty lives in New Hampshire and merely likes to visit the city where his great-granduncle once built mighty steamships.
Timo Saloniemi
So quite possibly Scotty lives in New Hampshire and merely likes to visit the city where his great-granduncle once built mighty steamships.
Timo Saloniemi
Much like "Starship Class" from TOS is ignored.
Ronald Reagan? The actor?
Well that would depend on Amanda Grayson's ancestry, while never mention on the show, her accent did seem to be mid-Atlantic, and in one of the novels she had ancestors who came from my hometown of Seattle, Washington, USA.
Which could make Spock (partially) an American.
These days, whole populations are about to get bombed out of existence every other day. Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Lybia. And "Dark Ages" is only a matter of interpretation.
Quite possibly, American leaders just didn't bother to tell their troops that the enemy is a bunch of genetically engineered supermen. Aging Saddam Hussein looks a whole lot less menacing than young and strong Ricardo Montalban.
Fairly possible. Although many sources, including official 1967 writer's bible, state that "Uhura was born in the United States of Africa", while Sulu is described as "mixed Oriental in ancestry, Japanese predominating, Sulu is contemporary American in speech and manner." In both cases it's a part of the character background, even though it wasn't explicitly said.
I bet the characterizations of Uhura and Sulu were "Americanized" because the show was produced there and the target audience was primarily American.
They chose to follow it through with Sulu, making him canonically American while hiding the particulars of his "mixed Oriental" ancestry. Yet Uhura was left dangling, although it's pretty suggestive that she hears the Salt Vampire speak Swahili to her. Would an American have Swahili as her native or household language? It's not that useful outside its Arabic/French cultural context.
Of course, it seems that Starfleet really does train all its officers in San Francisco, probably Americanizing them quite a bit in the process - including sending them to field trips to Iowan shipyards..
Timo Saloniemi
My view is that this was an attempt at predicting the future which looks dated now, as it did not anticipate the collapse of the USSR in 1991.
In a similar vein to this would be Picard's comment in "The Royale", in which he says that like Fermi's Last Theory it's a puzzle we may never solve. It did not anticipate that in 1995 someone would come along and solve it, and indeed failing that it doesn't seem unreasonable to assume that someone in the Trekverse could have come along and solved it sometime before the 24th century (after all it may have been crucial in order to become a warp capable society).
Anyway, I'm just waffling, but that's my two cents.
In a similar vein to this would be Picard's comment in "The Royale", in which he says that like Fermi's Last Theory it's a puzzle we may never solve. It did not anticipate that in 1995 someone would come along and solve it, and indeed failing that it doesn't seem unreasonable to assume that someone in the Trekverse could have come along and solved it sometime before the 24th century (after all it may have been crucial in order to become a warp capable society).
Anyway, I'm just waffling, but that's my two cents.
Actually, he doesn't say that.
What he says is that mankind will never find out what Fermat's own solution to his Theorem (the one he mentions in the margins of his notebook) would have been. And that's probably going to be true in all universes - the solution we have now could never have been figured out by Fermat, after all.
The majority opinion nowadays is that Fermat didn't have the proof. Either his claim to such was an attempt at humor, or then he was mistaken. But people in Picard's time, at least some people, might think differently.
Indeed, in "The Royale", Picard already sort of implies that Fermat's Theorem has been solved, but with the "cheating" help of computers.
Timo Saloniemi
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