What happened on Earth between 2063 and 2079, and after? How was United Earth founded?

[Nightdiamond]

Honestly, the more I think about the "added details" that TNG provided about Earth's 21st Century, the more I just want to scream.

I'm not a "Rodenberry's VISION" guy by any stretch, but I have always believed that Star Trek's most precious message is that we survived into the future without dropping nukes on each other and by our own efforts and gradual growth.

Instead, we've got a legacy of thermonuclear war, the "post atomic horror" and the fact that we couldn't get our shit together without aliens helping us.

I don't know....it always bothered me. It kind of takes the magic away from what Star Trek was originally trying to say I guess.

Well, Roddenberry's earliest contribution to that was "Omega Glory" where the claim was made that Earth dodged the nuclear bullet. But that one only aired after "Bread and Circuses" where "Roddenberry Trek" established that the first three World Wars were just for starters... And the post-atomic horror came straight out of Roddenberry's own pen.

Both in-universe and backstage, we're hard pressed to find a period of time when Earth being nuked to bits by us stupid barbaric Earthlings would not have been a thing. Although TOS sort of pushed the idea that those barbarian genocidees were romantic figures and affable tyrants and whatnot, while only TNG made everybody from before 2161 a knuckle-dragging and drooling not-so-great ape.

He said there were "very few" governments left. He didn't say there were none left.

The USA was one those that survived the war. We know this because the war took place in 2053, yet in a TNG ep there is a US flag with 52 stars on it, and somebody says this places the flag as coming from anywhere between 2033 and 2079.

I initially thought that humans fought and fought and maybe there was a nuclear exchanged that finally convinced humans to change for the better.

Until the destruction porn set in. The Eugenics Wars that seemed like WW3 in TOS that was seemingly downgraded and replaced with another WW3. Then the Eugenics Wars seemed to get downgraded again in Voyager--they time traveled to earth in the mid 90's and there's no mention of it.

Then the weird version of WW3 in Encounter at Farpoint that made it look like humanity got it bad. Then WW3 from First Contact that has the US in tact--sort of. They're experimenting with warp ships and drinking in bars.

It became such a mess instead of keeping it relatively simple.

 

[Dukhat]

I did not make anything up.

Without proof, why should I believe you?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

the Eugenics Wars seemed to get downgraded again in Voyager--they time traveled to earth in the mid 90's and there's no mention of it.

The USA was not affected by the Eugenics Wars.

 

[Arpy]

TNG is my favorite series but I think it’s as sci-fi as transporters the idea that we’d bounce back from a post-atomic horror like that in “Encounter at Farpoint.” It’s way more likely we’d dwindle and disappear entirely after such a war, if few even survived it. The utopia wouldn’t spring from that diseased desperate pack of survivors if it can’t cone from this healthy wealthy world of billions. Maybe they got that and that’s why they retconned it to have been (somehow) less devastating in FC — it wouldn’t be if the US and China/Russia went “MAD.”

 

[Guy Gardener]

Without proof, why should I believe you?

You don't have to believe me.

But years from now when you are rebinging Enterprise, and you see it, you are going to feel silly.

 

[Guy Gardener]

TNG is my favorite series but I think it’s as sci-fi as transporters the idea that we’d bounce back from a post-atomic horror like that in “Encounter at Farpoint.” It’s way more likely we’d dwindle and disappear entirely after such a war, if few even survived it. The utopia wouldn’t spring from that diseased desperate pack of survivors if it can’t cone from this healthy wealthy world of billions. Maybe they got that and that’s why they retconned it to have been (somehow) less devastating in FC — it wouldn’t be if the US and China/Russia went “MAD.”

Say the billionaires, Governments and Churches all each had ark/bunkers, underground with enough resources for 20 years, for a few thousand people. So by 2074, they climb tot he surface, with machine guns and shoot the worst looking mutants and buy loyalty with tins of baked beans from the rest.

Oh.

They had hibernation technology.

Millions of fine people could have slept through the apocalypse.

 

[Dukhat]

You don't have to believe me.

But years from now when you are rebinging Enterprise, and you see it, you are going to feel silly.

Don’t worry, that’s not going to happen.

 

[diankra]

He said there were "very few" governments left. He didn't say there were none left.

The USA was one those that survived the war. We know this because the war took place in 2053, yet in a TNG ep there is a US flag with 52 stars on it, and somebody says this places the flag as coming from anywhere between 2033 and 2079.

Pretty sure it's Riker who does that, adding (unintended) context to his FC comment.

 

[NCC-73515]

Are Vulcans alcoholics?

Maybe they were, then it was declared a secret, and that's why Spock said they were spared the effects of alcohol.

You don't have to believe me.
But years from now when you are rebinging Enterprise, and you see it, you are going to feel silly.

I did, last year, and haven't seen what you describe.

 

[Unimatrix Q]

Are Vulcans alcoholics?

Zeph is really good at getting people drunk.

Maybe they liked it?

Trillions of gallons of wine and spirits would have been trapped in bombed out cities across planet Earth, that wouldn't be too hard for a ship with a transporter to skim up, a few thousand liters at a time.

See!

Humanity had value.

Didn't Spock drink some romulan ale in TUC? I can't remember him having any problems with that.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I was more thinking about at the end of First Contact where the Vulcan is being peer pressured to drink by Zeph.

Romulans have ale.

Go back far enough, all Vulcans used to be Romulans.

This means that if Vulcans are teetotal, maybe that's part of the conversion process, and why they fought against each other so hard. Romulans refused to give up meat and alcohol. They evacuated the planet, rather than put up with that preaching hipster bullshit a second longer than necessary.

 

[Timo]

Or then the causality order was the reverse: once the Romulans were gone, the ones remaining behind were at loss to find ways to vent their aggressions and for the first time had to actually resort to Surakist teachings about abstinence, stoicism and general masochism. A desperate movement to shave all the beards and ban all the pleasures took time to implement, but in the end, homicide statistics finally went down as everybody just concentrated really, really hard on not having the next drink or dame or duel.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Guy Gardener]

Drunken telepaths.

If they are telepathically projecting drunkenness like a virus (Vorrik infecting B'Elanna with ponfar.).

Entire cities could turn into a slobbery messes becuase of one bottle of vino.

Vulcan is a dry planet.

 

[Tenacity]

It’s way more likely we’d dwindle and disappear entirely after such a war

Maybe that is the whole point, that we didn't wither away, lose our civilization, and revert to hunter-gathers. We went beyond mere survival, we confronted our adversities, conquered what we faced and grew.

We didn't gently stroll into the future.

if few even survived it.

My understanding of Riker's statement in FC is that the majority of Humanity at the time survived. This is one of the reasons I think the third world war was between a limited number of combative nations and not a war that involved the entire planet.

Just like the first and second world wars.

The utopia wouldn’t spring from that diseased desperate pack of survivors

Who better?

 

[Arpy]

Maybe that is the whole point, that we didn't wither away, lose our civilization, and revert to hunter-gathers. We went beyond mere survival, we confronted our adversities, conquered what we faced and grew.

That’s the part I honestly don’t think is realistic. It suggests reason but a lack of reason would have gotten us there in the first place, and it’s too late by that point. We just become another forgotten alien of the week who destroyed themselves.

My understanding of Riker's statement in FC is that the majority of Humanity at the time survived. This is one of the reasons I think the third world war was between a limited number of combative nations and not a war that involved the entire planet.

Thereby not being a Third World War in the way we imagine one. It would also be a stroke of cosmic luck if at some point we didn’t go all out with the nukes killing us all. Or, having survived a limited nuclear war in III, didn’t allow for madmen to push our luck and kill us all in IV.

Who better?

Anyone but. I think Trek’s idea here is romantic nonsense. People by and large are nasty in nasty situations.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Eastern Coalition

An Earlier draft said "China" was the baddie.

Racist?

Missing out on that sweet, sweet yen?

Script amended.

Books said that it's Khan's territory after Khan split.

 

[Arpy]

Eastern Coalition

An Earlier draft said "China" was the baddie.

Racist?

Missing out on that sweet, sweet yen?

Script amended.

Books said that it's Khan's territory after Khan split.

I actually hoped it was more dire than that. It was the Eastern Seaboard Coalition and everything had fallen apart completely. The Chinese had their own factions to worry about, among whoever remained. The population should have been about 2 billion left....enough that could have bounced back strong, but also enough to suggest the horror of the situation.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Remember how Jean-Luc had to underline that he was not part of the Eastern Coalition.

Does he look all that Chinese?

We hear Picard as an Englishman becuase of the Universal translators in the TV/Movie cameras... But unless France lost a war, obviously they lost a war, but to anyone without a universal translator, Jean-Luc Picard sounds French.

The Eastern (European) Coalition.

 

[diankra]

Well, in Doctor Who there have been five world wars by 5000AD (the Doctor says that the Peking Homuncolous almost started WW6, so maybe it didn't happen, but obviously the previous five had).

 

[NCC-73515]

We hear Picard as an Englishman becuase of the Universal translators in the TV/Movie cameras... But unless France lost a war, obviously they lost a war, but to anyone without a universal translator, Jean-Luc Picard sounds French.

DATA: That's from an obscure language called French.
PICARD: Mister Data, the French language for centuries on Earth represented civilisation.
http://www.chakoteya.net/NextGen/104.htm