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

[MAGolding]

China and Chinese people still exist, as shown in the TNG episode Coming of Age.

Seeing Chinese people doesn't prove that China exists. I think I could see a few people of Chinese ancestry in any large public place in any city and some suburbs, etc., in the USA. As I remember, just yesterday there were about three characters with Chinese ancestry in an episode of Magnan set in Hawaii, and from what I've heard that wouldn't be very unusual there.

So even if some war or other disaster exterminated all life in China, there would still be millions of people of Chinese ancestry surviving all over the Earth.

 

[Guy Gardener]

After a small atomic exchange, the red army would not be paid any more, if the banks, electricity, the Internet, post offices, the telephones, and mass communication perish.

China would break up into thousands of duchies rules by Warlords unwilling to drive for a month to find out what the real skinny is from Beijing.

 

[Shaka Zulu]

After a small atomic exchange, the red army would not be paid any more, if the banks, electricity, the Internet, post offices, the telephones, and mass communication perish.

China would break up into thousands of duchies rules by Warlords unwilling to drive for a month to find out what the real skinny is from Beijing.

Or, the Chinese people realize that they're free of the CPC, and can have the democracy that they were to have when Sun-Yat-Sen founded the Chinese Republic back in 1911.

 

[Guy Gardener]

50 different people, hundreds of miles apart from one another, are going to come to that conclusion, and then get pissy two years later when they start running into each other as their republics start to bump heads, arguing over resources, and who is the real China.

 

[Prax]

I have a theory-

World War 3 caused the dissolution of the UN. Instead of two major victors(like ww2), there was one, and during the process of signing a long lasting peace, United Earth proponents took advantage of the widespread public support they now had, and a new more powerful UN(UE) was formed. Things looked optimistic for a few years, but after First Contact, an alliance of eastern nations rejected the UE, withdrew, and incidents like that seen in Encounter at Farpoint happened there. Universal peace on paper wouldn't bring instant safety and security to the whole world.


It took until the mid 22nd century for the UE to regain full membership, which was aided by the fact that Humans were leaving Earth to colonize the galaxy, new technologies were being discovered, a new space age economy began to thrive, and independence as a nation state became less relevant. A UE may not have been possible, but for the opening up of space travel to other worlds.

World War 3 must have been a fight between globalists and antiglobalist nations. I just can't see it being an old fashion war of territorial dominance, even for the whole world. Anyways, the globalists won.

The nation states definitely continue to exist, possibly even in the TNG era, but they are like the core provinces of the Roman empire in late antiquity. They still have different cultures, native languages, and countries, but they're totally romanized, speak Greek or Latin(or both), are Roman Citizens, and consider themselves "Roman" first. Likewise for the United Earth and its many nations.

 

[Amasov]

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.

Yeah, I agree with this. But I will say, despite us dropping nukes on one another, it didn't lead to human extinction. In fact, the number said to have died , which is just over half a billion seems relatively small, which suggests the war wasn't as "big" as we are led to believe.

And while we may have had help in our recovery phase, we still launched into warp flight ourselves, which led to us being contacted by the Vulcans.

Memory Beta also goes into some weird, but, interesting detail regarding the buildup and aftermath of WW3. For the materiel that doesn't quote a source, I'm not totally sure where a lot of it comes from.