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

[Arpy]

^ Earth SHOULD still be recovering from WWIII in the 22nd century. In some ways in the 23rd too. And the memorials and history lessons should continue until the end of Earth — WWIII could have been it for the humans.

I think Earth was still recovering from it on the 22nd century. Q’s plenty accurate. The pig monsters were for effect. Ditto his sassy chauvinist misanthropic attitude.

 

[Tenacity]

It just defies all logic that only a hundred years after a global thermonuclear war, there's no sign of that war ever having happened.

After a century, what kind of signs would be expect to remain? The radiation would be gone, the land recovered, survivors would mostly be gone.

There could be monuments in many places. Destroyed buildings, even entire cities, preserved perhaps.

Most of the world's major cities were in ruins

Give the death count and the recovery time this seem unlikely.

and only a short time after that, they're all rebuilt?

With the world population reduced by 600 million, many cities simply would not be immediately rebuilt because there would be no one to live in them.

Cities (many of them) are where they are for a reason and new communities might eventually reappear, but could be much smaller than the originals.

It would take a hundred years just to rebuild ONE CITY, let alone all of them.

How long to rebuild Hiroshima, fifteen to twenty years? It's bigger now than prior to the nuclear bombing.

And again there wouldn't be a pressing need to rebuild some of the cities.

How can you rebuild when there's nothing left to rebuild with?

The majority of the population were not killed, so there could be international aid from the outside for the survivors.

Recovery might not consist of returning everything to the state it was before the war. Recovery could mean helping survivors, rebuilding the international economy and trade, dealing with the repercussions outside the war zone. If the combatants were China and India (one possibility) then the world would have to realign without them as major players anymore.

I’m saying that it doesn’t jibe with how a Third World War is feared to go

I guess that comes down to what your preconceived idea of what a third world war is supposed to be. Nothing says it has to have been a massive nuclear exchange between America and Russia with tens of thousands of warheads.

Other than something vaguely called the Eastern Coalition we have no idea who the combatants were, America would seem to not have been one of the combatants.

 

[Arpy]

After a century, what kind of signs would be expect to remain? The radiation would be gone, the land recovered, survivors would mostly be gone.

We’re still dealing with the ramifications of slavery in the United States, and in the world. Everything is connected if not immediately apparent.

Also, honestly, I’m not comfortable with the idea of a magic wand disappearing the rest of it either.

How long to rebuild Hiroshima, fifteen to twenty years? It's bigger now than prior to the nuclear bombing.

Those were atomic bombings, not nuclear. The weapons we have now are much worse, and their effect would be exponential the more that were used.

People lost their minds when there are recessions, let alone wars — ones that actually effect us. The world borrowed heavily post war to rebuild, now multiply that by a thousand.

I guess that comes down to what your preconceived idea of what a third world war is supposed to be. Nothing says it has to have been a massive nuclear exchange between America and Russia with tens of thousands of warheads.

That is what was suggested in “Encounter...” Also, what I think would be more realistic, and more responsible a depiction given the subject matter.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

How long to rebuild Hiroshima, fifteen to twenty years?

That's different. Hiroshima could be rebuilt in a reasonable length of time, because the rest of the world still had its technology and infrastructure intact.

After World War III, though? You wouldn't have that luxury. A global thermonuclear war (and let's not kid ourselves here, that's exactly what WW3 would be, and everybody knows it) would destroy everything.

Like I said...you can't rebuild if there's nothing left to rebuild WITH.

 

[Nyotarules]

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.

The concept of a WW3 was mentioned in TOS so its nothing new

The impression I got from ENT was that the Vulcans held back technology not because they were expecting compensation, but because they were worried that humans would advance too quickly and become a threat to both themselves and the outside.

They were right, by the TOS era humans own the Federation

TNG episode where Crusher and Picard are telepathically joined, it is mentioned what if Australia failed to join the UE state, either that is a general what if or Australia took a while to join the UE, it might have recovered faster from WW3 than other nations and felt no need to combine politically. Plus the USA took part in WW1 and WW2 but watching a film or seeing photos taken in that era one could not tell since the fighting did not take place on its soil. Assuming a population of 8 billion in the Star Trek universe when WW3 strikes, 600 million dead is less than 10% of the population so there are still another 90% left to rebuild society.
If the USA lost over 30 million people today due to a major war would the USA as a state cease to function? I doubt it

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

TNG episode where Crusher and Picard are telepathically joined, it is mentioned what if Australia failed to join the UE state, either that is a general what if

That's how I always interpreted that bit. They didn't actually say that Australia didn't join, it was just mentioned as a purely hypothetical example.

 

[Nightdiamond]

To be fair, Roddenberry lived through WW2 and was a pilot during it. That can give you a skewered idea of humanity.

True, I think I even read something about that before.

It just seems ironic that they say he would reject DS9 or the Dominion war or some of the themes from DS9 when some of the ideas from TOS and TNG -- Eugenics wars-- an esteemed historian who tells a struggling alien society to copy Nazi Germany's example-- xenophobic Starfleet officers conspiring to assassinate their own president-- women not being allowed to be captains in Starfleet....

DS9 didn't have anything near that insane (well almost) . Some of TOS and TNG'S stuff was even darker in some ways.

Only because we trust the speakers to know history. Perhaps Picard really didn't know much about that time period. And Data gave a wrong date for his only graduation from the Academy, so we know his memory is faulty. Do you really trust Q to be accurate? A few weeks later he put pig-like creatures in 18th century French uniforms.

Idk, I just remember in that episode Data claims that humans in the 22nd century--2123 --were still struggling after WW3. He used the term "chaos". Troi later said that before that time, 50 years after Vulcan contact, all poverty, illness and war was eliminated.

I just boil it down to upgrading and downgrading situations. WW3 in early TNG was made to seem hugely catastrophic. Then it was slightly downgraded later on to seem that humans quickly recovered.

I guess that comes down to what your preconceived idea of what a third world war is supposed to be. Nothing says it has to have been a massive nuclear exchange between America and Russia with tens of thousands of warheads.

Other than something vaguely called the Eastern Coalition we have no idea who the combatants were, America would seem to not have been one of the combatants.

I tend to see a couple of problems when it comes to things like this. One is that Star Trek is pretty weak with world building. I mean a stable, detailed backstory or history on which the Trek Universe is built on. A lot of it is just vague and never seen, and the viewer has to fill in the details.

The other problem is that a lot of the world building you do see, is based statements from characters as they go along.

One statement, and WW3 is the Eugenics war. Another and WW3 is separate. One moment, someone says money is used. In another, someone says there is no money.

A lot of Trek's background and world building is vague.

 

[Timo]

TNG episode where Crusher and Picard are telepathically joined, it is mentioned what if Australia failed to join the UE state, either that is a general what if or Australia took a while to join the UE

There is little "if" about that - Australia by that statement absolutely was one out of the (unknown number of) nations that only joined at the last possible date, 2150. The unknown there is limited to whether any nation joined before the last possible date, thus making Australia and the putative others stand out as separatists. That is, did a United Earth exist before 2150 at all? (Sure, there's UESPA in the 2060s already, but that means little: organizations with United Earth in their name abound even today, without implying any factual unification.)

It's surprising we don't have this data, really. Even if no writer ever wanted to actually touch this, random references ought to have popped up to favor one model over another. Did the United States join in 2150, too, finally ditching its cumbersome 93½-star flag on that date? Or did the US spearhead the movement by giving up its independence in 2079, the last date at which we know for certain that the nation still existed? Or was this another League of Nations where the US was a launching force in 2065 or perhaps 2039 but refused to be a member, and later faded into obscurity for unrelated reasons, thus never being a 2150 signatory?

Despite all the decades and spinoffs that have passed, we still have to rely on "Encounter at Farpoint" for our one piece of relevant information. There, Q refers to "United Earth nonsense" having been abolished in 2079. Since the organization then rebounds and verifiably exists in 2150 at least, this is not all that informative: we may speculate that the UE came, went and came back, or then that the idea of the UE was buried for a while before its first practical execution came to be. But it's interesting that the year 2079 is chosen here, and again in "The Royale" to mark the end of the 52-star US flag. Did something big fail around that date? Or arise from the ashes around that date?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Unimatrix Q]

That's how I always interpreted that bit. They didn't actually say that Australia didn't join, it was just mentioned as a purely hypothetical example.

But one can extrapolate from it that Australia may have been the last nation which joined United Earth.

 

[Timo]

Yes. But Crusher had several nations to choose from there - she said "say, Australia", meaning there were other options.

OTOH, they absolutely said that Australia did join in 2150, because if even a single one got left behind in 2150, the criteria of Crusher's example would not work, as Earth would be just as disunited as KesPrytt.

So there isn't all that much "hypothetical" about it in the end.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Guy Gardener]

Earth wrote the Federation constitution, 10 years after the United Earth was founded, and 5 years after Terra Prime came "this close" to xenophobically pulling the United Earth apart. As the (almost probably) authors of the Federation charter, if they were not united, it is unlikely that they would penalize themselves for not living up to deal breaking aspirations that they had not already achieved.

You know, like how Adolf was not blond haired and blue eyed.

 

[Timo]

Yup. But if Earth weren't 100% united in 2150, the enlightened Crusher and Picard of the 24th century would not be saying "Hey, compare our rigid standards of today with 2150 - what if, say, purely hypothetically, oh, Australia hadn't joined even though it of course in reality did?".

They would be saying "Hey, compare our rigid standards of today with 2150, when Australia, Belgium, Cuba, Denmark, Equador, Fiji and nineteen others completely failed to join and we still called in United Earth"...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Guy Gardener]

What about the intra solar colonies?

 

[Timo]

It doesn't seem as if Earth bothered much. Whatever there was before 2063 was quite possibly bombed out of the sky, and afterwards there would have been little point in colonizing anything at Sol. If you want minerals, just warp to the asteroids in your mining rig, get 'em, and warp back (or to the next one). If you want a place to live on, go to another star where you don't need to erect a dome or dig a cave - pitching a tent suffices.

No wonder Mars had to wait until 2103. Although perhaps the Kzinti then came and punctured those domes again? The Fundamental Declarations might have been about absolutely requiring Earth to provide protection for its loyal colonies.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Guy Gardener]

The jackets they were wore in someof the movies had the planets in our solar system on the shoulder, which makes no sense if the jackets are star fleet issue used Federation wide.

By the way...

Pluto?

 

[Vger23]

The concept of a WW3 was mentioned in TOS so its nothing new

I didn't say it was new. I said the emphasis/additional details that the TNG-era films and movies provided soured it greater for me than an off-hand mention in "Space Seed." I believe the vision of what a 3rd major Earth conflict was in TOS was altered radically from Encounter at Farpoint right on through New Eden.

 

[Shawnster]

The jackets they were wore in someof the movies had the planets in our solar system on the shoulder, which makes no sense if the jackets are star fleet issue used Federation wide.

By the way...

Pluto?

Who says they were patches of the Sol system?

 

[Tenacity]

Who says they were patches of the Sol system?

Okay, the point stands in that it's a depiction of a single star system, in a organization that supposedly has dozens of systems.

 

[Timo]

I didn't say it was new. I said the emphasis/additional details that the TNG-era films and movies provided soured it greater for me than an off-hand mention in "Space Seed." I believe the vision of what a 3rd major Earth conflict was in TOS was altered radically from Encounter at Farpoint right on through New Eden.

Why "Space Seed"? In "Bread and Circuses" already, it was pretty clear that WWIII was just like WWI and WWII, only worse. And even if "Bread" left it unclear whether WWIII happened in the 1990s or the 2050s or perhaps the 2150s, it never did seem reasonable to assume that humanity would have gotten that final disaster out of the way in the 20th century already - else why the fuss in "Assignment: Earth" over stopping it from happening in the late sixties?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tenacity]

After World War III, though? You wouldn't have that luxury. A global thermonuclear war (and let's not kid ourselves here, that's exactly what WW3 would be, and everybody knows it) would destroy everything.

Except no, the death count was too low for that to be what happen. And the half century recovery time isn't consistent with what you're insisting happen.

For all we know the preponderance of WW3 was conventional combat involving a group of nations, with only one nation getting nuked at some point generating most of the fatalities.

Like I said...you can't rebuild if there's nothing left to rebuild WITH.

You rebuild with the 93% of humanity that wasn't killed, and the majority of nations that weren't directly involved.

Projections for the middle of the 21st century is that half the world population is going to be living in cities.

You don't destroy the majority of the cities and "only" kill 600 million, so the majority of cities weren't destroyed. Whatever Riker meant, it wasn't that the majority of the cities around the world were destroyed. I think he meant the cities in the combatant nations only.