What if Humans won the Eugenics War through Augmentation?

[dswynne1]

And not just through biological augmentation?

Supposedly, humanity was able to defeat Khan Noonien Singh and his fellow Augments, but we're not told HOW this was done.

I propose that, within the context of an "arms race", various forms of human augmentation was used to defeat Khan, whether they be biological or cybernetics, and that the truth of how humanity defeated Khan was conveniently swept under the rug, for PR purposes, but being lost due to WW3.

I also feel that it was this same process that enabled humanity to survive WW3's "nuclear holocaust".

And, I think that Khan's dismissal of humanity's progress (as seen in TOS' "Space Seed") was more to do with his ego than any lack of progress on humanity's part. After all, Kirk was possessed genius-level intellect with an impressive military and academic record early in his career. Can't scoff at that, right?

 

[USS Triumphant]

Actually, it was some bloke what showed up in a blue telephone box, took care of the whole situation one Thursday afternoon.

 

[Tenacity]

If Humanity wanted to defeat the "supermen" after they were securely in power, playing them off against one another would have been a good way to go. From the example of Khan, while intelligent they weren't all that smart.

A direct attack could of seen them close ranks and work as a near unstoppable team.

Instead stroke their egos and whisper in their ears. Get each of them separately to "realize" that they should be the ultimate leader, and not just control a small slice of the Earth's pie. Humans would be killed as they fought between themselves. But ultimately they would be weakened and casually sweeped into the dustbin of history.

After all, Kirk was possessed a genius-level intellect

I doubt that. Kirk is cleaver and good at problem solving, but I for one wouldn't describe him as a genius.

 

[dswynne1]

SNIP!

I doubt that. Kirk is cleaver and good at problem solving, but I for one wouldn't describe him as a genius.

I only refer to Kirk being a genius based on the Chess scene from "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and what Pike said to young Kirk in the first "Star Trek" reboot film.

 

[USS Triumphant]

Kirk was possessed a genius-level intellect

This is one of those things that has varied through the years, depending on what you're looking at - novels, comics, RPG sourcebook-type stuff, etc. I even remember reading something about him supposedly having a high "esper" rating - I think that was in a FASA something or other. But all that has ever been shown on-screen that I recall is that he is/was just a reasonably sharp and clever, everyday guy *of strong ethical and moral character*. The only thing on-screen that really lent itself at all to him being any kind of genius was him holding his own at chess against Spock.

Two things to consider about that, though: 1. TOS was made in the time before chess was considered a computationally "solved" game, where every move and countermove and outcome could be on a table a computer could refer to to either win or draw every game. So what was meant to be depicted was Kirk's *human intuition* being a match for Spock's logic - not that Kirk was on par with Spock intellectually. And 2. Spock is/was capable of limiting himself to various difficulty levels, like chess games do now, to make the game interesting and challenging. And I believe there have been places where Spock has said/implied he was doing exactly that while playing against Kirk.

 

[Tenacity]

The only thing on-screen that really lent itself at all to him being any kind of genius was him holding his own at chess against Spock.

There is also the possibility that Spock is only a intermediate level chess player.

 

[Damian]

Greg Cox's Eugenics Wars novels does cover this element. It's not canon of course, but being as there's unlikely to be something on screen detailing the events of the Eugenics Wars it's probably a 'safe' story to go by.

Tenacity is right that part of it was they had started to fight among themselves. Spock said superior abilities breeded superior arrogance. Also Gary Seven's group were involved in foiling their plans as well, and even arranged for Khan's band of merry superman to be exiled on the Botany Bay once it became clear they had lost.

In the 2 novels basically it was inferred that the supermen were behind all the various wars that went on in the 1990's. That they were the ones behind the scenes pulling the strings.

Kirk is cleaver and good at problem solving, but I for one wouldn't describe him as a genius.

This is one of those things that has varied through the years, depending on what you're looking at

Yeah, I'm not sure I would say Kirk is a genius. A great leader, yes. But he relied a great deal on those around him for their expertise, their genius, in making his decisions. And he never pretends to be an expert. He just has a great ability to get the best out of his people. And a great leader doesn't need to be a genius. And he is not infallible. The only reason he beat Khan was because Lt. McGivers had a change of heart, at least in the sense that she refused to see people die because of her betrayal.

 

[C57D]

I personally think that giving the orders to maneuver a 1,000 foot long spaceship in the intricate, hazardous, obstacle laden 3D of space in a combat situation at many multiples of the speed of light against a similar craft, while having to consider energy useage, and the technical abilities and restrictions of his vessel, and trying to second guess what, where, how much and when your enemy is doing, is just a little more intelligent than the average!
Not to mention having to account for the skills and aptitudes of the crew.
No wonder Starship captains (in TOS anyway) are seen as a special breed!

 

[Tenacity]

Not to mention having to account for the skills and aptitudes of the crew

Kirk regularly didn't know the names of his officers and what they did. He was openly shocked that Dr. Noels was a part of his crew.

 

[Steven P Bastien]

Kirk is cleaver and good at problem solving, but I for one wouldn't describe him as a genius.

I wouldn't put him at the highest level genius for sure, but I've always thought of him as a borderline genius. That intelligence combined with good problem solving ability, good intuition, decisiveness and alpha-male leadership quality makes him the great captain. Of course, there is no way for us to know if he has ever even taken an IQ test, which seems strange given how important those test scores were perceived in the 1960s. But, if true genius level is somewhere between 0.1% and 1% of the population, one would hope that the commander of one of the few elite spaceships would rank close to that.

 

[Timo]

Kirk regularly didn't now the names of his officers and what they did. He was openly shocked that Dr. Noels was a part of his crew.

Oh, he knew Noel all right, from the Christmas party. The shock would have a rather obvious alternate explanation, then...

(Unless we postulate that the party wasn't aboard the ship, or was otherwise open to outsiders. But it was described as "the science lab Christmas party", so all participants could have been assumed to be crew.)

Kirk does get a few ranks wrong, such as with Giotto. But Chief of Security must be a revolving-door position aboard Kirk's ship, considering. "They promoted me to full Commander? Shit, where's my will? And just a few episodes short of the finale... It's not fair!"

But what cases are there of Kirk not knowing an officer? Besides Dr. Mulhall, that is. Kirk does know McGivers exists, even if he can't be bothered to remember the specs of this tagalong of low rank and lower utility. He fares so much worse with LCdr Mulhall that one's tempted to think she's an alien impostor.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tenacity]

Oh, he knew Noel all right, from the Christmas party.

It was pretty obvious that Kirk was unaware that the woman he flirted with was a member of his crew.

 

[Timo]

How would this be obvious? Strike that - how would that be even theoretically possible?

Everybody in that party would be a member of Kirk's crew: unlike a certain other starship a decade earlier, Kirk's didn't get random visitors at random moments by unknown means. Also, everybody was always in uniform aboard Kirk's ship, be it Christmas or Halloween or Thanksgiving. Did Kirk originally think Noel was an alien intruder in disguise?

What may surprise Kirk is the fact that this random crewgal from the science lab (are there other sorts?) turns out to be the resident specialist on criminal rehabilitation techniques. What would seem to suffice for explaining his reaction is the fact that he has to interact with a crew member he normally would not expect to see in the same room, like, ever - especially as he appears to gave been counting on that to avoid any consequences from his casual mingling.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Kor]

Star Trek (2009) described Kirk as "the only genius-level repeat offender in the midwest."

But anyway, if humanity won the Eugenics Wars through genetic engineering of their own, how did they go from that to banning genetic engineering outright, decades before ENT?

Kor

 

[Timo]

Nukes won WWII and folks then did their damnedest to get those banned... Only the winners didn't need to comply, for, you know, still being the winners. Those who defeated the supermen may themselves have been brought down soon thereafter.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Nyotarules]

Star Trek (2009) described Kirk as "the only genius-level repeat offender in the midwest."

But anyway, if humanity won the Eugenics Wars through genetic engineering of their own, how did they go from that to banning genetic engineering outright, decades before ENT?

Kor

1. Hypocrisy and humans go hand in hand
2. It was a condition of the Vulcan peace treaty
3. They went through another Dark ages

 

[MAGolding]

And not just through biological augmentation?

Supposedly, humanity was able to defeat Khan Noonien Singh and his fellow Augments, but we're not told HOW this was done.

I propose that, within the context of an "arms race", various forms of human augmentation was used to defeat Khan, whether they be biological or cybernetics, and that the truth of how humanity defeated Khan was conveniently swept under the rug, for PR purposes, but being lost due to WW3.

I also feel that it was this same process that enabled humanity to survive WW3's "nuclear holocaust".

And, I think that Khan's dismissal of humanity's progress (as seen in TOS' "Space Seed") was more to do with his ego than any lack of progress on humanity's part. After all, Kirk was possessed genius-level intellect with an impressive military and academic record early in his career. Can't scoff at that, right?

Khan may have said:

KHAN: Nothing ever changes, except man. Your technical accomplishments? Improve a mechanical device and you may double productivity. But improve man and you gain a thousand fold. I am such a man. Join me. I'll treat you well. I need your training to operate a vessel this complex.

And:

KHAN: Captain, although your abilities intrigue me, you are quite honestly inferior. Mentally, physically. In fact, I am surprised how little improvement there has been in human evolution. Oh, there has been technical advancement, but, how little man himself has changed. Yes, it appears we will do well in your century, Captain. Do you have any other questions?

But in major wars the weapons, the technology, is what matters. When a guided missile with a thermonuclear bomb is about to explode above your position, genetic augmentations are useless against the radiation that vaporizes and the blast that smashes.

As Spock described the wars which overthrew the "supermen":

Whole populations were being bombed out of existence.

That strongly implies that entire nations were exterminated by thermonuclear bombs delivered by ICBMs, or perhaps by even more terrible bombs delivered by even more inescapeable delivery methods.

I assume that there was a nuclear exchange between one or more countries not ruled by the supermen on one side and the forty countries ruled by supermen on the other side, and then vengeance crazed normal people sought out and exterminated all supermen they could find in the ruins, so that the only surviving supermen where the ones that escaped on the Botany Bay.

So it seems to me that biological or technological augmentations would have played little part in overthrowing the supermen.

 

[Tim Thomason]

How would this be obvious? Strike that - how would that be even theoretically possible?

Everybody in that party would be a member of Kirk's crew: unlike a certain other starship a decade earlier, Kirk's didn't get random visitors at random moments by unknown means. Also, everybody was always in uniform aboard Kirk's ship, be it Christmas or Halloween or Thanksgiving. Did Kirk originally think Noel was an alien intruder in disguise?

What may surprise Kirk is the fact that this random crewgal from the science lab (are there other sorts?) turns out to be the resident specialist on criminal rehabilitation techniques. What would seem to suffice for explaining his reaction is the fact that he has to interact with a crew member he normally would not expect to see in the same room, like, ever - especially as he appears to gave been counting on that to avoid any consequences from his casual mingling.

Timo Saloniemi

Yeah, I just went through the transcript, and there's nothing really that conflicts with if he knew she was crew or not. Just that he's embarrassed to see her again and that he didn't want the other crew to see him absconding with her. I assume he was drunk (and her as well?).

...But this is early enough that it might pre-date the five-year mission. Maybe they're in Earth orbit still. Maybe families are visiting the science lab for a Christmas party/Going away shindig. Perhaps Kirk was looser with the uniform restrictions, and like Pike 11 years prior, allowed crew and visitors to waltz around in civvies during off-hours.

 

[Steven P Bastien]

It was pretty obvious that Kirk was unaware that the woman he flirted with was a member of his crew.

What was obvious to me was that he did not expect her to be assigned to the landing party, and that he is a little annoyed with McCoy for choosing her. This would seem to imply (but maybe is not obvious) that McCoy knows about the little tryst (or whatever it was) between the two of them, and is chucking to himself when he realizes he is justified in assigning her (because she is qualified) and is able to annoy his buddy Kirk at the same time. Otherwise, the message Kirk asks to be relayed back to McCoy does not seem justified and would not even make sense to McCoy.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Kirk "reprogrammed" the Kobayashi Maru.

Which is maybe hacking, but certainly coding.

As he died, Kirk was rewiring a starship that he couldn't possibly be boned up on, but there he was in the guts of a computer he had to intuitively figure out, on the spot as he was being sucked into the Nexus.

TOS The Paradise Syndrome vs. TNG Thine Own Self vs. TOS City on the edge of Tomorrow vs. VOY Future's End.

Kirk joined a Native tribe and didn't casually invent anything to make life easier, that we were told about, when it should have been easy to bump them up from the stone age to Roman innovation in construction and farming. It took him hours to invent gunpowder while fighting the Gorn, and in the Savage curtain, sharp sticks was the limit of his creativity when fighting the greatest evil.

Amnesiac Data invented microscopes and toxicology and "stuff" because it all seemed obvious to his large robot brain.

Spock accessed a tricorder with stone knives and bear skins.

Braxton might have had first loyalt to hide from the past, but the summit of his abilities to make the past feel like home was a shopping trolley full of tin cans and plastic bottles.