Though Berman does share a story credit for First Contact, the idea that first contact with the Vulcans is what begins the road to the Federation was entirely from Braga and Moore, as it was their idea to center the movie around what they describe as "the Star Trek universe's Nativity." Indeed, Berman wanted the movie to be about the Borg travelling back in time to medieval times for some reason.
The idea that WWIII's devastation is what causes humanity to reinvent itself also comes from First Contact, as that's the first time any kind of significant detail about WWIII is given. Prior to that, references to a third world war were just sprinkled here and there to add a flavor of futurism to things. "It's the future, so let's reference a third world war, because Future." There were various implications throughout that Colonel Green was WWIII, and that Q's courtroom in Farpoint and AGT was from the immediate aftermath of WWIII, which they place in 2079, which according to FC should be sixteen years after humanity began cleaning up its act.
"Enounter at Farpoint" showed the courtroom as part of "The Post Atomic Horror" in 2079. Thus it could have been in a devasted world decades after the Third World War, which First Contact said was about 2053. Although First Contact also said that Earth begcan to recover from the Third World War after first contact with Vulcans in 2063.
"Encounter at Farpoint" also mentioned United Earth, and Q said that 2079 was after all United Earth nonsense had been abolished (at least temporarily). Sio possibly the Vulcan example encouraged the United Earth movement after 2063, and reaction against United Earth defeated it and created the era of the Post Atomic Horror by 2079, which was later defeated by a resurgent United Earth movement sometime after 2079.
Or possibly the use of nuclear weapons in World War Three about 2053 caused the abolition of everthing nuclear including nuclear power plants, which led to the collapse of civilization and the Post Atomic (energy) Horror by 2079.
I also note it is my conviction that the best way to explain numeroous chronological inconsistencies in is to assume that different characters gave years numbers for event using different clalendar eras. A calendar era is a date that years are counted from. Dozens of calendar eras have been used used on Earth and many still are.
So, for example, if Character A says that Event C happened in 2025, and Character B says that event D happened in 2075, we can't be certain that they used the same calender era. Thus we cant't be certain that Event D was a50 years after Event C, and can't even be certain that Event D was after Event C instead of being before it.
If memory serves me right, only about half a dozen dates were specified by
Star Trek characters as beeing AD or BC in all of
Star Trek. And considering how contradictory many dates seem to be, we should be free to interpret all dates given without specified calendar eras as being dates in unspecified calendar eras, an try find various combinations of calendar eras that make sense.
For example, I think that the Eugenics Wars of about 1995-96 in the "Space Seed" calendar were the same event as the Third World War in about 2053 in First Contact.
Some people may reject this, being horrified by the uncertainty resulting from assuming that dates are not all given using the
Anno Domini calendar era, but instead use an unknown number of unspecified calendar eras. There are countless thousands of possible arrangments of dates in various productions and how can anyone know whether they have found the best one or whether the best chronology is still to be worked out?
I remember a political commentator some decades ago whose humorous motto was someting "Often wrong, never uncertain". And I say that chronologists who cling to the assumption that all dates are given using the
Anno Domini calendar era, would rather feel certainty at the risk of being wrong. I prefer the motto: "Always uncertain, always with a chance of being correct".
QUOTE="Trekker09, post: 14239059, member: 17262"]Supposedly WW3 ended in 2053, but references do seem vague, and some make it seem an extension of the earlier Eugenics wars in the 1990's.
One impression I got about Roddenberry’s creative concepts, was that he believed technology would save humanity. So he’d probably have approved of Zefram Cochrane’s warp drive flight exemplifying that, in
First Contact. Actually he probably would like the arrival of the Vulcans getting credit as the impetus for humanity’s radical progress, rather than the aftermath of devastating war. I had assumed that encounter was GR's idea...interesting that it was Braga and Moore.[/QUOTE]
As I explain agove, I think that the Third World War of 2053was not an extension of the Eurenics Wars of the 1990s, but he same conflict dated differently using different dating systems.
