Spoilers What is the connection between Doctor Soong and Khan Singh?

[DEWLine]

Trek's timeline has always been separate and distinct from our own. You can't just keep moving the goalposts just because they don't sync up. Because they're never going to.

And the reason they're never going to sync up is because if/when we achieve contact with extra-terrestrial intelligence, we're likely going to find species far different from those depicted in the various Trek series. Also, all those extra nebulae and other deep-space "landmarks". It's been a divergent history from the very first.

 

[lawman]

An attempt at a continuity preserving kludge here...
Relevant excerpts from "Space Seed":
---

SPOCK: Much older. DY-100 class, to be exact. Captain, the last such vessel was built centuries ago, back in the 1990s.
...
SPOCK: Hull surface is pitted with meteor scars. However, scanners make out a name. SS Botany Bay.
KIRK: Then you can check the registry.
SPOCK: No such vessel listed. Records of that period are fragmentary, however. The mid-1990s was the era of your last so-called World War.
MCCOY: The Eugenics Wars.
SPOCK: Of course. Your attempt to improve the race through selective breeding.
MCCOY: Now, wait a minute. Not our attempt, Mister Spock. A group of ambitious scientists. I'm sure you know the type. Devoted to logic, completely unemotional
...
KIRK: Suspended animation.
MARLA: I've seen old photographs of this. Necessary because of the time involved in space travel until about the year 2018. It took years just to travel from one planet to another.
...
KIRK: Would you estimate him to be a product of selective breeding?
SPOCK: There is that possibility, Captain. His age would be correct. In 1993, a group of these young supermen did seize power simultaneously in over forty nations.
...
KIRK: Name, Khan, as we know him today. (Spock changes the picture) Name, Khan Noonien Singh.
SPOCK: From 1992 through 1996, absolute ruler of more than a quarter of your world. From Asia through the Middle East.
MCCOY: The last of the tyrants to be overthrown.​

---
Put all that together, and it seems very clear that Khan and the Eugenics Wars date to the 1990s.

Yet it's also true that from TNG forward (most notably in "Encounter at Farpoint" and First Contact), Trek continuity has situated World War III in the mid-21st century.

Solution: note the dialogue I bolded above. Spock says "your last so-called World War"... and McCoy corrects him, having caught him in a rare mistake, by giving the correct name of the conflict. Watch the original; listen to the line delivery; it's a perfectly plausible interpretation.

 

[DEWLine]

There we are, then. Thank you, @lawman, for that clarification.

 

[Tuskin38]

Although Marla's line there saying Suspended animation became unnecessary for Space Travel around 2018. Before that it took years to travel between star systems.

That's def not true now in Star Trek, since FTL wouldn't be invented for another 50 years.

 

[Qonundrum]

None taken...
View attachment 28130

You're 75% of the way there. This'll get it to 90%...

 

[Qonundrum]

(sorry for getting the temperature of the other characters wrong; they're way too red and Mrs. Notgarrett is more distinctly yellow/orange due to the lighting of the set -- I presume there's a fireplace on the opposite side of the room to give that warm glowing warming glow... Also, what you did with blending in Data was rather excellently done, BTW!

 

[lawman]

Although Marla's line there saying Suspended animation became unnecessary for Space Travel around 2018. Before that it took years to travel between star systems.

That's def not true now in Star Trek, since FTL wouldn't be invented for another 50 years.

Technically, she says between planets, not star systems. And right now, with real-world tech, it would indeed be a multi-year undertaking just to make a round trip to any planet in our own solar system. Even Mars, the closest, would be roughly seven months each way. Suspended animation might well be useful for such trips.

Marla also doesn't mention warp drive, or any other kind of FTL, as the improvement. Therefore, it's reasonable to infer that what was invented in 2018 in Trek's timeline was some sort of faster, more efficient sublight propulsion (ion drive? impulse drive?).

One might even speculate that this technological improvement is what made feasible such early 21st-century manned explorations as Shaun Christopher's mission to Saturn (from "Tomrrow is Yesterday") and Renée Picard's mission to Europa (Picard S2).

 

[trekfan_1]

Every time this subject is brought up it seems the fanbase forgets 2 things.

First, everyone likes to cite Spock and the Enterprise computer as the source for the Eugenics Wars happening in the 90s. And then there's a debate on if he was wrong, wasn't sure, the records are unclear etc. I like Spock. Spock is good . He's smart and knows things.........but....ummmm KHAN HIMSELF CONFIRMS IT WAS THE 90S IN STAR TREK 2. You know, the guy that was actually there. Everyone likes to cite "Space Seed". But really TWOK is the clincher. KHAN: " Lost in space in the year 1996..."
No *question* the Eugenics War/Khan's rise to power DID HAPPEN in the *1990s*. We do not need Spock or the library banks . KHAN confirms it.

However, (as some have already pointed out) there are indicators even before PICARD, It has since been retconned or the timeline has been altered. Which brings me to a second topic that rarely gets brought up. And that is Voyager's "Future's End". They go back to 1996 and there's NO indication of the Eugenics war.

Heres my head cannon for this. In Future's End , Janeway and Chakotay all but confirm Starling changed history. The computer age of the 90s " wasn't supposed to happen " was the big revelation.

It's reasonable to assume Starling's advanced computer technology may have pushed the Eugenics era to a later time. Scientists and entrepreneurs could of been more focused with the emerging computer age and advanced genetics may have been put in the back burner. The 90s was then more about technology rather than biology in this altered version of history.

I admit that's conjecture on my part but it makes sense to me . Pethaps "Space Seed " still happens but Spock and Khan now remembers/ cites "different dates" for the conflict. And the version of "Space Seed" and TWOK with the 90s being mentioned represents the "original " timeline sans Starling's interference. Star Trek's version of the Mandela effect. Timeline mostly intact with a shift /change in certain details. Now I'm REALLY speculating here lol.

Regardless on whether you subscribe to my theory or not, there was no sign of this war in Future's End. I'm going to predict some will say "well it still could of happened, it was oversees and just wasn't mentioned". You could say that . I don't buy it. 1996 seemed to look more like our 1996 (strengthened by the mentioning of the USSR dissolving and domestic terrorism being a thing) rather than Star Trek's Eugenics War version of 1996 . Got zero vibes Eugenics war was happening or just ended in Future's End's depiction of 1996.

I'm surprised this is not brought up more often honestly.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

This is a really good thread. Nothing to add but some of your responses and the discussion generally is really good.

 

[lawman]

KHAN HIMSELF CONFIRMS IT WAS THE 90S IN STAR TREK 2. You know, the guy that was actually there. Everyone likes to cite "Space Seed". But really TWOK is the clincher. KHAN: " Lost in space in the year 1996..."

Excellent point! That had slipped my mind.

[But in] Voyager's "Future's End". They go back to 1996 and there's NO indication of the Eugenics war. Heres my head cannon for this. In Future's End , Janeway and Chakotay all but confirm Starling changed history.

...I'm going to predict some will say "well it still could of happened, it was oversees and just wasn't mentioned". You could say that . I don't buy it.

Well, yeah. That is what I'm going to say. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. "Future's End" took place entirely in California. And American sensibilities being what they are, I don't find it the least bit implausible that most Americans would be mostly oblivious to a major conflict wrapping up halfway around the world, so long as it didn't impact them directly.

(Sure, it would've been nice if the VOY writers had at least dropped an Easter egg about Khan's downfall or something. But given what a godawful mess "FE" was anyway, that's the least of what disappoints me about it.)

Don't get me wrong... I'm totally open to the possibility that Trek's so-called "prime" timeline has been significantly altered (arguably more than once!) by various time-travel incursions. But even so, I prefer to limit that hypothesis to changes we've actually seen on screen... and in that regard, as you point out, Khan being from the 1990s remains (so far at least) canonical. And anyway that's a whole separate argument, and I don't want to get into it right now with the folks who insist it's All The Same Timeline from square one...

 

[fireproof78]

Don't get me wrong... I'm totally open to the possibility that Trek's so-called "prime" timeline has been significantly altered (arguably more than once!) by various time-travel incursions. But even so, I prefer to limit that hypothesis to changes we've actually seen on screen... and in that regard, as you point out, Khan being from the 1990s remains (so far at least) canonical. And anyway that's a whole separate argument, and I don't want to get into it right now with the folks who insist it's All The Same Timeline from square one...

It's all stories about the same timeline, all from certain points of view.

 

[DEWLine]

I'd argue that Starling's access to supposedly prematurely-available computer technologies via the Aeon enabled the technologies that made the DY-100 and the Augments alike possible.

 

[trekfan_1]

Excellent point! That had slipped my mind.


Well, yeah. That is what I'm going to say. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. "Future's End" took place entirely in California. And American sensibilities being what they are, I don't find it the least bit implausible that most Americans would be mostly oblivious to a major conflict wrapping up halfway around the world, so long as it didn't impact them directly.

(Sure, it would've been nice if the VOY writers had at least dropped an Easter egg about Khan's downfall or something. But given what a godawful mess "FE" was anyway, that's the least of what disappoints me about it.)

Don't get me wrong... I'm totally open to the possibility that Trek's so-called "prime" timeline has been significantly altered (arguably more than once!) by various time-travel incursions. But even so, I prefer to limit that hypothesis to changes we've actually seen on screen... and in that regard, as you point out, Khan being from the 1990s remains (so far at least) canonical. And anyway that's a whole separate argument, and I don't want to get into it right now with the folks who insist it's All The Same Timeline from square one...

Honestly, all we really need is a throw away line from a "temporal agent/timelord" type character alluding to the prime timeline having some "hiccups " regarding the exact details of historical events.

I understand your stance on 100 percent adhering to what is said and seen. I guess I have a more abstract interpretation of canon.

Logically, it makes sense with all the time incursions, some changes are bound to happen. Speaking of Canon, "Trials and Tribblations" establishes an ongoing "fixing of the timeline" agency. I think it wouldbe naive to think they are are 100 percent successful. Not to mention the time cops from Voyager.

So if was in charge of Star Trek, I would establish that the prime timline has a few "variance anomalies". Perhaps, certain things in history keeps shifting when the computer looks up archival information. A "residue " left over from the corrective surgery needed in patching up the timline or something caused by others (Q, Dowd super being, Bajoran Prophets, someone leaving the Nexus etc). An analogy would be seeing a still image of a person's face on a computer monitor. The image distorts every few minutes but it always reverts to the original image. So not talking about the timeline skewing away to another tangent. Same timline with a few "glitches in the matrix" . It would cleanly explain away all the bending of continuity we've seen and will see moving forward. Tecknobabble has been used many times in Trek to explain away things. One more can't hurt. I would use this explanation as to the reason the details of the Eugenics Wars is historically blurry.

Allot of people I imagine would hate this idea . They wouldn't trust the modern writers not to use this "continuity loophole" to break cannon even more blatantly . If handled properly though, this would provide an explanation whenever there is a minor to moderate cannon issue due a creative decision. It would tone down all the angst among those miffed about a cannon change . This would apply to happenings and events . The "visual reboot " of tech and people/ appearances, (Disco, SNW) I see as a separate thing and is another discussion.

 

[lawman]

I'd argue that Starling's access to supposedly prematurely-available computer technologies via the Aeon enabled the technologies that made the DY-100 and the Augments alike possible.

Hmm. Interesting theory... although Starling's tech seemed to have a lot more to do with advanced computing than with anything biological, there may have been spillover.

On the other hand, though... the VOY crew was already there to get involved, and they come from a timeline in which the Augments, etc., were already part of the past. That would turn the whole thing into a predestination paradox, which (IMHO at least) is almost always the least satisfying kind of time-travel story, in terms of the underlying logic.

 

[Phoenix219]

I would tie all of it together; the computer revolution, the borg drone on ENT, all the knowledge from the movie First Contact, and tie it into a narrative that spans the Temporal Cold War, the formation of the Federation, the saving and repurposing of the Archer NX ship (originally NOT named Enterprise!), and use it to explain all small variations and all visual retcons.

 

[Tuskin38]

I would tie all of it together; the computer revolution, the borg drone on ENT, all the knowledge from the movie First Contact, and tie it into a narrative that spans the Temporal Cold War, the formation of the Federation, the saving and repurposing of the Archer NX ship (originally NOT named Enterprise!), and use it to explain all small variations and all visual retcons.

According to Voyager, First Contact was a predestination paradox, so that doesn't work.

The Enterprise Borg episode also leads to the Borg being in the Beta Quadrant in TNG Season 1 (the signal sent at the end).

So unless said changes to the timeline still ended up making a 24th Century that's identical to the pre-First Contact 24th century, it doesn't work.

 

[Phoenix219]

I have never believed in either one of those as predestination paradoxes. Actually, I don't believe it in them in general. Just because the characters don't know the original timeline doesn't mean there wasn't. one

 

[Tuskin38]

Just because the characters don't know the original timeline doesn't mean there wasn't. one

I think the time police would know.

I'm sure there was an original timeline at some point, but we the audience have never seen it.

I have never believed in either one of those as predestination paradoxes.

I don't think it matters what you believe, that us what was written. Until another canon story comes along and tells us otherwise, they're both canonically predestination paradoxes.

Seven of Nine also knows what happened during the movie. She knows the Borg were present during the launch of the Phoenix.

Actually she's the one who brings up the events of First Contact in both episodes.

 

[fireproof78]

I'm sure there was an original timeline at some point, but we the audience have never seen it.

Not with all the time travel shenanigans going on.

 

[Phoenix219]

I think the time police would know.

I'm sure there was an original timeline at some point, but we the audience have never seen it.


I don't think it matters what you believe, that us what was written. Until another canon story comes along and tells us otherwise, they're both canonically predestination paradoxes.

Seven of Nine also knows what happened during the movie. She knows the Borg were present during the launch of the Phoenix.

Actually she's the one who brings up the events of First Contact in both episodes.

Because the timeline has been rewritten to include her and the events at the Phoenix.

We don't even know that Seven of Nine existed before the events of First Contact occurred.