What the Hell was going on after First Contact?!

[Timo]

My point was how the Vulcans viewed this. They wanted to help but in reality Earth wasn't any different from before the first warp flight. I think it's surprising they didn't walk out of the ship look around and say "screw this" and get right back in their ship and leave.

I don't really see it that way. Why did the Vulcans come in the first place? Why had they not come before? The reason wasn't Earth's "level of civilicity", it was Earth's ability to travel at warp.

Before warp drive, Earth would have been just another primitive planet on the Vulcans' back yard, perhaps one out of dozens such harmless toddlers. After warp drive, she would become an out-of-control teenager, hell-bent on roaming the neighborhood and getting into all sorts of trouble. Vulcans would feel the need to settle in just to guard their own interests.

And they would guard their interests in a benevolent manner, as dictated by their philosphy and perhaps by earlier experiences as well. The worse these primitive Earthlings, the more they would be in need of benevolent control...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Borg451]

would have been easyer to nuke all of earths capitol cities and palaces of scientific importantants, that way there wouldnt be a out of control teenager with warp drive.. but rather angry humans stuck on the crappy world where they wouldnt be able to harm any of the Vulcan assests

 

[Anwar]

These are Vulcans, not Romulans/Cardassians. They'd figure that as a race smart enough to make a warp ship, we had to have done something right and deserved the help to progress properly.

 

[T J]

Seemed like the Vulcans had an uncharacteristic soft spot for Humans. Guess I'm a bit jaded when it comes to humanity, I would have kept flying by...

Though I might stopped off for a Gyro!

 

[I am not Spock]

Q's 'postatomic horror' courtroom could have been an ECON court.

In the time between FC and ENT, Earth was still in a bad way, and it was getting its act together. According to TNG 'Attached', Earth only settled on a united world government in 2150. This is only a year before the NXO1 set out on its mission.

Yeah, TJ, I'm surprised the Vulcans put up with those warlike humans for so long. It took them nearly a century after the first contact to clean up their act!

 

[Anwar]

What they said in TNG was that Australia was a holdout who didn't join the United Earth until 2150, not that the United Earth didn't exist until 2150.

 

[I am not Spock]

Oh, whoops, it appears you're right. Sorry. Has there ever been a definitive date for the creation of the United Earth government?

 

[C.E. Evans]

T J said:
Seemed like the Vulcans had an uncharacteristic soft spot for Humans.

I like to think that the Vulcans had been watching Earth for a very long time and had been watching their ups and downs secretly from afar.

For all intents and purposes, Earth and Vulcan may not be that far apart (some have speculated anywhere from 11-16 light-years), so they could technically be considered neighbors in a way.

I think the Vulcans were aware that Earth had just underwent "the Post-atomic horror" and may have been surprised to detect a warp signature from the place where there was least likely to be one.

But even after first contact, Humans didn't get their s--- together right away. In fact, there probably was a worldwide panic and great social turmoil as longstanding institutions and beliefs collapsed--including the New United Nations, apparently. The United Earth government may have been formed to bring order to this chaotic time even as attempts were made by other groups to establish off-world settlements.

The Vulcans may have looked at Humans as something of an experiment to see if they would stand or fall following first contact...

 

[Timo]

I wonder if Vulcans didn't treat Earth like they did because they had already had one such first contact without such velvet glove approach - and it hadn't gone too well...

What if Vulcans first attempted contact with Klingons? What if they tried it from the position of assumed supremacy, just landing on top of the Great Hall, extending the usual hand salute, and declaring "We come in peace" - unaware that the Hur'Q had done the same thing, all those centuries prior? What if they got themselves a full-scale interstellar war as the result?

This would fit many a tidbit from Trek pseudohistory. This would be the first contact that went so horribly wrong that Picard uses it as the definite example in TNG "First Contact". This would be why Vulcans have done covert cultural surveillance ever since. This would be why Klingons didn't conquer Earth in all those years preceding ENT - they had already fought with the Vulcans and were wary of trying that again. For all we know, the Vulcan/Romulan schism could tie into the Klingons somehow, too, as Romulans and Klingons seem to share close political and even biological ties.

Certainly in ENT, we never heard of the angle where Vulcans would deign to help humans only if humans met certain standards. More prevalent seemed to be the view that Vulcans were stuck with humans despite the fact that the latter were smelly and obnoxious and not really worth the Vulcan attentions.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[-Brett-]

Anwar said:
What they said in TNG was that Australia was a holdout who didn't join the United Earth until 2150, not that the United Earth didn't exist until 2150.

No, it was right the first time. Australia as a holdout was a hypothetical scenario Crusher put to Picard because a similar scenario was happening on a planet they were visiting.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Timo said:
I wonder if Vulcans didn't treat Earth like they did because they had already had one such first contact without such velvet glove approach - and it hadn't gone too well...

What if Vulcans first attempted contact with Klingons? What if they tried it from the position of assumed supremacy, just landing on top of the Great Hall, extending the usual hand salute, and declaring "We come in peace" - unaware that the Hur'Q had done the same thing, all those centuries prior? What if they got themselves a full-scale interstellar war as the result?

This would fit many a tidbit from Trek pseudohistory. This would be the first contact that went so horribly wrong that Picard uses it as the definite example in TNG "First Contact". This would be why Vulcans have done covert cultural surveillance ever since. This would be why Klingons didn't conquer Earth in all those years preceding ENT - they had already fought with the Vulcans and were wary of trying that again.

Yeah, there was definitely some sort of relationship already established between Vulcan and Qo'noS in ENT and the Klingons might have learned to keep a respectful distance from Vulcan space or any of the worlds they might have deemed as off-limits. A minor conflict between early Vulcans and Klingons that turned out unfavorably for the Klingons would be a good reason why.

Lessons learned from dealing with Klingons might have indeed been applied towards Humans and may actually explain why they seemed so unfair to men like Henry Archer and his son.

I think that Earth definitely became a protectorate of Vulcan at some point, but their reasons for denying advanced warp technology to Earth may have been driven by logic than out of any real sense to protect Humans. They may have believed that it was better to restrict Earth's access to the greater galactic community to prevent the still all-too impulsive Humans from starting interstellar incidents and disrupting galactic peace.

 

[Sci]

Anwar said:
What they said in TNG was that Australia was a holdout who didn't join the United Earth until 2150, not that the United Earth didn't exist until 2150.

No, it was right the first time. Australia as a holdout was a hypothetical scenario Crusher put to Picard because a similar scenario was happening on a planet they were visiting.

For whatever it's worth, the ST novel Articles of the Federation by Keith R.A. DeCandido establishes that United Earth came into existence in 2130 with the signing of the Traité d'Unification in Paris. The ENT novel The Good That Men Do by Andy Mangels and Michael A. Martin established that the last holdout to join United Earth's "global federated government" -- meaning, UE is a federal rather than unitary state -- was the Independent Republic of Australia in 2140. This contradicts TNG's "Attached," in which Beverly refers to the last holdouts joining UE in 2150; it does, however, confirm the idea (which was not explicitly stated, but not ruled out, either) that Australia was the last to join UE. The Good That Men Do also establishes that Nathan Samuels is the Prime Minister of United Earth, a post previously established in the short story "Eleven Hours Out" from Tales of the Dominion War, whilst the SCE novel The Future Begins and Starfleet: Year One both established the position of President of United Earth -- implying a parliamentary system with a ceremonial president, akin to the system of Germany or Ireland or Israel or Italy.

 

[Timo]

Also, to analyze the onscreen evidence a bit further:

Australia as a holdout was a hypothetical scenario Crusher put to Picard because a similar scenario was happening on a planet they were visiting.

But the scenario made it explicit that the United Earth really didn't come together until 2150, and also made it explicit that Australia was one possible choice from the pool of nations that factually hesitated until 2150. If Australia had in fact joined in 2089, Crusher would probably not be using it in her example. If everybody joined in 2089, Crusher definitely wouldn't word her example that way.

FWIW, the term "United Earth" seems to first appear on the pennants of the Friendship 1 probe, at least in the abbreviation "UESPA" which in the ENT and TOS eras is expanded to United Earth Space Probe Agency. Doesn't mean Earth would have to have been united when the probe was launched, of course: many a business today uses a deliberately misleading name, so that "Global Fruit & Peanuts" need not necessarily trade beyond Kalamazoo. Doesn't mean that UESPA always stood for United Earth Space Probe Agency, either. The UE might have been Unified Europe or Utopian Enterprises at first, or something.

But there could well be optimistic attempts at unifying the planet in the 2050s already - and with the New United Nations out of the way, the next organization to attempt planetwide cooperation might take on this grandiose name even if only six nations joined initially.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Harry]

Earth was in a very bad shape when the Vulcans arrived. It seemed that Cochrane and his team were pretty much isolated and not even quite sure if the war with ECON was over or not. It's likely that the US Government was bombed out of existence by this point, and probably a lot of other national governments as well.

In Europe, an organization happily calling itself the Hegemony came into being. This is described as being a significant step towards a global government.

So, I don't see a particular problem with reconciling First Contact and "Encounter at Farpoint". There is only 16 years between the war-torn Earth seen at the start of FC, and the courts of 'justice' seen in TNG. Even with Vulcans landing on the American continent, a lot of isolated communities probably wouldn't even know (or believe) that space aliens had arrived, or outright rejected any help from outside.

 

[Timo]

It's likely that the US Government was bombed out of existence by this point

Not very permanently, though, as Stars and Stripes would continue to fly till the time Q held his court, at least according to "The Royale".

And while Montana might have gone all Mad Max, many American institutions and landmarks seem to survive the war just fine, or at least are re-erected later on. So we probably shouldn't exaggerate the extent of destruction. Q could have gone for a Montana-like setting (whether those were common or rare at the time) while deliberately ignoring the existence of the more civilized locales of 2079.

Since the influence of the United States seems dominant in the United Earth Starfleet, it wouldn't do to have the original United States suffer too deep a notch in WWIII. Although it is theoretically possible that this influence is due to a truly spectacular comeback rather than sustained prominence.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Sci]

Also, to analyze the onscreen evidence a bit further:

Australia as a holdout was a hypothetical scenario Crusher put to Picard because a similar scenario was happening on a planet they were visiting.

But the scenario made it explicit that the United Earth really didn't come together until 2150,

No it didn't. All it established was that 2150 was the year that the last states that were not already part of UE joined, and that Australia was amongst that group. For all we know, United Earth may have come into existence decades beforehand with the ratification of the United Earth Constitution by Germany, France, Belgium, Somalia, Indonesia, Japan, and Mexico, and then gradually absorbed the remaining independent states until the last holdouts joined up in 2150.

But there could well be optimistic attempts at unifying the planet in the 2050s already - and with the New United Nations out of the way, the next organization to attempt planetwide cooperation might take on this grandiose name even if only six nations joined initially.

True that.

 

[kobeyashi maru]

Looking at mythme's timeline, the Farpoint Court and First Contact seem very reconcilable. The earth is in ruins after a nuclear war, and then it gets embroiled in an interstellar war with these Kzinti. So despite the existence of warp drive and contact with the Vulcans, you're dealing with another even bigger war that's going to stretch your already minimal resources even further. Thus you get the hellish conditions that bring about Q's court.

 

[Anwar]

But the Kzin Wars wouldn't make much sense at that point either. The Kzin don't think before attacking, and since the Andorians and Vulcans are very close to Earth you'd think the Kzin would've attacked them long ago and gotten their butts kicked. Why go only for Earth while maintaining the traditional Kzin?

 

[Sci]

It makes absolutely no sense to think that an Earth that had been shattered by a nuclear war and whose major civilizations were in absolute ruins would have been able to survive, let alone win, an interstellar war. I say we completely chuck the Kzin out of Trek continuity.

 

[SciFi75]

TAS in not canon.