Who is Li Quan?

[The Laughing Vulcan]

^^

Have to disagree with you there. Better mention first that I am Indian and I probably have a different perspectibe to you. But the idea of co-existence is a new one, 60 years old. Prior to that it was always the rule of one over many, and the imposition of values by force. The Indo Pakistan friction isn't a historical one, but one rooted in history. The Mughals conquered much of India, and imposed their values and beliefs over the majority Hindu population. It's a matter of history. To think that the invaded would welcome the invaders with open arms is absolutely ridiculous. But to expect the conquered to rise up continuously in rebellious foment is also daft. The Mughals were on the way out at the time of the British arrival in India, The Sikhs had already altered the map of India in terms of rule by establishing their own Empire under Ranjit Singh, from Delhi all the way to Afghanistan, and the few remaining Mughals were fighting over the remaining scraps, or fading away in their own decadence. That's the point where the Hindu population probably would have risen up and given their former overseers a good kicking on the way out. Short, sharp and sweet.

But then the British came, and froze everything is stasis. They became the overseers, and everyone else were the second class citizens, and it doesn't do to have the children of the benevolent masters squabbling. For a hundred years, that lingering resentment of the Mughals festered.

Yes, the British made mistakes, and yes, their haste to depart in 1947 exacerbated tensions. Yes, Jinnah's insistence on Pakistan is a contributing factor, although Gandhi was hardly the saint that history has made him to be, and blame can equally be laid at the feet of Nehru. But none of these factions, none of these politics, no calm, distanced academic analysis can explain just why a million people had to die in communal violence during Partition. That sort of hatred, that lingering resentment that saw previously peaceful multifaith villages have a minority exterminated or driven out by the majority is far more deep-seated and ancient than the misplaced meddling of the British, or arbitary lines on a map.

In this case, your 'relatively' is rather naive.

 

[Christopher]

^^

Have to disagree with you there. Better mention first that I am Indian and I probably have a different perspectibe to you.

True, but it's often hard to see a process clearly when you're in the middle of it or have a personal stake in it.

But the idea of co-existence is a new one, 60 years old.

In its modern form, yes. But the idea of Hindus and Muslims being intractably separate political as well as cultural entities is also a new one of roughly the same age.

Again, please take care not to oversimplify. I am not remotely saying that conflict never existed in the past; that would just be stupid. I am saying that there has always been a spectrum of attitudes, a gamut ranging from intolerance to mutual acceptance, and that the ways in which those attitudes have manifested themselves or dominated one another have been constantly shifting throughout history. So it would be a mistake to assume that the way things are today is a "tradition" stretching back into the ageless past. That's the kind of attitude that propagandists use to claim their ways of thinking are essential truths for their cultures, but to the historian's eye, it doesn't hold up to analysis. Conflict and coexistence between religious communities have both been part of South Asian history for millennia, and people who insist that only one of them is the essential defining theme of history are saying that because it's in their own ideological interest to slant history in that way.

Yes, the British made mistakes, and yes, their haste to depart in 1947 exacerbated tensions. Yes, Jinnah's insistence on Pakistan is a contributing factor, although Gandhi was hardly the saint that history has made him to be, and blame can equally be laid at the feet of Nehru. But none of these factions, none of these politics, no calm, distanced academic analysis can explain just why a million people had to die in communal violence during Partition. That sort of hatred, that lingering resentment that saw previously peaceful multifaith villages have a minority exterminated or driven out by the majority is far more deep-seated and ancient than the misplaced meddling of the British, or arbitary lines on a map.

In this case, your 'relatively' is rather naive.

No, it isn't. You're just grossly and utterly misreading my intention by assuming I'm saying something far more simplistic than I actually am. And I think that's because your own view of the situation is strongly politicized, shaped by your own ideology, so it apparently looks more black-and-white to you than it does to me.

Believe me, I'm not trying to explain the violence of partition. I struggled to do so in a research paper I wrote for my Indian History course, but still it remained a horrible and difficult thing to grasp. But a large part of the reason for that was because it wasn't a simple continuation of an inevitable historical process. While there had, obviously, been past conflicts between Hindus and Muslims, there had also been more tolerant and peaceful interactions as well. As you yourself say, those multifaith villages had been previously peaceful. So while the historical tensions did exist, they weren't the whole story. The capacity for peaceful relations existed as well.

That's my point. Regardless of tensions, it has been possible for South Asian Hindus and Muslims to coexist in the past, and it should be in the future. So it can't be taken for granted that India and Pakistan must remain political enemies in the future. I'm not saying that all religious tensions will be resolved and erased; I'm simply saying that they may be moved to a different level than that of international politics -- that political relations between India and Pakistan could be divorced from religious differences between them. In the modern era, we embrace the principle of nationalism, the idea that divisions between ethnic or religious communities automatically equate to divisions between nations as political entities. But it hasn't always been that way in the past. National identity and political affiliation haven't always been defined in ethnic or religious terms. Nor are they universally defined that way today. The United States is not divided into a white nation and a black nation, or a Christian nation and a Jewish nation. We have tensions between our races and religions, but we still consider ourselves to be part of the same nation, the same political entity.

This is the crux of how you're misunderstanding me. I'm not talking about peace and flowers and kittens breaking out forevermore. I'm simply talking about separating the notion of religious identity from that of national/political identity. It is possible for different religious communities to live together in relative peace, even if some degree of tension remains. So there's no reason to assume that the current state of tension between India and Pakistan must remain fixed and unchanging for all eternity.

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

I think we're both misunderstanding each other, as we are oft to do in these debates. I am in no way saying that co-existence isn't possible. If that were the case, then there wouldn't be more Muslims living in India now than there are in Pakistan. Despite it's constant tensions and internal strife, that often manifest in occasional burst of fundamentalism and violence from all factions, Sikh, Tamil, Hindu, Muslim, differences between castes, or just fans of different cricket teams, India is still an exemplar in cultural diversity and secular government.

What I was reading from your comments was a belief that the majority of animosities that currently exist between the nations of Pakistan and India are directly resultant from the Raj. This is what I disagree with. I still say that differences are deeper and fundamental, and stretch further back in history. India, a lot like Britain, has been the subject of continuous invasion and Empire building from without. The Aryan subjugation and conquest of the original Dravidian inhabitants resulted in the caste system that blights the region to this day.

Incidentally, I apologise for the accusation of naivete. Having read your paper, I can see that you have considered and researched the situation, probably to a greater degree than I, who have been culturally indoctrinated with it. In fact I agree with much of what you say. It's just the conclusion that attributes the propensity to communal violence in the South Asian psyche directly to the 'trauma' of the Raj that I disagree with. That propensity has always been there, as pre-Raj history shows.

 

[captcalhoun]

in my fan-fic article on the Eugenics Wars, WW3 and the inter-war period i ascribed the ECON to China, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. China dominating the ECON after the removal of Khan's forces from SE Asia by the West Pacific Alliance led by Australia. Western Europe formed the European Hegemony, Eastern Europe the Budapest Pact, the ex-Soviet states became the New Soviet Union, the mid-east became the Islamic Alliance and Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean Islands formed the Caribbean Alliance.

 

[Rush Limborg]

Who is the REAL Lee Kwan, and why hasn't he come clean about his relationship with William Ayers? Is he a socialist, a terrorist, a Marxist, a Muslim? We just don't know.

(Snicker...)

Well...Diane did "establish" that Lee Kwan/Li Quan was an Asian-American, whose ambitions led him to seek...global unity....

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I don't suppose anyone here particularly cares about what Brannon Braga reportedly said in the commentary for ST:FC - specifically, that all references to the ECON actually *were* China in the original script, but they changed it at the last minute for reasons that escape me.

 

[Sci]

Which only goes to prove that the ease or difficulty with which we imagine our futures is kind of irrelevant, no?

Well, sure, but if we're gonna speculate about these sorts of things, then our own guesses are all we have to go on. And it's still fun.

Fair enough. But it's been going for quite a while now, and I have difficulty imagining it ending in the next fifty years. It's certainly not impossible, though -- I mean, who would have imagined a black man as President of the United States fifty years ago?

And who would've imagined that the Soviet Union would cease to exist in 1991? In TOS, Chekov said he was from Leningrad, not St. Petersburg. Of all the predictions made by SF novelists, storytellers, and filmmakers, none of them anticipated Gorbachev and glasnost, and many imagined the Cold War enduring for far longer than it did.

To be fair, the oblast that St. Petersburg is in is still called Leningrad, so maybe Chekov was referring to that.

Well, I suppose I should mention that I'm approaching this from the assumption that the Eastern Coalition is not actually a coalition, but rather an Orwellianly-named state used by one nation to control and dominate other nations. That's completely speculation, of course -- but, like I said, I just don't buy the idea of these states that so thoroughly distrust each other, China, Nepal, India, and Pakistan, unifying except by force.

The United States and the USSR unified against their common enemies of the Axis, even though their differences were great enough that they were mortal foes within a couple of years after the alliance ended. And again, there's no reason to assume that the governments that exist in those nations today will still be there four and a half decades from now. If the USSR could vanish as suddenly as it did, who knows what else could abruptly change?

Fair enough, but given my understanding of the political currents as they exist now and have in recent history, I still contend that the Eastern Coalition is more likely to be something like what I described above. But, of course, that's just me.

That's why I said relatively well. And you can't define history solely by looking at the level of leaders and politicians. Historically, the rank and file have tended to go about their lives largely the same way regardless of who was in charge. And historically, India has traditionally been a society that was very open to religious diversity, and rank-and-file Hindus and Muslims tended to coexist moderately well. They didn't always get along, no, but there was no overarching sense that they had to live in separate nations and had to kill each other to attain it. Yes, conflict has existed in the past, but it would be a mistake to assume that such conflict has been couched in the same ethnic-nationalist terms we take so much for granted today.

And even in British India, there was no universal sentiment that Hindus and Muslims had to live in separate warring nations. There was one faction that wanted separate nations, but others (including Gandhi) that wanted independent India to be a multifaith nation. My point is not that Hindus and Muslims never had conflict in India; my point is that it's a mistake to assume that the modern India-Pakistan conflict is merely a continuation of an ancient, unchanging "tradition." It's a result of many influences, including bad political decisions by the British that exacerbated historic tensions that could have been averted with a little more patience and wisdom.

Ahkay. Christopher, you saw my word "traditionally" and saw in it a connotation that I did not consider when I used the word, and for that I apologize. I did not mean that India and Pakistan are traditionally enemies in the sense of, Hindus and Muslims have a long history of centuries of violent conflict and separatism. What I meant was, India and Pakistan have been enemies ever since the British left the Indian subcontinent. When I used the term "traditionally," I was only thinking as far back as Indian/Pakistani independence.

And while I concede that it's certainly not impossible that they might find peace with each other in the next fifty years, I would contend that it's unlikely. I do not say this because of any particular piece of information about the pre-British Indian subcontinent, but simply by virtue of the recent history of the region.

That's my point. Regardless of tensions, it has been possible for South Asian Hindus and Muslims to coexist in the past, and it should be in the future. So it can't be taken for granted that India and Pakistan must remain political enemies in the future.

True. But we're talking about a very specific timeframe -- 2008 to 1 May 2050. That's only forty-two years. It's not at all impossible for India and Pakistan to be able to bury the hatchet in that amount of time, but on the basis of the historical trends as they currently exist, it seems less likely than their continued antagonism. That's not a statement of absolute determinism, it's a statement of probability within a specific timeframe.

Besides, the Vulcans will land in 2163 and then India and Pakistan will start getting along.

I don't suppose anyone here particularly cares about what Brannon Braga reportedly said in the commentary for ST:FC - specifically, that all references to the ECON actually *were* China in the original script, but they changed it at the last minute for reasons that escape me.

Actually, that was another reason I had for thinking that the ECON was essentially a Chinese-dominated empire, but I forgot to mention that one. Thanks.

 

[Christopher]

And while I concede that it's certainly not impossible that they might find peace with each other in the next fifty years, I would contend that it's unlikely. I do not say this because of any particular piece of information about the pre-British Indian subcontinent, but simply by virtue of the recent history of the region.

Actually I thought that relations between India and Pakistan had improved in recent years. Maybe things have regressed again, but they were looking pretty positive for a while. It's not a steady-state situation.

And again, going by "recent history," there was zero reason to expect the Soviet Union to fall in 1991. Going by "recent history," there was zero reason to expect that America would elect a black president in 2008. History isn't prophecy.

True. But we're talking about a very specific timeframe -- 2008 to 1 May 2050. That's only forty-two years. It's not at all impossible for India and Pakistan to be able to bury the hatchet in that amount of time, but on the basis of the historical trends as they currently exist, it seems less likely than their continued antagonism. That's not a statement of absolute determinism, it's a statement of probability within a specific timeframe.

But that assessment of probability is based on the assumption that it's more probable for current trends to continue than it is for them to change. I disagree with that assumption; predictions based on that assumption have historically tended to be wrong. Human cultures are very dynamic and volatile. And it's a huge mistake to overlook the differences between generations. The people running India and Pakistan 42 years from now will be the children or grandchildren of the people running them today. People have a way of rebelling against the attitudes of their parents, trying to correct their perceived mistakes -- whether it's "I won't raise my kids the way my parents raised me" or "I won't run my country the way the previous generation ran it."

 

[Sci]

And while I concede that it's certainly not impossible that they might find peace with each other in the next fifty years, I would contend that it's unlikely. I do not say this because of any particular piece of information about the pre-British Indian subcontinent, but simply by virtue of the recent history of the region.

Actually I thought that relations between India and Pakistan had improved in recent years. Maybe things have regressed again, but they were looking pretty positive for a while. It's not a steady-state situation.

And again, going by "recent history," there was zero reason to expect the Soviet Union to fall in 1991. Going by "recent history," there was zero reason to expect that America would elect a black president in 2008. History isn't prophecy.

True. But we're talking about a very specific timeframe -- 2008 to 1 May 2050. That's only forty-two years. It's not at all impossible for India and Pakistan to be able to bury the hatchet in that amount of time, but on the basis of the historical trends as they currently exist, it seems less likely than their continued antagonism. That's not a statement of absolute determinism, it's a statement of probability within a specific timeframe.

But that assessment of probability is based on the assumption that it's more probable for current trends to continue than it is for them to change. I disagree with that assumption; predictions based on that assumption have historically tended to be wrong. Human cultures are very dynamic and volatile. And it's a huge mistake to overlook the differences between generations. The people running India and Pakistan 42 years from now will be the children or grandchildren of the people running them today. People have a way of rebelling against the attitudes of their parents, trying to correct their perceived mistakes -- whether it's "I won't raise my kids the way my parents raised me" or "I won't run my country the way the previous generation ran it."

All true and a perfectly reasonable way of looking at things, too.

*shrugs* I suppose I'm just more pessimistic than you are, Christopher. But I hope you're right. Here's to hoping.

 

[Christopher]

Well, optimism or pessimism isn't at issue. We're talking about a fictional scenario involving the existence of multinational alliances or blocs that don't exist today. Since it's fiction, the issue isn't what's probable, just what's possible. I mean, if we can accept the fictional premise that some guy in Montana is going to turn an abandoned nuclear missile into a faster-than-light starship 55 years from now, it can't be so hard to accept the fictional premise that India and Pakistan find some reason to join in a political alliance a decade or so earlier.

 

[Stevil2001]

My favorite TOS Soviet Union reference is from Crisis on Centaurus, where Chekov's time working on the collective farm comes in handy!

 

[Lindley]

I always just figured it was a reference to Lee Kuan Yew or maybe a descendant. Back in '69 someone could have imagined he would turn bad at some point.....never happened, of course.

 

[DEWLine]

I've often wondered if perhaps the ECON wasn't a bunch of nations who had been ruled by Augments such as Khan Singh and his rivals - about whom we'd never gotten to learn a great deal, as I recall - and resented the consequences of being ruled by the losing side of the Eugenics Wars. The consequences could have played out akin to the reparations forced upon post-WW One Germany until one very ugly day in 2053...

 

[EmperorKalan]

What nation states were part of the E-Con anyway? I always saw it as the Middle- and Far-East, the oil states, Russia, and the Orient.

Not much canonical or non-canonical data on membership in the Eastern Coalition that I'm aware of.

We do know from the Lost Era novel The Sundered by Michael A. Martin and Andy Mangels, however, that the Eastern Coalition's membership did not included what was referred to as the Muslim Bloc -- a union of majority-Muslim states in the Middle East that had recently become democracies (and presumably had finally made peace with Israel) in the 2030s. The Eastern Coalition also did not include the European Union, which had apparently centralized and achieved out-and-out statehood by the 2030s, nor the United States, which remained an EU -- and presumably Muslim Bloc -- ally.

Two major cities in the Eastern Coalition were identified in The Sundered as having been destroyed by nuclear detonations during the May Day Horror of 2050: Karachi, in present-day Pakistan, and New Delhi, the capital of present-day India. This indicates that Pakistan and India were part of the Eastern Coalition.

I think it may be a bit oversimplistic to simply draw bloc membership from existing nations. As it was originally used in First Contact, it could just have easily referred to a faction in North America picking up the pieces after a breakdown of national governemnts during the nuclear exchanges. There are a few bits in Treklit to suggest factional fighting in present-day US territory. In The Final Reflection, a new state of Cibola was included in the eventually-resurgent USA, consisting of at least some parts of New Mexico. And I don't know from where off the top of my head, but I do recall a "Battle of Las Vegas" somewhere.

 

[EmperorKalan]

I've often wondered if perhaps the ECON wasn't a bunch of nations who had been ruled by Augments such as Khan Singh and his rivals - about whom we'd never gotten to learn a great deal, as I recall - and resented the consequences of being ruled by the losing side of the Eugenics Wars. The consequences could have played out akin to the reparations forced upon post-WW One Germany until one very ugly day in 2053...

Since we're in the odd situation where reality has passed what were supposed to be "20-30 years from now" dates for the Eugenics Wars, I'm wondering if the might be retconned into the 2020s or so, and if not part of WW3 itself then at least as part of a period of turmoil that precipitated it. (I'd gotten the impression (I'm not sure how legitimately) that ST:Enterprise was trying to quietly do that.)

As to Li Quan, since he was mentioned in the same breath as Napoleon and Hitler, it would imply he was one of history's biggest, most notorious dictators. If you couple that with backhanded admiration that Kirk and Scotty had for Khan, it would be fairly easy to portray them as the "good cop/bad cop" and chief rivals of the eugenic supermen. Or perhaps Khan overthrew a tyrannical Li, but that seems too close to the Kahless/Molor story.

 

[Timo]

This classic tradition of "drop two real-world names, add a fictional third" doesn't necessarily mean the three would be equal in the eyes of pseudohistory. Say, David Marcus jabbed at his mother by saying she'd be remembered alongside Newton, Einstein and Surak. Are we to assume that Surak was actually a physicist? Or that Newton in the Trek universe was famous for his pacifism? Or that Einstein in the Trek universe was interested in mysticism?

As already said (I think?), the two references to Li Quan are from "Patterns of Force" and "Whom Gods Destroy", respectively:

McCoy: "It also proves another Earth saying. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Darn clever, these Earthmen, wouldn't you say?"
Spcok: "Yes. Earthmen like Ramses, Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon, Hitler, Lee Kuan. Your whole Earth history is made up of men seeking absolute power."

Garth of Izar: "On your knees before me! All the others before me have failed. Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon, Hitler, Lee Kuan, Krotus! All of them are dust! But I will triumph! I will make the ultimate conquest!"

Put together, Li Quan could have been a successful conqueror, or a failed one; a benign ruler, or a hated monster of one. Spock views him with detached disdain typical of Vulcans; Garth considers him a worthy competitor in the game he intends to win. If Julius Caesar counts as a point of comparison, Li Quan could have controlled the entire Earth and then be assassinated; if Hitler or Napoleon does, Li Quan could epitomize military defeat and hopes that never were fulfilled. If Ramses does, then Li Quan could have been an utter loser who just wrote such good propaganda that history remembers him as a great man.

Or a woman, for that matter. Spock said "men", but perhaps in the broader sense of "humans"; Garth never specified a gender.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[TGTheodore]

As already said (I think?), the two references to Li Quan are from "Patterns of Force" and "Whom Gods Destroy", respectively

Garth of Izar: "On your knees before me! All the others before me have failed. Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon, Hitler, Lee Kuan, Krotus! All of them are dust! But I will triumph! I will make the ultimate conquest!"

Actually, Lee Kuan was a 1960's cola product that never caught on.

It was all just very sneaky product placement, and Desilu was paid quite a bit for it.

True, they considered using "Pepsidian" or "Cocacolus", but they just didn't have the same exotic ring.

--Ted

 

[Rush Limborg]

^

 

[Mistral]

As already said (I think?), the two references to Li Quan are from "Patterns of Force" and "Whom Gods Destroy", respectively

Garth of Izar: "On your knees before me! All the others before me have failed. Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon, Hitler, Lee Kuan, Krotus! All of them are dust! But I will triumph! I will make the ultimate conquest!"

Actually, Lee Kuan was a 1960's cola product that never caught on.

It was all just very sneaky product placement, and Desilu was paid quite a bit for it.

True, they considered using "Pepsidian" or "Cocacolus", but they just didn't have the same exotic ring.

--Ted

Sorry to disagree, Ted, but as often happens when dealing with the fragmentary records of the time leading up to the Third World War you got the answer only partially right. Based on new evidence dug up from a cache discovered under the ruins of a house in Malibu, CA which once belonged to a now-forgotten 20th Century actor named Stallone we can make an honest assessment about Li Quan (or Lee Kuan, as he is sometimes known).

Li Quan is best known for the post-Atomic “trials” he engineered wherein the accused(falsely or otherwise) were often subjected to a heinous treatment known as “the comfy chair”. He seized the role of the Presidency of the United States in 2054 and, according to the Stallone Papers, immediately ordered that all male children under the age of six be painted blue(No one really knows why).



Then, when he attempted to shut down Las Vegas with the argument that “the bright lights hurt his eyes” in late 2054 the citizens rebelled. This culminated in the infamous Battle of Las Vegas in November of that year when rabid gamblers held off what was left of the US Army with poker chip-firing automatic slingshots.



The reason Li Quan is regarded with such disdain and loathing in the 23rd Century, though, is because of his insistence on re-introducing New Coke to the general populace. Ted, that’s probably where your point of confusion crept in. I hope you found this clarification helpful.

 

[TGTheodore]

The reason Li Quan is regarded with such disdain and loathing in the 23rd Century, though, is because of his insistence on re-introducing New Coke to the general populace. Ted, that’s probably where your point of confusion crept in. I hope you found this clarification helpful.

Ah , that clears it up. With only occasional trips back to this time period, my knowledge does have some occasional gaps.

Not to alter history or anything, but in 2116 we actually drink Blue Coke.

--Ted