What was the dividing point in time?

steamwright · October 2014

Clearly our space program never rapidly advanced to the point of long-range sleeper ships by the beginning of the millenium. We never had a Eugenics War, nor even had the level of skill needed to create supermen in time for such a war.

What would you speculate is the dividing point in time between the Trek Universe "reality" and our reality? Edith Keeler? Flint (assumably) never born? Gary Seven? The events of "Tomorrow Is Yesterday"? Something obscure, like the way TRIBBLE eugenics programs ceased?

alexmakepeace · October 2014

I would assume it's when some pompous nobody decided to write a certain "wagon train to the stars" TV show that became a hit.

collegepark2151 · October 2014

Teddy Roosevelt stepped on a very important butterfly in our timeline.

jonsills · October 2014

In our reality, NASA never attempted to launch a nuclear-weapons platform (the prevention of which was Gary Seven's first mission on Earth). A Congress willing to approve this expenditure is a Congress that never signed the Outer Space Treaty; thus, governmental ownership of interplanetary assets becomes a reality, and civilian ownership becomes easier.

The Apollo program is not abandoned by the US Government just because it accomplished its primary goal of a manned lunar landing, nor does the USSR turn its back on manned space exploration just because we beat them to the Moon. Instead, the technology is expanded upon; orbital platforms are constructed, officially unarmed (unofficially, who knows?), and further space research is conducted from them.

In our reality, NASA is looking into a modification of suspended animation, placing astronauts into a state of torpor to minimize the usage of supplies during the up-to-two-year flight; in this other reality, perhaps this research, conducted earlier, leads to true suspended animation. (Or perhaps just provided the basis from which Khan and his people could invent it later.)

The rapid expansion into space means some bright entrepreneurs are going into asteroid mining in a big way, leading to the development of the DY-class cargo carriers (like the Botany Bay, for instance). It wouldn't surprise me if the relative lack of sophistication in Trek computers (as seen in TOS) is due in part to the fact that Steve Jobs, rather than providing the business sense Steve Wozniak lacked, was instead heavily invested in Ceres Ventures.

Humans in space also give the ability to fight back effectively against the armies of the supermen during the Eugenics Wars; this might well have led into World War Three, as the space-based weapons can be turned against enemy governments just as easily as against Augments. (This would also explain how Zephram Cochrane managed to build a three-seat pressurized capsule that could fit atop the converted ICBM that made up the body of the Phoenix, a trick that NASA would be hard-pressed to copy today.)

steamwright · October 2014

jonsills wrote: »

The Apollo program is not abandoned by the US Government just because it accomplished its primary goal of a manned lunar landing, nor does the USSR turn its back on manned space exploration just because we beat them to the Moon. Instead, the technology is expanded upon; orbital platforms are constructed, officially unarmed (unofficially, who knows?), and further space research is conducted from them.

This ^ is the point I've wondered about. The repeated gaps and delays in the space programs would have to have a notable effect on science advancement in general.

That said, to have a viable eugenics program by the late 90's, you'd almost have to have fantastic ramp-ups in DNA study after the discovery of the double helix in early 1953. That, or secret programs with successes in the previous decades.

lilchibiclari · October 2014

Yes--for Khan to be a warlord in the 1990s, they would have been needing to have been nearly ready to create him at the time that TOS aired.

ddesjardins · October 2014

Khan exists; he's just biding his time.

sander233 · October 2014

With regards to the Eugenics Wars, I figure there was a lot of historical revisionism in the aftermath of WWIII and First Contact.

In my headcanon, WWIII would have had a very short, very violent nuclear phase followed by a long and brutal conventional phase. With China more or less nuked back to the stone age (Q's post-atomic horror) India steps up as the Asian superpower and turns to it's genetic augment program for its military prowess. Within a few years, the United Indiastan Khanate controls a lot of Asia, and much of Southern Europe and East Africa, and is growing its powerbase while the Eastern Coalition, the European Union and the United States of North America continue to slug it out. When the E.Co. is finally defeated, the USNA and EU team up and depose Khan Noonien Singh and co. and banish them out into space.

Many years later, (by the 2260s) the history books all say that the augments were responsible for all the genocides in the 1980s through 2000s, now lumped together as the "Eugenics Wars." Because normal Humans of that era would never kill millions of their neighbors for something as trivial as ethnicity or religion. :rolleyes:

artan42 · October 2014

Star Trek didn't have a Sleaper programme in the 90's either, that got retconed away.

steamwright · October 2014

sander233 wrote: »

With regards to the Eugenics Wars, I figure there was a lot of historical revisionism in the aftermath of WWIII and First Contact.

In my headcanon, WWIII would have had a very short, very violent nuclear phase followed by a long and brutal conventional phase. With China more or less nuked back to the stone age (Q's post-atomic horror) India steps up as the Asian superpower and turns to it's genetic augment program for its military prowess. Within a few years, the United Indiastan Khanate controls a lot of Asia, and much of Southern Europe and East Africa, and is growing its powerbase while the Eastern Coalition, the European Union and the United States of North America continue to slug it out. When the E.Co. is finally defeated, the USNA and EU team up and depose Khan Noonien Singh and co. and banish them out into space.

Many years later, (by the 2260s) the history books all say that the augments were responsible for all the genocides in the 1980s through 2000s, now lumped together as the "Eugenics Wars." Because normal Humans of that era would never kill millions of their neighbors for something as trivial as ethnicity or religion. :rolleyes:

I'm a tad confused. Are you saying that to your thinking WWIII was one continual slugfest from 1992 (start of Eugenics Wars per Memory Alpha) until 2053, with the Eugenics Wars as a designation for the earliest years? Also that Khan was alive the whole 61 years? Hmm...if so, you'll have to squeeze the Bell Riots of 2024 in there somewhere, since they were portrayed as a time of relative peace (if injustice) between the two wars.

artan42 wrote: »

Star Trek didn't have a Sleaper programme in the 90's either, that got retconed away.

Do you refer to the Voyager time-travel to the 90s episode? Because I believe that was set in the years just before the Eugenics Wars, though I may be mistaken.

starswordc · October 2014

steamwright wrote: »

I'm a tad confused. Are you saying that to your thinking WWIII was one continual slugfest from 1992 (start of Eugenics Wars per Memory Alpha) until 2053, with the Eugenics Wars as a designation for the earliest years? Also that Khan was alive the whole 61 years? Hmm...if so, you'll have to squeeze the Bell Riots of 2024 in there somewhere, since they were portrayed as a time of relative peace (if injustice) between the two wars.

Do you refer to the Voyager time-travel to the 90s episode? Because I believe that was set in the years just before the Eugenics Wars, though I may be mistaken.

He's saying that in popular perception the period had multiple potentially unrelated wars that blurred together in pop history. Sisko seems to be somewhat of a history buff and has more complete knowledge.

What was the dividing point in time?

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