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The Eugenics War And World War III In The Star Trek Universe, Explained

"Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" reaches deep into "Trek" canon. You don't need to know about the Eugenics Wars and World War III to enjoy the mostly standalone show, but ... has a little extra knowledge never hurt? Especially when the first episode of the new Paramount+ series references these past events so heavily.

When "Star Trek" was first conceived in the mid-1960s, the '90s still seemed like a far way off. It was far away enough that the writers of "Trek" felt completely comfortable extrapolating a future history that would begin as early as 1992. "Star Trek" did not predict Boyz II Men's " The End of the Road " being the biggest album that year, but they did predict the eventual rise of Khan Noonien Singh, a genetically enhanced ruler who would, thanks to his ambition, enhanced intellect, and increased strength, take over the world. 

Although none of the extant "Star Trek" canon has depicted it directly, there are two major world conflicts in the "Star Trek" timeline that were necessary to bring about Gene Roddenberry's peaceful vision of the future: The Eugenics Wars and World War III. Roddenberry, after all, created "Trek" in the mid-1960s, a time when he could look out his window and see a great amount of turbulence that likely didn't leave him feeling hopeful. Racial segregation was on the books, greed was corrupting the world, and the Vietnam War was raging. It was not an optimistic time. Roddenberry seems to have sensed — or at least feared — that a collapse was imminent. That is, if the future built into the history of the "Star Trek" universe is any indicator of Roddenberry's attitudes. 

As such, the world — to Roddenberry's eyes — would need the Etch-A-Sketch treatment before a better future could begin. Shake up the whole planet, erase the picture, and begin drawing again. Humanity, by Roddenberry's assumed estimation, needed to nearly collapse under its own destructive hubris before it realized that looking up to the stars was preferable to killing one another en masse. 

While the timeline has shifted around a lot as the decades have passed (the latest season of " Star Trek: Picard " takes place in 2024, and the Eugenics Wars are not in full swing), they still seem to hang heavily over the near-future of "Star Trek." Indeed, genetic engineering is a large part of the second season of "Picard," one of the main villains being Dr. Adam Soong (Brent Spiner) a geneticist who wants to enhance humanity for the better ... and for the worse. 

The Eugenics Wars

The first time audiences heard of The Eugenics Wars was the during the "Star Trek: The Original Series" episode " Space Seed ," which first aired on February 16, 1967. In it, the Enterprise discovers a seemingly deactivated "sleeper ship," the S.S. Botany Bay, wherein a small group of human beings have been in cryogenic sleep for 200 years. Of the 84 people frozen, 72 are still alive. The Enterprise rescues and resurrects their leader, finding him to be none other than Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalbán), the onetime dictator of Earth. "Space Seed" offers a good deal of exposition regarding Trek history: In the 1990s, humans were subjected to breeding experiments, resulting in arrogant and powerful superbeings who took over much of the world. 

Although "Star Trek" is ultimately a show centered on pacifism, there is a lot of dialogue in "Space Seed" to describe how awesome Khan is as a warlord. Several characters describe him as a benevolent dictator — reminiscent of Plato's philosopher kings — who didn't engage in genocide and who didn't start a war until he was attacked. The episode's writers, Gene L. Coon and Carey Wilbur, seem torn between writing a show that touts a philosophy of pacifism, and their own Nietzsche-like admiration of a powerfully willed man. 

The actual catalytic event that kicked off the Eugenics wars has never been made explicit in "Star Trek," although from "Space Seed" we know that augmented human beings were taking over the world as despots. Khan wasn't as despotic as others of his generation, but he was still a dictator. Indeed, Khan eventually tries to take over the Enterprise. Kirk convinces him that a greater challenge would be to begin society fresh on an uninhabited planet. Khan accepts the challenge, and he — along with all the other augmented people — are dropped off on a planet called Ceti Alpha V. Anyone who has seen " Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan " knows that a major environmental disaster left Khan stuck on a planet that had become a desert. He was stranded there for 20 years. Hence his titular wrath. 

Borderland, Cold Station 12, and The Augments

Additional ex post facto details about the Eugenics Wars were filled in during the fourth season of " Star Trek: Enterprise ." In a three-part episode ("Borderland," "Cold Station 12," and "The Augments"), audiences were introduced to Dr. Arik Soong (Spiner again), who was on the run for developing a race of generically enhanced people, a few of which were running amok among the Klingon Empire. Recall that "Enterprise" takes place nearly a century before the events of the original "Star Trek," so this was long before Khan was resurrected. 

The Augments in this three-parter talk about how Khan was considered their grandfather. There is also a lot of dialogue devoted to the long-held ban of genetic enhancements in the world of "Star Trek." The ban is mentioned multiple times throughout " Star Trek: The Next Generation ," and it will be considered something of a scandal when one of the main cast members of " Star Trek: Deep Space Nine " was secretly an augment since the start. The idea of shaping human history via genetic manipulation has largely been taboo in Trek, seeing as it draws from similar evil ideas of genetic purity often parroted by white supremacists throughout history. Two different Soongs will be responsible for carrying this idea forward: Arik and Adam from "Enterprise" and "Picard."

The three-part episode ends with a cute twist: Arik, having been apprehended, is convinced that genetics is not the path to making perfect people. But maybe cybernetics is. He says to himself that he could likely create a realistic humanoid android, provided he pass the project down a few generations. Boom. This is how we got Data on "Next Generation."

World War III

The details of World War III are often left vague by canonical dialogue. Here's what Trekkies do know:

That World War III was fought from 2026 to 2053. That the war was kicked off by arguments about genetic manipulation left over from the Eugenics Wars, very much the way much of the damage left by World War I led frighteningly directly into World War II. We know from the original series episode "The Savage Curtain" — an episode that sees the resurrection of one Colonel Phillip Green (Phillip Pine), one of WWIII's nastiest dictators — that World War III will involve nuclear attacks, and the utter waste of the Earth's surface. The nuclear apocalypse was also alluded to in "The Next Generation," as well as an episode of "Star Trek: Discovery," wherein a character describes how bombs were being dropped as late as 2053, leading to the devastation that cause all sides to lose. According to dialogue in the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" pilot, "Encounter at Farpoint," World Ward III's ancillary conflicts would continue to rage until the 2070s. 

Viewers also know from "Encounter at Farpoint" that soldiers were controlled by addictive drugs — we see Q (John De Lancie) wearing the uniform of a World War III soldier — and that deliberate acts of eco-terrorism were par for the course. Humanity was bombing one another to no end and deliberately destroying the planet, all while high on drugs. Additionally, humanity would be overrun by brutal, miniature dictatorships, overseen by medieval-style kangaroo courts wherein people would be judged and executed with very little evidence; Q would also put on the garb of the judge seen in these courts. What a pleasant time.

This was the Etch-A-Sketch moment, Roddenberry seemed to feel, that humanity required. In the 1996 film "Star Trek: First Contact," the crew of the Enterprise-E were sucked back to the year 2063, after the bulk of Earth's carnage had ended, and our species was struggling to survive. It was during this time that Zefram Cochran (James Cromwell) would invent the world's first faster-than-light engine. While testing the engine, it would attract the attention of a passing Vulcan vessel, giving them license to come visit. Making First Contact with the Vulcans was a wake-up call for all humanity, and people began to unify, realizing that we weren't doing so well on our own, but might improve if we see ourselves as neighbors in a broad, cosmic community. 

Humanity may be in a dark tunnel now, but there will always be a light at the end.

World War III

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World War III was a global, and ultimately nuclear, conflict on Earth in the mid- 21st century . Over 600 million people died in the war, and human civilization nearly collapsed, resulting in a period known as "the post-atomic horror " that lasted into the early 22nd century . ( TNG : " Encounter at Farpoint ", Star Trek: First Contact )

• 2 Aftermath, first contact, and the legacy of WW3
• 3.1 Dragon Ball Z vs. Star Trek: The Way of Infinity
• 3.2 Federation Spaceflight Chronology
• 3.3 Missing Link
• 3.4 Star Trek: 001
• 3.5 Star Trek: The Adventures of Argus
• 5 External links

History [ ]

The flag of Colonel Green and the Optimum Movement.

Historians of later centuries had varying opinions on the exact nature of the war and its origins. Some linked it to the Eugenics Wars of the late 20th century , and while the seeds of the conflict may have been planted then, most scholars agreed it really began with Colonel Phillip Green 's ecoterrorism in 2026 which resulted in 37 million deaths. Green and his troops executed hundreds of thousands of people with "impurities" like radiation sickness , claiming that their deaths were for the good of future generations. ( TOS : " Space Seed ", " The Savage Curtain ", VOY : " In the Flesh ", ENT : " In a Mirror Darkly, Part II ", " Demons ", " Terra Prime ")

Among other parties in the conflict were the Eastern Coalition ("ECON"), which fought against the United States of America and the European Union . Various factions, including Green's cadre and possibly the ECON, used drugs to control their military. ( Star Trek: First Contact , TNG : " Encounter at Farpoint ", TNG novel: Federation )

Even during this period of global turmoil, the New United Nations worked for peace, and in 2036 declared that "no human being would be held accountable for the crimes of their race or forebearers". However, the group's efforts met with failure. ( TNG : " Encounter at Farpoint ")

The Mind Control Revolts of 2043 - 47 occurred during this period. ( TOS novel: Star Trek: The Motion Picture )

Sometime before the war's peak, parts of New York City were mostly abandoned and was invaded by a faction of the Eastern Coalition. ( Star Trek: 001 : "When It Rains..." )

World War III reached its peak on 1 May 2053 , when nuclear weapons were detonated over London , New York City, Tel Aviv , Jerusalem , Mecca , Beijing and other cities. Asia was hit hardest, followed by the United States. Nearly half a billion people died in the initial blasts; Washington, DC and the surrounding three states were "blown off the map", and Earth was plunged into a nuclear winter that lasted most of the next decade. The post-atomic horror that followed severely destabilized civilization all over the world as governments fell and terrorist groups and rogue states detonated "suitcase nukes" and released biological weapons . The drug-controlled troops were used as cannon fodder in conventional ground battles after many global computer systems were sabotaged. Numerous small-scale conflicts erupted across the globe. The economy of the United States was devastated, and most of its citizens were reduced to living conditions worse than the Great Depression of the 1930s . ( Star Trek: First Contact ; The Lost Era novel: The Sundered )

For two months following the "outbreak" of World War III, Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas served as the operational command center for Colonel Amber's Regimental Volunteers and was the site of the final battle of the Siege of Las Vegas. ( DS9 novel: The Lives of Dax : "Second Star to the Right...")

When the extent of the devastation became clear, the remaining governments gathered in San Francisco to sign a peace accord. Even so, some wished to keep fighting, like Colonel Green and others of his ilk. After Green's death, one of his lieutenants, Colonel Adrik Thorsen , continued terrorist strikes in the name of the Optimum Movement , and by the 2070s , gained control of Great Britain . ( ENT : " Demons "; TNG novel: Federation )

Aftermath, first contact, and the legacy of WW3 [ ]

First Contact with the Vulcans in 2063 inspired new hope in humanity and aided in recovery from the war's effects in some areas. Nonetheless, the post-atomic horror raged on in Asia, the Middle East, and the "new third world" sunk into total lawlessness. According to Jean-Luc Picard , these areas remained in "chaos" well into the early 22nd century . ( TNG : " Encounter at Farpoint ", " Up the Long Ladder ")

Gradually, as the post-atomic horror declined, new attempts at unified global alliances sprung up, including the European Hegemony c. 2123 . These alliances eventually formed the genesis of the United Earth in 2150 . ( TNG : " Up the Long Ladder ", " Attached ")

World War III's legacy was far-reaching, and continued to be felt a hundred years later. The war eventually became a popular subject in the recovered film industry. The philosophy of Neo-Transcendentalism was founded to advocate a return to a "simpler life" in response to the devastation advanced technology had brought humanity. Other less-benign schools of thought emerged, including the xenophobia exemplified by the Back-to-Earth movement and its more aggressive "cousin" Terra Prime , an outgrowth of Green and Thorsen's "Optimum Philosophy". ( ENT : " Home ", " Demons ", " Terra Prime ", TNG : " Up the Long Ladder "; Star Trek novels: Final Frontier , novel )

Ultimately, World War III and first contact marked a turning point for humanity. In the aftermath, humanity came together, putting aside the differences of race and culture, and unified in a way never before seen. ( Star Trek: First Contact )

Dragon Ball Z vs. Star Trek: The Way of Infinity [ ]

During World War III, Kyoto was destroyed by three hydrogen bombs . After World War III, it was rebuilt.

The Vulcans were able to remove most radioactive material in Earth's atmosphere, but small, harmless amounts of radioactive particles remained in the atmosphere. In many big cities on earth, devices were installed to remove as much of their particles as possible. These devices were still in use during the 24th century .

Federation Spaceflight Chronology [ ]

In this continuity, World War III took place from 2026 to 2047 , ending with the Day of Fire , in which 600 million beings on Earth died within 20 minutes. ( Federation Spaceflight Chronology , vol. 3)

Missing Link [ ]

In this continuity, neither the Optimum Movement nor the Eastern Coalition was involved -- in fact, neither political entity is mentioned. Economic upheavals in 2008 and 2013 are referred to, as is climatic change resulting in the average sea level rising by as much as two feet. A conflict of over 25 years ended with the near destruction of the United States of America , Russia and China by each other's nuclear weapons in August of 2053. San Francisco was one of the cities destroyed in a nuclear strike.

Star Trek: 001 [ ]

In 2752 , the crew of Starbase 001 became trapped within a holographic simulation of World War III, where they were forced to protect themselves from the holographic invading forces of the Eastern Coalition. One of the Coalition's strategies was to invade an abandoned city so that they would attain much of what was left, including possible technologies, intact. A corrupted Starfleet Command had claimed the simulation was intended as a time travel test for the crew, but in reality, was a plot to kill off those who would oppose them. ( Star Trek: 001 : "When It Rains..." )

Star Trek: The Adventures of Argus [ ]

In 2026 the Optimum Movement detonated a series of nuclear devices in 25 major cities of the United States of America , killing 30 million people and fracturing the country. In retaliation, what was left of the US government launched their own missiles at those they thought were responsible, killing a further 7 million and igniting the conflict.

Following the opening attacks there was a six-month lull, during which the eastern states America had attacked unified into the Eastern Coalition Of Nations . A quarter of a century's worth of tension between eastern and western nations and hatred of the US and its allies fueled the ECON with a seemingly unending supply of troops that allowed them to initially steamroller their way forwards. With their most powerful member crippled and facing overwhelming numbers, the western nations, under the organisational banner of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation , used small tactical nuclear strikes to slow the advance.

The virtual stalemate continued for several years, draining resources on both sides and causing unrest to grow in the western nations, which the Optimum Movement used to promote their philosophy of survival of the fittest. By 2033 the USA had been reformed under the Optimum, with Great Britain, United Ireland, Spain, Germany and Italy joining it by 2047 and all withdrew from the New United Nations , effectively disbanding the organisation for a second time.

In 2053 the Optimum finally put its philosophy to the test, launching a massive nuclear strike on the ECON to end the war. Unfortunately for them, the ECON managed to launch a counter strike and the result was the effective crippling of either side's ability to make war and leading the signing of the San Francisco cease-fire, but the cost was high. Almost every major city on earth had been destroyed and 300,000,000 people killed, a death toll that doubled that of the entire conflict up to that point and that made the attack that had begun the war pale in comparison.

Despite the signing of the cease-fire, small conflicts continued to erupt over the next two decades as the Optimum and ECON governments continued to collapse, with the final Optimum stronghold, Great Britain, falling in 2079 . (" Nuclear Time ")

See also [ ]

• Optimum Conflict

External links [ ]

• World War III article at Memory Alpha , the canon Star Trek wiki.
• World War III article at Memory Beta , the non-canon Star Trek wiki.
• 1 USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-H) (Endurance class)
• 2 USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-G) (Excalibur class)
• 3 USS Phoenix (NCC-65420-X)

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World War III

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• 1.1 The war
• 2.1 Alternate timelines
• 3.1 External links

History and specifics [ ]

The possibility of a third global war following the first and second was feared for decades, particularly during the Cold War , when geopolitical tensions between Earth's nuclear-armed nation-states were at their height. Part of the mission of Aegis agent Gary Seven was to prevent these tensions from erupting into full-scale warfare. ( TOS episode : " Assignment: Earth "; TOS - Assignment: Earth comic : " Too Many Presidents ")

The war [ ]

Historians traced the earliest phases of the war as far back as the early 2020s , starting in the United States as homelessness, environmental degradation, and violent clashes between competing political groups caused a Second Civil War . The conflict spread throughout the world, becoming known as the Eugenics War before finally turning into the global conflict historians called World War III. ( SNW episode : " Strange New Worlds ")

In 2026 [ citation needed ] factions of eco-terrorists [ citation needed ] launched attacks responsible [ citation needed ] for as many as 37 million deaths. In addition, it is possible that a further root cause of World War III lay in the political destabilization of several European nations [ citation needed ] , including France , which was torn between the Neo-Trotskyists and the Gaullists, circa 2024 . ( ENT episode : " In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II "; DS9 episode : " Past Tense, Part I ")

When war broke out, Optimus Prime ordered his troops to leave Earth, their launch being witnessed by Zefram Cochrane and Lily Sloane . Unbeknownst to Prime, Megatron and his forces followed the Autobots. ( TAS - Star Trek vs. Transformers comic : " Issue 2 ")

At the time of the final conflagration in the 2050s , one side was composed of the New United Nations , including the United States and the European Union ; the other side was an alliance known as the Eastern Coalition . The war's origins went back decades, but by the year 2051 , Lee Kuan had emerged as a general in the military hierarchy of the Eastern Coalition, helping to overthrow the emerging democratic movement within the government of that political bloc. This ultimately helped to cement the ECON's hard line opposition-stance to the United States's policies, bringing it into direct military conflict within two more years.

The final catalyst-events for World War III were a series of confrontations between the New United Nations and the ECON over oil fields located in Antarctica and Taklamakan , a few months before the first major nuclear salvos were launched. Rioting breaks out in several major American cities during the days immediately leading up to the war, with fires and looting prior to the nuclear strikes as people attempted to flee the impending target zones with their lives.

At precisely 0230.26 hours Eastern Standard Time, on 1 May 2053 (an event later known as the "May Day Horror of '53"), the Eastern Coalition launched a first strike comprised of intercontinental ballistic missiles , bomber attacks, and portable nuclear weapons, against major North American and European cities, combined with a simultaneous Interface viral assault against the New United Nations computer infrastructure ( The Immortality Blues ). Much to the surprise of the ECON political leadership, the New United Nations immediately retaliated with nuclear launches of their own, as well as bomber and satellite-based attacks against targets in the Middle East and Asia . Many Pacific nations sided with the Eastern Coalition against the United States when fighting finally breaks out. Other political groupings, such as the Muslim Bloc , were likewise hit extremely hard during the nuclear exchanges, despite being non-aligned with either side during the war. [ citation needed ]

The detonation of nuclear weapons over cities (in the multiple-megaton range) such as Washington, D.C. , London , Moscow , Berlin , New York City , Boston , Dallas , Mexico City , Paris , Rio de Janeiro , Tel Aviv , Jerusalem , Mecca , Riyadh , Samarkand , Karachi , Singapore , and New Delhi killed nearly half a billion people instantly. Smaller detonations occurred over Hong Kong , Beijing , and Ho Chi Minh City . Un-detonated or failed nuclear devices were discovered in or around targets such as Denver , Madrid , Rome , and Istanbul . Of the hundreds of ICBMs and bombers launched by the United States and allied forces, only one in five made it into the air, due to EMP weapons and viral attacks against the military computer networks — of these, only a fraction detonated properly. ( SNW episode : " Strange New Worlds "; TLE novel : The Sundered )

Near Richmond, Indiana , several jets dropped bombs. A group of people took shelter in the East Fork Presbyterian Church . As the bombs dropped, the group and the church was save when the church was transported to Terralysium . The group started the New Eden colony and worshiped the Red Angel who was in actuality a time traveler, Dr. Gabrielle Burnham . ( DSC episode : " New Eden ")

Conventional military forces on both sides were quickly moved into offensive position against their respective foes — on 3 May 2053, the First, Eighth, and Sixteenth Fleets under New United Nations command carry front-line troops into the Bay of Bengal , and the ECON launches a massive invasion of the North American continent, sending troops and military aircraft southward through Canada . Targets in New England (including Massachusetts ), Minnesota , the Rocky Mountains , and the Midwest are hit hard by ECON forces, the U.S. military's defenses along the Canadian border failing utterly. The United States Air Force and United States Army both fought back against the invaders, but lose many fighters and ground soldiers to the enemy. [ citation needed ]

Certain military units were abandoned in enemy territory during the war, including a New United Nations brigade under the command of Colonel Green in Kashmiristan in late May. Finally, the Eastern Coalition's governing palace was destroyed by American forces, killing ECON founder Lee Kuan . [ citation needed ]

The post-atomic horror that followed severely destabilized global civilization; terrorist organizations and rogue states often detonated small-scale "suitcase nukes," while toxins and biogenic weapons were released. Drug-addled soldiers were often sacrificed in conventional battles on the ground after much of the planetary computer systems failed; numerous small-scale conflicts created chaos throughout the globe as warlords fought over the scraps of civilization. As a result of the ICBM detonations, an enormous dust cloud enveloped the Earth, resulting in several nuclear winters. [ citation needed ]

Sovereign nations, including the United States, essentially ceased to exist following the war, the country falling into barbarism, carved up into fiefdoms controlled by competing warlords (including Colonel Green's despotic reign over the Pacific Northwest ). Without federal resources to fall back upon, most local governments are unable to feed their own people; chaos and anarchy would reign for generations afterward, well into the late 21st century . The President of the United States , President Mendoza , survived the initial days of the war, but finds herself in command of very little afterwards. ( TNG episodes : " Up the Long Ladder ", " A Matter of Time "; TLE novel : The Sundered ; TOS - Fortunes of War novel : Dreadnought! ; ST short story : " Mestral "; ST short story : " The Immortality Blues "; ST reference : Federation: The First 150 Years )

The Siege of Las Vegas was a significant battle in the war, with American forces battling ECON troops for control of the city. The forces of the US troops would eventually prove victorious, defeating the ECON troops there.

In the initial nuclear exchange of World War III, Washington D.C. was completely destroyed, along with three surrounding U.S. states. Some major cities, such as Montreal , were actually spared from nuclear hits during the first rounds of ICBM exchanges. ( TNG novelization : Star Trek: First Contact , TOS novel : Spectre )

During fighting in Paris during the war, the Eiffel Tower was destroyed. Additional combat took place in San Francisco , resulting in the destruction of the Coit Tower , among many other structures. ( DS9 novel : Trapped in Time , TNG novel : A Time for War, A Time for Peace )

The U.S. state of Arkansas would be devastated by nuclear weapons at the start World War III, owing to the many military installations in the region. Even into the 23rd century , some portions of the state would remain uninhabitable. ( TOS novel : Elusive Salvation )

In 2054 , one year following the outbreak of hostilities, Colonel Green surprised the surviving United States government by turning up in Alaska at the head of a massive army comprised of both New U.N. and ECON soldiers. President Mendoza ordered Green to stand down, but is refused; Green slaughters his way across the continent, culling the "weak" and "impure" and those afflicted with radiation sickness from humanity's gene pool, killing millions, until finally meeting his demise in Montana from an orbital strike launched by Flint the Immortal . ( ENT episodes : " Demons ", " Terra Prime "; ST short story : " The Immortality Blues ")

Humanity eventually turned over a new leaf when a few courageous people began to realize that they could make a difference. Early in the war, weather-control satellites developed by Flint the Immortal begin modifying Earth's ozone layer in an attempt to regenerate it, along with raising the planetary temperature enough to mitigate the effects of the harsh nuclear winter. This proved successful, ultimately reducing the number of potential casualties from the war.

Adrenaline regimens were discovered to be useful in treating radiation sickness after the war; this would later be supplanted by the even more effective Hyronalin therapies in later decades, after the end of the Atomic Age . The philosophy of Neo-Transcendentalism was founded by Liam Dieghan in response to the war's horrors, seeking to redress the pains of World War III by "returning [humanity] to a simpler life." ( ENT episode : " Judgment "; TOS episode : " The Deadly Years "; TNG episode : " Up the Long Ladder "; ST short story : " The Immortality Blues ")

The war culminated circa 2053 , when several of Earth's governments met in San Francisco to declare a cease-fire, effectively ending the war. ( ENT episode : " Demons ")

In the end, most of the world's major governments collapsed, and over 600 million people had died just from the immediate combat. ( TNG movie , novelization & comic adaptation : Star Trek: First Contact )

Aftermath [ ]

Despite the end of actual hostilities, the after-effects of the war referred to as "the post-atomic horror"—lingered for decades to follow. Rule of law broke down in many places, and legal systems were abolished, with the suggestion to "kill all the lawyers" from Henry VI being taken literally in some places. Asia was particularly devastated. ( TNG episode : " Encounter at Farpoint ")

The year 2073 was considered part of this conflicted era and saw a number of Humans abandon the planet whereupon they settled on the world of Okeanos . ( TOS novel : From the Depths )

Much of the United States economy was ruined, with the population reduced to standards of living less than that of the victims of the Great Depression a century earlier. So great were the horrors that human genius Zefram Cochrane had himself implanted with a pain-inhibiting chip in order to cope with the world around him. Nonetheless, his Project Phoenix was able to secure backing, and led to first contact only ten years later. ( TNG novelization : Star Trek: First Contact )

In the 22nd century , movies depicting World War III were common. ( ENT episode : " Home ")

Captain Christopher Pike used imagery of World War III to convince the people of Kiley 279 that they were about to head down the same self-destructive path that humans did in the 21st century . He later justified to Starfleet Command they had little choice but to do so since the people of Kiley had witnessed the battle between Control and the Enterprise and adapted the technology to develop weapons to wipe each other out. ( SNW episode : " Strange New Worlds ")

In later years, a monument honoring the hundreds of millions dead during the war was erected in San Francisco, on the former site of the Coit Tower. The monument continues to stand into the late 24th century . ( TNG novel : A Time for War, A Time for Peace )

In 2370 , Jake Sisko could not recall if Dresden had been fire bombed during World War III or World War II . ( DS9 novel : Fallen Heroes )

Alternate timelines [ ]

When the USS Enterprise crossed over into George Taylor 's reality, Spock suspected that this Earth's pre-industrial state, even in the year 3978 , was the result of the planet never having recovered from World War III. ( TOS - The Primate Directive comic : " Issue 1 ")

Appendices [ ]

External links [ ].

• World War III article at Memory Alpha , the wiki for canon Star Trek .
• 1 Ferengi Rules of Acquisition
• 2 The Chase
• 3 Preserver (race)

Den of Geek

Star Trek and the Shadow of World War III

Star Trek's fictional WWIII casts a long shadow over its timeline, and now Discovery and Picard are exploring how hard-won the show's utopia was.

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It is set in a distant, utopian future, but ever since the original series Star Trek has sought to hold a mirror to contemporary political and moral dilemmas.

In documentary series The Center Seat: Celebrating 55 Years of Star Trek , now available in the UK on IMDb TV, director Brian Volk-Weiss looks at how the show commented on issues such as the Cold War, Vietnam, Civil Rights, and the issue of euthanasia, among others. But as Volk-Weiss points out, there is one issue that has loomed over the Star Trek universe since its inception.

“We talk about this in Center Seat a little bit, all Trekkies know the foundation of Star Trek, in canon, the Federation and Starfleet, everybody’s known since the original series the foundation of those organisations is World War III,” Volk-Weiss says.

Your Last So-Called ‘World War’

It’s true that World War III has cast a shadow over Star Trek from the start. In ‘Space Seed’, the episode that introduced Khan Noonien Singh, Spock describes the Eugenics Wars as “the era of your last so-called ‘World War’”. Later, the episode ‘ Bread and Circuses ’ sees Spock mention that 37 million people died in Earth’s World War III.

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Even when not referenced directly, we see it reflected in episodes like ‘The Omega Glory’, set in a nuclear wasteland that is mysteriously similar to a post-nuclear Earth, right down to the text of the US Constitution.

Star Trek is, whichever way you cut it, the story of a post-apocalyptic Earth. It made sense as a piece of backstory when the show began. Nuclear war was a constant, real and immediate threat, the Cuban Missile Crisis a recent memory. In the sixties a World War III must have seemed like an inevitability – if you give something a sequel people are automatically going to expect a trilogy. That it might not strike until the 1990s or the 21 st century must have seemed as optimistic as anything else in the series.

Even when the Star Trek: The Next Generation pilot aired, only two years before the Berlin Wall came down, nuclear Armageddon was considered such an inevitable part of our future history that it made up a significant portion of the plot of ‘Encounter at Farpoint’. We see Q dressed up as a World War III soldier, and the crew of the Enterprise put on trial in a post-apocalyptic, lawyer-free trial in the age of “nuclear horror”.

From Future History to Canon Lore

Then the Berlin Wall came down. The international stage shifted. A lot of sci-fi future histories started to seem pretty silly in an age where Gorbachev was doing adverts for Pizza Hut .

“People kind of glossed over and don’t think about it too much,” Volk-Weiss tells us. “Even in First Contact , in a weird way it’s glossed over a little bit.”

Star Trek: First Contact is set in 2063, in the aftermath of World War III, and while everyone’s dress is fairly scrappy looking, the lush pine forests that surround Zefram Cochrane’s laboratory are hardly the result of a nuclear winter.

Star Trek: Enterprise references the war a few times, particularly in its closing episodes, but it already feels like Canon Lore rather than a future event that we’re supposed to believe will happen.

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While various source across Star Trek canon agree that World War III starts sometime in the mid-2020s (I know, we’ll get to that) and carries on until the 2050s, we see plenty of stories and references that talk about space colonies, interplanetary and even interstellar missions taking place during that time. Most of this is the simple result of TV writers not paying as much attention to continuity as Memory Alpha editors, but it also reflects the fact that World War III simply wasn’t at the forefront of everyone’s minds the way it has been.

In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , when O’Brien sees a mid-21 st century altered by time travel, he remarks “And that wasn’t the mid-21 st century I read about in school. It’s been changed. I mean, Earth history has been through its rough patches, but never that rough.” Which must have been pretty grim given it was a period of nuclear war.

A Deadline Approaches

That story was ‘Past Tense’, an episode set in a dystopian 2024 where the homeless were rounded up into camps and forgotten about. If that seems prescient, it’s only because it seemed equally relevant at the time.

“We weren’t being predictive. We were just looking out our windows in the 90s,” Deep Space Nine producer Robert Hewitt Wolfe has said .

2024 gets one other mention in the Star Trek canon, in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, ‘ The High Ground ’, when Data refers to “the Irish reunification of 2024”.

Like World War III, this is a prediction that seemed dated following the Good Friday Agreement, but the chaos around Brexit has suddenly made it a lot more plausible. Brexit is only one of a number of frightening and dramatic events that have occurred over the last decade, and once again, Star Trek is responding to them.

“Every ten years there’s a new Bond, a new Batman, to a certain degree now a new Star Trek, and sometimes they resonate with their time and sometimes they don’t and sometimes it’s in the middle,” Volk-Weiss says. “I feel like DS9 is a great example of that. I feel like the greatest example of that of all time is Battlestar Galactica . That whole thing was about 9/11 and the War on Terror. Sometimes it works, as with Battlestar Galactica , sometimes it doesn’t work, as with Enterprise . The problem with what Enterprise did is there were already so many bad things going on you didn’t need to create a brand-new character to cut Florida in half. There was already enough to talk about, while in Galactica it organically fit into the storyline. I think what Discovery and Picard are doing is more on the organic side.”

Star Trek has shown us a potential utopia, and with Deep Space Nine and the use of the black ops Section 31 of Starfleet in Enterprise , Star Trek: Into Darkness and Discovery , it has shown us the potential dark side of that utopia. But new Star Trek seems to be doing something new that even Enterprise didn’t – showing us how we get there.

“I think Discovery and Picard , in their own ways, are slowly but surely showing us, no it was a rough start, it took a lot to get to replicators,” says Volk-Weiss. “It took a lot to get to the Prime Directive. We didn’t get here by accident, and we didn’t get here easily. I think, as the onion peels more and more both shows are showing the underbelly of what would be the future of Star Trek.”

Star Trek: Discovery was the first to remind us of the effects of World War III in the second series episode, ‘ New Eden ’. Here Star Trek returned to another of its favourite tropes – humans transposed from Earth history and set up as an independent colony on another world. This time, the transposed humans were the congregation of a church rescued from a nuclear blast.

Later, Discovery would encounter its own apocalypse in the form of the “the burn”, which destroyed galactic civilisation as we know it and forced the Federation to rebuild from scratch, and rediscover its values along the way.

And Star Trek: Picard ? We know that the history of the Federation has changed, and the early impression suggests this will be a darker and more fascistic future for humanity. And to fix it? Picard and friends go back in time to 2024 . From what we know of Trek canon, World War III is supposed to begin in 2026.

Star Trek obviously doesn’t predict the future. The show has never been about telling us what will happen, only finding new ways of talking about what is happening now . There are no easy answers in science-fiction to the fears a lot of us currently have, whether about hypothetical conflicts or the very real violence happening in Ukraine during the Russian invasion. Once again though, people are scared and seriously talking about the threat of another world war. Perhaps what Star Trek can and has always offered fans is the hope that the same humans who commit world-ending atrocities might one day be capable of building a utopia.

Star Trek: The Center Seat is available to stream now in the UK on IMDb TV.

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Orange River Media – Star Trek: Earth’s WWIII Explained

If you’ve ever had the displeasure of experiencing the effects of a tornado or other extreme weather event, you’ve likely heard blaring sirens and a long, ear-piercing tone on your radio or television.

This is the Emergency Alert System. But something we don’t think about is that both of these were originally designed to be heard during a nuclear attack, with automated announcements on the airwaves calling for people to seek shelter.

Of course, even if you’re inside a house or even a concrete building within the blast radius of a nuclear explosion, you won’t be so lucky. In a World War III-scale nuclear attack, with potentially thousands of bombs exchanged, entire cities and thus entire populations would be wiped from existence.

The most remote areas—rural areas—would be the best protected from immediate attack but would be subject to nuclear fallout and the breakdown of civil society just beyond their borders.

In Star Trek ’s fictional timeline, World War III is one of the most consequential events in human history. Occurring from 2026 to 2053, it serves as the culmination of the so-called Eugenics Wars–conflicts fought over genetic engineering–and results in the deaths of over 600 million people.

It sets humanity back culturally, resulting in a second Dark Age marked by disease, famine, and other ills amid the collapse of democratic governments and the rise of fascist dictatorships. Most nation-states effectively cease to exist on a functional level, with their powers usurped by corporations, terrorist factions, and despots.

But while against all odds scientific advancement continues, marked by the invention of faster-than-light travel by Zefram Cochrane, suffering would also continue for decades all around the globe. Earth’s transition to becoming a member of the interstellar community is a slow and painful one plagued by continued resource skirmishes, totalitarianism, and overall bleakness in society. These conditions would take until at least the early 22nd century to be resolved.

I want to examine the history that leads up to World War III, how it likely unfolds, what nations are affected (if any are unaffected), and how such a nuclear conflict might play out in real life. I also want to examine how the so-called “post-atomic horror” of the late 21 st century causes human society to unravel even more than it had before the war and how, with the help of the Vulcans, Earth is able to right itself and forge a new outlook in the 22 nd century. This is: Star Trek ’s World War III Explained.

A third world war has been a growing concern ever since the end of the second one in 1945. While the establishment of the United Nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (or NATO), and various other international institutions were meant to help prevent future conflicts between nations, these organizations have been in many ways ineffective. Escalation of the Cold War towards a nuclear exchange has always been a somewhat unlikely but still possible scenario, from the Cuban Missile Crisis to a couple of other close calls during the 1980s.

It was only because cooler heads prevailed in several of these situations that this escalation never occurred, and humanity lived to see another day. Powers such as the United States, our allies, and our adversaries possessing rather large nuclear stockpiles throughout modern history has been a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it has ensured via the M.A.D. doctrine—Mutually Assured Destruction—those nations are deterred from using these weapons due to their destructive capability.

On the other hand, though, all it takes is a radical leader of any one nation to launch an offensive strike and start a chain reaction that ends in nuclear annihilation. At the time The Original Series was written, there were hints that World War III was supposed to happen in the 1990s during the reign of Khan Noonien Singh and the Augments.

The global conflict among these Augment dictators—known as the Eugenics Wars—led to 30 million deaths. Since The Original Series , further distinctions have been made between the 1990s Eugenics Wars and the “real” World War III, a distinction introduced in Star Trek: First Contact and expounded upon in Enterprise and Discovery . I talk about this distinction in my video about Khan’s empire—link in the description.

While the conditions that ultimately led to World War III have their roots in the Eugenics Wars of the ‘90s, the continuous conflict itself is said, once again, to commence in 2026. Like the Eugenics Wars, one of the central issues—actually, the central issue—that causes the war to break out is genetic manipulation and human genome enhancement.

Call it a “Second Eugenics War.” It is the year 2026 when Colonel Phillip Green, a despotic militia leader, commands a faction of violent eco-terrorists whose actions lead to 37 million deaths. This is treated as a separate figure from the 30 million who died in the “First Eugenics War,” meaning between these two conflicts, the body count is higher than the number of civilians who died in the first two world wars COMBINED.

Some have also speculated that further root causes for this type of conflict lie in the political destabilization of several European countries during the 2020s. As we learn in The Next Generation episode “The High Ground” and the Deep Space Nine episode “Past Tense,” two years before the start of World War III, Ireland has been reunified through violence rather than peace, and France is torn between the Neo-Trotskyists and the Gaullists.

This type of political hyperpolarization definitely seems like it would be conducive to violence, and of course, for the first couple decades of World War III, such conflict would be marked less by the threat of a nuclear exchange and more so by, well, biological warfare. World War III is also denoted as the first world war that is fought primarily by “factions” instead of nation-states.

We can see parallels to both of these developments in our modern wars. Factions in the Syrian Civil War, for example, include opposing groups claiming to be the “legitimate” government of Syria, as well as the U.S.-allied Revolutionary Commando Army and, of course, ISIL. And of course, numerous leaders have used chemicals like sarin gas and other biological weapons against their people and the armies of other countries. Star Trek ’s Third World War takes both of these elements to their extreme and introduces additional complexities, such as the use of narcotics to control soldiers.

The “factions” are different than just opposing governments within a single territory, however—they are cross-border alliances that wield the influence of global superpowers. The Eastern Coalition of Nations is one faction mentioned in canon, in fact, the only one specified by name on the screen. First mentioned in Star Trek: First Contact , the Eastern Coalition, or ECON, was always intended—according to production sources—to be a stand-in for China.

The ECON would routinely launch missile attacks on the United States and its allies as alluded to in the film. The exact nature of the ECON’s political structure is never defined—various novels posit it’s an alliance of countries like China, India, Pakistan, and others, although the idea that India and Pakistan would form a military alliance seems like kind of a stretch. Ultimately, it may be an extension of Chinese imperialism—more on that in a bit.

The Nuclear Exchange

During the final exchange, hundreds or even thousands of nuclear bombs—many in the multi-megaton range—are launched across land and sea. For context, a one-megaton blast over New York City would result in an estimated 1.3 million immediate fatalities. These bombs have yielded HUNDREDS of times that of the ones dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki COMBINED.

In fact, the most powerful nuclear bomb ever designed—the Soviet Union’s 100-megaton Tsar Bomba —generated a fireball radius of 7.92 kilometres. And the biggest nuclear test ever conducted, which was on a 50-megaton version of Tsar Bomba , generated a shockwave that circled the globe multiple times.

More likely, though, a nuclear war would be conducted with bombs that are “only” a few megatons in yield—probably something between the B83 nuclear bomb, the most powerful U.S. weapon currently in active service at 1.2 megatons, and the B53 bomb, the most powerful U.S. weapon in active service until 1997, which yielded 9 megatons.

A variant of the B53 warhead was equipped on the Titan II Missile system until it was dismantled towards the end of the Cold War. And the Titan II happens to be what was used for the outer casing on the Phoenix , Zefram Cochrane’s experimental warp vessel.

Anyway, those who don’t instantly die would suffer from radiation poisoning, the symptoms of which include nausea and vomiting, spontaneous bleeding, diarrhoea, and severely burnt skin that may peel off. Dying could take from several hours to several weeks, and 15% of survivors will eventually die of cancer as a result of exposure. The detonation of a SINGLE Dong-Feng 5, China’s current 5-megaton ICBM, would also create a fireball radius of 2.39 kilometres, a moderate blast damage radius—engulfed in fire—of 7.83 kilometres, a light blast damage radius of 20.1 kilometres, and a thermal radiation radius of 21.3 kilometres.

This means that everyone who isn’t instantly vaporized inside the fireball would still receive third-degree burns. But these people may not feel much pain as the burns will destroy nerve endings. In densely populated cities, millions would die immediately and millions more would be injured. The heaviest damage would happen within a 3.72-kilometre radius, with air 20 psi overpressure causing even heavy concrete buildings to collapse, and fatalities would approach 100%.

This is to mention nothing of the fallout, which could stretch downwind for HUNDREDS of kilometres. Multiple bombs of this yield would have to be dropped on each city to reach an estimated death count of half a billion, though many of these deaths could be people dying of radiation sickness weeks after the initial detonations. Either way, virtually every major urban area in every corner of the globe—New York, New Delhi, Moscow, London, Karachi, Jerusalem—they’re all being targeted. One source claims that the ECON has stricken first, with the New United Nations—a rump successor of the old U.N. composed of Western governments—acting in retaliation.

Okay, remember how I mentioned that the ECON could be a logical conclusion of Chinese imperialism? Well, in the decades leading up to this, China has been concentrating more and more political and economic clout in its region of the world. The ECON may be an outgrowth of the very real Shanghai Cooperation Organization, or Shanghai Pact, an economic, political, and security alliance created in 2001.

Among its members besides China? Several former Soviet states as well as…India and Pakistan. Yep. That’s how China, which currently possesses a relatively small nuclear arsenal, could gain access to enough nukes to rival the United States. The Shanghai Pact regularly conducts military exercises among members to promote cooperation in defence against terrorism and external threats. Its partners include ASEAN, or the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. And it comprises nearly half of Earth’s population.

The missile attacks are accompanied by cyberattacks and additional aerial bombings over smaller targets such as the one over Richmond, Indiana as seen in the Discovery episode “New Eden.” After the immediate attacks, conventional military forces mobilize into an offensive position as the ECON launches a land invasion of the North American continent—think Fallout . Many ground soldiers will be lost in the battle between the U.S. and the ECON.

Even in the aftermath, there will be little in the way of major urban infrastructure to defend. Rural areas will, again, for the time being, be the last vestiges of modern civilization as warlords compete over the remaining resources and people like Green carry out further atrocities against war-weary populations.

Nuclear Autumn

Just how bad is the aftermath going to get? Well, besides the collapse of national governments and the ensuing skirmishes over resources, nuclear fallout from the obliteration of major cities would threaten the health of survivors. Disease, famine, economic destitution and a new rise in authoritarianism—these are all understatements as to the severity of this post-World War III period in human history.

Climate scientists have written about the detrimental effects that even a “small” nuclear exchange—for example, between India and Pakistan—could cause. So much smoke would be produced that it could lower global temperatures “below those of the Little Ice Age of the fourteenth to nineteenth centuries, shortening the growing season” and putting 2 billion people at risk of starvation.

As Alex Ward wrote in a 2018 article for Vox , “Ira Helfand, a board director at the anti-nuclear war Physicians for Social Responsibility, calls this scenario a ‘nuclear autumn.’” [1] The severity of this conflict could be even starker in the event of a TRULY global war, involving—like I said—yields far beyond a bilateral exchange. The collapse of governments is one thing…this would threaten the extinction of the human race.

Nuclear Winter

The period following the detonation of nuclear weapons is referred to as the “post-atomic horror.” Lasting from 2053 to at least 2079, the year of the courtroom shown by Q to the Enterprise crew in The Next Generation pilot “Encounter at Farpoint,” this post-atomic horror was marked by the breakdown of civil society, denial of rights to alleged criminals, and extended nuclear winter.

This in particular would affect the global temperature rise and be devastating to crops and other necessities for comfortable human life. During this time, the war-stricken populations of various Earth countries fall victim to anarchy in some places and overt fascism in others. Colonel Green advocates for the euthanasia of those with radiation sickness, framing this genocide as “reject[ing] the impure and cast[ing] it out.” The New United Nations would have fallen by this point, and even after First Contact, leaders on Vulcan would be sceptical that humanity was ready to venture out into the stars.

A paper in the Journal of Geophysical Research paints a grim picture of what would happen in the absolute doomsday scenario of a nuclear winter. According to the paper, “the roughly 150 million tons of black smoke rising from burning cities and other areas would spread around to most of the planet over weeks.” This would plunge temperatures on the planet’s surface “by about 17 to 20 degrees Fahrenheit for the first few years” before coming back up by about 5 degrees Fahrenheit over the next decade.

Cities in the Northern Hemisphere would suffer the worst of the blow, experiencing the coldest temperatures—through the entire globe, and particularly the global food supply chain would be affected. Global precipitation would also fall by about 45 per cent. And if that’s not enough, this nuclear exchange would deplete the Earth’s ozone layer, allowing large amounts of ultraviolet light to reach the surface and harming ecosystems. According to the paper, for years, a Caucasian person could not go outside without getting sunburned. [2]

Using the most optimistic outcome for a global war that kills over half a billion, this means that even ten years after the conflict ends—in other words, by 2063, when First Contact takes place—the environment would still be badly damaged, and too much radiation exposure would continue to cause cancer in starving humans. This would mean that Colonel Green’s calls for euthanasia of radiation-stricken people would spell a death sentence for, indeed, millions of people.

Also, this could partly be the reason that Cochrane looks older than he is in First Contact —James Cromwell was fifty-six years old during the time of the production, but Cochrane’s canon birth year is in the early 2030s—meaning he was in his early 30s in 2063. Various sources account for this discrepancy by speculating his aged appearance is, in fact, the result of radiation poisoning. Even if his birth year were retconned to be earlier than 2030, Cochrane and many of the other civilians at his facility in Montana would still be at high risk of developing cancers later in life from cumulative exposure to UV radiation and slow poisoning from radioactive fallout.

Earth’s Political Shakeup

We become privy to quite a bit of relevant information about post-atomic horror’s effects on human society through “Encounter at Farpoint.” One culture that we bear witness to during Q’s simulated trial has resorted to near barbarism. New legal systems that have popped up around the globe are characterized by martial law. Criminals are guilty until proven innocent, and judges hand down summary executions.

As Captain Picard observes, such cultures have taken the credo “Kill all the lawyers”—a line from Shakespeare’s King Henry VI —literally. Picard further remarks that due to these and other factors, many parts of Earth continue to be in a state of chaos well into the early 22 nd century. This “chaos” would entail things like gang rule over entire regions, such as by the drug-addled “fourth world mercenaries” who fought on behalf of factions like the ECON in World War III.

While all this is going on, Cochrane also helps usher in a new era for humanity in spaceflight. The 2063 first contact with the Vulcans becomes the defining moment in human history, as it sets humanity on a new path towards a more enlightened state.

While conditions deteriorate during the final quarter of the 21 st century, the seeds are sown that will later blossom into the idealistic society of the 22 nd century, with the resource-based New World Economy taking shape. In future videos, I may dive deeper into the details surrounding the formation of United Earth and how humanity could have achieved true prosperity. In the meantime, I hope that this has been an informative take on just exactly how Earth’s World War III could have unfolded in the Star Trek universe.

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Star Trek Takes Place After an Apocalypse on Earth - Here's What Happened

After a nuclear war that cost millions of lives, the genocidal aftermath laid a foundation for both xenophobia and utopia in Star Trek.

From its first episodes, Star Trek has been a franchise about humanity, and its potential to evolve into a better version of itself. Gene Roddenberry's passion project set out to explore new worlds, and the ethical and moral outcomes of often painful decisions. But buried in Trek 's lore is the secret key as to why its utopian standards are so important to its civilization. World War III had scorched the Earth, and the scars of the post-atomic horror were still fresh when the United Federation of Planets was founded.

The roots of that final World War are slightly confusing. The original 1966 Star Trek series introduced the Eugenics War in "Space Seed," a conflict that burned through the 1990s as an army of genetically engineered humans tried to overtake Earth. The tyrannical Khan Noonian Singh was arguably the most peaceful of these superhuman warlords, but millions of lives were still lost. Though Spock calls this the Third World War, 1969's "The Savage Curtain" introduces a figure that later becomes the architect of a "true" world war in the mid 21st century, Colonel Green.

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Colonel Phillip Green is described in "The Savage Curtain" as the leader of a genocidal war. Star Trek: Enterprise followed up on Green's history, with an infographic seen in "In a Mirror, Darkly," naming him responsible for thirty-seven million deaths. The fourth season Enterprise episode "Demons" would then offer a stark new clarity to Green's actions. Obsessed with human genetic purity after years of radiation exposure due to a world war he engineered, Green continued to call for genocide to purge undesirable genetics from the human race. Green is the architect of a horror that continued for decades after the atomic war.

Despite Green's demand for further slaughter, humanity slowly began to recover. Less than a decade after his gruesome speech, scientist and inventor Zefram Cochrane would make first contact with the Vulcans in 2063. It was a watershed moment for humanity, the first step towards that better future and its network of allied worlds. But it didn't change the world overnight. Pockets of irradiated land and genetic mutants would persist into the 22nd century and, with them, chaos and distrust would continue to mar Earth.

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Star Trek: The Next Generation premiered in 1987 with the feature-length two-part story "Encounter at Farpoint." Fan-favorite character Q ( John de Lancie ) makes his introduction virtually alongside the new crew, and the omnipotent alien is here to put humanity on trial. He uses a post-World War III tribunal hall to do it, providing the franchise's first glimpse of the fallout and the chaos that laid the foundation for today's Federation. Among Q's throng are drug-addled soldiers, mutants and poverty-stricken rabble, who care more about entertainment than actual justice. As Picard notes, the hall appears as it would have been, and Troi, the Betazed empath, remarks on its lack of illusion.

Set a century prior to Captain Kirk's era, Enterprise  would reveal that the war and its ghastly aftermath had already become fuel for award-bait films. Yet the trials of the post-atomic horror had one last challenge to offer mankind, rooted in all-too-familiar xenophobia. The 22nd century saw the Terra Prime terrorist movement attempt to echo similar real-world attempts to gin up the hate, expulsion and murder of those deemed "other." Terra Prime and its founder, John Paxton, not only believed in the genocidal purity ethics of Colonel Green but held the Vulcans directly responsible for not intervening earlier, preventing the war and its horrific aftermath.

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Terra Prime's extremist views came to include seeing all non-human life as a threat, and they engaged in a series of attempts to destroy the Federation. The crew of the NX-01 Enterprise managed to corner Paxton and arrest him. Paxton's attempt to build a separatist Earth by humans and for humans ultimately failed. By Picard's era, the horrors of WWIII and its aftermath had at last become fodder for the history books, an era to learn from and to never repeat.

With series creator Gene Roddenberry a veteran of the last world war, the warnings of the outcome of another great and terrible war is more than window dressing. Like fellow creator Rod Serling, buried inside Roddenberry's most famous work is the never-ending plea to humanity to be better. And with more than words, Star Trek has shown its audience horrific but useful glimpses of what the consequences should be if humanity ever fails its greatest test.

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Written by Dan Carlson

The Road to War

Many Romulan strength values are only approximate, based on units observed in the combat zone, intelligence gathered by various UESN assets, and additional estimates of Romulan industrial capacity and projected vessel deployments.

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• Carlson, D. and Okazaki, M. Interstellar text correspondence. 2375-77.
• Datalore, I. Of Vulcans and Romulans . University of Canada, 2266. OFFLINE
• Federation Security Council 107/743. The Romulan/Klingon Alliance . 23 June 2268. OFFLINE
• Izzoti, A. Lost Races of the Original Series: The Andorians . 16 February 2369.
• Kennedy, G. Daystrom Institute Technical Library Catalogue of Lifeforms: The Romulans . 27 October 2300.
• Laurence, P. The Daedalus Class, Antimatter Reactors, and the Photon Torpedo . University of Deneva, 2377. OFFLINE
• Mosaa, O. The Earth-Romulan War . 27 October 2320.
• Niazi, M. Minutes of the 5th, 6th, 8th, and 10th meetings of the Qualor Governor’s Council. 2156-2157.
• Okazaki, M. Starfleet Museum online, vol 3. Ships of the Earth-Romulan War . 2375.
• Oice, B.R. Space-Based Munitions: The Hydrogen Bomb and the Photon Torpedo . University of Delaware, 2201. OFFLINE
• Pemberton, T. 3D Constructs . 14 May 2377.
• Rkam, M. Diplomatic Analysis of the Romulan Star Empire . 9 October 2374.
• Schneider, B. Warp Drive and Romulan History . PhD thesis, University of Siegen, 2304.
• Starfleet Corps of Engineers 1-47. Development of the Antimatter Weapons . 2 July 2235. OFFLINE
• Starfleet Diplomatic Corps 23/692. Strange Relations: Romulans and Vulcans . (2380)
• Thomsa, P. The Nature of Antimatter . Columbia University, 2134.
• Toast, M. FTL vs. Non-FTL Ships: Tactics or Turkey Shoot? . University of Andor, 2148. OFFLINE
• Naifed, T. Defiant. The United Earth Charter . Starfleet Academy, 2165. OFFLINE
• UE Stellar Navy, Commander-in-Chief Qualor Sector. Combat Readiness Assessments. Annual reports 2155-2161.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Masao Okazaki for providing the impetus for writing this article in the first place. His excellent articles on the ships of the Earth-Romulan War gave me the foundation upon which to build my story. Furthermore, this project would not have been finished without his invaluable suggestions, advice, and encouragement.

Also, thanks to Bernd Schneider for his help with some of the technical issues of the 22nd Century and other excellent suggestions. Bernd is also the host of the Starfleet Museum.

And finally, thanks to Thomas Pemberton, Fabio Passaro, and Nick Porcino of the 3D Gladiators Art Forums for their excellent renderings which illustrate these pages.

• Cast & crew
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Assignment: Earth

• Episode aired Mar 29, 1968

While back in time observing Earth in 1968, the Enterprise crew encounters the mysterious Gary Seven who has his own agenda on the planet. While back in time observing Earth in 1968, the Enterprise crew encounters the mysterious Gary Seven who has his own agenda on the planet. While back in time observing Earth in 1968, the Enterprise crew encounters the mysterious Gary Seven who has his own agenda on the planet.

• Marc Daniels
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• DeForest Kelley
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• Captain James Tiberius 'Jim' Kirk

• Mister Spock

• Mister Seven

• Roberta Lincoln
• (as Terri Garr)

• Col. Nesvig
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• Second Policeman
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• Beta 5 Computer
• (uncredited)
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Did you know

• Trivia While at the launch base and showing his ID to the security person, Mr. Seven shows a National Security Agency credential card. The NSA was one of the worst kept government secrets, but was not publicly acknowledged until nearly 25 years after this episode originally aired.
• Goofs When Spock is trying to subdue Roberta, he apparently forgets the Vulcan neck pinch.

Roberta Lincoln : [indicating Isis] Would you mind telling me who that is?

Mister Seven : That, Miss Lincoln, is simply my cat.

• Alternate versions Special Enhanced version Digitally Remastered with new exterior shots and remade opening theme song
• Connections Featured in The Best TV Shows That Never Were (2004)
• Soundtracks Theme Music credited to Alexander Courage Sung by Loulie Jean Norman

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• Dec 30, 2006
• March 29, 1968 (United States)
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Star trek: every war in the franchise, chronology explained.

The Star Trek franchise has had its fair share of important wars across various series, and many of the conflicts have become legendary.

Star Trek has had many wars over the decades, ranging from smaller conflicts between species to galaxy-wide battles that have gone down as defining points in history. The Star Trek franchise began in 1966 with Star Trek: The Original Series , and to date has produced nine television shows and thirteen films. With the sheer amount of stories that have been told, it isn't surprising storylines about war have popped up so often.

Generally, Star Trek's goal has been to depict a utopian future. Creator Gene Roddenberry was interested in showing an optimistic vision of the future, with humans having overcome their differences as a species to become players on the galactic stage. Conflict, however, is what makes television and films inherently interesting, and not every alien species humans come into contact with in Star Trek  have been friendly

Related: Star Trek Has More Wars Than Star Wars: Here Are The Greatest

The franchise has its fair share of important wars, ones that have laid the groundwork for ongoing storylines and established their own mythos. The series contains ten such wars, plus four other conflicts that mark definitive points on the Star Trek timeline. Not all of these were depicted on-screen in their entirety, but all have been explored in some way by various Star Trek shows or movies.

The Eugenics Wars

One of Star Trek's earliest wars was the Eugenics Wars, which took place from 1992-1996 in canon. The Eugenics Wars were never shown directly on-screen but were referenced heavily in episodes of  TOS and Star Trek: Enterprise . They began when a group of scientists sought to use genetic engineering to improve humanity, creating a race of superhumans who had superior strength, stamina, and intellect. Unfortunately, these individuals also possessed enhanced cruelty and ambition, and took over large portions of the planet, ruling as tyrants and dictators. They were eventually defeated but many escaped on a sleeper ship and were found centuries later by Captain Kirk and the USS Enterprise. Star Trek's most famous superhuman was Khan, who first appeared in the TOS episode "Space Seed".

World War III

The Eugenics Wars also gave rise to World War III , which was explored mostly in TOS ,  Enterprise , and briefly in  Star Trek: Discovery . World War III started in 2026 from lingering issues surrounding genetic engineering and went on to reap an enormous loss of life until its end in 2053. Many factions during the war controlled their soldiers with narcotics, and eco-terrorism as well as nuclear weapons were used heavily, resulting in nuclear fallout that lasted until at least 2079. Luckily in 2063, humanity made first contact with the Vulcans as depicted in Star Trek: First Contact . The existence of extraterrestrial life united humanity in a way nothing else had, and within 50 years Earth had eliminated issues of poverty, disease, and hunger. Still, World War III had a profound effect on the planet and its consequences were felt well into the 22nd century.

The Temporal Wars

The Temporal Wars were a series of conflicts fought across both space and time, but humanity first became involved in 2151 when Captain Jonathan Archer and his crew were pulled into a portion of the conflict involving the Klingons and the Suliban. This was explored in the pilot episode of Enterprise  and the Temporal Wars went on to become a major plot point throughout the series. Much of the conflict was considered a cold war, which became a full-scale war in the Enterprise two-parter "Stormfront" when Earth's history was changed by the Na'kuhl. Archer and his crew were able to end the conflict with the help of Temporal Agent Daniels. The conflict was not explored again until season 3 of Star Trek: Discovery , where it came up in conjunction with Discovery's time jump to the 32nd century, the time period around when many of the Temporal Wars had originated.

Related: Star Trek Hints Temporal Wars Happened In The Background Of The Franchise

The Earth-Romulan War

The Earth-Romulan War was the last major conflict between Earth and an alien species before the United Federation of Planets was formed and was mostly shown or discussed on  Star Trek: TOS and Enterprise . The war lasted from 2156 to 2160, although tensions had been building during the early 2150s as Romulans sought to keep humanity from becoming a major galactic power. Open hostilities ended in 2160, when human, Vulcan, Andorian, and Tellarite forces allied to defeat the Romulans. The end of the war resulted in the creation of the Romulan Neutral Zone, and the four allied forces in the battle became the Federation's founding members. However, the war had lasting effects on Romulan and Federation relations, and hostilities between Starfleet and the Romulans have been depicted in nearly every Star Trek series.

The Federation-Klingon War

The Federation-Klingon War was the biggest of many conflicts between the Federation and the Klingon Empire, although hostilities had existed for a long time. The official war was not initiated until the Battle of the Binary Stars in 2256, which was depicted in Star Trek: Discovery.  While the war itself wasn't shown until Discovery , conflicts with the Klingons were explored in Enterprise and  TOS , including the Klingon invasion of Organia in TOS episode "Errand of Mercy". Official peace would not be achieved between the two powers until 2293, as shown in the film Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country .

The Klingon Civil War

The Klingon Civil war was a short-lived conflict from 2367-2368, mostly explored in the Star Trek: The Next Generation  two-parter "Redemption". The war was fought over who had the right to be Chancellor of the Klingon High Council, with current Chancellor Gowron on one side and the supporters of the House of Duras on the other. Although the war was fought mostly amongst the Klingons, several other forces came into play, including the Romulans and the Federation. The character of Worf from TNG was heavily involved, at one point even resigning his Starfleet commission to join the fighting. Ultimately, Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the crew of the Enterprise-D helped to expose a plot between the Duras sisters and the Romulans, putting an end to hostilities and reaffirming Gowron as Chancellor.

The Occupation Of Bajor

The Occupation of Bajor by the Cardassian Union was first introduced as a plot point in Star Trek: TNG  but went on to set up several interconnected conflicts in Deep Space Nine and Voyager . It began officially in 2328, although the Cardassians had maintained a military presence on Bajor since 2319. During the Occupation, the Cardassians imposed their militaristic form of government on the Bajorans, strip-mined the planet for its resources, and forced the Bajoran people into slavery, committing genocide on a massive scale. Over the course of the Occupation, the Bajorans mounted a resistance movement that used guerilla warfare and terrorist tactics to attempt to drive the Cardassians out. Fighting between the Resistance and the Cardassians lasted until the Cardassians withdrew in 2396, due to pressure from Cardassian Central Command and the Federation.

Related: Star Trek: Where The Cardassians Are In Picard

The Federation-Cardassian War

At the same time the Cardassians were occupying Bajor, they were engaged in a series of battles with the Federation over disputed territories that later became known as the Federation-Cardassian War. The war started in the 2340s, and the conflicts were largely explored over the course of Star Trek: TNG . During the war, both Cardassian and Federation forces battled for control over locations along the Federation-Cardassian border, but by the mid-2360s, the fighting had come to a stalemate, which led to the peace treaty and armistice being drawn up in 2367. The armistice created further problems however when it established a demilitarized zone along the border. During the creation of the demilitarized zone, a number of planets with both Federation and Cardassian colonies on them fell into dispute, giving rise to the formation of the Maquis.

The Maquis Insurrection

The Maquis were first introduced in Star Trek: TNG but went on to play a major role in both  Deep Space Nine and  Voyager . As discussed, the establishment of a demilitarized zone between Federation and Cardassian space caused a number of Federation colonies to become stranded. The Federation attempted to help the colonists evacuate, but many refused to leave and instead asked for help from Starfleet in protecting themselves, help which Starfleet was unable to provide because of the treaty. Once it was clear to the colonists they were on their own, they formed a group called Maquis and began fighting back against both Cardassian and Starfleet forces. The Maquis grew into a full-blown resistance movement from 2370 to 2373, but once the Cardassians joined forces with the Dominion, they used their newfound military power to wipe out the Maquis, putting a bloody end to the rebellion. Starfleet considered any remaining Maquis terrorists, and those left alive were imprisoned by the Federation.

The Dominion War

The Dominion War was the central focus of much of Deep Space Nine  and was arguably the biggest war depicted during any Star Trek series. Although the official war only lasted two years beginning in 2373, the conflict had been building from 2370. The Dominion was a coalition of planets from the Gamma Quadrant, ruled over by the Founders, a race of shapeshifters who sought to expand their empire into the Alpha Quadrant. Using infiltration tactics, the Founders insinuated themselves into Alpha Quadrant politics in an attempt to destabilize established power structures. This lead to several conflicts between the Federation, the Klingons, and the Cardassians, before all three realized they were being manipulated. The Federation and the Klingons united themselves against the Founders, but Gul Dukat allied the Cardassians with the Dominion in exchange for power. When all-out war broke out between the Federation powers and the Dominion, it took several large-scale battles and a Cardassian rebellion before the Dominion was defeated and forced to retreat to the Gamma Quadrant.

Other Notable Star Trek Conflicts

While the ten wars already discussed make up the majority of important conflicts in the Star Trek franchise, there have been others that aren't necessarily all-out wars but deserve mention. The most important is the Battle of Wolf 359, which was the first battle fought between Starfleet and the Borg. Wolf 359 was depicted in the TNG two-parter episode "The Best of Both Worlds" and was arguably the opening salvo of the Federation's ongoing war with the Borg-  a war that the Star Trek franchise has yet to resolve. In addition to Wolf 359, a few other important battles should be mentioned. These include the battle with Control at the end of Discovery season 2, the Khitomer massacre, a Romulan-Klingon conflict from TNG , and the Attack on Mars in Star Trek: Picard season 1, a Romulan-orchestrated attack that resulted in the Federation's ban on synthetic life in 2385.

Related: All 5 Changes Star Trek: Picard Made To Romulans

Although Star Trek was first conceived of as a utopian ideal of the future, the franchise has seen more than its fair share of conflict. While many of the big wars in the franchise's history took place before humanity's first contact with the Vulcans and the formation of the Federation, just as many took place during a period of time when peace was supposed to be the order of the day. With new Star Trek content being produced for the franchise all the time, it is likely audiences will continue to see storylines about war going into the future.

More: Every First Contact In The Star Trek Movies

Eugenics Wars

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The Eugenics Wars (or the Great Wars ) were a series of conflicts originally fought on Earth between 1992 and 1996 ( TOS : " Space Seed "), which later shifted to the 21st century due to efforts by various temporal factions to stop the rise of Khan and the events that followed; Romulan temporal agent Sera suggested that "it's almost as if time itself is pushing back and events reinsert themselves." ( SNW : " Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow ") It has also been known as the Eugenic War , Second Civil War and World War III at different points. ( SNW : " Strange New Worlds ") The result of a scientific attempt to improve the Human race through selective breeding and genetic engineering , the wars devastated parts of Earth, by some estimates officially causing some thirty million to tens of millions of deaths, and nearly plunging the planet into a new Dark Age . ( TOS : " Space Seed "; ENT : " Borderland "; SNW : " Ad Astra per Aspera ")

The Eugenics Wars resulted in a ban on genetic engineering and centuries of prejudice against Augments , who were forbidden from enlisting in Starfleet , as were those erroneously perceived to be Augments due to their ancestry. It also resulted in discrimination against Illyrians , who were known to adapt themselves to colonies rather than terraform worlds. ( SNW : " Ghosts of Illyria ", " A Quality of Mercy "; DS9 : " Doctor Bashir, I Presume "; PRO : " Mindwalk ", " Supernova, Part 1 ", " Supernova, Part 2 ")

• 2 Rise to power
• 3 Conflicts
• 4 Aftermath
• 5.1 Related topics
• 5.2 Background information
• 5.3 Apocrypha
• 6 External link

Prelude [ ]

Records from this period are fragmented, and the exact circumstances have changed due to temporal interference. Regardless, the wars' roots lie in a group of Human scientists' ambitious attempt to improve the race through selective breeding and genetic engineering. They created a race of "supermen," popularly known as the Augments , who were mentally and physically superior to ordinary Humans. They were five times stronger than the average person, their lung efficiency was fifty percent better than normal, and their intelligence was double that of normal Humans. They also had enhanced senses, including an ability to hear beyond that of Human capabilities. ( TOS : " Space Seed "; ENT : " Borderland ", " Cold Station 12 ")

The Augments were originally created by the scientists in the 1950s Cold War era in the hopes that they would lead Humanity into an era of peace in a world that had only known war. ( Star Trek Into Darkness ) One aspect these scientists overlooked was the personality of the Augments. Along with their superior abilities, the Augments were aggressive and arrogant, flaws which the scientists were unable to correct at the time due to the infancy of the science. One of the Augments' creators realized the error, writing that "superior ability breeds superior ambition." That same scientist was ultimately killed by one of his own creations. ( TOS : " Space Seed "; ENT : " Cold Station 12 ", " The Augments ")

Rise to power [ ]

Khan Noonien Singh in the 1990s

The Augments originally rose to power and held dominance over a large portion of Humanity, beginning in the early 1990s . Among the most notorious of these superhuman conquerors was Khan Noonien Singh , who in 1992 became the "absolute ruler" of more than a quarter of the planet, from Asia through the Middle East . ( TOS : " Space Seed ")

The following year , a group of fellow "supermen" followed in Khan's footsteps, and simultaneously seized power in over forty nations. The people of these conquered nations, in most cases, were treated as little more than slaves by the Augments. Khan considered himself "a prince , with power over millions". It was unknown how he viewed or treated those under his rule, although they had very little freedom. Unlike the other Augment despots, however, Khan's reign had enjoyed peace. The people were not massacred, and Khan avoided war until his region was attacked. Khan considered himself a benign dictator or one who led by a form of "gentle authoritarianism"; as such he was thus among the most admired of the so-called " tyrants " into the 23rd century , being called the "best of the tyrants" by James T. Kirk . ( TOS : " Space Seed "; Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan ; ENT : " Borderland ")

A Romulan time agent named Sera tried to assassinate Khan in 1992, but could not do so until much later due to temporal interference that stalled human technological advancement by several decades. Despite these changes, many of the aforementioned events still occurred, but were now moved forward in time. In this revised version of the Prime timeline, Khan was still a child in 2022 Toronto , being monitored at the Noonien-Singh Institute for Cultural Advancement , where the assassination attempt occurred. Unbeknownst to him, he was saved by a time-travelling descendant of his, Starfleet Lieutenant La'an Noonien-Singh . ( SNW : " Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow ")

Conflicts [ ]

Reports as to exactly how the wars began vary; some claim that Humanity rose up against Khan and his fellow "supermen," while others believe the Augments began to fight among themselves. Still others suggest that the Eugenics Wars were part of a larger conflict over the nature of freedom, alongside the Second American Civil War ( SNW : " Strange New Worlds ") Regardless of their origin, two factors were certain: the Eugenics Wars had a devastating impact on Earth, as entire populations were bombed out of existence, and that humanity ultimately deposed the Augments. ( ENT : " Cold Station 12 "; TOS : " Space Seed ")

Among the areas affected by the wars was North Africa . One conflict that occurred there involved a battalion of soldiers that included the future great-grandfather of Starfleet Captain Jonathan Archer . In this encounter, Archer's great-grandfather was able to convince the Augment commander of his enemy's forces to hold their fire long enough to evacuate a school that was directly between them. Some or all parts of that account may be non-factual as Archer was evidently in an altered state of mind around the time he disclosed it. ( ENT : " Hatchery ")

The Augments were eventually defeated by Humans who were not genetically enhanced. Khan was the last of the tyrants to be overthrown, originally in 1996 . Khan and over eighty of the "supermen" were condemned to die as war criminals. They however went unaccounted for, a fact the governments of the time did not disclose to the public in order to prevent panic. Rumors were later confirmed in the 23rd century that Khan and 84 of his followers had managed to flee the planet aboard an early sleeper ship , the SS Botany Bay . ( TOS : " Space Seed "; Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan ; Star Trek Into Darkness )

The official number of casualties from the wars was placed at 30 million, although some historians believed it to be closer to 35 million, with another figure established as being 37 million. Although the wars may have ended, Humanity's fear of genetically-engineered beings remained well into the 24th century . ( ENT : " Cold Station 12 "; TOS : " Bread and Circuses "; DS9 : " Doctor Bashir, I Presume ")

Aftermath [ ]

Following the wars, controversial debates ensued between Earth's governments regarding the fate of thousands of Augment embryos . Uncertain of how to handle the issue, the governments opted to have the embryos placed into cold storage , unbeknownst to the general public. ( ENT : " Borderland ", " Cold Station 12 ", " In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II " historical archive ). The issue of genetic manipulation and Human genome enhancement continued to plague Earth well into the 21st century. In 2024 , Doctor Adam Soong began examining an old file from 1996 , which was called " Project Khan ". ( PIC : " Farewell ") It is unknown whether Soong went forward with a new genetic engineering project sometime after 2024 based on the original Augment project, or joined the one in Toronto, where Khan lived after the timeline had been changed ( SNW : " Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow ").

Doctor Keniclius

Soong and the Augment embryos

Genetic engineering of Humans was ultimately banned on Earth, as the concept was considered anti-Humanistic by Earth leaders. As a result of this, Doctor Stavos Keniclius was exiled from his community, which eventually led him to depart Earth permanently. The ban was placed primarily as an attempt to prevent another event like the Eugenics Wars, and to ensure that Humanity did not endure the wrath of another Khan Noonien Singh-type tyrant. ( TAS : " The Infinite Vulcan "; DS9 : " Doctor Bashir, I Presume ", " Statistical Probabilities ")

The ban on genetic engineering was challenged by the geneticist Arik Soong in the 2130s , when he stole some of the Augment embryos left over from the wars which were being kept at Cold Station 12 . Soong believed that genetic engineering was the key to improving Humankind and preventing illness, and that it should be given another chance. By raising the Augments himself, Soong believed he could prevent them from behaving like their brethren from the Eugenics Wars. His plan failed as the aggressive nature of the Augments dominated, and they threatened to incite war and cause mass murder. Starfleet 's mission to hunt down and capture the renegade "supermen" ultimately led to the destruction of the Augments, as well as most of the embryos. ( ENT : " Borderland ", " Cold Station 12 ", " The Augments ")

Not all of the embryos were destroyed, though. Some found their way into the hands of Klingons who, believing Humans were improving themselves in order to conquer the Klingon Empire , attempted to use the DNA from the embryos to enhance themselves. The end result was a mutation of a highly-contagious virus that caused massive changes in physical appearance, biological structure, and even basic personality traits of large portions of the Klingon race. ( ENT : " Affliction ", " Divergence ")

The continued banning of genetic engineering ultimately became a point of contention between the Federation and the Illyrian race. Since the Illyrians were known for using genetic modification within its members, Illyrians were usually barred from entering service into Starfleet and even use of their medical technology became banned within the Federation. The mixing of Human and Illyrian blood was similarly banned. ( SNW : " Ghosts of Illyria ")

In 2259 , La'an Noonien-Singh , Khan's descendant, traveled back in time to stop his assassination by Romulan temporal agent Sera . Sera told La'an that "Khan becomes a brutal tyrant. I mean, maybe humanity needs the dark age that he brings in to usher in their age of enlightenment. Or maybe it's just random. Doesn't really matter though, 'cause if I kill him, the Federation never forms, and the Romulans lose their greatest adversary." ( SNW : " Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow ")

In the 2260s , after the USS Enterprise encountered a spaceship from the 1990s, Spock described the mid-1990s as the era of the Human crew 's "last so-called world war ", which was affirmed by Doctor Leonard McCoy to be the Eugenics Wars. ( TOS : " Space Seed ")

Appendices [ ]

Related topics [ ].

• Augment Crisis
• Klingon augment virus

Background information [ ]

In " Space Seed " the "supermen" of the Eugenics Wars were said to be the products of selective breeding; this was later retconned into genetic engineering.

Both " Space Seed " and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan give the dating of the Eugenics Wars as the 1990s. At one point during that decade in reality, Ronald D. Moore and René Echevarria had a discussion in which they observed it as odd that the Eugenics Wars seemed to basically be the only evidence of genetic engineering in Star Trek . " It's virtually never discussed, aside from the fact that there was this thing called the Eugenics Wars at some point, and Khan came out of it, " stated Moore. ( Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion  (p. 431)) Consequently, while writing DS9 Season 5 installment " Doctor Bashir, I Presume ", Moore focused on the idea that the Eugenics Wars had motivated the Federation into deciding not to meddle with genetic engineering. ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 29, Nos. 6/7, p. 49)

In contrast to the Eugenics Wars having previously been established as taking place in the 1990s, "Doctor Bashir, I Presume", set in 2373 , references the Eugenics Wars as having occurred two centuries prior to the episode, placing the Wars in the late 22nd century . As Ronald D. Moore later admitted, this statement was a production error, a line he had taken from The Wrath of Khan , but he had accidentally forgotten to account for the episode being set a century later than the film. ( AOL chat , 1997 ) Confessed Moore, " It was simply a mistake. The date of the Eugenics Wars is something that we have been studiously trying not to pin ourselves down about, because obviously they aren't happening around as we speak [....] What looked like the distant future in 1967 is not so distant any more. I don't blame them for not having the foresight to see that in 30 years this would become important in the series. " A production staffer from Star Trek: Voyager suggested the date had deliberately been changed on DS9 to account for the Eugenics Wars having not been mentioned in the "Future's End" two-parter. Moore flatly rejected that theory and responded, " We never talked to Voyager about it. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 29, Nos. 6/7, p. 50)

The original dating of the Eugenics Wars was reaffirmed by Phlox stating in " Borderland " that Arik Soong's Augments were pretty sophisticated for 20th century genetics. Phlox later mentions to the Klingons that genetic engineering on Earth was "banned decades ago," suggesting that the ban was not necessarily adopted by Humans immediately after the Eugenics Wars.

Manny Coto was a fan of this series of conflicts. " I was always fascinated by this idea of this Eugenics Wars, " he commented. " I love the backstory of that story. I just found that just compelling, the idea that it was instigated by these genetically superior individuals. " ("Inside the Roddenberry Vault, Part I", Star Trek: The Original Series - The Roddenberry Vault special features)

In "Space Seed", Spock describes the mid-1990s as "the era of your last so-called world war," with Leonard McCoy directly referencing the Eugenics Wars in response, suggesting this conflict could be World War III . In TOS : " Bread and Circuses ", Spock states that thirty-seven million people died in World War III – consistent with Phlox's assertion that over thirty million died in the Eugenics Wars (again connecting World War III and the Eugenics Wars) – but not Riker 's claim that six hundred million died in the nuclear conflict in Star Trek: First Contact , and again repeated by Burnham in " New Eden ". As Spock was speaking in the context of despotism, and what constitutes despotic "responsibility" is open to interpretation, his statement may not give the total death count.

In TNG : " Up The Long Ladder ", Data states that Humans were still recovering from the effects of World War III in the early 22nd century. This statement makes more sense within the context of a mid 21st century war than that of a late 20th century war, suggesting that World War III and the Eugenics Wars are not the same conflict, as confirmed in Star Trek: First Contact .

According to show runners, Spock was wrong and that Eugenics Wars happened much later during 21st century. Terry Matalas: " We discussed endlessly. We came to the conclusion that in WW3 there were several EMP bursts that kicked everyone back decades. Records of that 75 year period, the 90s on were sketchy. Maybe Spock was wrong? " In response Khan's own references to the 1996 date, that they simply have be ignored to make the series more relatable to the present; "No easy way to do it if you want the past to look and feel like today. Maybe because in 1967 they didn't anticipate the show still going for another 6 decades. " Aaron J. Waltke added: " There's also the ripples of the Temporal Cold War shifting the Prime Timeline in Enterprise — at least until the Temporal Accords put an end to that wibbly wobbliness. " [1]

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds attempted to explain the various mistakes and retcons by creating a literal in-series retcon in " Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow ": the fact that Humans were not capable of genetic engineering on the scale of Khan Noonien Singh was actually due to interference by one or more temporally warring factions, including the Romulans. This allows for both the original statements regarding the Eugenics Wars from Star Trek: The Original Series and ones from newer productions to stand somewhat alongside each other.

Apocrypha [ ]

The Star Trek: The Eugenics Wars books portray a different view on the Eugenics Wars as being a more covert hidden battle between the genetically engineered "supermen" rather than an overt one in an attempt to marry the original dates of the Eugenics Wars with the events of the present day. This explains why the United States of America is seen as relatively unaffected in the episode " Future's End " and also raises the quite logical hypothesis that Gary Seven , who was present on Earth at the time of Khan's birth and would have known of the eugenics movement, was involved in the overthrow of Khan and the other tyrants. Numerous 20th century Trek characters appear in the story, including Rain Robinson (who at the end of the second book becomes Roberta Lincoln 's assistant), Ralph Offenhouse (an early financial backer of the genetic engineering program), Clare Raymond (her death is not an embolism but collateral damage from a nerve gas attack, Khan's assassination of Vasily Hunyadi, the fellow Augment secretly behind the Balkan conflicts of the early 1990s), Gillian Taylor , Flint (as "Wilson Evergreen"), and Jeff , who designed the Botany Bay – with Shannon O'Donnel and Walter Nichols involved in the project – primarily with technology reverse-engineered from Quark's Treasure .

In the Star Trek: Khan comic book series associated with the alternate reality , the creative team went with a portrayal of the wars as being an open conflict that outright affected the whole planet. The depiction of the wars however was filtered through the lens of Khan telling his own version of the events to a Federation court. As such, the series frequently cast doubt on how much of the events he depicted were actually true to his memory and how much of it was perhaps Khan simply spinning a fanciful version that would garner him sympathy with those present to hear his words.

In "The Rules of War", a short story from the anthology Strange New Worlds 9 , the enemy commander whom Archer's great-grandfather Nathan Archer negotiated with in North Africa is Stavos Keniclius.

External link [ ]

• Eugenics Wars at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• 3 ISS Enterprise (NCC-1701)