Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Killed Canon (And That's Okay)

hey guys Tyler here for many Star Trek fans strange new worlds has been a breath of fresh air a return of sorts to the classic original series episodic format strange new worlds arguably had one of the strongest first seasons of any Trek show offering fun plot lines and tackling characterization and major socio-political themes like any good Sci-Fi does but strange new worlds has also made some controversial creative decisions a trend that has continued with the show's second season now in my view not all of these controversial decisions have been bad per se just different which brings me to one of the most talked about episodes from season two tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow in this outing Enterprise security officer laan nunian Singh and an alternate James T Kirk traveled back to 2022 Earth to complete a deceased Federation temporal agent's mission to stop the romulans from killing Khan Union sing and preventing the Federation from forming in the first place the episode officially pushes back the dates of Khan's birth and the Eugenics Wars to the 21st century between this and other juicy Lord drops I thought I'd make a video giving my thoughts on Star Trek's strange new worlds timeline alterations and pose the question are they even necessary let's find out [Music] [Applause] first a little background I've discussed Khan the Eugenics Wars the temporal Cold War and More in various videos over the years some of which I guess are now outdated so thanks strange new worlds long story short Khan and the Eugenics Wars were first introduced in the original series episode space seed we learned that Khan is an augment the product of selective breeding and genetic engineering programs on Earth during the mid 20th century in 1992 Khan and a group of his fellow Supermen took control of vast portions of territory on Earth in an event called the Eugenics Wars which led to over 30 million deaths Khan and the augments were eventually beaten back by unenhanced humans and Khan and 84 of his followers escaped Earth aboard the interplanetary sleeper ship SS Botany Bay said a course outbound from the solar system with no apparent destination after drifting in space for over 200 years aboard the Botany Bay Khan is revived from cryo sleep and attempts to take over the Enterprise he is exiled along with the 72 remaining sleepers on the planet seti Alpha 5 before attempting to exact his revenge on Kirk in Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan first played by Mexican actor Ricardo Montalban and then by the widest actor on Earth Benedict Cumberbatch the character of Khan has been a staple of the franchise and has immense pop culture recognition so it makes sense that not only would his name be invoked on multiple occasions what if one of those people grew up I know what if one of those lives I save down that as a child who grows up to be the next Adolf Hitler or can't say but then the other Star Trek shows would feature augment storylines such as ds9s Dr Bashir I presume and well Enterprises augment Arc but as Star Trek Productions continued to reference Khan and the Eugenics Wars The Real World approaching date of the 1990s forced Star Trek's creative staff to make some tough calls for instance in the two-part Voyager episode Futures End the crew travels back to 1996 Los Angeles to track down the 29th Century timeship Eon which entrepreneur Henry Starling has reversed engineered and capitalized off of influencing the personal computer revolution of the late 20th century when writing features end voyager's creative staff had to make a conscious decision as to whether or not they would even mention the Eugenics Wars which remember wrapped up in 1996. Khan even says the year 1996 in The Wrath of Khan so that date has always been Canon ultimately the right letters of Futures End opted to ignore the Eugenics Wars because they felt bringing it up would be distracting and I can kind of understand this after all Khan's Empire is said to have been based in Asia the overall territory of the augments consisting of 40 Nations that comprise over a quarter of the Earth's population alternatively the non-canon comic Star Trek Khan released as a tie-in to the film Star Trek Into Darkness portrays the Eugenics Wars as an open armed conflict in the 1990s that affects the whole globe and involves the detonation of nuclear weapons arguably an early version of World War III this is consistent with comments made by Spock in the original series Loosely implying the Eugenics Wars and World War III to be the same thing which was later retconned by Star Trek the Next Generation at least as far as its time period admittedly star Star Trek Into Darkness does take place in the Kelvin timeline and the implication of Futures End to me has always been that that episode also takes place in an alternate timeline but the mere fact that the Voyager writers were even thinking about the Eugenics Wars speaks to the struggle Star Trek's creative staff have endured over the years regarding how they approach Canon [Music] I've personally never had an issue reconciling the idea that Star Trek takes place in an alternate timeline what with its six Voyager probes and the more advanced space flight in the late 20th and early 21st centuries it's all fiction so it should be no surprise that events and Trex history don't perfectly line up with the real world but since Star Trek has always been meant to be presented as an optimistic possible future for Humanity it does make sense that Star Trek's writers would strive to make the Trek timeline conform to a degree to our current lived reality one of the most blatant examples of this effort comes with the conclusion of the two-part Enterprise episode Stormfront after defeating the knuckles efforts to undermine the Federation by killing Vladimir Lenin and then allying with Nazi Germany in World War II the crew of the nx01 Enterprise help restore the timeline to its rightful course in a sequence towards the end of the episode we see Daniel's talk with Jonathan Archer as the time stream resets itself several images relevant to Earth's history flash by including the September 11th attacks and a meeting between George W bush and Tony Blair recent events when the episode was produced and ones that occurred after 1996. much like the Next Generation era shows Enterprise in an effort not to contradict real life never committed to saying if the Eugenics Wars really did happen in the 1990s though a botany bay Easter egg a picture of the dy100 class does appear earlier in Future's end and the Darkness does also refer to Khan as the product of mid-20th century genetic engineering experiments but as far as the prime Universe it's not really until strange new worlds that the franchise really commits to a hard date again following up on another Easter egg in the season 2 finale of Star Trek Picard the pilot episode of strange new worlds implies the Eugenics Wars to be a distinctly 21st century conflict an evolution of the second Civil War which begins in 2026 and a precursor to World War III which culminates in 2053 while this timeline is still somewhat vague tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow finally confirms that the Eugenics Wars were quote unquote supposed to happen in the 1990s but were pushed back as a result of temporal incursions we learned this from Sarah a Romulan temporal agent surgically altered to appear human who has been trapped on Earth for 30 years she seeks to kill Khan noonian Singh not out of ultra not at altruism not out of shrimp on the Bobby pack the car she seeks to assassinate Khan not out of ultra ISM for Humanity but because a computer simulation told her to do so the romulans having built computers to calculate the results of changes in the timeline she Muses that perhaps Humanity needed the Dark Age brought on by Khan to reach their Enlightenment or perhaps it was just random either way if she kills Khan the Federation will never form we see this as true as this episode's version of Kirk is from the alternate future where Sarah was successful once again Sarah directly asserts that this was all supposed to happen in 1992 but unexpectedly temporal Shenanigans have delayed events surrounding the Eugenics Wars this isn't just a fun nod to TOS lore but it's actually confirmation that strange new worlds does indeed take place in an alternate timeline from the original series but here's the thing it's probably not just a strange new worlds or even discover three I know that a lot of you guys like to get angry in the comments whenever I even bring up Star Trek produced after 2005. you'll type things like discoveries in an alternate timeline well congratulations folks well congratulations folks you won I am officially giving you permission to gloat about this because as it turns out you were right but actually actually hold on hold on a second before you do let me ask you this question is it just new track that takes place in an alternate timeline or does this also extend to Enterprise I think it might I think it probably does ever since the temporal Cold War storyline was introduced in Enterprise fans have used it and apparent continuity errors in the early Seasons to argue that the entire show is itself set in an alternate timeline whether it truly is or not is important for one thing in determining what kind of future Daniels comes from something I've made multiple videos about which are also probably now outdated links in the description but hold on a second if Enterprise takes place in an alternate timeline from the original series what about the Next Generation and Deep Space Nine and Voyager I mean seriously dialogue and tng's pilot encounter at farpoint in the film Star Trek first Contact placing World War III in the mid 21st century arguably contributes to tng's status as a soft reboot of the original series is Star Trek the Original Series even Canon anymore or did it already lose its Canon status in the 1980s okay I I admit that's kind of a loaded question and as Star Trek Picard actually a direct continuation of TNG are just the same people with subtly different pasts I know that all of you already have an opinion on that what I'm getting at is it's unclear where exactly we should draw the line or should I say lines multiple of them the temporal Cold War was introduced in real life in 2001 with the Enterprise pilot Broken Bow chronologically Enterprise is a prequel but is it a true prequel this is something that people have been kind of asking since like 2001 and this is what time travel does to a franchise overall it's clear that at the very least there's a pre-temporal Wars alteration timeline and a post temporal Wars alteration timeline likely more than one of the latter which shows fit into which categories is still kind of Up For Debate and I think that's okay we don't really need all the answers to these questions that's not what is as important what is important is that Star Trek Continues to tell good compelling stories and at this point the cat's kind of out of the bag when it comes to you know continuity errors or perceived Canon violations the exact details surrounding the lives of Spock Kirk Pike Uhura chapel and all the other characters we know and love might be in a bit of a state of temporal flux as a it were but the broad Strokes are still there Spock as a character is still logical although strange new worlds is exploring more of his emotional side Kirk is still a straight shooter and a charismatic leader I don't necessarily agree with these strange new worlds writer's interpretation of the temporal Cold War and I don't think that explaining away all of these timeline alterations and excruciating detail like they're kind of doing is absolutely necessary but I I don't really mind it to the point that it like ruins the show for me or ruins the franchise and I don't think you should mind it either God they are not gonna like me telling them what to think foreign [Music] for a minute and recap what we know so far or at least what I think we know I'm trying my best guys give me a break strange new worlds confirms that at some point there was no longer perfect continuity between Star Trek the Original Series and some of the new shows continuing the trend of soft retcons established as early as the Next Generation or even the TOs movies to a degree somewhere along the way the dates of World War III were possibly shifted from the 1990s concurrent with the original dates of the Eugenics Wars to the mid-21st century as established in encounter at farpoint and first Contact this means that even as early as the real world year of 1987 you can make an argument that there was a TOS timeline and a TNG timeline placement of the TOs films is somewhat precarious as The Wrath of Khan contains a reference to Botany Bay's launch in 86 but Chernobyl hadn't happened yet then Chernobyl happened which influenced the plot of the Undiscovered Country released in 1991 the year the Soviet Union collapsed even though there's a reference to the USSR supposedly still existing in the 24th century in the TNG episode The Naked now which aired in 1987. foreign I hope this gets more than 20 000 views I hope it gets more than 30 000 views we're working too hard again aren't we I have a bachelor's degree Futures End and Voyager is about the personal computer revolution of the 1990s an event which the Voyager crew are familiar with but did that take place in the TOs timeline as well with the Eugenics Wars and all that see what I mean this this is getting confusing and again it's difficult to determine whether Enterprise really takes place in the same timeline as the Next Generation era shows since Daniels says things like history doesn't mention anything about a conflict between humans and zindy how could that be the events that are taking place are the result of temporal incursions they are not supposed to be happening so it's an understatement to say that the temporal Cold War introduces some complications that said I think it's kind of interesting to ponder not just you know how the dates of the Eugenics Wars might have been pushed back but also what other events could be unique to this separate TOS timeline believe it or not we actually have something of a rough outline as to what might truly distinguish the TOs version of history from later versions of Trek or at the very least from our history in 1979 a reference book called space flight chronology was published by pocketbooks written by Stan and Fred Goldstein and illustrated by Rick sternback at the time of printing it was considered canonical a designation that no longer applies to any supplementary reference materials but suffice it to say space flight chronology presents a timeline of Earth's technological development at least what the authors speculated Could Happen Beyond 1980 events from 1957 to 1979 follow the historical record with the exception of the the episode assignment Earth set in 1968 as the outer space treaty made the launch of fractional orbital bombardment systems illegal according to the chronology NASA's space shuttle goes on to be wildly successful helping Humanity establish a permanent foothold in space including solar power satellites beaming energy to Earth and is phased out in favor of a more advanced craft by 1992 starting in 1995 the dy100 becomes the first mass-produced spacecraft making regular runs to the moon and being adapted for the first crude Mission to Mars crucially the Eugenics Wars don't seem to have discouraged space flight rather promoted it similarly to the off-world colonization program following a possible 90s World War III in the Blade Runner Universe a permanent moon base is established in 1998 possibly a joint venture between the U.S and Russia with a second base on the far side side beginning operations by 2004 and being the site of the first off-earth human birth the first human landing on Mars might occur in the 2003 to 2005 launch period as the red planet makes its closest approach to Earth which happens in 15-year cycles and multiple Star Trek novels indicate the first human to set foot on Mars is a female astronaut the first L5 City presumably a space habitat at the Earth's L5 LaGrange point is completed in 2007 with another six completed by 2019. 2008 sees the development of a new Earth Moon liner as well as the Aventura class which makes manned voyages to the outer solar system over the subsequent two decades the 2010s allegedly see several Mars bases built possibly using materials from the 2005 launch period or starting in 2018 with the red planet's next closest approach this decade also sees the first homesteading in the asteroid belt Sean Jeffrey Christopher's ship the unss Lewis and Clark visits Saturn in 2020 a reference to the episode tomorrow is yesterday the 2020s bring even further development of the asteroid belt which is supported by ships like the dy-500 as well as early colonization of Venus space flight chronology says terraforming although orbital cities and Venus's upper Cloud layers are a more realistic start by 2042 space flight chronology imagines a base on Pluto and manned sublight missions to Alpha Centauri and Barnard Star as well as an interplanetary Communications Network in 2044 that guarantees reliable communication throughout the solar system after this point spaceflight chronology tends to break even further away from Canon presenting Earth as a stronger and more Dynamic entity in the mid-21st century than the war ravaged planet on the brink of collapse as depicted in Enterprise in the Next Generation era first contact is not with the Vulcans but a civilization called the centaurens humans potentially transplanted by the preservers from Earth to Alpha Centauri in the ancient past and zepham Cochrane is not montanan but centaurin a hyper-literal interpretation of his Origins as established in the TOs episode metamorphosis is that from Cochrane of alpha century the Discover of the space warp that's right Captain but let's say for the sake of this video that the TOs timeline that we're imagining is merely inspired by space flight chronology so zephron cochrane's still human and the human SS Icarus that arrives at Alpha Centauri in 2048 finds evidence of microbial fungal and basic animal and plant life but no intelligent life since Alpha Centauri is merely described in Canon as a human Colony so no Navi either well yeah yeah no Navi regardless space flight chronology States humans break the light barrier in 2055. eight years earlier than in Canon with the wd-1 test vehicle based on theories by zefram Cochrane the pilot a chimpanzee and the wd-1 test vehicle obviously an early prototype of the more robust WD-40 in 2059 The unss Bonaventure becomes Earth's first fully functioning warp ship and sets course for the Tau seti system later in this period Mars declares independence and earth makes first contact with the Vulcans tellerites andorians rigelians and others it's also revealed that humans are one of the most technologically advanced civilizations in local space as opposed to our depiction in Enterprise as being something of an Interstellar Backwater under the tutelage of the paternalistic Vulcans space flight chronology's timeline after first Contact somewhat resembles the build up to Enterprise in the original series including the founding of the Federation and the Earth Romulan War but the dates are all off for one thing the Federation is founded in 2087 a date used by other early TOS novels rather than 2161 and the launch of the Enterprise is indicated to be 2200 even though later media indicates TOS to be set in the mid-23rd century but as for everything before first Contact I think we can take that with a little more than just a tiny grain of salt in any event going back to Earth's technology being more advanced it's this aspect of the space flight chronology timeline as well as the general concept of Earth's achievements happening earlier in the TOs version of history compared to the Next Generation and Enterprise that's further validated by other lines of dialogue in strange new worlds tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow brings up one other aspect of all of this that I find endlessly fascinating Sarah is not just there to kill Khan but she's part of a group of Romulan temporal agents that have been sent to various time periods and Earth's past to slow down human progress she lists a bunch of historical events that are secretly Romulan attacks including Chernobyl tunguska JFK random gas leak explosions like presumably the Bhopal disaster with over 1600 deaths linked to it this got me thinking there must be some other original version of Earth's history that even the TOs timeline is a bastardization of nested simulations nested timelines I'm not exactly sure what the 1908 tonkuska event which saw 80 million trees flattened in Siberia has to do with all of this unless they are of course first talking about the secret base that got wiped out FBI open up but JFK's assassination has in popular culture been frequently associated with slowing down technological progress the idea being that he might not have escalated the Vietnam War as much as Lyndon B Johnson did thus freeing up more government funds for scientific research and with less war debt the U.S economy would be in better shape in the 1970s the Chernobyl explosion is of course widely credited with accelerating or even causing the demise of the Soviet Union due to the immense cost of the cleanup indeed the ussr's final collapse actually dealt a blow to U.S science as Congress was less willing to fund risky Ventures like the superconducting super collider similarly the destruction of the fictitious Lake Ontario bridge in the episode is cited as yet another example of deteriorating international relations and thus yet another example of the romulans slowing down human progress extrapolating this out even further in the original timeline it's possible that the exact series of events that led to the Watergate scandal simply didn't occur Watergate along with Vietnam has been credited with further eroding Americans trust in government if the Eugenics Wars still happened in this original timeline then the vastly different geopolitical landscape in the wake of this conflict might mean 9 11 doesn't happen either the war on terror in our timeline dominated the political Zeitgeist of the 2000s and dampened cultural conversations surrounding issues like free trade globalization immigration and poverty reduction and of course all of this led to where we are today influencing the political careers and presidencies of people like Barack Obama Donald Trump and Joe Biden admittedly This is highly speculative and a pretty america-centric View although it is worth noting that in the case of Chernobyl to the extent that it did contribute to the collapse of the Soviet Union avoiding the post-collapse recession of the 1990s would have saved the post-soviet states a lot of pain and suffering in before somebody thinks that I'm saying the Soviet Union did nothing wrong no idiots and of course it's not like we actually see this timeline in any Star Trek Productions since even the original series premiered years after JFK's death but it's interesting to think about so to recap Once More there's at least three versions of the Star Trek timeline that tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow implies the existence of an unaltered timeline where humans presumably reached out to the Stars earlier the TOs timeline where JFK was assassinated but the Eugenics Wars still happened in the 1990s and a timeline where the Eugenics Wars happen in the 21st century indeed there might actually be four timelines the unaltered timeline the TOs timeline the TNG DS9 and Voyager timeline and the Enterprise Discovery exchange New World's lowered experden Prodigy timeline again I didn't write I didn't make them write this in in the episodes I didn't make them I did not make them do this they're making me do this and there might be even more timelines beyond that that incorporate some mix of events like tunguska Bhopal Chernobyl and so on and as for things like the zindy conflict Daniel's future of origin and how those relate to the Next Generation era shows that came before Enterprise that's all kind of still up in the air like I said this is not really the direction I would have personally gone with trexlore since I've never really had any trouble reconciling the idea that Star Trek is an alternate timeline but again if Star Trek is still supposed to represent an optimistic possible future for Humanity then at some point or another the writers were going to make a decision like this and maybe Trek is better for it actually after all it's always been meant to function as a commentary on present-day social issues so one could say that making Star Trek's early 21st century more relatable actually enhances the narrative if the Trek timeline has been substantially altered by the romulans and that's why the prime Universe now more closely resembles our reality then that begs the question is this an acceptable thing for sci-fi to do coming up with secret histories to explain our real one I mean you know for instance in the case of Chernobyl it was probably a human error that led to that accident it wasn't aliens in Star Trek it was aliens so should science fiction stray away from these kinds of explanations let me know your thoughts on that down below hopefully this discussion hasn't been too rambly I I probably failed miserably on that front also perhaps there's something I've omitted or overlooked let me know your thoughts on Strange New World's Prime timeline alterations overall as well down below with that thank you all so much for watching if you enjoyed this video be sure to leave a thumbs up down below and don't forget to share it that stuff really helps me out if you haven't subscribed yet be sure to do that as well so you won't miss future uploads and click the Bell icon to receive all notifications if you want to support my work even further you can become a patron at patreon.com Orange River Link in the description or become a YouTube member by clicking the join button on my channel Page by becoming a patron remember you get access to awesome perks like behind the scenes photos and videos Patron and member only polls naming the credits merch discounts and more or you can drop a one-time super thanks or PayPal donation all are appreciated links to my PayPal as well as my social media and merge store are in the description that's all I have for this week jolon true live long and prosper [Music]

Channel: OrangeRiver

Views: 147,379

Keywords: orange river, orange river productions, anim8orkid, tyler pilkinton, orangeriver

Id: 1-GFh-tmCpA

Length: 32min 9sec (1929 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 11 2023