Loads of people go on about how “awe shucks, we’re in the Mad Max future, instead of the Star Trek future” completely unaware that Star Trek’s utopia was built on top of the ruins of a Mad Max distopia that came first.
In canon, Star Trek’s utopia only happened after Earth had a nuclear WWIII followed by the Eugenics War (and several related genocides) before first contact with the Vulcans. In fact, without those wars, we might not have gotten the tech for warp drive. In further lore, after the wars of the 21st century and before first contact, there was a concerted “never again” kind of movement globally eventually resulting in the United Earth government being founded. It then took more than a century of technological and societal progress to get to the matter replicator driven post-scarcity economy.
So we could be on track for Star Trek future… but none of us will be alive to see it.
I don’t know in fairness an actual all-out nuclear war would probably do it. Mostly people are alright, the problem is governments and corporations which presumably wouldn’t survive a nuclear war.
The mirror Star Trek happened when Zephram Cochrane shot and killed the Vulcans arriving to greet them instead of shaking their hand. The nearby people stormed the ship and raided the weapons, using them to conquer the rest of Earth.
Loads of people go on about how “awe shucks, we’re in the Mad Max future, instead of the Star Trek future” completely unaware that Star Trek’s utopia was built on top of the ruins of a Mad Max distopia that came first.
In canon, Star Trek’s utopia only happened after Earth had a nuclear WWIII followed by the Eugenics War (and several related genocides) before first contact with the Vulcans. In fact, without those wars, we might not have gotten the tech for warp drive. In further lore, after the wars of the 21st century and before first contact, there was a concerted “never again” kind of movement globally eventually resulting in the United Earth government being founded. It then took more than a century of technological and societal progress to get to the matter replicator driven post-scarcity economy.
So we could be on track for Star Trek future… but none of us will be alive to see it.
Star Trek canon is that humans suddenly acted completely differently than they had throughout their entire history. I don’t think that’s gonna happen.
I don’t know in fairness an actual all-out nuclear war would probably do it. Mostly people are alright, the problem is governments and corporations which presumably wouldn’t survive a nuclear war.
The mirror Star Trek happened when Zephram Cochrane shot and killed the Vulcans arriving to greet them instead of shaking their hand. The nearby people stormed the ship and raided the weapons, using them to conquer the rest of Earth.
Montana looked like a safe place to survive
And apparently San Francisco survived, even though you would have thought it would have been a target, and Paris, and London.
Really it seems to have been an incredibly restrained war. Nothing of any actual value appears to have been destroyed.
I know, I know, I was just hoping that we could skip the foreplay? Damn it all.