Star Trek: 8 Things You Didn't Know About The Eugenics Wars

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Everything you need to know about the wars that gave us Khaaaan!

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00:00The often mentioned but never depicted eugenics wars became an important part of Star Trek canon

00:05in the original series episode Space Seed. According to this episode, in the 1990s the

00:10notorious Khan Noonien Singh and several other genetically engineered humans known as Augments

00:15rose to power as dictators over large portions of Earth. These tyrants were eventually overthrown

00:20after four years of bloody struggle. As important as they are, Star Trek writers have been vague

00:24about the exact nature of the conflict such as when and where the wars took place and who was

00:29involved. However, the pilot episode of Strange New Worlds did provide a tantalizing historical

00:34summary putting eugenic wars into their proper context. Just as World War I set the stage for

00:39the even more devastating World War II, the eugenics wars served as a prelude to a series

00:44of ever-escalating conflicts culminating in World War III. They also shaped society for

00:48many centuries afterward. With all that in mind, I'm Tom Roberts-Finn for Trek Culture

00:53and here are eight things you didn't know about the eugenics wars.

00:57Number 8. The Augments were created in the 1950s.

01:01Just as the first atomic bombs were created to bring a swift end to World War II,

01:05the Augments were created with the best of intentions. Geneticists created them during

01:10the Cold War era in the hope that the so-called supermen would lead humanity into an era of peace

01:15after centuries of war. But they were wrong. Along with their superior physical and mental

01:20capabilities, the Augments were arrogant and aggressive. Their creators were unable to correct

01:24these character flaws due to the limited capabilities of genetic science at the time.

01:29As one of their creators succinctly put it, superior ability breeds superior ambition.

01:33That scientist would pay for his own arrogance and ambition when he was killed by his own

01:37creations. By the time the Augments were fully grown, they were ready to put their superior

01:41abilities to use. However, they were more interested in conquering humanity than leading

01:46them into an era of peace. Khan came to power in 1992 and eventually conquered one quarter of the

01:52world's population. The next year, his fellow supermen took control of over 40 nations.

01:577. The Augments ruled as despots

02:01In Space Seed, Khan described the era of the eugenic wars in romantic terms,

02:05calling them a period of great dreams and aspirations. He countered Spock's argument

02:10that they were fought to end tyranny by saying that they were an effort to unite humanity

02:14under a single ruler much like Rome under the Caesars. He claimed that while there were many

02:18petty dictatorships in that era, eventually one Augment would prevail over the others,

02:23bringing peace and order to the world. Contrary to Khan's high-minded rhetoric,

02:27the Augments ruled their territory as authoritarian dictators who treated

02:31ordinary humans as little more than slaves. Khan, however, considered himself a prince

02:36who ruled as a benign dictator. Unlike his fellow despots, Khan didn't slaughter his own citizens

02:41and his regime was peaceful. He didn't engage in warfare until his territory was attacked.

02:46Because of this, he was still admired in the 23rd century as the best of the tyrants.

02:516. They may have been largely fought covertly rather than through open war

02:56In the Voyager episode Future's End, the USS Voyager travelled back in time to 1996. Although

03:01this was the year the eugenics wars ended, Voyager's crew didn't see any signs of warfare.

03:06In Venice Beach, people pursued leisure activities such as roller skating, bicycling and sunbathing.

03:12In the Hollywood Hills, Tuvok in Paris observed people enjoying the Griffith Observatory's

03:16exhibits and planetarium. In downtown, the crew witnessed well-dressed business people and

03:21shoppers. The only signs of social strife the crew witnessed included homelessness and an

03:25encounter with members of a right-wing militia. So, like now. A possible reason for this was

03:31explored in the novel series Star Trek The Eugenics Wars. These novels depicted the eugenics

03:35wars as a covert conflict similar to the earlier Cold War rather than open warfare. However,

03:41Star Trek Picard showrunner Terry Metallus has suggested that Spock might have been wrong about

03:45the date. Metallus and the showrunner's writers concluded that World War III's nuclear exchanges

03:50generated electromagnetic pulses that erased many electronic records, a reason that the eugenics

03:55wars were later in the 21st century. Star Trek prodigy writer and story editor Aaron Waltke

04:00has also suggested that the temporal Cold War may have shifted the timeline.

04:055. Captain Jonathan Archer

04:08Other regions of the world were not so lucky as the United States. One area devastated by

04:12open war was North Africa. One of the soldiers involved in the North African campaign was

04:16Captain Jonathan Archer's great-grandfather. As depicted in the Enterprise episode Hatchery,

04:21during the Enterprise's conflict with the Zindi, Enterprise encountered a disabled Zindi ship

04:25containing an insectoid hatchery. Marched to the crew's confusion, Captain Archer became

04:30obsessed with protecting this hatchery from harm. To illustrate his point that even war has moral

04:35rules, he related a war story about his great-grandfather to Trip Tucker. During the eugenics

04:39wars, his great-grandfather was in command of a battalion. The battalion was evacuating civilians

04:44from a school in the middle of a combat zone when they came under attack from Augments.

04:48Wanting to limit collateral damage, Archer's great-grandfather contacted his Augment counterpart

04:53and successfully convinced the Augment commander to hold fire long enough to finish evacuating

04:58the school. 4. Casualties were in the millions

05:02How the eugenics wars began is unknown. As Spock pointed out in Space Seed, by the 23rd century,

05:07records from the 20th century had been sketchy. The aggressive and ambitious Augments may have

05:12begun fighting among themselves while ordinary humans may have risen up against them.

05:16However the wars started, governments around the world were soon drawn into the conflict. By the

05:21time the tyrants were defeated, entire populations had been erased from existence through genocidal

05:25massacres and mass bombardments. The official death toll was 30 million. However, other estimates

05:31ranged between 35 and 37 million. Whatever the true total number of deaths was, another major

05:36but less obvious casualty was the human psyche. The human fear of genetically engineered beings

05:42lasted well into the 24th century. Bans on genetic engineering shaped everything from

05:46medical research to human interactions with other societies. They even jeopardised the

05:50careers of people associated with benign forms of genetic medicine.

05:543. Earth's governments hid Khan's escape from the public

05:58When the eugenics wars ended in 1996, the governments of the world sentenced Khan and

06:02more than 80 of his fellow supermen to death as war criminals. However, the Augments had

06:07disappeared before they could have been arrested. In order to prevent a panic, the governments hid

06:11the fact from the general public. As it turned out, Khan and his followers had acquired a sleeper

06:15ship used for deep space missions in the days before warp drive. Khan christened the ship SS

06:20Botany Bay after the Australian penal colony. He and his followers fled into space with no

06:25destination in mind. Two centuries later, the Botany Bay was encountered by the USS Enterprise.

06:29Kirk and his crew revived the hibernating supermen without fully realising the threat they posed.

06:34It wasn't long before the revived Khan led his supporters in an attempt to take control of the

06:38Enterprise. Kirk eventually thwarted Khan's efforts and exiled him and his supporters

06:43to the uninhabited planet Seti Alpha 5. 2. They had far-reaching effects

06:49Following the eugenics wars, thousands of augmented embryos were secretly put into

06:53cold storage and the genetic engineering of humans was banned. This ban on genetic

06:57engineering made pariahs of those who had been treated with genetic therapy and led to conflicts

07:02with the Illyrians, a race known for genetic modifications. Illyrians were banned from

07:06Starfleet, the medical technology was banned in the Federation as was mixing of human and Illyrian

07:11blood. As depicted in the Strange New Worlds episode, this bias against Illyrians ultimately

07:16endangered the career of Enterprise First Officer Una Chin Riley. In the 22nd century,

07:22Arik Soong stole several augment embryos from Cold Station 12 and attempted to raise them

07:27himself. Their aggressive tendencies overcame Soong's attempts to temper their behaviour.

07:31These augments threatened to incite war and mass murder just as their brethren from the eugenics

07:36wars had. Klingon experiments with stolen augment DNA led to the release of a highly contagious

07:41virus that affected the appearance, biology and personality of a large number of Klingons.

07:461. The eugenics wars were the first in an escalating series of wars

07:51As shown in Strange New Worlds, the eugenics wars turned out to be part of an era of ever-increasing

07:56violence and civil unrest. It was followed by the Second Civil War which grew out of a series of

08:01protests against the US government. Another factor depicted in the Deep Space Nine episode Past

08:06Tense included the civil unrest that followed the development of sanctuary districts as a

08:10response to homelessness. A second eugenics war followed the Second Civil War which ultimately

08:15escalated into World War 3. The cataclysmic nuclear exchanges during the war led to the

08:20death of 30% of the population and the extinction of 600,000 species of plants and animals.

08:26As depicted in the Next Generation Pilot episode Encounter at Farpoint,

08:29the post-atomic horror that followed persisted into 2079.

08:33And that was 8 things you didn't know about the eugenics wars. Make sure to like and share the

08:37video and subscribe if you haven't already and tap the notification bell to be alerted of future

08:42videos. If you can think of anything that we may have missed or you just want to tell us that

08:46New Trek isn't canon over and over and over again then let us know down in the comments.

08:50You can find us on Twitter at Trek Culture and on Instagram at Trek Culture YT. You can find

08:54myself on Twitter at TomCFinn and on various other socials as well. Thanks for watching

08:59and until next time, buh-bye.

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