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

Australian Cinephile

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

Transcript

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,

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

00:14Augments rose to power as dictators over large portions of Earth. These tyrants were eventually

00:19overthrown after four years of bloody struggle. As important as they are, Star Trek writers have

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

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

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

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

00:44conflicts culminating in World War III. They also shaped societies for many centuries afterward.

00:50With all that in mind, I'm Tom Roberts Finn for Trek Culture and here are 8 things you didn't know

00:55about the eugenics wars. Number eight, the Augments were created in the 1950s. Just as the first atomic

01:03bombs were created to bring a swift end to World War II, the Augments were created with the best of

01:07intentions. Geneticists created them during the Cold War era in the hope that the so-called supermen

01:13would lead humanity into an era of peace after centuries of war. But they were wrong. Along with

01:19their superior physical and mental capabilities, the Augments were arrogant and aggressive. Their creators

01:23were unable to correct these character flaws due to the limited capabilities of genetic

01:28science at the time. As one of their creators succinctly put it, superior ability breeds superior

01:32ambition. That scientist would pay for his own arrogance and ambition when he was killed

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

01:41superior abilities 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

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

01:56nations.

01:577. The Augments ruled as despots

02:01In Space Seed, Khan described the era of the Eugenic Wars in romantic terms, calling them

02:06a period of great dreams and aspirations. He countered Spock's argument that they were

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

02:15ruler much like Rome under the Caesars. He claimed that while there were many petty dictatorships

02:20in that era, eventually one Augment would prevail over the others, bringing peace and order

02:24to the world.

02:25Contrary to Khan's high-minded rhetoric, the Augments ruled their territory as authoritarian

02:30dictators who treated ordinary humans as little more than slaves. Khan, however, considered

02:35himself a prince who ruled as a benign dictator. Unlike his fellow despots, Khan didn't slaughter

02:40his own citizens and his regime was peaceful. He didn't engage in warfare until his territory

02:45was attacked. Because of this, he was still admired in the 23rd century as the best of

02:49the tyrants.

02:506. 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.

03:11In the Hollywood Hills, Tuvok in Paris observed people enjoying the Griffith Observatory's

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

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

03:25an encounter with members of a right-wing militia. So, like now.

03:29A possible reason for this was explored in the novel series Star Trek The Eugenics Wars.

03:34These novels depicted the Eugenics Wars as a covert conflict similar to the earlier Cold

03:38War rather than open warfare. However, Star Trek Picard showrunner Terry Metallus has suggested

03:44that Spock might have been wrong about the date. Metallus and the showrunner's writers

03:47concluded that World War 3's nuclear exchanges generated electromagnetic pulses that erased

03:53many electronic records, a reason that the Eugenics Wars were later in the 21st century.

03:58Star Trek Podigy writer and story editor Aaron Waltke has also suggested that the Temporal

04:02Cold War may have shifted the timeline.

04:04Number 5. 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

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

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

04:34moral rules, he related a war story about his great-grandfather to trip Tucker. During

04:39the Eugenics Wars, his great-grandfather was in command of a battalion. The battalion was

04:43evacuating civilians from a school in the middle of a combat zone when they came under attack

04:47from Augment. Wanting to limit collateral damage, Archer's great-grandfather contacted

04:52his Augment counterpart and successfully convinced the Augment commander to hold fire long enough

04:57to finish evacuating the school.

04:59Number 4. Casualties were in the millions

05:02How the Eugenic 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, or ordinary humans may have risen up against them. However the wars

05:17started, governments around the world were soon drawn into the conflict. By the time the tyrants were

05:21defeated, entire populations had been erased from existence through genocidal massacres and mass

05:26bombardments. The official death toll was 30 million. However, other estimates ranged between 35 and 37

05:33million. Whatever the true total number of deaths was, another major but less obvious casualty was

05:38the human psyche. The human fear of genetically engineered beings lasted well into the 24th century.

05:44Bans on genetic engineering shaped everything from medical research to human interactions with

05:48other societies. They even jeopardized the careers 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 more

06:03than 80 of his fellow supermen to death as war criminals. However, the Augments had disappeared before

06:08they could have been arrested. In order to prevent a panic, the governments hid the fact from the

06:11general public. As it turned out, Khan and his followers had acquired a sleeper ship used for deep

06:16space missions in the days before warp drive. Khan christened the ship SS Botany Bay after the

06:21Australian penal colony. He and his followers fled into space with no particular destination in mind.

06:26Two centuries later, the Botany Bay was encountered by the USS Enterprise. Kirk and his crew revived

06:30the hibernating supermen without fully realizing the threat they posed. It wasn't long before the

06:35revived Khan led his supporters in an attempt to take control of the Enterprise. Kirk eventually thwarted

06:40Khan's efforts and exiled him and his supporters to the uninhabited planet Seti Alpha 5.

06:452. They had far-reaching effects Following the Eugenics Wars, thousands of

06:51augmented embryos were secretly put into cold storage and the genetic engineering of humans was banned.

06:56This ban on genetic engineering made pariahs of those who had been treated with genetic therapy

07:01and led to conflicts with the Illyrians, a race known for genetic modifications. Illyrians were banned

07:06from Starfleet, 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 himself.

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

07:32threatened to incite war and mass murder just as their brethren from the Eugenics Wars had.

07:36Cleon experiments with stolen Augment DNA led to the release of a highly contagious virus that

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

07:46Number 1. 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 a part of an era

07:55of ever-increasing violence and civil unrest. It was followed by the Second Civil War,

08:00which grew out of a series of protests against the US government. Another factor,

08:04depicted in the Deep Space Nine episode Past Tense, included the civil unrest that followed the

08:08development of sanctuary districts as a response to homelessness. A second Eugenics War followed the

08:13Second Civil War, which ultimately escalated into World War III. The cataclysmic nuclear exchanges

08:18during the war led to the death of 30% of the population and the extinction of 600,000 species

08:24of plants and animals. As 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 New

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

08:50us on Twitter at TrekCulture and on Instagram at TrekCultureYT. You can find myself on Twitter at TomCFinn

08:56and on various other socials as well. Thanks for watching, and until next time, buh-bye.

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