If someone is offered the chance to pick a fictional future, the one portrayed in Star Trek may be the ideal choice. It’s a reality free from poverty and want. While the grim reality of the modern day sees hundreds of millions suffer under the whim of the ultrarich, Star Trek imagines the impossible new heights we could reach if only a handful of people didn’t own everything. Of course, the path to the ideal future involved a miserable transitionary period called the post-atomic horror.
Star Trek is usually as far as science fiction can get from the military sci-fi subgenre. It isn’t interested in power-armored soldiers throwing themselves in waves at an all-consuming foe. It and Warhammer or Starship Troopers should sit at the opposite poles of the genre. However, more modern iterations frequently turn their attention to the massive space battles for more straightforward entertainment. Classic Star Trek frequently dealt with war by exploring the aftershocks instead of the attacks themselves.
What caused the post-atomic horror?
The post-atomic horror is the period of nightmarish species-wide distress that followed World War III. Star Trek’s history is a little messy when it comes to World War III. It has three conflicts that could conceivably lay claim to the title, but only one that earns it as its primary moniker. The Third World War likely emerged out of a series of other escalating conflicts. The Eugenics War saw humanity battle elevated humans for the fate of the Earth. The United States also enjoyed a massive military clash in the form of the Second Civil War. These events embodied or led up to the Third World War. In any case, humanity reached a point of advanced warfare. Most Earth governments controlled their soldiers with powerful narcotics that enabled them to fight as empowered drones. The Eastern Coalition and the United States of America were two of the many potential superpowers involved. They exchanged nuclear bombs in several waves of conflict. Washington D.C., Paris, New York City, and several other famous settlements succumbed to destructive bombing campaigns. At least 30% of humanity lost their lives. The survivors did not get off easily.
How did humanity respond to World War III?
World War III ended in 2053, after 27 years of bloody violence and nuclear exchange. There’s no point-by-point timeline available in the franchise, so the events remain mostly speculative. Anything could have happened during the mysterious global conflict. The sudden deaths of at least a third of the people on Earth caused endless problems. Huge populations died in the nuclear bombings. At least 600,000 species of plants and animals went extinct during the war. The conflict erased several governments, leaving much of society without the systems it once relied upon. These elements combined to give the survivors an overwhelming famine. Radiation poisoned most of the natural resources. It also wreaked havoc on the population, causing sickness around the world. Figures from the war arose to make things worse.
Colonel Phillip Green led a large and heavily armed faction of ecoterrorists who may have started World War III. Their faction earned an undue amount of screentime if they didn’t play a part in the early conflict. Green’s unnamed army perpetrated various war crimes during World War III, but they didn’t go away after the dust settled. Green raised his forces yet again, only three years after the cease-fire that stopped the war. He took advantage of the resource crunch, lack of governance, and widespread chaos to strike. Green and his soldiers killed hundreds of thousands of survivors afflicted with radiation poisoning. He justified his actions by claiming they would prevent the generational spread of the disease. Green would become a controversial figure. His unquestionably violent actions killed millions during and after the war, but the absence of radiation sickness appealed to some as a suitable end.
What ended the post-atomic horror?
Human societies rose out of the horror at different times. Over 40 years after the war ended, several cultures remained under martial law or regressed into barbarism. Some continued that path into the 22nd century. However, most of Earth turned around thanks to the most momentous occasion in human history. Zefram Cochrane and his team of elite engineers developed humanity’s first warp drive. With it, they developed the Phoenix, humanity’s first warp ship. This drew the attention of a passing Vulcan ship, drawing them to Earth for first contact. All at once, not even a decade after World War III, humanity learned of the galactic community and a potential place within it. Humans solved disease, war, hunger, and poverty over the next century. The people of Earth forged a unified world government and paved the way for the Federation of Planets.
The post-atomic horror is a tale of human resiliency in the face of nightmarish circumstances. World War III is a story of the same species’ capacity for evil. After humanity nearly wiped itself off the planet, they suffered through years of consequences. The aftermath only came through humanity’s other gift. We invented our way out of the hole, impressed another species, and quickly turned our act around. The future of Star Trek didn’t need an apocalyptic war, but it did need humans willing to run things the right way.
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