So you see that the formula, the magic ingredient, that many people keep seeking and many of them keep missing is really not in Star Trek, it is in the audience. Here is Roddenberry talking again about what differentiates Star Trek from other attempts at sci-fi, as recorded in the 1976 album Inside Star Trek: He was explicit about this link to the future and how humanity will eventually put aside division and embrace diversity. And it will happen.ĭuring the 1970s, Roddenberry often spoke publicly about the show and the philosophy behind it. We’re inventing the next life form, which is the computer. I don’t see how it can be any other way, with the way the future is going. In her book Inside Star Trek, Roddenberry’s longtime assistant Susan Sackett quotes him telling her in 1990:Īlmost all of this comes out of my feeling that the human future is bright. Roddenberry was dedicated to a hopeful vision of the future as depicted in Star Trek. Perhaps one of the primary features of Star Trek that made it different from other shows was, it believed that humans are improving-they will vastly improve in the 23rd century. In a 20th anniversary interview in 1986, Roddenberry explained: Roddenberry saw tying Star Trek’s future to our present as an important distinction when compared to other science fiction. This approach has continued throughout the franchise, with the producers of Strange New Worlds doing what they can to carry on this vision. The motivation for this goes back to Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, who envisioned the show (and the franchise) as depicting a hopeful view of humanity’s future. The day the Earth we knew ceased to exist.įrom Voyager “Future’s End” Correcting for Roddenberry’s vision of the futureĪs Goldsman explains the show’s “correction” is due to them trying to “keep Star Trek in our timeline.” Keeping the Eugenics Wars (and subsequent age of enlightenment) in our future certainly helps keep the show relevant and consistent with real world history, especially for new viewers. We called it the Second Civil war, then the Eugenics War, and finally just World War III. Before everything went wrong… Our conflict also started with a fight for freedoms. In the pilot episode (written by Goldsman), as Pike showed off footage of Earth’s troubled history, he said: But obviously, if you start saying that the Eugenics Wars were in the 90s, you’re kind of fucked for aspirational in terms of the real world.Īs noted by Goldsman, the show had already moved the Eugenics Wars into the 21st century. And so, in order to keep Star Trek in our timeline, we continue to push dates forward. We want to be able to dream our way into the Federation as a Starfleet. We want Star Trek to be an aspirational future.

Because otherwise, it’s silly, or Star Trek ceases to be in our universe…By the way, this happened in Season 1, so this is not a Season 2. Speaking to Cinemablend, co-showrunner Akiva Goldsman offered some context for this timeline change:

While some may believe the show is trying to change Star Trek history or even establish a whole new alternate timeline (à la the Kelvin movies), it appears the motivation was much simpler. So while officially resetting the Eugenics Wars into the 21st century, Sera offers an in-canon explanation for why they didn’t happen in the 1990s, referencing the Temporal Cold War from Star Trek: Enterprise and asserting that the timeline has changed, but pivotal events like the Eugenics Wars will still “reinsert themselves.”Īdelaide Kane as Sera (Paramount+) Making the “correction” And all this was supposed to happen back in 1992, and I’ve been trapped here for 30 years trying to get my shot at him. And it’s almost as if time itself is pushing back, and events reinsert themselves. I mean, whole temporal wars have been fought over them. Sera, a time-traveling Romulan agent who was trying to eliminate Earth as a potential future rival to the Empire, planned to have La’an assist in killing young Khan, thus preventing the Eugenics Wars from happening (again, in the 21st century) and therefore cutting off the chain of events (including World War III) which would then lead to first contact with the Vulcans and the beginning of an age of enlightenment that resulted in the establishment of The (Romulan-hated) United Federation of Planets.ĭuring her villain monologuing, Sera explained the timeline discrepancies.īut, yeah, so many people have tried to influence these events, you know, to delay them or stop them. This conflict between Trek history and reality was addressed head-on in “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow,” when La’an literally came face-to-face with her infamous ancestor as a child-not in the late 20th century, but in the mid-21st century… and in Canada. Ricardo Montalban as Khan and William Shatner as Kirk in “Space Seed”

Dare to dabble nkc