Wow, this is definitely the biggest project I've tackled all year. Big thanks once again to everyone who helped me bring this video to life from page to screen. As you were probably able to tell, even with a 26 minute runtime--longer than most of my videos--I had to be choosy with what information to include, meaning much of the non-canon material (though not all of it) surrounding World War III didn't make it in. But I hope this video still served as a thorough deep dive on what little we *do* know about WW3 from the shows and films! Thanks for a fantastic 2021. Live long and prosper.

So technically, the events of the Mad Max series could have been a footnote part of Star Trek history.

To quote Quark from Deep Space 9: "They irradiated their own planet?!?"

Also bomb shelters were common, being advanced versions of tornado shelters in the midwest. Also, my Dad was killed slowly by an A Bomb in the early 50's. White Sands test cannon shot and his Army squad was out in wrong trench. Under a mile from ground zero. This can be seen in a documentary film by a famous news narrator, on the 20th century. The soldier, a capt. Is closet to camera, on left. Radiation poisoning, anemia, little resistance ti infection, died at 61. RIP dad.

Okay, the movie level footage and editing is beyond amazing. Better than many docos for tv. The in-lore facts and the breakdown of Trek's history is bloody impressive too. This is probably one of my fave lore videos. Merry Christmas or whatever you celebrate, at the very least have a great day and thanks for this content

What’s interesting to me is how, based on his comments and his work, Gene Roddenberry went from an optomistic humanistic perspective to believing humanity first had to go through tremendous suffering to finally achieve a unified global community. At the time, I found the introduction of the Post Atomic Horror in the very first episode of TNG to be a radical retcon.

In 2023, Star Trek’s canon is looking more prophetic than ever…

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Episode 1 really hit an emotional note with what Earth and humanity went through during WW3. Definitely worth a watch. Also, awesome content. Subbed and will continue to watch.

There's a lot of talk about the "other", but let's address the elephant in the room... a fascist US with radicalized hate groups galvanized by extreme nationalism and xenophobia. American pop-culture never depicts the US as the 'badguy', which is a shame, because it would be a healthy dose of sobering humility and self-reflection; something we really need. P.S. The production quality of this video is stellar! Feels like a legit documentary. Kudos!

This was almost like a real life documentation, well done!

this is such an interesting period to me, the original series created such a distinct divergence point from real history with the eugenics wars, i wish they leaned into the star trek world as alternate history more often in modern media.

For years, I've wanted a Star Trek show that takes place right after the Earth/Romulan War where the newly formed UFP tries to figure out how to construct their new government and economy. My idea is that they'd hire a historian with a background in post-WWIII history who could describe to the new government the parallels between the 2060s and the 2160s. The show would also have to feature a bunch of civilian characters so we could actually see the effects, positive and negative, that the choices of the new government has on the lives of those people

During the Cold War I was always comforted by the fact that my parents house was within the blast radius of a ground burst warhead targeted at a listening station about 400 yards away. Better to be vaporised in a flash than suffer through the lingering death from fallout. It is a tangent from the intent of this excellent video but do look up a film from the 80's called Threads. So chilling it changed British policy towards fighting a nuclear war from something 'winnable' to a senseless tragedy to be avoided at all costs. I am pleasantly surprised to find you can get it on Amazon at the moment. As to the actual 'future history' thread (see what I did there :D) of this, I can only applaud the attention to detail and the weaving on of canon sources. Well done, sir.

This is one of the most brilliant video essay I've ever seen. Thank You for Sharing

Great production, but also, just a good solid message. Even though we often forget about nuclear weapons in the time of post Cold World, those weapons are still there. Other weapons have been sharpened like mis-information, viruses, and militant groups. Faith and building communities that believe in helping each other no matter what is one way for humanity to avoid that dark future. Thanks for the effort of putting this piece together.

That Was Epic! Well done, you can tell this was a labor of love.

The use of war time films is scary. And your set is creative.

Long term projects like these are often better overall because you've had time to reflect and revise the content over longer period of time. At least I assume that's what happened! A good (and surprisingly cohesive) summary of WW3 in Trek, plus the setting you filmed it in is brilliant👍

A lot of this reflects what is actually going on now in the real world

This is the absolute best video on this topic hands down. Not to mention the visuals, and the production values. I want to see more like this. The eugenics wars and the post atomic horror are totally ripe for expansion.

I concur with the general consensus that this was a remarkably professional-quality production. It was also just plain enjoyable to watch and follow. Many fan-made productions involve a lot of well-coordinated compilations of lore, but not necessarily presented in a digestible way. I always regret when a future-facing series like Star Trek, is too aggressive in predicting future events. (Why would anyone in 1966-69 even attempt to pick details about the events of the ‘90’s?). Lost in Space, and Space 1999, have the 90’s loaded with significant events. One observer has noted that Science fiction usually exaggerates the accomplishments of the near-future, and short-sells the achievements of the far future. Star Trek, actually does a little better than most in this regard, but dates the show to start significant events of the fictional timeline in the 90’s. Some apologists have tried to argue that the Eugenics Wars have begun in the form of the technology race in biotechnology, but that kind of thinking puts Roddenberry in the “prophet” category, and borders on the religious. Dating key cataclysmic events in the 90’s may have seemed reasonable in the 60’s due to general Cold War paranoia, and maybe Roddenberry didn’t want to have “missed” a real cataclysm he thought very likely. Again though, he did fall prey to exaggerating (or at least mischaracterizing the technology and global threats of the 21st Century. He’s in good company though, since very few in the serious research community predicted the extent and impact of anthropogenic environmental degradation. The idea that the greatest threat to global stability might be only a peripherally-political phenomenon was not yet in the mainstream in ‘66. However, if you look at the exponential growth in technological expansion that has occurred since the sixties, I’ve always thought roughly 200 years for emergence of such features as FTL space flight, artificial gravity, and matter teleportation seems quite reasonable. All of those things would require a breakthrough of science that supersedes Einsteinian physics - the discovery of some yet-unknown phenomena that relax the restrictions of relativity and harness what are now considered fundamental forces. I’ve heard scientists dismiss Star Trek technology as “impossible”, but of course one never knows what one does not know. Even very successful observers of the natural world in previous centuries could not easily imagined the world of today (and many tried). Isaac Newton was unbelievably astute in his formulations, but I doubt he could have seen a clear path to electronics, or that it even might occur to him to try. I grew up a few blocks from the building where the transistor was invented. I doubt that team would have predicted that in a very few decades, their invention would be rendered so small as to be visible only by microscope, and that it would fundamentally affect society in the way it has. So with a little luck in breaking through to some new scientific paradigms, and given the normal rate of human advancement, two hundred years or so seems about right to me. As for the sociopolitical direction of the future, I think the last few years has shown us that only the foolish or psychic should try to write a prospective history for even a few decades in the future. Roddenberry’s exists within the conceivable, and one hopes a future as bright as his vision, but there’s lots of room for doubt.

Was not expecting that intro, great presentation of on an oft glanced over part of trek lore

Your comparisons between Star Trek , Wars ,History and The Present is so Awesome😱

Thanks again for the most entertaining and informative videos of Star Trek lore on KZfaq. Just became a patron :)

“Gang rule over entire regions” Sounds like two current major metropolitan centers, one in the vicinity of Lake Michigan and the other along the San Gabriel Mountains.

You did a really good job! Keep creating more, your audience deserves it!

This is one of the best, most entertaining videos about Star Trek lore I've ever seen.

what a nice christmas movie

Very intriguing and engaging analysis . Nice use of Backgrounds for dramatic effect!

I recently found your channel and I am very impressed. The work and effort that is put into your videos is very impressive. The best I have seen to be honest. Keep up the good work and I will keep watching.

At 3:03 in the video, someone in the props dept at STNG had a sense of humor with the umbrella frame.

Unbelievable amount of research, plus finding and editing clips - absolutely chilling and amazing. Well done!

I actually wouldn't mind seeing a series based during the Eugenics War, or duing the time frame referenced in the first two epiosdes of TNG.

I just realized that we're just four years away from World War III. And two years away from the Bell Riots.

This is so well made the production, music, writing, facts, story and so on every bit of it is amazing done. This video was highly informing and entertaining. I never know about the third world war in Star trek history just saw it in the new Star trek series strange new worlds and so I went to youtube to find out more about it so thanks a lot for this video.

Imperial Japan had the (if memory serves) Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. China now has the Shanghai Pact. Might one draw parallels between the former and the latter? I love your videos. Keep up the good work. And have a magnificent 2022!!!

Cochrane's aged appearance has a lot less to do with radiation exposure and a lot more with his out of control alcohol consumption. Cochrane was a "functional alcoholic" who could not even imagine working on any of his physics hypotheses without consuming half a liter of grain spirits. Given that he learned to drink shortly after learning to walk, it's hardly surprising that by late 30-s he looked in his late 50-s...

The presentation and production of this video is damned impressive. The coverage of the topic is great too.

This was so thorough. I really enjoyed this video. What a great Christmas present for me!

This was brilliant. I've never seen anything from this channel before, but I think this alone deserves a sub.

Oh dude, this is probably your best video so far As a kid that Orson Welles Nostradamus movie scared the shit outta me when thinking about nuclear stuff also the idea of that some people think it may be a necessary step to getting to a flourishing future for humanity, really creeps me out It really got me into thinking about the whole Roddenberry was a Posadist stuff.

This was a very good video! Both script- and productionwise. It also highlighted the fact that first contact didn’t flip Earth in an instant, but only sow the seeds of a better future. Even without aliens it is worth considering that it will be ”a long road” to utopia :)

You're becoming my new sy-fy binge and chill channel, keep it up. Love the content.

i can tell you put a ton of effort into this. thank you orange 💕

This is really nicely made. I like the cinematography in the dramatized parts. Well done. :-)

Bozeman, Montana itself might emerge relatively unscathed during a nuclear exchange between NATO and Russia and/or China but huge swathes of Montana (mostly northeast of Bozeman according to the nuclear target map I'm looking at) and several other Great Plains states would likely be heavily targeted even if they're rural areas simply because that's where a lot of the American nuclear missile silos are.

I do not know how I have missed this in the past, but AWESOME ! SUBSCRIBED !

When performing genetic mods, we have to remember to increase not only the cellular tolerance for ambient electromagnetic energy but the ability to use it as supplemental fuel (a broader version of producing vitamin D from sunlight).

Excellent video. The production value is excellent. The writing is excellent. The emotional impact is meaningful. Well done.

Very well done. Fantastic work

“I’ve been looking forward to this”- Count Dooku, waiting for this video to go up

These videos are so far behind KZfaq quality. They easily surpass current startrek in both accuracy and passion. Thank you sir for the time and effort put into them.

You did a really good job on this, man. Excellent work.

Excellent video: educational, entertaining and moving. Thanks for the incredible work. Peace and long life, to you and us all.

Not just a good Trek video explaining things but a good nuclear war video in general, usually when it's covered either they cram too much info into it or they explain it like we all have PHDs.

Very good presentation. I remember the duck and cover drills in grade school in the Fifties. A reserve First Sergeant I served with landed in Normandy and later was at several atomic test. My mom was a nuclear physicist who took a 27 Roentgen dose in 18 months making Radon seeds in early test of radiation therapy to treat cancers at the Mayo Clinic. Pre waldo device era working around thick blocks of lead with mirrors to see the work area. I think I still have original Civil Defense Fallout shelter plans somewhere among the thousands of books and pamphlets in the house. Keep up the good work.

Really great production on this episode!

This was a pretty good deep dive into World War III in Star Trek. I happen to think that a mini series depicting the war, its aftermath and the post war recovery could be really good. My idea would be a dozen to sixteen feature length episodes covering the Eugenics Wars (retroactively altering canon tom match actual real life history), World War III, First Contact and the Post Atomic Horror and the rebuilding with after the War ending with the initiation of the NX-01 program as a recovered, but more mature humanity once again looks toward the future. One thing I should point out, is that the mini-series should make it damned clear that humanity would not have recovered as quickly as it did without the aid of the Vulcans. Most of Earth's urban conglomerations were completely annihilated, our industry remaining functioning industry would be a fraction of what it was pre-war, the global logistic supply chain would be a memory, and the ability to deal with medical emergencies and crises would be non-existent. If we have to rebuild on our own, then it would take centuries, if such a recovery is even achievable. One thing that bothered me about United Earth is the debt humanity owed the Vulcans. As much as their influence might've felt stifling, they weren't entirely wrong. It had been mere decades since human civilization was nearly annihilated (it's noted that the immediate death toll during World War III was approximately 600,000,000 people, which means most industrial and government centers were gone). Without First Contact with the Vulcans, the Post Atomic Horror would likely have led to the deaths of billions and the end of human civilization entirely. We don't recover in a century. We recover in about ten thousand years or so. With all the easy access to fossil fuels and iron extinguished, we likely end up recovering to at best a stone age / bronze age civilization, never to reach the stars or the cusp of becoming an interstellar civilization. What few ruins remain after one hundred centuries past would be seen by our descendants as cities inhabited by gods. We will remain a species that extinguished our own potential until some global calamity or asteroid impact wipes us out and what is left of Earth's life only for the planet to take tens of millions of years to refill all the ecological niches that have reopened. At some point one hundred million or so years in the future, some alien civilization will visit Earth, discover the thin band of radiation and realize some idiot species got Great Filtered out of existence. Bad for us, but good for them. So what is the point of all this? Without the Vulcans, Star Trek never happens. No Federation, Captain Kirk is never born, Picard is butterflied away, and when the Cardassians abandon Bajor (because us wiping ourselves out won't change what happens there most likely), someone else takes over Terok Nor and occupies Bajor. The Wormhole is never discovered and the Alpha Quadrant never learns of the danger posed by the Dominion until they develop transwarp and invade and conquer the Alpha Quadrant, and eventually go to war with the Borg as both entities compete for domination of the galaxy, leading to the destruction of nearly all sapient life in the Milky Way. So you see? When you think about it, Zephram Cochrane and the Vulcans entered into a partnership that would serendipitously lead to the salvation of all intelligent life in the galaxy! That is why we fucking owe the Vulcans. They accidentally saved the entire galaxy by having enough compassion (in their own, emotionally suppressed way) for a civilization that was suffering from the same horrid situation they once labored under. They eased our burden when we needed a helping hand most of all, and in the process created a partnership that would lead to the greatest civilization the galaxy has seen in billions of years. TLDR - The Vulcans are Big Damned Heroes and it's far past time we recognize it!

A great attempt to connect not only the storylines of the various Trek series, but also helps to even out the inconsistencies in the lore. Worth the time spent watching. 👍

Excellent video, friend. Makes the somewhat convoluted subject much more digestible. 10/10.

I am really liking ur work on Trek, well done!!!

That was AMAZING dude!! Fantastic!!!!!!!!!

Pretty nice work! I love the composition of your video. Also u use a pretty creative narrative to tell this story, really impressive!

Fantastic work, just found your channel and if all your videos are this good it's an absolute win, thanks for the hard work, I'm going to binge watch now

The problem is Star Trek contradicts itself. There was the Eugenics Wars but in the episode "The Omega Glory", Spock comments after the tattered US flag is brought in by the Yangs that they had fought a third nuclear war that Earth had managed to avoid.

Have you ever acted in amateur theatre, summer stock, or in community play? If not you would be great. The bunker scene shows you in character. Well done. You could be an equally convincing anyone.

dang my dude almost a year! hey thank you for your hard work and dedication. the end result is really really good.

Great Christmas gift thank you 🙏 wish you all the best looking forward to all the great videos you’ll make next year

This video on Star Trek lore, its basis, and execution is your best work yet! Thank you for all of this and the hard thought and work you put into this!

Quite a heavy topic tbh but I appreciate all the effort you put into this one.

This explanation video is very well done. I saved it to my KZfaq channel playlists for others to watch.

Great video and quite enjoyable. Looking forward to more!

First time watching this channel, you have yourself a new subscriber. Great video! 👍🏽

Really went for the gusto on this one. Well done.

We need a new Trek limited series that would take place in this time period.

Excellent music in this video. It gave this video more feeling.

The world's population in 1966 (when Star Trek began) was 3.4 billion, now it's nearly 7.8 billion, 2.3 times as much. So 600 million back then would be nearly 1.4 billion compared to today's population.

Well done. Always wondered how things may have happened in the Star trek time line. I have loaded many B-83s on B-1s.

Great video. Thanks for the hard work.

Fantastic. Subbed because of this video. Thanks for a great video

Masterfully done.

I grew up in the cold war era, in Civil Defense, as radio operator and radiation monitor. My town was just across bay from NYC to north ( just below area in the bomb radius map). At the base of Sandy Hook. When a Nike missle site on our big hill blew up, we thought it was NYC until no white flash came. This was very real to us. Look at old table radios from early 1950's and you will see two circled triangles at each end of the dial. These were where Conelrad stations would give instructions after nuke attack.

I watched this early today and it's 7:00 pm and I'm still thinking about it. You deserve a science fiction award for this. It was stunningly good.

Well done, mate. WW3 was some lore I was always curious about but never had time to look into, thanks for the deep dive.

The mad men around the world exist today. Your presentation is very, very good. My hope, real hope is that this effort wakes many up. Sure, this is fiction, but fiction can become fact. No one wins if everyone and everything dies on planet earth... And there is no reset button. I wish you all long life.

This is sort of the "head canon" I remember from before the movies. Back when they thought a "limited exchange" of nukes would be survivable. Before they knew that even that would fry all technology and render the climate unlivable. Basically the endgame between the "vicious" Soviet power bloc and the "noble" west it was thought to be a city-killer event leaving areas outside the blast zones. Some indication was made of Fusion or Neutron devices not so "dirty", still fiction to us. This was thought to have left certain protected facilities like Cheyenne Mountain in several areas full of "good, Christian (white), English speaking personnel" whose children then proceeded to resettle and decomtaminate the land. They would have stockpiled medical equipment, seeds, fertilizer, carbon capture, radioactive particle capture devices, etc., it just took them decades to get going and decades more to unite the planet. And of course, lots of military tech to conquer every warlord like Kahn. The archives of technology and philosophy would be the key to preventing centuries of dark ages.

This is really well eddited and filmed man. Kudos.

daaamn this is a great production thank you for putting this together. LLAP

I know Trek knowledge such as yours isn't currency to everyone but it damn sure is to me. Holy crap, what an impressive video. It also serves as a fantastic PSA warning against nuclear war, always an important lesson.

Love this!

Dude, this is great stuff! Thank you for making it. I like your vision. You have a new subscriber!

Great job. Awesome work. Superb production value!

As someone who has had to wear those "duck suits" many, many times when I worked in the nuclear industry, I had to laugh at the noise from that thing as you moved around. It's absolutely noisy, awkward, and causes instant sweating to wear. When radiation wasn't the limiting factor for working in these, about an hour was the time limit simply due to concerns about overheating in them. I would point out that if you were to wear these for real, you would need (duct) tape around the outer gloves where they go over the sleeves, and tape over the area on your neck, under the respirator. The idea is to completely seal any route for contamination to enter. And yes, that all suck as much as it sounds like it does. And taking it off without allowing any contamination to get on you is such an athletic art form it should be an Olympic event. On the topic of fallout radiation hazards and nuclear winter: The main hazards of radiation in fallout from a nuclear implosion clear up in a matter of weeks to months, not decades. The high energy radioactive isotopes have very short half lives (since they are so energetic and unstable) and mostly "burn off" in days to weeks. Lower level radioactive isotopes after a few weeks generally would present a chronic exposure hazard due to higher than normal background levels, increasing cancer risk. Studies on cancer risk from long-lived fallout after Hiroshima and Nagasaki have not shown a linear relationship and it is still unknown at what level such background radiation is really dangerous over long-term exposure. A certain level of higher than normal radiation exposure seems to trigger some repair mechanism in human cells, but this has not been proven or explained using modern understanding of genetics and microbiology. The primary concern for "decades" would be toxicity from heavy metals in the fallout, which are more stable isotopes that last longer, and thus are less radioactive, but toxic to the body and get taken up easily by plants...like crops or things animals eat. The aftermath of the Chernobyl event (not a nuclear implosion, but still a large release of fission products) has presented an incredible opportunity for research on this, and it appears some plants have actually adapted to avoid uptake of certain toxic isotopes from the soil in merely 40ish years. The concept of "nuclear winter" is an old one, and it was mainly based on the effects of some of the worst volcanic eruptions in recorded history. The fact is nobody knows precisely what would happen following a full scale nuclear war. The models done generally assume "worst case scenario" and put them on par with those worst volcanic eruptions we have as concrete data. In reality, many experts doubt any sort of lasting nuclear winter and the model from the JGR you quoted (150 Ttons of soot into the upper atmosphere) appears to be based on some really ballpark guesswork. Which frankly is all they have to go on, so they aren't doing anything wrong there. It is far more likely any lasting damage will mainly be from global and political instability, and the physical/environmental damage will be quite limited, with areas of "ground zeroes" taking as long as a century to recover, while most of the surface of the earth and the climate recovering within a year or two. In a few words: "we don't know what would happen". But considering all of the information we do have about what nuclear implosions do, it is likely the aftermath would be nothing even close to the worst case scenario models the media generally runs with. The one thing I think is generally agreed upon is that overall cancer risk globally will increase noticeably. As much as I love the Fallout games...it's exceedingly unlikely any sort of world would be a reality following total nuclear war.

Watching the unfolding now in real Time..

Brilliant video. Tells the truth about the horrors of nuclear war. Well done. Keep up the good work.

This video is really well put together. It's like Charlie Brooker's early Screenwipe material. Please make more! This is extremely educational and entertaining.

The fact I find most disturbing about this period of star trek history is that the Vulcan's were aware of WW3 and could have massively reduced its effects by intervening but they didn't and as well as the billions of deaths humanity would have lost nearly all its built history and culture forever.

I don't know why, but it kind of felt like you said "Khan-flicts" right as Ricardo Montalbán squints vexedly and that just made me laugh. Keep up the excellent content!

Dude. Thank you. This is what KZfaq should be.

Good job to all of you! Such extensive knowledge and research. Thank you!