Moist Owlet: Regarding Khan personally… that’s fair. About the war itself… we’re kinda bad at naming wars. My impression was that it was kinda called “Eugenics Wars” because they were fighting against the Augments (Khan and others), and that one outcome was the total ban on genetic modification.

I feel like “darts” is the odd item out in this list of (presumably) Americana. In any case, a gentle reminder that the USA has hundreds of missiles carrying nuclear warheads ready to launch… …and that the President of the United States has virtually unrestricted nuclear launch authority.

I don't think Quark is naming American things, he's naming Earth things, and all he knows is stuff Bashir, Sisko, and O'Brien have shown him, which includes darts.

the (rather grim) implication of 60s-90s Trek is that the US was the big winner of the Eugenics/Third World War.

Isn’t there also the factor of Khan’s reign? Didn’t he canonically wipe out a lot of mainland Asia’s population during his time?

Well, Khan personally didn't go in for that sort of thing, if Space Seed can be trusted. Still, the fact that the franchise's most famous South Asian is a guy who ruled in the 1990s and _lost_ something called the Eugenics Wars - hm.

Regarding Khan personally… that’s fair. About the war itself… we’re kinda bad at naming wars. My impression was that it was kinda called “Eugenics Wars” because they were fighting against the Augments (Khan and others), and that one outcome was the total ban on genetic modification.

Sorta correct. I think the Augments were just one kind of genetically engineered soldier in that war.

Right. As if in retrospect, they looked back and decided that it was the entire fight to end eugenics as a practice on Earth, including civil conflicts (legislation, protests) and the armed military operations.

And yeah, there’s provably some Trek-themed prequel horror stories that could be written about the actions and fallout of the various genetic experiments and how they were used and abused by their respective Earth creators, whether actual governments or rogue factions.

we know centuries later humans have a deep, instinctive cultural prejudice against genetic engineering. something must have happened and it must have been bad.

Yes, very much so. What was the “Eastern Coalition” up to?

Also, the Khan type eugenic augments surged into leadership roles but couldn’t get along, at all. Which was a major factor jn said eugenics wars happening. Depending on how canonical we consider the EW books.

Post