From: cstone@husc8.harvard.edu (christopher stone)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.startrek.misc
Subject: Re: Clinton and Trek
Date: 15 Dec 92 03:17:04 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc3.1992Dec14.221706.18492
Organization: Harvard University Science Center

In article <1992Dec14.215323.19802@muddcs.claremont.edu> tbrowne@jarthur.claremont.edu (T. Erik Browne) writes:
>In article <168BC14F38.YANJUNA@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu> YANJUNA@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu writes:
>>In article <rsvanc00.724300770@mik.uky.edu>
>>rsvanc00@nx36.mik.uky.edu (Randolph S. Vance) writes:
>> 
>>>
>>>Who says the Eugenics war HAS to happen? Our future has yet to be
>>>written, so it is up to us, and Clinton to make sure it is a good
>>>one. HYPOTHETICALLY, had Clinton NOT been re-elected, it is theoretically
>>>possible that the Eugenics wars might have occured, because of the
>>>Republican's progression of the establishment over that of the individual.
>>>
>>>Someone like Reagan, or Nixon or Bush, or *gasp* Quayle, might want
>>>to create a nation of perfect specimens, the scientists work to create
>>>that superior race, they overthrow, the world go boom.....you know the rest.
>>>
>>>Then again, it MIGHT HAVE BEEN CLINTON that launched the world into
>>>the horror of the Eugenics Wars. Clinton and Gore DID SAY they were
>>>putting people first. ;)
>>>
>>>But, to quote another person familiar with the effects of time travel,
>>>
>>>"Your future is whatever you make it, so make it a good one!"
>>>
>>>	-Doctor Emmett L. Browm
>>>
>>>Whatever humanity's outcome, it doesn't have to happen that way. RIGHT NOW,
>>>we can change the future! :)
>>>
>>   Well, you've created a divergent time-path....
>>          (apologies to Gregory Benford)
>
>Come on, Trek history diverged from our own in the late 60's when the events
>portrayed in the Gary 7 episode failed to happen.  As far as I know, no
>country ever launched an orbital nuclear platform, which was the premise for
>the episode.  So though it is fun to speculate on future history, you can go
>back quite a ways to come up with the divergent stuff.

Well, I was actually positing Trek's time line, not ours, in the original
post.  From the 24th century, the Eugenics Wars are a given, so I think
Bill's reelection would be justified.  Of course, we fans being who we
are, this would give us a mighty incentive to "make it so" and
vote for Bill in 1996 :) :) :)

Of course, you could argue that in Trek's timeline, diverging from the
events of "Assignment Earth," Bill never gets elected in the first place...
(I do not think "Assignment" really diverges, though...see my other post
about that.)

Since I have probably just offended all the Republicans out there, I
will give you some ground to argue on.  In both TOS ("Omega Glory")
and TNG ("High Ground" and "Symbiosis," I think) we learn that
Earth suffered several bacteriological wars in the near future, probably
in the late 1990's.  It would thus appear that Bill failed to contain
the proliferation of non-conventional weapons and that only the
watchful eye of Gary Seven's race prevented full-fledged biological
and nuclear war.  (IMHO, the post-atomic horror was probably a very
localized occurrance in one or two cities, probably in Asia (Korea?) or the