@Knixon said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cn4fW0EInqw

From Ricochet.com:

Woke Star Trek: World War 3 Started on January 6 Victor Tango Kilo May 9, 2022 (1 Hour Ago)

Star Trek: Brave New Worlds was supposed to be the show that fixed all the many, many problems of Star Trek: Discovery (STD). Specifically, STD represented a fully woke version of Trek, entirely focused on a Messianic minority female lead, with the established history of the Trek universe retconned, coupled with dark, dreary, and nonsensical storylines about time-traveling “red angels” and all the dilithium in the universe exploding because an alien was sad or something. (Red Letter Media nailed STD.) STD capped this off by casting Stacey Abrams as the president of United Earth. (Eyeroll)

Producers supposedly developed the series in response to fans demand for more episodic shows that were more in line with the original Star Trek vision of an optimistic future. The premier episode of STSNW featured Captain Christopher Pike explaining to an alien race how World War 3 began on Earth. It apparently was MAGA what started it.

Pike then says he is going to show the leaders their future and the video cuts to what appears to be the Save America Rally, where thousands of supporters of President Donald Trump rallied at the Ellipse in Washington, DC on January 6, 2021. Pike narrates and says, “Our conflict also started with a fight for freedoms,” as in the montage, people are holding American flags, Trump flags and signs, allegedly from the rally, that say “audit the vote” and criticize Joe Biden, COVID restrictions and the MRNA vaccine.

The next image is a noose hanging from gallows in front of the US Capitol, which was spotted during the riot. Pike says, “We called it the Second Civil War,” as the scene then flashes to what appears to be a social justice march in New York City. Thousands can be seen holding signs including ones that say, “no justice, no peace,” and “in union there is strength.”

Pike continues “Then the Eugenics War,” referencing Star Trek timeline events, as the scene then flashes back to the Jan riot at the US Capitol where people in MAGA gear can be seen scuffling with officers as Pike says, “and finally, World War Three.”

A brief glimpse of what appears to be a left-wing riot in the streets of a city can then be seen before Pike says, “This was our last day, when Earth we knew ceased to exist,” before the video shows nuclear explosions destroying cities around the world.

Are your eyes rolling back so far in your head you can see your medulla oblongata? They should be.

Woke television can work. The 100 was seven seasons of feminist and LGBT empowerment (obviously, post-apocalyptic tribes of barbarians would choose petite teenage lesbians as their leaders,), ridiculously stupid science, and at the end, blatantly ripping off ideas from Stargate SG-1. But it worked because the writers kept the story moving. Modern Star Trek isn’t written or produced by people who love science fiction, it’s written by woke soap opera writers who think the only way to give a character depth is to give them some dark internal trauma to struggle with. And they think the only way to make a point about contemporary social issues is to slam them into your skull with the a rainbow-striped sledgehammer yielded by a pair of ham fists.

The old Trek episode with Frank Gorshin running around in half-black and half-white make-up like one of those cookies seems like a masterwork of subtlety and nuance in comparison.

Yes. It has already been retconned on Memory-Alpha:

The Second Civil War, later known as the Eugenics War and finally escalating into World War III, was a conflict that occurred on Earth circa 2026; it might possibly be better described as the beginning of a conflict that eventually came to be known as the Third World War.

The events leading up to this civil war began with protests against the United States Government regarding freedom and equality. These protests included political groups such as Black Lives Matter, speaking out against law enforcement agencies whose individual officers used violence against blacks and other people of color.

Other political players were the Trump supporters, who often wore their red MAGA hats to rallies and often protested against President Joe Biden, as many of them believed his election to have been a fraud.

By the year 2024, due to the increase in homelessness, Sanctuary Districts were a common sight in major cities across the United States. This led to even more civil unrest, particularly the Bell Riots.

It's like the don't know who's president, and who is actually fomenting global conflict, and causing food shortages...

The year 2024 is very important.

@wonder2wonder said:

The year 2024 is very important.

Indeed, even according to "them" it's the last chance to avoid what's already in progress. Because it's the people in there NOW who cause increased homelessness, Sanctuary Districts, etc.

The writers will tell us what should happen next. Will Pike or Burnham save Earth?

We already know it was Sisko, don't we?

For sure there's not going to be a Republican president before 2024 to stop it.

@Knixon said:

It's like the don't know who's president, and who is actually fomenting global conflict, and causing food shortages...

If you're implying it's Joe, it's not

To whatever extent it's not actually Joe, it's still the Democrats and their funders etc.

Pike tells the aliens that the food riots etc take place BY 2024. If that's the case, Can't blame anyone else.

It all has to do with Dr. Adam Soong - Dr. Noonian Soong is his descendant - and Project Khan in "Star Trek: Picard". The writers are going to retcon the Eugenics Wars, combining the Star Trek 1990s history with the present real-time 2020s events.

In season 2 of "SSNW" Captain Kirk and La'an Noonien-Singh get together.

From How Star Trek: Picard’s ‘Project Khan’ File Can Fix Its Biggest History Problem:

At the time when this was written, 1996 was three decades away. During the second wave of Star Trek storytelling, Khan’s reign came and went in the real world’s history. Yet, despite numerous Trek characters traveling back to our present since, the Eugenics Wars—which lead directly to World War III—have never been retconned. They still happened from 1992 through 1996 as far as the in-universe canon is confirmed. However, the Project Khan file Dr. Soong is looking at in the Picard finale is the first reference to the date specified in the original series since.

The next hard date we get comes from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, episode “Past Tense.” Some characters are sent back to Earth in 2024, which is the same year Picard travels to. It’s just two years before the start of World War III. In Star Trek: First Contact, after an encounter with the Borg, the Enterprise travels back in time to the day before humans made first contact with the Vulcans. That date is April 4, 2063, which is “about 10 years” after the end of the third world war. So, that means the Eugenics Wars of the 1990s, allegedly the precursor to nearly 30-year World War III was separated from it by another 30 years.
....
As is typical with these big “Star” franchises, in between installments they turn to their expanded universe to address these problems. Author Greg Cox wrote a trilogy of novels to help “fix” the Khan story, including how Khan knew Chekov in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, since Walter Koening hadn’t been cast when “Space Seed” aired. In these books, Cox takes a unique approach to the Eugenics Wars. While this book is not canon, it is a blueprint for how future Star Trek tales could make it so.

In the Khan book trilogy, rather than lead their conquered territories openly, Khan and the other augments stick to the shadows. Through puppet governments, lies, and fake disasters to cover up the body counts, the Eugenics Wars were waged in secret. Now, the easier thing to do would be to retcon the dates of the war itself. Yet, with the file folder in Star Trek: Picard it seems that something happened in 1996 with Khan, and Dr. Soong was involved. This may be the first step of Star Trek finally addressing the glaring disparity between their fictional history and our real-world one.

In Strange New Worlds while talking to an alien race about how their divisions could destroy them, Captain Pike shows “historical footage” of the January 6, 2020, riot in the US Capitol as part of a presentation on how World War III almost destroyed humanity. The 1990s may have been problematic for the “troubled history of the future” 1960s Star Trek envisioned, but the 2020s seem to be meshing with their pessimistic vision too well for comfort.

Series creator Gene Roddenberry and his fellow Trek storytellers are not fools. They knew that getting into the “history of the future” in the show was a tricky proposition. Thus, since the beginning, various Trek characters noted that the historical records of the mid-20th through mid-21st century are spotty and full of inaccuracies. This detail alone means they could merely hand-wave away any such inconsistency. Yet, putting 1996 on the Project Khan file means that franchise producers Akiva Goldsman and Alex Kurtzman are possibly going to address this in a future series, whether it’s Picard season 3 or some other show.

Even so, it’s unclear what Project Khan would be. After seeing the events of Picard season 2, Dr. Soong was likely heavily involved in eugenics projects of the past. So, the file could be details about how he helped created Khan and the other augments. Yet, since the file was dated 1996, it might deal with the creation of the Botany Bay and the hibernation technology. Soong used it to keep his creations alive rather than have them executed for their crimes.

They're mixing retcons. It's pretty clear from TOS - and probably from TNG too, at least the early stuff before they started retconning too - that the Eugenics Wars and WW III are the same thing. Not separated by 30 years.

From "Space Seed":

SPOCK: No such vessel listed. Records of that period are fragmentary, however. The mid-1990s was the era of your last so-called World War.

MCCOY: The Eugenics Wars.

@Knixon said:

They're mixing retcons. It's pretty clear from TOS - and probably from TNG too, at least the early stuff before they started retconning too - that the Eugenics Wars and WW III are the same thing. Not separated by 30 years.

From "Space Seed":

SPOCK: No such vessel listed. Records of that period are fragmentary, however. The mid-1990s was the era of your last so-called World War.

MCCOY: The Eugenics Wars.

That will probably be resolved in this or one of the other present or future series, perhaps in a reboot of (S)TOS.

@wonder2wonder said:

@Knixon said:

They're mixing retcons. It's pretty clear from TOS - and probably from TNG too, at least the early stuff before they started retconning too - that the Eugenics Wars and WW III are the same thing. Not separated by 30 years.

From "Space Seed":

SPOCK: No such vessel listed. Records of that period are fragmentary, however. The mid-1990s was the era of your last so-called World War.

MCCOY: The Eugenics Wars.

That will probably be resolved in this or one of the other present or future series, perhaps in a reboot of (S)TOS.

You mean (ST)TOS. Or maybe ST(TOS) TOS stands for The Original Series. Not Trek Original Series.

Anyway, if they were really trying to make sense they could easily do a much better job without all the silly retcons.