Quick Star Trek question that pops into my head occasionally:

[conuly]

Is there an in-universe explanation as to why, exactly, so many (human) Starfleet officers are fans of Earth history, specifically the history and culture of the mid-to-late 20th century USA? And why so very few of them are invested in, say, the history and culture of Joseon-period Korea, pre-Sarek Vulcan, mid-whateverth-era Betazed, etc?

(Seriously, I would absolutely love it if a random go-back-to-earth-time-travel episode ever landed them somewhere other than the USA.)

Comments

[sixbeforelunch]

Nope! And I find it very annoying. (I love my dumb space fandom so so much but sometimes...)

[ioplokon]

I think up until new Trek, Starfleet Academy was located in San Francisco, so you could see that as being a partial influence?

At least we have Sisko being super into Bajoran history, though that ends up being for Plot Reasons & not just him thinking it's neat.

[topaz_eyes]

In Strange New Worlds, Kirk and La'an ended up in 2020s Toronto. That's arguably somewhere other than the USA...

There was the TOS episode "All Our Yesterdays" where Spock and McCoy jumped back 5000 years into the past on another planet. Spock began to revert to the Vulcan behaviour of 5000 years ago, before Vulcans learned how to use logic to control emotions. (The in-universe explanation for that was people had "to prepare" to jump back in history, which Spock and McCoy didn't.)

[conuly]

In Strange New Worlds, Kirk and La'an ended up in 2020s Toronto. That's arguably somewhere other than the USA...

No offense to Canada, but....

[jessie_c]

Well there was that one Nazi planet.

[conuly]

Surely there were multiple Nazi planets, even if we aren't counting the time they went back to WWII Earth?

[jessie_c]

Possibly. I only remember the one though.

[jessie_c]

We resemble that remark, eh?

[conuly]

Then again, I've never been to your fair country, so what do I know?

[conuly]

Yeah, but when he goes back in time, every time it turns out to be - Earth! That includes the Prophet visions, which I strongly prefer to the two-parter actual time travel. That one was exceptionally preachy, even for Trek.

[siliconshaman]

There is, actually, a canonical explanation for that, although I'm not sure if I'd call it a good one.

Firstly, if you recall the Eugenics wars, lead by Khan Noonien Singh, started primarily in Asia and swept through Europe and Russia. North America was one of the few places to hold out against him. Kahn ordered a cultural 'cleansing' not dissimilar to Pohl Pot or the book burnings of Hitler. Thus, outside of America, not much original historical material remains as between the pogroms and nuclear war, most was destroyed and forgotten.

Secondly, Star Fleet itself grew out of American culture, and largely is based upon it's ideals. As such Star Fleet academy teaches history courses that draw upon that to give context to Star Fleet. As such, those officers that develop an interest in history, are influenced by these beginnings.

That said, if you recall Jean Luc Picard had a rather wider interest in history, including Iconian among other non-human cultures. Perhaps as a result of his European heritage.

But you are right, seeing other perspectives and times would be interesting... Heck, finding a human fascinated by pre-Surak Vulcan history would be a change, and might lead to some amusing moments when their Vulcan shipmate finds out that the human knows more about their history than they do!

[conuly]

Wait, no, I forgot the time he went back in time right there on DS9... I mean, Terak Nor. That was more of an Odo teaching moment, though, wasn't it?

[conuly]

...haven't the Eugenics Wars been retconned considerably due to history marching on and overtaking them?

But you are right, seeing other perspectives and times would be interesting... Heck, finding a human fascinated by pre-Surak Vulcan history would be a change, and might lead to some amusing moments when their Vulcan shipmate finds out that the human knows more about their history than they do!

That'd be hilarious.

[siliconshaman]

sigh

The timeline in star trek is a mess ... but the Eugenics wars still happened, somewhat varying in when they kick off. As far as I can tell, broadly they remain the same. That is, ignoring the Abrams-verse since that's a separate alternate timeline. They still happened, since Khan still exists in that 'verse, but I think they might have been somewhat more European centric and who knows what happened in detail.. but that's just based on their choice of actor for Khan.

[conuly]

Yeah, they happened, but maybe they didn't happen exactly the way they first happened.

And for things like this, by the way, including the entire existence of the Abrams-verse, I like to say "Thank God for Enterprise and the Temporal Cold War", because I can just cheerfully say "Welp, the weirdness around this subject must be the result of shenanigans!" and move on.

[siliconshaman]

Agreed... there were some pretty major continuity glitches and weirdness even before the Temporal cold war was introduced, and indeed, it's allowed for a hand-waving explanation for it. Especially seeing as Temporal revisions don't propagate uniformly apparently.

History isn't what it used to be, apparently.

[ioplokon]

You say that but considering the actual court cases on homelessness California is currently defending, apparently they could have been clearer.

I do feel like... it's not literal time travel but the one where he and Jake build the solar ship is a bit time travel-y. And they do have the Bajoran priest from the past who shows up.

I do think, ultimately, it's mostly just not as interesting to do a time travel story unless people know enough to compare both times...

[melannen]

I think as far as TOS goes... there are actually a lot of episodes that do things other than 20th century US (even if a lot of them are terribly racist about it.) The 20th century ones are disproportionate and do stand out a bit but they are far from the only ones, and when they bring up "history" they do often bring up non-Earth stuff. In the episode with Lincoln everybody only remembers Lincoln but there's also Surak, Kahless of Klingon, Genghis Khan, a military dictator of future Earth, and an apparently notorious historical woman of unspecified species and planet. No 20th century Earth people there!

And as far as TOS goes, I'm willing to write it off as that the Starfleet of that era is still shown as very much an Earth-centered project that is working on becoming more diverse, and that Kirk is canonically obsessed with 20th century US history. And also that the episodes in the Enterprise's history that were chosen for the adaptation were ones picked as likely to appeal to a 20th century Earth audience; the episode set in Great Zimbabwe just stayed in the logs. That has held up less and less well the more series we've gotten where we still haven't been to Great Zimbabwe though.

(As to why the time travel is disproportionately to 20th-21st century Earth: that is canonically considered the most precarious period in Earth history, where even the smallest tweak to history is likely to result in total nuclear annihilation. A pretty common trope in Cold War-era SF and pretty understandable. If you have a time machine and you want to fuck with the future of Humanity as a whole, you get as close as you can manage to the Cuban Missile Crisis.)

[gwydion]

I think it was the writers not thinking, but my Wilsonian head cannon is there's a really popular teacher who does an American history elective at star fleet academy....

[conuly]

My own head canon is that some influential captain or admiral sincerely had it as a hobby and generations after people are still cultivating an interest to get in with a higher up who did the same thing once upon a time!

[gwydion]

Oooo1 Even better!

[profiterole_reads]

I'm ready for a Star Trek Joseon drama.

[conuly]

So ready!

[conuly]

There's actually a similar-idea fanfic about the true origins of The Hawaiian Club, though that's not the origin of my headcanon. It must be a case of great minds thinking alike!

Link. The only LD canon you need is that nerdy try-hard Boimler spent an entire episode trying to get in good with some higher-ups by pretending to be from Hawaii so he could join their Hawaii club (because they all claim to be from Hawaii). When he fesses up at the end of the episode they all confess that none of them are from Hawaii either, they all were pulling the same thing he was! They then start a moon club because they're all from moons, but they won't let Boimler join because he's not.

But that's just the set-up and almost all the fic just passes through ST history and various crews.

[conuly]

If you have a time machine and you want to fuck with the future of Humanity as a whole, you get as close as you can manage to the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Humans had a legitimate bottleneck event, and fucking with that is bound to be easier with less risk of making the planet uninhabitable.

Though, hm, I'd probably better stockpile all my favorite media and domesticated plants and animals first.

[conuly]

TBH, I've often suspected that the dumber and more plot-holey the canon, the more interesting the fandom.

[melannen]

I mean, Q did prevent the evolution of multicellular life once, iirc, it's not like that hasn't been tried.

But if you mean one of the prehistoric genetic bottlenecks: a) it would be a LOT harder to aim your time machine, since we don't have exact dates, and b) it's Start Trek canon that various advanced races were mixing and matching humanoid races between planets prehistorically, so that might not actually work (heck the bottlenecks probably *were* the Preservers reseeding after somebody tried that) and might also mess with other planets' history more than you want. No much safer to just set off some nukes.

(And Watsonianism aside, "the cold war is the most important crisis point in human history forever" is such a truism in mid century culture it's just taken as read.)

(Ftr I have a WIP crossover fic set in Starfleet Academy - Jianghu campus and it's been fun thinking about what that looks like culturally.)

[sixbeforelunch]

I have a similar suspicion, supported by the times I’ve been blown away by the fic and meta of a fandom only to finally see the source and think, “Really? That’s what inspired all this lovely art and deep thought?”

[conuly]

There's a sweet spot - it has to be good enough to get your attention, but not so good that there's nothing to say about it.

[gwydion]

cool!