Daystrom Institute
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Serious, in-depth discussion about Star Trek from both in-universe and real world perspectives.
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Episode Guides
The /r/DaystromInstitute wiki held a number of popular Star Trek watch guides. We have rehosted them here:
- Kraetos’ guide to Star Trek (the original series)
- Algernon_Asimov’s guide to Star Trek: The Animated Series
- Algernon_Asimov’s guide to Star Trek: The Next Generation
- Algernon_Asimov’s guide to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
- Darth_Rasputin32898’s guide to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
- OpticalData’s guide to Star Trek: Voyager
- petrus4’s guide to Star Trek: Voyager
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If this episode did indeed take place in 2022 (I don't remember seeing that confirmed, but that seems to be what people are rolling with), it seems that Adam Soong has yet to pivot Project Khan.
I wonder if he becomes directly involved with the Noonien-Singh Institute for Cultural Advancement in a couple of years, or is just using the 1996 file to start his own augment research.
Or maybe the 2022 date for this episode is incorrect, and Soong is already involved.
The 2022 date is based on a very literal interpretation of Sera’s line that this was supposed to take place in 1992 and she’s been stuck here for 30 years. I’m not convinced that’s a good basis to pin down the year.
Okay, I'm glad to hear I didn't miss anything. So the episode could well be set in the 2030s or later.
My gut plonks for between 2024 to 2025. This handwaves a few issues:
Why didn't the Travelers intervene? Talinn was dead by mid-2024, and in any case, it's possible that since they saw the DTI was already involved, they allowed the humans to work out the problem for themselves.
The production art in "In a Mirror Darkly" (which is shaky canon at best, I admit, given other dates in that same art which have since been retconned) puts 2026 as a start date for WW III, prompted by issues over genetic enhancement and involving Col Green. It's not a stretch to say that if the existence of the Augment children became public, it could trigger this.
Khan's age. Ricardo Montalban was about 46 when "Space Seed" was broadcast, and Khan did look like he was in his late 30s to early 40s then - which is plausible for a ruler of about 1/4 of the Earth for a period of 4-5 years. Our current date for the end of WW III is 2053, Riker saying that was 10 years before First Contact in 2063. So the year that Khan left Earth can be no later than 2054 or thereabouts. If we work backwards, then Khan would have been born around 2014. The young Khan we see in this episode looks to be about 10 years old, so our window becomes about 2024-2025, and I go for the later date because that would give Green a little bit of a runway before blowing things up.
Is M-5 here yet? This should be nominated.
Sadly not yet.