The Wold Newton Universe and Star Trek

 

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THE WOLD NEWTON UNIVERSE AND STAR TREK

by Win Scott Eckert

 

In Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Captain Spock, who is half-human, states the following: "An ancestor of mine maintained that if you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains - however improbable - must be the truth." Captain Spock is implying that he is a direct descendant of the Great Detective, Sherlock Holmes.*  If so, then the events of the Star Trek universe must be a future continuation of the Wold Newton Universe.

 

Sherlock Holmes ?????? Mr. Spock

 

I am aware that Vulcans are incapable of lying, but this statement is contradicted by several episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation ("Lonely Among Us," "Elementary, Dear Data," and "Ship in a Bottle"), wherein it is firmly established that Holmes and Moriarty are fictional characters in relation to the "real" Star Trek characters. These two wonderful universes appear, on the face, to be incompatible.

However, appearances can be deceiving, and who are we to doubt the veracity of such a personage as Spock of Vulcan? Star Trek comes into the fold of the Wold Newton Universe as at least one possible future timeline. Following are connections from various books, films, and episodes:

Slaver Weapon - an animated Star Trek episode, and Alan Dean Foster's adaptation in Star Trek: Log 10 - reference to Larry Niven's Kzin and Known Space stories - see Allyn Gibson's The Kzin Question: Reconciling the Kzin with the Modern Star Trek Universe.

Ishmael by Barbara Hambly - Doctor Who; The Hokas from Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson's two books, Earthman's Burden and Hoka!; Aaron Stemple from the television program Here Come the Brides; Paladin from the show Have Gun, Will Travel; the Cartwrights from Bonanza; Struan and Sons from James Clavell's "Asian Saga."

The Wounded Sky by Diane Duane - Among the Starfleet ships that greet the Enterprise are the cutter Ransom and the cruiser Malacandra. Dr. Ransom and the planet Malacandra (Mars) appeared in the Space Trilogy by C.S. Lewis: Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength.

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country -  The dedication plaque on the starship U.S.S. Excelsior, NCC 2000, commanded by Captain Hikaru Sulu, reads, "No matter where you go, there you are." (The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai).

The Hero of My Own Life, a Star Trek short story by Peg Robinson in the anthology Strange New Worlds II. One of the amphishuttles is called the Nautilus, named after the advanced submarine that was commanded by Captain Nemo in Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

Captain's Table 5: Once Burned by Peter David - Calhoun has a run-in with the bragging Roman soldier, Captain Miles Gloriosus, from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, which in turn is based on the plays Miles Gloriosus, Pseudolus, and Mostellaria by Plautus (251-183 B.C.).

Coming of Age (Next Generation episode) - The status monitor in the shuttle bay of the U.S.S. Enterprise-D lists one of the shuttles as the Indiana Jones.

Up the Long Ladder (Next Generation episode)  – a screen displays information on the S.S. Buckaroo Banzai, captained by John Worfin. Its mission is listed as Planet 10, Dimension 8. The ship on which Picard is looking for data is the colony ship S.S. Mariposa; the Mariposa is powered by yoyodyne pulse fusion (all from The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai).

If Wishes Were Horses - Deep Space Nine station Commander Ben Sisko owns a trading card of baseball legend Buck Bokai, who played for the Gotham City Bats in the early 21st Century (Batman).

Star Trek: First Contact - One of the ships defending Section 001 against the Borg incursion is the Starship U.S.S. Thunderchild, named after H.M.S. Thunderchild, from H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds.

The Fall of Terok Nor by Judith Reeves-Stevens and Garfield Reeves-Stevens - Jadzia Dax makes a statement indicating that pre-First Contact Earth was subject to numerous visits by the Retuculii, for the purposes of conducting genetic sampling on humans; the wiping of the memories of the human test subjects lead to "Missing Time Syndrome." Perhaps a nod to The X-Files.

The Battle of Betazed, a Star Trek: The Next Generation novel by Charlotte Douglas and Susan Kearney - Commander Elias Vaughn's last assignment was on the U.S.S. Nautilus. Reference to Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

Preserver by William Shatner, with Judith Reeves-Stevens and Garfield Reeves-Stevens - mentions of frequent visitations to Earth in the late 20th Century by interfering extraterrestrials, called "Reticulans." The best course of action is to, "Trust no one." (References to The X-Files). The Vulcan psychohistorian, T'Serl, also states that once the impossible is eliminated, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth; she cites the originator of said statement as an ancestor. (Sherlock Holmes).

Relativity (Voyager episode) - The dedication plaque from the 29th Century Timeship Relativity reads: "The only reason for time is so everything doesn't happen at once." (The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai.) The Relativity is a Wells-class Timeship. (Named after writer H.G. Wells, author of The Time Machine.)

Gateways 6: Cold Wars by Peter David - The head of the Starfleet Department for Temporally Displaced Officers is Admiral Gulliver. (An uncommon name, must be a reference to Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels.)


Hands down, the most references are in writer Greg Cox's Star Trek novels. 

James Kirk, Gary Seven & Isis The first is the classic Star Trek novel, Assignment: Eternity by Greg Cox. He throws in so many '60s spy references that if I didn't know better, I'd say it was written by the late David McDaniel of U.N.C.L.E. and The Prisoner novels fame. At any rate, in this novel, Kirk and crew again meet the mysterious Gary Seven, a human raised by aliens and sent back to Earth to fight for the forces of Good, and Seven's Earth-born assistant, Roberta Lincoln. These two began working together in the year 1968 in the classic episode Assignment: Earth and as the novel opens, the year is 1969.

Spock detailing some of the known adventures of Seven & Lincoln: "...defeat of the so-called 'cybernaughts' in conjunction with a pair of British intelligence operatives..." A clear reference to The Avengers, who are already part of the Wold Newton Universe.

Seven's office was attacked by killer robots. Again, the cybernaughts & The Avengers.

Roberta thinking: "I bet Mrs. Peel never has to go poking around under the furniture." In conjunction with above two references, it is again clear that Roberta met The Avengers.

Roberta recounts one of Seven's missions, stealing the plans to a robot soldier: "The Quasar Tapes, or something like that." A reference to Gene Roddenberry's The Questor Tapes.

Seven thinking: "All this covert infiltration reminded him of the time he and Isis had attempted to liberate a former British intelligence agent from the artificial village where he was being held captive as part of an elaborate psychological conditioning experiment. That mission had ended badly, he remembered, primarily because he had underestimated the forces arrayed against them." A clear reference to The Prisoner. John Drake (Danger Man / Secret Agent) would also come in because at least one Prisoner novel refers to Number 6 and John Drake as one and the same.

Lincoln compares herself to The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. From this we may infer that she has met U.N.C.L.E. agent April Dancer. U.N.C.L.E. is already part of Wold Newton Universe.

Roberta to Kirk: "Mr. Seven... he works on a strictly need-to-know basis, you know? James Bond style. For your eyes only and all that. This tape will self-destruct in five seconds....." Clearly she has met agent James Bond and has some working knowledge of the IMF, thus adding Mission: Impossible to the Wold Newton Universe.

Roberta remembers the time she and Seven went up against a bald-headed megalomaniac with a Persian cat. This is an unmistakable reference to Blofeld of the James Bond movies, which would argue against inclusion in the Wold Newton Universe, since that universe incorporates the Bond novel continuity, not the movies. (Philip José Farmer intended that the novel-version of Bond was a member of the Wold Newton family). BUT this could be explained away. Instead of Blofeld, the reference could be to one Dr. Evil, the nemesis of legendary photographer, musician and secret agent Austin Powers. This interpretation has several benefits: it leaves out the movie Blofeld; it leaves the Bond novel continuity intact; and it adds Austin Powers and a much-needed dose of humor to the grim Wold Newton Universe. Shagadelic, Baby!

Art Bollmann suggests that, "When Spock was talking about the accomplishments of Seven, he mentioned that he had fought a number of biological viruses, including 'a spaceborn virus.' I was wondering if this was enough to smuggle Michael Crichton's Andromeda Strain into the Wold Newton Universe continuity." I think the answer is yes.

Fellow Wold Newton and Star Trek fan Lou Mougin adds the following: "Roberta Lincoln says, 'Yeah, but there was this other time, when we were teamed up with this wise guy reporter from Chicago....' Given the tone of TV show references throughout the book, can there be little doubt that she's referring to... Carl Kolchak, aka KOLCHAK THE NIGHT STALKER?? I didn't think so!"

Finally, William Simon proposes a solution to the fictionalization of Sherlock Holmes in the following missive: "Is it not possible that Sherlock Holmes himself was quite real? After all, the Consulting Detective DID make more than a few enemies. What better way to hide than to become a legend in the publications of the time? It is just possible that the particulars of Holmes and Watson being real men in real life slipped through the archives of history, leaving even Data ignorant of the fact that both men actually lived."

I believe that William is correct, as this is the method that many Wold Newtonites chose to conceal their real existence, shrouding their true exploits under cover of fictionalizations.

 

2001 Update:

Here are further references from Greg Cox's novel, The Eugenics Wars: The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh Khan Noonien Singh, Volume One.

Roberta Lincoln refers to Emma Peel of The Avengers, as well as the Cybernaughts.

In March 1974, in East Berlin, Lincoln is attacked by and subdues a man calling himself "Old Jack." In all probability the being Lincoln encountered was the Redjac entity (see the episode Wolf in the Fold).

Lincoln recalls an encounter with a "robot Bigfoot up north." This is a reference to the episode of The Six Million Dollar Man called The Secret of Bigfoot Pass.

Lincoln also recollects that she and Seven stumbled upon a group of "robot housewives" in Connecticut, a reference to The Stepford Wives.

There are also references to Frankenstein, Young Frankenstein ("Mr. Eygor"), Modesty Blaise, The Pretender ("Jarod"), The Equalizer, Beauty and the Beast (the leonine-faced boy), and The Bionic Woman.

If Maggie Erickson did marry Walsh after fleeing the eugenics project, she would be known as Maggie Walsh, providing a strong link to Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Project Chrysalis may have evolved into to the Chrysalis Corporation, an organization that specializes in human rejuvenation, as seen in Knight Rider 2010.

Since Roberta Lincoln refers to The Andromeda Strain as a movie, that must mean that she didn't accompany Seven when he went behind the scenes during the actual events upon which the movie was based. See Assignment: Eternity for more information.

 

2002 Additions:

Here are more references from Greg Cox's latest novel, The Eugenics Wars: The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh, Volume Two.

Khan Noonien SinghThe Indian delegate who wears a large ruby in his white turban is Hadji from Jonny Quest.

The mission to Scotland in 1973,  which involved the disappearance of a Scottish policeman, a pagan cult, and human sacrifice by being burned alive in wicker effigies, is from the film The Wicker Man.

The inner hull of Khan's submarine is made out of a unique impact-absorbing alloy that is only found in one remote and isolated African kingdom. This is a reference to vibranium from the remote African kingdom of Wakanda.

There are also references to recent illegal cloning experiments, involving everything from human embryos to the Shroud of Turin.  This is from the novel The Children of the Shroud by fellow Star Trek writer Garfield Reeves-Stevens.

There is also a reference to Seven and Lincoln shutting down the Illuminati years ago. Obviously Seven and Lincoln were not as successful as they thought in shutting down the Illuminati, given Lara Croft's recent film adventure.


* How did a Holmesian reference get slipped into Star Trek VI? The screenplay for Star Trek VI was co-written by Nicholas Meyer and Denny Martin Flinn. Meyer also directed the film (as well as Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan). And Nicholas Meyer is the author of three very good Sherlock Holmes novels: The Seven Per-Cent Solution, The West End Horror, and The Canary Trainer (various publishers over the years). Furthermore, Flinn is the author of two excellent (and funny) Holmesian novels, San Francisco Kills and Killer Finish. These novels feature the adventures of Holmes' grandson, Spencer Holmes, and were both published by Bantam Books in 1991. Flinn also wrote a Star Trek novel, The Fearful Summons.

 

All rights reserved. The text of this article is © 1997-2004 by the author, Win Eckert. No copying or reproduction of this article or any portions thereof in any form whatsoever is permitted without prior written permission and consent of the author.

 

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THE EUGENICS WAR: DECLASSIFIED

By John Allen Small

(Copyright © 2000 by John Allen Small)

 

Memorandum To: John A. Small, Executive Director, Small Talk Institute For Apocalyptic Investigations, Ravia, OK

From: Lt. Col. Stephen Sykes, Deputy Director, USMF Security Control, Washington D.C.

Date: 28 May 2000

Subject: USMF Security Docket #270396

Enclosure: One (1) copy of subject docket

Dear Mr. Small,

At the request of the White House, and in appreciation for the assistance provided to our nation by you and your organization during the recent World Crime League/Millennium/IMF affair, I have hereby been authorized to forward to you one (1) copy of subject docket. As you might well expect, the highest possible security classification has been assigned to this information due to our government's concerns over public reaction; however, copies of the print-out have been forwarded to both the Banzai Institute and to Dr. Benton Quest as well as to yourself.

The information contained herein was discovered within the memory banks of the Master Computer at Security Control, Hellenikon AFB, Athens, Greece, during a routine systems diagnostic check. An investigation was quickly initiated to attempt to identify the source of the transmission. To date, however, said message has not been traced to any known nation, alliance of nations, or organization currently under surveillance by this agency.

As has been previously mentioned, certain high-ranking officials within the government have called for the termination of the investigation; these individuals have expressed the opinion that the entire affair has been nothing more than a hoax, and that the so-called "Hellenikon transmission" was downloaded into the Master Computer's memory banks as a prank. However, the interest expressed by such imminent researchers as yourself. Dr. Banzai and Dr. Quest has convinced the President that this incident bears further investigation.

I have been instructed to advise you that, at this point, the President is unable to confirm or deny the existence of the "secret payload" on board the shuttle flight which was the subject of a recent inquiry by yourself and Dr. Banzai. Attempts to locate certain classified documents regarding the shuttle mission in question have thus far proved fruitless. However, the President has authorized a special investigation which is being conducted by a team of special agents answering directly to the White House; as you suggested the actual nature of this investigation has been kept secret even from the agents' superiors, who have been provided with a cover story regarding clandestine activities at the heavily guarded compound of a billionaire megalomaniac and reports of a mystical blues musician living in the mountains of New Mexico.

On an unrelated subject, the President has asked me to convey to you his gratitude for agreeing to hold this July's special summit at Camp David, and that he is looking forward to finally meeting Dr. Savage and Mr. Kuryakin in person. He also asked me to inform you that he will spring for the pizza if you'll remember to bring the Green River.

Please let me know if this office can be of any further assistance.

Sincerely,

Lt. Col. Stephen Sykes

Deputy Director

USMF Security Control

 

(The complete text of the so-called "Hellenikon Transmission" follows:)

INVESTIGATOR'S LOG, STARDATE 48651.7: Agent Lucsly, Department of Temporal Investigations, reporting.

As per the recent request by Admiral Tew of Starfleet Command, Agent Dulmur and myself have utilized the resources available to us through the Department of Temporal Investigations to finally unravel the full story of the historical event known as the Eugenics War. To this point, most of the knowledge we've had regarding this period of earth history has been derived from the few bits and pieces of fragmented information that managed to survive World War III and the turbulent years that immediately followed. It is hoped that the new information our research has yielded will provide a better understanding of those times.

Having said this, it is with some degree of embarrassment that said research seems to indicate that the Eugenics War may well have been the result of a Predestination Paradox. What we discovered is that a spacecraft from our time period, bearing four denizens of the Federation outpost designated Deep Space Nine ­ three Ferengi and the shape-shifting Changeling known as Odo - traveled backwards in time and crashed in Roswell, New Mexico, in July of 1947. United States military representatives there established contact with the visitors from our era, but the aliens eventually managed to escape and return to our own time period.

However, the chronitogravimetric disturbances in subspace caused by the arrival and departure of the Ferengi shuttle drew additional unwelcome attention in the form of an unknown race of alien observers which had already been secretly visiting Earth for several thousand millennia. When a scout mission was sent to Earth to investigate the source of the chronitogravimetric disturbance, the scout team's craft was drawn into the disturbance and crashed near the same location where the Ferengi shuttle had landed earlier. When government agents were again dispatched to investigate, they learned of the aliens' plan of colonization; a crucial component of the colonization plan was the utilization of an extraterrestrial virus, which the government agents assumed would transform humans into a slave race; in an effort to save themselves, the government agents began working cooperatively with the aliens in order to gain access to the virus - in the hopes of secretly developing an antidote to the alien virus. This action set into motion a half-century of international plots, denials, and cover-ups that finally began to unravel during the final years of the 20th Century.

Efforts to develop this cure and thus survive the alien colonization yielded several unanticipated results. One was the establishment of a cloning program intended to create genetic human/alien hybrids; the other was the development of an ambitious program which combined selective breeding with the findings of the Reinstein Project, the pioneering research into chemically enhancing human physique and intelligence which had given the world the "super-soldier" known as Captain America during World War II. This unscrupulous use of Dr. Reinstein's research resulted in the birth of a group of genetically engineered "supermen" (and women). It was this second program that planted the seeds which would bear not one but two bitter harvests ­ the first in the 20th Century, and the second in the 23rd.

The youngest of these "superior humans" were born as early as 1949-50 and had reached young adulthood by the late 1960s and early 1970s. By this time, many of these supermen had come to realize that their superior physical and intellectual abilities had set them apart from the rest of humanity. Several of these individuals decided to use their special abilities for the benefit of Mankind; the majority, however, came to the misguided conclusion that their superior abilities gave them the right to rule over the rest of humanity.

To that end, they conspired throughout the 1970s and 1980s to seize power through the use of behind-the-scenes manipulation, brute force and "puppet leaders" who answered only to them. Several of their early efforts in this direction were defeated by various government agents and independent crimefighters who ultimately were unaware of the true masterminds behind the various schemes.

One of these would-be rulers was Emile Vautrain, a self-proclaimed mystic whose attempt to use his relationship with the Grandduchess Theresa of Trent to gain control of that duchy was thwarted through by America's Impossible Missions Force. Another of these supermen, Ali Sharif, set himself up as "President-for-Life" of the North African nation of Kefiristan before being brought down by a group of soldiers of fortune known collectively as the A-Team in 1973. Several of Vautrain and Sharif's genetically enhanced brethren allied themselves with the criminal organization known as THRUSH, and helped mastermind the hijacking of a nuclear device in the mid-1980s ­ the first step in a blackmail scheme that was eventually put to rest by retired U.N.C.L.E. agents Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin, who both briefly returned to active duty to assist in this particular case.

But of all the genetically enhanced manipulators who rose to power during this period, none were as ambitious or as ruthless as the man known as Khan Noonien Singh. Aided and abetted by power-hungry individuals in various governments, business organizations, and independent agencies who allowed themselves to fall under his domination, Khan attempted to gain control of the entire planet; among the numerous "figurehead rulers" who either answered to Khan or in some fashion allied themselves with him were Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, criminal mastermind Hanoi Xan and computer guru Bill Gates.

Although we were unable to substantiate this, Khan may well have also become a key player in the so-called "Syndicate" whose role in the alien conspiracy had resulted in his birth in the first place. Although his efforts to become supreme ruler of the planet ultimately proved unsuccessful, for a brief period of time Khan was indeed the most powerful man on the face of the Earth. For a period of four years - from 1992 to 1996 - he was absolute ruler of more than a quarter of the planet, from South Asia through the Middle East. He also made some attempts to gain a foothold in America, mostly through the proliferation of illegal drug use, indoctrination of the nation's youth into gangs and neo-religious cults, subliminal advertising messages and other covert forms of mind control.

In time, however, the United States and other governments started becoming aware of Khan and the extent of his power; during this same period, he found himself the target of rivals who coveted his power. Eventually a series of battles erupted in certain areas of the world, such as Haiti, Somalia and Kosovo, which had fallen under Khan's control; a number of events publicly attributed to various terrorist organizations were also connected to Khan and his efforts to maintain power. Meanwhile, other confrontations of a more diplomatic nature took place in other regions of the globe.

This sequence of events ­ some of them bloody, others with frightening social and economic consequences - became known to those few who were aware of the full story behind those incidents as the Eugenics War. Though the public-at-large was aware of the majority of such events - such as the war in Bosnia, America's war on drugs and various corporate mergers of the period - most never knew that the events were in fact all related to one another; indeed, many of the related "battles" of the so-called Eugenics War were in fact covert operations that the public was kept entirely ignorant of, and the name of Khan himself was not well-known to the majority of the planet's inhabitants.

Despite the existence of fragmented records indicating that he had been "the last of the tyrants to be overthrown," it should be noted that Khan had not been truly defeated in the traditional sense of the word. However, he found his power base eroded with each new confrontation. Rather than risk the chance of finally succumbing to those who sought to displace him, he decided to go into self-imposed exile; in 1997, with the assistance of a small group of loyal followers who had infiltrated the American government, Khan and a band of his followers were placed in suspended animation on the Botany Bay - an experimental "sleeper ship" designed by NASA in hopes of finally sending explorers on interplanetary missions in those days before warp drive - and covertly sent into space during a classified space shuttle mission.

Aware that their search for an antidote to the extraterrestrial virus had led to the eugenics project that had given birth to Khan, and that a certain team of FBI agents was on the verge of uncovering their involvement in the alien conspiracy, the members of the Syndicate increased its efforts to keep knowledge of these projects from becoming public. Media announcements during this period concerning great strides in the science of cloning were masterminded by the Syndicate, in the hopes of preventing the eventual discovery that such "advances" were in fact almost half a century old by that point.

Although the majority of Earth people never knew of Khan and the power he had wielded, his self-exile proved to be the catalyst for a period that would later be described as "another Dark Ages." The war in Chechnya, renewed hostilities between India and Pakistan, a much publicized controversy concerning the infidelity of an American President, the breakup of the planet's largest technological corporation ­ these were just a few of the historical events which, unbeknownst to most people of the time, were directly traceable in one way or another to the downfall of Khan and his decision to flee the planet. It was a period of social upheaval, economic calamity, and a sense of apathy and disillusionment brought about by years of lies and distortions by various governmental agencies ­ a period that culminated in the rise to power of the infamous Colonel Green and the outbreak of World War III.

As is now well known, the Starfleet vessel U.S.S. Enterprise discovered the long-adrift Botany Bay in 2267 and awakened Khan and his followers. Once awakened, Khan - with some assistance from Enterprise crewmember Lt. Marla McGivers - attempted to commandeer the Enterprise; McGivers, in love with Khan but still maintaining some degree of loyalty to Starfleet and to her commanding officer, Captain James T. Kirk, helped Kirk defeat Khan.

Exercising certain command perogatives, Kirk dropped all charges against Khan and his followers when Khan agreed to be exiled to the planet Ceti Alpha V; rather than face court martial, McGivers chose to stay with Khan and help him and his followers tame that desolate world. She and Khan were married shortly after being marooned on Ceti Alpha V; she and several other members of Khan's group were later killed by a parasitic eel-like creature indigenous to the planet.

Khan and his surviving followers were accidentally discovered by a scientific reconnaissance party from the U.S.S. Reliant in 2285. His years of exile on the barren world, coupled with his grief over the loss of his wife, had driven Khan past the brink of madness; taking advantage of the unexpected opportunity, Khan took control of the Reliant and set out to take his revenge on the man whom he blamed for his miseries - James T. Kirk, who by now had been promoted to the rank of Admiral and was serving as a staff instructor at Starfleet Academy. Upon commandeering the Reliant, Khan learned of the existence of Project Genesis and used this as a means of luring Kirk to a confrontation. Ransacking the nearby Regula I space laboratory and killing most of that station's personnel, Khan stole the experimental Genesis Device.

Following a series of confrontations with Kirk and the Enterprise, Khan and his followers were eventually killed when he detonated the Genesis Device in a desperate bid to finally defeat Kirk. The chain of events set into motion during Khan's final bid for revenge - the death and rebirth of Enterprise commander and Kirk's former first mate, Captain Spock of Vulcan, the creation and destruction of the so-called Genesis Planet, the confrontation with a band of renegade Klingons which resulted in the death of Kirk's son, and the charges filed against Kirk and his crew following their theft of the Enterprise - have been more fully described elsewhere and do not bear repeating at this time. However, it should be noted in closing that, as rash as they seemed at the time, Kirk's actions during the Genesis affair ultimately enabled him to save the planet Earth from the effects of the alien space probe of unknown origin that wrecked havoc on Earth's ecology in 2286.

In that respect - though he would never know it, and likely would not have appreciated it if he had - Khan's final series of ruthless acts ultimately helped ensure the survival of the planet which he had sought to dominate so many years before... (Transmission ends here.)

 

ENDNOTES (for those who care about such things):

€ The real, true, super-sensational inside story of the World Crime League/Millennium/IMF affair has yet to be told. I may get around to it one of these days... after I've rested up a bit from THIS one.

€ The reference to the cover story regarding the "billionaire megalomaniac and reports of a mystical blues musician living in the mountains of New Mexico" is a reference to the events depicted in the novel The Long Sandy Hair Of Neftoon Zamora, written by singer/songwriter (and former Monkee) Michael Nesmith. I threw the reference in just for fun. The novel has no WN links that I can recall (it's been awhile since I read it), but it's such a wonderful story that I wanted to find some way to tie it in with our favorite little alternate universe.

€ Green River is one of the finest soft drinks ever created by man, second only to Canfield's Swiss Cream Soda. Neither of which, incidentally, I can find anywhere in Oklahoma... one of the very few things I miss about having lived near Chicago all those years.

€ Agents Lucsly and Dulmur are the names of the Temporal Investigations agents seen interrogation Captain Benjamin Sisko in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Trials And Tribble-ations." They seemed best suited to reveal this heretofore forgotten history to the world. [Note from Win Eckert: Incidentally, the names Lucsly and Dulmer are anagrams of the names of those two intrepid agents from The X-Files, Mulder and Scully.]

€ In the classic Star Trek episode "Space Seed," Spock notes that the existing records concerning the period of the Eugenics War - or "Eugenics Wars," as he calls it, which he categorizes as "a strange, violent period in your history" - are fragmentary; Captain Kirk makes a similar statement during the same episode, noting that "There are a great many unanswered questions about those years." Spock at one point even refers to the Eugenics Wars as Earth's "last World War"; however, as is pointed out in The Star Trek Encyclopedia, the Eugenics War took place in the 1990s while World War III is mentioned in several TV episodes (and depicted in the film Star Trek: First Contact) as having occurred during the mid-21st Century. It is my conjecture that while the Eugenics War was not World War III, the origins of that later conflict no doubt stem from the events of the Eugenics War ­ thus accounting for Spock's comment, as he no doubt equates the two events in his mind as having been related to one another.

€ The Ferengi visit is as depicted in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Little Green Men"; the relationship between that incident and the events depicted in the "Conspiracy" episodes of The X-Files and in the film The X-Files: Fight The Future is as explained in Win Eckert's Wold Newton Chronology. Maybe I'm crazy (I've often suspected so myself), but this chain of events seemed to me to be the logical source for all that transpired as explained in this article.

€ The existence of the cloning program to create human/alien hybrids had been hinted at in several episodes of The X-Files, and was finally revealed in the home video release of the film The X-Files: Fight The Future. The references to the "Reinstein Project" are based upon the original Timely Comics version of Captain America in 1941, as well as the Now Comics mini-series Sting of the Green Hornet and the Dark Horse Comics mini-series The Case of the Shrieking Skeletons, a two-issue story teaming Doc Savage and The Shadow.

€ I started to put together a list of some of these "good supermen," but decided it might be better to let readers decide for themselves what heroes of the era might fit into this category. After all, why should I have all the fun?

€ The comments regarding Emile Vautrain and the Impossible Missions Force refer to "The Choice," a 1970 episode of Mission: Impossible. Vautrain, incidentally, was portrayed by Star Trek's Leonard Nimoy - a dual role for Nimoy, who was also filling the regular series role of IMF agent Paris at the time.

€ The A-Team reference is derived from the novel Operation Desert Sun: The Untold Story by Charles Heath, the sixth (and, as far as I know, final) book in a series of novels based on the popular 1980s TV series. While the earlier books had been novelizations of various TV episodes, Operation Desert Sun was a tale from the team's early days, taking place shortly after their escape from the military prison to which they had been sentenced for a crime they did not commit (robbing the Bank of Hanoi during the Vietnam War).

€ The case involving THRUSH's hijacking of a nuclear device is a reference to the TV reunion movie Return of the Man from U.N.C.L.E.: The Fifteen Years Later Affair. It was also in this movie that we are treated to a brief (but timely) encounter with British agent James Bond.

€ The Saddam Hussein reference dates back to the earliest version of this article, which was written at the height of Operation Desert Storm. My recent re-reading of the novelization of Buckaroo Banzai - coupled with Chuck Loridans' revelation concerning the mention of Xan in the two-part Phantom 2040 episode "Dark Orbit," made a link between Xan and Khan too delicious to pass up. As for the Bill Gates reference - have you ever had a hunch that you felt down to the very core of your being that you just couldn't shake?

€ Some will no doubt argue that the notion of the Botany Bay being a NASA prototype is a bit of a stretch. But as I originally wrote in my old Encyclopedia Galactica article, think about it for a minute ­ haven't you ever wondered about those so-called "secret payloads" that go up on the space shuttle from time to time?

€ The Star Trek Encyclopedia states that the Botany Bay departed Earth in 1996; however, a print-out I made of a portion of Win's WN Chronology some time back put the year of Khan's exile as 1997, so that is the year I utilized here.

€ I was going to try to link the events of David Brin's novel The Postman with the World War III scenario as set forth in the Star Trek mythos, since there seemed to be certain similarities in the post-war societies shown in The Postman and Star Trek: First Contact. But the dates proved too much out of synch; Trek's World War III and ensuing post-atomic holocaust is depicted as having begun in the 2050s and having lasted into the early 22nd Century, while a letter Gordon reads in the final pages of The Postman is dated 2012. Oh, well, it seemed like a good idea at the time...

€ The dates given for the events depicted in the Star Trek trilogy of films - The Wrath of Khan, The Search for Spock and The Voyage Home - are taken from The Star Trek Encyclopedia.

 

All rights reserved. The text of this article is © 2000-2004 by the author, John Allen Small. No copying or reproduction of this article or any portions thereof in any form whatsoever is permitted without prior written permission and consent of the author.

 

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THE TREK ARTICLES

by Win Scott Eckert

 

In the 1970s and '80s, Walter Irwin and G.B. Love published a Star Trek fanzine called TREK. Throughout TREK's run, several articles were published with speculations on the connection between Star Trek, Sherlock Holmes, Doc Savage, and the Wold Newton Family. There were also a few articles comparing and contrasting James Kirk and Horatio Hornblower.

While I am unable, legally, to present the full text of these articles on the Wold Newton Universe site, I am providing a list of titles and the Best of TREK volume in which each may be found.

Best of TREK 2:

"A Brief Look at Kirk's Career" by Leslie Thompson (relates Kirk to Tarzan, the Lone Ranger, and Doc Savage)

"Kirk and Hornblower" by G.B. Love

Best of TREK 4:

"A Theory of Relativity" by Paul Schwartz (Holmes was a Vulcan)

"The Star Trek Family Tree" by Jaclyn J. Murphy (Wold Newton relations: Spock is descended from Holmes; Kirk and Uhura are also Wold Newton Family members)

Best of TREK 8:

"Spock Savage or the Vulcan of Bronze" by C.J. Nicastro (Doc Savage was a Vulcan)

"A Note on Spock" by C.J. Nicastro (Amanda Grayson is descended from Dick (Robin / Batman II) Grayson, and therefore so is Spock)

Best of TREK 11:

"A Problem of Identity: Was Holmes a Vulcan?" by Patricia Dunn (debunks the Schwartz article from Best of TREK 4)

Best of TREK 15:

"The Man at the Helm: Captains Kirk and Hornblower" by Mark Alfred

 

Clearly, many of the theories presented do not match up with current Wold Newton thought. For instance, we may conclude with a reasonable degree of certainty that neither Sherlock Holmes nor Doc Savage was a Vulcan.

However, it is interesting to note which of the theories are currently accepted in the Wold Newton Universe. We now know, from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, that Spock is indeed descended from the very human Holmes. And we have generally accepted that Dick Grayson is also an ancestor of Spock.

In any event, the articles are "fascinating" for their historical and speculative significance. Used copies of the Best of TREK series can still be found in second-hand bookstores. I urge Wold Newton fans to seek them out and wish them "happy hunting."

 

All rights reserved. The text of this article is © 2000-2004 by the author, Win Eckert. No copying or reproduction of this article or any portions thereof in any form whatsoever is permitted without prior written permission and consent of the author.

 

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Here it is, the Ultimate Star Trek crossover, a one-time-only event, the likes of which will never be seen again!

Rare scene from the little-seen episode, "The Ultimate Crossover"

courtesy of John Small


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This site was created for the sole purposes of entertainment and information. All rights reserved. The design of this page is © 1997-2004 by the author, Win Eckert, except as otherwise specified. No copying or reproduction of these articles or any portions thereof in any form whatsoever is permitted without prior written permission and consent of the authors or the respective copyright holders. Star Trek(TM)® is a registered trademark of Paramount Pictures. The image of Captain Spock is © Paramount Pictures.