By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 58 seconds ago

What if this year were the end of the world as you know it? That sounds like crazy talk, of course, but this is the year that has long been prophesied by one of the greatest sci-fi franchises as the beginning of World War III. That prophecy comes to us from the last IP you’d expect to predict the end of the world: Star Trek!

Obviously, Star Trek is known for its optimistic portrayal of a future where most people do not have to worry about modern concerns such as poverty, disease, and war. However, a major part of the franchise lore is that things have to get incredibly worse before they start to get better. Humanity doesn’t begin working towards its bright, shiny future until it survives World War III, a catastrophic global conflict that is supposed to start in 2026.

World War III Starts With One Man

Fittingly enough, much of our franchise knowledge of World War III comes from Star Trek: The Original Series. Classic episodes like “Bread and Circuses” and “The Savage Curtain” tell us that a man named Colonel Phillip Green was responsible for leading a bunch of ecoterrorists in attacks that ultimately claimed the lives of 37 million people. He may actually be the one responsible for causing this war, as it is mentioned in “The Savage Curtain” that he “led” a genocidal war, later identified as WWIII.

Frustratingly, The Original Series doesn’t tell us much more about Colonel Green except that he was infamous for striking his enemies in the midst of ostensibly peaceful negotiations. Later, Star Trek: Enterprise clarified that he used his troops to kill those affected with radiation sickness and other conditions that he considered “impurities.” He was worried about these traits being passed on to children, making Green an explicitly Hitler-like figure, right down to his obsession with eugenics.

And The Rockets’ Red Glare

It was the fan-favorite film Star Trek: First Contact that specified that World War III began in 2026, and the movie also put a name to one of the factions involved: the Eastern Coalition. The first episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation revealed that some of the different factions used drugs to control their soldiers. Discovery and Strange New Worlds specified that as late as 2053, nuclear bombs were being dropped on cities like Richmond, Washington, New York, and Paris.

Speaking of Strange New Worlds, that show used an interesting retcon to tie World War III with a major conflict first mentioned in The Original Series: the Eugenics Wars. During Earth’s troubled history, unethical scientists began experimenting with selective breeding and genetic editing, and their ultimate goal was to create a race of supersoldiers. Those soldiers were known as Augments, and their most famous member was Khan Noonien Singh, who would later go on to have multiple iconic fights with an equally legendary figure: Captain James T. Kirk.

A Real Khan Job

Predictably, these Augments tried to take over the world, seizing power in over 40 nations before they were ultimately overthrown by humanity. Most Augments were tried and executed as war criminals, but Khan and dozens of his followers escaped in a sleeper sheep, where they were later awoken from cryogenic stasis by Captain Kirk. In the classic episode “Space Seed,”  Spock mentioned a very specific fact that Star Trek spent decades trying to run from: that the Eugenics Wars lasted from 1992-1996.

Why has Trek been running from this bit of trivia, and how does it connect to World War III? After Star Trek: The Next Generation came out in 1987, it became increasingly hard for the writers (especially after the end of the Cold War) to imagine the ‘90s as a period of major global upheaval. The best evidence of this is that in the Voyager episode where they traveled back to 1996 (“Future’s End”), and despite this being the last year of the Eugenics Wars, there is no sign that America had experienced any of the worldwide conflict that took the lives of over 30 million people.

Burned By The Retcon

Strange New Worlds addressed this matter in a very unexpected way. “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” revealed that the Temporal War and assorted meddling time travelers ended up affecting Khan’s personal timeline. Now, the tyrant was born later in the timeline, but his rise to power is still inevitable: in the Picard episode “Farewell,” the mad scientist Doctor Adam Soong was last seen in 2024,  examining a file (from 1996, no less) titled “Project Khan.”

That would put Khan on the right track to be a major player when World War III kicks off in 2026, but how do we know for sure that he was involved? In the premiere Strange New Worlds episode (“Strange New Worlds”), Captain Pike gave a speech to a group of aliens where he mentioned how Earth’s last major global conflict had gone by different names over the years. “We called it the Second Civil War, then the Eugenics War, and finally just World War III.”

No Place On Earth Was Safe

Previously, in The Original Series episode “Space Seed,” Spock claimed (while admitting that records of the time period were “fragmentary”) that the Eugenics Wars simply took place during World War III. Now, Pike is retroactively claiming that the Eugenics Wars and World War III are considered the same conflict. However, we do know that these different names likely referred to distinct periods of time during this overall conflict.

That’s because the first name for what would be called a global conflict was “the Second Civil War;” at this point, the presentation Pike is showing to a group of aliens shows footage of the January 6th attack on the United States Capitol. Putting aside the wacky politics of this as a creative decision (is Star Trek really linking Khan and Donald Trump in official canon?!?), this gives us an approximate timeline of events. The Second Civil War starts in early 2021, the Eugenics Wars begin sometime after 2024, and World War III breaks out in 2026.

2026: The End Of The World As We Know It

Hey, that’s this year! Since Star Trek has predicted that this is the end of the world, you should probably take the time to put your affairs in order. Tell your loved ones how much they mean to you, make time for your own needs, and remove anything from your life that no longer sparks joy.

After the last episode of Starfleet Academy, that probably includes your Paramount+ subscription. Trust me: even if the world doesn’t end in apocalyptic disaster, you don’t need a streamer whose exclusives feel like every single biblical plague, all rolled into one!