- Do you think that some parts of the Earth are still being reclaimed/detoxified after world war 3?
A possibility. We know that the Eastern Seaboard of the US, Indiana and Paris did get hit, and that is likely why San Francisco appears to be the global capital of United Earth in the 22nd century. If anywhere is still being detoxified by the 2150s, it's likely mainland Asia. Maybe Eastern Europe or the majority of Africa or Australiasia or Central America got it bad as well. But mainland Asia is my bet; the lack of presence of Middle Easterners, Central Asians, South Asians and Chinese is glaring considering how much of Earth’s population they make up. Meanwhile in later series, we see Africa presences (Uhura and the Laforges), Eastern European presence (Chekov and Irina Galiulin), and a Latin American presence (Ortegas, and (by-way-of-Japan), Hoshi). Hoshi even had a pen pal from Australia growing up. And there is no reason not to believe that the Bashirs have lived in the UK for centuries, long before the 22nd century.
Of course, maybe a large number of the mainland Asia populace boarded a few Space Arks and left Earth to colonize a planet or two, and just want nothing to do with Earth as a whole.
- Are there any generational divides between those who remember living amidst the post atomic horror, and those who were born later, into increasingly more stable times (I'm guessing that those who were alive in the late 21st/early 22nd centuries would still be having a rough time of it...)?
Henry Archer was born, if not in the middle of the post-atomic horror, then at the end of it i.e. late 2070s. There’s never been anything to indicate a divide between his generation (that includes Zefram Cochrane, Lily Sloane, and Emory Erickson), and his son’s generation (from the NX crews to Admiral Forrest to bartenders like Ruby to intelligence agents in Gannet Brooks and Harris) in the show.
At the same time, we know that Neo-Transcendentalism is a thing in the early 22nd century, founded by Liam Dieghan. So, if there was a divide, it would be based on the reliance of technology, since technology was really important to get Earth out from the post-atomic horror. And its just as likely that technology is what got them into the post-atomic horror mess in the first place.
There’s also the fact that Earth seems to have cured every disease humans have ever known prior to the 22nd century, and they did it without turning the population into Augments (though a culling of the population prior to that during the post-atomic horror cannot be ignored). But since new diseases do crop up, perhaps there is a divide on genetic engineering – not just because of its value for medicinal purposes, but because genetic engineering is illegal. And while I never got the sense that Archer's family would have broken the law to save Henry Archer, it does not rule out other families chosing to do so to save a loved one.
Would they react differently to the idea that nation states are starting to mean something different to what they used to, and the notion of world government becoming more mainstream?
We never really see a resistance toward Earth government. It seems like humans in the 22nd century see their regional cultures as a small part of a wider global community. Like how Texas, California, Pacific Northwest, the Midwest, and New England are all unique cultures within the United States, for example. And that’s likely because the 22nd century humans know what the alternative is; as the United Earth movement stalled out shortly after first contact, people were killing each other for fun. And that seemed to end once the United Earth movement got going again.
But the fact that there are British and Russian sublight vessels in existence, and Reed’s father wanted him to join the Royal Navy indicates that nationalism does still exist. It’s just not widely popular and likely on the fringe of 22nd century society.
- What would people make of humans leaving Earth to make a living in deep space? Are they envious, or do they think Space Boomers have abandoned Earth in a time of need?
I think the conversation that Mayweather brothers had on the ECS Horizon was very similar to the humans staying on Earth had with both the early Space Boomers and those that left on the Terra space arks to colonize new world. Only instead of Paul Mayweather being critical of Travis leaving the Horizon to join Starfleet, Space Boomers like Paul Mayweather would have been on the other side of the argument and been criticized by those that chose to remain on Earth.
Now since Zefram Cochrane did leave Earth to live on Alpha Centauri, I have to believe that those that chose to left Earth maybe not have been as harshly criticized as Paul criticized Travis. Since Cochrane also leaving would have legitimized the movement.
- Vulcans have certainly assisted Earth during this period, but they have also hindered as well, and for seemingly inscrutable reasons from a human perspective. What do you think the balance of opinion on them is - good or bad?
Archer, Trip and even Hoshi show that there is not a widespread positive rection to Vulcans. And Terra Prime took those sentiment to the extreme.
Of course, we do not know if any other humans bonded with Andorians over personal issues with Vulcans. We really only see Archer and Shran; Trip and Hoshi, while on friendly terms, never seem to show the same strong bond to Shran or Andorians as Archer does.
In the Vulcans defense, they themselves did not expect to remain on Earth for 90 years either. They probably those that they would help humans a bit with their space program and them move on. They probably saw enough humans getting a thrill of killing someone else (as Lily Sloane put it) that they realized they needed to both guide and pacify Earth before they traveled to the stars and start an interstellar war. That the Earth-Kzin Wars are in the same timeframe as the post-atomic horror likely validated their beliefs.
As for the average citizen, they likely do not know about the Vulcan-Romulans schism. And aren’t even going to consider that some Romulans are still living among Vulcans, let alone are reaching the top of Vulcan government and influencing Vulcan society. And I’m sure that the Vulcans choosing not help Earth during the Xindi crisis did not help matters. So any mistrust or distrust of Vulcans would still exist on a low level.
Vulcan influence seems to have been in the realm of law and philosophy. It has to be, since we see captains centuries later having to play defense attorneys in court martials and inquests, and that requires them to put their emotions aside and argue in a logical way. And we know that the post-atomic humans killed all the lawyers and believed in guilty until proven innocent. It’s likely that the Vulcans had to restructure the human legal system. And that's what probabaly gets to 22nd century humans the most - they are litterally following the rules according to how Vuclans see them, since it's Vulcan philosophy that is influencing those laws, and in turn, social customs on Earth. They aren't digging the Vulcan version of polticial correctness.
How about opinions on aliens in general?
I think any human opinion on other aliens is largely limited to shared medical knowledge and interstellar trade. We don’t know if Archer’s discoveries and first contacts were immediately broadcasted back to Earth.
We know xenophobes like Paxton are hypocrites and rely on medicine like Rigelian gene therapy.
I would also suspect that many human-alien romances don’t last very long or are very on and off in the 22nd century, at least prior to the romance of Trip and T’Pol. As there are cultural barriers that have to be overcome on both ends.
