I noticed Star Trek had relatively few Asians, Chinese, Muslims, some Europeans, many North Americans.
The cannon says there was a WW3 that killed a billion+. You have that circle in the Indo-Pacific with a 500 mile radius where more than half of humanity lives.
Have a major India-Pakistan and/or Saudi-Iran nuclear war trigger further smaller conflicts AND knock out transportation so that people can’t flee as they are right now (like nuclear winter killing crops while EMPs destroyed most transit), and the most densely populated parts of Asia and the Middle East get depopulated while Africa sees a major depopulation from family.
Europe has a declining population (if they have the sense to stop the Muslim invasion), and North America is stable in numbers, so we’re still a major world power. We’d just have to rebuild infrastructure and minor damage.
This scenario explains why 60% of the world is Indian, Chinese or African and darn near none are in Star Trek’s universe. And why ones like Sisko are so clearly African-American (name, accent).
Off the top of my head and my Star Trek card/autographed photos collection, I can think of a number of non-white genuine actors who have been in that TV series and the follow-up movies.
Robert Hooks - A Commodore
Moses Gunn? - a senior Federation official - The Voyage Home?
George Takei - Japanese American
Nichelle Nichols - black, I’m not in a PC mood tonite
Frances Nuyen - Vietnamese, “Elaan of Troyius” and my favorite scarf-shirt wearer (She made her blouses out of her multicolored scarves and ever time I met her, she had a different one on).
Michael Dohrn - black - ST:TNG
Levar Burton- black - ST:TNG
Alex Siddig (Siddique) - North African/Sudanese or Egyptian, DS9
Penny Johnson - black - DS9
Whoopi Goldberg - black - Guinan ST/TNG
Rosalind Chao - Keiko Ishikawa O’Brien, ST/TNG - Japanese
? - Nurse Alyssa Ogawa - Japanese
Avery Brooks - black and a great Shakespearean actor - DS9
Cirroc Lofton - STDS9 - black
Tim Russ - black - Voyager
Robert Beltran - Hispanic - Voyager
Roxanne Dawson - mixed Hispanic and other - Voyager
Garrett Wang - Chinese - Voyager
One actor in Babylon 5, male
Others - Kang (Chinese); another Chinese conqueror; etc.
Gene Roddenberry and his writers were not racists at all. In fact they pioneered the integration of “colored” actors into television as just parts of a normal space exploration crew.
And the Sci-Fi people loved it! That is what makes America so great - we can put all different kinds of people together and come out with great scientists, teachers, military leaders, athletes, business people, a few politicians, actors/actresses, and even conservative black writers.
Roddenberry saw much further into the future of America and the world than did almost any other writer, and made Sci-Fi more than just entertainment. It also made you think.
Thank you Gene wherever you are “Out there, 3rd Star to the Left”.
I remember a “Star Trek: The Next Generation” episode where commander Riker mentioned that World War III happened in the 21st century and killed 600 million people.