A Terceira Guerra Mundial (e sua troca nuclear resultante e subsequent unpleasantness ) foi referenciado em todos os shows da Trek até o momento. Você pode querer notar que tem sido descrito de forma muito inconsistente, principalmente porque os escritores do programa parecem estar um pouco em conflito sobre se as Guerras Eugênicas deve ser considerado como parte da Terceira Guerra Mundial ou algo distinto.
TOS
SPOCK: They do seem to have escaped the carnage of your first three world wars, Doctor.
MCCOY: They have slavery, gladiatorial games, despotism.
SPOCK: Situations quite familiar to the six million who died in your first world war, the eleven million who died in your second, the thirty seven million who died in your third. Shall I go on?
TNG
DATA: According to our astrometric readings we're in the mid twenty-first century. From the radioactive isotopes in the atmosphere I would estimate we have arrived approximately ten years after the Third World War.
RIKER: Makes sense. Most of the major cities have been destroyed. There are few governments left. Six hundred million dead. No resistance.
DS9
BASHIR: Two years? Isn't that a bit harsh?
BENNETT: I don't think so. Two hundred years ago we tried to improve the species through DNA resequencing, and what did we get for our trouble? The Eugenics Wars. For every Julian Bashir that can be created, there's a Khan Singh waiting in the wings. A superhuman whose ambition and thirst for power have been enhanced along with his intellect. The law against genetic engineering provides a firewall against such men and it's my job to keep that firewall intact. I've made my offer. Do you accept?
RICHARD: Yes.
VOY
DOCTOR: Throughout human history weapons of mass destruction were often designed in the hopes that they'd never be used.
SEVEN: And yet, in Earth's Third World War, nuclear weapons accounted for six hundred million casualties. Were they looking on the bright side?
DOCTOR: An unfortunate exception.
ENT
ARCHER: For thousands of years, my people had similar problems. We fought three world wars that almost destroyed us. Whole generations were nearly wiped out.
KOLOS: What changed?
ARCHER: A few courageous people began to realise they could make a difference.
e
JOSIAH: And they sat by while millions of our people died. World War Three.
TUCKER: We didn't make contact with the Vulcans until ten years after the war.
JOSIAH: But they were up there with their superior technology. They could've stopped it, but they didn't. I think it suited their plans. A devastated Earth was much easier for them to control.