I think most of us agree a new series would be a good thing (if done properly), but what setting would you like to see it on? I don't mean Prime/Nu universe, but on what actual structure would you want the action to take place? A single starship - The classic format. A fleet - Multiple ships/characters. A station - One that doesn't have a wormhole nextdoor. A colony - A new home in the unknown.
A 23rd century starship (named Enterprise) exploring the frontier, providing support for colony worlds, being the defense and police of the frontier and encountering weird shit. The captain would be a larger-than-life hero who punches bad guys, saves the day and gets the girl (or guy). Pretty much an updated version of TOS.
A 25th-Century starship in a distant corner of the Galaxy. Far enough way to frequently encounter new worlds and new civilizations, but still close enough to the Federation border to occasionally return to a starbase or visit a Federation colony, as well as encounter other Starfleet vessels in that region from time to time.
A colony ship that gets "lost in space" would be an interesting premise. They have to find a new world, deal with the hostile natives, build a new home, while trying to establish contact with home. So this not only would feature new aliens, but we'd actually get the chance to explore them deeply instead of being single cliche stereotypes.
Why does Star Trek always have to be the same recipe mixed together slightly different to produce something "new?" What really caused the series to stagnate and finally fizzle out, was just that... we're always getting the same concept over and over since DS9.
Well, Star Trek is what it is and it is about big heroes exploring the final frontier. I'm not exactly sure why Star Trek needs to be something else? Put it this way, I love the sport of American football. But I have a great idea on how to make the game even better by adding bats and round balls and having bases where players are safe. It could be the best thing ever, but is it still football at that point?
You're comparing the creative writing process or an entire universe setting spanning hundreds of years to... sports? Okay.... Football is a game with set limits and rules. By it's very definition it can't be more, it's not trying to tell a story, it just is. The only rules in Trek are the ones imposed on ourselves. It can be anything. DS9 did just fine even though it wasn't a space ship boldly going. Heck, it's my favorite of the Trek series being the setting forced the writers to get creative and focus more on characterization. It's great to have a new alien of the week, it's even better to learn and explore those aliens of the weeks because you're dealing with them every day. What is a new series or movie with another ship boldly going where no one has gone before going to give us but a slightly different version of what we've seen in TOS, the movies, TNG, it's movies, VOY and Enterprise? Was there -anything- in Into Darkness we really hadn't already seen before? Yes, something new would be a welcome change.
Football has changed alot over the decades. But the point of the question is: how far can you move away from the core concepts of a TV show and still be considered part of that same universe? Star Trek is Star Trek, it's about exploring the stars, it's right there in the title. I see lots of interesting ideas in here but why should we be constrained by the Trek universe when there are many wildly talented individuals who are perfectly capable of creating their own distinct universes if given a chance. The title "Star Trek" is starting to seem like a creative crutch. I simply don't want something shoe-horned into the Star Trek universe for the sake of nostalgia or because of a fanbase that simply can't let go. I want something new. When I say I want something new, I mean I want something new.
No offense, Bill, citing this: And then asking for this: Seems a bit contradictory. I mean, I get what you're trying to say, but just how "new" does new have to be? At its most basic level, what is (real) Star Trek? How do we define it? If we say it's something as simple as "Wagon Train to the Stars," then we've included four of the five series and all the films. Make it more specific like, "The intrepid crew of the Starship Enterprise seeking out new life and civilizations," and now it's only three series. Or we could make the classification more broad and say something like, "A series of stories, set in the Star Trek universe, that explore the human condition," and we've included everything. I think the goal is to then keep elements of the "old" but make them different so they feel "new." Like your football analogy, I think it's safer to say it's best to take something from something else that's similar and try to incorporate and adapt it to fit, like the forward pass. Which is what Star Trek has done the past with DS9 and VOY. TPTB took story concepts from similar shows and molded them to fit in the Star Trek universe. R. Star's idea just takes it a step further. It's basically DS9 and VOY thrown in a pot together with pinch of Lost for seasoning. If someone wanted to, I think he could take such a concept and make as "Star Trek" as he wanted. However, I don't think that's the best direction for the television franchise. (I would like to see more of that kind of thing in the lit-verse, however.) I think if and when there's a TV series, it's best to stick to the basics. Or, as I said in the other thread: stick with the "The intrepid crew of the Starship Enterprise seeking out new life and civilizations" idea. There are plenty of ways people could change the concept around and still make it "new." That said, given the option, the Enterprise is best left on the big screen. That is to say, if it's an either/or situation stick with the Enterprise. If Paramount wants to try both again, keep the Enterprise on the big screen and do something else for the small one. And, honestly, I think for the time being it's going to just be movies. Even if the nucast fizzles after STIII, and they're skeptical about a new casting turnaround, there's always the potential of nuTNG. I know the idea is usually scoffed at as a "never going to happen," but someone at Paramount has to be thinking, "Those 9 million weekly viewers all have kids now." Either way, expect to see feature film Enterprise for at least another decade. But if someone over at CBS gets antsy and wants to dip his toe in the TV (or streaming) water, I think it's still best to stick with "wagon train to the stars" and not deviate too far. Just, err, make sure it's better than Voyager. All that said, if I could wave a magic wand and have my number one fanboy dream show, it would be an Aventine series. Aside from the Vesta class being kick ass, the whole idea of ship specifically designed as a test-bed for super-advanced technology and propulsion that could completely redefine Starfleet's core mission seems like cornucopia of story ideas, yet still doing the "exploring the final frontier" thing. And, I admit, it's just an excuse to get Nikki de Boer back on TV. She's utterly stunning these days, definitely one of those ladies who looks better with age. And she's got that whole maternal captainy look going these days. After thinking about it for a while, I've decided that if TV and film are to run parallel, it might be best to keep the TV show in the Prime-verse. At the very least, it would alleviate any potential conflict. But, more importantly, it would keep things compartmentalized. I sure there would be some concerns about "well it might confuse people," but I think they'd be completely overblown the same as that silly Warner Brothers/DC embargo is. Hell, they could even use Starfleet's search for Spock and Nero as the launching point of the pilot, since (I believe.) both Ezri's promotion and the destruction of Romulus occur in 2383. So you've got a new concept to start from, that isn't so different from the old one. And, while I'm not an expert on the slipstream drive, there's always the potential to send the ship off into Andromeda, I suppose. The benefit of forming the show around an already established character who isn't so tied to her previous series that it'd just feel like a sequel. (As in say Riker/Titan.) Not completely cutting bait and jumping another century at (essentially) another reboot. But distancing the show enough from the old universe to keep it fresh, yet leaving enough ties to it (And possibly the nuverse!) to keep it welcoming for long-time fans.
Story ideas about endless techno-babble? Whle I do think the show should be set on a starship, having the ship be anything more than a way to get from story to story likely wouldn't be that important. Kirk's ship was old, it was the characters and the situations that were the important part of the show. A ship a mile long or one 500 feet long, not my first concideration. How many ober-powerful giga-phaser banks it has ... who cares.
I agree that on what the next series is set isn't as important as the characters or getting good actors to play them, good writers to give them plenty to face and resolve. The setting does however influence what kind of characters we'd get and the stories they can tell. Personally if they went for a starship next time I'd want it to have some age to it, so it wasn't a super-ship that could do everything and come out without a scratch.
One does not beget the other. Really all need be said is, "This is slipstream drive. It's a lot faster than warpdrive." Anything beyond that would be superfluous. The problem with the technobabble in the 90s wasn't the technology description itself, but the lack of brevity. The writers went out of their way, it seemed, to be as verbose as possible. You could take a smart phone with you back to the 50s and describe it as "A telephone you take with you that provides its own directory and library of information." Or describe it like they do on some of those techy vlogs. The story ideas would relate to how, if the project is a success, then the entire map of the entire galaxy (not just the Alpha Quadrant) is completely redrawn. There's a lot at stake. There's also the matter of whether or not the political atmosphere of the Federation changes once it has such an unfair advantage over the other powers. Power corrupts and all that. The technology itself is just a prop, just like it was in TOS. But since it's new and untested, having it break all the time could keep things interesting. (As long as it doesn't resort to silly antics like TFF.) One of the biggest mistakes Voyager did IMO is make the ship perfectly shiny and new. It would have been so much better had it been the Intrepid class prototype. The Enterprise was as much a character of TOS as any of the actors where. TNG lost that connection, and the other three shows never really found a way to find it again. The whole idea is to bring it back. Not sure how this is applicable. I never implied anything of the sort.
Trek is guilty about almost always giving the good guys the "best" ship. There's so much better storytelling about the inferior protagonist overcoming the odds due to guile. Enterprise got that much right, if not much else.