Star Trek, what I think it should be.....

[Admiral2]

SPEKTRE76 wrote:

---

I know there are many geek cultures out there and beliefs. So, please keep an open mind and also that this is in my own opinion.[LIST=1][*]Get rid of the hokiness![*]Come down to earth.[*]Real military terminology.[*]Real scientific terminology.[*]Needs to be dark and gritty.[*]Aliens need to look like aliens and......[*]Timeline progression through seasons.[*]Character development.[*]Ships need to look like science/military vessels inside and out.[*]Uniforms, I am 15 years ex-Navy don't get me started..oops too late![*]Officers and ENLISTED please! Special forces away teams! Contractors[*]Sound does not travel in space!

Been there, said this. So have other people. Even wrote a fanfic.

Star Trek, MY Way

Thanks for joining us. You realize that none of this is gonna happen right? Cause the masses seem to like idiot Trek? That the success of Abrams Trek - created by a guy who had a chance to do everything you mentioned and just made it ten times worse - is proof of that?

[The Castellan]

SPEKTRE76 wrote:

---

I know there are many geek cultures out there and beliefs. So, please keep an open mind and also that this is in my own opinion.

1. Get rid of the hokiness!
2. Come down to earth.
3. Real military terminology.
4. Real scientific terminology.
5. Needs to be dark and gritty.
6. Aliens need to look like aliens and......
7. Timeline progression through seasons.
8. Character development.
9. Ships need to look like science/military vessels inside and out.
10. Uniforms, I am 15 years ex-Navy don't get me started..oops too late!
11. Officers and ENLISTED please! Special forces away teams! Contractors
12. Sound does not travel in space!

Okay ladies, gentlemen and others; let me explain myself.
Let's talk about

#1, hokiness. I feel that a lot of Sci-Fi shows are campy and don't really try too hard to be serious or realistic in nature. I guess you can say that my number one statement covers all the ones below it however I will explain each individually. One example is using fooking crystals to power a starship!

#2 Another thing is what is seen 'on screen' when traveling faster than light. You can't see fracking stars whiz by. In fact the whole image would look like a 'fisheye' 17mm camera lens. There would be a sphere of a bubble like image that will be more red in color and everything else stretching around it in a blue shift. Watch Carl Sagan's videos on light speed travel on YouTube. It should take some time to go to "warp speed". You shouldn't just zip out in a flash just because it looks cool. Not to mention the ship would rip apart and your skeletons would liquefy. Warp shouldn't be a speed. Perhaps more like bending space time like in 'Event Horizon'. The term 'warp' should be a factor of the space/time dilation (gravity well curvature).

#3 Motherfrackers need to have some military bearing! The Star Trek universe (God rest it's soul) is much like the US Naval universe. So, tradition is very strong with us. We still use terms like 'shipmate' and 'aye aye'. Were also not mambi pambi either even though we practice professionalism and political correctness. Correct names for areas of the ship like C.I.C. (Combat Information Center) or the J.I.C. (Joint Information Center). Those are not all in one place like on the NCC-1701D's bridge. The bridge is where the Capt. sits and a Lieutenant gives some poor 'boot' orders on where to sail the ship. Also there aren't any frigg'n bars on the ship and the idea of a Holo-deck just makes me nauseated. Holograms are just images made of light from refracting images off to dissimilar opposing mirrors to give a very crude 3D effect. They need to have something like the 'Matrix' had except with no head penetration, LOL.

#4 They need to use a lot more of today's terminology and maybe make up some of their own and in the show develop on how that principal came to be. "Beam me up" is not a scientific term of any means.

#5 they show needs to be dark and gritty like the movie 'The Hurt Locker' mixed in with some 'Battle Los Angeles' and a little bit of 'Tron (2011)' without all the neon and some 'Southland'.

#6 Do aliens need to look like people in Halloween costumes? We should see the Annunaki and the Grey's. There needs to be an element to the show that is tied to this and a big one. In fact make t the reason for "Boldly going where no man has gone before". We could be on a trek for the roots of our beginnings and gain an understanding of the universe. We shouldn't automatically hear English speaking aliens from the first time we meet them. In fact there should be a cryptology team on-board that has to research the new found aliens communication means. I could go on and on about this.

#7 Season 1 should start somewhere in the late 21st century like say 2076 or something. Every hundred years should be at least 3 seasons of 25 episodes. We should get to see how interstellar relationships are formed and new technologies found and discovered. In fact the United Federation of Planets shouldn't even exist until season seven at least. The first 5 episodes of season one should focus on the development and history and the agency should be something like the International Deep Space Exploration Agency (I.D.S.E.A.). This should all start with the planting of the first flag on Mars and then move forward from the year 2035 to 2076 where between special events in space exploration history the scene cuts to a class room at the Annapolis, MD US Naval Air and Space Academy in the year 2076 where the proctor is speaking in the third person of how it all came to be like a memory flash back. He could have been a ground controller that got to have a really nice seat to watch it all. And he can be a guest instructor who is in is early sixties.

# 8 Tell us how these people came to be! This should also be an ongoing process to keep people intrigued.

#9 Sorry, but the Enterprise looks cheesy and dated. The ships need to look more military/scientific and FUNCTIONAL to boot. In fact they should be saucer like as seen in the movie Independence Day. Another good example is the large ship in the movie Alien Resurrection.

#10 Uniforms especially working uniforms are not cheesy jumpsuits with communicators that are the logo of the show. The dress uniforms are cheesy as well. And we don't (US Navy) go out on patrol in are fracking whites. We wear cammo and more tactical survival clothing. I will need to sketch up what I mean and add it to this post. Oh one thing off subject. The weapons need to look like weapons and NOT something out of a video game or something you would shave your gonads with.

#11 Where I come from Officers are not technicians and they don't fix anything. And since when is there only one Chief Petty Officer on a ship? There need to be First Class Petty Officers and on down the line. We also need a Navy SEAL element to the crew and use them for away missions NOT THE FOOKING upper chain-of-command, get real! What about astrophysicsist' contractors and nuclear engineers maintenance techs, PMC companies, archeologists, geologist's, medical staff not just one fooking doctor! And engineering is more than 10 people, sorry, I have personally seen it. I have my ESWS and my EAWS pin for frack sake.

#12 No-brainer you don't hear sh!@ in space. Thankfully they realized this in the 2009 Star Trek movie.

Okay guys there is my mini rant. I will do some sketching over the weekend to further illustrate my feelings.

1: you mean gloomy and depressing? And what do you want, ships that run on unleaded? And crystals have been known for having various properties and energies. Don't believe me? Take 2 big chunks of quartz, preferably with flat, broken ends, go into a dark room and rub the rough sides together....they will be glowing green light. And the crystals on Star Trek merely helped control the mixture of matter and anti-matter.

2: Sagen's a tool. He's also the one who pretty much thinks there's nothing out there, or that we'll never find them, and I heard he actually changed that idea and said differently shortly before he died. And from my own experiences, I've seen various UFO's ~awaits the eye rolling~ that have already violated both NEwton's and ~sarcastic gasp~ Einstein's physics. And if they can do all that, I am sure going faster than light, as well as doing it right away, would be a no brainer for them. See, just because we can't officially go faster than light, I am certain that given that many stars are much, much older than our sun, that there's species out there with a million, if not billion, years ahead of us. And they'd make any of our so-called high technology look like prehistoric junk.

3: Yea, they are gotta be locked up in sardine cans with no warmth or personality, especially when going out there to explore the great beyond, though I feel you'd be against that and more for mainly military based missions, instead. Bars and halodecs, and a bunch of other stuff, are needed to help keep crews from going crazy, especially if they are going to be out there for years.

4: In the future, our terminology will probably be laughed at. I'd rather see "beam me up" than today's crap of LOL, WTF, 1337, and so on. Plus a lot of today's scientific terms sound even sillier.

5: you mean, dark, distopian and showing man, and everyone else, at their worse times, rather than something hopeful and good? I like Trek because of that....it's one of the FEW series that shows man having actually grown up and tossed aside the infantile mentality that is the accepted, mainstream behavior of today. Logan's Run, Battlestar Galactica, Mad Max, and even Doctor Who all focus on man's worst, where it's all hell and social Darwinism rules supreme. Trek is different because it does not do that.

6: That I don't mind, and that's going to be an element of my own stories. I give you Kudos for knowing what Annunaki are ~gives you a cookie~ And I am shooting for many aliens who look nothing like we'd expect. Though I am sure there are room for some human looking aliens, like the Nordics.

7: Prequels are always a very risky thing, George Lucas practically alienated a lot of the loyal, long time Star Wars fans by doing so.

8: Doing that in my own planned stories. I've done a lot of background material on them, and going to put them in somewhere, though getting to the main stories is the most important thing.

9: Ehhhh...I like classic Trek ships. Like with 5, Trek deviated from the norm. I never liked the giant, flying shoe boxes seen in the alien films, plus city sized space ships can be a pain the ass to handle and most giant ships I associate with hostile conqueror types. Like Star Destroyers. Plus there's sure to be enough saucers by their own out there, in my own stories, the saucers are mainly Dalek vessels.

10: Uniforms are just fine....in fact, I am glad they are not camos or fatigues. And seeing as how Starfleet is not the US Military, thank goodness, and is the main scientific/exploratory/diplomatic/defense entity of the Federation, we're not going to have everyone in Starfleet shouting "Sir, yes sir!" and acting like the Marines from Aliens, and I sure as hell don't want to see them start wearing black uniforms and toting large blasters around. As for weapons, I like that they are small, functional and different....the weapons seen often in Star Wars or Aliens are mainly just for looking 'kewl' on screen and, to me at least, look obnoxious. And seeing phasers used also for tools makes them even more useful than big ass cannons we see in other science fictions.

11: Once again, this is not the US armed forces. And I think it's refreshing to see the head officers actually do stuff then just bark the orders and everyone else shouting "sir, yes sir!" and what not. Like in both "The NAkek Time" and "the Doomsday Machine", we saw Kirk and Scotty doing repairs, and I liked that. I like seeing the head officers going on away missions, and not with marines kitted out for battle.....a bunch of armed marines on a new planet the Federation is having an official first contact is not going to hold up well, especially if the people on the planet are against violence and so on, marines might make them think they are going to be either occupiers or conquers rather than someone wanting to say hi and offering friendship.

12: You might not hear sh!@ in space, but often, especially with action sequences, don't work right on screen.

[Temis the Vorta]

noone's going to sit through watching a space battle scene without a single noise on the screen...

Firefly used no-sound-in-space to good effect. It's eerie seeing an explosion without the expected sound.

But this is an aesthetic call - there's no particular need to adhere to scientific logic when they're defying it every day with FTL travel and transporters and humanoid aliens everywhere. And if everyone started using no-sound-in-space, the effectiveness would quickly wear off.

Prequels are always a very risky thing, George Lucas practically alienated a lot of the loyal, long time Star Wars fans by doing so.

Don't blame the prequel concept for Lucas' total ineptitude as a storyteller, except when he has someone to correct his mistakes before anything is committed to the screen. [brokenrecord] The Clone Wars is amply demonstrating that the prequel concept itself was never the problem, and Lucas does just fine, given adult supervision. [/brokenrecord]

[zar]

If you say we shouldn't hear sound during space scenes, you're asking the realism to extend beyond the story and into production. It's like saying we shouldn't be able to see the action at all because there are no cameras in space or on uninhabited planets. It's not a story issue: Whenever the characters actually do go into space with EV suits, sound does not travel and they need to communicate through radio.

[SPEKTRE76]

I think only one of you actually got what I was saying. And Jitty and Randy are just trolling. Of course I know what Star Trek is. I've never encounted such sarcastic closed mindedness before on any ST forum.

Zar the ID4 'saucer's look more realistic because they looked like they function and don't look like a yacht stylist made them. And the inside of the Event Horizon space craft looks way more like what I'm trying to describe, in-fact almost spot on. Most of you seem hellbent on the 24th century as where in my post I stated it should start in the late 21st. Methos, please stop trolling and saying I'm trying to copy some other show. I have never even seen Babylon 5. And from the looks of the videos I just watched are no where near what I was talking about. The only series that watched that was spot on in displaying military minded behavior in close quaters living was BSG.

Oh and Jitty, it's not the word "shorthand" that you should be trying to passive agressively insult me with. We use acronyms and callsigns. They should be saying something like this:

"Enterprise, team echo one is kilo alpha, ready for transport at grid two-zero-zero-seven-niner" You know basic comunications phraseology. For those of you unfamilar with Naval Air Traffic Control "Kilo Alpha" means 'mission ready' and kilo bravo the opposite.

And to the Coast Guard guy, go research who Gene was and where he came from and then comeback and tell me that ST isn't based on the Navy in anyway. BTW you guys have cute little rafts.

[zar]

SPEKTRE76 wrote:

---

Zar the ID4 'saucer's look more realistic because they looked like they function and don't look like a yacht stylist made them.

I asked how they look more functional and your answer is "because they look like they function". That doesn't tell me anything. The ships in Star Trek were designed by people with extraordinary attention to detail who provide rationale for every detail and create comprehensive blueprints, so you're making a fairly bold claim when you say a generic flying saucer with randomly placed bumps and grooves does a better job at "functional".

SPEKTRE76 wrote:

---

They should be saying something like this:

"Enterprise, team echo one is kilo alpha, ready for transport at grid two-zero-zero-seven-niner"

Why should they say that and not "Team Edward One is King Apples", as per an old phonetic alphabet of the British navy? Like technology, military jargon changes over time and across cultures. Star Trek is about a "United Earth" where no one culture dominates and it takes place in the future. Using that language would unnecessarily tie it to one specific culture and time period.

[SPEKTRE76]

zar I'm not going to keep arguing with you. If your going to troll can you please go do it somewhere else. You're acting like my whole thread is offensive. Maybe you should read the title and the pre-face first before you start spouting off at the mouth. This is just my idea and I'm not saying anyone elses is stupid. Your automatically assuming that I am saying "this is how it's going to be and that's final". I guess I am talking to a wall.

[zar]

SPEKTRE76 wrote:

---

... such sarcastic closed mindedness ... trying to passive agressively insult me ... troll ...

SPEKTRE76 wrote:

---

You're acting like my whole thread is offensive.

Really? I'm acting offended?

SPEKTRE76 wrote:

---

Your automatically assuming that I am saying "this is how it's going to be and that's final".

I'm not automatically assuming anything, I'm just offering a reasoned critique. But if you don't want people to think that is your attitude, perhaps you should stop automatically calling everyone who disagrees with you a "troll".

[SPEKTRE76]

The Castellan;5926804
1: you mean gloomy and depressing? [B wrote:

---

No at all[/B]

2: Sagen's a tool. He's also the one who pretty much thinks there's nothing out there, or that we'll never find them, and I heard he actually changed that idea and said differently shortly before he died. And from my own experiences, I've seen various UFO's ~awaits the eye rolling~ that have already violated both NEwton's and ~sarcastic gasp~ Einstein's physics. And if they can do all that, I am sure going faster than light, as well as doing it right away, would be a no brainer for them. See, just because we can't officially go faster than light, I am certain that given that many stars are much, much older than our sun, that there's species out there with a million, if not billion, years ahead of us. And they'd make any of our so-called high technology look like prehistoric junk. No eye rolling here

3: Yea, they are gotta be locked up in sardine cans with no warmth or personality, especially when going out there to explore the great beyond, though I feel you'd be against that and more for mainly military based missions, instead. Bars and halodecs, and a bunch of other stuff, are needed to help keep crews from going crazy, especially if they are going to be out there for years. The French Navy has liquor onboard-God Bless them. So, I understand your argument on bars. I just can't see having families on board a military vessel. Sorry but no matter what century we are in that will never happen. I wasn't against any form of entertainment just the way it is portrayed in the series. You can't physically interact with a hologram. I was thinking more along the lines of 'The Matrix' or 'Inception' and how they do it. Not with a big needle in the head but maybe something the wear. Have you ever seen 'The Cell'? More like that way. If you notice some dreams seem very real at times. Maybe by then they will have figured out a way to manipulate the human brains dream state?

4: In the future, our terminology will probably be laughed at. I'd rather see "beam me up" than today's crap of LOL, WTF, 1337, and so on. Plus a lot of today's scientific terms sound even sillier. ?

5: you mean, dark, distopian and showing man, and everyone else, at their worse times, rather than something hopeful and good? NO, i am referring to the visual asthetic of the show. If you have ever seen Riddick and Pandorum, that's what I mean is the visual asthetic.

6: That I don't mind, and that's going to be an element of my own stories. I give you Kudos for knowing what Annunaki are ~gives you a cookie~ And I am shooting for many aliens who look nothing like we'd expect. Though I am sure there are room for some human looking aliens, like the Nordics.

Cookie was great! Yeah there can be tons of room for humanoid aliens. I mean if you watch Ancient Aliens on HD2 you'll have come across and episode where they reffer to us being made in 'thier' image. I'm also on the Ancient Aliens forums as 'MONOLITH' here's one of my threads: http://www.legendarytimes.com/forum/...php?f=5&t=4892 This one I was 'SPEKTRE76' but the devs messed up the site and I lost my profile.

7: Prequels are always a very risky thing, George Lucas practically alienated a lot of the loyal, long time Star Wars fans by doing so. Point taken but I only wanted each century 21st -24th to last only a frew episodes or a couple of seasons. The 25th century is where I really feel we should be since we've already seen the 24th?

8: Doing that in my own planned stories. I've done a lot of background material on them, and going to put them in somewhere, though getting to the main stories is the most important thing.

9: Ehhhh...I like classic Trek ships. Like with 5, Trek deviated from the norm. I never liked the giant, flying shoe boxes seen in the alien films, plus city sized space ships can be a pain the ass to handle and most giant ships I associate with hostile conqueror types. Like Star Destroyers. Plus there's sure to be enough saucers by their own out there, in my own stories, the saucers are mainly Dalek vessels.

10: Uniforms are just fine....in fact, I am glad they are not camos or fatigues. And seeing as how Starfleet is not the US Military, thank goodness, and is the main scientific/exploratory/diplomatic/defense entity of the Federation, we're not going to have everyone in Starfleet shouting "Sir, yes sir!" and acting like the Marines from Aliens, and I sure as hell don't want to see them start wearing black uniforms and toting large blasters around. As for weapons, I like that they are small, functional and different....the weapons seen often in Star Wars or Aliens are mainly just for looking 'kewl' on screen and, to me at least, look obnoxious. And seeing phasers used also for tools makes them even more useful than big ass cannons we see in other science fictions. LOL, no fatigues my brother. I was thinking more like modernized astronuat fligh suits for 'working uniforms'. And as far as weapons, something like the KRISS V smg that fires a sabot round that can be electronicaly charged in a way to break on impact and stun or become explosive on impact which you wouldn't want to set it to ever aboard a startship, lol.

11: Once again, this is not the US armed forces. And I think it's refreshing to see the head officers actually do stuff then just bark the orders and everyone else shouting "sir, yes sir!" and what not. Like in both "The NAkek Time" and "the Doomsday Machine", we saw Kirk and Scotty doing repairs, and I liked that. I like seeing the head officers going on away missions, and not with marines kitted out for battle.....a bunch of armed marines on a new planet the Federation is having an official first contact is not going to hold up well, especially if the people on the planet are against violence and so on, marines might make them think they are going to be either occupiers or conquers rather than someone wanting to say hi and offering friendship.

I see what you are saying and you hit it on the head. I'm not saying it should be the US military. I only refference it because it's what I can relate to. Officers should be used for diplomacy more than 'ship work'. Granted I have seen officers working before while I was deployed but it wasn't all the time like in ST. Officers should go on away teams but not a team comprised of officers entirely especially when heading into a hostile zone.

12: You might not hear sh!@ in space, but often, especially with action sequences, don't work right on screen.

I still like the way J. J. Abrams did it. In fact the characters act is exactly how I would like it. They seem more realistic and unscripted to me anyway. I loved how they did 'Bones' and 'Scotty'.

Annotated in bold above in the quote.

[SPEKTRE76]

zar wrote:

---

Really? I'm acting offended?

I'm not automatically assuming anything, I'm just offering a reasoned critique. But if you don't want people to think that is your attitude, perhaps you should stop automatically calling everyone who disagrees with you a "troll".

A troll is somone who mocks and provides no constructive contributions to the thread and tends to argue for arguements sake and always say "if you don't want people too......".

[zar]

^ Ah, so we're in agreement that no one is trolling, then.

SPEKTRE76 wrote:

---

Point taken but I only wanted each century 21st -24th to last only a frew episodes or a couple of seasons. The 25th century is where I really feel we should be since we've already seen the 24th?

Okay, I'm confused. Wasn't your rationale for the US Navy inspiration that it would be set in the 21st century? If it's focused on the 25th century, do you still say they should be living in cramped ships and saying "kilo alpha"?

[Herkimer Jitty]

SPEKTRE76 wrote:

---

Most of you seem hellbent on the 24th century as where in my post I stated it should start in the late 21st. .

Nononononono

No.

You said the show should take place over the course of a few centuries, starting with the 21st. Ditching the main cast every time it moved forward, necessitating entirely new props, sets, costumes, vfx and ship designs every time. That is untenable for the writers and the production people.

As a writer, I would hate working on that show. No proper time to flesh out my characters, having to suddenly jump forward 25, 50, 100 years every season.

And yes, I'm clinging to the 24th century like driftwood, even though I have no problem with ditching the tired trappings and storytelling devices of TNG and it's spinoffs.

[nightwind1]

SPEKTRE76 wrote:

---

zar I'm not going to keep arguing with you. If your going to troll can you please go do it somewhere else. You're acting like my whole thread is offensive.

That's because it is.

[Herkimer Jitty]

SPEKTRE, I'm just gonna be strait-up honest.

The problem here is that you were entirely dismissive of everything that's been the sum of Star Trek for a while. It's the reaction you'd get if you chopped off the Chrysler' Building's crown and replaced it with an angular modern steel and glass piece. Too aggressive, too dismissive. You got the same in kind as a response from other users, myself included. Your condescending replies have done very little to help your case. Or calm anyone's nerves.

[RandyS]

SPEKTRE76 wrote:

---

I think only one of you actually got what I was saying. And Jitty and Randy are just trolling. Of course I know what Star Trek is. I've never encounted such sarcastic closed mindedness before on any ST forum.

I was? I thought I was expressing my opinion.

Sorry, I keep forgetting that's not allowed.