The END of Trek?

[Gaith]

Enty's gettin' just a little bit lonesome out there

So I recently saw "Azati Prime", which features one of the later-chronological scenes of Trek, and found myself wishing, again, that the bloody Temporal Cold War had never been a thing. And, it got me wondering once more: is there a time for Trek to end?

I'm not talking about the franchise, mind. I'm glad that we're back to the TOS days, and I like the alternate timeline. By all means, let's keep spinning alternate timelines on indefinitely.

But the galactic narrative? I agree with those who say that Voyager ruined the Borg, especially with "Endshame", but, in fairness, one really only can have the Federation face them so many times and survive without making them ridiculous. Ditto with threats bigger than the Borg, like Species 8472. And good for DS9 for doing a huge war story, involving a whole new quadrant, but would any of us really want to put that era through a similar ringer again?

Then there's the Superman problem: eventually, too much tech becomes suffocating. "Endshame" gives us starships with Bat-armor, and the less said about time travel being as common as warp drive, the better. (I hope that, now that it's established, the JJ-verse eschews further time-travel stuff for a long time, maybe even permanently.)

Bigger tech, bigger baddies: it's only the humans that get small.

TNG and DS9 gave us a Fed-Klingon alliance. Nemesis seems to pave the way for similar good terms with the Rommies.

... What next?

But does there have to always be a 'next"? I hate the Star Wars EU's idea of a massive post-Thrawn alien invasion that makes the Galactic Civil War we know and love look like a warm-up exercise. And I frankly don't much want to see a new alien threat that dwarfs, like, the Borg and 8472 put together, man.

Yes, folks, I like to keep an open mind on principle, but I've got no problem with seeing Trek stories peter out towards the end of the 24th Century. Give us more of the JJ timeline, give us Mirror Universe stuff, maybe a bit of that Captain Riker timeline where the Borg are everywhere... but go even further into the future? I dunno, guys, I dunno...

[C.E. Evans]

I wouldn't worry too much Trek ever going too far into the future. Trek will probably be rebooted again in about ten years. The 23rd-Century is here to stay.

[Gaith]

^ Fine by me. I take great satisfaction in the fact that brainy ol' shiny-top will never be as mass-marketable as the Kirkmeister.

[Nightowl1701]

I think the answer's right there, in that picture of the Enterprise at the galactic barrier. There's your next chapter. That's the one story worth telling in a post 24'th century setting, a story that goes back to the beginning of the saga: The story of the first Federation starship to successfully make it through that ring of pink neon, with no one going silver-eyed...and all the way to our next-door neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy.

Not as a pure accident, but a deliberate journey. Not an invasion, but a simple Marco Polo/Lewis and Clark style meet-greet-and-map. Not a kitbash crew of Starfleet-and-renegades, but a literal miniature Federation (plus allies) in space. (I'm envisioning the Enterprise-J making this trip.) IOW, Voyager done RIGHT.

[-SS-]

I agree with Nightowl.

I also think that dubeau's Enterprise Protostar would be a good hero ship. http://www.3ddub.net/star-trek-enterprise-protostar/

It would be cool to see a ship of humanoids get to interact (more or less peacefully) with some truly alien (not at all huminoid) aliens.

Having a ship with a species-diverse crew also provides a chance to revisit social issue territory that Trek used to do.

[C.E. Evans]

Gaith wrote:

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^ Fine by me. I take great satisfaction in the fact that brainy ol' shiny-top will never be as mass-marketable as the Kirkmeister.

Yeah, I think the only way we'll ever get out of the 23rd-Century again is if CBS suddenly gets nostalgic about TNG and authorizes a remake, hoping that lightning strikes twice with it.

Otherwise, I think what'll come next after the Abramsverse will be a total wiping of the slate with yet another version of Kirk and the gang.

[Bry_Sinclair]

Nu-Trek is pretty good (if they would only scale back the size of the ships and turn off the lense flare generator), it probably will be where Trek will continue for a few films before a TV series will spin off from it. But ideally, I would love to see a Prime Universe series, set in 2378-ish with the quadrant still in shambles and the wounds of the war still fresh.

We've had massive wars and battles and conflicts, but we've never had the aftermath--the rebuilding (of the fleet and lives), the refugees, the sturggles, etc, all the stuff that really tests people.

In a perfect world, that is the next Trek series I would like to see. But whatever comes along next, I'll watch it and see how it does (it can't get any worse than some of VOY and ENT).

[King Daniel]

But does there have to always be a 'next"? I hate the Star Wars EU's idea of a massive post-Thrawn alien invasion that makes the Galactic Civil War we know and love look like a warm-up exercise. And I frankly don't much want to see a new alien threat that
dwarfs, like, the Borg and 8472 put together, man.

Too late!You haven't been keeping up with Star Trek's EU, have you?
The Destiny trilogy, released in 2009, featured a Borg invasion (and their final defeat) that made everything seen in TV/film Trek look like a pillow fight in comparison. In the aftermath, a cold war has begun between the weakened Federation and a Romulan/Gorn/Tholian/Breen/Tzenkethi alliance known as the Typhon Pact.

Anywho, leave the quagmire of TOS/TNG/DS9/VOY/ENT canon to the novels, and restart Trek again. The Trek universe is a fun place, but it's lovable characters that made TOS so popular in the first place, not it's continuity. All that was old and tired can become fresh and new again. JJ Abrams and co. managed it, it can be done again for TV one day, too.

[Sindatur]

I'm just about done with Voyager (Only Endgame Left to Go). In First run, I wasn't especially impressed, and missed seeing over half of the episodes. With my rewatch, I actually found quite a bit to like about it. It definitely had it's problems, but, there was a pretty good core to work with, if there had been more upfront planning. I'd actually like to see Voyager remade in the tone and Continuity of Babylon 5 and later DS9.

[Leroy]

I'd rather not have Star Trek turn into DC comics with them rebooting everything every 10-20 years. It'd be more preferable to have strait up alternate universe stories as opposed to having confusing time travel reboots.

[C.E. Evans]

10 years seems to be the going rate for reboots in Hollywood these days.

[Gaith]

KingDaniel wrote:

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Too late!You haven't been keeping up with Star Trek's EU, have you?

And, you perfectly described why not.

[Kooz]

Nightowl1701 wrote:

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I think the answer's right there, in that picture of the Enterprise at the galactic barrier. There's your next chapter. That's the one story worth telling in a post 24'th century setting, a story that goes back to the beginning of the saga: The story of the first Federation starship to successfully make it through that ring of pink neon, with no one going silver-eyed...and all the way to our next-door neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy.

This is what I've been hoping for for a long time. Get intergalactic and you get the benefits of a reboot without rebooting--explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations, etc. But with cooler, post-TNG/DS9/Voy technology.

[Yminale]

There still the Enterprise-B time period between the movies and TNG. I think it's a good compromise between TOS and TNG. There is also the Enterprise-C. I don't remember how long it served until it was destroyed.

It's also worth remember that there were TWO captains of the Enterprise before Kirk. Their stories haven't really been told yet.

[C.E. Evans]

Yminale wrote:

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There still the Enterprise-B time period between the movies and TNG. I think it's a good compromise between TOS and TNG.

While VOY was still fairly early in its run, that was my initial hopes for Series V, a "Star Trek: The Lost Generation" series that would have covered that time period.