What post-Nemesis Trek SHOULD be like

[BillJ]

One thing they could do is slipstream drive. Its something neat that came up in the books, that could be done.

That's just the faster warp they are talking about. It doesn't change anything from a storytelling perspective. Much like Hull Plating served the exact same story purpose as shields.

...something based around the fallout of the Romulan empire would be cool.

I, honestly, can't think of anything that would be more dull. There are just flat better venues to tell stories about the military and political fallout of a fallen empire.

 

[Mirror Mirror]

I, honestly, can't think of anything that would be more dull. There are just flat better venues to tell stories about the military and political fallout of a fallen empire.

Here I disagree, you have a place the Federation has never been able to go, you have civil war and other empires trying to gobble it up as some try to rebuild it. Its the wild west of star trek with politics , war new races and all that jazz. To me this is very interesting.

 

[Rahul]

Because you're looking at it on the surface. You can easily, EASILY, go do a million different things in the TOS-era.

Well, of course. But you are always going to be restrained by what will happen later (again, a creative writer can easily operates under restrains, and working on Trek already comes with a lot of restraints. It's just one thing more).

But do you know what you can do in a post-Nemesis setting?
Easily, EASILY go do a million different things

And in the words of Rick Berman/Brannon Braga themselves (when originally asked to do a 26th century show after VOY), "What are we gonna do…warp 14? Have even tighter spandex?"

That's not one, not two, but three different writers and producers from different backgrounds thinking there's not much else to do after VOY. I think they're right.

Well yeah, Berman/Braga did what, 14 years of Trek without a break? Of course, in the end they are going to get to the limits of their creativity. That's when you should do a change of the guard. New writers are going to do their own thing, and the era it is set in is only tangiable of importance. Fuller seems to have a love for prequel settings (as was for example his Hannibal). It can work, because he's talented and has experience with it. Doesn't change the fact a prequel setting comes with many more difficulties than a sequel setting, and we will see the effects on at least in some way with some of the writers.

That's just the faster warp they are talking about. It doesn't change anything from a storytelling perspective. Much like Hull Plating served the exact same story purpose as shields.

There are some basic Trek staples that will never change. How space combat works for example. It's going to be a very similar way, wether it's set 100 years before TOS, parallel to TOS, or 100 or 200 years after TOS. Much like movies will depict air combat always the same way, wether it's a WW2 movie or "Top Gun", even though realistically they should look a lot differently.

I, honestly, can't think of anything that would be more dull. There are just flat better venues to tell stories about the military and political fallout of a fallen empire.

This is were I have to 100% agree with you. A "dark times" story might be interesting, with rising tension and threats from the outside and within, where humanity and humanism prevails. But all the "Fall of the Federation"-types of ideas always pretty much start and end there, since it doesn't really change much from a storytelling perspective (it's still going to be the adventures of a crew on a starship), but piss off all Trekkies beholden to Roddenberrys ideals.

 

[Rahul]

Being ten years before the original series and being concurrent with "The Cage", those changes are going to stick out like a sore thumb for people that care about this stuff all fitting together. I do equate Prime timeline with TNG/24th century, as 500 of the 700+ plus hours of Star Trek take place there. Berman Trek equates to more than 600 of those 700 hours.

I see the original Star Trek as its own thing. When one watches and compares and contrasts the various works, it becomes clear the original really doesn't fit in. It was an action-adventure series, that didn't seem to take itself too seriously. It had a sense of fun that was never replicated in the later shows. It had a sense of the universe being this weird and wonderful place where anything could happen. The later shows were more just straight 1980's drama. It doesn't mean the Berman series didn't hit it out of the park on occasion, but I found them far less memorable.

That's a rather...strange view of things. Prime Trek means all eras of Trek that are canon. Of course the TNG-era is the biggest one, with the most material covering it.

That doesn't change the fact it's only one era of the prime universe. TOS - the series is another. The TOS-movies basically another one (in terms of aesthetics etc.). ENT another one, which has the problem that it's first 2 seasons had (too) many similarities to the TNG era, but it still stands pretty much on their own.

And Discovery is going to be another, own, unique part in the prime universe. As will the next series after that one be, or a post-NEMESIS series that would basically be a reboot in all but name.

Which makes arguing with you about those things always very frustrating. The TNG-era of storytelling and aesthetics is finished. Dead. Forever. The prime universe is alive, and breathing, and about to be taken into a whole new direction. And it lives from regular change and reinterpretation. Which makes it incredibly weird, that everytime someone talks about the prime universe and how it will involve, you always make your snarky comments about "people living in the past" and "clinging to the TNG-era", even though I have met absolutely NO ONE on this board who has argued for a new, warmed up 90s television show, EVER.

 

[Rahul]

Here I disagree, you have a place the Federation has never been able to go, you have civil war and other empires trying to gobble it up as some try to rebuild it. Its the wild west of star trek with politics , war new races and all that jazz. To me this is very interesting.

But the Federation basically has never been much of a major player in any Trek series in the first place. Maybe DS9 with the war. But other than that, it only served as the organization in the background that sent starships into space. It could easily have been named "the Alliance of Planets", or "United Planets of the Milky Way". We never learned much about it, and it wasn't necessary. The real interesting stuff was what happened onboard the starship or station. The Federation always was the backdrop, that showed the progression of humanity, and it's ideals.

To take that away would basically serve no purpose. ENT already tried the wild-west setting in the alpha-quadrant, and you can tell stories about politics, war, new races and all that jazz in any other setting as well. Don't need to eff up Gene's vision for that. Which was sometimes pretty restrictive, but come on: that's pretty much the unique selling point of Star Trek. Politics and space battle are in Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Babylon 5 or Firefly as well.

A "Fall of the Federation" storyline would basically add nothing, but take away what makes Star Trek special and dilute the whole brand and make a much more generic, bland space opera.

 

[JD]

Because you're looking at it on the surface. You can easily, EASILY, go do a million different things in the TOS-era.

And in the words of Rick Berman/Brannon Braga themselves (when originally asked to do a 26th century show after VOY), "What are we gonna do…warp 14? Have even tighter spandex?"

That's not one, not two, but three different writers and producers from different backgrounds thinking there's not much else to do after VOY. I think they're right.

The stories in the books have been going on and are now almost 10 years past Nemesis and they are still finding plenty of places to go.

Spoiler: Major plot points from the last 12 years of Star Trek books

In the years since Nemesis the books have given us:

• A political controversy leads to the UFP president resigning or being impeached (I can't remember which), and the election of a new President.

• The fallout of Shinzon's assassination of the Romulan Senate in Nemesis, which lead to lots of drama, including the entire Empire splitting apart temporarily.

• Riker and the Titan go out to explore a new region of the galaxy.

• A massive Borg invasion that ended with them being permanently removed from the galaxy.

• Slipstream allowing faster travel over greater distances.
• Voyager is leading a multi-ship fleet on a exploratory mission in the post-Borg Delta Quadrant. Thanks to slipstream they can now travel fairly quickly back and forth.

• A new alliance of races with a history of hostility with the UFP rose as a major rival.

• The Andorians temporarily left the UFP.

• DS9 was destroyed and replaced by a new state of the art 100% Starfleet station

• The UFP President was assassinated as part of a conspiracy.

• .

I'm not saying I want to see these specific points adapted in a new show, although I would love it if they did, but it shows that there is no limit to the possibilities of what you could do after Nemesis. We also got a post-Nemesis comic from Brannon Braga, and Star Trek Online and it's tie-ins are set years after Spock ended up in the Kelvin timeline and they've still come up with plenty of their own stories, different from what the novels are doing.

 

[Kemaiku]

Depends who all was involved. I can't believe that other high ranking Federation officials weren't involved. All that funding had to come from somewhere.

But Bill, there's no money in Star Trek *runs*

 

[Mirror Mirror]

Don't need to eff up Gene's vision for that.

The setting has far outgrown his vision. I also disagree that we do not need to know nothing of the federation, we learned a good amount even pre DS9 and we have learned more since. I think its a major part of the setting and something that should be explored. Trek can be and is more than a single starship all alone doing whatever it wants

 

[PlainSimpleJoel]

I'd love to see something 100 years after Voyager returned. There are plenty stories that can be told, as JD said. I know I have fun being part of that universe (as I enjoy playing STO). That has featured the Iconians and how they started a war between the Federation and the Klingons.

 

[Rahul]

The setting has far outgrown his vision. I also disagree that we do not need to know nothing of the federation, we learned a good amount even pre DS9 and we have learned more since. I think its a major part of the setting and something that should be explored. Trek can be and is more than a single starship all alone doing whatever it wants

Oh, of course! Also, it wasn't even only Gene's vision to begin with.
But through all Star Trek iterations, one thing has always been constant: Progression. Humanity has developed further, into a positive future for humanity. That is basically the unique selling point of Trek. Sometimes more strict (TNG), sometimes with darker shades of grey (DS9). But it has always been consistently there, even in the JJ. Abrams reboot. A "Fall of the Federation" setting would take that away, and Trek would become a boring dystopian future like everything else.

I don't mind exploring the Federation further, I would even appreciate it (although all previous stories about politics and war were some of the lesser outings of Trek..). As long as the fundamental principle of a positive future in Trek stays intact.

 

[CorporalClegg]

The mistake is believing the technology has to evolve or continue to be forward-thinking. The problem with this is, usually the technology inevitably dates itself, anyway. I mean look at any of the mundane (non-magical) 24th century technology. Most of it is already antiquated, even by today's standards. Heck, even all of the stuff in ENT is starting to look dated.

And really, the biggest difference between TOS and TNG was the mundane technology. They only magical addition was the holodeck. But, if you keep adding magic-tech out of a need to further futurise, then you begin to lose dramatic credibility.

This is probably the one thing, above all else, that Abrams did right. He kept the magical stuff that everyone knew and tweaked it a bit. For everything else, he took the old and blended it current stuff to create a futuristic post-modern deco setting. It's just "in the future."

So the focus, then, should be to concentrate on making it look good and not trying to place it in any specific time-frame.

 

[The Wormhole]

But, I'm not convinced Discovery will be Prime Trek in anything but name. They are already redesigning the look of the technology and some aliens. How long before they begin changing continuity to tell their story?

That is an interesting point. I wouldn't be surprised if Discovery's status as part of the Prime Universe becomes much the same as the Kelvin Timeline's status before Nero's arrival, where prior to Beyond the official party line was that everything before Nero arrived was the same as in the Prime Universe, and now we're told the two timelines were always different. I can easily see in a few years they change their tune about Discovery being part of the Prime Universe to admitting it's a different universe.

Berman/Braga did what, 14 years of Trek without a break? Of course, in the end they are going to get to the limits of their creativity.

Braga did not have authority for 14 years, he only had authority for six years, seasons 5 and 6 of Voyager and all 4 seasons of Enterprise. And Berman never really contributed to Star Trek's stories that much. In fact, in all Trek he only has two solo writing credits, the episodes Brothers and A Matter of Time on TNG. Granted, he's credited with developing stories to a number of episodes and the TNG movies, but he had others credited with him (or in the case of Enterprise, Braga was credited as a co-writer) and I always got the impression the others did the "heavy lifting" when developing those stories. Ditto Enterprise, where he's credited co-writing.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

Post Nemesis Trek should be a mini-series on DS9, letting us see what Captain Kira and the crew are up to during some momentous occasion for Bajor and/or the Alpha Quadrant.

 

[CorporalClegg]

No.

 

[Annorax849]

Post Nemesis Trek should be a mini-series on DS9, letting us see what Captain Kira and the crew are up to during some momentous occasion for Bajor and/or the Alpha Quadrant.

That's what I used to think. Make it 10 years after DS9 ends, throw in Voyager too. Make it about a Kelvan Empire invasion.

 

[F. King Daniel]

But it has NOTHING to do with a post-Nemesis setting or would need to be adressed in any kind of future Trek iteration. Both Enterprise and TOS had their fair share of "forgotten" technologies as well already.

Perhaps they need an episode where everyone suffers sudden amnesia every 42 minutes.

Oh, and still: You still haven't answered why plot holes that are specific to ST09 or Into Darkness should be carried over to the prime universe. Especially since those are the reasons they got critizized in their worldbuilding so much.

As said above, they're not unique to the Kelvin movies.

As far as the prime universe goes, neither red matter nor a magical transwarp beaming formula ever existed. Those are stupid ideas of the JJverse movies, that will forever stay in the JJverse movies.

Long-range beaming may never exist in your bizarro censored version of the Star Trek universe, but as myself and others have pointed out, it's most definitely been a part of Star Trek canon and has been for a long time.

 

[VulcanMindBlown]

I would like to them jump ahead another 100 years and do for TNG what it did for the Original Series.

Isn't Star Trek: Online supposed to be in the 25th century??

Because the formula for transwarp beaming came from Spock Prime, who is from the post-Nemesis era. And he got it from Scotty Prime, also in the post-Nemesis era, or at least sometime post-Relics. Or was it their little secret? Hmm:

Scotty: Here you go. You set up your red matter bomb, and then use this to beam yourself anywhere in the quadrant.
Spock: Thank you, Mr. Scott. Provided that Romulan miner doesn't show up to distract me, I shall be beaming back here when I'm done.
Scotty: Mr. Spock, don't you think we should share this breakthrough with Starfleet. Instantaneous beaming anywhere in the galaxy could have its advantages.
Spock: Mr. Scott, how much interaction have you had with Starfleet of this era?
Scotty: Just that time I was on the Enterprise with the Frenchman commanding, with the android and Klingon officers.
Spock: Let me tell you, you give something like transwarp beaming to contemporary Starfleet they'll complain about it robbing them of the human condition and toss it in a vault along with all the other technological breakthroughs of the past fifty years.

Was that from a licensed work????

 

[CorporalClegg]

Isn't Star Trek: Online supposed to be in the 25th century??

Early 25th. It starts in 2409.

 

[locutus101]

If we want to be accurate, the furthest point in the future that we ever saw in the franchise is when Archer ends up in the time of Daniels.

 

[Annorax849]

If we want to be accurate, the furthest point in the future that we ever saw in the franchise is when Archer ends up in the time of Daniels.

That or "Living Witness"