By the time you reach time cops and slipstream drives old fashioned "human solutions" no longer make sense within the setting.
The technology issue if you did a post-Berman era Trek show?
- Thread starter Jayson1
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Those are things that can easily be transitioned into a contemporary type of story.
A slipstream drive when used you can show by having the ship go inside some kind of wormhole style vortex and maybe when this happens the crew on the ship gets sick and some throw up and others might see hallucinations. Maybe in one story the crew uses the drive and someone ends up dying and you do a story dealing with the crews reaction to the death and maybe make the slipstream drive a allegory to early NASA space exploration. This way the story is about a human experience and the tech is just a means to the end.
Maybe the Timecop is a alcoholic who has killed someone in the past by accident and he is on the run from other timecops trying to capture him.
If you go the future then you have to deal with the fact the slipstream drives in the other shows were presented as a much less horrible ordeal to undertake and if you do the timecop you got to deal with the idea that alcholism is something humans have moved beyond and if you still want to do those stories you got to do a lot of tech explaining or find some kind of excuse why the ship did this but also why it will be new constant threat you have to deal with or why the alcoholic still has his problem. It's much easier do do this more into the pass because you don't have to keep coming up with more and more elaborte excues to tell the stories because we can just asume that in a more primitive era that thee problems are normal everday problems people have to deal with.
Jason
Exactly. The technology requires more and more excuses as to why it isn't used to solve the problem of the week. To use your example, slipstream drive causes hallucinations? Well, by the 24th century they have a shot for radiation poisoning that's about as inconvenient as a vaccine.
Same thing wit the transporters in always any iteration of Trek. The transporter is such a convenient piece of technology that stories became "what's wrong with the transporter this week."
Same thing wit the transporters in always any iteration of Trek. The transporter is such a convenient piece of technology that stories became "what's wrong with the transporter this week."
I don't think changes in FTL tech would really matter for practical storytelling purposes. The ships always got around at the speed of plot...it's never going to take more than a dialogue scene or commercial break to get to Planet X.
Yeah but IU speed does matter, from a purely storytelling POV no it doesn't.
However think about it-26th century trek where it takes say less than a hour to get from earth to the edge of the alpha quadrant will be different in its horizons than 24th or 22nd century trek.
If by the 29th century all it takes to get from side of the Galaxy to another is a press of a button and some technobabble then we can't have Voyager plots at that point.
However think about it-26th century trek where it takes say less than a hour to get from earth to the edge of the alpha quadrant will be different in its horizons than 24th or 22nd century trek.
If by the 29th century all it takes to get from side of the Galaxy to another is a press of a button and some technobabble then we can't have Voyager plots at that point.
Given how often Kirk and PIcard were flung to other galaxies (not quadrants) VOY was already kinda iffy.
Indeed. Kirk already flew multiple times to the outer edge of the galaxy, and one time even into the galaxy's core (you might remember it. It was a movie). Originally it was never actually specified how fast the Enterprise was really going. The whole "Alpha/Beta quadrant of the galaxy"-thingy was a TNG era invention.
I mean, yeah, in the 29th century there are timeships. (Although: Was it ever officially specified that these ships were from the 29th century, or just in the 29th century?)
Anyway, that still gives us the 25th-28th century for traditional Star Trek with starships, from where they are now exploring the edges of the Alpha quadrant, up to closing the last unexplored corners of the galaxy.
If Star Trek, after Discovery, returns back to a post-Nemesis setting, I always would have prefered it to be set in real-time after TNG. Aka Nemesis came out in 2003 (god! that's long ago...), now it's 2017, so a new (hypothetical) series would be set 14 years after NEM. That gives the possibility for multiple character cross-overs, and a good reason for why the technology-level is only slightly advanced compared to NEM. Going 100 years into the future was a good movie for TNG at the time, because it tried to set itself apart from TOS. But today big franchises and Cinematic universe with cross-overs are much more accepted (hell, even expected), so why not pick exactly up where we left? Do what Star Wars: Te Force Awakens or the new Doctor Who in 2008 did.
That's a fair point.
Based on ancient Earth history, civilizations have endured "stagnant pools of history" (to quote a Trek BBS contributor). Examples include the "Middle Kingdom" of the Hittites, and the "Intermediate" periods of the ancient Egyptians. Civilization hasn't completely collapsed, but this is a time when society is at a low ebb.
Actually, if you think about it, the known worlds of the Andromeda series are in a fractured, and stagnant state after the fall of the Systems Commonwealth.
In the history of technology, there have been periods of technological revolution, followed by long technological plateaus. Change, if any, tends to be incremental between revolutions.
If a traumatized society should slide into a stagnant pool, I can easily imagine the tech stagnating.
Actually, if you think about it, the known worlds of the Andromeda series are in a fractured, and stagnant state after the fall of the Systems Commonwealth.
In the history of technology, there have been periods of technological revolution, followed by long technological plateaus. Change, if any, tends to be incremental between revolutions.
If a traumatized society should slide into a stagnant pool, I can easily imagine the tech stagnating.
BTW, in the Andromeda series there was a tension between idealism and pragmatism, because life had become much harsher after the fall of the Systems Commonwealth. I believe this sort of tension could work well for drama..
My understanding is the dividing line between the alpha and beta quadrants runs through Earth's star system. So Earth spends half the year in the alpha, and the other half in the beta.
I wonder if the way the quadrant system was originally set up has the dividing line move with our system as it circles the galaxy's core?
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But does it fit the optimistic attitude of Star Trek?
I'm not arguing for that. I'm asking how to expand upon the premise in a way that doesn't end up with a dystopian world view. As much as I like the idea of some of the idealism being diminished, I don't want it to be eroded completely.
Every single episode where the future is dealt with shows a continuous progression to doctor who levels of technology by the 31sf century's
You have research into artificially created wormholes occuring in DS9, transwarp, slipstream, and the inevitable emergence of time ships.
Unless you want to render these episodes non-Canon which is a very bad bad and insulting idea you have to accept technology in Trek is becoming so advanced as to beyond the comprehension of most viewers.
I don't want dystopia-most of sci fi is that and I don't want some timeline rubbish where Omega detonations ruin everything.
You have research into artificially created wormholes occuring in DS9, transwarp, slipstream, and the inevitable emergence of time ships.
Unless you want to render these episodes non-Canon which is a very bad bad and insulting idea you have to accept technology in Trek is becoming so advanced as to beyond the comprehension of most viewers.
I don't want dystopia-most of sci fi is that and I don't want some timeline rubbish where Omega detonations ruin everything.
I can imagine a creative tension between idealism and pragmatism. How to keep that kernel of optimism alive rather than just doing what seems expedient? Can we base drama on that tension?
Most likely, especially if we go with the notion that it's all an arbitrary system by the Federation anyway (other governments may have other ways of dividing up the Galaxy and may not use Quadrants at all, but the Universal Translator may simply convert their terms into Federation terms so we can understand them).
In the Think Tank the villain played by George Constanza says to Janeway "what you call the Delta Quadrant" implying that other species have different terminology for the Milky's Ways divisions.
It can be a matter of degree, it doesn't have to be all or nothing.
Think of it as a analogy to world economies over the couple of centuries or so. There have been ups and downs, but only rarely has a system completely collapsed. Generally things have gotten better over time, but not at a steady rate.
Nor has the advancement been at the same rate everywhere.
Back to the Federation technological future, I didn't mean to suggest it had to be a utter and complete collapse. Simply bringing the advancement to a relative standstill for a few decades might be enough.
