95% of Star Trek takes place within one galaxy. It's a big universe. The next Trek series ought to embrace the exploration aspect. Take the first two seasons to do a reverse Voyager, with the ship getting further and further from Earth. Gradually we see less and less of the Star Trek universe we love, until eventually we are gone. The Milky Way Galaxy and the Quadrants with Vulcans, Klingons, Borg, and Kaizon are distant memories. Season 7 of this new show, all communications are lost.......... ........ ....... ...... ..... .... ... .. . . .
Even with Trek visiting all four quadrants of our Galaxy, only a small fraction of it has still actually been explored. There are still billions of star systems that haven't been reached yet right here.
Stargate tried that already, even had an entire series dedicated to inter-galactic travel and exploration.... didn't work out so well. Only show that came close to doing it well without becoming overwhelming and a mess was Andromeda.
I don't mind the idea of intergalactic travel but if it results in the same kind of story telling as we have seen in the first five series then I see no reason why the setting should be another galaxy or multiple galaxies. Just keep it in the Milkyway Galaxy and give the main starship faster-than-warp drive so that it can visit the parts of the galaxy that have been rarely or never visited before.
How would it be any different story-wise whether they're in the next galaxy over or the Delta or Gamma Quadrants?
It wouldn't. They'd just have to add in stupid or weird terminology to remind us they're in a different galaxy. "We need to side-warp back to the Milky Way to confer with Starfleet Command." Besides, it's only inevitable that all the familiar Trek races show up anyway. Klingon cultists are on a holy pilgrimage to the new galaxy. Romulan refugees are setting up a new colony. Ferengi are opening up business dealings in the new galaxy. The Enterprise AB+ has found Q's summer home, and so on.
They'd be better off just going with Post-Nemesis era Quantum Slipstream drive and start spending more regular time in the Gamma Quadrant. All we've seen of that is a handful of episodes of DS9. They could start a new show, Star Trek: Odyssey or anything remotely cool like that.
Star Treks major problems have been lack of imagination and lack of good writing. Not lack of locations.
And of course they'll forget they had a working spore drive in 2256, making all these distances as quick to travel as this text takes to appear on all your screens.
no way - because that meant that some goon with to heads needs to click on that ship's icon to enable that appearance
This comes up every now and then on the basis that further away means more interesting. It usually gets pretty much the response we've seen here which is to point out how SF and friends can only possibly have seen a tiny fraction of a percentage of the alpha quadrant, much less the beta, gamma and delta. The upshot is as ever all you'd be doing is changing the terminology and replacing the flashy lights of the warp SFX with a different set of flashy lights for the transwarp/spore/slipstream/ludicrous speed engines, not the premise of the show. Sorry to be a bore.
This thread has sort of stuck in my craw for a week now and I find myself between DIS episodes and random ventures into Netflix to watch an ENT or DS9 episode here or there thinking about what a brand new, 25th century set, extragalactic Star Trek series would be like. I actually disagree that it would be the same thing just with new words and aliens. I agree that it would take some radical re-thinking about what science, method, and narrative directions would end up on screen and the sort of "it's just doesn't feel like Trek to me" arguments would be very, very loud if it was done how it should be, but I tend to agree that it might be the best way to go about making a ST series that is set after all that has thus far been made. From 2100 to 2400 now we've pretty well covered what human exploration of the Milky Way has unfurled for us. I agree that there is alot still unexplored but it also would pose the same challenges and be met with the same resources that every show has seen thus far. I think to do an interesting extragalactic Trek it would mean a MASSIVE ship, a completely rethought timeline of expedition, I'm talking like... the Federation has to find people who are totally ok with never seeing their families, homeworlds, and familiar places ever again. Make it a generation ship that essentially creates its own self-sustaining populace as it ventures further and further out. The command structure would probably have to be far more by committee, not just a captain and first officer. It would have to have several scout ships that are probably roughly NX 01 sized, and the Prime Directive would have to be seriously amended to ensure the safety and sustainability of the crew. I think at a certain point, pretty early, the Federation and Starfleet, would have to go out of contact. I think about that incredible scene in Interstellar where they come back after the 30 minutes/13 years on the wave planet and get the last video messages from Earth. Those are the stakes that would have to be on a show like this to make it compelling. Seeing how a diverse culture forms itself, not just operates within the form of Starfleet and Federation. I think it could be amazing, I just also think that anyone who made it and watched it would have to be really ok with it bearing little resemblance to what we classically think of as Trek. It could still be full of innovation, optimism, and societal commentary, but it would need to radically change the way it goes about framing those stories.
Why? Why would the Federation bother sending an enormous generation type ship with an enormous crew just so they could explore some in another galaxy? Especially when the vast bulk of our own galaxy hasn't been explored yet.