Scuttling the hero ship/station

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Posting this here because the topic straddles both movie timelines and the relaunch books, too.

Instead of scuttling the hero's ship or station, how else could they have shaken up things? TOS films (major refit first, then kaboom!), TNG films, Kelvin TOS films, and DS9 books all destroyed the ship/stations (DS9 and VOY TV shows to a lesser extent, Defiant and Delta Flyer, respectively) and replaced them with the latest model.

How else could they have made things different?

1) Assign the crew to a different sector long-term.
2) Split them up among two ships that work closely together, but sometimes split up for short periods of time for certain missions.

Any more ideas?

 

[Admiral2]

I'm sure there are plenty of less violent methods, but nothing beats blowin' stuff up real good for shaking things up.

In TNG's case, the creative team had to transition from TV to film series, and as with TOS they had to leave the old ship behind. Unlike TOS, though, they didn't have a decade to hide an "Enterprise refit" in, so they went the quick and dirty route: Enterprise-D go BOOM, call new class Enterprise-E.

In the TOS films case, the kaboom wasn't just about shaking things up. It was a tactic, one that Kirk threatened to use at least once in the series. This time he carried through, sending some evil Klingons to hell in the process. In this instance nothing much changed. Instead of a new class, they just grabbed another Constitution refit off the shelf and called it Enterprise-A.

As for the DS9 books, I'm a little fuzzy because I don't read many of the tie-in novels. Didn't they just go to Cardassian space and get another station just like it after Terok Nor got blowed up?

If this is an "if-you-were-in-charge" question, the simplest and least violent way to shake things up is crew rotation. This is possible if you have only a few leads (like TOS) and not a huge ensemble (like all the other shows) because you don't have to keep every supporting actor you start out with. You can replace Kyle with Chekov, rotate Uhura and Palmer, and insert and remove ensigns at will. I would set up the show so I could do exaclty that over the course of its run.

 

[DSG2k]

Trek's least realistic element was the retention rate of main cast, be it as the high survival rate or low transfer rate.

Yar's death really helped TNG, for instance, and even Pulaski was good in this regard. The Ezri move came too late to have a similar effect, but even the Seska storyline met the goal, even with the clowns she was hanging with.

 

[Admiral2]

Personally, I would have preferred if Tasha had survived past the first season and Troi got killed by the talking oil slick.

 

[BuckBokaiLondonKings]

I always thought it would be cool if a crew was planet-bound for an extended period of time. I know DS9 did that to an extent, but a season on a planet would definitely shake things up!

 

[The Wormhole]

As for the DS9 books, I'm a little fuzzy because I don't read many of the tie-in novels. Didn't they just go to Cardassian space and get another station just like it after Terok Nor got blowed up?

No, it got replaced by a whole new Starfleet designed and built station. Here are some novel covers featuring it:
http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Revelation_and_Dust
http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/The_Missing
http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Sacraments_of_Fire
http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Ascendance

I always thought it would be cool if a crew was planet-bound for an extended period of time. I know DS9 did that to an extent, but a season on a planet would definitely shake things up!

I've often felt that maybe a season of a ship conducting a long term survey of a planet would be a great direction to take a show. This would allow a combination of a fresh new story direction for the franchise and the chance to do what many consider "traditional" Trek fare.

 

[USS Triumphant]

A large political change with effects that reach all the way down to our hero ship / station. DS9 actually pretty much did this with the station being captured by the Dominion and then again when it was retaken, and the addition of a cloaking device and officer to oversee it *could* have been such a change if it had been done later in the existence of Defiant and due to the Romulans joining "our" side in the Dominion War. And in the novels, DS9 again meets this idea as we saw the changes when the station went from being an independent Bajoran asset being loaned to Starfleet to being an actual part of Starfleet when Bajor joined.

Enterprise could have had similar changes if they had had, say, 5th Season involve not only the refit, but some precursor treaty to the actual Articles of Federation that saw crew from the other friendly polities (Shran and Andor, for instance) come to serve aboard the Earth Starfleet's vessels.

And Disco made some very drastic changes to ship and crew to adapt to suddenly being in another environment involving radically different politics for the second half or the first season - and I'll leave it at that: you either know or you don't.

 

[Rahul]

I really like what ENT season 3 and 4 did:
For season 3, the NX-01 spent the entire time in a very distinctive region of space, the Expanse. Then season 4 took place almost entirely on home turf, in or very near Federation borders. As a result, the whole ship and crew was put in a very distinctive region of space for each season with a specific but different mission profile, while the show still being set on the same ship. They even managed to sneak in a "small" refit with the repair period of the NX-01, after wich they slightly changed the sets (colored doors, carpets,...) and have more TOS-like grapics on their monitors!

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Enterprise could have had similar changes if they had had, say, 5th Season involve not only the refit, but some precursor treaty to the actual Articles of Federation that saw crew from the other friendly polities (Shran and Andor, for instance) come to serve aboard the Earth Starfleet's vessels.

It would have been even more interesting if Archer lost the captaincy temporarily and was made to serve under one of the others. He wouldn't hate the other guy for it, nor would that guy lord it over him, but the crew might be divided in their opinions. (He might even learn something.) Eventually, tensions boil over in spite of everyone trying to make do, and they fight in spite of themselves.