Idea for a cooperative Star Trek screenplay project

[tenmei]

Okay - here's mine:


STAR TREK: G3

It is 2430. Starfleet has turned its eyes towards scientific exploration once again, the universe is at relative peace and to herald in this new era they comission a new vessel, USS Enterprise NCC 1701 H. It is her crew and her adventures we witness ...

Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Her neverending mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilisations, to boldly go where no one has gone before ...
- Captain Xon

CO

Captain Xon. An alien race we've not seen before in a main role - something like D'Marr (from ENT: "Oasis"). Xon is a natural born explorer who, despite his age, has a youthful enthusiasm about new worlds and new civilisations.

XO

Commander Margaret Barrett is a career officer who considers her position on Enterprise a stepping stone to her own command - ambitious and driven and youthful, she will need to have her ambition tempered by experience.



Pilot

Amongst much pomp and circumstance, Starfleet launch the new Enterprise who, on what is supposed to be a milk run surveying a stellar nursery come across a new race of aliens who want to hand the secrets of the universe over to our crew ...



* - Counselor Astall's race in the VOY:R

 

[BillJ]

A quick reponse I did from work last night. YMMV

See…

I really think you're on the wrong track here.

You're telling a story about human evolution and the main character (the captain) isn't even human. The captain needs to be human through and through, good and bad. He needs to represent us. Because early on it is him that carries the burden alone. T'Sora represents the calm center, you can tell everything is changing because she is so constant.

Also, I think you're already way to wrapped up in minutia (2430's/1701-H/Amanda Q. Ferguson???). I want people wrapped up in the story, not the minutia.

If it's me I'm changing the registry of the Enterprise and keeping the time-period (obviously Post-Nemesis) as vague as possible.

But, I do agree that the three time periods may be too much to keep in check.

The pilot should revolve around the introduction of the crew, a disaster on a planetary scale, uneasy political climate with an aggressor species and the Shaleel's first encounter with humanity. These should all intertwine to lead to an explosive conclusion.

"Time is a weapon, Captain. Mightier than your phasers and photon torpedoes." - Kevlan, First Envoy of the Sha-leel

 

[friedebarth]

Okay - here's mine:


STAR TREK: G3

It is 2430. Starfleet has turned its eyes towards scientific exploration once again, the universe is at relative peace and to herald in this new era they comission a new vessel, USS Enterprise NCC 1701 H. It is her crew and her adventures we witness ...

Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Her neverending mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilisations, to boldly go where no one has gone before ...
- Captain Xon

CO

Captain Xon. An alien race we've not seen before in a main role - something like D'Marr (from ENT: "Oasis"). Xon is a natural born explorer who, despite his age, has a youthful enthusiasm about new worlds and new civilisations.

XO

Commander Margaret Barrett is a career officer who considers her position on Enterprise a stepping stone to her own command - ambitious and driven and youthful, she will need to have her ambition tempered by experience.



Pilot

Amongst much pomp and circumstance, Starfleet launch the new Enterprise who, on what is supposed to be a milk run surveying a stellar nursery come across a new race of aliens who want to hand the secrets of the universe over to our crew ...



* - Counselor Astall's race in the VOY:R

I pretty much like your contribution, but it doesn't sound as much action-containing. People nowadays seem to like wars more than exploration, and by the looks of it, I do too. And it would be nice to inherit my ages, it would be quite intruiging to see a young Captain together with an older XO. And could we also have Margaret Q. Barrett, please, because Q sounds strange, and that's what the story will kinda be.

And, I'm tempted to translate your opening credit text to German:

Der Weltraum, unendliche Weiten. Wir schreiben das Jahr 2430. Dies sind die Abenteuer des Raumschiffs Enterprise-H, das im Gamma-Quadranten unterwegs ist, um fremde Welten zu bevölkern, unbekannte Lebensformen und neue Zivilisationen zu finden. Die Enterprise dringt dabei in Sektoren vor, die nie ein Mensch zuvor bewohnt hat.

I did this with adapting my Gamma-Quadrant idea, I can lose it again, of course.

@BillJ: I can't really follow you.

1.: Human Evolution? Not really, Star Trek just depicts Milky-Way future from a human point of view. That there never was an alien captain in an ST story before is the actual point of this!

2.: Sorry for my bad english, what does minutia mean? Details? Well, many professional authors write in their Creative Writing manuals that it is better to plan a story going from the details to the less ninny stuff.

3.: With the last part I really disagree with you. I prefer having one main topic (like I proposed) which goes through the whole story, eg. a war or the exploration of a certain thing. It's like a less broadly seen definition of one mission, that being: "Helping to settle on Gamma Planets, then defending these colonies." and not something broad like "Exploring random parts of random sectors with random purposes." as seen in TOS, TNG and partly VOY.

 

[tenmei]

I could see the value and novelty of having a younger male Captain and an older female XO - but I'd have to put my foot down at making him just 25, you'd need, for it not to seem ridiculous, have someone at least 30. Keep him as an alien, though.

Then make the XO significantly older - pushing their eighties, perhaps, given that we've got a one hundred year old XO (Vaughn) in the DS9 Relaunch - and someone who bears a grudge against the Captain and Starfleet for being passed over and feels that they've been put on the ship in order to babysit the Captain.

I had a similar dynamic in a fanfiction I formulated almost a decade ago (which would have had David Duchovny as CO and the late Ian Richardson as the First Officer).

If we go with the idea that the XO is our main character - with the CO being a support character - then the arc of our series becomes about the XO coming to terms with her situation, becoming a better person and earning command of a ship rather than feeling she's owed command of one.

So, by taking the XO as our main character, we are putting the human condition front.

You say you prefer a war setting - but Star Trek has always been about going out into space and exploring. The proposal I made was doing just that - getting back to what Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation were always about.

I do have to agree, we should keep the timeframe as vague as possible and I do like Bill's proposal for the bones of the pilot episode.

 

[BillJ]

1.: Human Evolution? Not really, Star Trek just depicts Milky-Way future from a human point of view. That there never was an alien captain in an ST story before is the actual point of this!

The tag line associated most often with Star Trek is "The Human Adventure Continues...", think about it.

2.: Sorry for my bad english, what does minutia mean? Details? Well, many professional authors write in their Creative Writing manuals that it is better to plan a story going from the details to the less ninny stuff.

Roddenberry built the most successful sci-fi franchise on the planet by keeping things as vague as possible. Tiberius wasn't mentioned until The Animated Series, Sulu didn't have a first name until The Undiscovered Country and have we ever actually hear Uhura's name mentioned on screen? Again, think about it.

3.: With the last part I really disagree with you. I prefer having one main topic (like I proposed) which goes through the whole story, eg. a war or the exploration of a certain thing. It's like a less broadly seen definition of one mission, that being: "Helping to settle on Gamma Planets, then defending these colonies." and not something broad like "Exploring random parts of random sectors with random purposes." as seen in TOS, TNG and partly VOY.

I've already had my fill of War Trek. Thanks. Again, you want to disregard the most successful elements of the franchise (TOS/TNG). Conflict can be great... one long phaser battle between uber-starships: again... no thanks.

 

[BillJ]

I could see the value and novelty of having a younger male Captain and an older female XO - but I'd have to put my foot down at making him just 25, you'd need, for it not to seem ridiculous, have someone at least 30. Keep him as an alien, though.

Then make the XO significantly older - pushing their eighties, perhaps, given that we've got a one hundred year old XO (Vaughn) in the DS9 Relaunch - and someone who bears a grudge against the Captain and Starfleet for being passed over and feels that they've been put on the ship in order to babysit the Captain.

I had a similar dynamic in a fanfiction I formulated almost a decade ago (which would have had David Duchovny as CO and the late Ian Richardson as the First Officer).

If we go with the idea that the XO is our main character - with the CO being a support character - then the arc of our series becomes about the XO coming to terms with her situation, becoming a better person and earning command of a ship rather than feeling she's owed command of one.

So, by taking the XO as our main character, we are putting the human condition front.

You say you prefer a war setting - but Star Trek has always been about going out into space and exploring. The proposal I made was doing just that - getting back to what Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation were always about.

I do have to agree, we should keep the timeframe as vague as possible and I do like Bill's proposal for the bones of the pilot episode.

Let me tackle these one at a time...

1. I honestly think anyone commanding a ship with the Enterprise's history isn't going to be any younger than 40ish. Too much prestige in the command.

2. The XO. The center of the show would not be a human ready to collect Social Security.

3. Alien race isn't going to hand the secrets of the universe to some underling. They'd just find a starship with a human commander.

4. I prefer the exploration angle. But I see human evolution as the background theme of the series.

5. Thanks for the encouragement on the plot.

 

[tenmei]

1. I honestly think anyone commanding a ship with the Enterprise's history isn't going to be any younger than 40ish. Too much prestige in the command.

2. The XO. The center of the show would not be a human ready to collect Social Security.

Yet, Elias Vaughn is one of the most, if not THE most, popular characters in the DS9 Relaunch and he's a character who's over one hundred years old and is still a vital and active character. Heck, Jean Luc Picard was pushing sixty when he took command of the Enterprise - and would be pushing eighty at the time of Star Trek: Nemesis.

Kirk was 32, Harriman was about that age, Decker must have been in his thirties or his late twenties. Out of the commanders of the Enterprise that we have seen, Picard and Garrett (and Jellico, to be fair) are the only ones who are actually over the age of forty.

I think you could make a resonable case for someone about the same age as Kirk to be given command of an Enterprise - after all, Starfleet would given Riker command of the Enterprise on several occasions (and, by the time of Best of Both Worlds, he was only 31).

It depends on how worthwhile you make the candidate - and we've had the dynamic of the older leader with the younger assistant several times in Star Trek so, it would be interesting to see this reversal in a programme and, it's already happened in the DS9 Relaunch!

3. Alien race isn't going to hand the secrets of the universe to some underling. They'd just find a starship with a human commander.

Wow. So, these aliens who are going to hand the secrets of the universe are going to hand it to a Human? I'm still open to whether the Captain HAS to be an alien (I think that he should be, but I'll go with the majority on this) but I do think that the aliens wouldn't give a damn what species the Captain of the Enterprise was -

 

[friedebarth]

1.: Human Evolution? Not really, Star Trek just depicts Milky-Way future from a human point of view. That there never was an alien captain in an ST story before is the actual point of this!

The tag line associated most often with Star Trek is "The Human Adventure Continues...", think about it.

2.: Sorry for my bad english, what does minutia mean? Details? Well, many professional authors write in their Creative Writing manuals that it is better to plan a story going from the details to the less ninny stuff.

Roddenberry built the most successful sci-fi franchise on the planet by keeping things as vague as possible. Tiberius wasn't mentioned until The Animated Series, Sulu didn't have a first name until The Undiscovered Country and have we ever actually hear Uhura's name mentioned on screen? Again, think about it.

3.: With the last part I really disagree with you. I prefer having one main topic (like I proposed) which goes through the whole story, eg. a war or the exploration of a certain thing. It's like a less broadly seen definition of one mission, that being: "Helping to settle on Gamma Planets, then defending these colonies." and not something broad like "Exploring random parts of random sectors with random purposes." as seen in TOS, TNG and partly VOY.

I've already had my fill of War Trek. Thanks. Again, you want to disregard the most successful elements of the franchise (TOS/TNG). Conflict can be great... one long phaser battle between uber-starships: again... no thanks.

Well, if you'd read my proposal, then you'd know: It's not all about war. It's also about exploring the Gamma Quadrant and colonizing it - which we could be very creative about, as no ship in a series had done that before. Maybe, the Enterprise, or Efficacy, or whatever her name will be, has to help to build up a space station. Basically, the part with the Romulan war is just to create some tension in the neck: Every moment, a Warbird could interrupt the Enterprise/Efficacy in her work and attack. Or, if she left for a moment, something mysterious could have happened. It's just to tighten up the excitement a bit.

EDIT: And regarding the minutia stuff: Well, Roddenberry stated in an interview that he did this to later be able to sell theory books - seen that we don't want to sell anything, we can start at the minutia. And: Just because we're planning them, it doesn't mean that we're stating them directly in the first episode of Star Trek: G3 (that name is, if I were to choose, probably what we're going to have, because it's the third generation of real Trek - I don't see VOY and DS9 as real Trek).

 

[friedebarth]

And, as this is in the future, we will have to think about Tech.

How about portable Holo-Communicators, looking like a round computer chip, to put on the floor? Or a viewscreen in the security department on which you can access several cameras onboard the ships and manoevre them into different directions?

EDIT: I wonder where Vixen is, and why andrew_craven, Gibraltar, Mysterion and smeos haven't posted anything yet.

 

[Dancing Doctor]

Since we're discussing creating a whole new Trek series here, focusing on the minutiae isn't a negative. It'll allow us to flesh things out more, and provide more depth. And that doesn't automatically mean that the reader will go "OMG, Commander Amanda Q. Ferguson?!" and totally forget about the story.

I do have to admit that having a war (especially with the Romulans) or having a lot of conflict is a bit overdone. It's one of the things that writers reverted to if they felt that the audience would be lost, and it does get old.

I do like the "colonizing the Gamma Quadrant" story, but wouldn't it involve more than just the Starfleet vessel U.S.S Name To Be Determined? Otherwise we'd start to venture into the whole "Only starship in the sector/Voyager" territory.

 

[Dancing Doctor]

And, as this is in the future, we will have to think about Tech.

Tech wouldn't have advanced too much, depending on the final timeline.

How about portable Holo-Communicators, looking like a round computer chip, to put on the floor? Or a viewscreen in the security department on which you can access several cameras onboard the ships and manoevre them into different directions?

It would depend on what the Holo-Communicators are used for, but having a patch of floor that projects a hologram of whoever is talking would work. Are we talking about having it on the Bridge, or installing it in various areas (Engineering, Sickbay, etc.) so that the crew wouldn't rely on just commbadges?

That viewscreen idea is bit Orwellian for my taste. I mean, we wouldn't have it able to access the holodeck area, would we? Or crew quarters? And even if it were confined to relatively open/public areas, it's still a bit of an invasion of privacy, especially considering that the computer can locate you and people can find you pretty much wherever you go.

EDIT: I wonder where Vixen is, and why andrew_craven, Gibraltar, Mysterion and smeos haven't posted anything yet.

I hadn't been able to access my computer recently, but I'm here now.

 

[tenmei]

Welcome back to the action, Vixen

 

[Dancing Doctor]

Definitely good to be back.

 

[friedebarth]

Since we're discussing creating a whole new Trek series here, focusing on the minutiae isn't a negative. It'll allow us to flesh things out more, and provide more depth. And that doesn't automatically mean that the reader will go "OMG, Commander Amanda Q. Ferguson?!" and totally forget about the story.

Dito.

I do have to admit that having a war (especially with the Romulans) or having a lot of conflict is a bit overdone. It's one of the things that writers reverted to if they felt that the audience would be lost, and it does get old.

Okay, if most people are against it, let's drop the idea.

I do like the "colonizing the Gamma Quadrant" story, but wouldn't it involve more than just the Starfleet vessel U.S.S Name To Be Determined? Otherwise we'd start to venture into the whole "Only starship in the sector/Voyager" territory.

Of course it envolves more ships. There's loads of other ships, but I must have forgot to mention. Thanks, Vixen.

And, as this is in the future, we will have to think about Tech.

Tech wouldn't have advanced too much, depending on the final timeline.

How about portable Holo-Communicators, looking like a round computer chip, to put on the floor? Or a viewscreen in the security department on which you can access several cameras onboard the ships and manoevre them into different directions?

It would depend on what the Holo-Communicators are used for, but having a patch of floor that projects a hologram of whoever is talking would work. Are we talking about having it on the Bridge, or installing it in various areas (Engineering, Sickbay, etc.) so that the crew wouldn't rely on just commbadges?

No, I mean sort of a mat which you smack on the floor, say to it who you want to speak to and it creates a holo and establishes normal sound contact with that person. It is quite silly having to carry it around, but I'd say the mats are for away teams on diplomatic missions (you see, the people down there can talk to a holo projection of the captain, but the captain isn't endangered.

That viewscreen idea is bit Orwellian for my taste. I mean, we wouldn't have it able to access the holodeck area, would we? Or crew quarters? And even if it were confined to relatively open/public areas, it's still a bit of an invasion of privacy, especially considering that the computer can locate you and people can find you pretty much wherever you go.

It's quite far from 1984 I guess. Let's say, the cameras can only be accessed when there's red, yellow or intruder alert.

 

[tenmei]

However, unless this tech is going to be important to the plot - which I highly doubt it will be - whether it has holographic communicators really doesn't matter. We need to look at story and character - the tech can come later, if indeed we choose to develop it.

 

[friedebarth]

Okay. Let's make our main cast then. Not the full characterisations (I'm working on developing your captain more at the moment, tenmei), but rather a listing, to do with a plot. And maybe we could add some realism into it by having a 3PO&Family as a sub- or sideplot. This wouldn't be too bad, as we could depict one normal one's life on a starfleet vessel, his work, his free time, his child's life. Althogh we have to be careful not to become a daily soap. Then, we could push him into a centered position because he either made a mistake (causing 40 deaths) or he did something great (everybody caught the Tsiolkovsky infection at one time. A foreign vessel attacks, he takes the command and saves the ship in a standalone action, without even using the weapons once and persuading the foreign race to start diplomatic contacts with the federation and leads to another alliance partner for the UFP (not an actual MEMBER of the federation but a PARTNER).

 

[Dancing Doctor]

Okay. Let's make our main cast then. Not the full characterisations (I'm working on developing your captain more at the moment, tenmei), but rather a listing, to do with a plot. And maybe we could add some realism into it by having a 3PO&Family as a sub- or sideplot. This wouldn't be too bad, as we could depict one normal one's life on a starfleet vessel, his work, his free time, his child's life. Althogh we have to be careful not to become a daily soap. Then, we could push him into a centered position because he either made a mistake (causing 40 deaths) or he did something great (everybody caught the Tsiolkovsky infection at one time. A foreign vessel attacks, he takes the command and saves the ship in a standalone action, without even using the weapons once and persuading the foreign race to start diplomatic contacts with the federation and leads to another alliance partner for the UFP (not an actual MEMBER of the federation but a PARTNER).

Hmmm...I like.

If no one minds, I'd like to take some time to try and come up with a good CMO and CENG characters...

Okay, if most people are against it, let's drop the idea.

I'm not necessarily against conflict, but I don't want it to simply just be a standard part of the stories. And if we do decide to have conflict, there are plenty of hostile entities in the Gamma Quadrant.

Of course it envolves more ships. There's loads of other ships, but I must have forgot to mention. Thanks, Vixen.

No problem. I had figured there would be more than just the U.S.S Name To Be Determined

No, I mean sort of a mat which you smack on the floor, say to it who you want to speak to and it creates a holo and establishes normal sound contact with that person. It is quite silly having to carry it around, but I'd say the mats are for away teams on diplomatic missions (you see, the people down there can talk to a holo projection of the captain, but the captain isn't endangered.

That works. And, it could be rolled or folded up into an easy-carry item.

It's quite far from 1984 I guess. Let's say, the cameras can only be accessed when there's red, yellow or intruder alert.

That makes it a bit more palatable, I suppose.

 

[tenmei]

I take it that we're looking at using the Gamma Quadrant exploration as the basis for our series? If we do, we could have a pit-stop at DS9 at the beginning of the first story for the ceremonial handover from one generation to the next (such as McCoy appearing in TNG, Picard appearing in DS9 and Quark appearing in VOY).

I look forward to seeing your development of my CO concept, friedebarth, and your ideas for the CMO and Engineer, Vixen.

 

[friedebarth]

And, for the holocoms, they're also installed on the bridge, in sickbay and in engineering into the floor. That's quite good too, I think.

@tenmei: Wasn't VOY after DS9 in the timeline? If not, then I like the idea. Yeah, in our first episode we could even be disturbed by the wormhole. Unless it's been destroyed at the end of the series, I didn't watch it

 

[tenmei]

True. I'm also a bit concerned about having our ship focus on exploring the Gamma Quadrant, would prefer to remain a more non-descript exploration mission like the Enterprise and the Enterprise D.