Need advice on a Trek story

[Challenger71099]

I am making a Trek story about the USS Challenger, and I need suggestions on this story that I making. Here it goes"





" The USS challenger has just finished a deadly mission in the Beloti sector near the Cardassian border, and are being called to the main planet Alpha Centauri in the Alpha Centauri system. The captain of the challenger is afraid that his first officer will want to stay when he gets news that his governor father has just been killed while he was heading home to the planet after a conference on earth. Dealing with his indecision , he is interrupted by the fact that the Challenger has been hit by a temporal wave coming through. The Challenger awakens in the year 2099 on the eve of the Fawke peace campaign, a gorious event in history that successfully united human beings over the planet Alpha centauri. While peace hasn't been created and two classes of human beings are fighting over the planet. The captain tries to implore the Temporal prime directive, but his science officer tells him that the Challenger is here intentionally, and the captain and his crew are ready to participate on a event in history that will live until the 24th century and beyond....



I would like any suggestions as long as it stays true to the Roddenberry code.

1.) No internal conflict between Starfleet officers
2.) An optimistic ending
3.) No Borg ( my code. I hate the overusing of the Borg.)\\
4.) a social comment that I can put

 

[Maurice]

^^^Alpha Centauri is the nearest star system to our own...it's practically next door.

 

[Challenger71099]

It would still be dangerous if one were to go at warp 1 or 2 because it would take them a while to get there. The only thing that would make it a bit stupid is that there are Starships in the vicinity at all times, but even that won't matter if maybe, at the moment, no one was there to help him. I don't know but old governor needs to die somehow.

 

[Maurice]

It sounds like a predestination paradox. A familiar trope. What's the twist, though?

What fan writers often miss is the theme: what the story is about. Not the plot, but what's the underlying metaphor? Is it about a woman facing her own convictions and finding them lacking? Is it about loyalty to an oath verses what's morally correct? That's the real drama in most any story.

 

[Challenger71099]

The tale is a metaphor for unity and prosperity. In the historical event, human beings are going to colonize Alpha centauri for the first time, and the setback is that some humans want to colonize the planet away from technology and wars, but a old ww3 general named Kyle fawkes assembles a warp capable fleet to stop this colonization, misunderstanding this for a declaration of war. The USS Challenger comes through from the 24th century, and the rest is pretty standard Trek.

 

[BolianAuthor]

I am making a Trek story about the USS Challenger, and I need suggestions on this story that I making. Here it goes"





" The USS challenger has just finished a deadly mission in the Beloti sector near the Cardassian border, and are being called to the main planet Alpha Centauri in the Alpha Centauri system. The captain of the challenger is afraid that his first officer will want to stay when he gets news that his governor father has just been killed while he was heading home to the planet after a conference on earth. Dealing with his indecision , he is interrupted by the fact that the Challenger has been hit by a temporal wave coming through. The Challenger awakens in the year 2099 on the eve of the Fawke peace campaign, a gorious event in history that successfully united human beings over the planet Alpha centauri. While peace hasn't been created and two classes of human beings are fighting over the planet. The captain tries to implore the Temporal prime directive, but his science officer tells him that the Challenger is here intentionally, and the captain and his crew are ready to participate on a event in history that will live until the 24th century and beyond....



I would like any suggestions as long as it stays true to the Roddenberry code.

1.) No internal conflict between Starfleet officers
2.) An optimistic ending
3.) No Borg ( my code. I hate the overusing of the Borg.)\\
4.) a social comment that I can put

It sounds more like you want to make a story first, in which case this thread ought go into the Fan Fiction forum. But if what you are proposing is a film production, you should have a story FULLY fleshed out, before you can even begin to consider any type of film adventure, and from what you wrote here, it seems that you don't even have the basics of your story laid down yet.

As the writer, you ought know what your story is about, the message you want to send, and HOW you will go about telling that story, otherwise, you will be making it up as you go along, which very seldom works, if at all. If you have to ask others where you should go with, or have in a story, it says that you haven't addressed those issues, and have a lot more work to do first.

But, I could be wrong.

 

[Maurice]

The tale is a metaphor for unity and prosperity. In the historical event, human beings are going to colonize Alpha centauri for the first time, and the setback is that some humans want to colonize the planet away from technology and wars, but a old ww3 general named Kyle fawkes assembles a warp capable fleet to stop this colonization, misunderstanding this for a declaration of war. The USS Challenger comes through from the 24th century, and the rest is pretty standard Trek.

Bolian Admiral's right, this looks like fan fic and not a fan production (like a film).

As to your reply, I don't care about the "historical context". That's set dressing, not what the story is about. Saying it's "metaphor for unity and prosperity" isn't saying much, either. It's vague and open-ended.

Let's go to the most basic storytelling foundation: what dilemma does the main character face? What hard choice does s/he have to face?

 

[Challenger71099]

The tale is a metaphor for unity and prosperity. In the historical event, human beings are going to colonize Alpha centauri for the first time, and the setback is that some humans want to colonize the planet away from technology and wars, but a old ww3 general named Kyle fawkes assembles a warp capable fleet to stop this colonization, misunderstanding this for a declaration of war. The USS Challenger comes through from the 24th century, and the rest is pretty standard Trek.

Bolian Admiral's right, this looks like fan fic and not a fan production (like a film).

As to your reply, I don't care about the "historical context". That's set dressing, not what the story is about. Saying it's "metaphor for unity and prosperity" isn't saying much, either. It's vague and open-ended.

Let's go to the most basic storytelling foundation: what dilemma does the main character face? What hard choice does s/he have to face?

I have a post like this in Fan fic, however, I need advice with a film perspective since most stories I do , I picture as a film.


The dilemna that the character (the captain) faces is getting two very pigheaded people to agree on something that will benefit both of their people. He has to deal with an army man who has a very savage way of looking at things, and who does not understand change at all. Then he has a hippie leader of the planet who approaches change in a wrong way, and is attempting to do something that is not possible by seperating with Earth. The captain has to make the army guy and the hippie sign an agreement that will make the flow of history, and the planet go smoothly.

 

[Maurice]

^^^But that's the PLOT. What's the conflict for the main character? Does he have to learn to look at things a different way? Does he have to overcome his prejudices in order to see and help both sides? The internal conflict is what the story is about, at its root.

 

[Challenger71099]

^^^But that's the PLOT. What's the conflict for the main character? Does he have to learn to look at things a different way? Does he have to overcome his prejudices in order to see and help both sides? The internal conflict is what the story is about, at its root.

The fighting doesn't come from him because HE knows what's going to happen. The challenge comes from convincing the people that his way will work because they haven't seen the future. So he really has to make a way for people to believe him by understanding how they think, and essentially looking at the problem as they do.


That's the conflict.

 

[USS Intrepid]

The fighting doesn't come from him because HE knows what's going to happen. The challenge comes from convincing the people that his way will work because they haven't seen the future. So he really has to make a way for people to believe him by understanding how they think, and essentially looking at the problem as they do.


That's the conflict.

That's still the plot.I think perhaps you're mistaking theme for plot. How does the plot affect the character? What does the character go through internally? What will he learn, how will he be changed? What is the theme of the story, what is it about on a deeper level? What drives the character to act as he does, and why? These are all the questions you need to think about.

 

[Challenger71099]

I'm trying to explain what I've got so far in terms of story . I have the message that i want to bring. It's a message that is influenced by the fighting between dems and republicans, and it's a story about the captain who must get between two people with beliefs similar to them, and teach them what the future will hold if they put aside those beliefs to form a unity. I've explained this. There's no life changes except that if this doesn't happen then the future of that planet will never exist because of all the fighting. There's no further discussion needed for anything, but what you people think of the STORY. Jesus Christ.

 

[BolianAuthor]

So aside from feeding us Democratic propaganda in the guise of a Star Trek story, what is this about? If your future Captain knows that all this fighting will take place, and comes from a future born of those events, why would he interfere in any way? There would be no reason to, since that original chain of events played out the way they did, to form his/"our" future. So what's the point? He'd just be changing his own future.

I could see where he might be tempted to entertain the notion, to avoid the loss of lives from fighting, but really, if this guy is a trained Starfleet officer, he'd know that such a notion would be silly, because of the very fact that nothing that happened changed/changes the timeline... it would only be his future that he messes up, so it would not happen. But again, I could be wrong.

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

The basic concept is workable, provided it's not sledgehammer obvious that these people are Dems and Reps.

The Yangs and Komms thing from TOS really bothered me, but Feds and Klingons are better expys.

I think removing it from human politics would do it a great deal of service.

In summary, the less obvious it is, the better. Messages work best when they aren't trying too hard to drive the point home.

1.) No internal conflict between Starfleet officers

This is a rule you should ignore, or at least bend.

The conflicts between Kirk, Spock and McCoy are essentially the dramatic heart of the original show. Despite the way they compliment one another their personalities, methods and opinions do clash constantly. That is conflict.

Character conflict doesn't necessarily constitute gritty drama.

How boring would Star Trek have been if Spock was just a talking head attached to a console and Bones never came up to shout at them?

 

[USS Intrepid]

I'm trying to explain what I've got so far in terms of story . I have the message that i want to bring. It's a message that is influenced by the fighting between dems and republicans, and it's a story about the captain who must get between two people with beliefs similar to them, and teach them what the future will hold if they put aside those beliefs to form a unity. I've explained this. There's no life changes except that if this doesn't happen then the future of that planet will never exist because of all the fighting. There's no further discussion needed for anything, but what you people think of the STORY. Jesus Christ.

Sorry, but perhaps if you'd explained exactly what you wanted in the first place we could have avoided any misunderstanding and your subsequent snarkiness.

 

[Captain Robert April]

You do know the Challenger is Geordi LaForge's ship, right?

 

[Challenger71099]

Well I won't directly say that republicans and democrats are in the story, but I will say that two group of people with different beliefs are. I was watching television a while back and they were talking about the healthcare reform. The republicans were trying to block progress while the democrats were attempting to start progress in a wrong way, and that was something that I was like.... well what would happen if we continue in this direction when we actually go to the Alpha centauri ? I liked the notion that after first contact with the Vulcans in Trek that we begin to change, but i was thinking that it would be ridiculous if we changed overnight because human nature will not accept the fact that we all have to hold hands and tree hug, we have so many different beliefs. Colonizing the first planet in the name of earth would have to be a violent experience.

To answer BolianAdmiral's question about the timeline. It is a Pogo paradox or even a predestination paradox, that happens alot in the television show.

 

[Challenger71099]

You do know the Challenger is Geordi LaForge's ship, right?

That was a different timeline, one which happened because of Voyager, and even if he does assume command of the Challenger, which he probably won't after leaving Starfleet after his stint on the Enterprise. Even if he does have the ship in 2390, my character would probably be an admiral by that time or dead.

 

[Maurice]

That's still the plot.I think perhaps you're mistaking theme for plot. How does the plot affect the character? What does the character go through internally? What will he learn, how will he be changed? What is the theme of the story, what is it about on a deeper level? What drives the character to act as he does, and why? These are all the questions you need to think about.

Basically, there's what I was getting at: what's important is what decisions the protagonist makes, and what s/he learns or fails to learn as a consequence of that decision. That's the story. The rest is plot (the sequence of events used to illustrate the theme).

So aside from feeding us Democratic propaganda in the guise of a Star Trek story, what is this about?

The need for two factions to get past their ideologies and compromise is democratic propaganda?

There's no further discussion needed for anything, but what you people think of the STORY. Jesus Christ.

Then what I think of the story is that you've got no story. You've got a few plot points and a broad theme about the need for people to look beyond their ideological positions and act for the common good.

Happy?

 

[Avon]

the captain could get fed up with both sides, kidnap both factions leaders, have some holographic replicas of them made to sign a peace treaty, warp 10 around the sun home. job done.