Star Trek, what I think it should be.....

Discussion in 'Future of Trek' started by SPEKTRE76, Mar 1, 2012.

  1. SPEKTRE76

    SPEKTRE76 Lieutenant Junior Grade Red Shirt

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    I know there are many geek cultures out there and beliefs. So, please keep an open mind and also that this is in my own opinion.
    1. Get rid of the hokiness!
    2. Come down to earth.
    3. Real military terminology.
    4. Real scientific terminology.
    5. Needs to be dark and gritty.
    6. Aliens need to look like aliens and......
    7. Timeline progression through seasons.
    8. Character development.
    9. Ships need to look like science/military vessels inside and out.
    10. Uniforms, I am 15 years ex-Navy don't get me started..oops too late!
    11. Officers and ENLISTED please! Special forces away teams! Contractors
    12. Sound does not travel in space!
    Okay ladies, gentlemen and others; let me explain myself.
    Let's talk about

    #1, hokiness. I feel that a lot of Sci-Fi shows are campy and don't really try too hard to be serious or realistic in nature. I guess you can say that my number one statement covers all the ones below it however I will explain each individually. One example is using fooking crystals to power a starship!

    #2 Another thing is what is seen 'on screen' when traveling faster than light. You can't see fracking stars whiz by. In fact the whole image would look like a 'fisheye' 17mm camera lens. There would be a sphere of a bubble like image that will be more red in color and everything else stretching around it in a blue shift. Watch Carl Sagan's videos on light speed travel on YouTube. It should take some time to go to "warp speed". You shouldn't just zip out in a flash just because it looks cool. Not to mention the ship would rip apart and your skeletons would liquefy. Warp shouldn't be a speed. Perhaps more like bending space time like in 'Event Horizon'. The term 'warp' should be a factor of the space/time dilation (gravity well curvature).

    #3 Motherfrackers need to have some military bearing! The Star Trek universe (God rest it's soul) is much like the US Naval universe. So, tradition is very strong with us. We still use terms like 'shipmate' and 'aye aye'. Were also not mambi pambi either even though we practice professionalism and political correctness. Correct names for areas of the ship like C.I.C. (Combat Information Center) or the J.I.C. (Joint Information Center). Those are not all in one place like on the NCC-1701D's bridge. The bridge is where the Capt. sits and a Lieutenant gives some poor 'boot' orders on where to sail the ship. Also there aren't any frigg'n bars on the ship and the idea of a Holo-deck just makes me nauseated. Holograms are just images made of light from refracting images off to dissimilar opposing mirrors to give a very crude 3D effect. They need to have something like the 'Matrix' had except with no head penetration, LOL.

    #4 They need to use a lot more of today's terminology and maybe make up some of their own and in the show develop on how that principal came to be. "Beam me up" is not a scientific term of any means.

    #5 they show needs to be dark and gritty like the movie 'The Hurt Locker' mixed in with some 'Battle Los Angeles' and a little bit of 'Tron (2011)' without all the neon and some 'Southland'.

    #6 Do aliens need to look like people in Halloween costumes? We should see the Annunaki and the Grey's. There needs to be an element to the show that is tied to this and a big one. In fact make t the reason for "Boldly going where no man has gone before". We could be on a trek for the roots of our beginnings and gain an understanding of the universe. We shouldn't automatically hear English speaking aliens from the first time we meet them. In fact there should be a cryptology team on-board that has to research the new found aliens communication means. I could go on and on about this.

    #7 Season 1 should start somewhere in the late 21st century like say 2076 or something. Every hundred years should be at least 3 seasons of 25 episodes. We should get to see how interstellar relationships are formed and new technologies found and discovered. In fact the United Federation of Planets shouldn't even exist until season seven at least. The first 5 episodes of season one should focus on the development and history and the agency should be something like the International Deep Space Exploration Agency (I.D.S.E.A.). This should all start with the planting of the first flag on Mars and then move forward from the year 2035 to 2076 where between special events in space exploration history the scene cuts to a class room at the Annapolis, MD US Naval Air and Space Academy in the year 2076 where the proctor is speaking in the third person of how it all came to be like a memory flash back. He could have been a ground controller that got to have a really nice seat to watch it all. And he can be a guest instructor who is in is early sixties.

    # 8 Tell us how these people came to be! This should also be an ongoing process to keep people intrigued.

    #9 Sorry, but the Enterprise looks cheesy and dated. The ships need to look more military/scientific and FUNCTIONAL to boot. In fact they should be saucer like as seen in the movie Independence Day. Another good example is the large ship in the movie Alien Resurrection.

    #10 Uniforms especially working uniforms are not cheesy jumpsuits with communicators that are the logo of the show. The dress uniforms are cheesy as well. And we don't (US Navy) go out on patrol in are fracking whites. We wear cammo and more tactical survival clothing. I will need to sketch up what I mean and add it to this post. Oh one thing off subject. The weapons need to look like weapons and NOT something out of a video game or something you would shave your gonads with.

    #11 Where I come from Officers are not technicians and they don't fix anything. And since when is there only one Chief Petty Officer on a ship? There need to be First Class Petty Officers and on down the line. We also need a Navy SEAL element to the crew and use them for away missions NOT THE FOOKING upper chain-of-command, get real! What about astrophysicsist' contractors and nuclear engineers maintenance techs, PMC companies, archeologists, geologist's, medical staff not just one fooking doctor! And engineering is more than 10 people, sorry, I have personally seen it. I have my ESWS and my EAWS pin for frack sake.

    #12 No-brainer you don't hear sh!@ in space. Thankfully they realized this in the 2009 Star Trek movie.

    Okay guys there is my mini rant. I will do some sketching over the weekend to further illustrate my feelings.
     
    Last edited: Mar 1, 2012
  2. zar

    zar Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    #2: The whole point of "warp" is so we can step outside of what is thought to be possible with known physics. Warp happens in subspace, not normal space, and since subspace is a fictional invention, it can more or less look however they want it to (the "stars" are not necessarily actually stars). If anything, perhaps "full impulse" should take pointers from Carl Sagan's video, as it's about what would happen near the speed of light in normal space.

    Regarding "warp shouldn't be a speed": Well, speed is distance per time, and regardless of what occurs during warp, the end result is you're in a new point in space whose distance from your previous point depends on how much relative time you spent in warp... so it's a speed, right?


    #4: We use unscientific terms to describe things that involve technologically complex processes all the time. For example, "posting". The internet is complicated, but it's a normal part of life. It was a conscience decision from the start for Star Trek's characters not to talk scientifically about things that are normal for them, because it wouldn't make sense.


    #9: How does a ship "look military/scientific"? At one point military was a wooden catapult and scientific was a sundial. Basing a ship design based on current "realistic" standards leads to the very cheesiness you want to avoid. The cheesiest part of the original Enterprise is the satellite-dish-looking deflector, and that's because it was based on what looked "high tech" at the time. Artistic license is better than realism.
     
  3. Herkimer Jitty

    Herkimer Jitty Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    The weapons need to look like both?

    Makes me wonder what kind of landscaping goes on in the 24the century. A phaser would be handy for that kind of thing, right?
     
  4. SPEKTRE76

    SPEKTRE76 Lieutenant Junior Grade Red Shirt

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    Good catch, no that's a type 'o'. I meant 'not look like'. :techman:
     
  5. SPEKTRE76

    SPEKTRE76 Lieutenant Junior Grade Red Shirt

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    I don't mean look like aircraft carriers of today. Just what would be plauseable in the late 21st century which is where I'd like the series to begin. ;)

    Oh and your point on warp as well taken. I should have said 'near the speed of light'.

    I also think the discovery of warp itself should be developed over a few episodes unlike Star Trek-First Contact where all we saw was the end result of warp 1.
     
    Last edited: Mar 1, 2012
  6. Herkimer Jitty

    Herkimer Jitty Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Yeah, you see, when people use equipment, they have shorthand and jargon.

    Don't you know this? Weren't you in the armed forces?

    [​IMG]


    So, you want a ship that's like, a big... saucer?

    With... outboard engines?

    So basically... the Enterprise?
     
  7. nightwind1

    nightwind1 Commodore Commodore

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    As a former US Coast Guard Petty Officer, I disagree with nearly everything you've written her.

    Starfleet is NOT the US Navy or Coast Guard (though it is closer to CG than Navy). So there is no reason all of the terminology, layout of the different areas of the ship, etc., should be the same. We got that on nuBSG, and I HATED it. I didn't like that the Galactica had a 1MC sound-powered phone, that people wore frikkin' TIES, that the deck apes had uniforms that looked like they could be off of a US aircraft carrier, or a lot of other early-21st-Century crap they had on that show, so I sure as heck wouldn't want it in Trek.
     
  8. zar

    zar Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    You still need to choose between reality and art. Since we aren't living in the late 21st century, 21st-century technology isn't going to look like our reality. How do you know what would be plausible?

    Can you explain how the Independence Day saucers look more "military/scientific and functional" than the Enterprise?
     
  9. Temis the Vorta

    Temis the Vorta Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Depends. Campiness, no. But a return to the old-fashioned corniness of TOS? That could work.

    Does this have something to do with warp speed? The audience doesn't care - warp speed is just something that makes the ships go from one place where the story is happening to another place where the story continues. Details beyond that is a waste of everybody's time.

    If you mean "plausible" and ratchet back the silly babble, fine.

    Ditto as per above.

    Aboard a Klingon ship, yes. But Starfleet is bright and clean. This is an aesthetic call for the set designers.

    Since Star Trek can only survive on cable nowadays and cable audiences aren't used to or likely to tolerate weird and silly looking forehead aliens, I'll agree with this.

    The episodes should be serialized, either entirely or partially, because that's the expectations of the cable audience for drama. Other than that, I don't care if episodes are separated by a day or a year, but the convention of one episode = one week because that's how they're shown seems good enough. If the story demands adjustments (four episodes that happen back to back in time, or a jump of more than a year between seasons), then follow what works for the story.

    Definitely.

    To the extent anyone know what they're supposed to look like centuries from now.

    My pet peeve is the lack of technology integrated into clothing. Within our own lifetimes, we'll probably see stuff like heads-up displays integrated into eyeglasses (with ads for nearby stores, directional maps, and overlays that turn mundane environments into gameplay zones). Starfleet uniforms should be bristling with techno-gadgets to help personnel do their jobs - and be safer! - miniaturized to such an extent that they might not even be evident.

    Sending people into battle wearing pajamas is okay if the pajama fabric is wonderfully lightweight, yet tougher than Kevlar. If they can fly all over the galaxy, they can make fabric like that. And what about personal shields? Spaceships are shielded but not people? That doesn't send a very good message to the troops.

    Why not have fabrics that morph to camouflage the wearer (a camo pattern is a very low tech solution - why not go for total invisibility?) and then switch back to something "nicer" for off-duty wear? There's no reason a given set of clothes needs to look the same all day long.

    But as to style, I like the late DS9 style of uniform with the purple-grey yokes and colors along the collar. If we're assuming that fabric technology will progress to a point that aesthetics don't need to be compromised by technological or practical considerations, then why not go for the most stylish look, according to the tastes of the time?

    The audience doesn't care about details like that, and contractors don't exist because profit motive doesn't exist. Well maybe some in the 23rd C. But Starfleet shouldn't need to use contractors, at least not for their major missions of exploration and defense.

    Nooooobody cares.
     
  10. Herkimer Jitty

    Herkimer Jitty Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    It's cause they have more tiny blue lights than the Enterprise.
     
  11. RandyS

    RandyS Vice Admiral Admiral

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    This alone tells me you don't understand what Star Trek is.

    Of course, that's just my opinion.
     
    Last edited: Mar 2, 2012
  12. Herkimer Jitty

    Herkimer Jitty Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    "Dark and gritty" is one of those phrases that's been ground into meaninglessness by studio press releases. It means about as much to me as "high-concept" and "we're very excited about...".
     
  13. RandyS

    RandyS Vice Admiral Admiral

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    You left out "We are very pleased".;)
     
  14. Methos

    Methos Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    is it just me, or has the original poster just described Babylon 5 perfectly in his 'requests'?

    Babylon 5... serious sci-fi with down to earth characters that have real flaws, emotions and problems... check...

    Ok, don't really see how Star Trek would be done just on Earth... unless you want a Starfleet Academy series? Kirk does Saved by the Bell perhaps?

    Babylon 5, check... real military that kick ass...

    Good luck in any sci-fi on this one lmao... it's called Science Fiction for a reason lol

    Babylon 5 definitely... very dark in places with storylines that will get you wondering how close their storylines could be to reality...

    Babylon 5, check... Shadows and Vorlons that kick ass on every level

    Babylon 5... 5 years of story, spread over 5 seasons...

    Definitely strong on B5, though Trek didn't do badly with this either in my opinion...

    Babylon 5, check... definitely, logical scientifical reasoning for the earth based ships and technology...

    Babylon 5, check... uniforms for military, space, marines, officers, ground troops, naval fleet and so on... using logical progression of earth based uniforms

    Babylon 5 again... 'ground pounders' as they were affectionately known, though there were also special forces for other missions shown through the series.

    Good luck on this one, noone's going to sit through watching a space battle scene without a single noise on the screen... just not going to happen, tv execs know this, hell, even viewers know this one...

    M
     
  15. Admiral Buzzkill

    Admiral Buzzkill Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Trek is doing really, really well on the big screen by ignoring all this nonsense. They know what they're doing. :techman:
     
  16. Admiral2

    Admiral2 Admiral Admiral

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    1. Been there, said this. So have other people. Even wrote a fanfic.

      Star Trek, MY Way

      Thanks for joining us. You realize that none of this is gonna happen right? Cause the masses seem to like idiot Trek? That the success of Abrams Trek - created by a guy who had a chance to do everything you mentioned and just made it ten times worse - is proof of that?
     
  17. The Castellan

    The Castellan Commodore Commodore

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    1: you mean gloomy and depressing? And what do you want, ships that run on unleaded? And crystals have been known for having various properties and energies. Don't believe me? Take 2 big chunks of quartz, preferably with flat, broken ends, go into a dark room and rub the rough sides together....they will be glowing green light. And the crystals on Star Trek merely helped control the mixture of matter and anti-matter.

    2: Sagen's a tool. He's also the one who pretty much thinks there's nothing out there, or that we'll never find them, and I heard he actually changed that idea and said differently shortly before he died. And from my own experiences, I've seen various UFO's ~awaits the eye rolling~ that have already violated both NEwton's and ~sarcastic gasp~ Einstein's physics. And if they can do all that, I am sure going faster than light, as well as doing it right away, would be a no brainer for them. See, just because we can't officially go faster than light, I am certain that given that many stars are much, much older than our sun, that there's species out there with a million, if not billion, years ahead of us. And they'd make any of our so-called high technology look like prehistoric junk.

    3: Yea, they are gotta be locked up in sardine cans with no warmth or personality, especially when going out there to explore the great beyond, though I feel you'd be against that and more for mainly military based missions, instead. Bars and halodecs, and a bunch of other stuff, are needed to help keep crews from going crazy, especially if they are going to be out there for years.

    4: In the future, our terminology will probably be laughed at. I'd rather see "beam me up" than today's crap of LOL, WTF, 1337, and so on. Plus a lot of today's scientific terms sound even sillier.

    5: you mean, dark, distopian and showing man, and everyone else, at their worse times, rather than something hopeful and good? I like Trek because of that....it's one of the FEW series that shows man having actually grown up and tossed aside the infantile mentality that is the accepted, mainstream behavior of today. Logan's Run, Battlestar Galactica, Mad Max, and even Doctor Who all focus on man's worst, where it's all hell and social Darwinism rules supreme. Trek is different because it does not do that.

    6: That I don't mind, and that's going to be an element of my own stories. I give you Kudos for knowing what Annunaki are ~gives you a cookie~ And I am shooting for many aliens who look nothing like we'd expect. Though I am sure there are room for some human looking aliens, like the Nordics.

    7: Prequels are always a very risky thing, George Lucas practically alienated a lot of the loyal, long time Star Wars fans by doing so.

    8: Doing that in my own planned stories. I've done a lot of background material on them, and going to put them in somewhere, though getting to the main stories is the most important thing.

    9: Ehhhh...I like classic Trek ships. Like with 5, Trek deviated from the norm. I never liked the giant, flying shoe boxes seen in the alien films, plus city sized space ships can be a pain the ass to handle and most giant ships I associate with hostile conqueror types. Like Star Destroyers. Plus there's sure to be enough saucers by their own out there, in my own stories, the saucers are mainly Dalek vessels.

    10: Uniforms are just fine....in fact, I am glad they are not camos or fatigues. And seeing as how Starfleet is not the US Military, thank goodness, and is the main scientific/exploratory/diplomatic/defense entity of the Federation, we're not going to have everyone in Starfleet shouting "Sir, yes sir!" and acting like the Marines from Aliens, and I sure as hell don't want to see them start wearing black uniforms and toting large blasters around. As for weapons, I like that they are small, functional and different....the weapons seen often in Star Wars or Aliens are mainly just for looking 'kewl' on screen and, to me at least, look obnoxious. And seeing phasers used also for tools makes them even more useful than big ass cannons we see in other science fictions.

    11: Once again, this is not the US armed forces. And I think it's refreshing to see the head officers actually do stuff then just bark the orders and everyone else shouting "sir, yes sir!" and what not. Like in both "The NAkek Time" and "the Doomsday Machine", we saw Kirk and Scotty doing repairs, and I liked that. I like seeing the head officers going on away missions, and not with marines kitted out for battle.....a bunch of armed marines on a new planet the Federation is having an official first contact is not going to hold up well, especially if the people on the planet are against violence and so on, marines might make them think they are going to be either occupiers or conquers rather than someone wanting to say hi and offering friendship.

    12: You might not hear sh!@ in space, but often, especially with action sequences, don't work right on screen.
     
  18. Temis the Vorta

    Temis the Vorta Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Firefly used no-sound-in-space to good effect. It's eerie seeing an explosion without the expected sound.

    But this is an aesthetic call - there's no particular need to adhere to scientific logic when they're defying it every day with FTL travel and transporters and humanoid aliens everywhere. And if everyone started using no-sound-in-space, the effectiveness would quickly wear off.

    Don't blame the prequel concept for Lucas' total ineptitude as a storyteller, except when he has someone to correct his mistakes before anything is committed to the screen. [brokenrecord] The Clone Wars is amply demonstrating that the prequel concept itself was never the problem, and Lucas does just fine, given adult supervision. [/brokenrecord]
     
  19. zar

    zar Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    If you say we shouldn't hear sound during space scenes, you're asking the realism to extend beyond the story and into production. It's like saying we shouldn't be able to see the action at all because there are no cameras in space or on uninhabited planets. It's not a story issue: Whenever the characters actually do go into space with EV suits, sound does not travel and they need to communicate through radio.
     
  20. SPEKTRE76

    SPEKTRE76 Lieutenant Junior Grade Red Shirt

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    I think only one of you actually got what I was saying. And Jitty and Randy are just trolling. Of course I know what Star Trek is. I've never encounted such sarcastic closed mindedness before on any ST forum.

    Zar the ID4 'saucer's look more realistic because they looked like they function and don't look like a yacht stylist made them. And the inside of the Event Horizon space craft looks way more like what I'm trying to describe, in-fact almost spot on. Most of you seem hellbent on the 24th century as where in my post I stated it should start in the late 21st. Methos, please stop trolling and saying I'm trying to copy some other show. I have never even seen Babylon 5. And from the looks of the videos I just watched are no where near what I was talking about. The only series that watched that was spot on in displaying military minded behavior in close quaters living was BSG.

    Oh and Jitty, it's not the word "shorthand" that you should be trying to passive agressively insult me with. We use acronyms and callsigns. They should be saying something like this:

    "Enterprise, team echo one is kilo alpha, ready for transport at grid two-zero-zero-seven-niner" You know basic comunications phraseology. For those of you unfamilar with Naval Air Traffic Control "Kilo Alpha" means 'mission ready' and kilo bravo the opposite.

    And to the Coast Guard guy, go research who Gene was and where he came from and then comeback and tell me that ST isn't based on the Navy in anyway. BTW you guys have cute little rafts.:devil: