A Different New Series : Star Trek Magellan

[tenmei]

It is some time in the future after Star Trek: Nemesis and the Romulan Empire has crumbled into numerous independant, and often corrupt, systems and coalitions which harbor mixed feelings to both the Former Romulan Empire and the Federation.

Ferenginar has undergone a total cultural revolution with females in power and males sidelined whilst the Klingon Empire flirts with isolationism as they continue to lick their wounds after the Dominion War.

Into this altered universe we send our ship - the Magellan. No bigger than the Defiant, with top of the line warp engines but vastly underweaponed, this is a spacegoing equivalent to the Armidale Class employed by the Royal Australian Navy. Throw the Magellan into a firefight against a Romulan Warbird and its best course of option's to make a run for it -

This is a border patrol vessel - designed to patrol the borders of the United Federation of Planets and render aid and support to its member worlds.

The arena of operations of the vessel is the Former Romulan Empire and she somehow becomes involved in the politics of the area.

In command is a female, she's Human, Arabic, a gentle soul and a great diplomat but she's not a fighter - which often leads her to conflict with her male XO (species unimportant, but a species we've seen before who have had very little development) who is a security and tactical specialist, who is also the latest in a Starfleet family who doesn't want to be on the ship and considers his assignment there a punishment.

You also have the ships Science Officer, a brilliant but inexperienced Bajoran Lieutenant Jg, fresh from the Academy. He's male, struggling to juggle his religion with his emerging sexuality - and the fact he's the only scientist on the ship means he's also the ships medic, he's in a very stressful position.

Chief Engineer would be female, Vulcan. The eldest person on the ship, she's chosen to reject the teachings of Surak in the wake of the Fall of the Romulan Empire and follows a new path which believes in embracing emotions. In earlier centuries, she'd be a V'Tosh K'Tur, in current times, she's a pioneer.

Rounding out the main characters would be the ships Helm Officer, a female from a previously unknown species - someone from an officer exchange program from one that is from one of the planets that is now free from rule by the Romulans after the collapse of the Romulan Empire.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

It is some time in the future after Star Trek: Nemesis and the Romulan Empire has crumbled...

I jumped ship right there. More stories in the post-TNG faux future where the politics of the various fake empires matter.

Let's have some science fiction and some adventure. Maybe a few more peculiar kinds of alien strangers than we've seen lately, too.

 

[Wonderlust King]

boring

 

[Magisterfrodo]

I like it. Sounds promising.

 

[JNG]

Instead of going where no man has gone before, we will patrol a border? A border with a "crumbled" entity would probably not really be much of a border, so I imagine there'd be more to this than it sounds, but I am not sure how much politics I want in my final frontier.

 

[tenmei]

Let's have some science fiction and some adventure. Maybe a few more peculiar kinds of alien strangers than we've seen lately, too.

Whilst I can comprehend and understand your concerns that the show could become too driven by the politics - which I hope it wouldn't - this puzzles me.

This show could provide the science fiction and the adventure you want to, you can have peculiar kinds of aliens as well - who knows what sort of aliens were subjugated by the Romulans that we've never seen before.

boring

I'll embrace criticism - if it's constructive. Which this isn't. Could you perhaps explain why you think the concept is boring?

I like it. Sounds promising.

Thanks! I've got more ideas for it which I might post in another thread when they have been pulled together - including candidates for the XO and the Helm Officers races, as well as some casting choices for how I'm picturing the roles.

Instead of going where no man has gone before, we will patrol a border? A border with a "crumbled" entity would probably not really be much of a border, so I imagine there'd be more to this than it sounds, but I am not sure how much politics I want in my final frontier.

Yes, there would be some politics - but it's partly there to flesh out the new political landscape and the setting of the show :- why they're where they are, doing what they're doing. There's also a lot of room for doing standard Trek fare - alien ruins on planets, encountering new civilisations _and_ old friends and foes, plague stories. The ship would be doing patrol duties that would involve heading into the crumbled empire doing some peacekeeping, exploration and humanitarian work.

 

[friedebarth]

Quoting somebody who I can't recall, sorry, but:

Me likey!

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

This show could provide the science fiction and the adventure you want to, you can have peculiar kinds of aliens as well - who knows what sort of aliens were subjugated by the Romulans that we've never seen before.

I suppose it could, but there's nothing in the format as described that really suggests that kind of thing. It sounds very post-DS9-ish, and that's not good.

 

[tenmei]

I guess I'm just a fan of that kind of show, then - but I think a fleshed out backdrop for any series is a must even if the full extent is only alluded to in the episodes themselves.

I've also been looking at candidates for the two alien characters - and looked up some races on a Trek wikipedia.

The two races are the races that D'Marr and Axum belonged to - neither of which have been named - and it's the XO from the race that Axum belonged to and the female Helm Officer from the race that D'Marr belonged to.

Both species have been around the Federation since it's formation (we've seen members of both races in Enterprise) so the Starfleet Family that the XO is from would work if he were a member of Axum's species.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I guess I'm just a fan of that kind of show, then - but I think a fleshed out backdrop for any series is a must even if the full extent is only alluded to in the episodes themselves.

I think the original "Star Trek" was better for having virtually no backstory at its beginning coupled with a willingness on the part of the producers to continually absorb the contributions of many freelance writers through the years to construct the history, technology and all the details of the world in which Kirk and his people functioned.

Roddenberry didn't even settle on what century the series took place in, much less what organization the Enterprise reported to, in developing his proposal and in writing and/or producing the first several episodes.

The problem with extensive backstory is that having come up with it, creators get invested in it and think it ought to figure into the storytelling. That encourages both exposition that there's no reason to expect anyone to be interested in and the early establishment of arbitrary limits that reduce the range of potential stories - "we can't do that, we established that this is so in the pilot."

 

[tenmei]

Perfectly valid points, which is partly why I left the details of the races exisiting within the FRE (outside that our Helm Officer is a member of one of the races) and how they react to our presence there with little detail.

 

[smeos]

Ah, sweet blissful political intrigue.

I just cannot get enough of moral shades of gray. Sounds awesome.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Uh, And here I thought this post would be about adventures in the Magellan Cloud.
One ship or a small exploration armada accompanied by a couple of combat vessels for defense, that leaves for another galaxy.
That's an idea I was toying with myself.
But don't get them stranded there, so it won't be too much liek Voyager or SG: Atlantis.
Give them a real purpose there, like an invitation from a mysterious new species, that in return pays the milky way a visit at the same time.
That way we could maintain the familiar federation setting, but explore it from the alien POV.

 

[Broccoli]

The biggest thing, from what I notice, when people try to come up with a "This would make a cool Trek series" is that it has a lot of backstory to it. I think this comes from the fact that when DS9 ended, it was very layered with characterization, politics, action/war, and history of the major galactic players. And I think that with DS9's end result, while good, was also a bad thing. People look to DS9 as a generally good way to do things. Granted, it can be, but to go out the gate with a lot of backstory can be a huge mistake.

Having a thought-out premise is good, but you need to have some wiggle room to expand on what is going on in that fictional universe. If you look at DS9 from the start, was it as layered as it was at the end? Nope. It was basically TNG on a space station. Instead of going to the aliens, the aliens come to them. Now, over time it moved beyond it's initial premise and expanded (mostly due to the dramatic openness that the Gamma Quadrant provided).

I agree with Starship Polaris in that the concept of having all your backstory right way limits what you can do in the future.

 

[hellsgate]

Write it up & submit it to my anthology. I'd love to host it. e-mail: trekfan1975@yahoo.com

Suggestion:

A TNG-Era Excelsior B-Class variant, (formerly the U.S.S. Hood as mentioned in TNG,) recovered from a Dominion War boneyard, refit & re-commissioned for the Frankenstein Fleet & dispatched to border patrol. The U.S.S. Mandela-B, Registry: NCC ****-D.

 

[tenmei]

I'm not sure an Excelsior would be small enough for the feel of the ship. I'd be looking at a Nova or even smaller - maybe even something on the scale of the Defiant.

 

[hellsgate]

For border patrol, I'd go with something "medium" sized than a Nova or TNG-refit Oberth-Class. Especially with the Borg, Dominion & other races around such as the occasional rogue house of Klingons. You don't (obviously) want an uber-vessel but something equipped enough to deal with interception duties AND a suitable diplomatic grade, & sufficient armaments. Big enough to maybe include a "borrowed" cloaking device in a clinch & fast enough to duck, hit & run like a scared rabbit while out of contact with SF Command for a few weeks~months, even with a somewhat-perfected MIDAS system allowing for long range communications.

 

[tenmei]

Nope, the series concept was concepted as being on a small ship so on a small ship it will stay. The ship may be renamed as the USS Calcutta instead of the USS Magellan, but it's not going to be any bigger than a Nova Class and with a crew of only about 25.