I've no need for a reboot, but I certainly wouldn't mind harder-sf stories -- where everything already established remains, but the story this week primarily involves a hard-sf problem of orbital mechanics or whatever. ("Captain, all warp and impulse is completely down! All we have left are the RCS thrusters, but there's only enough fuel left for twenty-three minutes of delta-vee!")
Am I the only one wanting a reboot that is a harder sci fi?
- Thread starter SalyutBuran
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This is similar to an idea I've often expressed, that instead of constantly running into aliens who look exactly like humans or humans with a forehead bump, they should just make a majority of the planets of the week Earth colonies.
You could keep Spock as half-alien pretty easily. The best way IMHO would be to have Vulcans (and other humanoid aliens) all actually descended from genetically-modified humans. Maybe the Iconians, when they had their galactic-wide civilization 100,000 or so years ago, took humans off earth and modified them to live on other planets. Everyone would still be close enough to interbreed - with some difficulties.
Warp drive is something which is theoretically possible according to some hypothesis.
Pad-to-pad transporting is theoretically possible, as long as you think of it as more 3D printing a new body from the one scanned/destroyed rather than transformed from matter to energy and back. But the transporter was only a thing in TOS because they couldn't afford shuttle landings.
Universal translator would have to be dumped, but I think this is a good thing. More adventures could deal with splinter colonies of humans (or other races already widely known) rather than just introducing a new set of bland aliens every week. And when first contact takes place, there can be Darmok-style difficulties.
That does not fit in Hard SF. Currently there are theoretical ways to travel faster than light, but the power required is impossible to achieve making warp drive impossible to achieve. So it can't exist in Hard SF.
Well yeah, but the OP was about "harder SF" not "hard SF"
Of course one way to do it would be if the entire Trekverse was actually a simulation in some Jupiter-brain computer.
TNG already explained humanoid looking aliens. While it's not the Iconians it's a similar "seeding" idea (with genetic material instead of whole people), and canonical to the Trek universe.
I think the whole idea is kind of silly and we should just accept that in a TV show made by humans that will have actors playing aliens the aliens will not look all that alien. Perhaps one day the cost of CGI will come down so much that it will be possible to insert wildly differing non-humanoid aliens easily and cheaply enough to make episodic television work.
Even back to TOS I'm not sure how "hard" the sci-fi was meant to be.
TOS was kind of The Expanse of its day. It got more right than typical space opera of the time, but was not the scientist's bible everyone made it out to be.
The idea of "hard" SF meant something very different during that time period, as (for example) psychic powers were taken quite seriously within the SFnal community at the time (hence their common use Trek). But there were already writers out there like Larry Niven and Hal Clement who were writing recognizable hard-SF, and Trek assuredly wasn't that. It was however rooted in written sci-fi in a way later Trek was not, because the franchise has become relentlessly self referential.
again I said more plausible.
One of the most automatic assumptions needed to make more plausible aliens, is that most humanoid aliens are genetically related to modern homo sapiens. It'd explain why so many societies look and act like humans.
The next assumption would be that there exist ancient aliens who spread our DNA.
You automatically have a set up for a great show. Finding those ancient aliens, or at least evidence for their existence.
Just the same you could easily enhance the Vulcan/Romulan narrative, with having them being space faring for 100's of thousand or even millions of years.
EDIT:
A) It's already canon that humanoid aliens share the same ancestry, I believe it was written into canon in the chase.
EDIT: I"m actually a huge proponent of this idea, but it's far enough from trek that I'm not sure it needs to be branded as star trek.
FYI I wrote out a premise for this before.
WW3 decimates earth. Khan and his disciples leave earth. Using genetic engineering and the best of Earths technologies they form a network of O'neil colonies.
After a few decades the Khannites reject Khan. They splinter off and embrace their own societies. In this example they resemble something closer to TOS aliens, amped up hyper aggressive humans.
Two twin brothers Remus and Romulus form the Romluan empire. A generation later a visionairy named Sarek rejects the fascism of the Romulans and creates his own colony.
One of his deciples Khaless forms a society based on a warriror culture motif.
2 centuries after WW3 Earth has again become space fairing and have once again rediscovered nuclear propulsion technology. Over time they and the vulcans begin an alliance and they create the foundations of the prime directive(which in this case would be something along the lines of banning genetic engineering, and only having regular relationships with augmented populations who have a stable gene pool).
In this context bajorans were bread as an underclass designed to be subservient to the cardassians etc.
It'd also give teeth to the dominion.
B) If you're going the lost colonies route, just have them being Oneil cylinders in the asteroid belt.
C) The simplest explanation for the transporter is that it's a small wormhole/warp bubble.
It can transport you from A to B, but only over short distances, that are largely dependent on a line of sight. Artisitically it's a perfect reason why its usage can be used when the writer wants it and forgotten when they wish it not to be.
To the vast majority of fans a transporter being a warp tunnel/bubble/wormhole changes absolutely nothing about the story.
D) You lose time travel, god like aliens etc. Which I think is a great thing to push the genre forward. In stead of recycling low effort cliches, you have to come up with more complex aliens/situations.
E) I'm not remotely suggesting it, but it'd be interesting if you took something like the movie interstellar and made it more like star trek.
F) I always look to the artistic merits of the story. Is data a better character or worst if he's limited to harder science? Is Picard any less great if he hasn't traveled through time? Are the borg less intimidating if their technology is based more on actual cybernetics?
G) Write down your favorite trek moments. How many of them are dependent on magic?
The once that are based on things like time travel, are those episodes you want to see copied?
Some of the greatest moments in Trek (the borg, Khan, the war with the klingons, the prime directive, star fleet, a socialist utopia etc are not in any shape or form reliant on those things.
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As I've said else where, the two main sticking points of star trek, which is a bit harder, would still be reliant on FTL and a ancient aliens.
Ancient aliens modified the genetics of different alien populations(this is already canon).
If you have FTL you have ancient aliens, it's pretty much automatic if you can travel between galaxies(over vast stretches of time), thanks to the drake equation.
In this context human looking aliens with forehead ridges would make even more sense, and I think it'd enhance canon stories.
All of a sudden the vulcan roman schism would be a far older event.
Time travel yes would be out, but what canon events are we missing? Most time travel episodes are often completely irrelevant to canon.
If you have warp bubbles etc, you can assume transporters work along those same mechanisms.
Replicators would be more similar to 3-d printers etc.
If star trek represents a future history(I'd argue it often does), to me 90s trek was written by people who weren't there but pieced together a narrative with inaccurate written records, much like we did with the lost city of atlantis.
The real Atlantis was bronze age city that got wiped out by a volcanic eruption. Yet the ignorant assumed it was some 10,000 year old utopia.
If 90's trek was an exaggerated version of events. I'd argue a harder trek would be a recollection of those exact same events with more accuracy. Kirk still exists, the Borg still exist etc.
In that same context to me nutrek is written from the frame of, I know Romans Centurions used swords and shields, but wouldn't it be cooler if we disregarded known history and give them submachine guns instead?
To me this would be a restoration project. Take canon and assume inaccurate narratives, were more plausible events.
I"m not sure what nu trek hasn't done to alienate fans.
The only thing I haven't scene has been a star wars crossover, and I'd sure that'd happen tomorrow if Disney bought CBS.
Emptied their pockets as millions of them paid to see the moves repeatedly.
A) Their form of proulsion makes absolutely no sense, a warp drive is radically more likely to work.
B) The social dynamics of the belt make absolutely no sense, the idea that water etc would be in short supply is absurd. Just the same the idea a poor society in the belt couldn't spin up their habitats on a tether and make artifiical gravity makes no sense.
C) Ceres being spun to create artificial gravity is just absurd. Just the same it's absurd they use the epstein drive to create artificial gravity.
D) The proto molecule itself exists to create all kinds of scenarios that are in blatant opposition to actual science.
I remember talking to the authors(before they became famous). It was quite clear that they didn't consider it in any shape or form a hard sci fi. They played with certain ideas because they thought they were neat but they had no interest in making something hard.
The total lack of AI, and an economy that sounds as primitive at the 15th century carribean is radically opposed to realism.
The point with trek being hard sci fi, is that most of it's primary motifs are not dependent on technology to "make go".
If a warp drive can work, the vast majority of trek concepts are covered.
The borg are still the borg, the klingons are still the klingons etc. Khan is still genetically engineered, etc.
If we have FTL, it's automatic that the universe is full of hyper advanced aliens. It's very logical that they created, or at least spread life across our galaxy.
Data is still an android, Spock is still a human vulcan hybrid, the vulcans, klingons, remans, and romulans are still genetically related.
People try to twist both canon and science into some absolutist position. Where you want these things to be rigid for the sake of being rigid. In contrast I'd argue their strength comes in creating a better story, something that fans can better relate to. Canon is the back story, science is the method behind a story.
The problem is you're talking about niche examples from specific episodes. The god like alien motif was mostly a TOS thing, and it was downplayed largely because from an artistic point of view it doesn't help with a story. And it's already established in canon that most humanoids share ancient alien ancestors.
A great example of how realism made more sense is deanna troi. She started off as being a pure empath, reading peoples emotions from vast differences. It was quickly realized that this was a gimmick and it didn't really help in character development. When it became a more realistic variant of mine reading(where you was simply very good at reading peoples emotions and body language) it thrust her forward as a stronger character.
The majority of episodes are not dependent on breaking the laws of science. Most of the time it's just background noise.
If trek is to continue regardless of why, it seems obvious that time travel etc is a short cut to bad writing in either case.
Your talking about a show that the vast majority of people agree had the strongest start in science fiction history.
BSG might of had the worst ending in history, but you can't argue the set up wasn't near flawless.
I mean you can, but if you took a realistic survey the majority are gonna choose its set up over the orginals. I love the original I do think it's a shame it has been forgotten, but I'd put both on the pedestal of greatness, in part because one wasn't trying to copy the other. I'd much rather a squaring of the lore with reimagined spin offs, than a linear extension of a narrow narrative. .
So Q and Spock are "niche examples from specific episodes"...hm that will surprise a lot of people.
And I'm supposed to care about that...why? To me NuBSG from it's very start to its end has always been a reeking pile of pretentious shit and will always remain so.
Agreed. I barely made it through the miniseries and when I did I was extremely depressed. It was a desperate dystopic grab using familiar bits. It's what people often accuse newer Trek of being except actually depressing.
That's part of it, it's depressing and the characters are unlikeable imo.
But I'd even argue that it took the darkness and depressing themes so far that it went all the way to intentionally silly.
Like when I saw that scene where the little girl plays with her doll while the Cylon rockets hone in on her ship in the background (a shot stolen straight out of an anti-nuclear weapons film form the Cold War) I laughed out loud because it was trying so hard to be "edgy" and "mature=dark"
I turned it off in that exact moment and never looked at it again.
But it was a new kind of television sci-fi at the time and so many people felt drawn towards it for its novelty.
The vulcans share a genetic ancestry with humans this is already established canon and there's absolutely no reason a universe would FTL would go against that idea, in fact it'd be the polar opposite, if FTL ancient aliens becomes immediate fact by simple logic. If FTL you need some sort of cosmic prime directive of non interference, something the Q posses.
As far as the Q, what have the Q done? Again you make surface level assumptions, without connecting to the actual story.
If warp bubbles etc are a thing, the Q could simply be a civilization that have a mastery over it, transporting and manipulating things as they please.
Logically the Q could simply be a billion year old civilization that has gone through some sort of scientifically accurate singularity.
I managed to make it to Bastille Day (I think that's three episodes in) and Apollo dealing with the criminal just irritated me. It was completely unlikable and I was not wanting to go forward with that.
All that said, while I didn't care for the characters. But, it resonated with a lot of science fiction fans. And I did like the design aesthetics. It was sad that such an interesting looking world was designed to leave you depressed.
No the design aesthetics were the first nail in the coffin for that show, specifically the costuming. And that's also something I fault much of New Trek with.
In a scifi show set hundreds of years in the future (or as it were hundreds of thousands of years in the past) I do not want the people to dress in contemporary fashion, it's just boring to me and seems like the show saying it's too "important" for creative scifi costuming.
Like who would set a show in the past and dress people like today? Okay Reign did to some extend, but Reign sucked.
Though at least new Trek isn't nearly as try-hard or misanthropic as NuBSG was.
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