All Seeing Eye
Admiral
I thought they had the Klingons and the Romulans?
Best possible enemy for new series?
- Thread starter All Seeing Eye
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I thought they had the Klingons and the Romulans?
The Klingons and the Romulans only appeared a few times in TOS - the vast majority of the episodes didn't deal with either in any way.
The Klingons appeared seven times, the Romulans three times.
All Seeing Eye
Admiral
I'm sure that during the time TOS was aired, 7 appearances was classed as a recurring bad guy, later Trek required a much more intense role for the bad guy/enemy which is why we got the Borg and the Dominion.
Yeah, you get my vote. We just had a series, BSG, devoted to military porn and gun fetishes. I'd be all for a series about seeking out new life and new civilizations, going boldly etc etc.
I watched TOS at the time it was aired - I don't know who would be in charge of doing the "classing" of the Klingons or Romulans as major baddies, but they were in fact just occasional. Most "Star Trek" - and most of the best "Star Trek" - had nothing to do with them.
It was about, as LaxScrutiny notes, more interesting things than fighting enemies as such.
I dunno, I think that furries could make for some scary ass enemies in the trek universe, basically a colony of humans who settled a planet and decided to mix a bunch of animal DNA with their own to become a sentient race of genetic monsters, mwahahahahaaaa.
Actually I think a race that is obsessed with staving off the end of universe by building huge machines that damage Sub-space in the Milky way galaxy in an attempt to move the ENTIRE galaxy to another universe to avoid the end of the universe countless eons in the future. They would be manaical and thinking they were doing the galaxy a favor, but while they may have good intentions they would be causing wide range of destruction, destroying whole starsystems and ecological damage to planets would be in the billions of planets. These people would be able to build Dyson Sphere sized structures in short amounts of time.
All Seeing Eye
Admiral
You cant get scarier than super evil Humans with no morals.
Wowbagger's Rules of Villainry (partial):
1. There will be no series-long invasion arc.
2. Main enemies will not be or be in any way related to old and/or obscure canon.
2a. A rephrasing: main enemies will not be fanboy self-stimulating fantasies.
3. Main enemies shall appear no more than five times in a season. In other words: > 80% of stories cannot tie into any ongoing story arc involving the main enemies.
4. These rules exist for a simple reason: to prevent my own fanboy fantasy, which involves the Doomsday Machine having been constructed by the same people who built Gomtuu, and Tam Elburn as a Dark God of Destruction. No, you do not want to ask.
1. There will be no series-long invasion arc.
2. Main enemies will not be or be in any way related to old and/or obscure canon.
2a. A rephrasing: main enemies will not be fanboy self-stimulating fantasies.
3. Main enemies shall appear no more than five times in a season. In other words: > 80% of stories cannot tie into any ongoing story arc involving the main enemies.
4. These rules exist for a simple reason: to prevent my own fanboy fantasy, which involves the Doomsday Machine having been constructed by the same people who built Gomtuu, and Tam Elburn as a Dark God of Destruction. No, you do not want to ask.
An adversary where 'victory' and 'defeat' boils down to guns isn't interesting. More or less all of Star Trek's "enemies" are like that, and the conclusion is always foregone ("heroes always need to win", "deus ex machina", etc..)
If you want a compelling adversary, make it one that cannot be defeated by guns, that isn't our for blood and conquest.
My favourite adversary idea is a UFP-like organization. Younger, smaller, technically less advanced in some areas, but smarter. Unlike the UFP, they aren't anachronistic or technophobic. (Discard most tech fantasy/space opera tropes when filling in the details.) Compared to the UFP, they've accomplished almost just as much with significantly less, and they show no signs of slowing down.
The UFP isn't physically threatened by these (what it considers) 'upstarts', but it is culturally threatened . The UFP, and a lot of its members before the UFP existed, has been so accustomed to being the top of the pack (of a rather stupid pack, but that's beside the point), that they have no idea how to deal with a dynamic civilization they can't preach to and look down upon.
And if you want to make it more interesting, don't just make it one dynamic civiliation. Make it many. A small cluster of such civilizations bouncing off each other. And then see how the 'traditional' Star Trek polities react to that. (It'd be a perfect opportunity to demonstrate how a single species can spawn multiple distinct polities, instead of the mono-everything we see right now.)
So in short: if you want an interesting adversary (or adversaries) make it one that aims for the soul, not the body. I figure that it's also a good way to make lasting additions to the universe, instead of one shot wonders that we never hear about again after the series finale because they've been kicked so hard.
If you want a compelling adversary, make it one that cannot be defeated by guns, that isn't our for blood and conquest.
My favourite adversary idea is a UFP-like organization. Younger, smaller, technically less advanced in some areas, but smarter. Unlike the UFP, they aren't anachronistic or technophobic. (Discard most tech fantasy/space opera tropes when filling in the details.) Compared to the UFP, they've accomplished almost just as much with significantly less, and they show no signs of slowing down.
The UFP isn't physically threatened by these (what it considers) 'upstarts', but it is culturally threatened . The UFP, and a lot of its members before the UFP existed, has been so accustomed to being the top of the pack (of a rather stupid pack, but that's beside the point), that they have no idea how to deal with a dynamic civilization they can't preach to and look down upon.
And if you want to make it more interesting, don't just make it one dynamic civiliation. Make it many. A small cluster of such civilizations bouncing off each other. And then see how the 'traditional' Star Trek polities react to that. (It'd be a perfect opportunity to demonstrate how a single species can spawn multiple distinct polities, instead of the mono-everything we see right now.)
So in short: if you want an interesting adversary (or adversaries) make it one that aims for the soul, not the body. I figure that it's also a good way to make lasting additions to the universe, instead of one shot wonders that we never hear about again after the series finale because they've been kicked so hard.
A few months ago, one of the posters here (I can't remember who it was) posted an excellent idea for Series VI. Had it all mapped out, to the end of the 7th season. If I remember it right, the series would have started out as a normal Trek series, about exploration and stuff. The larger story arc would have manifested itself sort of like "Conspiracy" - with strange orders coming out, odd patterns in the reshuffling of command personnel, and most of all, people suddenly 'changing' and not being their old selves anymore. But unlike the Conspiracy bugs, this change would occur whenever somebody used the transporter to beam to, or from, Earth. In the end it would have been
who would be revealed to be responsible. He was working from his own ideas on how to improve humanity. In the end, there was a civil war between this Enemy's forces, or those that he controlled, and 'normal' Federation citizens.
I really wish I remember who came up with this idea, and where I could link to that thread where he proposed it. Does this sound familiar to anyone? If the creator of that thread is reading this, could he enlighten us?
B-4, or at least the AI from B-4's brain
I really wish I remember who came up with this idea, and where I could link to that thread where he proposed it. Does this sound familiar to anyone? If the creator of that thread is reading this, could he enlighten us?
How about a race who are culturally medievel but who have gained advanced tech from say someone like the ferengi and so they now have warp drives and warships but didn`t have to develop or struggle to attain them. I mena imagine what would have happened if you gave tanks, uzis and aircraft carriers to the romans or iron age britons.
I expect they as a group would have a rather low opinion of all aliens as they would believe that they were the only truly intelligent life in the universe. Torture and murder would be their tools of trade and they would have a ruthless manifest destiny urge to conquer the galaxy.
I expect they would be headed up by a monarchy with noblemen/barons controlling sections of their fledgling empire. They would be very much into their own myth of their own greatness and nobility and as such would be very extravagant in their uniforms and would be very conventional in their personal weapondry (they would all carry ornate melee weapons even though phaser rifles are readily available)
Basically they would be a metaphor for a) White European expansionism and beliefs of the last two milleniums b) The countries who were given arms and tech by the soviets or the west during the cold war even though they might not have been developed enough to be getting that kind of weapondry.
What do ya think?
I expect they as a group would have a rather low opinion of all aliens as they would believe that they were the only truly intelligent life in the universe. Torture and murder would be their tools of trade and they would have a ruthless manifest destiny urge to conquer the galaxy.
I expect they would be headed up by a monarchy with noblemen/barons controlling sections of their fledgling empire. They would be very much into their own myth of their own greatness and nobility and as such would be very extravagant in their uniforms and would be very conventional in their personal weapondry (they would all carry ornate melee weapons even though phaser rifles are readily available)
Basically they would be a metaphor for a) White European expansionism and beliefs of the last two milleniums b) The countries who were given arms and tech by the soviets or the west during the cold war even though they might not have been developed enough to be getting that kind of weapondry.
What do ya think?
I think there should be two types of enemies, one familiar and one new. In an idea I had for a series, the "cold war" type relations between the Romulans and Federation would thaw, but then Trek would have to deal with smaller, thornier enemies that were brazen because they had nothing to lose. They would differ culturally, but we would also depend on them for resources. The relationship between the Romulans and these new enemies would be a cause for concern...
I think you see where I'm going with this. Science fiction must be relevant to be worthwhile imo. I have a whole premise for a new series, but I don't want to hijack the thread.
I think you see where I'm going with this. Science fiction must be relevant to be worthwhile imo. I have a whole premise for a new series, but I don't want to hijack the thread.
They hibernate? Wake up man! They have been here all along... some never stopped complaining.
OT, man is and always will be his own worst enemy. We will always have internal strife, factions who fight each other, and unrest within our own race.
Okay, okay, that's enough.
Waaay too scary.
I have two ideas.
First I love the bug infestation that they had in S1-2 of TNG. The bugs infest you, you look the same, but they control your mind. It would be scary because you could never really know for sure who was friend or foe. Your best bud from the academy could be a bug-brain.
Secondly, I think I'd like to put Trek 6 in a kind of situation where it was challenged for it's existance, and there are rival factions. I wouldn't short-cut on this, each side would have a legitamate claim to being right. The one side for conviencience call them "Federalist" want to uphold the the values of the Federation at all costs. Others (we'll call them "Protectionists") think that living by those values is nieve and stupid considering the risks involved. At the center would be a readily visible group of aliens. Some are peaceful, and some aren't. And you can't tell until they strike. Maybe some group of refugees from a war that some new alien is fighting the Fed.
As a third one, maybe some sort of mega creature, like the giant cell of TOS trek. Except it's big enough to eat a planet.
I think having a main enemy is a huge mistake. Take the Borg for example. In the first ep they are the king of evil. They are beyond our capability to defeat or survive against and require Q to save us. However, once they became the main enemy, they had to be watered down or the Fed would have been destroyed. An enemy is either too weak or too powerful to survive a long series. TOS has it right. Have an enemy approximately equal to the Fed (read the Cold War with the US and USSR) and have them appear only once in a while.
