Do you think the Sheliak will appear in Discovery?

Watching Ensigns of Command on S3 Blu-Ray. And noticed that the treaty with the Sheliak takes place in the 2250's. They don't seem that interesting, but I wonder if they will show up in the new series.

 

Sheliak Corporate. Reems and reems of fine print and legalese. Ummm, not what I watch Star Trek for. I hope not.

 

I wouldn't rule it out in absolute terms, they are cool looking race with a merciless outlook. Fuller & Co are aware of what went on before. But I see them choosing fresh species rather than returning to relatively minor secondary species. Particularly given the shorter seasons, they'll have to pick n' choose what to do.

 

I seriously doubt it.

 

Well the legal part is boring. But they are merciless. And supposedly more powerful. They consider humans to be lesser life forms. I imagine there were some skirmishes before the treaty.

 

I can just see the 2-parter: Instead of 'to be continued' it will read 'adjourned until next week at this time'.

 

I want Excalbians and I don't care how much sense it doesn't make.

 

They are kind of a nazi-borg species concept that someone was trolling me with in an other thread a few days ago.

But they aren't the typical plastic-foreheaded species, they've that to commend them.

But why not make a new species including the sinister, workable aspects of the sheliak and dump the legalise? And go with that.

 

By choosing to do another prequel, I find it difficult to introduce significant new species. As much as I enjoyed the Xindi arc, I just found it hard to believe that there would be no mention of them in later series. Not to mention Suliban. If they do, it should be isolated events limiting the stakes to Discovery or a planet or Starbase they're near and not Earth or the Federation.

 

I'm actually of the view they'll avoid exhuming secondary species that were done previously.That's what Enterprise did and they won't want to be seen as Enterprise 2.0 in creative terms. Secondary species may appear in bit roles as a nod to other series but are unlikely to feature prominently. That's my sense of things anyway.

 

This is where I think soft reboot comes in. My guess is preservation of all continuity of existing events and species, but not so much worrying about how new stuff will fit in later. Why? Because this won't plug into TNG era like Enterprise was meant to plug into TOS/TNG. When they exhaust this era, it will be time for the TNG era to be updated.

But with a more fleshed out 23rd era, they can stay here indefinitely. The only reason TNG was in the 24th was to get away from Kirk and Spock. Now that the new series is going to soon exist parallel to Kirk and Spock, different eras are less of an issue in terms of setting a series, and could be relegated to time travel and alt reality stories.

Things that might be softly rebooted is 24th aliens being newly introduced in the 23rd. Specifically the Borg, The Remans, Q, The Dominion, and of course the Ferengi. Some or all of these might be reintroduced as 23rd century antagonists, but I'm referring to way down the line. First we have to get new worlds and species like they promised.

 

You can very easily do one off episodes and mini-arcs with one off species that are never heard of again. All incarnations of Trek did that to one point or another.

 

In the beginning yes. But I remember TNG in the early days and how being as far from Kirk and Spock was the mandate. Then Sarek showed up in season 3. I thought, well ,they still won't have Spock. After Spock showed up I said well, at least it's safe to say Kirk will never show up on TNG.

 

To solve this problem, Discovery will center on the bloody Suliban-Xindi War. It ends with their complete annihilation at the hands of Denobula, and a peace treaty (signed by the Sheliak) in which it is stipulated to never mention any of them again.

 

I think if the Sheliak do appear, they need to expand them from their relatively 2d portrayal in Ensigns of Command, if they do that then I could see them becoming a very effective background antagonists (I don't want the entire series to revolve around conflict with them) adding a different type of character to the Trekverse (this - after one or two false starts - did eventually happen with the Ferengi and the Cardassians).

 

I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't know who the Sheliak were.

 

I hope they get to return, but only if the entire episode is being spent in a conference room with future lawyers huddled over PADDs

 

The only race that was a bigger administrative pain in the butt than the Sheliak were those aliens in "The Big Goodbye" where Picard had to recite a greeting, and if a ship captain makes one error during the greeting recital, it could lead to years of war. Talk about planet of the bureaucrats.

 

They're so backed up that they won't be able to get the paperwork for an interstellar war completed for at least 6 months. The Federation can pencil it in for 5 months at the earliest (it will probably take longer). God forbid they forget a stamp or initials on the right forms.

 

i hope so. i love "the ensigns of command." the sheliak were, IMO, one of trek's most successful depictions of an utterly alien race.