This is an hypothetical story treatment for an “alternate” Star Trek: Generations I wrote way back around 2008, since there has been some talks on how the movie might have been better I thought of going back to it and translating it from the original Italian.
As Rick Berman e Brannon Braga started thinking about ideas for Star Trek 7, several interesting plot points emerged:
-A space battle between two different Enterprises;
-Killing Kirk;
-Crash-landing the Enterprise-D
-Basing the story on a mystery involving two generations trough the decades.
We know what happened afterwards...
They originally tried to secure Nimoy as performing a brief cameo early in the film, but he refused on the (quite right) basis that “there was no Spock role”: anyone of the TOS characters could have filled that cameo with minimal script modifications. B & B proved him right, replacing Spock and McCoy with Scotty and Chekov, and gave up about Spock...But what if they hadn’t? Spock is still alive and well in the 24th century, why use Nimoy only for a brief cameo when they could have worked him in as an integral part of the story?
In this “elseTrek” I imagined a version of the movie made in a timeline where Berman and Braga asked themselves the same questions, realized the potential and acted on it.
I tried to keep the idea realistic, considering the budget constraints, so no huge space battles or Chon Connery guest appearances and I avoid using the Enterprise-A, whose use would have needed the cumbersome to film TMP model and the TUC bridge set (that they repurposed for amargosa).
Dialogues as written here are just “drafts” to give an idea in broad strokes of how they would go, they would have been rewritten in the actual script. I also omitted a few parts, such as the emotion chip b-plot, that would be more or less identical to the version we know anyway.
=============================
PROLOGUE - XXIII CENTURY
The movie begins as it should have been before the original opening was cut: with Kirk performing an orbital parachuting launch as Chekov and Scotty wait for him on the ground.
As in the “real” scene, Kirk has decided to forfeit going to the Enterprise-B christening, but is obviously not as enthusiast of his sport activities as he pretends to be: a deep sadness marks his face.
Chekov: «But Captain, you wouldn’t have missed it for anything in the world!»
Scott: «”It wouldn’t be the Enterprise without Kirk to give the departing order,” they were saying when they invited you! You couldn’t wait to be back on board…»
Kirk: «Well, I can’t see why I should be on board. My visit wouldn’t have a purpose, I have no mission on that vessel!»
Scott: «I understand…Captain, don’t let yourself be influenced by mr Spock’s decision, it’s not like you…»
Kirk: «Spock has nothing to do with my decision. He departed this morning, you know it.»
Chekov: «Mr Spock canceling his involvement in the ceremony has nothing to do with us…His transport departed today, postponing his leaving once more would have been illogical.»
Kirk: «Right…He said it was the most logical thing to do…That he no longer had a purpose here and it was time for him to enter the world of diplomacy actively, as he had been planning since Kithomer… anyway, I have no intention of going and nothing or no one can convince me!»
Cut to the bridge of the Enterprise-B: the turbolift’s doors open and, accompanied by Scott and Chekov, Kirk enters with a very annoyed expression. He has been convinced after all.
The movie continues more or less as we know until the Enterprise receives a distress call, but it’s NOT from canonically problematic El-Aurian ships escaping the Borg, but from a Vulcan transport that has left Earth the previous day. As Kirk soon realizes, it’s Spock’s ship.
The action goes on as we’re used in “our” Generations (there might be more than one ship in distress, it’s not really relevant, it’s only to raise the stakes), several passengers are saved, including Spock and Guinan (it’s not a problem for her to be here: from TNG:Time’s Arrow we know she had been roaming the galaxy for centuries anyway) and Kirk disappears in the Nexus as usual.
ACT I - XXIV CENTURY
Worf is promoted as we know, with the production spending a huge part of the budget on the sailing ship scenes, Picard learns about the death of his brother and nephew, then the D receives a distress call from a Federation space station in the Amargosa System, near the Romulan border.
Riker leads an away team and discovers that the station has been attacked by Romulans, among the few survivors promptly brought on the Enterprise is ambassador Spock, who claims to having been on the station for a secret diplomatic mission of the uttermost importance and asks to return to the station to recover important data left behind.
Picard is easily convinced, but as Spock returns on the station Data and LaForge discover a hidden laboratory behind a fake bulkhead. The scene follows what we know, with Spock in Soran’s place, but to come out of cloak is not a Klingon bird of prey, but the USS Yorktown NCC-1717-A, Excelsior class. Spock launches a probe towards the Amargosa star, beams to the Yorktown with Geordi as prisoner, then everything goes on more or less as we know…
ACT II
Spock enters the bridge of the Yorktown, which, we discover, is commanded by the Duras sisters, and has a brief altercation with them (quite different than the one we know…Spock is definitely acting strangely, but he’s still Spock!).
Meanwhile, on the Enterprise the crew conducts research on the Yorktown: it’s an old Starfleet ship that has been decommissioned a few years back and left in a surplus depot. Checking with the depot, the ship turns out to be missing.
At the same time, Guinan talks to Picard about Spock: recently the Nexus, an unknown phenomenon that appeared and disappeared suddenly in the 23th century, appeared again and is crossing system after system at incredible speed.
On the Yorktown Spock interrogates La Forge (no torture this time), asks him about Trilithium and examines the VISOR.
Back on the e Enterprise, Picard and Data investigates the Nexus, which is still a mostly unknown phenomenon, but can’t imagine Spock’s intentions, suddenly they are joined by a just arrived passenger: Montgomery Scott. Scott has been studying the nexus independently and believes that Kirk might be still alive, trapped inside, together they discover Spock’s plan, which is the same as we know from Soran.
The Enterprise heads for the Veridian System.
On the Yorktown, Spock goes back to the bridge, where we discover the details of his pact with the Duras sisters: a Trilithium weapon and Spock’s Federation access codes, codes a bit old but still useful and already used to commandeer the Yorktown, in exchange of the help of their organization to get to the nexus and divert its course. The sudden reapparance of the Nexus has given Spock a chance to do something he couldn’t do for many decades and he’s determined to not miss on it, no matter the cost.
The Enterprise intercepts the Yorktown over Veridian III, Spock beams to the planet, Picard convinces the Duras sisters to accept himself as a prisoner in exchange for Geordie and a chance to talk to Spock and is beamed down.
On the planet, Picard is separated from Spock by a force field, he discusses with him and realizes that the Vulcan talks to him as if he were his father. Picard tries to convince Spock to forfeit his terrible plan that goes against his long-standing ideals, but with no success: he’s obsessed by Kirk, who he feels has betrayed, leaving alone, and by Sarek, who he never really knew and tried to please by entering diplomacy. Spock explains that thanks to the Nexus all this won’t matter anymore: they will all be together again and everything will be fine. “perhaps illogical, but still true”.
On the Yorktown, the Duras sisters observe the Enterprise trough the VISOR, they manage to find the prefix code and drop the shields of the D, then suddenly attack. The Enterprise still outmatches the old Yorktown, but with no shields and against a fully armed ship re-equipped by the Klingon the battle more or less ends in a draw: the Yorktown is eventually destroyed when the Starfleet crew find a way to have her drop the shields as well, but the Enterprise isn’t much better off, with a core breach in progress the saucer section is forced to separate and falls towards the planet.
On the surface, Picard discovers a gap in the force field (obviously carelessly installed by the Klingon crew), Spock tried to phaser him but isn’t certain to having hit him.
As the Enterprise precipitates towards the planet, Spock is ambushed by Picard and the two men start fighting.
Suddenly, the Enterprise’s saucer section passes above them with a thunderous sound and displacing a massive quantity of air, the shockwave damages some of the structures and Spock falls into the canyon towards his death. A moment later, the probe Spock had been working on takes off, heading for the sun as programmed.
The Nexus arrives and engulfs Veridian III.
ACT III
Picard wakes up in his fantasy and everything proceeds as we know until he is joined by Guinan. This time she’s not a ghost of her previous experience: the whole crew of the Enterprise was on the planet when the nexus arrived, they all ended up in the Nexus and are currently dreaming ideal lives. As Guinan knew the anomaly already she didn’t fall to its effect. Guinan explains that the nexus can bring them back in time to moments before they entered, but they would end in their bodies, so they can’t change one. But someone who isn’t alive in the 24th century, that has been trapped in the nexus for decades, yet is just arrived, might help. Kirk.
Kirk is initially reluctant to help until Picard is joined by Scotty, who was on the D and is therefore in the Nexus, and discovers how much Spock has felt responsible of his death. Hearing that Spock destroyed a Star System, Kirk is completely brought out of his fantasy and agrees to follow Picard back in time to Veridian III.
On the planet the two friends discuss animatedly. For Kirk only a couple of days have passed, Spock has 80 years of bitterness and guilt to overcome. Eventually, Kirk manages to convince the Vulcan that what he’s doing is wrong and goes against what they believe in. Spock heads towards to probe to stop the countdown, but at that very moment the Enterprise’s saucer section passes above, causing a shockwave that destroys some of the structures. Spock falls on a bridge a level down and loses the probe’s remote, accidentally activating its cloaking system. The remote falls even further and gets stuck on a damaged bridge, not far from where Kirk has fallen himself.
Spock helps Kirk to cross the abyss to recover the remote, Picard, still on the upper levels, heads towards the probe’s structure as the cloak is deactivated and destroys it, Kirk smiles in triumph just as the bridge’s metal gives up and the captain falls in the canyon towards certain death.
Spock and Picard descend in the canyon. A world has been saved, but the greatest captain Starfleet ever had lies dying under a pile of rocks and metal. The Vulcan does a last mind meld with his friend: Kirk’s body will die, but everything he was, everything he knew, his history, won’t vanish with it.
The epilogue of the movie is similar to what we know, with an added part for Spock, who reconciled with Picard before returning to earth with Scott to help dismantle the Duras’ organization.
As Rick Berman e Brannon Braga started thinking about ideas for Star Trek 7, several interesting plot points emerged:
-A space battle between two different Enterprises;
-Killing Kirk;
-Crash-landing the Enterprise-D
-Basing the story on a mystery involving two generations trough the decades.
We know what happened afterwards...
They originally tried to secure Nimoy as performing a brief cameo early in the film, but he refused on the (quite right) basis that “there was no Spock role”: anyone of the TOS characters could have filled that cameo with minimal script modifications. B & B proved him right, replacing Spock and McCoy with Scotty and Chekov, and gave up about Spock...But what if they hadn’t? Spock is still alive and well in the 24th century, why use Nimoy only for a brief cameo when they could have worked him in as an integral part of the story?
In this “elseTrek” I imagined a version of the movie made in a timeline where Berman and Braga asked themselves the same questions, realized the potential and acted on it.
I tried to keep the idea realistic, considering the budget constraints, so no huge space battles or Chon Connery guest appearances and I avoid using the Enterprise-A, whose use would have needed the cumbersome to film TMP model and the TUC bridge set (that they repurposed for amargosa).
Dialogues as written here are just “drafts” to give an idea in broad strokes of how they would go, they would have been rewritten in the actual script. I also omitted a few parts, such as the emotion chip b-plot, that would be more or less identical to the version we know anyway.
=============================
PROLOGUE - XXIII CENTURY
The movie begins as it should have been before the original opening was cut: with Kirk performing an orbital parachuting launch as Chekov and Scotty wait for him on the ground.
As in the “real” scene, Kirk has decided to forfeit going to the Enterprise-B christening, but is obviously not as enthusiast of his sport activities as he pretends to be: a deep sadness marks his face.
Chekov: «But Captain, you wouldn’t have missed it for anything in the world!»
Scott: «”It wouldn’t be the Enterprise without Kirk to give the departing order,” they were saying when they invited you! You couldn’t wait to be back on board…»
Kirk: «Well, I can’t see why I should be on board. My visit wouldn’t have a purpose, I have no mission on that vessel!»
Scott: «I understand…Captain, don’t let yourself be influenced by mr Spock’s decision, it’s not like you…»
Kirk: «Spock has nothing to do with my decision. He departed this morning, you know it.»
Chekov: «Mr Spock canceling his involvement in the ceremony has nothing to do with us…His transport departed today, postponing his leaving once more would have been illogical.»
Kirk: «Right…He said it was the most logical thing to do…That he no longer had a purpose here and it was time for him to enter the world of diplomacy actively, as he had been planning since Kithomer… anyway, I have no intention of going and nothing or no one can convince me!»
Cut to the bridge of the Enterprise-B: the turbolift’s doors open and, accompanied by Scott and Chekov, Kirk enters with a very annoyed expression. He has been convinced after all.
The movie continues more or less as we know until the Enterprise receives a distress call, but it’s NOT from canonically problematic El-Aurian ships escaping the Borg, but from a Vulcan transport that has left Earth the previous day. As Kirk soon realizes, it’s Spock’s ship.
The action goes on as we’re used in “our” Generations (there might be more than one ship in distress, it’s not really relevant, it’s only to raise the stakes), several passengers are saved, including Spock and Guinan (it’s not a problem for her to be here: from TNG:Time’s Arrow we know she had been roaming the galaxy for centuries anyway) and Kirk disappears in the Nexus as usual.
ACT I - XXIV CENTURY
Worf is promoted as we know, with the production spending a huge part of the budget on the sailing ship scenes, Picard learns about the death of his brother and nephew, then the D receives a distress call from a Federation space station in the Amargosa System, near the Romulan border.
Riker leads an away team and discovers that the station has been attacked by Romulans, among the few survivors promptly brought on the Enterprise is ambassador Spock, who claims to having been on the station for a secret diplomatic mission of the uttermost importance and asks to return to the station to recover important data left behind.
Picard is easily convinced, but as Spock returns on the station Data and LaForge discover a hidden laboratory behind a fake bulkhead. The scene follows what we know, with Spock in Soran’s place, but to come out of cloak is not a Klingon bird of prey, but the USS Yorktown NCC-1717-A, Excelsior class. Spock launches a probe towards the Amargosa star, beams to the Yorktown with Geordi as prisoner, then everything goes on more or less as we know…
ACT II
Spock enters the bridge of the Yorktown, which, we discover, is commanded by the Duras sisters, and has a brief altercation with them (quite different than the one we know…Spock is definitely acting strangely, but he’s still Spock!).
Meanwhile, on the Enterprise the crew conducts research on the Yorktown: it’s an old Starfleet ship that has been decommissioned a few years back and left in a surplus depot. Checking with the depot, the ship turns out to be missing.
At the same time, Guinan talks to Picard about Spock: recently the Nexus, an unknown phenomenon that appeared and disappeared suddenly in the 23th century, appeared again and is crossing system after system at incredible speed.
On the Yorktown Spock interrogates La Forge (no torture this time), asks him about Trilithium and examines the VISOR.
Back on the e Enterprise, Picard and Data investigates the Nexus, which is still a mostly unknown phenomenon, but can’t imagine Spock’s intentions, suddenly they are joined by a just arrived passenger: Montgomery Scott. Scott has been studying the nexus independently and believes that Kirk might be still alive, trapped inside, together they discover Spock’s plan, which is the same as we know from Soran.
The Enterprise heads for the Veridian System.
On the Yorktown, Spock goes back to the bridge, where we discover the details of his pact with the Duras sisters: a Trilithium weapon and Spock’s Federation access codes, codes a bit old but still useful and already used to commandeer the Yorktown, in exchange of the help of their organization to get to the nexus and divert its course. The sudden reapparance of the Nexus has given Spock a chance to do something he couldn’t do for many decades and he’s determined to not miss on it, no matter the cost.
The Enterprise intercepts the Yorktown over Veridian III, Spock beams to the planet, Picard convinces the Duras sisters to accept himself as a prisoner in exchange for Geordie and a chance to talk to Spock and is beamed down.
On the planet, Picard is separated from Spock by a force field, he discusses with him and realizes that the Vulcan talks to him as if he were his father. Picard tries to convince Spock to forfeit his terrible plan that goes against his long-standing ideals, but with no success: he’s obsessed by Kirk, who he feels has betrayed, leaving alone, and by Sarek, who he never really knew and tried to please by entering diplomacy. Spock explains that thanks to the Nexus all this won’t matter anymore: they will all be together again and everything will be fine. “perhaps illogical, but still true”.
On the Yorktown, the Duras sisters observe the Enterprise trough the VISOR, they manage to find the prefix code and drop the shields of the D, then suddenly attack. The Enterprise still outmatches the old Yorktown, but with no shields and against a fully armed ship re-equipped by the Klingon the battle more or less ends in a draw: the Yorktown is eventually destroyed when the Starfleet crew find a way to have her drop the shields as well, but the Enterprise isn’t much better off, with a core breach in progress the saucer section is forced to separate and falls towards the planet.
On the surface, Picard discovers a gap in the force field (obviously carelessly installed by the Klingon crew), Spock tried to phaser him but isn’t certain to having hit him.
As the Enterprise precipitates towards the planet, Spock is ambushed by Picard and the two men start fighting.
Suddenly, the Enterprise’s saucer section passes above them with a thunderous sound and displacing a massive quantity of air, the shockwave damages some of the structures and Spock falls into the canyon towards his death. A moment later, the probe Spock had been working on takes off, heading for the sun as programmed.
The Nexus arrives and engulfs Veridian III.
ACT III
Picard wakes up in his fantasy and everything proceeds as we know until he is joined by Guinan. This time she’s not a ghost of her previous experience: the whole crew of the Enterprise was on the planet when the nexus arrived, they all ended up in the Nexus and are currently dreaming ideal lives. As Guinan knew the anomaly already she didn’t fall to its effect. Guinan explains that the nexus can bring them back in time to moments before they entered, but they would end in their bodies, so they can’t change one. But someone who isn’t alive in the 24th century, that has been trapped in the nexus for decades, yet is just arrived, might help. Kirk.
Kirk is initially reluctant to help until Picard is joined by Scotty, who was on the D and is therefore in the Nexus, and discovers how much Spock has felt responsible of his death. Hearing that Spock destroyed a Star System, Kirk is completely brought out of his fantasy and agrees to follow Picard back in time to Veridian III.
On the planet the two friends discuss animatedly. For Kirk only a couple of days have passed, Spock has 80 years of bitterness and guilt to overcome. Eventually, Kirk manages to convince the Vulcan that what he’s doing is wrong and goes against what they believe in. Spock heads towards to probe to stop the countdown, but at that very moment the Enterprise’s saucer section passes above, causing a shockwave that destroys some of the structures. Spock falls on a bridge a level down and loses the probe’s remote, accidentally activating its cloaking system. The remote falls even further and gets stuck on a damaged bridge, not far from where Kirk has fallen himself.
Spock helps Kirk to cross the abyss to recover the remote, Picard, still on the upper levels, heads towards the probe’s structure as the cloak is deactivated and destroys it, Kirk smiles in triumph just as the bridge’s metal gives up and the captain falls in the canyon towards certain death.
Spock and Picard descend in the canyon. A world has been saved, but the greatest captain Starfleet ever had lies dying under a pile of rocks and metal. The Vulcan does a last mind meld with his friend: Kirk’s body will die, but everything he was, everything he knew, his history, won’t vanish with it.
The epilogue of the movie is similar to what we know, with an added part for Spock, who reconciled with Picard before returning to earth with Scott to help dismantle the Duras’ organization.
