I am well aware that there are some things that are intended to remain mysteries, and it would obviously not be feasible for the films or Series 6 to clean up all of Trek's "hanging chads", but I'm sure some of these leftovers do have story potential for them. Which ones would be a matter of opinion.
Here's a few that I can recall:
Future Guy/The General:
We never found out who is this guy really was, though there were theories, "Future Romulan," "Future Section 31," "Son of Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln" are ones I can recall of the top of my head. FG could've been Star Trek's equivalent of The First from Buffy; unable to be permanently defeated by our heroes, yet also unable to affect their world on a tangible level, relying on expendable pawns to carry out his plans (which would give us a solid nemesis to latch onto while also giving us variety in our bad guys). The Temporal Cold War could have been a sweeping epic that tied unrelated elements of Trek lore together in a cohesive package (like Peter David's Trek novels), creating ripples that would be felt by everyone. Instead, nobody really really knew what to do with it. An unused Roddenberry story involved the Enterprise traveling to 1963. Someone was trying to prevent JFK's assassination, but the Enterprise crew ultimately had to stop them (I can't remember why). That's the kind of story that's tailor made for the TCW (though it had been rejigged for ENT, Quantum Leap jokes would have abounded). Instead, we get aliens in Nazi uniforms, which could've been a fun throwback to TOS's wackiest moments, but instead turned into confusing mess that tried to shoehorn way to much stuff into 2 hours.
Neural parasites:
A brief history lession: once it became apparent that the Ferengi were little more than a comic nuiscance, TPTB decided that someone else should serve as successor to the Klingons. Gene Roddenberry and Maurice Hurley decided that, whereas the Klingon Empire had a Cold War parallel, the new enemy would have a parallel to international terrorism (what with Libya, Lebanon et. al being in the news at the time). Hurley envisioned this species as being insectoids. The neural parasites seen in "Conspiracy" would be the first wave (at GR's insistence, he hated the original idea of renegade Starfleet officers staging a coup attempt), the second wave would have been encountered in a 3-part story which was ultimately canceled due to the 1988 WGA strike, but elements of it were eventually incorporated into "The Neutral Zone" and "Q-Who". Rick Berman thought that the special effects involved in creating a credible insectoid species would be too expensive, so he suggested they be replaced with budget friendly cyborgs. Hence, the Borg were born. But that also meant that the neural parasites were forgotten, despite Conspiracy's cliffhanger ending. They're still out there, they know where Earth is, but no one's really done anything with them.
Silent Enemy aliens (Kovaalans?)
As is, "Silent Enemy" accomplished what it intended to do, a Trek-ification of Steven Spielberg's 1971 chase thriller The Duel, where a driver is stalked by a semi-truck with an unseen driver whose motivations are never fully revealed, intended to represent a Jungian archetype. So one could argue that revisiting them could take away from that. But, these aliens looked pretty cool, and since we didn't know their motivations, there's a lot to play with: were they renegades, or are they part of a hostile, xenophobic government, and there's the also the neural parasite argument of "if they're so powerful, where did they go?"
There are others, I'm sure, that I can't recall, but I'm sure others here can.
Apologies if there's already a thread like this.
Here's a few that I can recall:
Future Guy/The General:
We never found out who is this guy really was, though there were theories, "Future Romulan," "Future Section 31," "Son of Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln" are ones I can recall of the top of my head. FG could've been Star Trek's equivalent of The First from Buffy; unable to be permanently defeated by our heroes, yet also unable to affect their world on a tangible level, relying on expendable pawns to carry out his plans (which would give us a solid nemesis to latch onto while also giving us variety in our bad guys). The Temporal Cold War could have been a sweeping epic that tied unrelated elements of Trek lore together in a cohesive package (like Peter David's Trek novels), creating ripples that would be felt by everyone. Instead, nobody really really knew what to do with it. An unused Roddenberry story involved the Enterprise traveling to 1963. Someone was trying to prevent JFK's assassination, but the Enterprise crew ultimately had to stop them (I can't remember why). That's the kind of story that's tailor made for the TCW (though it had been rejigged for ENT, Quantum Leap jokes would have abounded). Instead, we get aliens in Nazi uniforms, which could've been a fun throwback to TOS's wackiest moments, but instead turned into confusing mess that tried to shoehorn way to much stuff into 2 hours.
Neural parasites:
A brief history lession: once it became apparent that the Ferengi were little more than a comic nuiscance, TPTB decided that someone else should serve as successor to the Klingons. Gene Roddenberry and Maurice Hurley decided that, whereas the Klingon Empire had a Cold War parallel, the new enemy would have a parallel to international terrorism (what with Libya, Lebanon et. al being in the news at the time). Hurley envisioned this species as being insectoids. The neural parasites seen in "Conspiracy" would be the first wave (at GR's insistence, he hated the original idea of renegade Starfleet officers staging a coup attempt), the second wave would have been encountered in a 3-part story which was ultimately canceled due to the 1988 WGA strike, but elements of it were eventually incorporated into "The Neutral Zone" and "Q-Who". Rick Berman thought that the special effects involved in creating a credible insectoid species would be too expensive, so he suggested they be replaced with budget friendly cyborgs. Hence, the Borg were born. But that also meant that the neural parasites were forgotten, despite Conspiracy's cliffhanger ending. They're still out there, they know where Earth is, but no one's really done anything with them.
Silent Enemy aliens (Kovaalans?)
As is, "Silent Enemy" accomplished what it intended to do, a Trek-ification of Steven Spielberg's 1971 chase thriller The Duel, where a driver is stalked by a semi-truck with an unseen driver whose motivations are never fully revealed, intended to represent a Jungian archetype. So one could argue that revisiting them could take away from that. But, these aliens looked pretty cool, and since we didn't know their motivations, there's a lot to play with: were they renegades, or are they part of a hostile, xenophobic government, and there's the also the neural parasite argument of "if they're so powerful, where did they go?"
There are others, I'm sure, that I can't recall, but I'm sure others here can.
Apologies if there's already a thread like this.
