But mainly women.
Hard Star Trek
- Thread starter Autistoid
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But mainly women.
Revolves around a shuttle when it's merely used as a replacement for the transporter? Hardly.
Consider Ensigns of Command, Picard order Data to take a shuttle to the surface, cut to the next scene, the shuttle is sitting on the surface.
Shuttles are featured in stories when journeys or searches are involved.
During Voyager frequently they stopped showing the transporter room and the beaming process. The transporter room was seen only on rare occasions.
And those occasions seemed to be when Voyager is being boarded and the gold shirted transporter officer gets shot.
Also, just as a point of order, skipping transportation scenes is still common in contemporary story telling, unless there is valuable exposition to be had.
So how might Transporter-less Star Trek work?
It would be much harder to rescue some captured characters, since one can't simply do such things as locate them, beam in next to them, and beam out with them. One would have to fight their captors or else look for a way to sneak in and then out.
A shuttlecraft would also be much more obvious, making it much more difficult to sneak into some place. There would also be the problem of establishing how noisy it would be, to keep it from alternating from being quiet and being noisy as is convenient for the story.
Would one have to use some ground vehicle to go the last bit of the way? Like a motorcycle?
I don't recall watching any Star-Trek-ish series where that was a notable problem in the show, but I found it worked out in an odd source: UFO contactee George Adamski's book Inside the Spaceships. Here is how he describes meeting his human-ET friends. He'd go to a hotel in Los Angeles, and at night, two of them would pick him up and drive him in their car out into the southern-California desert. They'd meet a shuttlecraft-sized flying saucer there, leave their car behind, and board the saucer for the next leg of the trip. It would act as a shuttlecraft for a big cylindrical "mother ship" about the length of the USS Enterprise in some Star Trek incarnations. He then met some of the big ship's crewpeople and he let himself be enlightened by them about them, their beliefs, their society, and so forth. He'd then reverse his trip and return to the hotel before dawn.
One might think that riding a city's buses and trains would be a good way to get around that problem, but public-transit systems tend to peter out as one goes outward from a city center, meaning that a good landing spot's nearest bus stop or train station may be too far in some developed area. That's for the reason that there is not much motive for building them in very low-density areas.
There is, however, a kind of place where transit-friendly development can stop over a short distance. A shoreline of a body of water. So your shuttlecraft would drop you off on a town's beach, and you'd then catch the town's buses to go further. But beaches tend to attract beachgoers, so it may be hard to sneak in. Sneaking in at night has the problem that it would not be when transit systems typically run.
ITSS addresses the trip-secrecy problem in another way, by having the car drivers be covert residents of our planet. But I don't know of any Star Trek episodes where our heroes visit some covert residents of some planet that the Federation had earlier sent there. Some episodes, however, feature covert-observation outposts, like TNG "Who Watches the Watchers".
It would be much harder to rescue some captured characters, since one can't simply do such things as locate them, beam in next to them, and beam out with them. One would have to fight their captors or else look for a way to sneak in and then out.
A shuttlecraft would also be much more obvious, making it much more difficult to sneak into some place. There would also be the problem of establishing how noisy it would be, to keep it from alternating from being quiet and being noisy as is convenient for the story.
Would one have to use some ground vehicle to go the last bit of the way? Like a motorcycle?
I don't recall watching any Star-Trek-ish series where that was a notable problem in the show, but I found it worked out in an odd source: UFO contactee George Adamski's book Inside the Spaceships. Here is how he describes meeting his human-ET friends. He'd go to a hotel in Los Angeles, and at night, two of them would pick him up and drive him in their car out into the southern-California desert. They'd meet a shuttlecraft-sized flying saucer there, leave their car behind, and board the saucer for the next leg of the trip. It would act as a shuttlecraft for a big cylindrical "mother ship" about the length of the USS Enterprise in some Star Trek incarnations. He then met some of the big ship's crewpeople and he let himself be enlightened by them about them, their beliefs, their society, and so forth. He'd then reverse his trip and return to the hotel before dawn.
One might think that riding a city's buses and trains would be a good way to get around that problem, but public-transit systems tend to peter out as one goes outward from a city center, meaning that a good landing spot's nearest bus stop or train station may be too far in some developed area. That's for the reason that there is not much motive for building them in very low-density areas.
There is, however, a kind of place where transit-friendly development can stop over a short distance. A shoreline of a body of water. So your shuttlecraft would drop you off on a town's beach, and you'd then catch the town's buses to go further. But beaches tend to attract beachgoers, so it may be hard to sneak in. Sneaking in at night has the problem that it would not be when transit systems typically run.
ITSS addresses the trip-secrecy problem in another way, by having the car drivers be covert residents of our planet. But I don't know of any Star Trek episodes where our heroes visit some covert residents of some planet that the Federation had earlier sent there. Some episodes, however, feature covert-observation outposts, like TNG "Who Watches the Watchers".
I think that all the ST series have established that shuttlecraft are VTOL vehicles: vertical takeoff and landing, like a helicopter. That means that it does not need a runway, that all it needs is enough flat area to accommodate its landing gear's footprint. If one cannot find such flat area, then it will be necessary to hover, as we already do with helicopters.
Filming such shuttlecraft action will be a challenge, since one will have to have a full-size shuttlecraft model suspended from a helicopter or else one will have to add green-screened video of a small model or else CGI shuttlecraft-model video.
Does anyone recall how Space:1999 and Firefly handled their surface-landing spacecraft action? The Eagles and Serenity, were they shown taking off from planets and landing on them?
Filming such shuttlecraft action will be a challenge, since one will have to have a full-size shuttlecraft model suspended from a helicopter or else one will have to add green-screened video of a small model or else CGI shuttlecraft-model video.
Does anyone recall how Space:1999 and Firefly handled their surface-landing spacecraft action? The Eagles and Serenity, were they shown taking off from planets and landing on them?
Been awhile since I saw the movie Serenity, but I recall that there was a landing sequence.
Firefly and the film certainly had a couple of landing shots, but I'm not sure of the mock-up that they did in order to create the effect.
If you are going to go pure shuttle transport (which is fine; several shows have done it) then CGI is going to be more cost effective and practical for a production trying to get underway.
Model shots can be done through trick-of-scale techniques followed by a mock-up done up of the side or back of the shuttle for the crew to enter and exit. This, of course, is a simplification of the process. It depends on how much money is there to build sets with for production.
Honestly, I don't see a transporter-less Star Trek being all that difficult or unusual from what has come before. The way CGI is now, landing a shuttle would be as simple and as easy to create stock shots of the shuttle taking off, landing, and flying as it would be to insert shots of beaming off the ship and on to the planet and vice versa.
If you are going to go pure shuttle transport (which is fine; several shows have done it) then CGI is going to be more cost effective and practical for a production trying to get underway.
Model shots can be done through trick-of-scale techniques followed by a mock-up done up of the side or back of the shuttle for the crew to enter and exit. This, of course, is a simplification of the process. It depends on how much money is there to build sets with for production.
Honestly, I don't see a transporter-less Star Trek being all that difficult or unusual from what has come before. The way CGI is now, landing a shuttle would be as simple and as easy to create stock shots of the shuttle taking off, landing, and flying as it would be to insert shots of beaming off the ship and on to the planet and vice versa.
Re: CGI shuttle
I can imagine stock shots from below during landing or take off. The back ground could be a blue sky. Or maybe an overcast sky.
Another option is to skip the landing sequence and show the shuttle on the planet's surface.
I can imagine stock shots from below during landing or take off. The back ground could be a blue sky. Or maybe an overcast sky.
Another option is to skip the landing sequence and show the shuttle on the planet's surface.
I was thinking of specifically of the galieo 7.
Which as far as I'm concerned the ideal TOS Episode regarding spock and going down to a planet.
Speaking of transporterless Star Trek. I have this whimsical idea for a Star Trek series or mini-series. It would feature the crew of the S.S. Bonaventure from TAS. The ship would be build and launched by an eccentric (multi)billionaire in the 2070s. My idea is that this eccentric billionaire, last name Wrigley, was accidentally taken aboard the NCC-1701 when it got thrown back in time. He saw the design of the ship and used it as a basis for his own design. Thus explaining why it looks so much like ships of the 23rd century.
With transporters not being invented yet, Wrigley devises a system of landing the crew that simulates the transporter he saw on the Enterprise. There would be a large room that looks like an oversized transporter. Six crew would each stand on pads and then a domed capsule would lower down from overhead. The capsule would then firmly lock into the pad and each crew member Would then be buckled into a restraint. Then each capsule and pad are ejected through the floor out into space.
The capsules can then enter the atmosphere and land with anti-gravity assisted retro rockets. A door on the front of the capsule would allow entry and exit from the pod. To return to the ship the pods would lift off with anti-gravity assisted rockets and dock with the ship back in the "transporter room."
Yeah, I realize it's whimsical and a bit "Lost in Space". But that's what makes it so fun.
Here's a picture to help illustrate:
With transporters not being invented yet, Wrigley devises a system of landing the crew that simulates the transporter he saw on the Enterprise. There would be a large room that looks like an oversized transporter. Six crew would each stand on pads and then a domed capsule would lower down from overhead. The capsule would then firmly lock into the pad and each crew member Would then be buckled into a restraint. Then each capsule and pad are ejected through the floor out into space.
The capsules can then enter the atmosphere and land with anti-gravity assisted retro rockets. A door on the front of the capsule would allow entry and exit from the pod. To return to the ship the pods would lift off with anti-gravity assisted rockets and dock with the ship back in the "transporter room."
Yeah, I realize it's whimsical and a bit "Lost in Space". But that's what makes it so fun.
Here's a picture to help illustrate:
Strictly speaking, Spock and company crashed on that planet, and they didn't even intend to go to a planet on that mission.
I found some video of that on YouTube. Any good ones for away from Moonbase Alpha? Especially on other planets.
I've found this one, though it's all Moon scenes: Space 1999 SFX Episode: Breakaway - YouTube
This is a CGI version that someone composed: Space 1999 Eagle Fly Over - YouTube It has a big mistake in it: the Eagle taking off from behind the trees and having the same angular size as it flies overhead. But the overall concept is good.
Here's another one: Space 1999 Eagle Transporter Takeoff - YouTube also someone's CGI, it seems.
Must have been a sight to see. But it's rather easy to do by compositing, I'm sure.
But for views from a planet's surface, I suspect that a lot of takeoff and landing scenes would have few or no foreground objects in front of the shuttlecraft to make it easier to composite the craft's takeoffs and landings.
This shows what one can do with CGI: 10 Best UFO Hoax Videos on YouTube -- the Haiti one was done entirely with CGI, and it was exposed as CGI from many of the trees looking alike.
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I haven't read all 353 postings 
I like the soft, positive, serious Star Trek and if there is no audience for that I accept that.
I agree to what some said: without warpspeed or transporter etc. Star Trek wouldn't be Star Trek any more. A "hard" sci fi show shouldn't be called Star Trek but something else instead.
I like the soft, positive, serious Star Trek and if there is no audience for that I accept that.
I agree to what some said: without warpspeed or transporter etc. Star Trek wouldn't be Star Trek any more. A "hard" sci fi show shouldn't be called Star Trek but something else instead.
It's Galaxy Quest, Uniderth. 
It's Galaxy Quest, Uniderth.
Haha. I completely forgot about their method of transportation in Galaxy Quest.
FTL is a necessity for interstellar storytelling. The Transporter is less necessary, though without it, a lot of ST stories would look a lot different.
Furthermore, the FTL drive has to work much like how it does in the ST universe: being able to travel from anywhere to anywhere, preferably at some controllable speed. Some SF FTL systems are much more constrained, like jumpgate systems and wormhole systems.
One need not do continuous FTL. One can do FTL by jumps, but if one has to do lots of jumps, then it mimics continuous FTL. The effective speed would be constrained by the time needed to recharge between jumps.
What about a sublight voyage to Alpha Centauri. Say at .5C, which means the trip would take about 8 years. If the crew was in a sleeper ship they would not age so much during the trip. First season could take place on earth with the season finale being the ship launching and crew entering cryo sleep. Second season could be the crew finding and exploring new worlds in the the Alpha Centauri system. Maybe for the series finale some of the crew could return home to find earth devastated by WWIII.
Just an idea for an interstellar non-ftl series.
Just an idea for an interstellar non-ftl series.
It was just an example.
Take the shields instead or whatever you want. They could get rid of newer additions like the holodeck but a new "Star Trek" series where they would use the warp drive "in jumps" now wouldn't be Star Trek for me.
