Idea for a cooperative Star Trek screenplay project

[friedebarth]

Similar to the comic in Trek art, how about writing a kind of episode for Star Trek? It wouldn't be a bad idea, and if you think about it we might get an episode finished each month if we're quick and euphoric, so basically we get a new star trek season done in five years. I posted a poll to see whether, if we're doing it, it should be a continuation of an old ST series or whether it should be something new. Thanks for listening.


And if you take the option something new, it would be nice if you would post some ideas for plot, time and setting. Thank you!

 

[tenmei]

I'd be open to doing the 'something new' - we tried to do a prose project similar once before where we created the project wholesale.

If memory serves right, the ship was the Narendra, the CO was a Native American female, the XO a male Romulan and Naomi Wildman was the ships Pilot. I remember pulling that, in reverse of tradition, with a seven person main cast there would be more aliens than Humans and more females than males.

Admiral2, I think, wrote an opening for the story but the project collapsed.

 

[friedebarth]

Well, cool, it's sort of a "here-we-go-again"-thing then, isn't it?

 

[tenmei]

So to speak, yes it is My worry is that group projects such as you propose can often collapse - you'd need to make sure everyone involved was a hundred percent agreed on what you had in store.

 

[friedebarth]

Well, that's why I didn't say "Right-eo everyone: Let's make a cooperative piece of writing. I don't care what you guys think, so here's the idea: ...". If a few more people than you and me want to contribute, then there'll sure be a whole load of compromises - and compromises make most people only 50% happy, so this is gonna get a tough cookie

 

[friedebarth]

Quick reminder: I would like to have proposals when you take "Something else". I'm working on mine, but are you guys? Because other than mine so far I am missing five proper proposals

 

[tenmei]

Well, I'm happy to work with whatever other people propose and merge my ideas with theirs - you can see my ideas in my post in the Future of Trek section.

 

[Dancing Doctor]

This sounds like a great idea, and I'd be totally interested in participating.

I chose "Something New" simply because it would be relatively easier to create new characters and be "in-character".

One option I've thought of would be a newer Starfleet vessel (say Nova or Luna-class, although Ambassadors and Excelsiors are also cool) and doing a series that was research/exploration heavy, in the vein of what the Enterprise-D was planning on doing à la Encounter at Farpoint. Boldly going to explore the areas closer to home, like the Beta Quadrant (most of which isn't fully explored). And if necessary, the starship (I'm not fully sure about the name, but the U.S.S Khitomer is attractive) could be assigned to typical Starfleet duties as well.

 

[tenmei]

Sounds cool, Vixen - set it a decade or two ahead of Nemesis, to give room for some development of the status quo should we choose to go in that direction and we'd have some pretty cool room for development of an exploration-centric series.

We could always come up with our own type of ship too, so that we don't get hemmed down with details of ships that have come before - but that could mean that people have conflicting ideas of what the ship would look like.

 

[Dancing Doctor]

Sounds cool, Vixen - set it a decade or two ahead of Nemesis, to give room for some development of the status quo should we choose to go in that direction and we'd have some pretty cool room for development of an exploration-centric series.

Oooh, nice. I hadn't exactly thought of time period, but 10 years post-Nemesis might be good. And think of the possibilities! Oooh...I'm getting all excited about the potential storylines. Hmm, if Starfleet had just gotten its ships back on an exploration footing in, say, 2377-2378, and we jump ahead 10 years or so...oooh...

We could always come up with our own type of ship too, so that we don't get hemmed down with details of ships that have come before - but that could mean that people have conflicting ideas of what the ship would look like.

That latter part was why I had gone with established ships, just because there are fewer things to argue about, although the ship could be modified or refitted to some degree.

 

[tenmei]

I know what you're saying - a refit vessel we're familiar with might be nice. I was going to wait and see what other people had suggested, but - the following ship from the aborted Star Trek Online game might have been an interesting basis if we were going to go with something new :

http://gaming.trekcore.com/startrekonline/conceptart/concept07.jpg

The ship is referred to as the Excalibur Class in the press material.

 

[Dancing Doctor]

I don't know...the design of the ship looks kinda awkward to me. Aesthetic-wise, it looks top heavy. However, it might just be me, since I'm really tired and my eyesight isn't very clear at the moment.

I've had this image for awhile now, and I thought of this when writing that previous post.

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/gg314/Space_Whore/1158663182_42.jpg

 

[tenmei]

Looks cool but I'm not keen on the warp nacelles on the saucer section - well, either way, ship design is relatively unimportant as what really matters are the characters and stories. And we could always ask someone to draw one to our specifications - or open it to competition a la the competition to design the Titan.

Any thoughts, anyone?

Here's a couple of mine:

- Like Rodenberry originally concieved for TNG, have a Captain who isn't the main character but appears in a supporting capacity and allow the First Officer to be the main character.

- As someone proposed, for a character to replace Crusher for Season 2 of TNG, the Chief Medical Officer is from a culture that believes in honesty above all else, so when he's asked "Am I going to die ?" he replies "Yes, quite painfully ..."

- An alien Captain (Male) counterbalanced by a Human XO (Female), possibly in conjunction with the above idea about making the XO the main character.

- In contrast to tradition (more men than women, more Humans than aliens) we have more women in our main cast than men and more aliens than Humans.

- A character, the ships Second Officer, who fills a role that they originally had in mind for Yar. When the XO is leading missions off the ship, this character steps up and becomes the Acting XO -

 

[BillJ]

Something New...

Star Trek: Generation 3 was actually something of an idea that was spawned by the 'All Good Things...' finale.

It would be set aboard a future Starship Enterprise and would be set in three different time periods with one central character tying them together. In my version it was the Vulcan CMO Dr. T'Sora.

The ongoing story revolved around a highly advanced race known as the Sha'leel who were dying and believed humanity the heir apparent to their place in the galactic order.

Plays out as kinda reverse Prime Directive tale. Beings so far advanced as to appear god-like handing over the secrets of the universe to those who aren't ready.

 

[tenmei]

Oooh, I like that concept - not the three time periods, but the idea about the race of aliens called the Shaleel handing over the secrets to those who aren't ready and the concept of using the Enterprise again.

Could form the basis of an eventual pilot episode that sets up the status quo of our new series - and a good potential title for the series proper with a decent abbreviation ... Star Trek: G3.

 

[Dancing Doctor]

The discussion in TNG about Riker and his offered commands got me thinking. What if we were to do a series about the U.S.S Aries, the only starship offered to Riker to not be destroyed until the U.S.S Titan? The time period spans from 2365 to 2379, canonically. And there was never any mention of her captain or crew as far as I can remember.

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/USS_Aries

 

[tenmei]

Another interesting concept, there, Vixen! I wonder where friedebarth has gone?!


Random concept, if we're willing to look at non-future settings, we could also look at a pre-TOS, post-ENT show set on a new NX Class ship (the NX 05, Atlantis ?) under the command of Captain Shran (the first alien Captain in Starfleet) and his crew.

I quite like that concept - and we could always somehow use the Shaleel as the major players.

 

[Dancing Doctor]

Another interesting concept, there, Vixen!

Thanks!

Here's what the Renaissance-class U.S.S Aries NCC-45176 would look like:

Essentially it's to the Ambassador what the Nebula was to the Galaxy.

 

[tenmei]

Just a thought - shall we think about what sort of Captain and First Officer we want to see? What sort of Big 3 do we want?

 

[friedebarth]

I have gone to visit my family

Now, on-topic.

Vixen: I like your concepts, but I think it would be better to push it a bit more into the future. Say in the 2430s. And maybe, like tenmei thought, invent an own type of ship. I like your character ideas though.

tenmei: Okay, thinking about CO, XO and 2O can be quite difficult. Here my proposals:

CO
Name: Kur'Phak Mangathokon Laiy
Age: 23 (something different to the tradition of old captains)
Species: Trill

XO
Name: Amanda Q. Ferguson (and let the Q be something unusual like Quirina)
Age: 48 (usually females and also XOs are young. well, let's turn that around!)
Species: Human

And what's the plot? Maybe, if this is in the 2430s, we can let Federation have Transwarp, the Romulans too, and now there's another FED-ROM war because both want to colonialize the Gamma Quadrant. The USS Efficacy (NCC 1308-F) is a heavy warship of the Vulniant-Class, which is sent to defend Federation colonies.