If you were in charge of a Trek reboot, what ten things would you change?

The thing that always bugged me is that there are hints of lots of older cultures and grouoings (the First Federation for example from TOS?) out there in the Galaxy, which barely got touched on in the franchise. Contacts with these would have been nice - maybe more relics from old wars coming to bite the Federation in the ass? Galactic civilisation, could after all, be a lot older than we've seen so far....

 

I see the thresh hold being intergalactic travel. At a minimum, a super civilization that can send a robotic probe to another galaxy.

In our Milky Way, ships travel at the speed of plot (or have in the various Trek series). But a relatively consistent limitation on Federation technology is that intergalactic travel is an unworkable concept. Even the Kelvin ship, based on ultra advanced technology, took a few centuries to travel from Andromeda to the the Milky Way.

 

Well I wouldn’t make it a reboot and make it a continuation. Too many unnecessary reboots these days.

 

1. There
2. Is
3. Nothing
4. That
5. Needs
6. To
7. Change
8. In
9. Trek
10. Bun of steel

 

I wouldn't reboot, I'd do the long overdue continuation to the main canon

Set in like 2390 or whatever

Get back to EXPLORATION, which is what Trek is supposed to be about, not war and battles (though obviously you have to have some of this)

There are many avenues open, travel through the wormhole to the gamma quadrant, slipstream drive should be avaliable by now so the near side if the delta quadrant, he'll most of the Alpha quadrant is still unexplored.

I'd like to deal with the aftermath of the destruction of Romulus. Specifically I want a main character to be a young early 20s Romulan who is on a cultural exchange with starfleet. We can see through her eyes the effects of that incident.

I WOULD have occasional guest spots from some much loved characters from TNG, DS9 and Voyager buy these would be infrequent, 1-2 per season MAX.

Maybe have ONE main character from one of those shows. Geordie would be my pick because we have all seen that Levar has such great charisma and has more to do with that character.

That's my wishlist, I'm a simple person and I loved the TNG-VGR run and just want to get back to that.

 

Well people need to look at the Original Series when they say we need to "get back to exploration".

Exploration while the stated objective in the original series was not the focus of that many episodes. While the ship and crew did encounter many "new life and new civilizations" it was largely by accident and not design.

 

The wormhole transporter thing almost make me think of a Trek/Harry Potter mash-up. What if the Wizarding World built a spaceship...

On the other hand, one of my favorite things about BEY was that gorgeous look at daily Federation life on Yorktown station, including regular people casually stepping into the transporter to get where they need to go.

I would say yes, and no.

Vulcans may theoretically be more comfortable on a Cardassian ship than a Human one, but that doesn't automatically mean there's any 'better' ship environment for them in Starfleet. Obviously Vulcans in particular could have their own ships, but for many less well represented races, that's not an option. And no matter the situation, there's always likely to be leftovers, exchange programs and various kinds of exceptions. The only hard rule is that species shouldn't be assigned to ships whose environments literally can't sustain them. Anyone who can survive in a human environment ship, whether comfortably or not, can potentially be assigned that, for whatever reason.

On the subject of the thread itself, while I would accept any reboot that was well written even if it didn't feel like Star Trek, if I were making it, I would want it to still feel like Trek. I would include without question the Transporters, Warp Drive, Klingons, Vulcans, etc. I would not necessarily keep them exactly the same - there's tons of room to adjust, if you want the world to feel more advanced and wondrous or less advanced/more dangerous. I wouldn't necessarily focus on the returning races - having them around is good enough. But removing them entirely from the show would be like reimagining the LotR without Elves or Orcs.

 

After reading a book in the mid 90s that projected ahead to what nanotechnology *might* be able to accomplish in the future, I have sort of kept that handy ever since as a 'go-to' thing for explaining how all types of different things might be 'kept in adjustment'.

Yes, in the past, Spock said that on the Enterprise he felt cold. But, if TPTB chose to do so at any time, new canon *could* have it that bodily systems are maintained by nanotech. Not very likely that they will go a route like that, however, because it would necessitate changing too much. No more stories about hunger and thirst problems, injury problems, etc, etc.

 

If I understand the UFO lore correctly, supposedly several different species have been visiting Earth, and there have been several different UFO crashes.

So, Earths first installer craft could be a patchwork of tech/machinery from several species, as well as home grown technology. As the different alien parts/machines weren't designed to work together, the ship would be a kludge.

 

I don't know if I have 10 ideas, but the one thing I would definitely do in a Star Trek reboot is completely eliminate Earth dates. The very reason stardates were invented was so that they could never tie definitely how far in the future the show was set! Space Seed mucked up a bit, but there was still wiggle room. But that wiggle room went out the window come 'Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan' and all subsequent shows and movies that definitively set the show in the 23rd century and onward.

We could ignore when Khan didn't take over in the 90s, but it will be harder when 2063 (some of us here are young enough to theoretically still be around then, including me) comes around and we're wondering where our warp drives are, short of some massive technological breakthrough in the next 40 years. If Trek is to outlast us, they need to eliminate Earth dates completely otherwise the franchise will become unintentionally humorous as time marches along and Trek is no longer "our" future, but instead just some parallel universe like the Marvel universe.

 

It hasn't been OUR future for some time now. In my opinion it's better to just treat it as its own separate universe that has some parallels with ours. Rather than constantly chasing our tails and rewrite the Star Trek Universe storyline every ten years.

 

Which wouldn't have been necessary if they never introduced Earth dates to begin with. The Eugenics Wars, World War III (hopefully!) First Contact, etc. would have been in some ever perpetual future that were never conclusively tied to Earth dates.

 

Dates or not, the technology itself will inevitably become outdated, anyway, as we've already seen with communicators, big chunky computers, padds, etc. You're chasing a 'timelessness' that isn't possible.

 

Everyone knows subspace communicators carry way more bulk than 4G. :P

 

Certainly. And it would have been interesting to see that play out. From "Space Seed" you just cut out the references to the 1990s and it would have just been two hundred years in the past. Or just leave it as the "90's" and then every tenth decade could be "the one". As I said i think it would be interesting. But similar to what grendelsbayne said, eventually we'll all be brains in a jar and Trek's depiction of the future will inevitably be anachronistic. For me, I would prefer to view it as a piece of art and celebrate what we got rather than view the anachronism as a problem that needs to be rewritten. Though, as I said had your idea been strictly enforced since the beginning it would certainly be interesting to see that play out and what limitations it would put on the story.

Some of the 1950's scifi like Rocky Jones or Captain Video(I think) is like that. They don't ever really say when it happens so it takes place in this sort of quasi-future/past/present.

 

If you can keep the numbers sort of fluid in your head, the continuity situation's not so bad. I've done it. Facts and events matter, numbers don't.

I would make sure that there is adult depth in the writing and story premises, and keep the show grounded in science fiction ideas rather than personal details about crew members, their careers, relationships, etc.. It's a big, inv olved expensive job to build all the sets, design aliens, come up with convincing effects etc.... it seems like a waste to spend most of the time on Worf's big personal problem of the week, things like that. Corbomite Maneouver is always my template... it should be about something OUT THERE that makes you think and makes your jaw drop....

 

Kirk: Bones, there's a 'thing' out there...
McCoy: Why is any object we don't understand always called a 'thing'?

 

If you wanted to give Trek-in terms of human cultures-a cosmopolitan vibe, you could learn from Firefly/Serenity. Several different Earth religions seem to be part of the background. And not only did the actors' lines include Chinese curses, but kanji was visible.

I would also note the wearing in Pitch Black what appeared to be ethnic costumes.

And then there are the human colonies founded by the Preservers.