It pains me to admit that Devin Faraci may have made a smart observation, but even a blind pig finds an acorn now and again.
Both TNG and Enterprise managed soft reboots of Star Trek by moving the setting into a putatively different century and using this as an excuse to pretty freely redesign the look and feeling of the show while giving themselves the latitude to ignore or reframe previous continuity that was inconvenient.
TNG deliberately did not refer to much specific history between the time of TOS and the 24th century setting for the first few seasons - other than McCoy, we didn't know what happened to anyone we were familiar with. Beyond that, the producers tried hard for at least a year to introduce a lot of new alien species while largely ignoring the established ones. When Romulans reappeared near the end of the first season, they were just as inexplicably different from their TOS counterparts as the Klingons had been in ST:TMP.
So, the future-of-the-future is another way to sidestep the question of what version of continuity the show's set in until it's reasonably well-established.
The occasional offhand reference to Kirk and Picard as historical figures can be made without being so specific as to have to account for what their careers were like.
Vulcan? Why mention it at all? You can have Vulcans galore without landing on Vulcan.
We know that Romulus was destroyed in the oldTrek 24th/25th century, but we don't know that it survives in nuTrek either.
A century or two later, it's really not necessary for anyone to discuss how any of that shit with the Founders or the Cardassians worked out exactly. You can stick the occasional Cardassian into a story without mentioning history at all. They didn't explain the Federation/Klingon alliance for the longest time; early in TNG they weren't even clear that the two were still separate political entities.
When they do show up, make Cardassians and Ferengi look as cool and different as you like - previous producers got away with doing the same to the Klingons and Romulans.
The uniforms and the ships all look different because it's a different era.
If the producers want the Klingons to be at odds with the Feds again - hey, it's a different era. The fans can go nuts speculating on what the "Great Alpha Quadrant War (okay, the writers can hopefully coin better than that)" for a year or two or ten without ever being told a single detail beyond the name.
Since every era on Star Trek is essentially identical to every other, they don't have to change anything about the format or technology in any way. Okay, say "quantum torpedo" instead of "photon torpedo" and claim the transporter works over a greater distance - since Trek has never been consistent about what that difference is, its a difference that makes no storytelling difference. Likewise, if they say "we can do warp 15 now," so what - the ship will still arrive just in time when the story needs it to and will arrive too late when the plot requires that, just the way it always has.
This kind of soft reboot has worked for them sometimes and not others, but it does seem to be the solution that's least complicated in terms of design, series format and storytelling.
TL,DR: Say that the show's set further into the future, do another soft reboot and do Star Trek over again. Again.
That suggestion was made in the service of setting the show in the oldTrek "universe," but given the history of the way that Trek has been rebooted from time to time it solves essentially the same problems if it's done for a show set in the nuTrek continuity.
Both TNG and Enterprise managed soft reboots of Star Trek by moving the setting into a putatively different century and using this as an excuse to pretty freely redesign the look and feeling of the show while giving themselves the latitude to ignore or reframe previous continuity that was inconvenient.
TNG deliberately did not refer to much specific history between the time of TOS and the 24th century setting for the first few seasons - other than McCoy, we didn't know what happened to anyone we were familiar with. Beyond that, the producers tried hard for at least a year to introduce a lot of new alien species while largely ignoring the established ones. When Romulans reappeared near the end of the first season, they were just as inexplicably different from their TOS counterparts as the Klingons had been in ST:TMP.
So, the future-of-the-future is another way to sidestep the question of what version of continuity the show's set in until it's reasonably well-established.
The occasional offhand reference to Kirk and Picard as historical figures can be made without being so specific as to have to account for what their careers were like.
Vulcan? Why mention it at all? You can have Vulcans galore without landing on Vulcan.
We know that Romulus was destroyed in the oldTrek 24th/25th century, but we don't know that it survives in nuTrek either.
A century or two later, it's really not necessary for anyone to discuss how any of that shit with the Founders or the Cardassians worked out exactly. You can stick the occasional Cardassian into a story without mentioning history at all. They didn't explain the Federation/Klingon alliance for the longest time; early in TNG they weren't even clear that the two were still separate political entities.
When they do show up, make Cardassians and Ferengi look as cool and different as you like - previous producers got away with doing the same to the Klingons and Romulans.
The uniforms and the ships all look different because it's a different era.
If the producers want the Klingons to be at odds with the Feds again - hey, it's a different era. The fans can go nuts speculating on what the "Great Alpha Quadrant War (okay, the writers can hopefully coin better than that)" for a year or two or ten without ever being told a single detail beyond the name.
Since every era on Star Trek is essentially identical to every other, they don't have to change anything about the format or technology in any way. Okay, say "quantum torpedo" instead of "photon torpedo" and claim the transporter works over a greater distance - since Trek has never been consistent about what that difference is, its a difference that makes no storytelling difference. Likewise, if they say "we can do warp 15 now," so what - the ship will still arrive just in time when the story needs it to and will arrive too late when the plot requires that, just the way it always has.
This kind of soft reboot has worked for them sometimes and not others, but it does seem to be the solution that's least complicated in terms of design, series format and storytelling.
TL,DR: Say that the show's set further into the future, do another soft reboot and do Star Trek over again. Again.
