Low-Tech STAR TREK series: Yay or Nay?

[dswynne1]

If such a show was aesthetically realistic, and within the time frame between first contact with the Vulcans, and the launch of the NX-01 Enterprise, and with a ship design appropriate to that era (based on the XCV-330 series), would you watch it?

I see the series as a limited success, in the vein of a show that is a cross between the Alien movie franchise, the film 2001, TMP, and the movie INTERSTELLAR. But due to it being "more realistic", I doubt that your typical Trekkie would enjoy it long term.

 

[F. King Daniel]

If they have a worthwhile story within the Trek lore to tell, yes. But if it's just mimicking the look of the other franchises/movies just for fun, there's no point.

I guess they could do the Man/Kzin wars, but other than that (which is dubious canon at best, since Trek doesn't own the Kzinti and cannot reference them), what is there in the pre-ENT post-FC era?

 

[at Quark's]

Why not go back a little further, and do a "Tribe Trek" series, featuring the voyages of paleo-Siberian hunters, intrepidly venturing into North America for the first time, boldly going where no man had gone before?

Seriously though, I think what you are proposing could have some potential for a "darker" series. Each voyage a very long occasion, where the crew has to battle the continuous strain of being isolated in cramped, primitive ships. Where outposts are still more like survival shelters without luxury of any kind. Where almost all aliens except for Vulcans are eyed suspiciously, and often for good reason. Each (rare) planetfall on a minshara-class planet(habited or not) a welcome breather.

 

[Tenacity]

instead of low tech, have the tech present, but just don't showcase it and make it the core of any story.

no long lingering shots of something materializing in the replicator.

no fx of a ship with a spinning hull that then flips over twice.

focus on story advancement and character development.

 

[eschaton]

instead of low tech, have the tech present, but just don't showcase it and make it the core of any story.

no long lingering shots of something materializing in the replicator.

no fx of a ship with a spinning hull that then flips over twice.

focus on story advancement and character development.

Or you could have a story where the crew crash-land somewhere and have minimal surviving tech, leading the entire rest of the show to be in a very different setting from previous Star Treks.

Hell, to be interesting, you could have it set inside a Dyson Sphere or something.

 

[Lord Garth]

Nay. Enterprise was the one Star Trek series I couldn't get into at all. I like the Federation established.

As far as I'm concerned, "Calypso" shatters the idea that you can't tell human stories with advanced technology.

 

[Jedman67]

Or you could have a story where the crew crash-land somewhere and have minimal surviving tech, leading the entire rest of the show to be in a very different setting from previous Star Treks.

Janeway's Island?

 

[Tenacity]

Janeway's Island?

Whose Gilligan?" Kim or Neelix?

I like the Federation established.

May I ask why?

The show focused primarily on Starfleet, with a very few exceptions the Federation was either invisible or only given a passing mention.

 

[Lord Garth]

May I ask why?

The show focused primarily on Starfleet, with a very few exceptions the Federation was either invisible or only given a passing mention.

It's not much a story. Earth ships should be disadvantaged at every turn, being newbies in the interstellar community. For me, that would get old after a while.

With the Federation already established, Starfleet can draw from the technological pool of several other worlds. With several member worlds, it's also large enough to compete with the Klingons, Romulans, and whoever. The odds are more balanced.

I like the 23rd Century for the same reason I like the 20th. The USA and USSR are evenly matched, like the Federation and Klingons, and the Cold War forced both sides to keep coming up with new innovations to stay one step ahead of each other. Staying low tech means new tech isn't developed. No innovations made, no advantages gained. Just you're the little guy and the big guy is always bigger. There's no competitive edge.

 

[dswynne1]

Perhaps a show featuring the first crew to venture outside of the Sol Star System would be interesting? Or, a show establishing the first human colony outside of the Sol Star System? Either scenarios could hark back to the concept of "Wagon Train to the Stars", as invoked by GR's story treatment.

 

[Tarek71]

If such a show was aesthetically realistic, and within the time frame between first contact with the Vulcans, and the launch of the NX-01 Enterprise, and with a ship design appropriate to that era (based on the XCV-330 series), would you watch it?

I see the series as a limited success, in the vein of a show that is a cross between the Alien movie franchise, the film 2001, TMP, and the movie INTERSTELLAR. But due to it being "more realistic", I doubt that your typical Trekkie would enjoy it long term.

Id watch it. But I would prefer something third timeline with an open ended future. Ditch the silly "Warp 2 barrier" idea that they cooked up in ENT (magically, there was no Warp 3, 4 or 5 "barriers" that took more decades to break) or else the ship would be far too limited. I would say that steadier progress was made and higher warp speeds were reached decades earlier. That would seem to be one of the main limiting factors. I would retcon it to say the NX-Prototypes were the first to reach Warp 5, not Warp 2.

 

[dswynne1]

Id watch it. But I would prefer something third timeline with an open ended future. Ditch the silly "Warp 2 barrier" idea that they cooked up in ENT (magically, there was no Warp 3, 4 or 5 "barriers" that took more decades to break) or else the ship would be far too limited. I would say that steadier progress was made and higher warp speeds were reached decades earlier. That would seem to be one of the main limiting factors. I would retcon it to say the NX-Prototypes were the first to reach Warp 5, not Warp 2.

Funny thing is that there wasn't a "set" metric for warp speeds in the beginning, particularly as depicted in "The Cage". It was only during the TNG that warp speeds were codified as having "limits". Back then, "warp speeds" was based on cutting the time of travel, not the acceleration of the vessel.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

So long as the characters are compelling and the script is well-written I really don't care about the level of technology, that is just in the background to build the setting and tell a story.

 

[XCV330]

If such a show was aesthetically realistic, and within the time frame between first contact with the Vulcans, and the launch of the NX-01 Enterprise, and with a ship design appropriate to that era (based on the XCV-330 series), would you watch it?

I see the series as a limited success, in the vein of a show that is a cross between the Alien movie franchise, the film 2001, TMP, and the movie INTERSTELLAR. But due to it being "more realistic", I doubt that your typical Trekkie would enjoy it long term.

my screen name says it all. Yes. But I also don't want the interiors to look rediculously low-tech Gemini-Program era interiors. It simply would not make sense under almost any circumstance. Certain technologies walk hand in hand. IC's lead to microchips and IC's developed because of the Apollo program and ICBM development. Subsequent miniaturization allowed triple redundant flight control systems which made the Space Shuttle Viable, etc.

So, apart from fantasies of flying Orion-atomic-pulse ships around in the 50's using submarine tech, it just wasn't going to happen and more than Jules verne could have fired people to the moon safely in an artillery shell.

A group of friends and I ran a small private rpg based on a pre-starfleet scenario, and I made quite a few 3d models for it that were interactive along with help from others. It's just our ideas and certainly not definitive to what it could have looked like. I took queues from TOS , the XCV designs, Apollo, ISS, and ENT.

You can see some of the designs here:
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/the-ships-of-2081.296768/

Many more images form the rpg (recently concluded):
https://www.flickr.com/groups/3840479@N22/pool/

 

[Tenacity]

It's not much a story. Earth ships should be disadvantaged at every turn, being newbies in the interstellar community. For me, that would get old after a while.

21 year after it's creation, America was able to build a ship (the Constitution) that could stand up to and defeat ships of one of the strongest nations on Earth.

On Stargate SG-1, one of the primary mission goals of the teams was acquiring knowledge and technology. they weren't just looking around aimlessly (like Archer). Treks prequal series could have incorporated knowledge gained from other species over time.

Ditch the silly "Warp 2 barrier" idea that they cooked up in ENT

Should of had Cochrane's very first flight reach warp three, then humanity could have built from there.

America went from the first airplane flight to landing on the moon in 66 years.

 

[Tarek71]

I think they wanted the show to be Earth's first real deep space mission. The whole our "time is finally here", as the song said. However setting it nearly 90 years after Cochranes flight presented a problem. Had there been decades of Warp 3 and 4 ships steadily pushing further and further out into deep space, it would have made the NX-01 just the next incremental step, and not the singular Great Leap they wanted it to be. The end result was having to say that they spent 80 years making very little progress in order to greatly limit all previous ships, but not limit the new hero ship, and so huge progress in just a few years was needed.

Then, since Warp 7 was established as the next engine in the 2160s, but Warp 8 was top in the 2260s, we have to believe that yet another very long period of inexplicably slow progress occurs. I know you want the interesting stuff to happen whenever and wherever you set your story. But this overdoes that by a mile.

 

[serabine]

Why not go back a little further, and do a "Tribe Trek" series, featuring the voyages of paleo-Siberian hunters, intrepidly venturing into North America for the first time, boldly going where no man had gone before?

How about a show about Earth's very first trek to the stars? I'm talking of course about the dinosaur civilization which escaped extinction by building spacecraft and eventually settling in the delta quadrant (see Distant Origin). Like, how did that happen?