This is not really a "future Trek" idea -- although I suppose it could be done in the Trek universe too -- but since it's partly inspired by a number of ideas here over the last little while I thought this might be the right forum for it.
The concept would be adaptable as much to a novel or shared-universe anthology, I suppose, as to a television show. When I was thinking of the right alternative to just following the adventures of the Navy in space, it occurred to me: why not a show-within-a-show? Why not use future investigative journalists as a window on a future galaxy, journalists who are making their own regular news magazine show about their universe?
Hence the idea River of Heaven (working title, a bastardization of the Mandarin name for the Milky Way), which is both the our-world title and the in-setting title of the journalists' show?
What I like about this concept is that we could send out the journalists to investigate literally any type of story, from war correspondence to environmental disaster, Galactus-type threats-to-the-galaxy to quotidian human (or post-human) interest and more. We could still get a fair helping of Space Navy adventures in through the eyes of our journalistic team, but would see a more representative cross-section of future society and its concerns and the contributions different brackets of society make to the setting.
Partly the inspiration for this concept is The River, whose setting was a bit limited but whose tone and execution I really liked; and dramas like the classic The Killing Fields. I'm interested to get takes on this concept that aren't the voices in my head, though. Is it the kind of thing, just on the face of it, that you'd watch / read? Does the word "journalism" send you running for the hills? Are there things in this kind of context that you'd like to see? Hate to see? Is the whole idea complete madness?
The concept would be adaptable as much to a novel or shared-universe anthology, I suppose, as to a television show. When I was thinking of the right alternative to just following the adventures of the Navy in space, it occurred to me: why not a show-within-a-show? Why not use future investigative journalists as a window on a future galaxy, journalists who are making their own regular news magazine show about their universe?
Hence the idea River of Heaven (working title, a bastardization of the Mandarin name for the Milky Way), which is both the our-world title and the in-setting title of the journalists' show?
What I like about this concept is that we could send out the journalists to investigate literally any type of story, from war correspondence to environmental disaster, Galactus-type threats-to-the-galaxy to quotidian human (or post-human) interest and more. We could still get a fair helping of Space Navy adventures in through the eyes of our journalistic team, but would see a more representative cross-section of future society and its concerns and the contributions different brackets of society make to the setting.
Partly the inspiration for this concept is The River, whose setting was a bit limited but whose tone and execution I really liked; and dramas like the classic The Killing Fields. I'm interested to get takes on this concept that aren't the voices in my head, though. Is it the kind of thing, just on the face of it, that you'd watch / read? Does the word "journalism" send you running for the hills? Are there things in this kind of context that you'd like to see? Hate to see? Is the whole idea complete madness?
