Poll Should/Could Discovery have been set in the post-TNG timeline

Nope.

Far too much clunky bullshit to deal with in the post-Nemesis era. The least-explored era with the least amount of expectations is between ENT and TOS. The next most viable option would have been between TUC and TNG.

Everything after NEM has 700 hours worth of overly complicated bullshit and backstory to deal with.

Not worth it when you can go back to pre-TOS and avoid all that while getting a marketing boost at the same time.

 

Depending on how post-NEM it would be set, they would also have to deal with the idea of Romulus being destroyed and the I suppose heroic loss of Ambassador Spock. If one went that route, Burnham could have been Saavik's kid, half-Vulcan, quarter-Human, and a quarter Romulan.

She could still have the Karta issues if Spock was forced to save her life, and then have her feel him in the other universe, but also feel McCoy from time to time bickering with Spock's part of the Karta graft due to the time McCoy held Spock's Karta.

 

Not if you set it 20 years in the future because everything sort of resets to unknown, besides Romulus being destroyed and even then you can just say they are now living on a new planet because it's unlikely they all were killed. Even Carddisians could be made into viable villians again, with the idea being they rebuilt their society. Rom most likely floped as Nagus. Klingons go back to bad guys if you want. Any aliens you don't like can be written off as being killed off or are no longer relevant to the politics of the new time period much like how the Gorn and Andorians kind of disapeared in the 24th century.

Jason

 

Sounds too much like "Star Trek: The NEXT Next Generation" and I think the prevailing view at the studio would have been "been there, done that."

That would have been my initial reaction as well. Of course, if it ended up being enjoyable...it would have been fine.

 

Why? I enjoyed the 24th century characters, but their story is finished. When VOY ended, Berman and Braga at least had the good sense to not do yet ANOTHER 24th century show. It would have been tiresome.

Where would I have gone? 26th century. It's cleaner. You don't have to deal with the immediate events post-Nemesis. There's an even lesser chance of bringing back old characters as a gimmick. Forge new species and concepts to introduce new iconography instead of rehashing the past. Anything regarding what happened to the Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians, Dominion, Borg, etc during that time gap is better off left to the imagination.

 

To me "Discovery" feels like a more modern version of "DS9" only on starship instead of a station and that show was literally in the same time period of TNG. It does everything that DS9 did but witha even more modern style of speech and a arc that is more focused around a single character, instead of having things more spread around than "DS9" did. They even still use technobabble even though the tech terms have changed but even DS9 moved away from intense tech talk once Pillar left the show.

Also when you look at DS9 you will notice they started to phase out things like shields and red alerts. Ships would shoot t each other and just explode and you never saw the ole shield bubble effect much in the later seasons because someone must of realized that is boring. I don't think they did more than 2 prime directive episodes and they didn't really do bridge shaking and shield perecentage game that much by the time of season 4. They were still spotty on the music because Berman must hate music and the hand to hand battles were still lacking but that is stuff that is easy to fix in any time period you do.

Jason

 

Or we can simply suggest that the production team has done a visual reboot setting the series in a future extrapolating from 2017. Not 1966. Not 1987. Today.

(And if it really helps you sleep at night, just call it a full reboot.)

 

I like the idea of prequels. It's tougher for the writers, but there's a lovely foundation to build on and can sometimes give a better context to future events which enrich the narrative, I think.

After DS9 and VOY, I just wasn't that enthusiastic with exploring events after the 24th century. Maybe because I got annoyed with all the Temporal stuff which apparently happens from 26th century onwards. It gets messy, convoluted and unsatisfactory in major plot-lines due to the potential for event-breaking resets.

Maybe I could get sold on the idea, but it would take a pretty interesting and refreshingly different premise which wasn't just an ill thought out retread of what's gone before.

 

Nice to see all these different POVs.

If they had moved it to the future, they could have still called it Discovery. Frankly any new ST watcher would care less when it was set.

For storyline it would have made things easier as they wouldn’t be stuck trying to balance multiple universes. Right now this one feels like a standalone. Different from the past series, and different from the new movies. I wonder how it plays out. It’s very possible they want to pretty much discard all past history and start again to a new audience. Depends on how much non-trek-people traction the show gets.

As far as Romulus being destroyed, yes, that does create and interesting predicament.

I know this discussion is moot point but I was curious to see where we feel things stand as the show has been played out so far.

 

Set pre-TOS, there is less stuff new fans need to know about to catch up.

 

I voted no. If it had been set post nemesis, I would have watched it, but this is so much better.

To me, post TNG technology is so far removed from where we are now that its painfully contrived to accept that humans would be recognisable to us, and the whole thing would collapse under the weight of its own nonsense. Any conflict that arose but not immediately resolved with a pre existing solution would rightly suffer the 'why didn't they just use the...' criticism, and any explanation would be countered by the 'we'll what about the xxx, it does the same thing' argument.

They can make anything, travel anywhere, teleport with a cufflink sized device. Walk through matter, cross dimensions, communicate with any species, observe events in the distant past. They can destroy stars, kick start dead stars and make planets with a device the size of a hatstand. They can switch bodies, transfer consciousness, rewrite memories, reverse borgification, read minds and stop the aging process. They even know that absolute omnipotence is a realistic and achievable aim. What's left to explore?

I think the 2250s is best setting, all things considered.

 

Not true. Plenty of people were able to watch and enjoy TNG without needing to watch TOS as a prerequisite.

 

They can do all that in DSC as well. Heck, they could do all that in TOS or ENT as well if and when the story called for it. We may think that there’s evident progress of technology in Star Trek but that’s not really the case. Trek tech in reality is stagnant and the same whether set in the 2250s or the 2390s.

 

TNG is 100 years removed from TOS though.

So a post NEM serious would also need to as far removed as to no alienate new viewers.

 

You couldn't have the uncharted nature of a Human and Vulcan - Starfleet and Vulcan Academy conflict.

You couldn't treat the idea of Klingons and Federation at peace, as an unknown idea.

You couldn't tell how the "modern" Klingon high council emerged.

You couldn't have Starfleet's first mutineer.

You couldn't have Starfleet command officers being so caviller with how they operate.

You would be hampered with things like the Borg and Dominion which proved more of a danger to the Federation than the Klingons.

You couldn't tow the line between the Original Series, the JJ Films showing versions of the same characters, to try to widen the appeal to Trek fans of today (this is a business thing as much as a story thing).

And they have obviously decided to go for a more tactile and mechanical look to the crafts and props, which would feel even more out of place following TNG as it does coming after Enterprise.

 

Actually you still have to learn all the aliens in a prequel you would do in the past but it's kind of harder because not only do you have to know them you also have limits as to what you can do with them because you can't change stuff in the future. I do like the idea of Kelvin Universe prequel were you can go back in the past but also change the future in surprising ways. Problem is Abrams beat everyone to that idea. A reboot IMO also serves same function but a reboot can function the same way in any time period and you can even mix things up if you really,really want to do some new stuff. A reboot that accepts it's a reboot could be Trek's first meta Trek show.

Jason

 

That had nothing to do with what I said.

 

It wouldn't be alienating as long as you don't bring unnecessary baggage like the Dominion or Cardassia's state. But I agree that setting it further away is a better option.