Star Trek: Foundations

[Captain X]

An Introduction to Star Trek: Foundations

What It’s About

Star Trek: Foundations is essentially a reimagination of the TV series Star Trek: Enterprise. Set in approximately the same time period, starting in 2151, Foundations explores humanities first steps into deep space. To accomplish this, the United Earth Space Probe Agency constructed its first ship capable of traveling faster than warp factor 5, the UES Enterprise, EX-01.

So, as you can see, it’s essentially the same premise as Star Trek: Enterprise, but rather than focusing on technology saving the day, or conflict, Foundations focuses on the characters, and how the time they live in effects their lives. For instance, on the subject of technology, the transporter of later eras is a completely foreign concept to humanity, and they will be stunned at its use by species that possess the technology, which at this time will be few. Weapons do not have multiple settings, they’re either lethal, or non-lethal, so depending on the situation, crewmembers may have to make the choice to kill or be killed, and hostage situations are that much more dangerous. Shielding technology hasn’t yet been developed, only armor plating hardened through “polarizing” protects the otherwise frail Enterprise, and this armor does not fail in predictable percentage increments, it takes damage.

The lack of familiar technology is not a limitation, it simply means that problems will have to be solved in different ways, so truly, Foundations will be set apart from the other four Star Trek series.

Most of the characters will be familiar to those who have watched Enterprise, at least in name. Foundations Staff has strived to retain most of the traits of these characters, but some are going to be different, their backgrounds changed, and in doing so we hope that these characters will truly be set apart from the characters seen in previous series. We will learn a lot about them through the run of Foundations, and share in what’s happening to them, because in Foundations, it’s not about the action, though there will be plenty, it’s about the characters and how they deal with what’s happening to them, and this will be the focus of the series.

Our crew will do plenty of exploring, and meet plenty of alien races, some of which you may recognize from other Star Trek series, and some of which you won’t. There is also no guarantee that the species you do recognize are the same as they were in what is chronologically a century into the future. Part of Foundations will explore what brings humanity and the various other civilizations in this part of the galaxy together to form the Federation we’re already familiar with from the other Star Trek series. Truly, the Foundations of what we’ve already come to know.

Also, in the tradition of the previous series, Star Trek: Foundations will explore the many issues that currently face humanity, as well as issues that humanity has faced before. A 19th Century Spanish philosopher named George Santayana said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Not to sound too cynical, but humanity often has repeated the mistakes of the past, so don’t be surprised if the humanity presented in Foundations is forced to deal with some things we may recognize from our own history.

Why We Did It

What’s wrong with Enterprise? I’ll admit, I like Enterprise myself, maybe not as much as some of the more dedicated fans I’ve met online, but Season 4 in particular appealed to me. Enterprise had such great potential. As a prequel, it gave us the opportunity to see the birth of the Federation, yet at the same time, there was that difficulty in sticking what had been established for the era. More advanced technology for example. Enterprise also had great potential to show us a truly different kind of Star Trek, one where humanity hasn’t quite achieved the utopian vision of Gene Roddenberry, but is on its way, even if it looks like a light at the end of a long tunnel. In doing so, the people who are watching it could recognize more of themselves in what they saw on the TV screen every week, as well as the issues that the crew had to deal with. Instead, what Enterprise turned out to be was essentially like any other Star Trek series, with characters who had attitudes not all that different from their 23rd or even 24th Century counterparts. Then there was behavior on the part of some characters that seemed forced in an attempt to avoid what I just described, but it came off as just…wrong. There was also some extraordinarily poor behavior that was presented as the “right” thing to do. Needless to say, Enterprise had its weaknesses, and Foundations hopes to present an alternative, a “what if this had been done instead” contrast to Enterprise.

It is not our intention to offend, and we recognize that this may be controversial, particularly in light of recent calls to reboot the Star Trek franchise entirely. Instead, we hope that you’ll give Foundations a chance. Fan fiction may not be canon, but we’d like to think that Foundations would have avoided the mistakes Enterprise made and survived to its natural end after 7 full seasons on television, though we do have the advantage of hindsight on our side. Anyway, I can only say so much, you’ll have to just read and decide for yourself. I suggest that you start with the miniseries, essentially the pilot to the series itself, which though quite large, has thus far been very well received. It begins the journey of our crew, and sets the premise of the series.

For the time being, Foundations (FND) is on hiatus, but this is simply so we can build up a solid base of episodes so we can release on what will hopefully be a weekly basis. The Season 1 premiere will pick up essentially from when the miniseries left off, so you can expect more of the same excellent writing from our dedicated staff when we are finally ready to release. Until then, we hope you’ll enjoy the miniseries, and feel free to tell us even if you don’t, we can always use constructive criticism. In the meantime, expect some more featured commentary about the series, which we also hope you’ll enjoy.


“One Small Step…” Part I Foundations Miniseries episode #1. Story by Erik Gustav Hanska, Jimi James, and PG15. Written by Erik Gustav Hanska Rigil Kent, and Alex Z. Script first released on 21 March 2006. No date given. As Earth makes her first steps into deep space exploration, trouble erupts on Alpha Centauri. A colony wanting out enlists the help of an alien nation, and brings to a hault the mission of the newly commissioned UES Enterprise. Now a rookie crew and untested ship must do their best to end an uprising without bloodshed, and do it without the Vulcans pulling the plug on this newest endeavour by Earth.

“One Small Step…” Part II Foundations Miniseries episode #2. Story by Erik Gustav Hanska, Jimi James, and PG15. Written by Erik Gustav Hanska Rigil Kent, and Alex Z. Script first released on 8 Jun 2006. 20 May 2152. A great mystery makes itself known, and the Enterprise is thrown into battle again as our adventure continues.

 

[Captain X]

Feature Commentary on the Miniseries

How It All Started

Actually, it’s kind of funny; the beginning of Foundations actually started as a discussion about the infamous “Broken Bow” de-con scene, or rather, how I would have done it. As much as I enjoy seeing T’Pol in next to nothing, I’d be the first to point out that the scene as it was done on ENT was rather pointless, and was essentially pointless titillation. Yet, at the same time, I did like the concept of the de-con scene because it was something different, something less-advanced than we’re used to seeing on Star Trek.

I also liked the tension between the Trip and T’Pol characters, sexual or otherwise. This got the gears turning, and I began by thinking out the decontamination sequence itself, and to be completely honest I can’t see how rubbing some weird gel on each other would decontaminate them, or what the point of only stripping down to underwear was simply because, to be clinical, it left some of the most vulnerable areas of the body contaminated. Yeah, yeah, censors and all, but given that other shows have done a pretty good job us strategic camera angles, I don’t see why that could be used here, and in for a penny, in for a pound and all, especially since it all seemed to be about just getting them to strip down and touch each other.

So, since I have a pretty good idea about present day decontamination procedures, decided that would be the first thing to change, and that I’d go all out and have them strip down to nothing and actually have to get an all over spray down – something closer to what one would really have to go through to be decontaminated from exposure to some chemical or bacterial agent. But, that isn’t all I decided to change, and I was on a roll, and I think I was already starting to decide to rewrite “Broken Bow” at this point, but I was keeping it limited to this one scene for the time being.

I really thought that the reason given to get Trip and T’Pol (TnT) into de-con for their infamous scene was pretty contrived, simply because that although a bunch of other people had been down to this planet with them, only TnT got “infected” with whatever Phlox’s sensors picked up. The thing that appealed to me though was the argument they were having, making them seemingly oblivious to each other’s attractiveness. I decided that I would definitely come up with a more convincing reason to get them and only them into de-con to begin with, and I also decided that I was going to take it up a notch, because I don’t care how mad you are, if you’re a guy and like women, you’d notice how attractive T’Pol is, especially if she’s standing naked in front of you. Well, then there’d also be a pretty much involuntary reaction to that, and I thought I could get that point across without actually having to show it, what with the aforementioned censors and all, but I wanted to do more with it than that, because TnT would still be in the midst of one of their infamous arguments, but this would cause something of a pause in the argument because T’Pol would notice that Trip was having a “hard” time of it, and being the ice queen she’d try to use it as an example of humanity’s immaturity. The thing is, I didn’t want this to stop Trip’s argument, and if anything make him all the more determined to win the argument they were having, with the idea hopefully being conveyed that although Trip can’t control his reaction to T’Pol’s physical attractiveness, he still had the clarity of mind to carry on his argument, and just perhaps put T’Pol on the defensive, with implications that would become more apparent further down the road.

Just think, all that for one scene.

By this point I became committed to not stopping just at one scene, or even one episode. It’s no secret that I was never really satisfied with Enterprise as it was, in fact I was pretty much anti-ENT for its first few years, but after joining TrekBBS and meeting some of the people there, my mind was changed, and I opened my mind to it. Still, I found it disappointing, as it never really lived up to its premise as a different kind of Trek, and more importantly as a prequel. But still, there was such potential there, and it’s truly sad that the people who were making the show didn’t exploit that potential. So I decided to “simply” rewrite the entire series, start from the original premise again and go from there.

I already had plenty of ideas in my head on how I’d do things differently, so the original thread I’d started the shower scene in at Subspace Comms Network (SCN), my old online stomping grounds, expanded to include discussion about these ideas. I was happy to see that so many others were willing to not only give feedback on my ideas, but also to give ideas of their own. It wasn’t long from then for me to seek out a place to properly develop the project, which came to be known as Enterprise Redux. Cador Davis, known online as Makaveli, generously gave me a forum on Nov-Net, his messageboard, which I left open to the public in the hopes that more people would join in and help to reforge Enterprise into something more, something better.

I have to interject at this point though that this wasn’t to spite anyone, and actually one of the worries that I still have today is that people might actually be offended by my little project, be they ENT fans, or people who actually worked on ENT to begin with.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t long into the existence of the new forum before interest seemed to drop off, and almost died altogether. Then, I caught a break because just when I thought I’d have to either give up or go it alone, I got reinforcements in the form of new volunteers. Alexzandyr was already a staff member from my first online series, Star Trek: Endeavour, and he stuck with me through it all, but I also got help from the likes of Jimi James, the daft punk and Bond, James Bond from SCN, PG15 from TrekBBS, and Farragut79, someone I’d never met before, as well as plenty of others I hope won’t take offense to me not listing them all individually, because there were plenty of them. At this point (I think), the project took on an official name that was voted on, Star Trek: Foundations.

However, even with all this help, it was a long and arduous task, so much so that many of the people who had initially joined up to help lost interest and moved on, and I can’t say as I really blame them. At that point I still didn’t have a writer’s bible, and for all the ideas on the table, there still wasn’t anything set up for the pilot yet. To the credit of those who stuck with the project, and the persistence of Farragut that we get to work on a pilot, we finally started work on a plethora of ideas, which Jimi James in large part knocked together into something resembling what “One Small Step…” became. But even though we had an outline to work from, it was still slow going for me, because at the time I was especially busy with my classwork, and I don’t write especially fast. It was also somewhat awkward for me because while it looked easy enough in the outline, in fact it was very difficult to come up with the dialog and the other details to not only introduce the characters and the new universe, but to give the very complex plot the attention it deserved. As a result, the pilot become very long, so much so that I was faced with the rather painful decision of cutting out material to shorten it, or to change my plans a bit.

Having asked advice at a number of messageboards I frequented at the time, I got enough feedback that convinced me that a Battlestar Galactica style miniseries was the way to go.

By this time I’d finished the first half of the script, at least according to the outline anyway, and I started to show it to a few people to see what they thought of it so far. This is how I met Rigil Kent at a board called House of Tucker, and he provided all kinds of good feedback that helped me polish the script up, so it turned out much better than it originally would have been. Fortunately for me, Rigil became a full member of the Foundations Staff, and he continued to help me forge “One Small Step…”

Ironically, once I’d finished the first half and started on the second half, whereas before I was having problems because it was getting too long, the problem now was that I was having trouble coming up with enough worth-while plot to make the second half as long as the first half. With the help of the others on the staff, I was able to work through it, and I finally finished in June of this year.

The first half was very well received, which really surprised me. Unfortunately it took me so long to finish the second part that I think people must’ve forgotten about us, as the second part was released to little fan-fare. This is what has lead me to the decision to hold off on releasing new episodes until we’ve built up enough of them to release on a regular schedule, and I’m hoping that when the time comes we’ll have as much interest as the first part of “One Small Step…” had.

 

[Boadrummer]

I've got to say, I'm enjoying what I've read so far. Very interesting ideas that you have. I hope to read more once you've posted it!

 

[Captain X]

Cool, a fan!

I'm glad you;re enjoying it so far, we plan to start releasing on 19 January.

 

[Admiral2]

I don't suppose I could convince you to post prose versions of the stories?

 

[Captain X]

Depends on how long you're willing to wait.

I plan to eventually do prose versions, or at least I'd like to, but they're kind of on the backburner to the scripted episodes and another series I'm trying to breath some life back into, not to mention my RL stuff.

 

[Admiral2]

Captain X said:
Depends on how long you're willing to wait.

I plan to eventually do prose versions, or at least I'd like to, but they're kind of on the backburner to the scripted episodes and another series I'm trying to breath some life back into, not to mention my RL stuff.

Heavy sigh.

 

[Captain Keel]

Aw, man, your two episodes are great. You already get a feel for the universe, and the technology doesn't seem to be a bain to the characters or the stories. Any chance of some episodes on the boomers or a nice chunk or information I could ste -, I mean read about?

 

[Admiral2]

Okay, I read both parts and I liked the overall story, but my only real disappointment is that you didn't reimagine all that much. I know from your OP that you were reluctant to make wholesale changes, which is understandable, but the only real reimagining here was done to the characters, and from my experience the characters weren't necessarily ENT's biggest problems.

For the record, I'm one of the few people around here who felt ENT declined in quality as it progressed. That is, most bbsers think it started out bland and only started to improve in the third and fourth seasons, whereas I loved it in seasons one and two, considered it daft in the third season and found the fourth season almost unwatchable. From what I read here, it's like you're restarting ENT in the third season, with Reed taking Hayes's part and otherwise setting up the type of character dynamics that might have existed when Hayes brought the MACOs aboard. It's just not how I would have done it.

But, I'm not doing it. You are, and as I said you're doing it pretty well so far.

 

[Captain X]

Thank you both for reading it and telling me what you think of it so far, I really aprpeciate it guys.

Captain Keel said:
Any chance of some episodes on the boomers or a nice chunk or information I could ste -, I mean read about?

Actually the boomers are going to show up in a big way with episodes 6 and 7 and they'll show up from time to time after that.

Admiral2 said:
Okay, I read both parts and I liked the overall story, but my only real disappointment is that you didn't reimagine all that much.

Actually You might find that the characters aren't all that different from their ENT counterparts either, I don't know. I tried to do my best to get a hold of that "just starting out" feel that I thought disappeared all too fast on ENT, and I also did away with some of the technology (and plot devices) that I wanted to do without. I'll definately admit to fudging that for the Andorians' appearance, but that'll get explained a bit better in a future episode, so I'm hoping that'll make up for it a little.

As far as starting with a Season 3 feel, I'll admit that it's a bit darker than what most people are probably used to with Star Trek. That being said, this isn't meant to be a Trek version of BSG or Firefly, and we hope to do plenty of exploring strange new worlds for all the fights the crew seems to find themselves in, so I hope some of the future episodes are more to your liking.

I made Reed and the security personnel separate as a way to express the two differing viewpoints on space exploration, and to address the issue of the militarization of space. In the FND-verse the military is a big player and UESPA is in a lot of ways the little unwanted step-brother. I can only promise you that their differnces will be sorted out and tell you that we (the staff) hope to do a good job portraying that.


I'm not sure if I mentioned it before, but the planned release date for the series proper's pilot is tenatively set for January 19th, and that it hits the ground running with the Alpha Centauri arc. After the first two episodes it'll settle into the rest of the first season. So far we have 7 episodes written and hopefully by the time of the release we'll have at least 12 done so we can release pretty regularly (probably every two weeks).

 

[Captain X]

Foundations promo

I made this for a class assignment that required the use of a Flash animation, so that's why the logo is done the way it is. Hope you enjoy.

 

[exodus2310]

For those who don't know, Foundations will be airing on the 17th of January. I hope you're all as excited as I am!

 

[Captain X]

19th Actually.

It's only 11 days to launch day, and I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm getting pretty excited.

Here's a couple things to tide you over in the meantime. A teaser poster and a sig image made by the one and only chrisis1033.

 

[Captain X]

Our first preview!

Sorry if it isn't much, but only so much I can do unfortunately... Especially using iMovie...

Anyway, please right-click, save-as.

Series Premier

Only a couple more days!

 

[Captain X]

Here's a trailer that chrisis1033 made for me.

it's about 35MB in full screen DIVX format (you may need that codec if all you get is sound in media player)

right click... save as....

Foundations Trailer DIVX

 

[Captain X]

“Rubicon” Foundations episode #1. Story by Erik Gustav Hanska, Jimi James, and Rigil Kent. Screenplay by Rigil Kent. Script first released on 19 January 2007.
No date given. In no shape for a fight, Enterprise is caught in the middle of a tense situation as Alpha Centauri presses its cause for independence. Vulcan vows to mediate the disagreement, and will protect its mediator, but Earth doesn’t want to give up so easily.

 

[Captain X]

Coming up next week on Foundations...

1x02 - "Flashpoint"

Please right-click, save-as.

 

[Dead_Peon]

I'll add in support as a random internet guy that this series is quite good.

 

[Admiral2]

It's well written and it held my interest.

 

[Captain X]

Cool, Rigil will be pleased to hear that. And just in time for the next episode.

“Flashpoint” Foundations episode #2. Story by Erik Gustav Hanska, Jimi James, and Rigil Kent. Screenplay by Rigil Kent. Script first released on 2 Febuary 2007.
No date given. Earth declares war on its rebellious colony and moves to attack. The Vulcan fleet will defend Alpha Centauri, and now Captain Archer is in a desperate race against time to bring them back from a war that seems inevitable.