Star Trek: U.S.S. Endurance

[BrentMc]

I Have been working on my first Star Trek fan-fiction story. It is meant to be a origin story for my own ship and crew. It is named Star Trek U.S.S. Endurance.

A few months ago I re-watched an episode of DS9 called "Paradise Lost." It features a new refit of the Excelsior class, the U.S.S. Lakota, that was so upgraded that it went up against the Defiant and did well. I have always liked the Excelsior class and I like that time period, so I thought that if they went to all the trouble to refit one Excelsior class ship this way that they would have refit more the same way.

My story is set at the end of the dominion war, a few years after that episode, and is meant to tell how the ship and crew come together. I intend all future stories to be post Dominion war and to be Science and Exploration focused.

I have a diverse crew lead by a female Captain.

Does this sound interesting to anyone? I am just writing for fun, so I do not expect many people to read it.

 

[surak-toc]

that idea is brilliant, the concept it interesting, i like that it will have a specific focus,
having a female captain is for this kind of story will be great, what species is she, i am wondering what is the main focus of the first story, where is it set and such, would there be a chance of maybe a e-book to download, hope this first story/book goes well, i am very very interested, i can see this being great.

 

[BrentMc]

that idea is brilliant, the concept it interesting, i like that it will have a specific focus,
having a female captain is for this kind of story will be great, what species is she, i am wondering what is the main focus of the first story, where is it set and such, would there be a chance of maybe a e-book to download, hope this first story/book goes well, i am very very interested, i can see this being great.

Q. "having a female captain is for this kind of story will be great, what species is she?"

A. She is a Human, Italian. The reason for this is because, just for fun, I have "Fantasy-Cast" many of the roles. I have thought for awhile that Carla Gugino would make a great Starship captain. I could have written her as Carla Gugino playing another species, but I decided to keep her Human, Italian.
Maybe the professional writers will say it is a bad idea to fanstasy-cast, but this is just for fun and I want it this way :-)

Q. "I am wondering what is the main focus of the first story, where is it set and such."

A. The end of the Dominion war provides the backdrop for the first story. The main focus is on introducing my ship and crew. The first story is very engineering heavy, but it is just an origin story for future stories that will be science and exploration focused. It is set near Bajor.

Q. "would there be a chance of maybe a e-book to download?"

A. I used to use a program called calibre to manage and convert e-books. My virus scanner warned me that a recent update included mal-ware, so I uninstalled it. My plan is to release it in .PDF format.

"hope this first story/book goes well, i am very very interested, i can see this being great."

Thank you. I hope it goes well and is great too. I am trying to remember that it is all for fun and to not get too stressed working on it.

If you are interested I would like a few people to read it before I post if for everyone to see. I would like opinions and questions. When I am writing I know what I am thinking, but if someone else reads it and says who is this guy? then I might look at it and say I swore I said who he is.......you get the idea.

 

[surak-toc]

i will gladly be one of the readers, looking forward to see what you create, will be as good as the new frontier series is or was.

 

[BrentMc]

i will gladly be one of the readers, looking forward to see what you create, will be as good as the new frontier series is or was.

I am a first-time writer. New Frontier is written by Peter David a legend in the industry with years of experience. This is a fun project I am working on for a hobby. Don't get your hopes up that high!

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

Posting your story here as you write it will get you instant feedback so you can see what works/people like, and then if you hit a roadblock then they can offer suggestions and support for how to overcome it.

An interesting idea, I too have always loved the Excelsior-Class and also 'cast' my fanfics as I begin developing the characters--I find it helps keep things clear when describing them physically.

 

[Sgt_G]

Does this sound interesting to anyone? I am just writing for fun, so I do not expect many people to read it.

Yeah, I pretty much said the same thing. My story topic gets 50-60 views every time I post a new segment. You may or may not get comments, but if the story is half-way decent, you'll get readers.

 

[surak-toc]

I'm curious to know since this is post dominion war will there be any chance of seeing any of our favorite DS9, VOY, TNG characters, cameos of course

 

[BrentMc]

I'm curious to know since this is post dominion war will there be any chance of seeing any of our favorite DS9, VOY, TNG characters, cameos of course

It is possible that there might be cameos. I am hoping that readers will like the character I make enough to read the next story even if it does not have cameos. I think the challenge for a first time writer is to make those well know characters sound like themselves with their personalities and characteristics. Some people might say Dax would never do that, or Worf doesn't sound like Worf etc.. Also I would feel limited by what I could do with them.

I have ideas to use some little know characters that I liked that I would like to try to develop further.

 

[BrentMc]

Posting your story here as you write it will get you instant feedback so you can see what works/people like, and then if you hit a roadblock then they can offer suggestions and support for how to overcome it.

I should have done that, but I am getting close to done. I really like what I have so far. At this point I would like to get it to where I feel it is ready for someone else to read. I might ask a few people to read it before I post it.

I think when you are writing you know what you mean to say, but if someone reads it and says hey who is this guy?, or why did she do this? etc. that you realize you forgot to include some things, or didn't explain a decision enough.

I plan to release it as a .PDF to preserve the formatting the way I have it.

 

[BrentMc]

Thank you to everyone who replied. I was afraid no one would be interested.

One of the main reasons I want to write Star Trek is because I feel that sometimes Star Trek is too much about battles and wars. I want to write stories about science and exploration. Perhaps ironically the first story has battles in it. The end of the Dominion war is meant to be the backdrop for my origin story. My crew comes together during the war, but all future stories will be post war. I am not saying I don't want to have some action, but as Aisha Tyler said on her podcast recently, when Levar Burton was a guest, Good Sci-Fi is about ideas. Lazy Sci-Fi is all aliens and special effects.

I like the occasional space battle, but I want mystery, characterization, comedy and one thing that was one of my favorite parts of Star Trek; the friendships. I loved Kirk&Spock, Spock&Mccoy Data&Geordi, Miles&Julian, Harry&Tom etc. In my first story I introduce my crew and begin to form friendships. Some of my characters already knew each other and a some are just meeting.

I'm sure having fun writing this and I hope a few people read it and enjoy it.

 

[surak-toc]

i like a good solid idea, any chance of some info about your Excelsior class refit ship, crew compliment and such.

 

[BrentMc]

i like a good solid idea, any chance of some info about your Excelsior class refit ship, crew compliment and such.

In my research I have seen debates on the size of an Excelsior-class ship. I am going with the details in the Star Trek Deep Space Nice Technical Manual. The Deep Space Nine episode "Paradise Lost" didn't give a lot of details on the Lakota-type refit, so I feel free to be creative and decide what kind of upgrades were done.

I have enough talk about engineering. I need to work on bringing my characters to life.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

In the DS9 tech manual, it gives the crew complement as 750, the same as on the Nebula-Class (a much larger ship). I always cap it at around 550, but then after the war Starfleet would be suffering a shortage of manpower so every ship wouldn't necessarily have a full crew.

 

[surak-toc]

just wondering how you are doing with the story so far

 

[BrentMc]

just wondering how you are doing with the story so far

It's coming along well. I just need to develop my characters more. I really want to get a good sense of them and tell enough about them that you remember them in future stories. Some scenes need to be fleshed out a lot and I have ideas for additional scenes.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

It's coming along well. I just need to develop my characters more. I really want to get a good sense of them and tell enough about them that you remember them in future stories. Some scenes need to be fleshed out a lot and I have ideas for additional scenes.

For this, remember the mundane. Have characters talk amongst themselves and banter, not everything has to be a life-or-death situation. I always look at my characters as normal people who happen to work in space, so be sure to focus on their relationships and have easy flowing dialogue.

Then throw in little details here and there, and not just about the main cast but extras and recurring characters as well, flesh out the ship and make it feel "lived in".