The Advantage of a Prequel

[Blamo]

The biggest problems with setting it in or after the TNG era is the technology.

Replicators, recrystallizing dilithium while in the chamber, holodecks, holopeople, holographic crew, projecting holographic ships into space, Paris' transwarp (so what if it turns people into salamanders, you could always use it for automated probes), the "no beaming through shields" being forgotten, warp speeds (everything feels so close together), exceptionally accurate sensors and transporters and the deflector dish being able to solve half the space anomaly problems. The Federation being able to produce a vast fleet and relatively quickly (two Borg attacks and they still have enough capital ships to make the Galactic Empire envious).,

Seriously, set Voyager 100 years earlier and the story would HAVE to be entirely different. They'd have to find dilithium, limited food, no easy access to replacements or materials for all the repair work they need, no holodeck for stress relief.

Voyager ended with the ship returning to Earth in better health than it left, with an advanced astrometrics lab, advanced tech like the batmobile armour, torps that can blow up cubes in one shot and the Doctors mobile emitter. Not to mention the Federation being able to pick the brains of a hyper-intelligent ex-Borg.

100 years after? Less that 50 years after Voyager you've got time travel tech.

The other problems are things like the prime directive dogma, the overcooked and overpopulated galaxy, the huge size of the Federation, the near perfection of the Federation.

 

[Longinus]

The biggest problems with setting it in or after the TNG era is the technology.

Replicators, recrystallizing dilithium while in the chamber, holodecks, holopeople, holographic crew, projecting holographic ships into space, Paris' transwarp (so what if it turns people into salamanders, you could always use it for automated probes), the "no beaming through shields" being forgotten, warp speeds (everything feels so close together), exceptionally accurate sensors and transporters and the deflector dish being able to solve half the space anomaly problems. The Federation being able to produce a vast fleet and relatively quickly (two Borg attacks and they still have enough capital ships to make the Galactic Empire envious).,

Seriously, set Voyager 100 years earlier and the story would HAVE to be entirely different. They'd have to find dilithium, limited food, no easy access to replacements or materials for all the repair work they need, no holodeck for stress relief.

I absolutely agree, but the writers are just clinically unable to restrain themselves from introducing this setting breaking super tech, so all making it a 23th century show does is that after couple of seasons of Discovery we will have all that tech a century earlier.

 

[Tesophius]

I don't see any advantages of a prequel, I guess it's just easier to write/make, because you don't have to worry about coming up with fresh ideas about the future.

 

[BillJ]

Seriously, set Voyager 100 years earlier and the story would HAVE to be entirely different. They'd have to find dilithium, limited food, no easy access to replacements or materials for all the repair work they need, no holodeck for stress relief.

Which, of course, isn't true. We know holodecks exist from "The Practical Joker", we know the Enterprise has some kind of fabrication facilities from "Patterns of Force" and "A Private Little War". They would have to find dilithium, and matter for the replicators that obviously existed in TOS.

About the only real difference is that Voyager is a slower ship.

 

[zar]

Seriously, set Voyager 100 years earlier and the story would HAVE to be entirely different. They'd have to find dilithium, limited food, no easy access to replacements or materials for all the repair work they need, no holodeck for stress relief.

Minus the holodeck, that's exactly what Voyager was for the first 3 to 4 seasons, and ignoring that was a mistake.

 

[Charles Phipps]

ENTERPRISE had a problem with the fact it's basically the 24th century before the 23rd. But that was everywhere from scripts to characterization to humanity.

However, with Discovery, I'm adopting Bellisario's Maxim.

"It's just a TV show, don't worry about it."

Blame the Xindi attack and Q if you need a reason.

 

[eschaton]

I think prequels would work best if they would just use the time period as a setting, without trying to introduce new tech, major setting altering events or awkward connections to the older shows. It's just that people who produce prequels inexplicably always want to do all of these three things.

Now someone is gonna say, but it would be boring, why limit writers like that? But it is same with real history, people manage to write shows in real historical setting without introducing teleporting mushroom horses or making the main character Queen Victoria's secret adopted brother.

If you think of a historic setting, there are basically three reasons to use it:

1. Because you want to use the historical trappings of the time period (costumes, sets, props, etc).

2. Because you want to examine some element of the general zeitgeist of the time period (e.g., rampant racism and/or sexism, palace intrigue, rise of socialism) which cannot be done on a contemporary show.

3. To link the show to particular historic events which happened during the period in which the show was set.

Discovery is of course set in the TOS era, more or less. They have decided not to use the visual cues of the TOS era (even updated to higher budgets). They have also chosen not to use the TOS "zeitgeist" unaltered, which I think is correct, given (as an example) the rampant sexism that series depicted for future humanity. Really all that's left is "history - or, more specifically given it's a fictional setting, canon. So if you don't mine canon, there's little reason to have a prequel - or even a trek series at all.

 

[The Lensman]

I don't see any advantages of a prequel, I guess it's just easier to write/make, because you don't have to worry about coming up with fresh ideas about the future.

What "fresh ideas"? Because so far I have yet to see a single proponent of a post 25th Century show offer anything even remotely resembling a "fresh idea about the future". Usually it's some tired old sci-fi trope like "Fall Of The Federation". "Fallen Galactic Empires" was done to death in the wake of Asimov's "Foundation" stories, it's not new and "Andromeda" already did it. So far every idea is pretty much the exact same show that TNG was. Except with new names for technology that won't be presented in any new way, like phasic torpedoes, quantum lasers and hyper-shields. The dialogue will sound like the same stale old shit we've had forever.

"Super scanners show a (insert new bad guy name here) de-megacloaking captain!"
"Raise hyper shields, Lt. Cmder Blorb."
"They're firing their positronic disrupters captain!"
"Lock quantum phasers and fire!"
"Firing. No effect Captain! Hyper-shields down 35%"
"Arm all phasic torpedoes and fire!"
"Still no effect captain!"
"Lt. Cmdr Blorb, evasive maneuvers, maximum Trans-hyper Warp, factor 9! Get us out of here"
"Course set captain"
Raises hand then points at screen "Activate!"
Ship does a little blurry thing and vanishes in a puff of light.


I've yet to see anything from post-TNG fans that indicates anything otherwise. The same shit, with some new names, a new Starfleet uniform, ships with letters from the middle of the alphabet, some new bad guys that might as well be the Klingons, Romulans or Cardassians because they won't be that different (see the Kazon). They think setting it in a different galaxy won't make it the same old shit.

As I've said numerous times before and has been said above, a society as advanced as the 24th century society, will be unrecognizable to us by the time they reach the 25th. Imagine having holo tech, phaser tech, communicator tech, tricorder tech all incorporated into a person via nano-technology because that's where you end up after 100 years of uninterrupted technological progress with the 24th century as your starting point. That's why B&B made ENT a prequel and it's one of the few things I agreed with them on.

 

[Tesophius]

What "fresh ideas"? Because so far I have yet to see a single proponent of a post 25th Century show offer anything even remotely resembling a "fresh idea about the future". Usually it's some tired old sci-fi trope like "Fall Of The Federation". "Fallen Galactic Empires" was done to death in the wake of Asimov's "Foundation" stories, it's not new and "Andromeda" already did it. So far every idea is pretty much the exact same show that TNG was. Except with new names for technology that won't be presented in any new way, like phasic torpedoes, quantum lasers and hyper-shields. The dialogue will sound like the same stale old shit we've had forever.

"Super scanners show a (insert new bad guy name here) de-megacloaking captain!"
"Raise hyper shields, Lt. Cmder Blorb."
"They're firing their positronic disrupters captain!"
"Lock quantum phasers and fire!"
"Firing. No effect Captain! Hyper-shields down 35%"
"Arm all phasic torpedoes and fire!"
"Still no effect captain!"
"Lt. Cmdr Blorb, evasive maneuvers, maximum Trans-hyper Warp, factor 9! Get us out of here"
"Course set captain"
Raises hand then points at screen "Activate!"
Ship does a little blurry thing and vanishes in a puff of light.


I've yet to see anything from post-TNG fans that indicates anything otherwise. The same shit, with some new names, a new Starfleet uniform, ships with letters from the middle of the alphabet, some new bad guys that might as well be the Klingons, Romulans or Cardassians because they won't be that different (see the Kazon). They think setting it in a different galaxy won't make it the same old shit.

As I've said numerous times before and has been said above, a society as advanced as the 24th century society, will be unrecognizable to us by the time they reach the 25th. Imagine having holo tech, phaser tech, communicator tech, tricorder tech all incorporated into a person via nano-technology because that's where you end up after 100 years of uninterrupted technological progress with the 24th century as your starting point. That's why B&B made ENT a prequel and it's one of the few things I agreed with them on.

I have absolutely no idea where these post-TNG ideas you speak of come from, I don't read fan fiction and don't see what that might have to do with a real Star Trek series that might be set in a further future than what we've seen so far.

One of the problems with Star Trek is that most tech, apart from Warp Drive, is 21st century at best. I treat all of Star Trek as taking place in the 22nd century, because almost nothing changes technologically between the 22nd, 23rd and 24th centuries. Writers are typically representative of the general population, which tends to hold conservative views on technological progress. Thus, for any out-of-the-box concept for even the late 22nd century, the writers would need to write about the 25th century and beyond, they need to be challenged to come up with new ideas.

If you're fishing for ideas about the future, or if any serious writers were, I'd recommend closely investigating the works of such renowned futurists as Ray Kurzweil, Alvin Toffler, Michio Kaku, Peter Diamandis and others.

 

[eschaton]

There are lots of "far future" ideas which would be interesting to consider. Generally, these fall along the "posthuman" spectrum. I'm talking widespread use of androids/artificial life, biological immortality, mind uploading, creation of "virtual" worlds, widespread use of megastructures, godlike AI running the Federation. Yet we know this cannot fit within the Trekverse canon due to what has been revealed about the 29th century. It would also basically subvert one of the core (and odd) rules of the Trekverse - that aside from random energy beings every spacefaring civilization is within a few centuries of all other civilizations in known space, despite deep time of billions of years. A "posthuman" world would mean some beings were really orders of magnitude "better" than others, which would subvert the essence of Trek - that the technology is advanced, but people (aside from not being bigoted or generally speaking religious) are pretty much identical to the present day.

 

[Tesophius]

There are lots of "far future" ideas which would be interesting to consider. Generally, these fall along the "posthuman" spectrum. I'm talking widespread use of androids/artificial life, biological immortality, mind uploading, creation of "virtual" worlds, widespread use of megastructures, godlike AI running the Federation. Yet we know this cannot fit within the Trekverse canon due to what has been revealed about the 29th century. It would also basically subvert one of the core (and odd) rules of the Trekverse - that aside from random energy beings every spacefaring civilization is within a few centuries of all other civilizations in known space, despite deep time of billions of years. A "posthuman" world would mean some beings were really orders of magnitude "better" than others, which would subvert the essence of Trek - that the technology is advanced, but people (aside from not being bigoted or generally speaking religious) are pretty much identical to the present day.

Now that would be a show I would pay good money to see. Posthumanity is the obvious next step that oddly hasn't been explored to any significant degree by StarTrek. Even transhumanism isn't evident as far into the future as the 24th century.

 

[BillJ]

What "fresh ideas"? Because so far I have yet to see a single proponent of a post 25th Century show offer anything even remotely resembling a "fresh idea about the future".

I guess where I'm concerned, I wonder what exactly they are doing in Discovery that demands it take place in the 23rd vs. the 25th century? Magic technology doesn't have to exist, as it is pretty much stagnant from the 22nd to 24th century. Phasers are a little stronger, torpedoes make a bit bigger boom, ships are "faster" (though they really aren't).

 

[eschaton]

Now that would be a show I would pay good money to see. Posthumanity is the obvious next step that oddly hasn't been explored to any significant degree by StarTrek. Even transhumanism isn't evident as far into the future as the 24th century.

That makes me think of what would be a great plot arc for a season of a Star Trek series. Where are all the multi-million-year-old elder civilizations?

Clearly to some degree the "Fermi Paradox" has been solved in the Trekverse. The galaxy is full of intelligent life. But almost all biological life seems to vary from stone age to "warp age" with most physical beings only having technology a few hundred years more advanced than the Federation at best. Even the races which were warp-capable when humans were pre-industrial did not advance far beyond us.

The Federation finds plenty of relics of older civilizations who flourished thousands of years ago. It also has encounters with various godlike energy beings. But the latter group appears to be rare, and tend to wander around the universe as individuals or in small groups. We have yet to see a galaxy-spanning civilization of such an advanced non-coporeal race. Or even a race which kept in its physical bodies for millions of years and kept honing its understanding of technology. Why?

 

[Tesophius]

That makes me think of what would be a great plot arc for a season of a Star Trek series. Where are all the multi-million-year-old elder civilizations?

Clearly to some degree the "Fermi Paradox" has been solved in the Trekverse. The galaxy is full of intelligent life. But almost all biological life seems to vary from stone age to "warp age" with most physical beings only having technology a few hundred years more advanced than the Federation at best. Even the races which were warp-capable when humans were pre-industrial did not advance far beyond us.

The Federation finds plenty of relics of older civilizations who flourished thousands of years ago. It also has encounters with various godlike energy beings. But the latter group appears to be rare, and tend to wander around the universe as individuals or in small groups. We have yet to see a galaxy-spanning civilization of such an advanced non-coporeal race. Or even a race which kept in its physical bodies for millions of years and kept honing its understanding of technology. Why?

That's a great point which I've also spent some time pondering over, why are all the civilizations in the galaxy within a few centuries of development of one another? I solve this, for my own comfort, by making an argument that beings that are even just thousands of years more advanced than we are, let alone millions, are simply beyond our comprehension. Humans, Vulcans, Romulans etc. may think that they're big shots in their respective corners, but there are other beings co-existing even in the same space-time in a manner that is just incomprehensible to humans. One can argue that the Q is one of such beings. I would like to see more encountering/explorations of civilizations far beyond the, shall we say, galactic norm.

From a writing standpoint it requires too much ingenuity and research to write compelling stories involving non-traditional interactions between people. It's been done in a few episodes across all the series and those have typically been some of the most intriguing stories, but it's just that much easier to present viewers with Klingons that are easy to understand, because they're essentially human. The problem with many sci fi writers is that they don't actually do the research, they rely on the corpora of extant literature and throw common "futuristic" themes on it. Star Trek did a great job stepping outside of this box maybe 20% of the time and that's what I want to see more of.

 

[Longinus]

That's a great point which I've also spent some time pondering over, why are all the civilisations in the galaxy within a few centuries of development of one another?

I used to think it was weird, but I'm not sure anymore. The humanity basically went from modern era to a space faring civilisation really fast, but then there were mostly incremental increases in technology for centuries, rather than new ground breaking tech being invented. But it actually makes sense. Once you master the warp or otherwise contact other space faring cultures, you will acquire technological know-how from them, causing from your civilisation's perspective a massive jump in the tech level. But once you have reached the local level of technology, you need to invent something none of your neighbouring cultures have invented before, which is probably pretty difficult. Even though ENT kinda tried to present it differently (and I interpret it as just Archer being an ass) a lot of Federation's tech is actually Andorian, Vulcan and Tellarite tech they've spent centuries inventing before humans even knew how to built aeroplanes, let alone spacecraft.

 

[Ovation]

The Federation finds plenty of relics of older civilizations who flourished thousands of years ago. It also has encounters with various godlike energy beings. But the latter group appears to be rare, and tend to wander around the universe as individuals or in small groups. We have yet to see a galaxy-spanning civilization of such an advanced non-coporeal race. Or even a race which kept in its physical bodies for millions of years and kept honing its understanding of technology. Why?

The answer to "why" is simple, though you probably won't like it. It won't sell to the masses. Hi-concept "hard" sci-fi is a marginal cultural product with very little potential to make a profit--ergo, it's rarely the centrepiece of mainstream entertainment. Even when it is present, the only way anyone will finance such film or TV series is to include the kinds of interpersonal dynamics that some people apparently want to see less of (or none of). Books have been, and remain, the best avenue to explore such "hard" sci-fi. Trek has never been much more than a very occasional visitor to the outskirts of the hard sci-fi neighbourhood. To imagine it will do otherwise is to set one's self up for disappointment.