The Next Deep Space Nine

[Xhiandra]

Well, there's an idea I mentionned years ago, but it's more a change in writing style than setting.
Setting: a few years post-VOY or post-NEM is fine. Abrams Movies/DSC/PIC/LD (and I guess PRO) didn't happen.

The idea would be to:

- First make a "map" of the galaxy (not necessarily a literal 3D map, it could be modelled as a graph with distances (x, y and z) on the arcs),
- Then create initial conditions,
- Finally, write the characters' personalities and values. A lot of characters, not just 5 to 8, because many perspectives would be considered (not only Starfleet) and because some characters would leave the scope of the show, be it by simply doing something else or dying.

Then, write the show from those starting positions, with no predefined conclusion to any given episode. If characters A, B and C would act thusly in those circumstances, then that is what they do. Events are wholly shaped by how characters act, and characters are in turn shaped by what happens to them.


Basically, a Song of Stars and Treks.

 

[Orphalesion]

I'd be up for a show with little 'adventure' in it. Go all in interpersonal. I'm sure they'd never go the Spock route, but a character like that who struggles to integrate with the class but is carrying a lot of (ahem) emotional baggage from back home is drama that writes itself. Let's see the exams and the proms and the training. It's something we've never really seen in detail before. What is Starfleet Academy like?

We are in the greatest period of experimentation in the franchises history. I think anything is possible right now and that can only be good. If a given fan doesn't want to watch it then that's all good. It doesn't have to appeal to everyone. Just the demographic it's aimed at.

I don't know about the "little adventure" aspect. Even Prodigy is a show about kids having adventure on a Space Ship. And all the Older Teen/YA shows mentioned in this thread have fantasy/scifi adventure elements.
Plus, I think you'd need the Adventure elements to justify setting the show in Starfleet Academy instead of making a much cheaper, regular high school drama.

 

[F. King Daniel]

They've got starship sets coming out their asses right now:

Discovery, Enterprise, La Sirena and whatever the season 2/3 Starfleet ship in Picard is. That's bridge sets, corridors, shuttles, engineering rooms, jeffries tubes and whatnot. So they can have their classroom, dorm, common area and academy garden sets and pretty much anything else (holodeck ship or "real" training cruise) can be covered with any of the above. Wanna visit a Klingon or Borg ship? They've probably still got sets for those in storage. Oh yeah, and their AR virtual set for visiting alien planets.

With all this stuff established already by Disco, Picard and Strange New Worlds making new live action Trek should be cheaper than ever.

 

[dupersuper]

Every era in Trek is essentially the same. ENT had decon gel they used all of twice

They definitely used it more than twice. It was what they used to bring the sexy...

Given the darker tone of Discovery and Picard, maybe they're the next DS9. Like the Cowardly Lion's courage, it was there all along.

Nah: DS9 was a lot more than just dark.

"Kids at school" worked Ok for the Harry Potter series.

Yes, but hopefully Starfleet Academy is far more responsible with their students safety...

 

[Oddish]

Yes, but hopefully Starfleet Academy is far more responsible with their students safety...

Too true... As a major Potterhead, I did an analysis on the quality of the Hogwarts staff. The results were... interesting.

Of course, the cadet kiddos would have to be in harm's way at some point. Otherwise, boring story.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

That's the problem with setting the story in a place that's supposed to be entirely safe. Cadets have to earn their red shirts first before they become expendable.

 

[Grizzlor]

Honestly, I felt it was the terrific and hilarious Avenue 5 starring Hugh Laurie and Josh Gad! Albeit on a ship in the solar system, but the thing barely moves, and perhaps it is Love Boat on meth instead?

 

[Arpy]

I kind of like the challenge of doing a show that’s planet-side. Just to really address the idea that the ship is all important in a Star Trek show. The first thing that comes to mind is the Federation headquarters West Wing-like show from Keith DeCandido’s Articles of the Federation — plenty of built-in interest and intrigue there. Beyond that, I’d want to do something polar opposite from DS9 in setting so as to differentiate the two non-ship based shows. Instead of being on the frontier, I’d place it in the most populated system in the Federation, one that’s always intrigued me.

The Rigel System is unusual in Trek in that it has many populated planets with diverse alien lifeforms. There were both humanoid and Vulcanoid Rigelians in TOS, primitive giant Rigelians from “The Cage”, chelonian Rigelians from TMP, and others in ENT. There yet be more in this series to further stoke the fires of curiosity, including some fantastical in nature — intelligent hot air balloon like beasts of one of the gas giants, colonial organisms composed of individual ones united in a larger being (even a humanoid one), etc.

Here’s this fascinating galactic curiosity, with a long history as an interstellar hub for commerce from before there ever was a Federation, and also one that’s full-fledged member of the UFP to boot. Maybe the show is the slow unraveling of the larger than life mystery of this singular super-populated star system. I’m thinking Babylon 5, The Expanse, and Lost as influences to begin with.

The show is centered on a small commission dedicated to trying figure out this ancient curiosity…a bit Stargate-like maybe…maybe in a Federation bureaucratic high-rise on one of the planets with a cool spaceport on the roof from which they’d dart to different locations in the system. Or (for those Gargoyles fans out there) maybe the building is topped with a reconstructed [Rigelian] castle that our heroes head up to to discuss the evolving investigation over lunch and panoramic views of the city below and above them.

Among the crew is an alien captain from a somewhat androgynous and hermaphroditic race (I'm thinking Vikings' Travis Fimmel from his modeling days). He’s a bit like Captain Jack Harkness from Torchwood in that he’s basically pansexual and will romance any gender or species out there. Also a middle-aged Deltan medical officer (someone like Shohreh Aghdashloo from The Expanse and 24) with a slightly off-putting alien way about her, a non-humanoid character, and an artificial intelligence a bit like the Ziggy in Quantum Leap or the Machine in Person of Interest, or (dare we fear) VIKI from I, Robot. As a former science officer, maybe Admiral Janeway is their boss at HQ?

 

[Nyotarules]

The West Wing version of Trek, set at UFP headquarters, I would watch that. A show about galactic politics etc

 

[Oddish]

Viki was scary because her logic was impeccable. However, the problem was solvable: rewrite the first law to say that no robot can harm a human. Period. Yes, a robot can allow a human to come to harm through inaction, but Viki's misbehavior is blocked.

Of course, on our new DS9, they have to learn this the hard way...

 

[Trelane_Squire_of_Gothos]

Maybe the key thing that made DS9 remarkable was its divergent setting — a station as opposed to another Enterprise. That opened the door for the franchise to do diverse series, including the next one VOY not being the tale of the next Enterprise (E-E, G) or an earlier one (B, C, NX), and to get lost in space.

What if you had to do another series based on an original idea. Where would you set it? Who would be its characters?

If it’s planet-side, how would you keep it interesting, if you believe DS9 was harmed by its “stationary” setting.

I dare ask when would you set it too, but neither trip to the distant past (ENT) nor future (DSC S3/4) diverged enough from the “present” to allow me, for one, to fully buy it. So stay in the 24/25th Century. Unless you think your 32nd Century Academy idea with Superintendent Tilly really works.

Nicholas Meyer's idea of a "Star Fleet academy" is interesting. Creating a series about a group of young cadets in a futuristic San Francisco can be a good concept (if done right).

Another "off the beaten path" idea could be creating a series about another alien race's starship. Seeing the inner workings of a cut-throat Romulan crew, for example, would be pretty different.

There was a time when I might have said doing a series about the mirror universe would be interesting, but I think that concept has been kind of overdone at this point, and I don't like what they did with it in Deep Space 9.