Trek set in an intergalactic level

[The Wormhole]

The point of the matter of course is being in a different galaxy doesn't mean a damn thing if there isn't a good story to be told. And I can guarantee you, if Trek had been in a different galaxy under the writers the franchise has had in the past, all you'd get are the bog standard Trek tropes which have been repeated an infinitum, only the characters would have to frequently mention being in the Andromeda galaxy or Bode's Galaxy or wherever this show would be set. And that's before they end up running into familiar races who are conveniently in this new galaxy as well. The Borg are expanding, the Ferengi are looking in financial possibilities outside the Milky Way, the Enterprise AB- has discovered Q's summer home, and so on.

 

[Tenacity]

That's bull crap. DNA doesn't direct evolution

In the Star Trek universe it does.

Actually, what The Chase is saying is that evolution played no part in our eventually obtaining our current form.

One of the advantages of locating the story in a galaxy far far away would be the (hopefully) complete absence of the Klingon, the Romulans, the Cardassians, etc..

 

[JirinPanthosa]

In most scifi universes it's established that changing your DNA will immediately transform your body into what it would be if you were born with that DNA.

Why wouldn't you want to go to a different galaxy anyway? Star Trek is a show about explorers. If they had a new engine that gave them the ability to get to another galaxy in a few weeks, why wouldn't they go there? After dealing with other quadrants in the 90s shows, wouldn't 'Other galaxy' be next in the continuum?

 

[Tenacity]

Why wouldn't you want to go to a different galaxy anyway?

Because this one is still largely unexplored.

 

[The Wormhole]

Why wouldn't you want to go to a different galaxy anyway? Star Trek is a show about explorers. If they had a new engine that gave them the ability to get to another galaxy in a few weeks, why wouldn't they go there? After dealing with other quadrants in the 90s shows, wouldn't 'Other galaxy' be next in the continuum?

There's plenty of stories still to be told in this galaxy. Any writer who doesn't realize this isn't going to find the solution to their problems in another galaxy.

 

[Voth commando1]

In most scifi universes it's established that changing your DNA will immediately transform your body into what it would be if you were born with that DNA.

Why wouldn't you want to go to a different galaxy anyway? Star Trek is a show about explorers. If they had a new engine that gave them the ability to get to another galaxy in a few weeks, why wouldn't they go there? After dealing with other quadrants in the 90s shows, wouldn't 'Other galaxy' be next in the continuum?

Yeah it seems so to me your right. Among the detractors of the idea on the thread I sense of a sort of pessimism, and cynicism about Trek's prospects and that's truly disconcerting.

Why not Voyager had the Delta Quadrant, DS9-had the Gamma, TNG-Alpha/Beta.

Another galaxy is just the next step forward. If people can't see that they probably don't believe Star Trek can do it and has exhausted itself.

 

[Takeru]

Yeah it seems so to me your right. Among the detractors of the idea on the thread I sense of a sort of pessimism, and cynicism about Trek's prospects and that's truly disconcerting.

I don't think it's pessimism or cynisism, it's realism! If the writers cannot come up with good and interesting stories a new galaxy won't solve that problem and if they are able to come up with good stories why would they need a new galaxy? All that would change would be terminology like "slipstream/transwarp 27" instead of "warp 9.8" and "andromeda sector 28" instead of "sector whatever".

Why not Voyager had the Delta Quadrant, DS9-had the Gamma, TNG-Alpha/Beta.

But the reason Voyager had the delta quadrant was because the ship was supposed to be stuck somewhere far away from home and DS9 had the gamma quadrant because the wormhole to another part of the galaxy was supposed to allow them exploring and meeting new species from a stationary setting.

If a ship just flies to the andromeda galaxy to explore it doesn't have to, if the premise is exploring it can be done in our galaxy.

Another galaxy is just the next step forward. If people can't see that they probably don't believe Star Trek can do it and has exhausted itself.

It's an unnecessary step forward when Star Trek hasn't even scratched the surface of our own galaxy. Voyager was in the delta quadrant for example but that doesn't mean it's explored, they just visited a few planets in tiny pockets of the quadrant.

I think you don't really grasp how big our galaxy actually is. It has between 100 and 400 billion stars, let's assume just 100 billion. Life seems to exist pretty much everywhere in Star Trek but let's be conservative (in sci-fi terms) and assume that 0,1% of those stars has a planet where intelligent life evolved and out of those civilizations 5% are warp capable while 95% are not, that still leaves us with 5 million warp capable space faring species.
If starfleet manages 10 first contacts per day and distance wasn't a problem it would still take them 500,000 days or 1,370 years just to say hallo to everyone with a warp drive.
Of course Starfleet is also interested in the 95 million pre-warp civiliziations and uninhabited star systems are needed to establish colonies or outposts. And they haven't even studied nebulae or weird phenomena yet.

The galaxy is unbelievably huge, there is absolutely no need to go anywhere else. Just think about TNG and how often they ran into unknown or weird stuff in known space, it's very easy to miss things in space, it's that big.

 

[at Quark's]

Another galaxy is just the next step forward. If people can't see that they probably don't believe Star Trek can do it and has exhausted itself.

The problem is not the galaxy. The problem is risk avoidant writing. If that doesn't change, a new galaxy will give us more of the same stories we've already had the past decades. It wouldn't even help if they had the entire multiverse to play with in that case.

Conversely, if a new team of good writers would dare to jump uncompromisingly into new types of stories and new ways to tell them, you don't need a new galaxy at all.

In the end, the precise setting is rather meaningless I think. For example, to me, as a general outline, Voyager is ultimately just a translation of the Odyssey in a science fiction setting.. a ship of lost voyagers trying to find back home, and along the way having to wrestle angry gods, peoples, and monsters. The fact that they have to get home through space instead of over sea isn't even that relevant, but just window dressing because of the science fiction setting.

 

[Phoenix219]

The problem is not the galaxy. The problem is risk avoidant writing. If that doesn't change, a new galaxy will give us more of the same stories we've already had the past decades. It wouldn't even help if they had the entire multiverse to play with in that case.

Conversely, if a new team of good writers would dare to jump uncompromisingly into new types of stories and new ways to tell them, you don't need a new galaxy at all.

In the end, the precise setting is rather meaningless I think. For example, to me, as a general outline, Voyager is ultimately just a translation of the Odyssey in a science fiction setting.. a ship of lost voyagers trying to find back home, and along the way having to wrestle angry gods, peoples, and monsters. The fact that they have to get home through space instead of over sea isn't even that relevant, but just window dressing because of the science fiction setting.

That description literally describes the cartoon Ulysses 31, the Odyssey in space. Literally, that is the entire cartoon, fighting angry gods, peoples and monsters....in space. Its actually quite creepy, atmospheric and dark at times, for an 80s kids cartoon.

 

[The Wormhole]

Why not Voyager had the Delta Quadrant, DS9-had the Gamma, TNG-Alpha/Beta.

DS9 went to the Gamma Quadrant less and less as the series went on, in fact it wasn't even visited at all in the sixth season, and in the seventh just for Odo's farewell in the finale. Voyager might have been in the Delta Quadrant, but they were doing bog standard Trek tropes and even ran into alien races from the Alpha Quadrant and cast members from the other shows still frequently popped up, even before they made contact with Starfleet.

Another quadrant, another galaxy, these are just locations. And the location is meaningless unless there's a story to back it up. If there's a story that genuinely requires a ship to be in a different galaxy, than by all means, I welcome this idea. If we're just going there to get The Naked Time v7.0 or the latest variation of an officer and an alien stranded on a planet unable to communicate but needing to get along, then really, what is the point?

 

[uniderth]

Here's a quickie map I made (a lot of generalizations). Everything that's not pink is fair game; and even then we've never been shown everything that's in the pink areas.

 

[KelisThePoet]

In the end, the precise setting is rather meaningless I think. For example, to me, as a general outline, Voyager is ultimately just a translation of the Odyssey in a science fiction setting.. a ship of lost voyagers trying to find back home, and along the way having to wrestle angry gods, peoples, and monsters. The fact that they have to get home through space instead of over sea isn't even that relevant, but just window dressing because of the science fiction setting.

I've also often thought of Voyager in terms of the Odyssey. But I don't agree that the science-fictional setting is mere window dressing. Treating the story like science fiction raises new complications and perspectives.

To me, the problem with the idea of an intergalactic Star Trek is not that the science-fictional setting would be meaningless, but that the science-fictional setting would be the same as it is for all the other Star Trek stories. Galaxies have stars. They have inhabitable planets. They possibly have alien life. Being in one is no different from being in another. Being lost in a different one is no different from being lost in a remote part of this one--the same goes for long-range exploring out of contact with the known Federation. Once you're out of range, you're out of range.

Unlike a show about intergalactic space, a show about extragalactic space might produce some new storytelling possibilities. It's a different kind of space than that in which Trek typically locates itself. But since there's not much in it, there's not much for the characters to do. A story like "By Any Other Name" has probably already exhausted much of the dramatic possibility. I suppose I can imagine an entire series, perhaps even a Trek series, about a crew making a long voyage through an almost empty stretch of extragalactic space. But it wouldn't be a series about exploration and meeting new aliens all the time. It wouldn't be anything like the intergalactic show some of the people on this thread want.

 

[Voth commando1]

I've also often thought of Voyager in terms of the Odyssey. But I don't agree that the science-fictional setting is mere window dressing. Treating the story like science fiction raises new complications and perspectives.

To me, the problem with the idea of an intergalactic Star Trek is not that the science-fictional setting would be meaningless, but that the science-fictional setting would be the same as it is for all the other Star Trek stories. Galaxies have stars. They have inhabitable planets. They possibly have alien life. Being in one is no different from being in another. Being lost in a different one is no different from being lost in a remote part of this one--the same goes for long-range exploring out of contact with the known Federation. Once you're out of range, you're out of range.

Unlike a show about intergalactic space, a show about extragalactic space might produce some new storytelling possibilities. It's a different kind of space than that in which Trek typically locates itself. But since there's not much in it, there's not much for the characters to do. A story like "By Any Other Name" has probably already exhausted much of the dramatic possibility. I suppose I can imagine an entire series, perhaps even a Trek series, about a crew making a long voyage through an almost empty stretch of extragalactic space. But it wouldn't be a series about exploration and meeting new aliens all the time. It wouldn't be anything like the intergalactic show some of the people on this thread want.

Trekking through the intergalactic void would take centuries according to TOS-so you would need a pretty long show.

 

[Tenacity]

Here's a quickie map I made (a lot of generalizations). Everything that's not pink is fair game; and even then we've never been shown everything that's in the pink areas.

First off, I think the pink area is way to large,. Second, an area being charted (whatever that means) doesn't mean the planets in that region have been even briefly explored, or any people on those planets have been contacted.

I though of a way that going to a far away galaxy would make sense. If there was a wormhole opening (say close to Earth) that lead to the far galaxy, then the parts of that galaxy close to the wormholes opening would be "closer" to Earth than the majority of the milky way galaxy.

And certainly controlling the far opening would be a security priority, if nothing else.

 

[uniderth]

First off, I think the pink area is way to large,. Second, an area being charted (whatever that means) doesn't mean the planets in that region have been even briefly explored, or any people on those planets have been contacted.

I agree completely. I generously took Picard's statement of 8000 light-years across as the diameter. But I think a real map should depict it as much smaller.

And I agree about the blue area. Today we have over 100 million stars charted, but we've never been to any of them.

 

[Finn]

So maybe 26th to 30th century beginnings of the temporal wars and so on what would be your opinions of a trek that goes across say the Virgo supercluster?

What the others have been saying. It would be just basically the same thing, with swapping of words and installing dialogue to show that they are traveling to other galaxies. Other than that, labelling a show as about an intergalatic ship exploring a bunch of galaxies...redundant- if one took out the words and dialogue, it would be no different from the Enterprise D going from one starbase to other.

 

[Unimatrix Q]

I'd really love to see a trek show in the future of the prime timeline with a new Enterprise exploring a different galaxy without the typical humanoids but really alien lifeforms.

 

[Spot261]

Star Trek fans have enough trouble grasping the scale of the setting they already have.

This.

Tbe current setting really isn't reflected in terms of its potential for a number of reasons, mostly practical.

Bear in mind the milky way galaxy is estimatec to contain up to 400 billion stars, that ignores all the various nebula, interstellar bodies, spatial anomolies, etc. With a fleet of maybe 30,000 ships, of which only a small proportion are explorers, SF could not have even begun to scratch the surface of what is out there.

We are used to seeing a handful of major races, scattered over a handful of planets which seemingly take a few days to travel between, who know a great deal about each other and are essentially very similar in both their physiology and psychology. There really is no reason to assume this and some of the best "hard sci fi" episodes have tended to look at aliens as being more convincingly alien but the majority have by necessity focused on humanoid (or even human) beings who can interact perfectly well with our heroes.

Voyager tried to subvert this idea with dissappointing success but the point stands that the current setting is mind bogglingly vast in a way that simply isn't reflected on screen. Part of this is budgetary, part is down to a mixed bag of writing, part down to what trek really is; a mirror of our reality to make us question our own world which requires human analogues to be meaningful.

Crucially, however, it is down to the fact that the human mind simply isn't built to work on the sorts of scales involved, thus it is difficult for writers to portray it and for audiences to appreciate it. We could scale up but the difference would be meaningless and thus render the idea a gimmick and nothing more. Every advantage listed so far could equally be applied to the current setting without unconvincingly making the universe even smaller than the series already has.

 

[Spot261]

I though of a way that going to a far away galaxy would make sense. If there was a wormhole opening (say close to Earth) that lead to the far galaxy, then the parts of that galaxy close to the wormholes opening would be "closer" to Earth than the majority of the milky way galaxy.

And certainly controlling the far opening would be a security priority, if nothing else.

So DS9 then?

(sorry about the double post - realised after posting I had missed a quote off)

 

[Tenacity]

So DS9 then?

Basically.