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?
Trek set in an intergalactic level
- Thread starter Voth commando1
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The scale and variety of aliens perhaps?
It'd just be swapping out the term "sector" for "galaxy." Not much else would change, IMO.
It's difficult to extrapolate tech that far in advance, and it comes off as hokey.
Very few space operas are set an intergalactic level I'm sure a lot would change.
Not really. You'd still have the same kind of stories of meeting aliens from planet X or missions to planet X, except using "galaxy" in lieu of "sector" in passing dialogue. Real good space opera is more about the characters than anything else.
Yes that's true-but how many intergalactic level space operas do you know of?
Maybe Stargate and at the hard level maybe the Xelee Sequence.
In both Star Wars and Star Trek there are references and plotlines involving the intergalactic but the main action is centred in one Galaxy.
Scale and setting are important. Now how the characters fit into said setting is of course more important but setting does make a difference.
Think about the worldbuilding? How do you invade a galaxy? How do you manage armies and fleets in the trillions? How do you deal with totally out there aliens?
What if your lost in the intergalactic void? With centuries on the way to your journey or to home?
Yes but even more grand.
But how would that grandness translate to the screen in ways other than what we have already seen? Or rather, what story plots and themes would we be able to use that can't be used in Star Trek's current realm?
Sure, it would be peachy keen to say, "Look we went to another galaxy." But there really aren't any stories out there than can't be told here. We're still going to have human issues. We're still going to have aliens. Not to mention that In the Trek universe less than 10% of the galaxy has been explored and probably not even that much. And we've probably only seen .0001% of it on screen. There are still TONS of places to go and things to seen in this galaxy before we will need to move on to another one.
So, instead of having an alien of the week we'd have... an alien of the week.
How much more variety can we get than what we already see in Trek?
The main difference I can see in the concept is not so much the crew would be on their own, but it is highly unlikely there could be stories set about any world we know in Star Trek. No visits to Earth, Vulcan, Bajor, or any species world. No Borg, Dominion or anything like that. They might run into the Kelvins out there or a race that sent out some intergalactic probe or ships that Starfleet encountered long ago.
While that is a little like Voyager, the plot shouldn't be trying to get home, but more trying to expand the Federation into this new region of space. Or having to deal with being the actual invader into a new place and making friends and allies while also making enemies. Enemies that likely cannot threaten the Federation in the Milky Way (due to distance), but can threaten the local Federation worlds.
Perhaps it is possible to travel back to the Milky Way, but it takes a few years rather than days, weeks, or even months. So it wouldn't be viable for the show to have them do it, but keep the possibility of new people arriving, or sending people back home (probably never to be seen again on the program).
While that is a little like Voyager, the plot shouldn't be trying to get home, but more trying to expand the Federation into this new region of space. Or having to deal with being the actual invader into a new place and making friends and allies while also making enemies. Enemies that likely cannot threaten the Federation in the Milky Way (due to distance), but can threaten the local Federation worlds.
Perhaps it is possible to travel back to the Milky Way, but it takes a few years rather than days, weeks, or even months. So it wouldn't be viable for the show to have them do it, but keep the possibility of new people arriving, or sending people back home (probably never to be seen again on the program).
I like the idea-perhaps you have a federation colony in say Andromeda or even a more distant galaxy. There is no way to get home or at least going back to the milky way will take months or years even. The intrepid crew would deal with various aliens of the week have to go on long re supply missions. Say you could still have communication with Earth but no travel there. Maybe there is a conflict or disaster in the milky way(or other galaxy if the federation has expanded that far) and the characters have to deal with not being able to affect or influence anything at all. You might have a year of hell esque story with a ship trying to return home with(ex. valuable data, personnel, technology) and having to fly through the Void and multiple species territory combine that with DS9 style worldbuilding and politicking. Make it very difficult for resupply from "home base" not impossible maybe at the beginning of say the third season you get first new supply ship from earth and you don't get another one till the sixth. Deal with ethical issues of the politicking in some sense yes humans are the invaders- and local species of Galaxy 14B-Omega feel threatened by their encroachment on their territory.
If you want a space battle-have one in between galaxies with massive fleets(lots of CGI) maybe have a random discovery of a rogue planet in intergalactic space orbiting a star with a species that only see their star and a dark void. Maybe have a pilgrim esque situation have a large number of people die-supplies are running out, hostile aliens are attacking, support from Starfleet wont be here for another year at least.
I think in such a show you could combine the diverse plots and stories from TOS some of the intellectual episodes from TNG the politicking of DS9 and long distance/pathos of journey/friendship of Voyager with the newness of intergalactic travel giving a feel similar to Enterprise.
Have an independence movement-say from Federation colonists in a distant galactic cluster have formed a society but want to go their own way feeling that Milky Way Starfleet doesn't understand or care about their interests.
Give temporal distance as well-make it set centuries after Nemesis ensuring that their will be no crossover of characters from previous shows. Species is fine though-romulan/human/cardassian/ocampa colonists form a diverse yet charming settlement on the other side of the local group.
How are those ideas?
There are intergalactic stars--stars in intergalactic space; it might be interesting to do some stories for those.
Stargate spans six different galaxies. It's not that different from Star Trek.
More or less what I was fiddling with as a teenager using the older concepts of the Warp Factor cubed or to the power of five like FASA has for TNG, and substitute it as Warp to the sixth and later seventh power as their intergalactic drives or wormholes get more effective.
At warp 7 to the sixth power a starship would take 21 years to make it to Andromeda but just over five years at warp 9 to the sixth. And warp 7 to the seventh power is about 3 years to Andromeda while warp 9 to the seventh is more or less six months travel time. The earlier style would be for long range colonization projects over time while the later would be for long term redeployments.
Admittedly those long years in the void or wormhole to transverse the distance between galaxies would likely be incredibly dull and mostly spent in the holodecks. Even a six month voyage through more or less nothing would be dull.
I think much later I shifted to warp factor to the ninth power, but that was because I was messing with a multi-galactic conflict/crossover. At which point you can make it between galaxies in a matter of days or weeks needed for a standard format show.
At warp 7 to the sixth power a starship would take 21 years to make it to Andromeda but just over five years at warp 9 to the sixth. And warp 7 to the seventh power is about 3 years to Andromeda while warp 9 to the seventh is more or less six months travel time. The earlier style would be for long range colonization projects over time while the later would be for long term redeployments.
Admittedly those long years in the void or wormhole to transverse the distance between galaxies would likely be incredibly dull and mostly spent in the holodecks. Even a six month voyage through more or less nothing would be dull.
I think much later I shifted to warp factor to the ninth power, but that was because I was messing with a multi-galactic conflict/crossover. At which point you can make it between galaxies in a matter of days or weeks needed for a standard format show.
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Not to mention Star Trek writers....
I'd love if they had a Trek series about exploring the next galaxy over, and finding that this galaxy is not populated at all by humanoids. They could do stories about really building bridges between significantly different aliens with significantly different values and even completely different concepts of self.
