What constitutes a "good" Trek story?

[Sumghai]

In my spare time I've been writing a series of screenplays for a hypothetical live-action fan series, Star Trek: Odyssey* - nothing serious, just for giggles and sharing with friends.

Set in the 25th Century, the series is very loosely based on selected episodes from the Star Trek Online MMORPG, with the main difference being no Hobus supernova and the presence of a fragile peace between the Federation, Klingons and Romulans following the end of the Dominion War.

So far, I have already completed a draft of the screenplay for the pilot, planned out a couple of major story arcs and summarised in single sentences possible episodes.

The challenge I'm facing right now in my writing is:

What constitutes a "good" Trek story?

My current and potentially flawed understanding of Trek is that it is essentially about:

• Exploring the unknown
• People of different species, genders, etc can all work together for the greater good (at least, most of the time)
• Trying diplomacy and other peaceful solutions first, and only resorting to force as a very last resort

With that in mind, I'd like to break this down into a number of more detailed questions for the community:

• Which is preferred - unknown places or unknown phenomena?
• Should every story be a morality tale / social commentary?
• Ensemble casting, or primary focus on a few main characters with several supporting characters?
• Some Trek episodes feature often-used tropes / plot elements (e.g. time travel, time loops, Tribbles) - is it okay to reuse them sparingly, or should one try to come up with completely original stories each time?
• Is technobabble inherently silly? Should tech / science oriented episodes be based on real-life instead?

I'd be interested to hear everyone's thoughts on this.




*Hardly an original title given the existence of a fan series by the same name, but one I felt most comfortable using.

 

[BillJ]

Every person is going to give you a different answer...

For me, Trek's biggest strength has always been its format. The format pretty much allows you to tell any kind of story you want.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

I'd have to agree with BillJ.

It all depends on the stories that you want to tell, the characters you have to play with and what they have to discover/endure.

But since you asked, here are some of my thoughts on the points you made:

Exploring the unknown

It doesn't even have to be space or planets, explore the unknown aspects of characters. Starfleet isn't just looking for the answers to its questions, but new questions as well (so says The Sisko).

Trying diplomacy and other peaceful solutions first, and only resorting to force as a very last resort

VOY and ENT fell into the rut of shoot first and pretend to ask questions later. Its just sloppy if all the writers can think to do to resolve every situation was to open fire, Starfleet needs more Picards.

Which is preferred - unknown places or unknown phenomena?

Unknown places have unknown phenomena . Both can lead to good and compelling stories, it just depends on what you're looking for.

Should every story be a morality tale / social commentary?

Not every story. You don't want to get too preachy and obvious. Many should definately have a strong message running through it, but others should just be a bit of fun. Go with whatever would fit in best with the overall tone of your show.

Ensemble casting, or primary focus on a few main characters with several supporting characters?

Depends how good your characters and actors are. If you have some good people playing some good officers, then fewer would work. But likewise, if you have many characters and actors that need their own time on screen then go with the ensemble cast. Don't do a Mayweather and create a weak character with nothing to do, just because they tick a diversity box.

Some Trek episodes feature often-used tropes / plot elements (e.g. time travel, time loops, Tribbles) - is it okay to reuse them sparingly, or should one try to come up with completely original stories each time?

Time travel is a staple of Trek and Sci-Fi, but use it sparingly and don't mess up the timeline. You don't want to do something stupid like create a temporal cold war out of the blue...oh wait...hang on a second...

Is technobabble inherently silly? Should tech / science oriented episodes be based on real-life instead?

Again don't overuse it, people switch off if you have a five minute conversation of nothing but made up words. Remember by the 25th century they are 400 years ahead of us with regards to scientific knowledge and tech, so it can't all be rooted in what we know now. If something does need to be explained in a technobabble way, remember to have someone make an analogy in layman's terms so that everyone can understand it. if its important to the plot and/or script leave it in, if not cut it out.

 

[Gary7]

I think Bill and Bry hit the nail on the head. Very good advice.

Just look at the hurt/heal and "top favorite episodes" postings. Some people are in agreement but most have their own take on it.

But if there's one thing you've got to be sure of, no matter what the story: entertaining and sensible dialog. To me, that's what really makes an episode. While the story is certainly important, if there's flat dialog then the whole thing falls flat.

 

[MacLeod]

Whilst the premise unkown/anamoly of the week does play a part the most important part is the characters.

Don't get bogged down in treknobabble, sometimes the simplest description is best.

So you need an inverse tachyon field, simply have one of the characters suggest one. You don't need to get bogged down in the how and where it is generated. The aduaince is smart enough to fill in the blanks. i.e they have a device which can generate a tachyon field.

Did I mention characterisation?

As for number of main characters I think perhaps 5 would suffice.

CO
XO
Chief Engineer
Chief Medical Officer
Security Chief

Helm could be handled by various crew
Science you could have several scientist with differing specalities to call on.

 

[Sumghai]

Massive props to everyone who have pitched in their thoughts - the responses here have been very useful.

Having noted the top few episodes from the VOY Hurt/Heal game, I think putting aside a nice Sunday arvo to rewatch them is in order

 

[Tiberius]

Don't do things just because they're cool. No matter how awesome something is, if there's no good reason for it to be in the story, it should go.

 

[MacLeod]

True, whatever you use must serve the needs of the story.

 

[cblmc1296]

Not being much of a story writer, I don't know if I can give many useful suggestions but one does come to mind: Make your stories about something to which we can all relate - people.

All the spaceships and gadgets and ridged-foreheaded aliens are interesting but, the best, most entertaining stories can always be whittled down to two basic elements - person & problem. Specifically, some person or group of people has/have some seemingly insurmountable problem that he/she/they need to resolve. Somewhere in the middle the person or people figure out what difficult thing they need to do to resolve the problem and then they endeavor to do it (usually at some cost). Stick to this and I think you'll do fine.

 

[MacLeod]

My only experiance with writting is when i was in PBEM's.

 

[RyuRoots]

A story with interesting characters that tells us something new. Anything new. About culture, about the universe, about specific people. That's pretty vague, but I think good Star Trek is a pretty wide net.

 

[Vanyel]

As far as technobabble goes, you really don't need an analogy in most cases.

Example Voyager's Prophecy. Tukok was able to determine the ship attacking Voyager was Klingon and its class with little tech talk. They then determined that since the ship was old its cloak may also be old no tech talk. Chakotay then call down to Astrometerics for a metaphasic scan. Unnecessary technobabble. Asking Seven to do a "High Intensity" scan would get the point across in a much simpler way. Yes, we don't need to know what a metaphasic scan is, so no need to use it.

 

[BillJ]

Tukok

Freudian-slip there?

 

[Vanyel]

Tukok

Freudian-slip there?

LOL OMG ICBIDT.