What's the earliest a show can be set and still be Star Trek?

[CrockAlley]

This is just a silly thought experiment. Nothing too serious.

I'm thinking about DIS, SNW, and ENT, all shows that went earlier than TOS, and I was wondering, how far back in Earth's timeline might a hypothetical Star Trek show be set?

Like, can there be a Star Trek show set on modern day Earth? A Star Trek show set in ancient Egypt? Or the not-too-distant future, where humans begins to explore space, pre-warp?

 

[Sketcher]

I do feel that by the very definition of the title Star Trek, these shows need to center on the characters well...trekking somewhere in the stars. Season 2 of Picard was set in modern(ish) days, and that was Star Trek. If they set a series about the space program exploring parts of the solar system during that era, then sure it would count. Ancient Egypt could work if it was about Trek aliens visiting that time and place, or ancient Egyptians venturing into the cosmos.

How enticing these concepts would be to a general audience, or financially lucrative to a studio, is another question.

 

[CrockAlley]

How enticing these concepts would be to a general audience, or financially lucrative to a studio, is another question.

I am not concerned with such mundane realities. This is a flight of fancy. Let our imaginations fly.

 

[Lord Garth]

Depends, if they're willing to do something in the interstellar community outside of Earth, then any time. If you want Earth somehow involved, then 2063.

 

[NCC-73515]

Before the big bang (a Q Short Trek)

 

[Finn]

A starship gets sucked into a weird wormhole that sends them back quadtrillions of years ago....and find themselves in a strange realm.

 

[Oddish]

If we're setting it in Earth and excluding incognito alien visitors and time travel, I would say that the dawn of the warp age would be a convenient divider. Anything earlier would just be generic future Earth.

Including any of those things... the Big Bang and the Big Chill (or Crunch or Rip, depending on which universal apocalypse you support) are the limit.

 

[Paul Weaver]

Before the big bang (a Q Short Trek)

So Young Sheldon?

 

[Annorax849]

People might not like the idea of calling it "Star Trek", but the earliest setting would be the Eugenic Wars.

Unless you want to do a series like Carbon Creek, or just do a show completely about aliens without humans.

 

[F. King Daniel]

In the past. There were rumours of a show codenamed 1992, about the rise of Khan and the Eugenics Wars. So far we haven't heard anything else. Picard season 2 mined some stuff from "Assignment: Earth" which was to be set in the 60's, and that would have been something of a spin-off, kinda sorta.

 

[somebuddyX]

13.7 billion years ago

 

[The Wormhole]

An actual TV series? Enterprise era is the earliest. Maybe you could do prequel movies set pre-Enterprise, but even that's somewhat iffy.

 

[Bea Jonas]

I could see a series set just after Zefram Cochrane's meeting with the Vulcans (from say 2063 to 2070). It would be proto-Trek, but still Trek.

 

[1001001]

4:00AM

 

[XCV330]

This is just a silly thought experiment. Nothing too serious.

I'm thinking about DIS, SNW, and ENT, all shows that went earlier than TOS, and I was wondering, how far back in Earth's timeline might a hypothetical Star Trek show be set?

Like, can there be a Star Trek show set on modern day Earth? A Star Trek show set in ancient Egypt? Or the not-too-distant future, where humans begins to explore space, pre-warp?

You could do a "For All Mankind" style scifi/alt history/soap set in the post-Phoenix era. You won't be trekking stars but it could be about the initial days of UESPA, the flights to other planets in the solar system, drama at home while the world is rebuilding and coming to terms with not being alone. You'd also have the drama of the loss of the Conestoga and Valiant flights.

There'd be room for the Kzinti conflicts, piracy, rogue colonies, Vulcan politics. I think a show set in the 2070s-2090's could work extremely well. Star Trek Liftoff

 

[Citiprime]

Depends on whether you'd want to keep it centered on humanity or not, in theory, you could do shows set in the very far past. IF you centered it on alien races, you could do TV movie specials on:

• The Vulcan-Romulan Civil War
• The Klingon rebellion against the Herc
  
• The rise of the Dominion
• The origin of the Borg

All of those events occur mainly thousands of years in the past.

 

[Vger23]

I think if it has "Star Trek" in the title, it's "Star Trek."

I'm not trying to be crass, but that's the reality of it.

 

[Oddish]

I think if it has "Star Trek" in the title, it's "Star Trek."

I'm not trying to be crass, but that's the reality of it.

Sounds about right. Of course, if it was set in, say, the 1970's and involved no aliens, spaceships, rayguns, or other sci fi stuff, people might get confused.

 

[XCV330]

I think if it has "Star Trek" in the title, it's "Star Trek."

I'm not trying to be crass, but that's the reality of it.

You know what OP meant, though. You can have the Star Trek Shop At Home Network and yes, technically it is Star Trek, and a great way to get skants in many colors at a great discount, but it's probably moved so far from the original premise and outside the lore that it's hardly there at all.

 

[Greg Cox]

An "Assignment: Earth" series set in the 1960s, featuring Gary Seven?