One of the staple 'characters' of Trek is the spaceships. But there has been numerous references by the Q that humanity will evolve, gain great power, and pose a significant threat to the Continuum - and the Q don't use spaceships. Can Trek transcend spaceships? Or is the physical limitations of a ship-borne story a necessary 'vehicle'? This is not my thumb... This is the Bandaid I took off my toe.
oh god.. do we want it to? Trek is sooo done to death.. lets leave it as the show about the spaceships and let gooder ideas go to better newer shows..
I like starships. They are neat. If it becomes about something we don't even have a word for yet, I'm not sure it is really sci-fi anymore, and that might matter. I am not exactly certain that the Q don't use something akin to a spaceship, though we may not recognize it as such. I think Roddenberry was at one point kicking around the idea that Nextgen would not take place on a ship, but something "beyond" ships (and ill-defined). I think I am glad it went the way it did instead, but it's all part of the creative process. I think a Trek that was character-based to the extent that we rarely saw ships or other sci-fi hardware could indeed work, but it is sorta hamstringing the franchise.
I'm with JNG. Starships are neat. DS9 worked, but I wouldn't be interested in a series about humans becoming a threat to the Q, or anything like that.
I'd watch a sci fi series about spaceships but I'm not sure I'd want Star Trek to do that. How about space travel using some sort of personal force field, a la Galaxy Quest? Maybe technology can evolve beyond need for spaceships. Maybe people can evolve beyond spaceships and become a spacefaring species for real, like the Leviathans of Farscape. From a practical standpoint, a TV series needs a set (or several sets) for the characters to interact on. The audience likes the familiarity and having only a few sets is better on the budget than continually having to build new ones. You could do the whole thing with green screen but even then you'd need recurring locations just so the audience can feel grounded in the story. Starships are a great "recurring location." If they're not around, something else would have to take their place.
Would I watch a series without spaceships? Yes. Would I watch a Star Trek series without spaceships? No.
Remember that transporter device in Voyager that worked by space folding? I'd be interested in a series based on Starfleet building a prototype space folding transporter which they use to transport people to unexplored worlds around the Galaxy or maybe to other Galaxies. The people being transported could either be transported by themselves or on board a small shuttle craft. When their mission is over they send a space folding signal back to HQ and HQ locks onto the shuttles co-ordinates and space folds it back home. Obviously the series will need a recurring enemy. Starfleet could space fold a shuttle craft but an accident causes the craft to shift into an alternate dimension making the sinister energy based species of that dimension aware of Starfleet and when the shuttle craft gets pulled back through it brings through the enemy aswell. The enemy escapes HQ and begins to gain a foothold in our dimension.
Yeah, they'd need some kind of team to go through this space folder... with some kind of cool name... like... Space Folder 1 Yeah, Star Trek: SF-1.
It would be nothing like Stargate. Now if Starfleet came across a Dyson Sphere which had an Iconian Gateway in it, then THAT would be like Stargate.
Star Trek with no actual star trekking? I don't think so. Even DS9 had runabouts (which were essentially mini-starships, IMO) before they brought in the Defiant. While I tend to think you can have a Star Trek set just about anywhere--such as a space station, a planet, or even on a asteroid--I do think starships are crucial to Star Trek and have to be part of any series mix. They don't have to be the central focus of a series, such as the Defiant wasn't in DS9, but they gotta be included in there somewhere...
I just had an awesome lightbulb over my head experience. In my last idea instead of having a shuttle craft the person can put on an Ironman type mechanical space suit with a huge UFP symbol on the chest. They wear these suits just incase something goes wrong and they end up in space or on a inhospitable planet.
Didn't we already have this? Called DS9? Yes, there were some starships in the series, but they were not the main attraction.