Think about it : Paramount has been looking at procuring Babylon 5 but the DS9 outline is at that same point in time being knocked around.
Berman and Braga are killed in a freak accident by a flying ninja tea-pot.
Paramount _want_ a new Trek series so go to JMS and say that they'll take B5 _only_ if he uses the, aready announced, DS9 characters and basic situation.
Otherwise, he's free to follow his B5 5 yr plan.
I've outlined the five years ; is this a fan fic that you would want to see ?
Posted by Phelps (Member # 713) on :
First, JMS wouldn't have done DS9 because B5 is what he wanted to do. However, if someone *today* were to offer Star Trek and complete creative control, unhindered by the franchise, here's what he'd do:
He might make it roughly similar to DS9, but since a lot of it has already been done by B5, I mean a station next to a jumpgate thing with a Commander who speaks to aliens beyond our comprehension, a war and the most powerful ship attached to station that happens to be about as big as the Defiant, he'd probably pass on the basic outline. Maybe he'd use a freighter for a ship, or do a planet or Earth show.
Regardless of what the outline ends up being, the important thing is that he'd try to answer many questions that nobody's tackled before on Trek. We'd learn why the Klingons grew ridges, the nature of Federation economy, the deal is behind the supposed perfect humans, where the toilets are, why we haven't seen all the TOS races... The aliens would speak in different accents as would humans, the humans would be named a lot more diversely, we'd see Turks, Russians, Christians, Muslims (and if we don't, we'll find out what happened to the religions).
The humor would be different -- he'll have somebody ask "How long is the Defiant?" on the show, or "How long is a BoP?", or something, but only occassionally. There would be inconsistencies still, some things wouldn't work, some would be excellent, some would be awful...but it would be a pretty diverse place nonetheless.
[ December 08, 2001: Message edited by: Phelps ]
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
It would have been horrible. I don't think I'd be very interested in a Behr-produced B5, either.
Posted by Phelps (Member # 713) on :
What's so horrible about someone explaining Federation economy onscreen, or just how humans ended up "evolved"? Or BoP sizes? Star Trek would've been actually funny!
[ December 08, 2001: Message edited by: Phelps ]
Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :
Garak and Weyoun and such would still have OK lines, but every human character would launch into wooden Bruckheimerist tirades that would be painful to listen into.
Posted by Phelps (Member # 713) on :
JMS Sisko: "General Martok, how about an eye implant?"
JMS Martok: "One eye sees better than two...I see deep into your soul, commander. By the way, did you hear my latest song about our battles? It's selling 10,000 copies back on Kronos...."
JMS Jake: "So, chief, I know I'm technically inept, but just how long is the Defiant?"
But quite seriously, as I said, the show would revolve around questions never asked onscreen. That's JMS's basic modus operandi. He'd use some questions already asked, and try his best to think of some that *no* fan or writer has yet asked.
[ December 08, 2001: Message edited by: Phelps ]
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
My point is, to use the trendy symbolism that's all the rage with the kids these days, DS9 != B5, and playing mix-and-match with the respective creative powers that be would be a Bad Thing.
Posted by Phelps (Member # 713) on :
Well, there's technically no Star Trek problem with another producer doing Star Trek. Trek's been done by producers as different as Gene Roddenberry, Gene Coon, Harve Bennett, Rick Berman, Michael Piller, Brannon Braga, Jeri Taylor, Ira Stephen Behr...(in rough chronological order). Who does it doesn't matter. JMS is also writing for Spiderman, which has had its share of writers since Stan Lee created it.
It's only that Star Trek would've been utterly incompatible with JMS specifically, who's more interested in low-profile projects on cable networks that allow him complete creative control. He couldn't possibly obtain creative control over Star Trek (which neither Berman nor Braga have -- the franchise controls everything), lest it fails miserably and totally loses importance for Paramount, and with it the need for Paramount to control it.
BTW, JMS has written a Star Trek TOS comic a while ago, though I'd have to look up its name.
Posted by David Templar (Member # 580) on :
Get JMS to work on DS9, and the current 170m figures on the Defiant would seem like a goddamn blessing. With all due respects to JMS's writing, he simply doesn't care about technical stuff. A solid figure on B5 starship sizes only came out last year, and it's not that great a thing...
Posted by Phelps (Member # 713) on :
That's like saying Ron D. Moore or Ira Stephen Behr are responsible for DS9's ship size inconsistencies, whereas we know that the problem is with the Defiant's designers who didn't establish a size for the scenic artists and the visual effects people. The writers have little to do with all this -- after all, how much size evidence is ever given in the dialogue or the script? Close to nothing.
Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
The JMS Trek comic was scary.. it was called 'Worldsinger' and was about this tragic dude who had the ability to percieve an entire planets 'song' or the complex harmonies of its lifeforms, ecology, geology and meteorology. His people all did and he was the last one left.. and he wanted to die listening to the tele-psycho-geo-music created in his mind when planets die because he was sad. Kirk decided it shouldnt be, and waited with him with orders not to beam him up when the planet broke. Worldsinger changes mind, beams up after the last minute after listening to planetsong as long as he could to zero hour. Gets job on science ship doing same thing over and over on dying planets.
A little bizarre, but the art was good..
Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :
And yet, Phelpsie, you just pointed out that the Defiant's length would be resolved in a DS9 under JMS.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"...the most powerful ship attached to station that happens to be about as big as the Defiant..."
This might be a bit tangential, but I've only seen about one season on B5 (second half of season 2/first half of season 3), and the only ship I can think of that you might mean is the Whitestar. But I got the impression that it was quite a bit larger than any of the various disputed Defiant sizes. Did you mean a different ship, or am I wrong about the size, or what?
Posted by Hunter (Member # 611) on :
Well if he did mean the Whitestar, then your correct, as the figures I found for its size make it 300 meters larger then even the Tech manual size for the Defiant.
Admitally I have no idea If the site was accurate but the Whitestar was 400 to 500 meters long.
[ December 09, 2001: Message edited by: Hunter ]
Posted by that english guy (Member # 727) on :
Here's what I mean:
THE PILOT EPISODE
Major Kira Nerys is in temporary command of DS9 until Captain Benjamin Sisko arrives. Upon his arrival, he is promptly attacked by a changeling. Odo is the only _known_ changeling onboard and Kira can't account for his whereabouts during the attack on Sisko so she is forced to put him into the station's Brig. Subatoi Dax, Sisko's friend, launches an investigation into the attack along with Kira and Science Officer Jadzia Tigan, also Trill, but unjoined. They eventually discover the presence of a second renegade changeling which Suabtoi and Sisko must chase down. The changeling fatally injurs Subatoi so the symbiote must be removed and placed in the only avaliable host, Jadzia, thus creating Jadzia Dax. Meanwhile, the station is laid under siege by a Cardassian fleet under the command of Gul Dukat. Kira must defend the station, and with a faultering defense grid, her only hope is a rapidly gathered civilian fleet led by Captain Kassidy Yeats, Quark and Lieutenant Miles O'Brien.
In the end, the Cardassian fleet is beaten, Dax is implanted in Jadzia Tigan and we get Jadzia Dax, Odo is prooved non guilty of attempted murder and the existence of other changelings is confirmed.
Quark also procures the wreckage of a freighter that had been found drifting a nearby asteroid belt. That is what I mean, applying the BABYLON 5 five year storyline to the DEEP SPACE NINE characters and situations.
IE - the Wormhole isn't discovered until the very end of Season One and it's discovered by Kassidy Yeats, who goes missing ( ie Katherine Sakai and wotsername Sheridan ) giving Sisko a reason to go into the Gamma Quadrant to search for her.
YADDA YADDA YADDA
Now, do you get what I mean ?
Posted by David Templar (Member # 580) on :
quote:Originally posted by Hunter: Well if he did mean the Whitestar, then your correct, as the figures I found for its size make it 300 meters larger then even the Tech manual size for the Defiant.
Admitally I have no idea If the site was accurate but the Whitestar was 400 to 500 meters long.
Look at 8/04/00 update, the Whitestar's over 475 meters long.
Posted by Phelps (Member # 713) on :
Tummie: I didn't say the size would be necessarily resolved onscreen, all I'm saying is that we might see the question pop up, jokingly, like the Klingon foreheads popped up on DS9. However, many other, more important questions would be resolved one way or another.
Originally, the Whitestar was supposed to be only about 150m long, and was seen as such in the S3 and S4 episodes (check "Shadow Dancing" where it's seen next to the 350m wide front face of B5). This size is also consistent with the size and height of the bridge and the visible windows that exactly match those on the sets.
Tim Earls, the guy who designed "Alice" in VOY and served as Rick's assistant in the last couple of seasons, scaled it up to as much as 475m when he finally decided to do some scale charts (apparently, the folks at Netter Digital had been scaling the ships the way they felt like). The reason: he thought the neck connecting the bridge to the rest of the ship was too small for a corridor due to a design fault, whereas we have no evidence that a corridor connects to the bridge there -- could be a small lift tube for all we know.
There's also the problem with the fighter bay added in season five, which according to Earls would scale up the Whitestar to at least 267m (the B5 security manual size); however, Brian Young and Tigreclaw for that matter have shown through the analysis of Lennier's cockpit scenes that the Minbari fighters were much smaller onscreen than Earls thought, so really, there's no need to scale anything up if you think about it.
It's just that Tigreclaw prefers to go with semi-official figures rather than his own measurements; at one point he had the Whitestar at 150m, heavily denounced the 267m size in the Security Manual, yet when Tim Earls popped up with his weird numbers, changed his mind and accepted his figures. Since his is the biggest tech site now online (Brian took off his site), that's what people read. Earls has a very weird size for the Excalibur as well (almost 3km), whereas window analysis and evidence from the show put it at only about 1500m).
!"�!"(*&(*&�"�$"�$ YES. NOW. "�&*&QY*&"Y$*&QY$
Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
quote:Originally posted by Phelps: !"�!"(*&(*&�"�$"�$ YES. NOW. "�&*&QY*&"Y$*&QY$
Huh? Anyway, nice done chart, MM. That would make a nice desktop or even a poster. Have a larger version? Posted by Daryus Aden (Member # 12) on :
Hmm. Nice chart. Though you can be sure there's a few 'issues' in those lengths Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :
That English Guy: Besides the whole "changeling" thing with your story, I fail to see any relevant similarities with B5.
Although I won't dare to speculate what JMS would do with Star Trek in general, I do know that there were things he did in B5 that I wished were done with Star Trek:
1. He had only five major races, and developed them in detail. Sure, there were several other races such as the League of Non-Aligned Worlds, but they were there for a reason too. Star Trek routinely makes up a multitude of alien races-of- the-week who we never see again or care about after the episode, and have no development whatsoever.
2. He created a good, detailed backstory of the enmity between the Centauri and the Narn. If only there was such a backstory created for the enmity between the Klingons and the Romulans.
3. He routinely used human characters of several different multicultural backgrounds without stereotyping, while Star Trek consists of mostly white Americans with the token Black and English guys thrown in (to use Enterprise as an example).
4. Instead of having some all-powerful alien race toy with humanity for their own enjoyment (Q), the Shadows & the Vorlons had a real purpose for directing the younger races the way they did.
5. Garibaldi. That dude kicks ass. If only Jerry Doyle had a Star Trek role.
