-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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I made the joke in the first place, so while you got it, I obviously have to have had the useless trivia just floating there for me to make a joke about it at the mear mention of Star Trek and the show 24
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Ahh...I've never actually seen 24 though. I just hear others talkin about it now and then. Seems pretty farfetched to me.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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Jason, like you have said yourself, you need to get out more man....
As for the show, the eps I caught seemed okay, but I am not a big fan of Sutherland....
-------------------- "You are a terrible human, Ritten." Magnus "Urgh, you are a sick sick person..." Austin Powers A leek too, pretty much a negi.....
Registered: Sep 2000
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While I hate te calls for a "dark gritty fall of the Federation series, they could make an incredible Trek series where the Klingon and/or Romulan empires crumbled and the federation had to deal with dozens of small factional governments rising from the wreckage (remember that both empires have many member species worlds within their borders) and the crime, refugees and blackmarket weapons that stem from an empire's collapse.
Kind of a parable for the former Soviet Union, they could play to modern concerns about missing WMD (and in Trek, that's pretty darn serious), immigration and sentient's rights.
Trek started out by showcasing flaws in society with a sci-fi premise (as did Outer Limits, Twilight Zone and a score of other classics). It could work today, if handled well... Mabye have the show centered around a Diplomat and his team as they work off various starships (that would keep the charcaters fresh) and travel from planet to planet resolving disputes and trying to avoid war.
They could even keep the general Trek cast structure- the (strong character) Diplomat runs things (in the captain's role), has a right hand man (a starfleet commander as liason) two or three diplomatic specialists (I'd go all out and make them three diffrent species- mabye Vulcan, Andorian and Telerite to showcase the founding races) and two or three security officers (two starfleet and one independant to get around regulations when required and to have shady contacts). The traveling "conflict resolution team" would allow them to shocase unsen worlds both in and out of Federation territory, new races and, by traveling on whatever starship is available, give the viewers a look at all the purdy ships firsthand- mabye they could limit it to three ships total- that way they could introduce intresting secondary charcaters (like DS9 did). -mabye even a strained shipboard romance or two. Opinons?
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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WizArtist II
"How can you have a yellow alert in Spacedock? "
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Face it, Jason REALLY wants Andorian Porn.
-------------------- There are 10 types of people in the world...those that understand Binary and those that don't.
Registered: Nov 2004
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Ohh yeah- women with handlebars: what's not to love?
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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I'd put it in and around postwar Cardassia, myself.
But as much as I dream of my ideal Star Trek: West Wing series, the problem with the basic concept is how interiorized and isolating it is. I can't imagine the made-up sci-fi politics audience being a very large one. The problem is, as I see it, that while it is the limitations of Star Trek (its canon, if you wish) that make it popular, they're also what's driven it to a halt. I guess. I mean, if you want to tell really innovative, out-there science fiction stories the Star Trek universe is not going to be where you want to set it. Star Trek is a 1960s future. And yet, at the same time, it is that concentration of stuff, the canon, that made Star Trek popular. So a reboot or a reimagining seems futile, since it is all those accumulated events and characters that are your main draw. I think. In other words, Star Trek doesn't really seem premise-driven, in the way that, say, Battlestar Galactica was.
However, having said that, the idea of a cohesive background isn't really derivable from the original series itself, now that I think about it. The original fans had to imagine most of the details themselves, and it was later that that more detail-oriented attitude came to be reflected in the actual productions. So I don't know.
Registered: Mar 1999
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Dan Simmons had an idea of "getting the crew out of the tin can" wherein they had the option of altering their bodies for space flight (though not FTL). It was bold, innovative and totally not Trek.
Still, it could work as a big leap into the future (Enterprise J anyone?).
Trek's big failing (if you can call it that) is that so little progress has been made in what humans are.
I mean, they still age, get diseases and die just like we do- no real advancements there at all- no virtual afterlife or knowledge storage of experiences, no matter regeneration as a medical tool (though we saw it as a cop-out in several episodes, transporters should be able to instantly heal anyone that it holds a pattern for- only their recent memories would be lost) lots of shit would be radically diffrent.
Not only that, but many human colonies would likely have become non-human after decades of exposure to alien bacteria, radiation and genetic diseases native to their new world (this might yet explain the Romulans not being 100% vulcan in biology).
Heck, if even Trek's alien races were non-humaoid (like farscape's but moreso with regards to motivations) it would breathe new life into the franchise.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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What comes to mind for me, is TNG, set in the movie era, with the Excelsior instead of the 'D'. probably the same writers and stories. The only real difference I would expect to see in an excensior series would be more 'Wrath of Khan' type, sequel stories.
-------------------- joH'a' 'oH wIj DevwI' jIH DIchDaq Hutlh pagh (some days it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps in the morning) The Woozle!
Registered: Nov 2002
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I cant agree- a LOT of TNG was dependeant on Picard's character- Sulu as the star would have yielded very diffrent results.
Though I agree we would have seen the inevitible "sequel stories".
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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An arguably much worse series, since I can't imagine Sulu's character being anywhere near as good as Picard's.
quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: Trek's big failing (if you can call it that) is that so little progress has been made in what humans are.
That's always been one of the defining parts of Trek - that humans may be "better" but they are still recognisably human. You change things too much as you'd have the same disassosation of empathy that you'd get with a truelly alien species. In fact, the one time Trek veared towards making humans too different (early TNG, where no-one got angry and the cold had been cured), the writers realised what a mistake it was and pulled right back so we had shouting and people being sick (which may seem like a small point, but it shows how we, as an audience, are more comfortable watching people who can get a cold just like us.)
Registered: Mar 1999
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It's just a hamper when so little changed between TOS and TNG- they got story ploys like Holodecks and Replicators, but very little real changes in humanity. Heck, a lot of what we think of as "re-writing continuity" (nanotech for example) should have been a given with TNG's tech level. Everyone "Ohhhs and Ahhhs" Wesley's little Nanite experiment, but Dr Crusher can replace Picard's arm and undo all the Borg's mods as "simple microsurgery"?
TNG does indeed seem to regress a bit after first season into more dramatic(and recognizable) modes of behavior (corruption withing Starfleet being a tired old bag).
Then we see Earth on DS9 and get a good blend of both the realism of human flaws and the whole "Utopian Society" og Roddenberry's vision.
If they do another "leap forward", they'll definitely need to take more risks iwth regards to human advancment. Shows like Farscape pulled off very believable "human" characters even when they were puppetts, so some starfleet personell with genemods (like from Pacifica, for example) would be very possible.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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Uhm. I don't think that Farscape is exactly the best example of how believably characters can be depicted. People who get along one day and who are on the verge of killing one another the next day aren't what I think of as realistic. The new BSG suffers from the same problem, although here is at least a basic consensus among the characters.
Generally I believe that multilateral and alternating character conflicts are too often just an excuse for not having a strong enough plot thread. Such as in the already classic situation when the ship is under attack, and the people on board have nothing better to do than continuing with their petty quarrels. I am glad that Trek (for the most part) showed crews as a unity, although Voyager could have had a bit more of the Maquis conflict.
-------------------- Bernd Schneider
Registered: Mar 1999
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