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Thanks! Like I said, normally I don't do things like that, but I started typing and I just couldn't stop! I thought the characters as laid out gave a lot of potential for exploration of different character dynamics, different kinds of relationships among groups that hate each other but are really very similar. The religious angle is interesting too, and probably worth expanding. I was thinking that the XO might end up the spiritual leader of the ship's Bajorans by default, a role he's not comfortable with. Klingon spirituality is poorly defined, and I don't think Romulan religion has ever been mentioned at all. I was also thinking of having one of the undefined crew follow a real Earth religion. The idea that all of them have died out by the 24th century has always struck me as absurd. Using religious zealots as a villain might work too, but it also might be a little heavy handed.
-------------------- "This is why you people think I'm so unknowable. You don't listen!" - God, "God, the Devil and Bob"
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I've never fleshed it out, but the idea that's been floating around in my head for years is telling the tale of the two ships that were apparantly sent out by Starfleet to meet up with Voyager. Spend 2-3 seasons outbound towards the Delta Quadrant, possibly with the Romulans playing a heavy part in Seasons 1 & 2. Then the ship(s) get the message that Voyager is back home. The next 2-3 seasons is getting back home, revisiting a lot of the successes/mistakes/catastrophes from the first few seasons.
-------------------- "Kirito? I killed a thing and now it says I have XPs! Is that bad? Am I dying?"
-Asuna, Episode 2, Sword Art Online Abridged
Registered: Mar 1999
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Everybody's ideas are so good. I want to comment on all of them, but I wouldn't feel comfortable doing so without throwing my hat in the ring:
Towards the interests of involving some sense of mystery, my Trek show concept is called Star Trek: Enigma. (This is the project for which I was designing that proto-miranda a while back.)
The show is set at the end of TOS, but pre-TMP. Production design to be late TOS era with some small TMP influences. It follows a young Lt. Cmdr on her new assignment as the XO transferring aboard the USS Spinoza, a modest exploration vessel charting a vast and dense nebula in unclaimed space beyond the Federation, near the Klingon Empire. Run-ins with rogue vessels would not be uncommon, and a variety of old and newer races would, of course, be represented, whether indigenous or just trading in-region.
Meeting at a distant outpost, the Lt. Cmdr has brought new orders with her that the vessel is to delay its charting mission in order to investigate some anomalous gravitic events in the area. The distance and spatial disturbances will mean that the ship will be out of contact with Starfleet for months. The Spinoza's gruff Captain is less than enthusiastic about departing his old mission, but after some polite, if awkward authorization-checking is, ultimately, a company man. The confrontational Tellarite engineer is more vocal about his reservations. After they are under way it would come out that the Lt. Cmdr's real mission is less about investigating stellar phenomena and more to do with evaluating the loyalty of the ship's Captain and its crew.
That crew is largely made up of enlisted personnel, and while military, the attitude is less formal than previous Trek shows have tended to be. Do you know those guys who work on oil rigs, (rough-necks I think), or who are stationed at McMurdo in Antarctica? These are those guys. Lonely, strange and brilliant men. The crew is small (100 or so) due in part to the nature of their mission and also to another member of the crew, the artificial intellect prototype M6.
Following the catastrophic test of the M5 computer, the Daystrom Institute scaled back the scope of their program, and developed the M6 to act as a ship's science officer. As a safety precaution, M6 has been completely isolated from the ship's primary systems and its only function is to interact and coordinate the ship's sensor and cartographic features for their mission. Of course the crew is skeptical of this reformation, but M6 has been programmed to be exceedingly polite and deferential (precisely because of this, perhaps).
Unlike previous Trek stories, the Captain, though a regular character, would remain somewhat aloof. In fact, as the show progresses the commanding officer's secrecy would become an issue: clandestine meetings, unexplained course-deviations, etc. The show would focus on the bright-faced Lt. Cmdr. as she and the crew try to discover not only the provenance of this abundance of black holes, but the true intentions of her Captain.
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I am the thread-breaker. I speak and all are silenced.
I realize that my ideas are of the the utmost and ultimate brilliance and perfect in every way. That all of you are intimidated, not only by my prodigious talent, but also my audacious good looks. However, I'd still like to see the continuation of the most interesting thing to happen to this sub-forum since Mark wore a dress or whatever.
Out of impatience and in the spirit of constructive criticism, I thought I'd forgo the polite few posts waiting period before sharing my opinions of some other treatments.
MinutiaeMan:Your wayback link wasn't working when I clicked on it, but from what I remember it was a post-Dominion War Federation. Which is a compelling setting. I don't suppose you'd have the source you could cut and paste into this thread so we could see it.
Malnurtured Snay: First of all, fantastic thread idea. The Tzenkethi sound great. I love picturing people just pronouncing the name. I don't really have a picture of what they are like as a people (other than that they are fiercely xenophobic) and I think that might help in the appreciation of the story. Like how the crew is part of this conflict and what part they play in the interaction. The Xindi-Sloth and Andorian crew members are great ideas and introduce a whole level of intrigue and conflict by their very presence. I'd like to see that fleshed out a bit. You have an entire crew listed, but who do you consider your "big-three"? How will that work? I like that it's a smaller vessel and that it isn't an Enterprise. However, the Grissom always makes me think of ST3 and that's maybe not the association you necessarily want. Maybe a new name? Love the post-Dominion Klingon stuff, and it might be interesting to tie that in to greater or lesser extent in the conflict with the Tzenkethi.
Jason Abbadon: Oh yea, Romulans! The continuity geek in me loves the idea that the Rommies fought a conflict in their backyard without us ever being the wiser. The Klingon expansion is perfect with the pride and the glory thing. This is a really great setting into which to throw our main characters. I agree that the ship would have to be a fairly big-one, and I love the idea of the diplomatic core vs. the Starfleet crew. So long as both sides are occasionally wrong and occasionally right and we don't have commodore dummy-pants coming in and screwing everything up, because that plot is SO over. I am of course, intrigued by the comm-blackout and I like that it restricts conflicts to smaller battles. I'd be very curious about the crew, and if you're ever looking to bounce ideas around, I'd love to hear more...
Joshua Bell:Great concept. I loved every picking-up-the-pieces episode the Trek milieu has had. "Yesterday's Enterprise" is my fave TNG ep. (I vote E-C) You blew the Earth up! Goodness. No, but I like the idea of a Trek series with crappy ships and mis-matched hull-plates. Still trying to be optimistic and bringing enlightenment and morality, but what the scattered population really needs are bandages and food. Federation idealism is still in the building, but deeply wounded. Great opportunities for characterization there. The Vulcan rift is a really good idea so long as their motivations are logical and we don't go back to the twatty Enterprise Vulcans. I also like most of the conflicts being with the "vultures" as you mention, descended and preying upon the human carrion. There could even be Starfleet mercenary ships and crews out there. Neato. This might be too "Lost" but the flashback things could even become part of the structure for storytelling. The advantage your story has is the potential to perfectly answer HerbShrump's call for post-trauma/post-war stories which as he points out would certainly be in the Zeitgeist. And right off the bat, your characters are great. I like the survivor-guilt-ridden commander. Echoes of Sisko (it's a good thing). The Romulan First Officer is interesting, and I'd like to see a little more with him, some flaws maybe. Perhaps bitterness at his inglorious role behind a desk for the big conflict. Speaking of which, and perhaps this was your intent, but we still don't know what that conflict was! Good god, man, you blew the Earth up and we still don't know whodunnit! And if that's the point, I apologize, because that could be very cool, (Jericho anyone?). Anyway, I really like your ideas and am curious to learn more...
Josh: I do like the idea of exploring more Section 31, but I'm not sure fans of the series would be as hooked into it. It's an interesting concept.
Omega: This is great. Despite your protestations I think of all the stories here, you have the best fleshed-out crew. Or at least, I can picture them most clearly. The intrinsic conflicts between them write their own stories. Smaller ship. I like it already. Eliminating lame holodeck stories? Sign me up! The B5 diplomats plus aides format is very appealing, as is the presumed generational gap. You mentioned later the conspicuous absence of contemporary Earth religions, and I've always thought Star Trek could benefit from a bit more spirituality. And I think so long as it doesn't fly in the face of scientific attitudes that could be fertile ground for some good stories. I just hated it when zealots were total morons and would ignore any evidence that flew in the face of their fundamental doctrines and Starfleet all laughed and them and then sighed and shook their heads. Anyway getting one of the big three (Captain maybe) involved in that could be very rewarding. I can definitely see that magic triangle as you lay it out. I'm a little worried that your cast is too boy-heavy. You might consider making either the Captain or the Bajoran officer a woman just to mix things up, but I like the outlines for both of those characters very much. The inexperienced officer trying to wrangle these stubborn, older aliens would be very cool. I'm less enthusiastic about the archeology plotline. When you say archaeology, people picture pith-helmets and digging up very old and boring things. I think I know you don't intend for every episode to be about this, so maybe you should frame it differently. Or bury the word archaeology deep in the treatment. The concept of digging up something ancient and bad certainly holds appeal, and I think gives the show a big-arc on which to hang your stories. The first-humanoid race was a silly one-off episode to answer the question of why every alien was humanoid with bumpy heads. Which is to say, I think while you shouldn't ignore it entirely, I don't think it should be the focus of your show. My knee-jerk reaction to that is wanting DESPERATELY to change the channel. But the T'kon and Iconians certainly hold appeal. I'm less familiar with the Progenitors and Preservers, but they could also be interesting. With the caveat that you already have the diplomats and aides, be careful not to make Star Trek: Babylon 5 with Shadows and Vorlons and Bruce Boxleitner yelling at million year-old species...
Krenim: I like it except that we already know that at the end of Season 2 Voyager's going to be back home.
OK, that is my long, frikking response. I hope that further discussion will now ensue. Bitches.
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For those who aren't familiar with the URL structure at the Internet Archive, here's the link to the list of archived pages; one of them would have to work...
The Renaissance Primer is a rough outline of preceding seasons, aimed at helping new readers catch up on the important plot points of the series and become familiar with the basic agendas and interactions of the crew. Also included is a list of recommended episodes that are key to developing the plot of the over-arcing story.
Season One Summary
It is the dawn of the 25th century, about twenty-five years after the end of the Dominion War (seen in Deep Space Nine). Starfleet is about to launch the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-G, the eighth starship to bear the prestigious name, under the command of Captain Neil Cross. Cross gathers his disparate crew: a Romulan exchange officer named Talora; Erik Grey, a by-the-book engineer; Gril Dojar, a young Cardassian tactical officer; and Elris Lea, the ship's doctor and Cross's estranged wife. The Enterprise itself is an experimental starship equipped with many new technologies, most notably the quantum slipstream drive, which allows the ship to travel many times faster than standard warp speeds.
On the Enterprise's shakedown cruise out to the Klingon border, the ship intercepts a pirate, Jennifer Quinlan, who brings word of a massively powerful alien force that has attacked a Klingon battle station inside the Coular Nebula. As the Enterprise crew investigates, they themselves are attacked by an enormous alien vessel that is apparently searching for something on the surface of Coular IV. While Cross and Dojar travel down to the planet to find what the aliens are searching for, Talora commands the Enterprise in a disastrous attack against the alien ship that leaves the Starfleet vessel crippled. A larger conflict is barely averted when Cross and Dojar discover what the alien ship is looking for: a crashed scoutship with an alien trapped in suspended animation. The alien, a Q'tami named Y'lan, later joins the Enterprise crew as an "observer" to learn more about the Federation and its many cultures.
Warning: There are major spoilers for the show beyond this point!
As the flagship of the Federation, the Enterprise is quickly plunged into some of the galaxy's most controversial situations. Captain Cross is forced to make numerous unpopular decisions -- among them the decision to halt aid to the desperate Cardassian Union because the aid was being misused. The Enterprise also becomes embroiled in the Klingon Civil War when Cross is kidnapped by the rebel Reformist faction. With the support of his mentor and superior officer, Admiral Henry Portman, Cross also refuses an order from Starfleet to accept the deployment of Marines aboard the Enterprise.
Despite their disparate backgrounds, the Enterprise crew gradually coalesces to form a united team. Talora learns to work within Starfleet regulations (which are vastly different from traditional Romulan conduct), and develops a close friendship with Dojar, who sometimes feels alienated because of his Cardassian heritage. Quinlan, a former Starfleet officer who had resigned in disgrace, manages to prove herself once again and is appointed as the ship's new pilot. Elris gradually manages to overcome her intense dislike of her estranged husband and captain to become a contributing member of the crew. And Y'lan, though ever the outsider (even bringing threats from the renegade Faction on the crew), begins to gain some insights into the ways of the humanoid cultures.
However, at the end of the year, the crew is dealt a stunning blow when the Klingon Reformists launch a vicious attack on Starbase 23, killing everyone onboard -- including Admiral Portman. Grief-stricken, Cross leads a furious counterattack against the Reformists' home base, killing over one hundred Klingon civilians in the process. Though they have come together in the past year, the Enterprise crew seems on the edge of being torn apart...
Recommended Episodes Episode 1x01/1x02: "Aftermath" Episode 1x03: "Confidence in Princes" Episode 1x09: "Between Two Worlds" Episode 1x12: "In Sickness and in Health" Episode 1x18: "Changing Symphony" Episode 1x21: "Faction Protocols" Episode 1x22: "Men of War and Science" Episode 1x26: "Shadows of a New Dawn"
Season Two Summary
Following the trauma of the Klingon attacks, the Enterprise is recalled to Earth, and the crew begins to fragment. Y'lan disappears, and Cross goes into hiding. Starfleet convenes a war crimes tribunal to investigate the actions taken in the assault on Coular, and the Enterprise is temporarily deactivated. While investigating the circumstances surrounding the Coular attack, Talora and Dojar find references to a Federation operative named "Janus", who has secretly collaborated with the Klingon Reformists and who arranged the attack on Starbase 23. Dojar is apparently killed on this mission, although he is actually rescued by Y'lan before the ship he was on explodes. Y'lan reveals to Dojar that the renegade Q'tami Faction (a group of Q'tami who refused to participate in the linked mind of the Hegemony) are attempting to assassinate the entire Enterprise senior crew and ensure the ship's destruction, for reasons unknown. Dojar and Y'lan begin working together to secretly save their shipmates and foil the Q'tami attacks.
On Earth, Cross is sentenced to life imprisonment for the apparent war crimes he committed in his attack. The Enterprise is slated for decommissioning, and the remainder of the crew break up, going their separate ways for a time. They are brought back together, however, by a sudden attack against the Utopia Planitia shipyards, when a group of Faction Q'tami take the entire station's crew hostage and demand that the Enterprise and her crew be turned over to them. Cross is quickly released from prison to mount a last-ditch stand against the Q'tami. At the end of the day, the Enterprise crew is reunited and Cross is reinstated as captain.
All is not well, however. Suffering from depression over the loss of life he had caused in his attack on Coular, Cross experiences a severe crisis of confidence in his ability to command. It is only with the help of a residual mental "echo" from Admiral Portman and the Diplomat (left over from their temporary mental bond the previous year) that Cross is able to overcome his doubts and fears, and resume command of the Enterprise. Also, Dojar is suffering from strange side effects after his rescue by Y'lan -- the Q'tami transporter gave him temporary insights into the minds of his fellow crewmates. Although much of this information was forgotten, he still remembers many feelings and thoughts of his friends and crewmates. He also begins experiencing acute headaches, that only got worse as time went on. And the full extent of the effects to Dojar remain unknown.
Although the crew have come back together in body, they find it harder to reunite in spirit. Grey harbors resentment towards Cross because of the attack on Coular. He also breaks up with his girlfriend and coworker, Sarah Boyle, after he discovers that she is having an affair with Lewis Carter, a disreputable journalist whom Admiral Delfune had assigned as a sort of "observer" aboard the Enterprise. Talora, Dojar, and Quinlan have to keep secret their discovery of "Janus" and their attempts to investigate his manipulations of Federation policies, for fear of tipping their hand and revealing what they know.
At the end of the year, the Enterprise crew has a stroke of luck. After recovering a PADD from the abandoned wreckage of the Tears of the Jackal, a smuggling ship belonging to a Janus operative, Talora, Dojar, and Quinlan discover a secret Federation base where the Q'tami who had been captured in the raid on Utopia Planitia are being tortured and experimented upon. This base is run by a group of rogue officers loyal to Janus, attempting to discover the secret of Q'tami biology and technology. But during an attack by an unknown party on the base, the tortured Q'tami begin to wake up...
Recommended Episodes Episode 2x01: "Living in the Shadows" Episode 2x02: "Dead and Buried" Episode 2x11: "Together We Stand" Episode 2x12: "Home" Episode 2x15: "The Walk" Episode 2x18: "Outstanding Questions" Episode 2x25: "The Last Temptation" Episode 2x26: "This Side of Hades"
Season Three Summary
The captive Q'tami break out of their stasis tubes and escape in a shuttlecraft. The shuttle, running on autopilot, returns to its point of origin -- Bajor. There, the Q'tami run rampant and wreak havoc on the city of Tamulna, almost completely destroying it and leaving thousands of people dead. Dojar, who had been unintentionally linked telepathically to the "lost" Q'tami, was killed in the attack, but he was revived -- after a fashion -- by Y'lan, by "fusing" their life-forces together, essentially making them one entity. Dojar takes a leave of absence to cope with his identity crisis, and Quinlan is promoted to Chief of Security.
In the aftermath of the Q'tami attack on Bajor, Admiral Delfune reveals to Cross that they are in fact on the same side -- they are both enemies of Janus. Delfune had previously believed that Cross was secretly working for Janus, thus explaining her previous hostility towards the crew of the Enterprise. Although they strongly disagree on methodology, Delfune points out that they still seek the same thing: the strength and safety of the Federation. She tells Cross that she will provide the Enterprise what support she can.
A few months later, Cross and his crew are faced with a specter from their own past... the Dominion. The crew discovers that a delegation of diplomats from the Dominion, led by the Founder Odo, have offered to negotiate a lasting peace treaty between the two former enemies. The Enterprise is one of the ships that is assigned to provide security for the critical negotiations, which are held on Deep Space 9.
During the negotiations, Cross struggles to conquer his inner demons, the result of the two years he spent in a Dominion prisoner-of-war camp as a child during the war. Talora gets an incredible opportunity -- the chance to represent the Romulans as one of the chief negotiators. Carter gets involved with a sinister Bajoran terrorist cell that seeks to drive a wedge between Bajor and the Federation. Dojar is kidnapped by a rogue officer who is convinced that Y'lan holds the secret to destroying the Dominion. And behind it all, the mysterious Janus seeks to manipulate the negotiations towards his own sinister ends.
The negotiations come to a sudden and spectacular end when the Jem'Hadar's supply of Ketracel White is mysteriously poisoned, driving all of the Jem'Hadar among the Dominion's delegation violently insane. After a furious battle to contain the Jem'Hadar and protect innocent bystanders from harm, the Dominion voluntarily withdraws from the negotiations and returns to the Gamma Quadrant. Ambassador Odo bitterly observes that while the Dominion has reformed and is interested in peace, the Federation seems to have degenerated since the war.
After the disaster at Deep Space 9, the Enterprise tries to return to its normal routine. But normalcy seems impossible. On a seemingly-routine patrol inside Cardassian space, the Enterprise is suddenly confronted by the Virus, a semi-sentient holographic computer program whose only directive is to kill non-Cardassians. Admiral Delfune orders the starship Marshall to attempt to capture the Virus for study. But the Virus manages to gain the upper hand, practically destroying the ship in the process. Talora and the crew watch in horror as the burning wreckage of the Marshall descends into the Cardassian atmosphere...
Recommended Episodes Episode 3x01: "The Lost" Episode 3x05: "Whispers from the Other Room" Episode 3x06: "Nor Bid the Stars Farewell" Episode 3x10: "What Shadows We Pursue" Episode 3x11: "Release" Episode 3x16: "Ships That Pass in the Night"
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
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And then there was season 4, which got really weird with a Federation Civil War that never got to being explained due to loss of interest of the writers, IIRC.
I once had an idea for a series, but in hindsight it is a lot like Crusade (I forget which came first). It involved an unknown alien race managing to alter Luna's orbit, sending it crashing into Earth. The hero ship was sent on a mission to retrieve the Tkon star-moving technology and adapt it to move a planetary body (Luna) before it was too late.
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Thanks for the comments, bX! You're probably right on all counts. If there's gonna be a spiritual aspect to the show, everyone's beliefs are probably going to be touched upon at one point or another. And of course all religious believers will be portrayed intelligently. Unless one is portrayed unintelligently to make a point about that, of course.
My established cast is a little boy-heavy, as you say, 4:2 ratio. Since I still need an engineer and a doctor, at least one of those can be female, bringing the ratio closer to unity. We may also need another bridge officer, but really, extra bridge officers tend to fall by the wayside on these shows. Mayweather, Kim? No need to create a character unless they're interesting. On a small ship, the XO could easily serve as first shift conn officer.
I knew the aides thing was straight out of B5, but races work so much better when you have more than one example of them! Worf is stoic Klingon warrior. But are they all like that? Could you have said for the first few years of TNG? One guy's an individual. Two are a group. Oh, and I wasn't really planning on the Klingon and Romulan reps being diplomats. They're actual science/military officers, representing their peoples' interests in the ship's mission, but also assisting it in a material fashion. They're our tactical and science officers, respectively.
You're probably right about the first humanoid race not being terribly interesting, unless we can pin other historical things on them. But since they're probably hundreds of millions of years back, I'm not sure what that could possibly be. Short of becoming the Founders, at least, but there's not much drama there. And no, not every episode would be about archeology as such. Exploring some sort of historical mystery, quite possible, but not necessarily archeology. Hm. Perhaps someone in the crew should be a folklore expert. XO maybe.
-------------------- "This is why you people think I'm so unknowable. You don't listen!" - God, "God, the Devil and Bob"
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You're welcome Omega. Thanks again for sharing your ideas. Sorry I misunderstood about the diplomats (probably the influence of Jason's cool idea confusing me). You're right, as crewmembers it does make it different than B5, while still giving you the opportunity, as you say, to compare and contrast different experiences of these heretofore alien cultures. I don't think the XO ought to be the folklore expert. Either he/she is naive or not. Follklore implies a sort of wisdom, and while that's something I can see the character building over several seasons, I think it might be more rewarding to apply that to a different character. Certainly a female Klingon spouting folklore could be A) entertaining and B) illuminating. So now that I think about it maybe you don't even need to mention archaeology directly by name. The pilot could be them responding to a distress call from a team conducting an historical survey on what was thought to be a long-dead planet, and the mysterious circumstances of the (now missing? dead? insane?) survey team becomes the focus for the story. That some ancient T'kon (memory beacon? weapon? temple?) device has been activated is secondary to the primary action of, intitally, "WTF?" and eventually, "Please stop killing us, oh ancestral lords of darkest apocalypse." or whatever. At any rate, yeah love it.
MinutiaeMan: Thanks for re-posting the information (and also teaching me something about how the wayback machine works.) Golly. There's so much here. You've got three seasons there. Not sure whether you want me to comment on it and to what extent, but I will provide some brief initial impressions. I like that the Captain has his estranged wife on the ship, lot's o' potential there. The pirate character is very interesting so long as she in no way resembles Dureena Nafeel, the cat-like thief-lady from Crusade. No, but Quinlan's reactions might be an excellent way of pointing out the humorous inflexibility of Starfleet conduct. If you were interested in pursuing this further, I might recommend re-writing the treatment as it took me some careful re-reading to figure out that the Q'tami had a faction and that Y'lan was not a part of that faction (in fact, why they were after him). Also I still don't get a clear sense of that ever-desireable Kirk-Spock-McCoy triangle, but maybe that's not what you're going for. I'll hold off on commenting further, in case you don't want me to. I should warn you that should you so desire, I shall be brutal and cruel and hard and all those things that screw up intricately planned seasonal arcs, characters, etc.
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quote:Originally posted by bX: You mentioned later the conspicuous absence of contemporary Earth religions, and I've always thought Star Trek could benefit from a bit more spirituality.
I think Trek could also deal with this from a slightly different perspective. Similar to your thoughts though, bX.
Something that has started to gripe me for a while now has been the homogeny of the alien cultures. Earth is full of different languages, different cultures, different religions.
Alien cultures, however, tend to all be the same. The lanugage is Vulcan or Klingon, the artifacts are Bajoran religious items. As if everyone on Vulcan spoke the same language or everyone on Bajor always believed the same religion.
I want to see these cultures have different langueages and dialects. I want to see them have different religious beliefs among their own people.
And why is it that only Humans have different genetic cultures? True, we've seen black Vulcans and a black Romulan, but that's about it. The albino Andorians seemed to come as such a big shock.
Speaking of a racial mix to the show - someone was talking on CNN the other day about the lack of Asians in lead roles on TV (Hiro from Heroes being noted as an exception). One of my thoughts was to make the captain a woman of mixed Chinese/Japanese/Korean decent. Her mother was mixed Chinese/Korean and her Father mixed Japanese/Korean (or whatever). This would allow the Captain to grow up influenced by all the various Asian cultures on Earth (born and raised in Japan, spent holidays with her grandparents in China and Korea).
This would allow the writers to explore a variety of Asian culture points and still be believable.
That would be more believable.
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Well, Renaissance was something that was very much an experiment in some ways. I'd like to think that it was one of the first truly collaborative fan fiction projects out there (most others generally did their own thing and published collectively, we did a lot of story development together, at least at first). There were still a lot of failures, too, especially to do with our attempts to keep a regular publishing schedule, and keeping the story arc coherent in the later seasons. (Some day maybe I'll do a tell-all about why I think Renaissance fell apart. I'm not blameless in it, hardly, but...)
Anyway, yeah, there were some differences in the Renaissance cast. There wasn't an archetypal "big three" the way TOS and ENT had, our main cast dynamic was mostly akin to DS9, focusing on a few main characters and trying to have a few groups of strong friendships and cooperation. We developed some mystery and intrigue, lots of philosophical differences.
Very general spoiler: the ultimate goal of Renaissance was to expound upon the moral and philosophical contradictions in the Federation introduced in later DS9 seasons, leading up to a conflict that was roughly described as a "Federation Civil War." (The attempted fourth season was not exactly what we'd originally planned. Things came unhinged at that point...)
For characters, we tried to have some diversity in various ways: Cross was a very hands-off leader in some ways, with plenty of angst. Although it wasn't intended, I almost came to view him as a sort of anti-hero as the series developed. There was plenty of internal conflict; Talora, the by-the-book Romulan exchange officer and XO was a prime candidate for conflict with Quinlan, the former pirate, for example. And Y'lan was a perhaps heavy-handed attempt to develop a truly "alien alien," keeping the now-stereotypical "outsider perspective on humanity" role in the story.
Anyway, at this point the project is pretty much dead and buried (to borrow an episode title, for those that remember). I still have some of the scripts printed out and stored on my bookshelf, and I'm definitely proud of the project. It aimed high, and though we missed our ultimate target, we still told a hell of a story. If you have some time, try reading a few of the episodes!
Also, BX, send me a PM or start a new thread (I know there were one or two other Flareites who read the show)...
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
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