With such a highly developed brain, you would think I could spell better.
Brain, brain, what is brain?
Spock’s Brain!
It is controller, is it not?
*I just received a flyer at work asking people to attend some b.s. seminar called “Brain-based learning.” Is there some other kind? Do we ever learn through the butt? (Don’t answer that.)
FabioClone: don’t tempt fate…Actually, Scott Bakula can carry a tune—check out his vocals on Amazon, on the Quantum Leap album–but I don’t know if we want to hear him warble on Enterprise. Or maybe he could start and Porthos would start yowling along. 
So many things a Trek Doper could say about that… :dubious:
I would love to know what brain based learning is. Do they bypass the optic and aural centers, allowing pure knowledge to be imprinted on our brainwave patterns?
“Dammit, Spock! I’m sick of your half-breed interference!”
Could lead to many problems, methinx
As long as Troi gets nekkid, I don’t care what else is shown. Of course, it would have to be on cable for this.
Mmmmmmmm…scrambled brains…
How about Enterprise: Doldrums ? They get stuck in a giant starry Sargasso sea-equivalent for months on end with no one to turn to, or turn on, but each other. Imagine the tension. Imagine the conflict. Imagine the possibilities. Imagine the panda. Imagine the slash–oh, wait, you don’t have to.
Voyager did a show like that.
Intergalactic space would be that way, too…
Enterprise: Mutiny. Now *that * would be cool beyond words.
Redshirts take over?
Interesting…
Or Chef and Porthos take over, since no one yet has a red shirt.
They lock Archer in the brig and occasionally toss him a scrap of Galacto-kibble.
[Astro voice]
Rerro, Captain. Raunt some food?"
[/Astro voice]
How about Star Trek: The Underworld?
It would be a show based on the Orion Syndicate. An inside view of organized crime in the Federation. Perhaps the main character could be an ex-Starfleet officer (now disillusioned with Starfleet) who joins the Syndicate.
And on the topic of DS9… I could definitely go for some more Section 31 stories. I liked those episodes, and I thought William Sadler was quite good in his role.
Much better idea than that Maquis crap. I never liked that.
Yeah. Even That Zima Crap tastes better than That Maquis Crap.
ducks and scuttles away…
I’ve been hoping for a thread like this.
Let’s face it: Roddenberry’s vision of life in the future is painfully boring. No crime, no povery, no racial/ethnic or class struggles. They don’t even have to worry about money or working for a living. It’s a nice idea, but it makes for bad telivision. The reason we’ve seen so little of Earth and the other major population centers is that nothing interesting ever happens there, and the society is totally unlike anything we can relate to. This needs to be fixed.
To fix this, certain elements need to be removed.
[ul][li]The relpicators - these are why noone works and everyone can have anything they want.[/li][li]the transporters - they have turned into a huge deux es machina, allowing lazy writers to solve problems with nothing more than a bunch of technobabble. The transporters have become so incredibly useful that the writers are constantly having to contrive reasons why they can’t use them to solve the problem at hand.[/li][li]Matter-Antimatter energy generation - this is what provides an unlimited supply of free energy, making things like the replicators and the transporters possible. Do you have any idea how much energy would be required to replicate something? I once calculated how much power it would take to create a cup of coffee from energy, in the manner of a replicator. Using E=mc^2 and assuming that the cup of coffee weighed 600 grams, I figured that it would take the entire energy output of the United States for a day and a half to make that cup of coffee, assuming an impossible 100% efficiency.[/li]
And where does all that antimatter come from anyway?[/ul]
All this said, here is my proposed series:
Star Trek: The Dark Ages
The Federation has exausted its supply of antimatter. The days of unlimited free energy are over. Replicators are banned because there simply isn’t enough energy available to let everyone use them, as are transporters. People have to start working for a living again, and as a result povery, crime, and everything else returns. Starships have to run on nuclear fusion reactors, which provide enough energy to run the warp drive, but again replicators and transporters are a thing of the past. All of the food and supplies must be carried in the cargo hold, and all trips down to planets must be made via shuttlecraft or specialized landing crafts.
As a consequence off all of this social upheaval, the various planets of the Federation have started to fight among themselves. They mostly use piracy and commando-type raids to steal each other’s resources. In the middle of all of this is the USS Titan. Commanded by Captain Riker, it is charged with attempting to keep the peace in the Federation. In addition to interplanetary strife, there are still those pesky Klingons, Romulans, and Borg around to cause trouble. And they still have enough antimatter to run transporters. Which gives us a nice reversal of fortunes: Starfleet at a disadvantage to the alien races.
How about Star Trek: Assimilation
This is a series from the Borg point of view. We follow the adventures of the Borg ship B.S.S. Cubeyprise. Cast includes: the fearless captain, 4 of 6; The daring first officer, 3 of 8; the plucky young helmsman, 6 of 12; and the chief engineer, 1 of 3. Also featuring Heidi Klum as this ship’s incarnation of the Borg Queen, in a new all-spandex catsuit Borg Queen outfit.
Their continuing mission… to conquer new worlds and new civilizations… to assimilate new life forms and new technologies… to boldly go where no drone has gone before…!
What do you think, sirs?
Diceman:
That’s a nice idea, except you’re forgetting that matter/antimatter isn’t “unlimited” or “free” in the Trek universe. Most of their M/AM goes towards generating and maintaining a warp field (that’s why it’s called “the warp core”), while their mundane systems are powered by fusion reactors. Their replicators don’t turn energy into matter… they have stores of “base matter” on the ship, and the replicators simply rearrange the matter into whatever is needed. The fact that they can’t replicate something like latinum or certain other exotic items betrays the fact that they lack subatomic manipulation of matter.
Hell, Romulan ships are powered by quantum singularities.
A nice idea, but really, it wouldn’t fly in light of established ideas from the show. Although a “Dark Age” idea in and of itself would be good… get rid of this nicey-nice crap that TNG invented (DS9 almost got rid of that image, but Voyager reestablished it, in spades… ::shudder::…)
Hmmm…
Remove the Prime Directive.
Proceed from there.
I hesitate to mention this, since I will be buried under posts on the general theme of blasphemy, but… um… my gang has been doing an original Trek FanFic series for over two years now. It’s called “Voyages of Diana” and it was originally conceived as a writers’ workshop, but it took on a life of its own. We feel reasonably confident that this is the only long-standing TrekFic series on the Web that was started by a complete non-Trekker.
Now, you guys would have to remember that this started as a series for aspiring writers… a playground, if you will, where they could have fun and work on their skill set. But the basic idea is this: Star Fleet has fielded a highly-advanced reclaimed slaver and populated it entirely with women, then sent them off as a sort of ministry without portfolio. Yes, I know, this sounds like the beginning of a wonderful porno movie. (If there is such a thing.)
If you’d like to take a look, here it is: