The usual fanwank is that Picard studied English under a really, really good British tutor.
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I agree with this. In Star Trek II (TWOK) the starships fight like slow majestic fighting vessels. In Nemesis, they act like SW pod racers. Ugh.
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I realise that Roddenberry wanted a future Utopia. But that shouldn’t mean that the individual humans were all without their personal flaws/hangups. In TOS, they had their flaws.
There was an episode where Kirk gets his mojo swapped with a bitter female ex-Star Fleet, remember? It implied that there were still issues with gender equality. TNG could do the same, with homosexuality, or human/non-human relations. In “ST: The Undiscovered Country”, one of the Klingon guests made remarks about how the Federation (or Star Fleet) was a homo-sapiens-only club. No one made any effort to contradict the assertion. Interesting, but, alas, not touched on anymore. There are no petty bickering (or even petty people). Why not? Humans are humans… heh. (Captain Jellico seemed to come close to a person who was competent, but not “your best friend” type of leader. The friction between Pickard and Sisko was refreshing, but short lived. More moral quandries over Section 31.
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I agree that there was an over reliance on “magic tech”. I can’t think of too many instances of “magic tech” in TOS, but it happened a lot in the other series. (They had to “cold start” the antimatter reactor, and it had unexpected/undesirable side effects. Not so with TNG+ “magic tech”.)
Oh, speaking of Star Trek II: They should rip off CS Forester a lot more often. It turns out great when they do. 
I’d change the uniforms a bit. Not so much with the spandex, even if it is a space age fire-and-tear-resistant material that is protected against stains and only shrinks a little bit in the wash. The First Contact uniforms were great (I love uniforms that have subtle but very telling differences based on rank and job), but even something with a little more obvious color coding (this is, after all, a StarFleet Tradition except for the TWOK-Cadet Picard time period). The TWOK uniforms were the best for pure style, but I’d maybe reserve them for more dressy occasions (even the Mounties wear tan and brown uniforms most days when they go to work)
That said, a popular uniform item amongst some of my friends here in the Air Force is a moisture-wicking fabric usually used for excercise clothing or undershirts/underwear. When it’s skin-tight, it’s usually called Under Armor after one of the more popular brands. This stuff can very strongly resemble the spandex uniforms used on Star Trek, though generally never in such impressive colors as red or blue. In uniform, we’d typically wear a moisture wicking under shirt and then wear the BDU/ABU top over it. There are even new versions of the Army Combat Uniforms and our own ABUs that have the sleeves in the tough material, and the torso section in the moisture wicking material, designed to have body armor worn over it in hot climates.
I could see a TNG style spandex uniform being worn as an undershirt, which we’d only see when someone removes their uniform top while working or when stranded on desert planets after their shuttlecraft invariably crash and become disabled. The uniform top, depending on style or function, could be set up to reveal part of the undershirt (the ends of the sleeves and the collar area) so the audience has an easy cue as to who does what on the ship.
Wesley dies early on in the show, by Riker’s hand. Like he gets blown out of an airlock or beamed over to a borg ship, in order to save the rest of the crew. Riker’s not happy about having to do it, but we can tell he isn’t all that broken up about it. Beverley never forgives him and the two have a difficult relationship forever after.
Troi remains counsellor, but she’s also chief aerobics instructor - which means leotards, camel toe and major boobage.
Picard gives in to his inner rage much more often. He’s pretty cool when he’s got a firearm in his hand and is tripping off rageahol.
Data is more quirky, and has trouble following orders given by lesser beings (humans). Also he’s more eager to put his superstrength to use.
I haven’t watched Nemesis, but this doesn’t really sound like a bad thing. When talking about spacecraft capable of moving at a significant fraction of the speed of light, “slow” shouldn’t be in the vocabulary.
“Fast” is not the same as “maneuverable.” Something weighing thousands of tons shouldn’t be able to swoop, no matter how fast it’s moving.
To expound on what Alessan stated, look at modern warships.
The largest types in the USN (the CVN’s) are fairly “fast”, with a top speed of (probably) in the mid to upper 30’s in knots. But they don’t turn on a dime.
Same same with the Iowa class battleships.
I realise that this is a personal preference thing.
I guess the “slowness” of “ship of the line” drama comes from the Horatio Hornblower days of sail, with the battles taking hours to resolve, and even days during the pursuit/maneuver phase.
In contrast, the scfi fi novels of “The Lost Fleet” by Jack Campbell portrays space combat like you point out. The closing speeds being so high (ships individually moving at 10-20% the speed of light as typical) that they are in weapons range for only a fraction of a second, and the computer actually fires them according to a pre-set “plan” by the weapons officer. While admitedly more realisitic, it seems more impersonal to me.
For story telling drama you have two approaches:
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The main “hero” character leans over the weapons console, waiting for the best moment to unleash the fury of his ships arsenal, based on years of hard won experience.
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The weapons officer sets up a firing pattern, sets it into the firing computer, and waits tensly for the outcome, wondering/worrying if they had forgotten anything.
heh.
Seatbelts. It’s the 23rd or 24th or whenever century. Did those bozos forget about seatbelts in the intervening years?
For a little bit in the very first episode, I was under the impression that ALL of the newer ships had a Data. That would’ve generated a lot of neat stories all by itself. *Andromeda *did something like this, but we almost never saw another Ship’s Avatar.
I’d make it so that half the ship’s quarters are taken up by Marines. Diplomacy is sometimes having a bigger stick. For that matter, don’t have families on the ship. This is a working starship, not a resort cruise.
Kill people off. Impress upon us that space is a dangerous place. When the ship and its entire crew (except for a few redshirts) can go through disaster after disaster, week after week, and nobody ever gets hurt, the danger doesn’t feel real. Start killing people off, and you’ll have viewers caring about the storyline.
That’s just cost-cutting.
“Seat belts?!?! We have artificial gravity, you know! What the f&ck do we need with seat belts? Do you know how many chairs there are on a starship?”
Dude! It’s Star Trek! SOMEONE has to bang all the alien chicks (and hermaphodites)!
:dubious:
You’ve got a mixed gender (and mixed species) crew onboard a ship for a multi-year mission. Things are going to happen, and families are part of that. But I also see what you’re saying.
Also, you can’t kill off major characters, or at least not too many of them, lest it become almost an anthology show, or the ST version of the Love Boat, with guest stars coming on every week for the sole purpose of getting croaked at the end of the episode. I don’t think people like anthologies anymore (the new TZ series – both of them, in the 80s and the more recent, Amazing Stories, etc. didn’t exactly garner CSI type ratings).
For me, I like the suggestions about Wesley, in particular make him more of an ambitious junior officer, sort of like Chekov, only moreso, and less like the go-to-teenage whiz. I never liked Riker, so I wouldn’t miss him if he were killed off early.
Get rid of the humanoid aliens, or at least cut down on them. TOS had real aliens, like the Horta, and the Companion, and the creature from Day of the Dove. Go more that route, and less wrinkly nose/forehead aliens.
Worf – what other have said, make him more badass, but…
One scene, on the bridge, a visitor (i.e. one-episode character) makes an insult/veiled threat to Piccard. Worf growls and starts toward him. Piccard halts him with one word, but with the tone of voice of someone commanding their dog not to bite. Strong tone / subtext of threat / subtext of fear that those first two won’t successfully deter the pending attack.
I’d like to see more tension between Worf and Piccard. Like Piccard can just barely keep Worf under control. Not that he ever does lose it, but I wanted to see constant subtext of Worf being just *this *close to snapping someone in half.
Well, I’d love to see a situation where some smug Cardassian makes some snotty almost threatening comment to Picard and Worf puts him down on the carpet in two seconds flat. Then says, “Sorry. I slipped.”
Then Picard could come up with some way to diplomatically accept that explanation. It would certainly keep the Cardassian in line for the rest of the conversation, and it’d be a good character dynamic.
Eep, I know I’m about to reveal my incredible ignorance of physics, but … I thought things were nearly weightless in space? I can see if a ship is near a planet or some other celestial body that creates a gravitational pull, that could slow the bulkier ships down, but how does weight affect a ship that’s actually zipping around in the vast vacuum of space? Please don’t laugh!
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Aw, I like that Data was unique in Stafleet. It lent the character an air of loneliness (even though he himself had no emotions, the audience easily anthropromorphized him and felt sympathy with his situation) and he certainly bore the responsibility of being the first of his kind to a huge position (much like Worf). His being the only android also let us see that even in the 24th century, cool technology was still “in progress” – no one seemed to have the skillz to replicate Data yet. This newness and uncharted territory led to the awesome Measure of a Man episode and other similar legal/ethical quandaries, such as uh the one with the exocomps.
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I think it makes sense to have families on board. These missions are for years at a time. The original premise for Star Trek was “Wagon Train in Space,” after all, and those lonely little wagons contained whole families, not just solo adventurerers. Frankly I don’t think they did enough with the family motif, since only Beverly had any family, and that was just one fairly independent kid. In fact, add that to my retooling ideas: at least one of the leads should’ve been married. Since Miles is one of the characters I’d like to see bumped up to lead status, I’ll say he should’ve been newly married to Keiko from the start.
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Dude, they killed a main character in their very first season! Okay, they didn’t do so again, but Tasha’s death did impress upon us that this was a possibility. Considering the show was so episodic, rather than allowing for continuing arcs, I’m glad they didn’t kill anyone else off later on; the death would’ve been brushed over and rarely mentioned, and I think that would’ve been very unsatisfying. Though they did do a good job examining various types of deaths in eps like Lower Decks and Half a Life (is that the right name? The one with David Odgen Stiers?).
What would REALLY be interesting if that was exactly what Picard intended for Worf to do, and Worf knew it, but no one else did.
I recall reading some comic book book years ago in which the Wasp said to the Hulk, “You know, Bruce, when we first formed the Avengers, you scared the hell out of me. But now that I know you better, you just make me really, really nervous.” That should’ve been everyone’s attitude.
Well…not Data’s.
Make him from Brittany.
This gives him something interesting in common with Worf, Frenchman/Federation Citizen who really would rather be a Celtic warlord/real Klingon.
Speaking of real Klingons,
Yeah, I don’t recall any episode where Earther Worf has any difficulty fitting right in with real Qo’noS born and bred Klingons (am I forgetting any?).
If I spent the same time Worf had, with the same tech available (Klingon Kulture for Experts Holodeck Sim, Part 17) to study samurai culture and you [del]magic[/del] time portaled me back to the Tokugawa Shogunate I’d expect to have a very short trip.
Making a faux pas that loses me my head is still pretty much guarantied.
It’s even worse for Worf, I’m going back to a dead culture, he ain’t.
CMC fnord!
I won’t laugh.
Weight and mass are not synonymous, though the former is strongly influenced by the latter. Mass is a measure of the amount of matter in an object, or, put differently, the amount of inertia it possesses. Inertia, in turn, is the resistance of an object to changes in velocity. In other words, the more mass an object has, the more force is required to speed it up, slow it down, or turn it.
Weight is a measure of the gravitational force between two objects, or, I should probably say, between object a and whichever larger body, b has the primary gravitational hold on a. By primary gravitational hold, I mean "what body does a fall toward if there is no intervening force? For example, if I pick my laptop up (introducting an intervening force) and release it (removing said force) the laptop will fall toward the Earth; Earth therefore has the primary gravitational hold on the laptop.
And yes, I know this is horribly oversimplified.)
And objects in space are not weightless. They are in free fall.
The Enterprise, which must weight dozens of million of tons, should be much much sluggish than, say, Voyager, which is probably an eighth as massive but as a similar engine (if somewhat smaller). Likewise Voyager shouldn’t be as manueverable as the Defiant.
The ship will always retain mass. It costs energy to make it move, and make it change direction. The massive the object (ship) is, the more energy it will take to change it’s course.
I suppose that we can fanwank away with some miracle tech to trick the universe into thinking the ship is massless…
The only problem I have with that is that Data is such a resounding success for a prototype. (Lore, Data’s “older” brother, wasn’t that much different. Just lacked morals.)
Problem 1: This week, the Enterprise is on the edge of explored space, duking it out with an alien menace. The next, it’s in orbit around Earth or Vulcan. There was very little attempt to portray any “vastness” from episode to episode.
Problem 2: People may take up a risky career for themselves, but few (humans, anyway) want to expose loved ones (and especially their kids) to new and unknown risks.
Problem 3: Barring more “miracle tech”, unproductive relatives represent a non-mission-critical drain on a ships resources. And, an avoidable one.
But it was an open secret that the actress lost her job for appearing in Playboy. So, if Mrs. Crosby had NOT appeared in the magazine, she might have probably stayed on for the whole show. (She was kinda redundant with Worf… Hmmm.) This lessens the impression you talk about, for me, anyway.
Well, he wasn’t a prototype. Early on it was revealed that Lore preceded him, and in the last movie we meet still a third Soong-type android who preceded Lore. And Data’s “mother,” Julianna, noted that they had built several androids.
And, of course, Soong had been working on it for a logn time. The Soong family had been working on the notion since the mid-22nd century.
Nor was Data an unqualified success. Despite what Lore suggested, the inability to consistently use contractions wasn’t a feature; it was a bug. (Hence the occasional cropping up of an “isn’t” in Data’s speech.) I don’t think the “lack” of emotion was intentional either.