Perhaps the whole money/credits thing is because the Federation has embraced Technocracy?
Okay, here’s a question for all you Trek buffs (anyone who’s still hanging with the thread, that is):
Would you be open to a new series (after a suitably respectful pause for breath following the inevitable death of Enterprise) that “reinvents” the show to take all these issues into account? Or is the accumulation of canon just too much to overcome?
I say this because the new version of Battlestar Galactica is coming, and serves as an instructive example. The miniseries of a year or so ago was viewed with distrust and trepidation before it arrived, because people thought it would “disrespect” the old show (which really, really wasn’t very good). Then we got to watch it, and while it wasn’t spectacularly great, and had a fair number of flaws, it was pretty decent in its own right. People were reassured, it seems to me (minus a few hardliners), and I’m guessing when the new series starts it’s going to be given a fair shake.
So could this be done in the Trekverse? Why or why not?
Seems to me you’d need to make only a few adjustments. You keep the general concept of the Prime Directive (which is a good idea) but refine it to make clear when it is and isn’t acceptable to interfere in pre-warp cultures, and then you stick to it. You clarify the money issue, or lack of same, eliminating all the fuzzy-headed communalism that’s been baggage since the idealistic 1960s-era incarnation. You keep the general ethic that these people are solving their problems with rationality and science (which, to me, is one of the most important good things about the Trekverse), but you backstage all the technobabble; instead of having the captain and his engineer discuss some ridiculously obscure means of routing anti-hoosiwhatchits through the depolarized blahdeblah, the dialogue is simply, “I have an idea, captain, give me an hour,” and then you see the engineer tinkering while talking about something else, or saying nothing at all. And so on, and so forth.
In other words, the idea is to keep what’s good and what works, and fix the things that don’t work.
The problem, of course, is when something becomes an institution as much as Trek has, there is the aroma of Scripture to the whole thing. I mean, look at the argument here about resolving bumpy Klingons vs smooth Klingons. Obviously it’s merely a reality of television production in the different eras, and nothing more. And yet we go back and forth inventing interpretations to cover the gap as if we’re trying to figure out whether Jesus sanctioned divorce or not based on the contradictory passages in the Gospels. It just isn’t that important, people.
So what do you think? Fix Trek with an upgraded version, or let it die as a relic of its age and never try to do anything else with it?
Do they hold their breaths and stop their hearts during transport, too? 
I’ve often thought that it would do a lot of good for there to be a more tightly written version of Trek produced, pretty much taking the original 76 episodes and reworking them to a degree so that all the hokiness and truly horrible science was taken out or at least made more plausible. TNG and Voyager as well BUT LEAVE DS9 ALONE.
Okay, DS9 too, but I’ll bitch hardcore about it if it doesn’t compare.
I think you should make your post an OP, Cervaise. It deserves its own thread instead of being hidden in this one.
That’s not the problem. The problem is they just don’t have any good new ideas. Unless you can bring Roddenberry back from the dead, what’s the point? And I doubt even that would help.
But the tech stuff is what makes it Star Trek. If you take out all the tech stuff and just turn it into a fairy tale that happens to be set in space, then all you have is Star Wars. [shudder]
That second thing.
Why do I have the feeling I did this 3 years ago?
I’d be willing to watch a re-invention of Trek as Cervaise described, but I don’t consider myself to be a Trek fan. Actually, the reason I don’t consider myself to be a Trek fan, pretty much because of all the stuff that Cervaise is proposing be taken out of the franchise. So maybe I’m not the best person to be asked that question.
However, what I really want to see is the death of the Federation. Seriously. We’ve seen its beginning (Enterprise), we’ve seen it at the height of its expansion (TOS), we’ve seen it at the peak of its power and influence (TNG), we’ve seen it in the grips of cold war decay and paranoia (DS9), what’s left now but to see how the Federation finally falls apart? The next series ought to be set about a century after DS9, and the Federation should be the bad guys: corrupt, power-hungry, and willing to do anything to hold on to their disintegrating empire. The protagonists would be a coalition of defectors, later-day Maquis, and disenfranchised aliens, united to bring down the dominion of Earth and replace it with a new interstellar government that remains true to the original, all-but-forgotten principles of the Federation.
Hmmmmmm…methinks this sounds familiar somehow.
I don’t really call myself that, but I’ll give it a shot.
Basically, I think the franchise needs a break. Give it a rest for a while and stop running it further into the ground.
You’ve said it exactly. One of the problems with ST or any pop-culture thing that lasts a long time is that people start taking it too seriously and getting ridiculous. I’m not sure what the cure is, if there is one.
So what do you think? Fix Trek with an upgraded version, or let it die as a relic of its age and never try to do anything else with it?
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I think you’ve got some good ideas. I don’t know if Trek is too beholden to its hardcore fans and its status as a cultural icon to try anything interesting at this point, but we’ll see I guess. I thought the “Federation breakup” idea was being kicked around as far back as Insurrection. They might as well do it now; there’s nothing else left and it beats what they’ve done lately.
Did I already post that in this thread, or is it just that it sounds too much like Andromeda?
It’s brought up every time a “What Trek Series Would You Like to See?” thread is posted.
Not by me, I hope? I know I’ve mentioned it before, but I hope I’m not repeating myself that much.
On the other hand, if I am, I may have a future writing for Trek.
No. It’s just a very popular idea.
Well, cool. Hopefully, someone’s listening.
…what’s left now but to see how the Federation* (Republic)** finally falls apart?.. and the Federation **(Empire)**should be the bad guys: corrupt, power-hungry, and willing to do anything to hold on to their disintegrating empire. The protagonists would be a coalition of defectors **(like Leia), ** later-day Maquis **(like Lando and Han), ** and disenfranchised aliens **(like the Botha), ** united to bring down the dominion of Earth (Corusacant) and replace it with a new interstellar government that remains true to the original, all-but-forgotten principles of the Federation **(Republic). ** *
Making Star Trek more like Star Wars could only improve it.
<flees>
Quick! Get him!
Heh, I’m pretty sure he’s wrong. Making Star Wars like Star Wars seems to have fucked it up beyond all recognition.
I’ve suggested a post-Federation series before. My idea, however, was to follow Will Riker and his ship (the Titan). It would be set about 10 or 20 years after Star Trek: Nemesis. During the first season, we would get a good, solid look at life in the Federation. We would find out that it is, indeed, a Communist state. There would be hints that trouble might be brewing, but nothing that seemed too worrysome.
Then, at the end of the first season, the Federation would collapse. Like the fall of the Soviet Union, it would be rapid and catch most people completely off guard. Riker wakes up one moring to find that Starfleet has declared itself the official rulers of the Federation, and Earth has been blockaded while the members of the Federation Council are hunted down and killed (!!!). Several captains, including Riker, refuse to go along with this coup. Civil war erupts, and eventually Starfleet Command is destroyed (along with the rest of San Franciso) and the admiralty is decimated. The Federations falls into anarchy, with each planet being effectively independent.
Later, we would find out that the Federation, in its attempts to create a perfect utopia where everyone could have everything they wanted, had racked up massive debts among various non-Federation cultures, particularly those who had been supplying energy resources so that everyone could replicate their breakfast before teleporting off to work. Eventually, the Federation simply collapsed under the weight of its unsupportably huge infrastructure. Starfleet’s admirals, in a desperate attempt to fix things, had staged the coup so they could make changes that the Council was resisting. When the coup failed, the Federation was doomed.
Starting with the second season, planets would begin fighting each other for resources. Most Starfleet captains would try to keep the peace and re-impose order, but with no one to resupply their ships, most begin to hire their ships out as mercinaries. Riker and the Titan become a sort of insteller police force, supported by various peace-loving systems, and spend their time fighting mercinaries, pirates, and other bad guys that have sprung up to take advantage of the lack of government.
Is there a restroom anywhere on the Enterprise? Or anywhere else in the Star Trek universe. What provisions are made for waste management? It’s one thing to believe that the replicators make things come from nothing, are we to also accept that the byproducts go nowhere?
All of the ships from TNG on have restrooms on the bridge and in the quarters. The captain’s ready room has its own private restroom; Picard is seen entering the room from his private restroom on a couple of occasions.
TOS didn’t show restrooms because at that time, it just wasn’t done. Television was so prudish at the time that The Brady Bunch had a restroom, but it had no toilet. All in the Family mad reference to the toilet, and you’d hear in flush, but it wasn’t shown.
On the subsequent series, they just don’t make a show of people using the restroom, as it doesn’t typically make for good drama.