Star Trek: the Teeming Millions edition

Cafe Society
1

A few months ago, I started a thread for creating a ‘Straight Dope’ superhero team as an experiment in group writing. I provided an archetypal team framework, solicited character suggestions, and individual story plots. It went as far as the character creation phase, but sadly kind of died in the storyline phase. Howzabout we give this the idea a second try with a new ‘Star Trek’ series?

Let’s assume this we, the infinitely creative Teeming Millions have been put in charge of a creating a new Star Trek series. We have to create a starship crew, new antagonist races & villains and a years worth of episodes. As the OP, I reserve the title of executive producer and the have final say over what gets included and what doesn’t.

I’ll initiate the general premise - The new series takes place roughly two years after the Dominion war. Previous missions launched from DS9 have only explored a small area of the Quadrant before the Dominion War made further exploration into that sector of the galaxy close to impossible. With the war over, the Dominion collapsed, and the Shapeshifters pretty much powerless, it is once again (relatively) safe for Federation ships to explore beyond the wormhole.

The UFP starship ‘StraightDope’ has just been assigned to do the first in-depth exploration of the Gamma Quadrant. It will venture farther into the Gamma Quadrant than any Federation ship yet and will be exploring heretofore unknown expanses of space. While not stranded as the Voyager was, the StraightDope will be slightly isolated, but determined to make contact & promote cultural exchange between the Federation and the new Gamma Quadrant worlds. For historical analogies, think of Marco Polo, Lewis & Clarke or a more enlightened verion of Christopher Columbus.

What the ship needs (the principal cast) -
captain
first officer
science officer
chief engineer
chief medical officer
security chief
newbie ensign

new Gamma Quadrant villain races (the Changelings are confined to their one big sea, the Jem"Hadar - being bio-engineered killing machines rather than a natural race of beings - are no longer being hatched & are dying out, the Vidians…just suck.)

We can also include recurring characters, but bare in mind that this ship is more akin to the original series Enterprise rather than the Galaxy class travelling-city Enterprise from the Next Generation.

Once we get the initial cast together, we can start pitching stories for them.

Some ground rules -

  1. No old characters. Let’s start out fresh with a whole new cast of characters. And if you have an idea for a character whose from a previously established race, try to come up with a new angle on them.
  2. No Borg stories - done to death. Let 'em preserve what tiny shred of dignity the once mighty adversaries had by not rehashing them AGAIN.

Now take it away.

2

I have a question about Starfleet exploration practices. Apparently it’s s.o.p. to send one ship out on it’s lonesome, and if you run into big trouble, tough luck- maybe years later a followup mission might find out what happened to you. I know it’s a big galaxy and Starfleet has only so many vessels and trained crews, and this pattern of exploration is virtually canon. But is this really the smartest way to explore completely uncharted space?

Especially given the semi-stranded status of vessels in the Gamma Quadrant, wouldn’t 3-5 ship flotillas make a heck of lot more sense? Think Columbus or Magellan. While this would sacrifice the dramatic structure of one ship on it’s own and the “it’s lonely at the top” Captain’s angst, the interplay between ships and commanders would offer opportunities of it’s own. You could have an Admiral or Commodore in charge of the fleet as a whole, with either Captains or Commanders as masters of the individual vessels. You could play the difference in command styles, such as the “Hotshot on his first command”, the “Older but Wiser experienced officer”, the “Anal-Retentive by-the-book prig”, the “Semi-Disgraced Officer trying to live down that incident in the past”; etc.

3

Sorry to start out with a slight hijack, but I can’t help but feel that this type of Trek (lone Federation starship) has been done to death. Only DS-9 was slightly fresh in this regard. Maybe the lone ship will be reuseable in another ten years or so, but not now. If you do want to use this premise, how about telling it with a Klingon ship in a time period where they were villains or some other non-Federation perspective? Just a thought.

I’m pretty sick of hearing of the Prime Directive!

4

I have absolutely no quarrel with your take on this. I’d just like to “float” an opinion.

Historically, there were some single-ship exploration cruises. Like the Beagle that Darwin was on way back when. Or Capt. Bligh’s infamous voyage to Tahiti, although I admit that’s a stretch, kinda–he was going to a known destination for a specific purpose.

So, I don’t find this idea completely outlandish. What does make me wonder is that in Star Trek’s universe, they send out what are esstentially battleships. Huge, expensive, heavily-weaponed warships. I guess that maybe, though, with replicators and all, it may not be any more expensive than a research vessel.

I don’t have the answer, but IMHO, you do pose a very interesting question, and thanks for doing so.

P.S. I also really like RogueRacer’s suggestion; why not go from another perspective? Perhaps we could learn something new and interesting.

5

I think the multi-ship idea could work, but tweaked a little.

The main characters are on the USS Straightdope. But the 'Dope has a crew of 3-4 sister-ships exploring the quadrant too. Every so often she’ll rendevous with with another ship for shared missions, new characters, etc. The difference is that these other ships will be persistent not just one-shot, personnel on the other ships will be recurring characters, there should be an effort to make viewers believe in the persistence of the other ships. So when the 'Dope gets in trouble and sends out a distress call, the only people around to save them are the other 3 ships, likewise the 'Dope isn’t saving random single-episode ships but routinely saves the bacon of the other ships.

I wouldn’t want the captain of the 'Dope to be the admiral/commodore of the exploration fleet, that should be the job of another captain, but we should stay away from the “Wrongheaded commanding officer” cliche where the admiral is always making boneheaded decisions and relieving our hero of command only to have his butt saved again and again by a captain who makes his own rules and administers his own brand of justice and if those punks down at headquarters don’t like it, well, they know what they can do with it.

6

I think Lemur866’s idea is excellent. And it solves a problem for the higher up officers.

On a long, relatively isolated voyage one is going to want, um, human “companionship”. It’ just not the done thing to “fraternize” with those below you in the chain of command. A holodeck might help, but IMNSHO there’s no real substitute for a living, breathing human.

Getting together occasionally with another ship would allow captains and higher officers social opportunities not prudently available with the members of one’s own crew.

Now, I think I’ll go create a character!

7

Here’s how I see the composition of the flotilla:

One Galaxy-class starship. Serves as the flagship of the flotilla. The most spacious of the ships, it houses most of the non-service dependents of the rest of the fleet, and has the most extensive recreation facilities.

Two or three Voyager class starships. Do the bulk of the exploration.

One Defiant class starship. The most heavily armed and shielded of the ships, it usually takes point several hours ahead of the rest of the fleet at cruising speed. If trouble is run into, this ship deals with it first and warns the rest of the fleet.

8

When you say “Voyager” class starships, do you by any chance mean Intrepid class?

9

You mean the Vorta, the big-eared, obsequious diplomats, not the Vidiians, the charred looking and rather disagreeable organ harvesters.

And they don’t suck.

As for the ship and crew, I made this about six months ago while I was out of work with a broken leg and thought it good enough to keep. I never got around to naming the characters or giving them backstories but I did consciously make humans the minority species (with nary a Caucasian. The woman is intended to be Persian; the male a Khoisan) and an almost even mix of men and women.

The captain is intended to be an Orion; the first and second officers and the counselor are Vulcans; the CMO is Andorian; the tactical officer is supposed to be a Tellarite; and the security officer is just some alien I created.

I don’t like Ensigns or other really junior officers on the senior staff.

10

May I use my Security Chief that I created for the ST-RPG my friends and I played years ago?

11

I disagree slightly. In light of the beating the Alpha Quadrant has taken during it’s numerous wars, and in light of the new(ish) treaty with the klingons per DS9 & the initial peace talks with the Romulans alluded to at the end of Nemesis, the fleet should be an alpha-quadrant “Task Force” comprised of Federation, Klingon, and Romulan ships.

This way we get to have our cake (the old races) and eat it too (the new races). Plus, if anyone’s running short on creative ideas for the whole new region of space, they can toss in some Klingon/Romulan bar brawls :smiley:

But seriously, it would give us a chance to further explore the Romulans as a race - I think they still need some fleshing out.

As far as new races - I’m getting tired of seeing the same old 4-limbed bumpy-headed critters. Lets do something different, like a race that breathes nitrogen or methane, sees only in ultraviolet, uses only left-handed carbon compounds, something that actually makes them different from humans.

Good guy or bad guy, I want a race that will suffocate in our atmosphere, or will be burned by water because their biochemistry is so drastically different.

12

And please remember that due to a highly unstable wormhole tachyon-particle neutrino flux-thingee all holodeks were rendered inoperable and all time-travel was made impossible.
That’s my contribution.

13

I want a Caitain character.

14

Frankly I feel the Romulans got the shaft in TNG and Beyond. Having said that, I don’t see them contributing in any meanigful way to the advancement of the Federation. I think including a Klingon class crew is interesting, but, again, one of my “Trek” problems is the homogeny of their alien races. They have a tendency to not have the variety of humans and that always bothers me.

I’m pretty much on board with multiple ships covering different areas making contact with each other and sometimes meeting together. I would however keep the “expeditionary” force to three ships regular medium and large as expemplefied by Defiant, Voyager, and Enterprise.

So where does that leave us with crew needs three of each as originally intended?

This seems really good because in general it can run like the old Mystery movies only instead of separate detectives we have separate ships and a common meilu in which they can meet or “guest star”.

There’s my vote – can our EP give us a ruling?

15

Defiant-style ships aren’t appropriate for exploaration duty, Defiant is a pure warship. And we’re sick of seeing Galaxy class ships with day care centers and bowling alleys and swimming pools. Logically the exploration ships should be Voyager-type ships. Except we can’t use the same ship type, we have to invent a new one! It should be larger than Voyager, optimized for speed and science and first contact, fewer weapons and shields. For battles you can haul the Defiant through the wormhole, but the Defiant can’t be based in the quadrant and isn’t part of the exploration fleet.

And I vote for all ships to be equal, except the admiral’s flagship which has some special added expensive and delicate long-range communication gear. This means that the admiral can generally communicate directly with Starfleet (except during plot-driven subspace storms, of course), but the other ships can’t. The admiral gets periodic updates from Starfleet and passes them on to the other ships.

This has an advantage in that the other ships can’t just radio home for advice…they have to physically rendevous with the flagship or the wormhole for messages or orders. They’ll be much more independent than in TNG, but not cut off like Voyager.

16

I think this is a GREAT idea. This would mean 3 different captians. That right there would be enough to make for some very interesting episodes. There are some different takes we could have on this though. One would be 3 captains, each having to work and compromise with the other two and all 3 would have to mutually agree with each other when it came to major decisions. The other would be 3 captains, but one would be the overall executive leader and would be the one to make the final decision on any major issues.

Plus, 3 ships means three different crews that also have to learn to work together. TThere could be many different plot lines: What about transfers to other ships in the task force? Or perhaps a love interest between crew members from different ships? How about certain memebers of one crew specializing in something while other members of a different crew specializing in something else: “Oh, you broke your arm, go see Dr. So-and-So on the Romulan ship. He can have you fixed up in a jiffy.” Something like that.

As for characters, I also agree that we need something more un-earthlike. I would suggest a crewmember that is humanoid, but breathes through gills and requires a sort of “encounter suit” filled with it’s own special liquid that it must wear in order to move and function around the rest of the crew on the “Straight Dope”. Then when this crewmember goes back to his quarters, he/she/it would have to enter through a chamber that would fill with liquid and then allow him to enter his quarters which is filled with the same vital liquid. DS9 sort of did something like this with the “low gravity” species that had her quarters at about 1/8th the gravity of the rest of the station.

17

Really like the idea of the “liquid” dweller – sort of like Aquaman, but not so human nor able to breathe without containment. It would be an interesting exercise to integrate someone like that with the crew. I would like to see a Vulcan in command of a starship because the logic would grate against the intuitive human experience and could create some interesting stories.

18

I like the encounter-suited liquid breather too. I just ask that “integration” doesn’t go too far. I’m tired of the “Human / Alien-of-the-Week love story”. Let’s leave this alien, y’know, ALIEN. Getting on & communicating with the crew is one thing, but dinner & boot-knockin’ in another thing entirely.

As far as the Vulcan - maybe that’s how we can organize the command structure of a multi-race fleet. Put the whole thing under the command of a Vulcan Admiral, as it’s the only way all 3 races would agree to the Task Force.

And ddgryphon, I didn’t mean to imply the Romulans wanted to advance the Federation in any way. More that they don’t want to be left behind on such an opportunity.

Just picture Tomalak, Martok, Kirk, and Spock hamming it up on each others view screens. Who could resist? :smiley:

19

OK, wading in with my input:

Instead of three or however many Voyager type ships, just have one. Maybe one or two of the humble Excelsiors (which at least until later seasons of DS9 were the bread-and-butter ships of Starfleet) or Akiras. For the flagship, if we’re tired of seeing Galaxy class ships, maybe a Nebula class could suffice, or, indeed, though it mildly annoys me every time they do it, bring in a whole new starship design.

Everyone can communicate with eachother just like in every other Trek, but in some cases, you might have a communication lag instead of real-time (there have been a few eps of TNG and DS9 that I can recall where they would have a com lag of several hours, so the Admiral would send a message saying “I’ve read your report, you should do something along these lines, but use your own discretion/initiative.” You would either have an Admiral (preferably on a different ship) or a senior Captain (in which case he could be on the main ship, such as how Picard and Sisko tended to find themselves in fleet operations).

For sending messages home, have them use some kind of courier ships, like Runabouts or even Bajoran ships (since the Bajorans are RIGHT THERE on the other side). As the show goes on, have them run into the odd Fed merchant transport, or maybe even additional starships going off on their own things. The Bajorans would basically be the “connection” that ties this show to the previous shows, since they’re the most logical Alpha quadrant race to run into in Gamma Quadrant.

Keep civilian presence to a minimum, though higher ranking officers might be able to have their family aboard in some cases (RHIP), but as soon as a battle looms, park the wife and kids in an escape pod until it’s over. Departments (Engineering, Tactical, etc.) should be headed up by Lieutenant Commanders, with lieutenants heading them only in rare cases (say the Tactical officer randomly catches the Plague because he forgot to set the safety protocols in his holonovel of Joan d’Arc, so his assistant takes over). In these cases, you can work it in as character development (the young and unsure fellow finding himself unexpectedly in a position of authority).

Keep Ensigns relatively constant, but in the background (ie: LT. Corwin on Babylon 5). You might have something like the one ensign who invariably ends up flying any shuttle the Captain is riding on, even if the ensign rarely ever has anything to say. If he happens to be the best shuttle pilot, it’s possible his boss will keep assigning him to the Captain’s shuttle. Little details like that.

Finally (and most importantly), find the most anal retentive person on the production staff of the show and put him in charge of continuity. We’re talking Comic Book Guy attention to detail here. :smiley:

Oh, and after reading Earthworm Jim’s post, yeah, you gotta have Tomalok somewhere. You just have to, it’s the law. :smiley:

20

Okay, in light of the comments thus far, I’ve decided to revise the initial premise for this new “Trek: Teeming Millions.” We’ll stick with exploration in the Gamma Quadrant side of the wormhole, but throw in a few twists.

The principal starship (USS StraightDope) is an Intrepid class starship that was temporarily decommissioned due to damage inflicted in the Dominion War. For the last few years, it’s been in spacedock being revamped, overhauled and refitted with new experimental weaponry. It was deemed spaceworthy and was set to be relaunched (on a mission to explore the Gamma Quadrant) when it was stolen by fugitive members of a Maquis splinter group.

This Maquis splinter group consisted primarily of ex-Starfleet officers disenchanted with the more violent factions within the Maquis. Although they disliked the monolithic super-power the Federation had become, they saw no good coming out of the increasingly extreme tactics taken by mainline Maquis rebels. These Maquis members were then castigated by both Starfleet & the Maquis, each of whom considered them traitors.

Finding fewer and fewer welcoming ports in the Alpha Quadrant, these Maquis members made a daring raid on Starfleet’s shipyard, seizing the StraightDope and running away and through the wormhole to the Gamma Quadrant with it.

The StraightDope is the primary vessel and its’ crew are the main characters for the series, but that’s not the end of it. Additionally, there are two other vessels each in pursuit of the StraightDope:

  1. the “USS Hunter”, whose Captain Javert is obsessed with bringing these treasonous thieves (the new crew of the StraightDope)) to justice and recapturing Starfleet’s rightful property. Javert is a cynical career military man who has no compunction about bending (or secretly breaking) rules to get what he wants.
  2. The Maquis vessel “Stalker”, captained by the slightly unhinged Captain Ahab. In between stealing this ship from the spaceyard and making it through the wormhole, the StraightDope crew were temporarily waylaid by Ahab, who intended to kill all the members of the splinter faction and seize the vessel to use against Federation outposts. A battle ensued, Ahab was wounded (and scarred to boot) and the StraightDope escaped. Ahab is obsessed with exacting retribution and stealing the StraightDope for himself.

So, the StraightDope is not merely exploring new planets in the Gamma Quadrant frontier, but it’s also on the run from a Starfleet ship AND a vengeful Maquis squad respectively. The StraightDope crew pattern themselves after a typical Starfleet flight crew (they have no argument with the procedures Starfleet uses to run its’ ships, just with what they view as the hypocritical & imperialistic ends Starfleet strives for.) Thus, the same character types as mentioned in my OP still stand.
Individual stories always include the StraightDope crew. But sometimes they include the Hunter, sometimes the Stalker, sometimes neither, sometimes both. Occasionally the storyline can be told from the POV of Captain Javert of the starship Hunter, or POV of Captain Ahab of the Stalker. This’ll allow for a variety of differening stories as the responses of each of the three ships towards varying encounters in the Gamma Quadrant will be uniquely different.

I hope this premise doesn’t sound too confusing. Of course it’ll need tweaking and any advice toward fleshing out is welcome. What’s your opinions?