Star Trek: the Teeming Millions edition

Cafe Society
21

The Maquis’ raison d’être was freedom fighting. They were disgrunteld colonists whose worlds were given to the Cardassian Union by the Federation to avoid war and only fought the UFP when they had to. Your motivations for them in this scenario is not keeping with their characterization at all.

Besides that, the Cardassians exterminated the Maquis during the Dominion War and the Federation arrested everyone else involved. They’re not even a non-viable threat at this point… they’re simply nonexistent.

22

my opinion is any plot we could come up with had probably already been done by one of the 5 franchises.
Why not find a worm hole to the Beta Quadrant - no one has ever gone there (or if they have they never explored it) that way we could invent our own alien races. I envision a race that on first glace seems beligerent and war-like, but on closer inspection, is really very amiable. One crew member discovers this early on and risks a court-martial by refusing to fight the perceived threat

23

Hmmm…this rethink would pretty much mean no between-ship interaction (other than the occasional battle) and the idea of a multi-ship exploration force was one of the best part of this idea (IMHO).

I like the idea of an old, battlescarred ship that’s been refitted. It’d be interesting to have a dilapidated ship look (after all, cosmetic looks aren’t going to be of major importance to the Feds after a war) but with newer equipment in - you could probably get a lot of plot lines out of aliens thinking it’s as disrepaired and old as it looks, and therefore underestimating it. The ongoing repairs or fixing of the older frame and base of the ship with the newer equipment could be good for a few plotlines/background plots, too.

How about the captain being an old, but able commander, who nonetheless has not kept up to date with newer technology; he doesn’t expect the ship and the crew to be able to do many things, and this causes a lot of exasperation for his staff. You could have underlings (yay! I got to say underlings in a post!) who, because of his past, trust him absolutely, and so aren’t willing to see his difficulties with understanding new tech, as well as maybe middle-aged officers who aren’t too young to be awed by his stature, or too old to be like him.

24

The majority of the Romulan and Klingon Empires are located in the Beta Quadrant, as is a minority of the Federation, including our own solar system which is the line of demarcation between the two quadrants

25

That was in reply to anyrose, obviously.

26

oh

27

Well, our galaxy will just have to have five quadrants, that’s all. Epsilon Quadrant, we’ll call it.

I’ve actually come to believe over the years that there’s much more potential in long-term storytelling in Star Trek along the model of the TNG episode “Below Decks,” where we follow several junior officers. They are at the whims of their commanding officers, and their friendship is strained by orders not to reveal to their friends the secrets they know in their respective fields. They are disciplined and tested by the officer staff; they are sometimes up for promotion to the same position.

If I were inventing a Straight Dope Trek crew, I’d begin with the mid-level crew — ensigns and junior lieutenants and nurses and engineers, mostly — as we follow their careers and personal problems. We wouldn’t have to necessarily be privy to everything that’s going on so there would be some mystery. We wouldn’t see every diplomatic contact, or know everything about a race in the first episode we contact them. The best part about it is we can kill them and the ship doesn’t come to a crashing halt, like every single frickin’ time Picard was lost, captured, stunned, tipped over, kidnapped, absent, or off on some lame-brained Q adventure.

That’s just my opinion, though. I like the ideas apart from that, though. Do carry on. :slight_smile:

28

I’d like to remake Firefly with the Maquis.
Surely some survived other than those on Voyager.
If their cause was gone, they’d still be outlaws of a sort and have to make a living.

29

Well, yeah, I was a little harsh in saying they were extinct but whatever cells still exist are probably so small and few that they might as well be. If you still want to use the dissatisfied zealot approach, Bajor’s right on the other side of the wormhole.

Or, hell, use Cardassians themselves. After the beating they took, they’re going to want some revenge as well.

30

Ditto that. I may have read that detail in one of the tech manuals once upon a time, but I guess it never really registered. Hence the “Sector 001,” then, I suppose. So what’s up with that? Although there’s been plenty of shows that visit or at least make mention of the Klingon and Romulan Empires, I don’t recall much in the way of episodes talking about “the Beta Quadrant;” instead it’s always Alpha, Alpha, Alpha. Presumably Earth is the most Beta-ward member of the Federation, then. Sort of like a property line marker. That’s probably the first thing they teach you in starship navigation: “See all that space on the other side of Earth? Don’t go there.”

My little suggestion for a starship crew member would be a Medusan. I know in the original series they had to travel around in lunchboxes, but I figure by Next Generation-plus time, they ought to have an android-type exoskeleton that they can get around with. The exoskeleton would appear outwardly human, but would include discreet access panels and such for the actual creature to use if necessary. This character would simultaneously fill three classic niches that all Trek series must encounter sooner or later:

  1. An alien ‘outsider’ figure who must be tutored in what it means to be human-- or corporeal, I guess, in this case. Which leads nicely into:

  2. An amorphous energy being. And finally:

  3. A telepath.

If I recall correctly, Medusans were supposed to be brilliant theoreticians, so maybe one would be a good choice for Science Officer. Although the post wasn’t listed in the principal cast, another natural role would be as navigator, what with the Medusan faculty of absolute direction, so they’d always be certain not to stray into the Beta Quadrant by accident.

31

Yeah, but they wouldn’t be Maquising, they’d be Fireflying. :slight_smile:

32

Think of the Klingons and Romulans as the Russian and Ottoman Empires. Both were much more geographically Asian but were considered European by Western nations.

33

As far as starships go, you have to have at least one of the ships be ***Prometheus class

i also like the alternate perspective idea, perhaps have a 3 ship armada of a Galaxy/Soverign class, Prometheus Class and some Klingon vessel, maybe a B’Rel class BOP, a Vor’Cha, or a Negh’var class… a ship with the ability to cloak would be handy…

34

Those are all ships of the line and, except for the Galaxy, dreadnaughts or battleships. Not exactly a task force you would imagine exploring strange new worlds and seeking out new life and new civilizations.

If we’re going to do the multi-ship thing, I suggest we set the Alpha crew on an Ambassador Class vessel, have the Beta crew on a Nebula, and a Gamma crew on a Defiant Class. The Ambassador is the prototype Galaxy and would thus make a great flagship; the Nebula look to be updated Miranda class and are thus suited perfectly for scouting and/or science; the Defiant Class is there as an escort, which is what it is technically classified as; and they’re all sturdy and dependable classes without being state of the art.

If you really want the multigovernment aspect, though, replace the Defiant with a Klingon B’Rel and a Romulan Norexan. I’d suggest a D’deridex instead of the newer Norexan in keeping with the workhorse theme but those are just way too massive and could probably destroy all three of the other ships by itself. As much as I love Romulans, I wouldn’t allow them to have that large a tactical advantage considering their natural duplicitousness.

35

To make the most out of the three-vessel idea, I agree they all have to be different, but I’m not positive three Starfleet ships are sufficiently different to require crew to be transported from one vessel to another, or for a particular crewman to transfer under a different command, or whatever. With the three Starfleet ships you chose, what such reasons would there be for the crews to interact personally or exchange personnel?

36

They aren’t, really, but you’re not going to get much crew transfer between UFP, RSE, and KDF starships either. I have a very hard time imagining a subcenturion on a Bird of Prey or a bekk on a Warbird.

37

If the Galaxy isn’t a battleship/dreadnought type ship, what kind of ship is it, pray tell? The thing’s absolutley covered in phaser arrays, it has high-yield rapid-fire photon torpedo launchers fore-and-aft, etc. :slight_smile:

Of these three, the Nebula would be the flagship. It’s to the Galaxy what the Constitution was to the Miranda (and the Excelsior to the Centaur). Actually, the Nebula isn’t substantially smaller than the Galaxy; the engineering hull is mounted directly under the saucer, and the warp engines arc downward instead of upward. The superstructure is supposedly a modular mission pod type deal, and has been shown to mount a number of different attatchments on various variants of the Nebula class.

Ambassadors are never seen in large numbers, presumably they’re quite rare (probably built in only small numbers during the relatively quiet period between the Khitomer Peace Conferences and the Cardassian War). You’ll notice in TNG that Starfleet is full of Kirk/Sulu era starships, with very few newer designs, most of those which we do see seem to be very new, built on similar design concepts as the Galaxy class ships. It’s not until after the Borg show up that we begin to see any radically new starship designs in large numbers, and even those don’t really begin to show up until DS9/First Contact.

I’d say keep the show Fed-centered, but have some other A/B quadrant ships cruising around. The Romulans would have a hard time sneaking past DS9 to use the wormhole, but it’s possible they worked out some friendly deal to do some exploring/trading of their own. Also, the D’Deridex is a real bruiser of a starship, true, but it lacks the speed to keep up with Federation (and possibly Klingon) starships without damaging it’s warp drive. It can take down a Federation starship with a few shots, but Federation starships are more agile and have better weapons placement to take advantage of this (to this day, Starfleet seems to be the only force that equips it’s cruisers for broadside engagements).

38

Meant to say that it was to the Galaxy what the Miranda was to the Constitution, and the Centaur to the Excelsior. Got mixed up there.

39

It’s the definition of “multipurpose” so I’m hesitant to classify it as a battleship even though it is fully capable of defending itself and then some.

The Nebula is the more state of the art ship, yes, but I would still consider it below the Ambassador in the hierarchy of a task force because, based on the modularity you mentioned, it seems to be a mission specific ship whereas an Ambassador is obviously the prototype Galaxy, which is designed to be a flagship.

I’d prefer to keep it UFP-centric as well but everyone else is suggesting a coalition force so I threw in the Klingon and Romulan idea for them.

As for the D’deridex, it is only slightly slower than a Galaxy but still faster than the B’Rel, Nebula, and Ambassador and is more powerfully armed than all four. It would make mincemeat out of the B’Rel (which is basically a glorified fighter), defeat the Ambassador handily, and then take the Nebula out after only two or three rounds.

40

If there isn’t enough difference in them from a design standpoint, how about artificial limitations? There’s little point in creating three crews unless three ships can do things (and tell stories) that a single ship could not.

How much mileage is there to be got out of the idea of one particular ship’s computer being outfitted for maximum computer capacity? They are exploring an entirely new quadrant, after all; wouldn’t they need a vessel with as much ability to store new information as it could hold? They will be encountering new cultures, new languages, new diseases, new stellar phenomenon, new planets full of species, each culture with its own incompatible computer interfaces, so tons of new technology to analyze… perhaps one vessel would be fitted much more for advanced researchy type stuff and analysis rather than the same-old-same-old Alpha quadrant stuff found in the old memory core. Such a design philosophy could even begin to affect the character of the crew that manned that ship.

If we’re speaking of Trek triumvirates, why not emulate the best of all, the Kirk-Spock-McCoy triumvirate, in the three-ship delegation? A ship with an enhanced computer core could be the “Spock Ship” in that it is principally concerned with the future and contains the freshest and most exhaustive data they have yet found. Its limitation then becomes obvious: without its standard computer core it lacks the data to fully treat its mixed-species crew’s medical problems or recreational needs, and while armed, its information is valuable so it is generally not inclined to stand toe-to-toe for a prolonged pounding.

Thinking along those lines, the “McCoy Ship” would have all of the old computer core records, for the sharing of Alpha Quadrant culture with any new allies it meets. It would have the best facilities for food, medical, and creature comforts. It has more replicator patterns for useful and practical real-world stuff than the other ships. Such a ship would essentially be an island of Alpha Quadrant and might be more conservative, compassionate, and human-centric (as McCoy was).

The “Kirk Ship” would be the warrior vessel and the flagship, with plenty of extra computer space, containing backups of some of the “Spock Ship’s” data, and more capable of defending itself. It would be the ship that stayed behind to be captured by aliens and made to fight in a tournament, and would end up sleeping with that green girl with the go-go boots. Somehow, once per episode, the “Kirk Ship” would get its shirt ripped off. Okay, okay, I kid … but it would be the ship that holds the line if the other two need to run.

Perhaps such a division of character among the three ships would be easier to imagine first, then choose what models each should be.