Excellent idea, shifts. but would you want three eight hour watches?
Fish,
I don’t see how my idea of a diplomatic envoy ship would result in the “forehead of the week” syndrome. Because these foreheads wouldn’t go away, they’ll be around week after week.
Story ideas:
Imagine there was some kind of emergency that incapacitated most of the crew and you had to use some of the aliens in crucial positions. Especially tense if the aliens were technologically behind the Federation by centuries. “Dammit! I said the green button!”
Lots of opportunity to show a multi-faceted culture beyond the Klingons=warlike, Ferengi=money-grubbing. As we get to know the personalities of the ambassadors.
I usually come to be bored with pinnochio charactors. Why not a reverse-pinochio? A human who has made it his life goal to be more Cardassian than Cardassians.
Perhaps an alien religious leader/missionary who over a season wins many converts, not with the obvious story arc of it all being evil/hoax, just showing how some folks in the deep void of empty space find comfort in the supernatual. charactors grow and change, this would be one way to write how some charactors grow apart who were previously bonded.
Still leaves us the freedom to do the one-off episodes, but it gives us a reason to be out there and it is different than previous shows.
No, as I understand it, only Army personnel have batmen, and they are servants. A Yeoman is Fleet, & acts as a Secretary +.
Personally, I see plenty of opportunity for overlap, but only because on every major set we can have at least two of our people there. Any combination of them could be called on an away team, especially the nurse (#5) and the shuttle pilot/engineer (#7); the Helm/Ops guy (#3) Tactical Guy (#2) could be found in Engineering helping out; the genius from Astroengineering (#4) would work a lot with Computer/Sensor Guy (#7).
We could go with your system where there is a lot of overlap, as you suggest. I fear that it wouldn’t give us a very complete glimpse of what any one mission is about, unless they were strategically deployed to be in the right places on the ship to find stuff out. Any idea how that could be done?
Either that, or with the format I have, give the characters a wider variety of duties to create more overlap.
Are you saying the Security Chief shouldn’t be a major character, Bosda? I’m not saying he should be. The only thing I want a Sec Chief for is as A Place Where Orders Come From. Something to give our characters duties, someone to discipline them, etc; he’s just a motivating force (as are most of the command crew). As you say, a Redshirt would do just fine for that, but at least he needs a name and a basic personality in my view.
I do like the idea of somebody who has the captain’s ear, whether it’s a particular officer, a counselor, or a friend like Dr Crusher or Guinan. Would we learn too much about the plot this way and do we like the mystery? Or maybe we need this character to flesh out things we couldn’t learn otherwise?
I think the writers learned to give Picard people to talk to because he was one of their stronger, more interesting characters. Do we want to be that understanding of the captain? I think it’d just make it harder to kill him off. 
Enterprise D had Alpha, Beta and Gamma shifts until Captain Jellico (Ronnie Cox) came in and changed things up for “Chain of Command.” He added Delta shift. Dunno if that means eight hour shifts or not. I just figured to have somebody on the bridge occasionally when important stuff happens.
I was responding to the notion that the ship would pick up new passengers every episode or two. I still believe it will be difficult to discourage a long line of very similar episodes (“oh, look at this mysterious new stranger!”) and it would be very hard to maintain continuity when the cast is so fluid.
Yes, it would pick up new people several episodes early on, but they would stay, and become regulars, as oppsed to just disappearing never to heard from again. This would be the oppisite of “fluid” I think (not referring to the dominion ).
It was also my thought that the civilian senior Star Fleet personel would outrank the captain, good chance for conflict and tension.
I must confess I’ve only seen the first couple of episodes of season one Deep Space 9, no Voyager and no Enterprise, so I’m aware that I’ve missed alot of backstory. For instance, I have no idea who or what the Maqui are/were.
Hey, I’m just throwing out ideas. Maybe they can be combined.
If it’s just a few additions at the start of the season, that changes things, and it’s worth discussing what it can add to the concept. The idea as you presented it was mainly about the interaction of the different species, finding ways to get them to live on the ship in their own preferred (and incompatible) environments, the social and engineering challenges therein. What blows up? Can’t have Star Trek unless something gets blow’d up real good.
Can you think of a way to incorporate the idea of having one or two of our main characters be on an abassadorial staff, or as part of the actual alien ambassadorial retinue?
I don’t mean to take the role of Executive Producer here, but we do have a tendency to meander… just trying to keep generating discussion topics. I’m not really tied to any particular idea I’ve put forth if it doesn’t fit.
Okay, I’m back. It took me a while to read through all the messages and mull over all the opinions & contributions. Here’s my own feedback on how it’s shaping up:
- The multi-ship focus: As several folks have opined, the hunted/hunter/hunter set-up might be a bit unweildly to sustain over more than a few episodes. But I still like the idea of a multi-ship taskforce. So let me modify it: we can toss out the idea of the Maquis. Instead, let’s say that the Federation is embarking on a new exploration of the Gamma Quadrant, but is sending out a multi-race / multi-ship taskforce. We still have three ships - one (the primary ship) is a Starfleet vessel with a primarily human crew. Another is a primarily Vulcan crew. The third is a Klingon ship. Thus, the three crews can interact with each other and work together. Being primarily a Starfleet mission, the Vulcan & Klingon ships are expected to defer to the Starfleet ‘flagship’s’ captain, but the human captain can sometimes have his order vetoed by the other ship captains.
Occasionally, one or two ships can break away from the convoy to explore some particular region and experience a ‘solo’ adventure. In those instances, one or two representatives from the other ships will be present on board the solo ship to represent the other races. For example, the Vulcan ship might split off from the main convoy to explore some space phenomenon while the Human & Klingon ship are busy making first contact with a new planet. A representative human & klingon will be aboard the Vulcan ship in order to represent their race’s POV during whatever adventure the Vulcan ship experiences.
The dynamic for the series will not simply be a Starfleet crew encountering the ‘alien species of the week’, but the constant squabbling between the three opposing viewpoints on how best to handle these situations. Think of it as Freud’s conscience mind - the Vulcans are the superego, the klingons the id, and the humans the mediating ego.
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The Dominion as the collapsed Soviet Union: I like this idea, and think it could work. Our convoy is exploring new worlds, making contact with new races, but also find itself smack in the middle of abrupt territorial wars and racial conflicts. It reflects modern times and provides plenty of dramatic situations.
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The lower decks: I gotta say, this doesn’t sound like it would work as the main focus of the show. As the “Lower Decks” episode demonstrated, the problem is that these characters are not in decision-making capacities, and are often not entirely in the know about the situations the ship(s) deal with. I don’t think a series of episode after episode with the main characters being ordered to perform minor tasks and wondering about what’s going on on the flight deck would be interesting. It’d work as a subplot, perhaps an episode or two a year, but not every week. That’s why I would opt to have one main character be an ensign, getting his first assignments on the bridge, and learning the ropes. Every so often, a show can focus on him interacting with crew-members of his rank from down below the bridge, but not every week.
That said, let me reiterate a (revised) schematic for the prinicipal cast:
Captain (of the flagship)
Vulcan ship captain
Klingon ship captain
first officer
science officer
chief medical officer
chief engineer
chief of security
ensign
The crews of the Vulcan & Klingon ships will remain sketchy at first, at least until we get a year of solid episodes featuring the flagship players down. The important characters from those ships early on are the captains, who will often clash with the human captain (our primary hero) and each other.
So to sum up: the Starfleet vessel “USS StraightDope”, led by a human Captain Cecil Adams, is leading a major exploration of unchartered areas in the Gamma Quadrant. Aside from being unknown territory, the Gamma Quadrant is a volatile, anarchic region of space in the wake of the Dominion’s collapse. Captain Adams not only has to successfully navigate & chart the region, but he must constantly moderate between the Vulcan & Klingon emissaries who are just as often at each others’ throats as they are dealing with hostile new aliens. As an ongoing subplot(s), the interaction between crew-members among the three ships are a frequent source of soap operatic friction.
And as wisely suggested, the following over-used elements will not appear in our series:
- Holodecks
- Time travel
- Re-set buttons
- deflector dish used as a Deus ex machina problem solver
- the overused-to-death Borg
- Pinnochio stories (I really, really, really WISH I were a human being!!)
As regards whether the lower decks will work or not as a principal focus, I agree that it’s something of a guess on my part. I imagine we’d see them promoted to bridge officers over the course of the show, as we kill off… er… well, yeah, kill off the existing command structure. I see much more opportunity for character growth here, of a kind we haven’t seen before. In support of the idea, they needn’t always be in the dark during every episode, but there would be stories where that would be convenient; they’re the ones who do the hard work so they’d see quite a lot. (Besides, Trek has a terrible, terrible habit of not delegating. That’s why you have a crew, Cap’n. Like the chief doctor goes down to the planet on every single mission just in case. Like the chief science officer has nothing better to do than personally accompany the captain everywhere he goes. Bah!)
There’s still not much to recommend the “ship far away from home with no command structure,” because that was Voyager’s schtick; and the “adventure around in space” has been done by TOS and TNG. Even the multi-ship thing would get extremely tiresome if it were the only fresh thing on the menu.
Apart from the multi-ship task force, which does earn us a few points for originality, what is really unique about the presentation here, except that we see aliens we haven’t seen before? We get involved in politics we hadn’t seen before? Oh yeah, and the starfield in the background is different stars. 
- Q
Who said it would be the only fresh thing on the menu?
We’re just starting out. Let’s see where we go.
Should we then have a divide between the “experts”, as in the Captain/Commander, the Cheif Science Officer, and the chief Medical officer, and some kind of “exploratory” crew who are more get go, but have less autority?
No. No Neelixes.
I like this idea since it is basically a reworking of my idea of defense, science, and administrative ships but I’m not sure I agree with a wholly Vulcan ship in addition to a Starfleet vessel since they’re both representative of the Federation. How about we make the Starfleet captain a Vulcan (we’ve not had an alien captain in any of the series yet) and make the science ship something else? Not sure what race we could easily insert into that role, though.
As self-appointed director of continuity, I really object to this idea. It’s just not believable. The Dominion would no more collapse from the Dominion War than Russia would from the splintering of the Soviet Union. The inertia from 2,000 years of rule is just too strong and, I must reiterate, they lost a war of aggression to powers on the other side of the galaxy. Their sphere of influence was never challenged in the Gamma Quadrant.
I like this idea and wouldn’t mind a couple ensigns under this system but ask we not allow them to be a Wesley or Harry. No ensigns on the senior staff, please.
Can we rename the ship to Adams as suggested previously in the thread? It pays homage to Cecil, Douglas, and even John and John Quincy if that is your bent, plus it just sounds more believable as a starship’s name and I would personally prefer an alien captain or, at least, a wholly non-anglo. Every captain we’ve had has either been American or English masquerading as French. We need some real diversity here.
Nobody has — but so far, the multi-ship task force is really all we have, especially if Aesiron throws out the collapse of the Dominion and Art throws out the junior officers.
We can’t play the three-ships note every episode or it will become dull, therefore I ask, what is unique about our show? As nearly as I can tell, the three ships are doing exactly what one ship would normally do on its own, and we’ve seen that in four different series.
Maybe combine the two of them, then? Maybe like TOS with the three most senior officers and the rest of the crew being junior officers or enlisted but with as much, if not more, focus on the grunts than the Captain and Executive Officers?
Humbly beg to differ with Aesiron. Russia didn’t need to collapse for the Soviet empire to break apart and history to start back up where it left off. You can have a weakened Dominion in the background. Admittedly, I didn’t catch much of the end days of DS9, but can’t we have them lose control of the Jem’hadar and therefore their ability to project power, or poison the well of their home ocean in some way …
The reverse Pinnochio hasn’t been done since Spock, and having it be a hard as nails but human appearing Klingon (and an animalistically sexually attractive one at that) is a whole different take, as is having it be a human that loathes humanity trying to become better adapted for deep space (and who is gladly giving up aspects of Terran form and function in the bargain). And the Jem’hadar trying to create a cultural identity independent of the Founders is a different take too that is not an either-or with the two others.
It was asked earlier who controls the other side of the wormhole. Perhaps one goal of this mission is to lay the groundwork for joint station on the other side, an uneasy negotiated joint mission, with little trust and perhaps rightly so. I’d agree to keeping the Vulcans as Federation, but how about a Cardassian ship? That ship could have its own agenda that we are unclear about. (Perhaps to find a way to resurrect the Jem’hadar under their control?) Do Klingons and Cardassians have any history of conflicts? A Vulcan captain is fine but viewers won’t particularly identify with him/her. It means that the POV gets shifted to a first officer as our main heroic figure, a human who is loyal to his captain but who actually manages the personalities of the ship for him. And the grunts’ reactions to a cold logical captain who doesn’t quite grasp their emotional distrust of the other ships in the flotilla and who holds his/her cards close to the vest. Does the captain suspect that the other ships are negotiating on their own? Are they? Are the other ships secretly fostering some of the strife that is encountered or are those suspicions unfounded? They have no Prime Directive concerns and there’s a lot of stuff they can stir up. Stuff that can double back and bite them too.
Character driven we were told! Get a complement of interesting backstories together and then design the ship to fit them.
What kind of doctor? How about a Bajoran? Deeply religious and privately prays for his/her patients. Open for discussion between a Vulcan captain who is well versed in philosophy and logic but has no God concept and an intelligent believer. No one ever wins the debates they have and they gradually develop respect for each others positions. The Bajoran helps provide some insights to how certain cultures religious views are being used in the conflicts they get drawn into.
Cardassians ended up kicking Jem’Hadar butt like everyone else. ^ :dubious: ^
Good idea, though. Too bad Gul Dukat is toast.
Their well has already been poisoned but they survived and no, you can’t have them losing control of the Jem’ Hadar as their very existance depends on K-White manufactured by the Dominion and they are literally programmed to view the Founders as Gods. It’s just not going to happen because they lost one war.
Because of this and because they are nothing more than warriors (again, literally programmed to be only that), I would advise against any sort of Jem’ Hadar protagonist. They’re Star Trek’s stormtroopers for the most part.
Yeah, they do, and it’s very recent. The Klingons were at war with the Cardassians right before the Dominion annexed them so they’ve been at each others’ throats for four or more years. At this point even a Romulan ship would probably be more welcome by the Klingons.
The problem is I can’t think of a good idea for the third ship. We need a science minded species that could play off both the Klingons and the Federation and are at a somewhat similar strength. But who? I can’t think of any species that fits that bill.
I really like these ideas.
Aeserion, even Borg were able to break off … but I defer to your greater Trek knowledge. No Jem’hadar character. (Unless … Maybe an episode where some creatures produced Jem’Hadar and K-White on a seperate planet in order to try to re-program them for themselves and it went wrong such that the Jem’hadar were able to produce their own K-White and killed off their new masters. No technology or culture and not able to get off that planet. Never seen a Founder. Ignorant that they exist other than as a mythology. Found by our flotilla who argue over what to do with them. Are they so aggressive by nature, so dangerous that they must be destroyed? Let alone? What?)
Cardissians and Vulcans both being on the mission as part of this negotiated settlement over the GQ which is part of a broader tentative ceasefire … this can work! Puts the Federation ship in the middle between two very antagonistic species, with our Vulcan captain playing them off of each other at times like Nixon’s Kissenger did with China and Russia. Hatred of each other keeps them both sucking up to the Federation ship, which is trying to get a cooperative project going. Cardassians can do science, but a Cardissian science ship is also armed to the gills.
The Episode of meeting our human-becoming-nonhuman-space-creature:
Federation ship detects a ship orbiting close to dangerous radiation source and detect a very faint human lifesign, heartrate down to 3/min, virtually no oxygen in the ship. they try to tractor it aboard but in so doing it begins to break apart and they beam the occupant aboard. Turns out that he had genetically re-engineered himself to exist in this environment and to go into near-death hibernation and that his ship would’ve been just fine. Now he’s stuck without a ship, hates other humans, the Federation, society at large, and now these ones in particular. But he’s stuck without a ship and has to live on board until they can get to a place to drop him off. For some reason on the way he decides to become their guide, perhaps in return for a private workspace and materials to further develop his adaptations to solitary living in deepspace … for each of his deep space adaptations he loses something that it is a Terran adaptation … his vision is now adapted for deep space radiation but is less good at visible light spectra. Things like that.
I have no real opinion on the ūbermensch idea.
Pretty much. DS9 did an episode where Quark found a baby Jem’ Hadar and it was found that it could not integrate with an alien culture. The only way I could see a Jem’ Hadar being a main character is if a Founder specifically told one that it must serve onboard one of our ships and provided the crew with enough Ketracel White to keep it living for an indeterminate length of time but that seems unlikely.
Hm. This could possibly work if we make the Cardassian ship almost purely scientific and have it there over the Klingons’ objections. It would also give the people wanting panda a prime opportunity because Cardassian society is stratified – the men typically control the military whereas the women are usually the scientists.
I have just one observation about it.
If the character is (like Spock) half-human and wishes to remain distinct, it is a character best suited to a show full of one-off episodes like TOS. Spock made no character journey of note throughout the series; every show ended with Spock as precisely the same character as he started. Only by the end of the sixth movie has he accepted his human half to any degree; that’s one slow character arc.
If the character begins human and slowly becomes other-than, it signifies a journey. How fast that journey is will dictate how hard it will be to maintain continuity, but he needn’t progress in every single episode. His could be one of several intertwining character threads.
I prefer the idea of characters who make journeys over the course of the season to static characters who budge only a few inches by accident (and usually when the authors need to shoehorn in some new backstory). This is one reason I like the junior officers idea; the bridge crew on TNG and TOS were cloyingly static and made no real journeys as characters.
The former character requires almost no attention to serial continuity, since you’ll know he’s the same in show #79 as in show #1. (Well, okay, technically, Kirk wasn’t, but still. :D) The latter character requires more work and attention to continuity, but it is the basis for the character-driven serial storyline I think we’re gunning for.