# Your rules if you were the showrunner on a Star Trek series **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 19, 2016, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-rules-if-you-were-the-showrunner-on-a-star-trek-series/775136 "2016-12-19T15:30:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![ganthet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de0a6/32.png) [@ganthet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ganthet)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2016, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-rules-if-you-were-the-showrunner-on-a-star-trek-series/775136/41 "2016-12-20T23:00:37Z")
> [@Cartoonacy](#): > > Nah. This is my bugaboo with most modern television. Some shows – relatively few, IMHO – work well with “story arcs.” _Star Trek_ has never been one of them. Standalone episodes is the way to go. In the age of streaming and binge watching, full standalone seasons seem like they will be relegated to network shows. Viewers these days seem to want characters to have some kind of growth or change, particularly if it is due to some very momentous or traumatic event, that isn’t forgotten by the next episode. Voyager showed the pitfalls of trying to maintain characters and keep them interesting (even aside from maintaining an overall premise) in an almost entirely standalone format. If the entire season was standalone, they should have just made the show a complete anthology show instead of merely being potentially season-to-season anthologies. ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2016, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-rules-if-you-were-the-showrunner-on-a-star-trek-series/775136/42 "2016-12-20T23:32:19Z")
> [@GargoyleWB](#): > > Let’s ditch focusing on Starfleet as the central setting. Let’s see how the Romulans explored their wedge of the galaxy, for example. I’d be more interested in seeing what the Cardassians have been up to lately. You could call it… wait for it… “Keeping Up With The Cardassians”! Thank you I’ll be here all week. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-rules-if-you-were-the-showrunner-on-a-star-trek-series/775136/43 "2016-12-21T00:32:22Z")
Standalone episodes are anachronistic, and, frankly, I want to see Trek done in the modern style of storytelling, with continuity and character arcs and, y’know, decisions that actually _matter_ because they exist in a Universe with cause-and-effect chains instead of a big Reset Button posed ever-so-obviously at the end of each tiny little episode. We have multiple series’ worth (American series, not British series: TOS was _one series_ with _three seasons_.) of episodic or mostly-episodic or, even, overly-episodic Trek. The whole structure is stale. That’s why it’s relegated to shows on dinosaur media. So. Give us Trek with long-form stories with tight plotting and continuity for both characters and setting. If the intrepid crew discovers a miracle cure in Week Seven, it damned well exists on Weeks Eight through whenever; figuring out it isn’t a miracle is a good plot, forgetting you ever saw the thing the next time you encounter a serious illness is not. That is usually considered basic storytelling, and the fact it’s suddenly controversial is indicative of how bizarre the episodic zero-continuity style really is. I agree that Trek is best when it’s character-driven, and it is at its absolute best when the command crew is composed of a small number of clashing personalities. The Bones-Kirk-Spock power trio is practically Id-Ego-Superego in that order. Work with that. Do _something_ to ensure a good portion of the conflict is thoughtful discussion among people who all want what’s best but who have different ideas of what the best is. That is a very humanistic, optimistic way to introduce conflict into a story, and optimism and humanism are what Trek should be about. Similarly, make the outside antagonists into beings to be understood and reasoned with to the greatest extent possible. Sometimes, it won’t be, but that should be a decision of last resort. You know what the most Trek of the TOS episodes was? “The Devil in the Dark”. It was more of a mystery than a fist-fight, even though there was fighting, and, in the end, the solution was reason and reconciliation instead of blowing up an evil computer. If you want to solve problems with bombs more than words, go write for Star Wars. Having the crew figure out natural anomalies is also a good structure: Man vs Nature is one of the oldest and most fertile grounds to come back to, and it fits the Intrepid Explorer concept to a tee. Finally, give other crewmembers an existence beyond being red-shirts. Red-shirts are cheap and expendable, and turn what should be the hardest part of command into a running joke. If the death didn’t mean anything, it damned well shouldn’t have happened. If you want cheap deaths, I’m sure some slasher reboot is hiring. It shouldn’t be Game Of Thrones, because that’s tonally wrong, but space exploration is dangerous, people are at risk of death, and the lower-ranking crewmembers will be at the greatest risk because they, get this, _do more exploring_. The better actors, the ones in the command crew, are best used for arguments about what to do about an away team in serious trouble. Leading from the front is noble, but there’s real drama to be mined from malfunctioning communicators and a team that’s suddenly out of reach. Besides, having the main trio do literally everything was a cost-saving measure to cut down on extras, and don’t pretend otherwise. So, yes, I really want a modernized, bigger-budget TOS, an exploration-oriented show with a lot of focus on new life and new civilizations, and relatively less on combat with established enemies or pure political maneuvering. ---
**Author:** ![Rocketeer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocketeer/32/4437_2.png) [@Rocketeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rocketeer)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-rules-if-you-were-the-showrunner-on-a-star-trek-series/775136/44 "2016-12-21T00:42:03Z")
I agree with the “no time travel” crowd… …but what I’d really like to see is a series set in the Mirror Universe. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-rules-if-you-were-the-showrunner-on-a-star-trek-series/775136/45 "2016-12-21T00:50:01Z")
One thing I would like to see is for them to take one of the concepts of higher dimensions and create hyperdimensional creatures that are on the same - or nearly the same - power level as the crew. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-rules-if-you-were-the-showrunner-on-a-star-trek-series/775136/46 "2016-12-21T01:01:27Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Torpedoes OTOH, are way more destructive, but presumably limited in some scope versus phasers. My understanding was that they’re anti-matter bombs, charged from the ship’s anti-matter pods and thus constrained by the ship’s reserves. IIRC, a novelization of the episode _Balance of Terror_ said that when the Romulans set out to test the Federation’s defenses they were astonished that the Enterprise could afford to blindly fire multiple photon torpedo barrages. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-rules-if-you-were-the-showrunner-on-a-star-trek-series/775136/47 "2016-12-21T01:24:38Z")
Every Federation starship to include an officer-level Master Cheesemaker as part of the permanent bridge crew. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-rules-if-you-were-the-showrunner-on-a-star-trek-series/775136/48 "2016-12-21T01:41:54Z")
> [@Shoeless](#): > > “Keeping Up With The Cardassians”! > Thank you I’ll be here all week. That episode where Gul Dukat finally gets a sex change finally explained a lot to me. ---
**Author:** ![Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-rules-if-you-were-the-showrunner-on-a-star-trek-series/775136/49 "2016-12-21T02:14:10Z")
> [@bump](#): > > No… I think you’re missing his point. What he’s saying is the equivalent of saying that if you are expecting to engage in combat, you do some smart precautions- evacuate the air, wear space suits/body armor, seal the compartments, shut down the food replicators, turn down the lights, have everyone go to their battle stations and do their battle jobs, etc… All measures to get people in the right places, conserve energy and air and thereby enable the ship to fight more effectively. If it was a military crew I’d agree with you. But as much as Starfleet likes to use naval terms, starships are not military vessels. (If they were, they would be seriously undergunned. What war vessel has ONE cannon?) The casual changing of position as crewmembers go to Battle Stations is all you get. They don’t even have hatches, fer crissakes. They rely on force fields in case of a hull breach. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-rules-if-you-were-the-showrunner-on-a-star-trek-series/775136/50 "2016-12-21T15:07:02Z")
> [@Barbarian](#): > > If it was a military crew I’d agree with you. > > But as much as Starfleet likes to use naval terms, starships are not military vessels. (If they were, they would be seriously undergunned. What war vessel has ONE cannon?) > The casual changing of position as crewmembers go to Battle Stations is all you get. > > They don’t even have hatches, fer crissakes. They rely on force fields in case of a hull breach. Here’s what’s stupid about the “Starfleet is not military” idea. They ARE military. They have military ranks, miltary command structure, military discipline, armed starships, and most importantly, they do the fighting when the Federation needs to fight. They also engage in gunboat diplomacy/“showing the flag”. They are pretty much the very definition of armed forces. Just because they have a significant non-combat mission, that doesn’t preclude them from being a military organization. It’s like saying that because the National Guard primarily does disaster relief and similar things in peacetime, that they’re not military, because they only fight when brought into Federal service. People would roll their eyes at that because… they ARE military. And people should roll their eyes at the notion that Starfleet is not military for the same reason. Even our Navy has unarmed ships of various types, so that’s not an automatic disqualification from being a military organization. I’m somewhat willing to buy into the forcefields instead of hatches notion, but I do think that going to battle stations should be a pretty drastic thing, especially if they expect to face combat and have a little time to prepare. I can see it being an ad-hoc sort of thing if it’s a surprise thing though. ---
**Author:** ![AtomicDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@AtomicDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AtomicDog)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-rules-if-you-were-the-showrunner-on-a-star-trek-series/775136/51 "2016-12-21T16:48:23Z")
A perfect example of point 3 is “Plato’s Stepchildren”. McCoy develops a serum that gives humans superpowers. And then it’s never mentioned again. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-rules-if-you-were-the-showrunner-on-a-star-trek-series/775136/52 "2016-12-21T17:07:20Z")
Let’s see. I’ll piggyback off the OP. The three introduced in the OP but modified: 1. NO TIME TRAVEL AT ALL. It’s a stupid plot device that isn’t well used 99% of the time in this series or any other TV series or movie or book. Just forget it. 2. No new human/klingon, human/vulcan vulcan/kilingon etc. hybrids. I cannot argue with this. The number of available species is plenty enough to create interesting characters and interpersonal dynamics. 3. DON’T invest some newfangled technical way out of every problem. Ever. Never, ever, ever should the chief engineer say “oh gosh we can fix the problem by sweeping the ship with dafuqutrons.” Any technical solution must involve known technical elements of a Federation spacecraft in the lifetime of James Kirk: Warp engines, transporters, phasers, proton torpedoes, limited matter replication ability, energy shields. That’s it. If anything new is introduced, it has to be a secondary matter to some other difficultly involved in implementing it. I also like some of MrDibble’s ideas: 1. At least one alien lifeform that is not just a human with makeup. 2. Use of spacesuits. As to the “Starfleet is not a military” I kind of like the idea that Starfleet SAYS it isn’t a military yet it obviously is. So my point #6: **6. The fact that Starfleet claims to not be a military but obviously is a military should be a plot device.** The Federation is full of shit; they claim they come in peace, but their ships are rather well armed. Enterprise is literally a “Constitution-class heavy cruiser.” “Heavy cruiser” is a military term. Nobody calls a fishing boat a “heavy cruiser.” They wear uniforms and have ranks and are responsible for the defense of the Federation. So they’re a military, _and yet politically they try to pretend that’s not true._ That cultural, institutional doublethink is fascinating, if done right. They’re telling the citizens and themselves “we’re super peaceful” but are perpetually at war with someone or other and go everywhere armed to the teeth. ---
**Author:** ![spifflog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@spifflog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spifflog)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-rules-if-you-were-the-showrunner-on-a-star-trek-series/775136/53 "2016-12-21T17:53:22Z")
Ensure that command of Starfleet’s flagship isn’t given to a first semester college freshman. I mean there must be thousands (tens of thousands??) of Star Fleet Officers right? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-rules-if-you-were-the-showrunner-on-a-star-trek-series/775136/54 "2016-12-21T18:14:33Z")
> [@Mr\_Shine](#): > > If you were in charge of the next iteration of _Star Trek_ what would be your bright-line rules, that you would force into the series? > > 1. No deliberate time travel by any creature, including godlike entities. Time travel stories featuring an explicitly unreproducable anomaly are OK. > > 2. If some kind of new thing gets developed within an episode that would be hugely useful in every future episode, find some lampshade to hang as to why it’s never used again. Don’t just completely ignore it. 1 & 3, yes. No talking about why this present time is so backwards and barbaric. If I have to listen to Picard declaiming how stupid and evil we “were” I will harf. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-rules-if-you-were-the-showrunner-on-a-star-trek-series/775136/55 "2016-12-21T18:19:23Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > The reason why ToS resonated with the fans is because of the interaction of the characters. Above all else make it about the characters… Yes. And get some veterans in there, some de Forrest Kellys and James Doohan’s. Stop with all the young kids. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-rules-if-you-were-the-showrunner-on-a-star-trek-series/775136/56 "2016-12-21T18:22:33Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > And of course bring back the miniskirt uniforms. Yes!😃 ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-rules-if-you-were-the-showrunner-on-a-star-trek-series/775136/57 "2016-12-21T18:24:29Z")
> [@Helena330](#): > > No miniskirts. Let’s not go backward on equality in Trek. In ST:TNG they had a couple of crewmen running around in something very close to the miniskirt. And in a climate controled environment, why cover your body entirely with polyester? Why not shorts or kilts? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-rules-if-you-were-the-showrunner-on-a-star-trek-series/775136/58 "2016-12-21T18:31:55Z")
> [@Barbarian](#): > > If it was a military crew I’d agree with you. > > But as much as Starfleet likes to use naval terms, starships are not military vessels. (If they were, they would be seriously undergunned. What war vessel has ONE cannon?) > The casual changing of position as crewmembers go to Battle Stations is all you get. > . The Enterprise has multiple Phaser banks. ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-rules-if-you-were-the-showrunner-on-a-star-trek-series/775136/59 "2016-12-21T19:33:46Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > That episode where Gul Dukat finally gets a sex change finally explained a lot to me. You mean species change? He became a Bajoran in DS9’s last season. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-rules-if-you-were-the-showrunner-on-a-star-trek-series/775136/60 "2016-12-21T19:55:35Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > The Enterprise has multiple Phaser banks. And photon torpedoes, too. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-rules-if-you-were-the-showrunner-on-a-star-trek-series/775136.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-rules-if-you-were-the-showrunner-on-a-star-trek-series/775136.md?page=4)