ST would have burned out anyway?

[Hades]

They could have done a real "Birth of the Federation" series, with the Romulan War and its aftermath. .

By mine and my friends rekoning this should actually start in about Season 3 or 4 (based on the dates in My Star trek Fact files things)
In all fairness They couldnt just start the first season going straight into a war. You need to introduce the Characters, the political cirumstances before the war etc....

I think we will definatly see a better "Enterprise" from season 3

[RadiO]

At the beginning I never particularly saw Enterprise as ST. And that was a good thing, because it suggested that this show would be fundementally different.
I mean; here we have a ship, low-tech and more or less defenseless, with what is really a civilian crew. They're not going into space primarily to defend Earth, or perform military missions; they're there to explore. They're inexperienced, and they come up against disturbing situations that stay with them. They're not the highly-trained, perfect officers we see in TOS and onward; they're human, they feel fear and other negative emotions, and they're making it all up as they go along. They're the pioneers, with all the positives and negatives that position brings.
So this series could have been fantastic. Remember in episode 2, they go onto a derilict starship, and they're edgy about the whole situation, and then they're shit-scared by what they find - I loved it. That was human, it fitted the situation of the new crew perfectly and it was so different from anything we saw on previous Trek series.
And yet... Quickly Enterprise became Just Another New-Trek Series. They upgraded the ship so they could stand on their own two feet instead of, say, using guile, skill or luck to merely survive (as they did in the first episodes). The characters quickly became seasoned space explorers, blase about the things they were seeing; which was probably realistic, but destroyed at a stroke Enterprise's most interesting aspect; that everything these people see is new. The episodes themselves were generally amiable, but nothing like unique; being more-or-less directly interchangable with previous ST series.
Enterprise became something I'd seen before many times, and I lost interest round about episode 10.
And now there's all this Massive Space War Bollocks, constructed purely to grab ratings. Earth's first starship and its crew of explorers are going to become a dreadnought with a command staff hardened by war. That's really fresh.
If Enterprise had no connection with ST, it would still be a disappointment (IMO), because of the interesting possibilities were squandered in the mad rush to make this crew (and the series) just like every ST and TV SF show ever.

[Darth Fanboy]

YOu know this paritcularly great author had an idea over in fanfics called

STAR TREK: UNTAMED SPACE

where a small group of criminals (like Cowboy Bebop except the wrong side of the law, and the charcters are really evil in a evil sort of way) run about the galaxy in a ship called the Forsake, which is kinda like the Millenium Falcon except bigger nd ful of Treknology.

these 3 people go around kidnapping Federation officers for ransom, looting convoys, and most of they time they make a hefty profit in Romulan ale smuggling.

[kmart]

End of 23rd century would be a dynamite period to explore in trek, as their is still a feeling of frontier present. Ideally an Ent-B series, where the ship and captain win back their honor after the humiliation of that first trip out when they lost Kirk.

You could even show pioneering developments and experimental failures of stuff that would catch on later in NextGen era (more likely to have holodeck fuckups when it is in prototype form than when it is installed on a starship IMO), but more importantly, the characters are more interesting and the ships -- exterior and interior -- are more interesting-looking than the stuff that comes later.

I think they've done about 350 too many eps of trek, but that is because they were doing the wrong ones (because they had the wrong people doing them), not because all the stories are used up. I'd happily throw away all of enterprise and voyager and most of NextGEn and the ferengi stuff from ds9.

[neoolong]

I don't think a tv show about straight criminals would work. If they're evil, then the audience won't really feel any emotional attachment for them to survive and be interested in their exploits. They wouldn't want to watch.

[Baron Mordo]

It works for The Sopranos.

[kmart]

It works for SOPRANOS because there is a rich pre-existing history (both real and cinematic) to draw upon, plus because the creative forces involved are at the top of their game (and they only have to do 13 a year!) Setting up the backstory for that kind of thing in an SF universe would take a DUNE-sized prologue and lose most of the audience right off the bat.

You'll probably never get somebody at Chase's level writing for Trek anyway ... there's no incentive ... why play in a universe that is so constricted and restricted and messed up and shat upon, when you can avoid the mistakes as well as TPTB by doing something new?

Best you could hope for in that direction would be a privateer show, somebody eking out a living in the grey areas legally and ethically, the cracks in the system. This is the concept which I played with myself for awhile and I used to jokingly call it MAGNUM IN SPACE, though Whedon trumped me by doing FIREFLY, which is even better (except for some science) than I could ever have dreamed in terms of executing the concept. You could do a similar thing in trek using the weirdo characters like Yar's sister and Ro ... trouble is that they killed most of those folks off (Eddington, Cal Hudson, Dukat.)

[neoolong]

It works for The Sopranos.

Yeah, but they're evil, not EVIL as in kill your cat evil like suggested.

[Admiral Johnason]

Well, the only logical palce to take trek now would be into the 25th century and have some Vong type enemy come in and have a full war series. They should at least have one of the major member planets of the Federation being wiped out. Maybe Mars or Vulcan, or even Earth itself.

That would be something to show the fans.

[Superman]

I think that they should give it a rest, fire B & B, and pick it up in a few or more years. Maybe the new series could take place in the DS9/Voyager era and have more to do with exploration of completely unkown places. Not like Voyager, where alpha quadrant aliens seemed to still show up, but totally new places. Maybe run into aliens and empires that are much more powerful.

[Admiral Johnason]

Sumerman, exploration episdoes have been done to death. You would only be redoing the same chiched plot over again. another war drama could make up a totally new story line and give the fans more spacebattles.

[kmart]

It works for The Sopranos.

Yeah, but they're evil, not EVIL as in kill your cat evil like suggested.

Have you WATCHED the show? Kick your pregnant girfriend to death, etc.

I don't think in terms of 'evil' since that gives the idea that making the wrong choice a kind of supernatural or religious excuse, but if I did, pretty much all of the Sopranos regularly would qualify.

Even the wife, for turning a blind eye to EVERYthing, is pretty vile. You wind up thinking that Furio guy is noble since by comparison, he demonstrates some higher qualities (quits rather than sleeping with the boss' wife), but he is still a cold-blooded killer.

Just cuz they eat pasta and have good taste in movies doesn't make them any less vile, simply more palatable to the viewer (and so much more credit to the writers for maintaining that balancing act.)

[Patrick Ogaard]

Sci-Fi sitcoms don't exactly have a long history. I think Red Dwarf is the most famous one that comes to mind. I can't even think of any others.

What, you've already forgotten good old Captain Quark, with his pet man-eating amoeba, a humanoid vegetable as a first officer, and a pilot/navigator pair of bombshell blondes constantly arguing about who's the clone and who's the original?

Picking up the trash of the galaxy in an interstellar garbage truck was never funnier.

[Peregrin Toker]

And there's your problem, folks. Even if it was completely unrelated to Star Trek, it would still have the look and feel of Voyager.

That's what happens when B&B run out of ideas.

When normal people run out of ideas, they get some new ones.
When B&B run out of ideas, they recycle old ones.

What, you've already forgotten good old Captain Quark, with his pet man-eating amoeba, a humanoid vegetable as a first officer, and a pilot/navigator pair of bombshell blondes constantly arguing about who's the clone and who's the original?

Picking up the trash of the galaxy in an interstellar garbage truck was never funnier.

What about doing a Star Trek show which is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, not too serious and above all humoristic?

The idea of space opera comedy worked well not only in Red Dwarf, but also in LEXX.

[neoolong]

It works for The Sopranos.

Yeah, but they're evil, not EVIL as in kill your cat evil like suggested.

Have you WATCHED the show? Kick your pregnant girfriend to death, etc.

I don't think in terms of 'evil' since that gives the idea that making the wrong choice a kind of supernatural or religious excuse, but if I did, pretty much all of the Sopranos regularly would qualify.

Even the wife, for turning a blind eye to EVERYthing, is pretty vile. You wind up thinking that Furio guy is noble since by comparison, he demonstrates some higher qualities (quits rather than sleeping with the boss' wife), but he is still a cold-blooded killer.

Just cuz they eat pasta and have good taste in movies doesn't make them any less vile, simply more palatable to the viewer (and so much more credit to the writers for maintaining that balancing act.)

I think they're more sympathetic though. The suggestion was to make really really evil characters.

[Patrick Ogaard]

The Star Trek universe is full of potential story ideas, but no one in charge is going to take the chance on something that does not follow the TNG/DS9/Voiyager/Enterprise format and formula.

That being said ...

Idea 1:
The Federation has begun a program of interstellar development designed to promote travel and commerce and cement the many worlds of the Federation together. In this spirit, a selection of private consortia has been licensed to begin regular, commercial, Federation-wide passenger runs, and older and smaller Starfleet vessels have been stripped of their military capabilities and sold off both to the consortia and smaller companies. This leads to a massive economic boom, as well as a tramp merchant subculture that even sees extended families trundling from planet to planet in cargo-carrying Miranda.

The major passenger lines commission the construction of massive high-warp liners. These liners are licensed with the proviso that in case of war they will be seconded to Starfleet as high speed troopships each capable of transporting entire divisions of troops.

The newest liner, Herald of the Federation, embarks on a massive voyage designed primarily for publicity purposes: The multi-year Grand Tour of the Federation, in which ordinary citizens, Federation VIPs and non-Federation VIPs will visit every major world of the Federation and every major scenic feature within the Federation. The Herald is filled to the gills with dignitaries, diplomats, people with money, spies from all quarters, terrorists, and whatever else you might want. Plotlines pretty much suggest themselves.


Idea 2:
Following up on the tramp merchant subculture, how about a dilapidated Miranda-class merchant ship and a desperate captain/owner trying to keep ahead of the various expenses and past-due notices while taking on cargo and passengers on the fringes of Federation space? Since the crew would be relatively tiny, with no more than a dozen core crew and maybe a pool of a dozen hired hands subject to change from port to port, there would be good reasons for the captain and bridge crew to put themselves in the thick of things. There could be dealings with pirates, merchants, direct competitors, high-handed Starfleet captains, colony officials, etc.

Idea 3:
Starfleet: Intel
The adventures of a Starfleet Intelligence team tasked with ferreting out enemy plots and troubleshooting other Starfleet Intelligence and Security operations, not to mention keeping those Section Whatever idiots in line. If things start to go south, a little Nova-class science ship shows up, only this Nova doesn't do science. Or a battered old scoutship piloted by a battered old scout ambles into port. A motley-seeming crew of highly trained and motivated operatives goes to work.

Idea 4:
Shaken by the Dominion War, the Federation undertakes a sweeping reform of Starfleet. A largely separate Federation Marine Corps is established, with its own starships, purpose-built ground combat vehicles, body armor and purpose-designed weapons. An entirely separate Federation Army is also established, which operates a large fleet of troop and materiel transport starships, as well as gunships, fighters and bombers for combat on and around planets. It is also the Army that operates planetary defense fortresses and orbital defense networks.

War comes to the Federation again, and now it is time to see how good the new Marine Corps and Army really are. Scenarios reminiscent of JAG, Tour of Duty, Band of Brothers, MASH and even JAG can come up.

Idea 5:
Idiot Starfleet captains, goofy field anthropoligists and similar buffoons keep screwing around with the Prime Directive. Ignoring the basic moral and ethical indefensibility of sweeping interpretations of the Prime Directive from TNG and beyond, it is the job of Intervention Teams to clean up those messes that the violators left in their wake. Thus we have an excuse for a relatively small team of specialists to go in and use subterfuge combined with Federation technology tricks to erase the Federation's tracks as much as possible. In effect, the Intervention Teams are a cross between the folks from Mission Impossible, the Men in Black and the various alien conspiracies from the X Files. Quick, easy fixes take an episode, while the tougher cases could cover arcs of several episodes.

Idea 6:
Far Scouts
The tales of the Starfleet Scout Taskforce assigned to unlock the secrets of the Beta Quadrant. For instance, what was it that kept the Romulans occupied for decades behind closed borders?

Idea 7:
Operation Gateway
Finally, a wormhole generator has been perfected. The thing is huge, requiring a full-size starbase as its support structure, and needs hours of recharge time between activations, but it works. Now, individual starships and small starship squadrons can travel almost unlimited distances in an instant. The system does have a minimum range of several 10,000 light years, but the fact that ships can be sent instantly across the galaxy and even to nearby galaxies makes it useful. It will be even more useful once a network of these generators is established. Now to foil Romulan saboteurs, defend the new Andromeda wormhole generator, and hope that the Triangulum exploration taskforce makes the run back to its secondary recall point on time.

[kmart]

^Your idea #5 is awesome, especially if DURING THE RUN OF THE SHOW, the ethical indefensibility of the PD came up more and more as an issue for these guys.

It would be like the M:I team finding out they've been playing for the wrong side after several years, while also really demonstrating how absurd the prime directive is on an ethical level as well as a quantum physics level (for a primer on Heisenberg, see Coen Bros' MAN WHO WASN'T THERE, aspects of which Trek should have dealt with 15 years ago with respect to the PD!)

[Uraniun235]

Sumerman, exploration episdoes have been done to death. You would only be redoing the same chiched plot over again. another war drama could make up a totally new story line and give the fans more spacebattles.

Wow, more space battles, that's certainly a good reason to do something. Especially with Paramount's "Star Trek is successful enough so we don't think giving you more money is a good idea" strategy that they've been at since Star Trek 2. And Berman's probably screwed himself badly with Nemesis; his movies have been getting progressively more expensive and less profitable. And hey, it's an EVEN BETTER idea when the VFX people they hire are complete dumbshits when it comes to doing a GOOD space battle.

And hey, god knows Star Trek is all about death and war.

I'll say it again: great idea, bury Star Trek and piss on the grave. Let's get this dog shot and buried so we can move on to discussing other things, eh? Great plan.

I personally like Ogaard's Idea 6 myself. There's a lot of potential there. Idea 2 would have definite humor potential, although I'd prefer an old refit-Constitution if only because I think it looks better than a Miranda.