Star Trek: Discovery

[SpottedKitty]

- I want to know more about these robots on Discovery. Especially about why the Federation stopped using them.

One possibility is that whatever happens causes the gun-shyness about AI-controlled ships present in the background of the M5 incident during TOS. And we've seen it's still not quite gone by the time of TNG, with some of the problems Data faced.

Any non-human crew of a species that we have never seen before will raise the question of what happened to their species after Discovery ?

If they're that worried about continuity (I know, I know, stop laughing for a moment) they could always use the never-seen-befores for one-off visits to alien planets, and reserve known aliens for crew characters. I'm still holding out a tiny little smidgeon of hope for a Caitian...

[Lord Revan]

since we've presumebly (they were never outright named on screen) seen caitians in the pre-reboot live action films make up wise that shouldn't be a major issue, though they might want to avoid certain classic races like vulcans, andorians, caitians, tellerite and so on for something more exotic though I wonder if a) Klingons will show up b) if it'll be a modern version of the TOS make-up or just the classic ridged look.

[bilateralrope]

There is also the question of the makeup of the crew. From memory, Enterprise had a mostly human crew with a single Vulcan. TOS had the same, except a half-Vulcan this time. Discovery is set between them. Why did the number of non-humans spike with Discovery then drop back down for TOS ?

Nu-Trek didn't have to care about that history because it's an alternative universe.

[Lord Revan]

There is also the question of the makeup of the crew. From memory, Enterprise had a mostly human crew with a single Vulcan. TOS had the same, except a half-Vulcan this time. Discovery is set between them. Why did the number of non-humans spike with Discovery then drop back down for TOS ?

Nu-Trek didn't have to care about that history because it's an alternative universe.

there's 3 possibilities that I can see 1)the main cast is most of human with (minor) make-up elements like betazed so you can sort of claim that some of some of the backround extras were these species in TOS 2) the Discovery is a special case with most other ships being crewed by a single species or nearly so 3)the incident in question will be the reason why we don't see that many visible non-humans in TOS.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

since we've presumebly (they were never outright named on screen) seen caitians in the pre-reboot live action films make up wise that shouldn't be a major issue, though they might want to avoid certain classic races like vulcans, andorians, caitians, tellerite and so on for something more exotic though I wonder if a) Klingons will show up b) if it'll be a modern version of the TOS make-up or just the classic ridged look.

Caitians aren't triple breasted.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

There is also the question of the makeup of the crew. From memory, Enterprise had a mostly human crew with a single Vulcan. TOS had the same, except a half-Vulcan this time. Discovery is set between them. Why did the number of non-humans spike with Discovery then drop back down for TOS ?

Nu-Trek didn't have to care about that history because it's an alternative universe.

there's 3 possibilities that I can see 1)the main cast is most of human with (minor) make-up elements like betazed so you can sort of claim that some of some of the backround extras were these species in TOS 2) the Discovery is a special case with most other ships being crewed by a single species or nearly so 3)the incident in question will be the reason why we don't see that many visible non-humans in TOS.

Or, a human-supremacist element took control of the Fed government and/or Starfleet during the TOS era, and aliens got moved to the back of the space bus.

[Lord Revan]

since we've presumebly (they were never outright named on screen) seen caitians in the pre-reboot live action films make up wise that shouldn't be a major issue, though they might want to avoid certain classic races like vulcans, andorians, caitians, tellerite and so on for something more exotic though I wonder if a) Klingons will show up b) if it'll be a modern version of the TOS make-up or just the classic ridged look.

Caitians aren't triple breasted.

I meant the male extras we saw in the Federation council scenes, who knows what species that creature in Nimbus III was.

[Simon_Jester]

There is also the question of the makeup of the crew. From memory, Enterprise had a mostly human crew with a single Vulcan. TOS had the same, except a half-Vulcan this time. Discovery is set between them. Why did the number of non-humans spike with Discovery then drop back down for TOS ?

Nu-Trek didn't have to care about that history because it's an alternative universe.

there's 3 possibilities that I can see 1)the main cast is most of human with (minor) make-up elements like betazed so you can sort of claim that some of some of the backround extras were these species in TOS 2) the Discovery is a special case with most other ships being crewed by a single species or nearly so 3)the incident in question will be the reason why we don't see that many visible non-humans in TOS.

Or:

NX-01 Enterprise was explicitly a human starship, designed by humans, the first deep-space starship in Earth history, at a time when the Federation did not exist.

NCC-1701 Enterprise was a UESPA (United Earth) starship. It's very plausible that at this particular moment in Earth history, UESPA had quite a number of its own ships, and just happened to operate jointly with the Federation in deep-space missions. If Enterprise (and the Constitution- class as a whole) were Earth-built and originally operated by an Earth organization, it would handily explain why the crew is overwhelmingly human.

The gap between the TOS and TNG eras represents the Federation getting older and more mature as a polity, rather than an alliance of mutually alien races (for instance, it gives time for the Vulcans who personally participated in the Vulcan-Andorian conflict to die of old age). So it's very possible that there just weren't that many multi-ethnic ships in the early 2200s, and there were more later. On the other hand, Discovery could easily be ONE of those multi-ethnic ships, operated by the Federation proper and not by any one of the homeworlds.

[Lord Revan]

There is also the question of the makeup of the crew. From memory, Enterprise had a mostly human crew with a single Vulcan. TOS had the same, except a half-Vulcan this time. Discovery is set between them. Why did the number of non-humans spike with Discovery then drop back down for TOS ?

Nu-Trek didn't have to care about that history because it's an alternative universe.

there's 3 possibilities that I can see 1)the main cast is most of human with (minor) make-up elements like betazed so you can sort of claim that some of some of the backround extras were these species in TOS 2) the Discovery is a special case with most other ships being crewed by a single species or nearly so 3)the incident in question will be the reason why we don't see that many visible non-humans in TOS.

Or:

NX-01 Enterprise was explicitly a human starship, designed by humans, the first deep-space starship in Earth history, at a time when the Federation did not exist.

NCC-1701 Enterprise was a UESPA (United Earth) starship. It's very plausible that at this particular moment in Earth history, UESPA had quite a number of its own ships, and just happened to operate jointly with the Federation in deep-space missions. If Enterprise (and the Constitution- class as a whole) were Earth-built and originally operated by an Earth organization, it would handily explain why the crew is overwhelmingly human.

The gap between the TOS and TNG eras represents the Federation getting older and more mature as a polity, rather than an alliance of mutually alien races (for instance, it gives time for the Vulcans who personally participated in the Vulcan-Andorian conflict to die of old age). So it's very possible that there just weren't that many multi-ethnic ships in the early 2200s, and there were more later. On the other hand, Discovery could easily be ONE of those multi-ethnic ships, operated by the Federation proper and not by any one of the homeworlds.

Simon correct me if I'm wrong but wouldn't those be counted under " the Discovery is a special case with most other ships being crewed by a single species or nearly so" after all I never said why those would be single species crews, built and operated by federation members individually under a universal UFP "license" could be a valid reason for that. the Federation is a only 90 years or so old at this point.

[FaxModem1]

there's 3 possibilities that I can see 1)the main cast is most of human with (minor) make-up elements like betazed so you can sort of claim that some of some of the backround extras were these species in TOS 2) the Discovery is a special case with most other ships being crewed by a single species or nearly so 3)the incident in question will be the reason why we don't see that many visible non-humans in TOS.

Or, a human-supremacist element took control of the Fed government and/or Starfleet during the TOS era, and aliens got moved to the back of the space bus.

Or, humans, for whatever reason, really do make up the majority of Starfleet, due to it being an Earth program originally, and Spock's career set a precedent and a wave of non-humans signed up by the time of the TOS movies. And Bryan Fuller meant a diverse group of humans. As for the aliens, he said:

Fans, Fuller noted, can expect a diverse cast and crew, as well as a full range of alien species the crew will encounter. "Star Trek started with a wonderful expression of diversity in its cast," Fuller said. "We're absolutely continuing that tradition."

So, I think this means more of a diverse human cast, with them meeting a 'full range of aliens' every week. So, think more of a hypothetical Middle Eastern Captain character, an African doctor character , South American science officer character, etc. than Andorian science officer or Tellarite helm officer.

[Simon_Jester]

Re: Revan

To be fair, your suggestion (2) interlocks fairly well with what I had in mind, but I wanted to go into more detail. Also, for all we know, by the TOS era most Federation ships are multiracial; the Connies may be unusual in this respect. UESPA may have specifically commissioned these ships because it wanted to fulfill a need most Federation vessels weren't equipped for, either on its own initiative or in support of the Federation's larger scientific, military, and exploratory endeavours.

[Lord Revan]

there's 3 possibilities that I can see 1)the main cast is most of human with (minor) make-up elements like betazed so you can sort of claim that some of some of the backround extras were these species in TOS 2) the Discovery is a special case with most other ships being crewed by a single species or nearly so 3)the incident in question will be the reason why we don't see that many visible non-humans in TOS.

Or, a human-supremacist element took control of the Fed government and/or Starfleet during the TOS era, and aliens got moved to the back of the space bus.

Or, humans, for whatever reason, really do make up the majority of Starfleet, due to it being an Earth program originally, and Spock's career set a precedent and a wave of non-humans signed up by the time of the TOS movies. And Bryan Fuller meant a diverse group of humans. As for the aliens, he said:

Fans, Fuller noted, can expect a diverse cast and crew, as well as a full range of alien species the crew will encounter. "Star Trek started with a wonderful expression of diversity in its cast," Fuller said. "We're absolutely continuing that tradition."

So, I think this means more of a diverse human cast, with them meeting a 'full range of aliens' every week. So, think more of a hypothetical Middle Eastern Captain character, an African doctor character , South American science officer character, etc. than Andorian science officer or Tellarite helm officer.

I could see Starfleet as mostly human dominated organization in the 2250s or 2260s IIRC Sarek hold some resentment over Spock choosing to join Starfleet over the Vulcan Science Academy, it's possible that Starfleet is during that era seen as "human" organization and only later does it loose that label, though we know there's Starfleet ship(s) with vulcan only crews as well.

[Lord Revan]

btw does anyone know of any particular major event that was talked about in previous series and happened roughly in 2257-2264 (assuming the traditional 7 seasons)

[Eternal_Freedom]

Re: Revan

To be fair, your suggestion (2) interlocks fairly well with what I had in mind, but I wanted to go into more detail. Also, for all we know, by the TOS era most Federation ships are multiracial; the Connies may be unusual in this respect. UESPA may have specifically commissioned these ships because it wanted to fulfill a need most Federation vessels weren't equipped for, either on its own initiative or in support of the Federation's larger scientific, military, and exploratory endeavours.

Given the Enterprise (and presumably other Connie's) being sent out on five-year missions, Starfleet may have decided that single-species crews were considerably easier to design life support and provide supplies/quarters/recreation for than multi-species crews. Hence the Enterprise is almost entirely human plus Spock, the Intrepid was an all-Vulcan crew, perhaps the Yorktown or the Potemkin had Andorian crews.

Presumably smaller ships that pulled shorter missions (like the Oberths or the Mirandas or even the old Daedalus-class ships that get mentioned in some novels) have more mixed crews.

There is also the distinct possibility that despite working together, other founding species had little interest in long-haul missions with other species - we saw how well Andorians and Tellarites get along both in "Journey to Babel" and ENT.

[Iroscato]

The Four Years War maybe? Could explain why they came down on the Axanar fan film so hard, they didn't want others telling a different version of the same story...

[SpottedKitty]

The Four Years War maybe? Could explain why they came down on the Axanar fan film so hard, they didn't want others telling a different version of the same story...

Funny, I was just thinking that — then dismissed it because it was too ridiculous. But the timelines do sorta match up if you stretch them a bit... so maybe...?

[Lord Revan]

Was the 4 years war mentioned in canon material though? I thought it was from the RPG or Starfleet battles source books, with the Axanar team making up pretty much all the details themselves.

[SpottedKitty]

Was the 4 years war mentioned in canon material though?

Not by name (I think), but ISTR the situation is mentioned in the episode Whom Gods Destroy, where Garth of Izar is an inmate in an asylum the ship visits.

It's certainly possible that this is it, but TOS has so many other only-mentioned-in-passing things... <shrug>

[bilateralrope]

I stumbled across this today: ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ 2017 CBS TV series:Everything we know so far

While we don’t have much information yet about the actors who will appear in Star Trek: Discovery, we do know something about the characters that will be featured in the show.

Bryan Fuller confirmed in August 2016 that the series’ cast will include at least one gay character, as well as the expected robot and alien characters, and that the series will also feature a female lead. At the 2016 Television Critics Association (via CNN), Fuller told the crowd that the casting choices were part of Star Trek’s history of offering “a wonderful expression of diversity in its cast.” While we don’t know the lead character’s name at present, we do know more about her role — and what we can expect her to be called.
Fuller told Ain’t It Cool News that the female lead character will be referred to as “Number One” throughout much of the first season, and won’t be the captain of the ship. The showrunner promised that we’d learn the character’s real name before the end of the season, though.

Are they really planning to hide the main characters name ?

On that note, how many TNG episodes did it take Picard (the only Trek character I can recall referring to another by "Number One") to refer to Riker by name ?

We also know quite a bit about who will be behind the camera for Discovery — and there’s plenty of Star Trek history there.
Fuller, who created the popular Hannibal series, got his start on television writing for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager. He’s joined by Nicholas Meyer, the writer and director of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, who will serve as a writer and consulting producer on the new show.
Along with Fuller and Meyer in both producer and creative roles on the series, Alex Kurtzman (the co-writer of the 2009 Star Trek movie that rebooted the franchise) and Eugene Roddenberry (the son of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry) will serve as executive producers on the show.
Fuller and Kurtzman will pen the first one-hour episode of the series, with Meyer scripting the second episode.
It was announced (by Deadline) just before San Diego Comic-Con that the director of the first episode of the series will be David Semel, a two-time nominee for the Primetime Emmy Award who has a long history of directing the first episodes of celebrated series. Along with directing the pilot episodes of Heroes and Person of Interest, Semel is well known for directing episodes of American Dreams, House, and the pilot episode of the recent, acclaimed Amazon Studios series The Man in the High Castle.
Boldly going … where, exactly?
At this point, CBS is keeping many of the story details for Star Trek: Discovery under wraps. However, the teaser promised “new crews,” “new villains,” “new heroes,” and “new worlds” — suggesting that we’ll see something that unfolds within the canon of the established Star Trek universe, but not directly tied to the events in the movies.
During San Diego Comic-Con, another teaser for the series was released, this time featuring the “test flight” of the U.S.S. Discovery, likely to be the space-traveling base of operations for the cast.

In mid August, Fuller confirmed that the first season of the series will be set ten years before the start of the original Star Trek television series, and unfold within the “Prime” universe (as opposed to the recently rebooted Star Trek movie universe).

“That gives us an opportunity to bridge the gap between Enterprise and the original series,” Fuller said (via CNN) of the series’ placement between the four-season prequel series Star Trek: Enterprise and the original 1966 series that spawned the entire franchise.
Fuller told Ain’t It Cool News that the series could have theoretically unfolded in either the original “Prime” universe or the “Kelvin” timeline (the rebooted movie universe), but setting it in the Prime timeline allowed the creative team to avoid the need to coordinate with the big-screen creative team on the continuity.

Instead they need to keep all of TV Trek in mind. Which seems harder than coordinating a bit with the movie writers to make sure they stay well out of each others way.

“Really when we developed the story it could take place in either Prime or Kelvin so the timeline was relatively inconsequential,” he explained. “But there was the cleanliness of keeping our series independent of the films. That way we don’t have to track anything [happening in the movie universe] and they don’t have to track what we’re doing. And you can have two distinct universes — one where Sulu is straight and one where Sulu is gay.”

Interesting that they point to Sulu's sexuality as their example of how the two universes differ. Something that really shouldn't affect this series at all.

Early rumors suggested that the series will be an anthology project of some sort, akin to American Horror Story or Fargo, with each season set in a different point in the Star Trek timeline and featuring different characters and cast members.
The latest news also confirms what CBS has made clear since the beginning: the series won’t be a spinoff of Star Trek Beyond and the rebooted franchise, so don’t expect any Marvel-style cinematic tie-ins with the rebooted film franchise.
Set phasers to ‘binge’
According to Bryan Fuller (via Collider), the first season of Star Trek: Discovery will unfold over 13 episodes, telling one complete story over the course of the season instead of a new, self-contained story each episode. The structure lends itself to the increasingly popular binge-watching habits of the modern television audience, which makes sense given that the series will air on Netflix and the network’s own streaming, on-demand video service.

Which means far less temptation to pull in an enemy of the week that everyone somehow forgets about by the time of TNG.

According to Fuller, the series isn’t likely to go beyond 13 episodes per season, and he’d actually like to see fewer episodes in a single season going forward.
“I would strongly recommend that we never do 26 episodes,” he told Ain’t It Cool News in August. “I think it would fatigue the show. Ideally I would like to do 10 episodes. I think that’s a tighter story.”
One element of the show that was confirmed early on is the show’s ties to Netflix and the CBS All Access streaming service.
In mid-July 2016, it was announced that the series will premiere on the standard CBS television network in January 2017, but subsequent episodes will be available exclusively on CBS All Access (which requires a monthly subscription) for audiences in Canada and the U.S. In addition, the series will be available on Netflix for international audiences in 188 other countries. Netflix will reportedly get each episode within 24 hours of its premiere on CBS All Access.

[Prometheus Unbound]

On that note, how many TNG episodes did it take Picard (the only Trek character I can recall referring to another by "Number One") to refer to Riker by name ?

Two scenes in.

PICARD: Welcome to the Enterprise, Commander Riker.

(After he docks the stardrive and saucer).

PICARD: Did you signal the Hood, Commander Riker?

Then later he gives his first name:

PICARD: As if it's something Q is doing to trick us? Over here. I've asked the Counsellor to join us in this meeting. May I introduce our new First Officer, Commander William Riker. Commander Riker, this is our ship's Counsellor, Deanna Troi.



The Last Outpost is the first time he addresses him as "Will" or "William" to his face in a conversation. He calls Riker "Number One" less times than he does "Commander Riker" in Encounter at Farpoint (2).

[Lord Revan]

One possibility that they use is that the character's name be hard to pronounce correctly for someone using an american accent and have the character's use a nickname rather then butcher the pronounciation.

It doesn't even have to be a super rare and exotic name, the former finnish prime minister Anneli Jäätteenmäki was called "miss unpronounceble" by english media due to them having problems pronouncing her last name correctly and as far as finnish names go that's a fairly typical one, hell even my own first name is practically impossible for americans to pronounce correctly due to ending in a sort "o" sound and my own name due to coming from finnish folklore is quite common.

[tezunegari]

Release of Star Trek Discovery has been moved from January 2017 to May 2017.



source

[bilateralrope]

Release of Star Trek Discovery has been moved from January 2017 to May 2017.



source

It sounds like the delay is because they realized that they couldn't produce the episodes in time for the initial air date.

On the one hand this is good, because I'd prefer a delay to a bad show. On the other hand, I'm a bit worried that the need for a delay surprised them.

[Lord Revan]

Release of Star Trek Discovery has been moved from January 2017 to May 2017.



source

It sounds like the delay is because they realized that they couldn't produce the episodes in time for the initial air date.

On the one hand this is good, because I'd prefer a delay to a bad show. On the other hand, I'm a bit worried that the need for a delay surprised them.

true enough though we don't know where the orginal air date came (or more correctly from whom), it could have been someone in the CBS marketing department who had nothing to do with the creative side working on the series and the actual creators had been pushing for a delay only now got their will thru.

also there might have some behind the scenes drama that lead to some of the cast members to be let go and if said cast member was playing a major character that's a lot of reshoots and also demends a new actor.

[RogueIce]

Bryan Fuller Out as 'Star Trek: Discovery' Showrunner

• "Insiders note that there had been some frustration on Fuller's part with the speed with which Discovery was moving. CBS Television Studios has already begun marketing the series, which has yet to be cast, with panels at San Diego Comic-Con, a teaser at the upfronts and a Q&A with executives and Fuller at TCA."

(Emphasis mine)

So...announced nearly a year ago, was supposed to begin airing in January but pushed back to May...and apparently they haven't even casted it yet? Seriously?

The only concrete thing we've seen from them was a shitty trailer they threw together at the last minute and a bunch of fluff about their intentions. For something announced back in November and was originally slated to air about two months from now.

What the fuck have they been doing for the past year? Because apparently it didn't involve actually making a new Star Trek show.