The Next Generation: REBOOT!!!

[Havok]

Well someone had to do it, and since I already piss people off, it might as well be me.

The new Star Trek Universe. The JJverse, or Abramverse if you will.

2364.

It has been just over 107 years since Vulcan was destroyed and James T. Kirk ridiculously came to command the flagship of Starfleet, The Enterprise, on it's maiden voyage and then did some stuff.
Now though, there is a new Enterprise and it needs a new Captain and a new crew. Your mission is to crew this new flagship for its maiden voyage and to set it on its own adventure.

Cast: Use the same names, but feel free to change personalities and switch things around.

Ship: The only limitation is that it is called Enterprise. It can be a close relative to the 1701, or it can be a crazy long lost drunken cousin. It can be an A, B, C, D etc. Is it an exploration vessel armed to the teeth to deal with the unknown on the fringes of space? Is it a battle cruiser rushing from hotspot to hotspot defending the Federation against ever more aggressive enemies. Is it perhaps the aggressor, and the flagship of the mighty and feared Starfleet?! (Bonus props if you post you design)

Federation: What has become of the Federation in 107 years? Has it drastically changed since the loss of one of its charter members in Vulcan? Has it survived in it's old form or has something new arisen out of that catastrophe? Something better? Something worse?

Starfleet: Stated to be a "peacekeeping and humanitarian armada", did it to survive the catastrophe of Vulcan? Did the loss of faith in Starfleet's ability to protect Federation worlds force it down a new path? Was it able to stay the course and prove that it's old philosophies were still the way to go? Did it become a proactive force, seeking out aggressors, or did it maintain itself as a reactionary force, amassing to defend when needed?

The Romulans: Presumably strengthened by the events between 2233-2258, or at least, not weakened by them, did the Star Empire lash out when its enemies were at their weakest? Did they seize the moment militarily? Politically? Scientifically?!?! Or did they scheme for the next 100 years and are finally ready to strike?

The Klingons: They suffered a massive defeat in 2258. 47 ships lost in one engagement. Was the might of the Klingon Empire broken in that battle? Were they able to hold on to their empire over the next 100 years? Was that battle even of consequence to the mighty warriors that reside behind the Neutral Zone. Could they have banded together with Starfleet for mutual protection? With the Romulans?!

Basically, go to town. You have a fresh slate. You are beholden to nothing but the basics.

[Old Plympto]

I'd like it if the Klingons reacted extremely to its loss and began increasing its shipbuilding capacity tremendously, and some of the less known aliens from universe prime is inducted into the Klingon Empire because of its relative safety - especially all those one-note aliens from Deep Space Nine. By TNG era. the Klingon Empire is multi-species with a fleet which has Lurian, Hupyrian, perhaps even Trill as part of their crew, with a strength twice that of Starfleet. They are in perpetual cold war with the Federation without any Khitomer Conference, but there is limited cooperation between the two governments if it's mutually beneficial.

By 2364, Starfleet has retired all the classic ship names except of course for the much celebrated Enterprise with this unique naming convention. By this time, all the other starships built on Earth are named USS Paul Simon, USS David Bowie, USS Grace Slick, USS Roger Gilmour, USS Jimi Hendrix, USS Jerry Garcia and such.

[spaceviking]

Maybe have newTNG somewhat start out similar to the original TNG with the Federation having gone soft (children on ships, etc), the Klingon empire at peace and the Romulans in recluse.

Then have everything go to shit. The romulans return and start annexing systems, the Klingon empire collapse and becomes an unstable group of rival powers(some at war with the Federation), and Star fleet has to change from a humanitarian exploration fleet to a war fleet overnight.

[Stofsk]

Maybe have newTNG somewhat start out similar to the original TNG with the Federation having gone soft (children on ships, etc), the Klingon empire at peace and the Romulans in recluse.

Then have everything go to shit. The romulans return and start annexing systems, the Klingon empire collapse and becomes an unstable group of rival powers(some at war with the Federation), and Star fleet has to change from a humanitarian exploration fleet to a war fleet overnight.

Why do you want to turn Star Trek into a war show?

[Havok]

Well why not? A space war drama could make for compelling TV. It my also allow for some character roll over that could avoid series stagnation. Plus it is his REBOOT!!!, he can do whatever he wants.

[Knife]

After the attack and loss of Vulcan, the Federation under takes a massive reorganization due to the loss of a couple billion Vulcans. Exploration and colonization, along with resettlement for the remaining Vulcans along with the drive to push their boarders out is seen as the prime directive for the Federation. The Klingon Empire, following the loss of a sizable portion of their fleet from the Narada incident, is seriously weakened and suffers revolts from a lot of their client states, including key industrial centers whom shake off Klingon rule and petition for Federation membership and/or independence.

Romulons, unaffected mostly from the Narada indecent except for ill feelings due to the rogue ship Narada being Romulan, see an opportunity. Sending massive economical and industrial aide to the Klingons, selling it as an apology, they forge close ties with the Klingons and help them rebuild a fleet of ships with some Romulan technology. These contracts create vast wealth for Romulus and the Klingons start to feel a debt of honor to Romulus. The Senate starts to use the Klingons as a proxy, sending them to fight boarder skirmishes with Romulan enemies and even some skirmishes with Federation colonies, while the Romulans themselves settle down behind a screen of secrecy, allowing their pet Klingons to do their dirty work on their frontier.

By 2364, the Klingon Empire has rebuilt all of its old glory yet has strong political ties to the Senate at Romulus. It's even gotten tot he point that new aspiring Klingon captains seek a Letter of Marque from the Romulan Senate to raid Federation shipping too close to the Neutral Zone of the Klingon and/or Romulan boarder. Careful not to allow the Klingons to get to centralized, the Romulans have spent considerable time encouraging infighting between powerful Klingon houses to keep the Empire fractured and under control while still emphasizing the Klingon code of honor through battle to suit the political needs of Romulus.

Mean while, back in the Federation; 150 some odd years of colonization has left the Federation with a problem. Huge amounts of space dotted with thousands of tiny settlements that seem to need constant emergency aide along with patrolling the space lanes protecting Federation trade from pirates that have taken to preying on the ships. Reports of privateers from the Klingon Empire and else where, crossing into Fed space have also been reported.

Seeing that they have grown weak and dispersed, the Federation has recently embarked on the policy to reestablish a stronger central authority. While it mobilizes it's industry to build defense fleets to 'station' in various 'sectors' of their vast space, they also need smaller faster ships that can dart about that area in between sectors plugging holes and trouble shooting. The captains of these vessels will be given broad authority from Starfleet Command in negotiations and diplomacy that one would expect from a sector Admiral and are usually given to the most senior and most qualified ships post captains.

The ships themselves that were developed for this mission, were originally just cruisers but they were only old designs meant to fill the role until purpose built ships were developed. The cruisers were relatively slow but well gunned but didn't have the space legs to run for weeks on end without resupply. The ships found themselves resupplying at all their stops instead of resupply the colonies they were sent to give aide to. Then, two years ago 2362, Starfleet unveiled the Heavy Frigate type ships with the Vangaurd Class Heavy Frigate. Two years into a projected ten year production run, there are by 2364 eight ships of the class with the commissioning of the USS Enterprise, eighth in her class.

Captain John April captained the ship through her shake down trials and six months later Senior Captain Jean Luc Picard was assigned as Captain of the Enterprise for her first five year assignment as inter sectoral patrol.

[Patrick Degan]

Want a TNG reboot? Here's one that would actually make sense: make the Enteprise in the series a military explorer instead of the Galactic Princess cruiseliner with weapons accessories. Make contact with Starfleet authorities a difficult task due to distance instead of simply ringing up their Tracfone number so the ship's crew have to make decisions. Lose the holodecks, the civilian baggage, the psychic in the bunny suit, the wundernerd, and Capt. Jean-Luc Shakespeare. If you have to have the android, make it a real person instead of Pinnochio Mk. II. Will Riker's the captain of a crew who actually use their brains to solve problems. Oh, and stick an actual doctor on the ship instead of a refugee from a romance novel. Anything beyond that is just nerdservice.

[tim31]

Can't we keep Jean Luc Shakespeare but have him less Hamlet and more Henry V? And do away with him being fucking French, if we're keeping Patrick Stewart. His family can still have fought at Trafalgar, and actually be able legitimately brag about it.

[Stofsk]

Well why not? A space war drama could make for compelling TV. It my also allow for some character roll over that could avoid series stagnation. Plus it is his REBOOT!!!, he can do whatever he wants.

Granted it's his reboot idea, I just wanted to ask him why he wanted to turn Star Trek into a story about war and death, when it always presented an optimistic view of the future.

A war drama could make compelling TV, but on the other hand, look at the Dominion War arc of DS9 to see a space war that fell just a bit short from 'compelling'. I honestly believe that Star Trek and war don't automatically go well together. At it's heart, Trek was about exploration and adventure, and how conflict was something to be avoided at all costs.

[Starglider]

Why do you want to turn Star Trek into a war show?

I second that. Frankly we've had enough sci-fi war shows recently. If you want a Trek war show, remake Deep Space Nine. Seriously, that would be a worthwhile project, but TNG was by far the most utopian mainstream sci-fi show I know of, and I like that aspect of it. Give it another five to ten years of agnsty gritty neoBSG-style war shows and I think audiences would be quite happy to see a show where the Federation really is a utopia (well, relatively speaking) and the cast successfully defend and promote that. Of course the original TNG didn't do a very good job of articulating a plausible, pleasant post-scarcity society, so I'd certainly revise the backstory on that. I'd probably also put more (positive) transhumanism in, because frankly I'd be good to see more of that in mainstream fiction, and Trek should be a good place to do it (fuck you writers who thought genetic engineering was in the 'man was not meant to know' category).

[tim31]

In Macross Frontier they managed to have it both ways; For citizens of the 25th Super Long Distance Colony Fleet biomechanical tech was forbidden, while the nearby 21st SLDCF was open slather on this.

A while ago I read the first of the Starfleet: Year One books in which a group of Romulan War veteran captains are pitted against each other for the command of the first Daedelus-class starship. Half of them were career military men, while the other half were survey or cargo pilots who had been drafted in wartime. Even by the end of the book, it did not feel like they would be able to reach an accord on exploring capability versus fighting capability, as though it had to be one way or the other. I want to see a Starfleet that can take names but does not need to because of their effectiveness as a humanitarian and peacekeeping force. I want them to explore, but not anomaly of the week. I want to see different ecologies, and sapient life in other forms than just corporeal-humanoid or non-corporeal-cloud/shiny lights.

[Knife]

Which you can get easily enough if you have the Federation grabbing large chunks of space and calling it their own, then later having detailed exploration and mapping and survey work during patrols through that area. A mad rush to get territory before Klingons and/or Romulans get it and/or take dissedents from those two Empires, while not knowing exactly what you get till you get it. Both territorially and politically.

[ray245]

Seriously, is it hard for us to watch a series where the Enterprise entered dead space without being able to contact Star fleet easily and rush back to earth on a weakly basis just because Earth is in trouble?

Like exploring worlds and going to places that takes you YEARS to return. Hell, the docudrama Voyage to the Planets is more exciting to watch as a exploration of planets show than the Star Trek series.

What happens when you realise that you have a limited crew, and if anything goes wrong, it is going to screw the entire mission upside down.

[tim31]

Like exploring worlds and going to places that takes you YEARS to return.

"Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds."

[General Zod]

Like exploring worlds and going to places that takes you YEARS to return.

"Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds."

That doesn't mean it takes them years to return to Earth. It just means that's how long their mission is supposed to last.

[General Zod]

Lose the politics, the military baggage, and the corpses in the red shirts. If you have to have the android, make it a real android instead of just another human in weird makeup.

No politics or military baggage? Uh. . . .TNG practically had zero politics or military baggage at all already. That made it unbelievably boring. Admittedly the way Trek has tried to inject those things in the past haven't worked but that's no reason to do away with them altogether.

This isn't Battlestar Galactica where guys expecting a three hour tour ended up getting way more than they bargained for and have to make due.

Or Voyager, for that matter?

[Patrick Degan]

Here's one that would actually make sense: make the Enteprise in the series a military explorer instead of the Galactic Princess cruiseliner with weapons accessories.

that will be great so by the end of the five year mission these people will really hate their jobs

Seriously, are there any five year missions in the real world that would cut you off from your family and all luxury? Does anyone voluntarily sign up for those jobs?

I can see that maybe happening back in the 17th century, where technology didn't allow it to work. But Star Trek is a future, not lol pressed miserable sailors in SPAAAAAACE.

Make contact with Starfleet authorities a difficult task due to distance instead of simply ringing up their Tracfone number so the ship's crew have to make decisions.

This can work.

Lose the holodecks, the civilian baggage, the psychic in the bunny suit, the wundernerd, and Capt. Jean-Luc Shakespeare. If you have to have the android, make it a real person instead of Pinnochio Mk. II.

Here's something that would actually make sense: make the Enterprise in the series a Galactic Princess cruiseliner with long term habitation accessories.

Lose the politics, the military baggage, and the corpses in the red shirts. If you have to have the android, make it a real android instead of just another human in weird makeup.

This isn't Battlestar Galactica where guys expecting a three hour tour ended up getting way more than they bargained for and have to make due. This is a mission planned well in advance, expecting to take a long time. It is just fucking stupid not to take the families along. It is just fucking stupid beyond belief not to make the ship as easy to live in as you can.

Those people are going to be living there for some time. You must take that into account. The definition of realism isn't 'lol what would make the loser nerds on the internet spooge their pants'.

So... basically, your "reboot" would be just "more of the same". Then what would be the point?

Oh, and as for this:

It is just fucking stupid not to take the families along. It is just fucking stupid beyond belief not to make the ship as easy to live in as you can.

No, it was and is fucking stupid to take along a bunch of useless civilians and children out into unknown space and even more fucking stupid to waste space aboard a space vessel with a lot of internal volume taken up with ridiculously large personal quarters and useless (and actually mind-rotting) luxuries like holodecks, as has been discussed in countless threads on this site.

And who said anything about the crew being stuck aboard ship for five (or however many) solid years, with no periodic shore leave intervals? Not even TOS posited that in it's construction of the Five Year Mission.

[tim31]

That doesn't mean it takes them years to return to Earth. It just means that's how long their mission is supposed to last.

Say it with me: Round Trip.

[Knife]

That doesn't mean it takes them years to return to Earth. It just means that's how long their mission is supposed to last.

Say it with me: Round Trip.

Say it with me, doesn't need to be a deep space survey mission. Rather a set period of time the ship operates with said crew on patrol between refits and overhauls. The ship only need to bounce from one out of the way outpost to another while it explores on the fringes of Federation space, all the while, patrolling their boarders.

[Uraniun235]

In the 24th century, several core worlds in the Federation have been able to achieve a state of near-utopia. Advances in automation, coupled with the vast infrastructure built up on the richest Federation worlds, grant practically limitless energy and civilian resources.

Then, the holodeck was perfected.

The core worlds of the Federation have turned in on themselves totally. Like the Talosians, they now live only for fantasy. Unlike the Talosians, they have the endless incoming logs and reports of the Starfleet to feed their imaginations and stimulate new fantasies.


Starfleet is aghast at this development. It is estimated that within ten years, discontent between the poorer worlds and the utopian worlds, coupled with increasing desertion within Starfleet and plummeting enlistment rates, will eventually render the Federation critically vulnerable to nearby major powers.


A variety of responses are planned and developed. One of them is to send out deep-space explorer vessels - already well into the planning phase, the exploratory arm of Starfleet having recently been revived after a long period of budgetary austerity, as the core worlds now clamor to hear more about "strange new worlds and civilizations" - tasked to find a civilization which had run into this same social problem and solved it, and bring back information about that civilization in the hope of finding a cure... if there is one.


As deep-space explorers, they will need to be capable of supporting themselves on long voyages with minimal support. They will be very large ships, with the heaviest armament yet seen on a single Federation starship to assure their survival and the success of their mission. As main-line battleships they would be grossly inefficient... but that's not their purpose.


One of these ships is named Enterprise.




Okay, it's kind of quick and hacky, but as a first treatment for a series premise I think it works decently as it provides a lot of opportunities for both one-shot episodes and storylines that develop over several episodes or over entire seasons.

Contact with the Romulans and Klingons would, overall, be pretty minimal. Maybe they'd show up near the end, either as an invasion fleet hanging outside of Federation space getting ready to attack a weakening Starfleet, or near the beginning as marauders trying to pick off a lone starship or preying on lonesome worlds outside of any specifically claimed space.

One possible final story arc is that the Enterprise finally found what they were looking for, and came back, only to find that Starfleet had jumped the gun and instituted Plan C - go in and institute a military dictatorship over the core worlds.


Another is that the Enterprise returns in the middle of a war between the Federation and a Klingon/Romulan alliance, which started about three years into the mission, a year after radio contact had been lost with the Federation; turns out that when the Klingons, Romulans etc really realized what had happened, they instantly banned all news on Federation and launched an invasion - to destroy the holodecks and prevent them from being spread to their own civilian populaces. The Enterprise found the cure - the collected experiences of the Talosians (who, in this universe, live much further away from the Federation than in TOS), who had turned in on themselves so completely that they eventually ran out of things to conjure for their own amusement, and had come to know a hellish tedium. The Talosians provided a program which would impart this experience on Federation citizens, along with a subtle subconscious nudge to find the holodeck distasteful.

Preliminary tests on a limited section of Earth citizens proved successful, but with an unexpected problem - the war reports from Starfleet for the past couple of years have led to a sizable chunk of the population being shockingly jingoistic and bloodthirsty. New projections suggest that if the Federation worlds abandoned their holodecks completely, there would be a mass wave of enlistments and a huge push for utterly destroying the Klingon and Romulan empires, clamoring for the thrill of victory.

Before the cure can be used, the Enterprise must first bring the war to a close so that when the people wake up, there is no more war to be waged.



Again, it's quick and hacky, but I think it shows some of the possibilities of the premise: that humanity has to be saved from its own self-made paradise.

[tim31]

Say it with me, doesn't need to be a deep space survey mission. Rather a set period of time the ship operates with said crew on patrol between refits and overhauls. The ship only need to bounce from one out of the way outpost to another while it explores on the fringes of Federation space, all the while, patrolling their boarders.

My thoughts exactly? I probably should have elaborated. So now that we have that on the table, wait for someone to get pissy that the Enterprise has been reduced to a naval vessel on a port tour. 'We've got shore leave!'

[Aaron]

My thoughts exactly? I probably should have elaborated. So now that we have that on the table, wait for someone to get pissy that the Enterprise has been reduced to a naval vessel on a port tour. 'We've got shore leave!'

Isn't this what Kirk and crew were doing in TOS? They bounced from patrols, to humanitarian aid, to exploration with a side gig in answering distress calls. I never really got the impression that they where far beyond the borders except in Where No Man Has Gone Before and even then they where in range of an automated Federation refinery.

[tim31]

Yeah, but the automated refinery compounded a feeling of remoteness and isolation in the episode when I first saw it; no-one wanted to live all the way out there.

I don't have a problem with the port tour idea anyway, as long as they pick a warp scale and stick to it; obviously in the new movie Earth to Vulcan is a short hope, so interstellar distances aren't going to take days or even weeks when they're travelling from starbase to starbase.

[Aaron]

Yeah, but the automated refinery compounded a feeling of remoteness and isolation in the episode when I first saw it; no-one wanted to live all the way out there.

Good point.

I don't have a problem with the port tour idea anyway, as long as they pick a warp scale and stick to it; obviously in the new movie Earth to Vulcan is a short hope, so interstellar distances aren't going to take days or even weeks when they're travelling from starbase to starbase.

Neither do I, in fact I consider that closer to Trek then most of what we've seen recently. Being closer to TOS and all. I do find it funny though that people complain about the size of the rec facilities on the E-D, in TMP the E Refit had a massive rec deck and what looked like a pool or a garden in the secondary hull.

[Starglider]

The Enterprise found the cure - the collected experiences of the Talosians (who, in this universe, live much further away from the Federation than in TOS), who had turned in on themselves so completely that they eventually ran out of things to conjure for their own amusement, and had come to know a hellish tedium. The Talosians provided a program which would impart this experience on Federation citizens, along with a subtle subconscious nudge to find the holodeck distasteful.

This fails the fridge logic test. I'm sure it's the kind of thing Hollywood would lap up but it doesn't actually work. Why is real life any more interesting than holodeck simulations? Answer; it isn't. Real life is inherently less varied and more tedious. You can't even say that it has the thrill of real danger, because holodeck safties can be disabled. The only thing that will cut down holodeck usage in this scenario is either necessity (e.g. defence), or an ethical desire to go out and make the galaxy a better place (e.g. Contact, from the Cultureverse).