The Future of Star Trek
Posted: 2004-05-16 11:37pm
The recent thread about the potential Star Trek series set after the TNG/DS9/VOY era sparked off an idea I'd toyed with a few years ago. I'm not one to work with other's ideas generally, because of creative limitations, but this was an idea that hit me a long time ago and I think it has potential.
Firstly, this may contradict some of the unfortunately canon facts established in Voyager and First Contact. Too bad. This comes from a slightly more sane perspective than the Star Trek writers (I hope)-- in many cases, the only resemblance is some of the characters and aliens.
Ok, enough rambling. The idea here is that we're dealing with something at least a thousand years past what we've seen-- 3200-3300's minimum, though I haven't fleshed out any specifics.
This is going to be predicated on two ideas-- one, that the Borg (the original badass Borg, the Borg in "Q Who?", BOBW, and Peter David's "Vendetta" novel; I refuse to work with what Voyager made them) will continue to expand exponentially, absorbing more territory and technology.
The second is that the Federation, or whatever power exists in the Alpha Quadrant, decides that the Borg have to be stopped, ultimately, and they send a dedicated a task force to the DQ with the express goal of wiping them out once and for all.
The task force is led by a holographic mind-copy of none other than James T. Kirk. I couldn't resist the nostalgia. I know it's campy, and no I do not know how this copy was obtained, but bear with me. I know Picard might have been a better choice, but c'mon. This is Kirk; I want ass-stompings to occur. His co-commander is none other than Data, whom I assume is not only still functional, but has become all but indistinguishable from a human in terms of personality-- maybe a bit more.
Breaking with Trek tradition, this will be a specialized military force, with dedicated support staff, ground troops, and naval officers; the all-star command staff won't be going on away missions. The personnel consist of the usual mix of AQ species, and a fair amount of liberated drones consisting of species from all over taken during raids on Borg assets.
Technology-wise, these guys have quite a bit. Transwarp-equipped vessels, artificial wormhole gates (large enough for cap-ship travel), phase-cloaks, and energy-production capabilities well in excess of simple M/AM reactors. Phaser technology has been refined quite a bit to make it more of a brute-force weapon as opposed to relying on NDF chain reaction effects. Similar upgrades have been made in shielding and armor. Troops are given a "wiretap" that has limited access to the Collective's datastream. There are no more central computers-- distributed networks and AI's are the rule. Same goes for robotics technology; Data isn't the only functional robot anymore. And yes, there is body armor!
Again breaking from the traditional Trek model, the bulk of the fleet will be a carrier/fighter model. There are also a few heavy command ships/battleships, and smaller monitor/gunship-types (think Defiant), but the bulk of their forces are dedicated carrier groups. There are no explorers here. This group is pure military.
The scenario-- this task force is all but cut off. For whatever reason, the Federation isn't there anymore. They might have sublimed, they might have been destroyed, I don't know....in any event, I want these guys to be cut off from any main civilization, and considering the ship speeds and wormhole tech, it isn't practical to have them just "far away."
The task force is stationed in a massive base in a nebula near the outer rim of the galaxy-- thinking somewhere in the vicinity of where Voyager was dropped off, but literally right on the outer rim of the galaxy. Starfleet has refined their rapid-fabrication technology to the point that this base can churn out ships at a respectable rate-- nothing excessive, but they can do a number. I'm also thinking of some kind of von Neumann probe used for recon purposes and automated weapon manufacturing in Borg systems.
The actual story I worked up revolved around a rescued drone and his attempts to find stragglers from his destroyed civilization; it was much more of a character-driven story than a plot-driven one. Nevertheless, I think there's a good bit of room for storyline development along with character-based stories.
Firstly, this may contradict some of the unfortunately canon facts established in Voyager and First Contact. Too bad. This comes from a slightly more sane perspective than the Star Trek writers (I hope)-- in many cases, the only resemblance is some of the characters and aliens.
Ok, enough rambling. The idea here is that we're dealing with something at least a thousand years past what we've seen-- 3200-3300's minimum, though I haven't fleshed out any specifics.
This is going to be predicated on two ideas-- one, that the Borg (the original badass Borg, the Borg in "Q Who?", BOBW, and Peter David's "Vendetta" novel; I refuse to work with what Voyager made them) will continue to expand exponentially, absorbing more territory and technology.
The second is that the Federation, or whatever power exists in the Alpha Quadrant, decides that the Borg have to be stopped, ultimately, and they send a dedicated a task force to the DQ with the express goal of wiping them out once and for all.
The task force is led by a holographic mind-copy of none other than James T. Kirk. I couldn't resist the nostalgia. I know it's campy, and no I do not know how this copy was obtained, but bear with me. I know Picard might have been a better choice, but c'mon. This is Kirk; I want ass-stompings to occur. His co-commander is none other than Data, whom I assume is not only still functional, but has become all but indistinguishable from a human in terms of personality-- maybe a bit more.
Breaking with Trek tradition, this will be a specialized military force, with dedicated support staff, ground troops, and naval officers; the all-star command staff won't be going on away missions. The personnel consist of the usual mix of AQ species, and a fair amount of liberated drones consisting of species from all over taken during raids on Borg assets.
Technology-wise, these guys have quite a bit. Transwarp-equipped vessels, artificial wormhole gates (large enough for cap-ship travel), phase-cloaks, and energy-production capabilities well in excess of simple M/AM reactors. Phaser technology has been refined quite a bit to make it more of a brute-force weapon as opposed to relying on NDF chain reaction effects. Similar upgrades have been made in shielding and armor. Troops are given a "wiretap" that has limited access to the Collective's datastream. There are no more central computers-- distributed networks and AI's are the rule. Same goes for robotics technology; Data isn't the only functional robot anymore. And yes, there is body armor!
Again breaking from the traditional Trek model, the bulk of the fleet will be a carrier/fighter model. There are also a few heavy command ships/battleships, and smaller monitor/gunship-types (think Defiant), but the bulk of their forces are dedicated carrier groups. There are no explorers here. This group is pure military.
The scenario-- this task force is all but cut off. For whatever reason, the Federation isn't there anymore. They might have sublimed, they might have been destroyed, I don't know....in any event, I want these guys to be cut off from any main civilization, and considering the ship speeds and wormhole tech, it isn't practical to have them just "far away."
The task force is stationed in a massive base in a nebula near the outer rim of the galaxy-- thinking somewhere in the vicinity of where Voyager was dropped off, but literally right on the outer rim of the galaxy. Starfleet has refined their rapid-fabrication technology to the point that this base can churn out ships at a respectable rate-- nothing excessive, but they can do a number. I'm also thinking of some kind of von Neumann probe used for recon purposes and automated weapon manufacturing in Borg systems.
The actual story I worked up revolved around a rescued drone and his attempts to find stragglers from his destroyed civilization; it was much more of a character-driven story than a plot-driven one. Nevertheless, I think there's a good bit of room for storyline development along with character-based stories.