How would you fix Star Trek?

[Karha of Honor]

On paper, I really liked the idea of Abrams Trek as it could have been the equivalent of the Ultimate Marvel universe. There is too much canon and too much history for new viewers on their first viewing to understand - there is no ''pick up and play'' as it were.

How can anyone write historical fiction...?

That's exactly the right question, IMO.

By history I mean ''there was 40 years of lore that brand new readers needed to know about before any of this makes sense'' not whatever it is that you are referring to.

The point is that this assertion is unjustified, and there exists ample evidence to the contrary. People write stories which take place inside of real-world human history, which encompasses around five thousand years of canon, and these stories don't require you to read ancient Sumerian to be caught up.

If, to be understood, a story requires the audience to be intimately familiar to the level you describe, I contend that it's extremely poorly-written. It is not a failing of having a rich and broad history, but a failure to write.

Real world history has the advantage of being something that we learn since the first grade from teachers, parents, siblings, and every factual news source imaginable.

There are plenty of exotic corners of history people know nothing about. Kdramas are popular enough that someone made a streaming service for them and most people know jack shit about ancient Korean history when it was called Chosun and before. Kdramas tanking place before the 20th century are a huge chunk of Kdramas.

[Yukaphile]

Look, my view is, if you're not gonna be respectful to the original source material, then don't include it. Don't ignore it, don't act as if it never existed, but don't include it. My worst fear is that for STG, past the Dominion not getting even so much as a token mention (even though they waged the most brutal war the galaxy had ever seen two decades prior), they will instead give them the Borg treatment or what they've done with the Q and the Nausicaans. Change the Jem'Hadar's looks, change the motivation of the Founders or something, because it's clear these new writers just don't understand the soul of the franchise anymore. They only see the superficial, that's all. That's not surprising when CGI is painstakingly crafted in today's world to make the story as "lifelike" as possible. Why, it's almost as if modern movies and TV shows have real substance to them! So God help us if they get their hands on the Dominion. They are so far the only interstellar organization/race/group unaffected by the new writers and what they've done to the series, and I don't want them losing all that made them cool. Shit, Darth Vader, the Q, the Borg... why is it sci-fi writers are so intent on destroying the best parts of their own lore?

[Deledrius]

Look, my view is, if you're not gonna be respectful to the original source material, then don't include it. Don't ignore it, don't act as if it never existed, but don't include it.
[...]
why is it sci-fi writers are so intent on destroying the best parts of their own lore?

Same here. It's sad and frustrating.

[Beastro]

I am fine with darker Trek but this sounds to much like IRL nasty politics.

You say that as if it's a bad thing.....

One of my loves of B5 came from it tackling that nastiness, albeit annoyingly playing kiddie ball with the happy ending around the Interstellar Alliance crap.

The Ferengi are retarded based on what i have seen of them. Fun, but retarded.

And why they'd make good ground for a race that would go outside their comic stereotypes and try to be something more by stepping out of their element by continuing the precedent DS9 started.

Shit, Darth Vader, the Q, the Borg... why is it sci-fi writers are so intent on destroying the best parts of their own lore?

I find the problem with the Q being their very existance now. They were the best, and really only, sucessful part of the TOS that made it across without any changes, effectively being all of Roddenberry's old god problem episodes in one package.

I think the best for them would be to get rid of them, but within some framework that can give them some closure. Like they realize some Lovecraftian monstrosity is invading our universe that could wipe it all out in an instant thanks to something one of them did (similar to the Voyager Q dicking around trying to find ways of killing himself). So they finally show their superior nature by taking the bullet and attracting the thing after they find a way to leave this universe to lure it away. Some may finally die by doing so, all of them are terrified, but behind it they're thrilled that they finally have a challenge with risks as well as a path beyond everything they know into the unknown beyond our universe.

[Deledrius]

I think the best for them would be to get rid of them, but within some framework that can give them some closure. Like they realize some Lovecraftian monstrosity is invading our universe that could wipe it all out in an instant thanks to something one of them did (similar to the Voyager Q dicking around trying to find ways of killing himself). So they finally show their superior nature by taking the bullet and attracting the thing after they find a way to leave this universe to lure it away. Some may finally die by doing so, all of them are terrified, but behind it they're thrilled that they finally have a challenge with risks as well as a path beyond everything they know into the unknown beyond our universe.

I like that, and it could work, but it's really hard to see how you could tell that story from the point of view of (even Federation-level) humans and have it either make any sense whatsoever, or else not be laughably less-epic than it should be. It would take some very cunning storytelling, with the consequences being seen and felt and only inferring or being told the broad strokes at regular intervals.

Sorta like the Temporal Cold War story. Except, you know, good.

[Karha of Honor]

I am fine with darker Trek but this sounds to much like IRL nasty politics.

You say that as if it's a bad thing.....

One of my loves of B5 came from it tackling that nastiness, albeit annoyingly playing kiddie ball with the happy ending around the Interstellar Alliance crap.

The Ferengi are retarded based on what i have seen of them. Fun, but retarded.

And why they'd make good ground for a race that would go outside their comic stereotypes and try to be something more by stepping out of their element by continuing the precedent DS9 started.

What works in one setting it might not work in an another. Trek did not portray Federation leadership the way Babylon 5 did.

DS 9 did not make them into a real threat. Their society is still a joke, plenty of cool Delta Quadrant races worth revisitng.

[Deledrius]

DS 9 did not make them into a real threat. Their society is still a joke, plenty of cool Delta Quadrant races worth revisitng.

I think we saw flashes of What Could Be, if someone were to take them seriously going forward. Between Quark's cunning in talking to the Maquis Vulcan, and Nog's Material River navigation abilities, there's a lot of mining to be had there with brains able to negotiate complex systems and also weigh costs and benefits (humans are notoriously bad at this, by and large).

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

Comic books, superhero films, horror series, a lot of them have to spend a lot of time trying to rectify ill-conceived choices. For example, you can argue the artistic merit of some of the choices made in Alien 3 (I hated the choices made there, to be honest), but people have been struggling (and failing) to give that franchise direction ever since some of those fatal decisions were made. Star Wars 9 is going to have to struggle to deal with episode 8, and episode 8 struggled to deal with episode 7. A better thought-out trilogy would have avoided those struggles, but too late.

The good news for Star Trek is that it's not tied down to any one character or idea, so there's really no need to "fix" the franchise as a whole. The bad news is that the powers that be have completely refused to take advantage of the limitless possibilities the franchise has to offer, and instead seem content to rehash the same time periods and spend time with the distant relations of established characters rather than branching out and reaching for new horizons.

I've felt for the long time that the best option is to divorce your new series/movies from the old stuff, outside some loose connections in continuity, which could be expanded on in Treklit for those who care. If you do that, then your show can be truly free to live or die by its own quality. You don't have to pull a Star Wars 8 and refute what came before- just make new stuff.

The areas I would consider targeting-

1. 20-100 years after the TNG era. You can talk about the Dominion War, have a few cameos, and still be completely free to do your own thing.

2. Post-TOS and pre-TNG, somewhere around Star Trek VI. You could do some interesting stuff leading up to the Federation as we know it in the TNG era, but as far as the film/tv canon you still have a lot of room to maneuver. The advantage of this period is that you can showcase better tech than TOS without anachronism (unlike Discovery), but you can also avoid some of the magical science/technology (i.e. replicators) that creates storytelling problems.

[Yukaphile]

I think the best for them would be to get rid of them, but within some framework that can give them some closure. Like they realize some Lovecraftian monstrosity is invading our universe that could wipe it all out in an instant thanks to something one of them did (similar to the Voyager Q dicking around trying to find ways of killing himself). So they finally show their superior nature by taking the bullet and attracting the thing after they find a way to leave this universe to lure it away. Some may finally die by doing so, all of them are terrified, but behind it they're thrilled that they finally have a challenge with risks as well as a path beyond everything they know into the unknown beyond our universe.

Q vs. Nyarlathotep, now that I'd be willing to see in a modern Trek, lol.

[Karha of Honor]

DS 9 did not make them into a real threat. Their society is still a joke, plenty of cool Delta Quadrant races worth revisitng.

I think we saw flashes of What Could Be, if someone were to take them seriously going forward. Between Quark's cunning in talking to the Maquis Vulcan, and Nog's Material River navigation abilities, there's a lot of mining to be had there with brains able to negotiate complex systems and also weigh costs and benefits (humans are notoriously bad at this, by and large).

If Ferengi are not funny as a whole they stopped being Ferengi.