Pitch a Trek miniseries

[Atekimogus]

Well...I am bored by every "prequel" Star Trek...so here is my pitch, DS9 ended in 1999.

The new series is set 20 years later. After the end of the dominion war the wormwhole remained closed and no expedition was started into the gamma quadrant for diplomatic reasons. Between everything that happened in the meantime (Nemesis, supposed destruction of Romulus (or maybe we should just conveniently forget about it, or pretrend that in the prime universe Spock was successfull saving the planet) the focus shifted away from Bajor completely.
It never joined the federation and fell back into a more isolated, religious society with little progress. DS9 - once the strategically most important port in the galaxy - is - again - kinda rundown ever since the federation either left completely or only had a token presence there.


Enter ther series....the wormwhole sends out signals and "wakes up" (enter technobabble) and what looks like dominian ships are entering the quadrant. Not sure if this is the overture to renewed hostilities the UFP sends their Flagship - a new Enterprise - to investigate.

It would provide plenty of "nostalgia" and "memberberries" for the fans, would bring the prime-universe up to date and - after a mini-series worth of trials and tribulations - it would end with the Enterprise finally being free to enter the wormwhole on a 1-2 year mission to freely explore the gamma-quadrant at which point WE COULD FINALLY SEE SOMETHING NEW AND CREATIVE.

[Graham Kennedy]

Hmmm, intriguing.

I guess if I were doing that, I would have them go through and find the Dominion in ruins. Nobody is quite sure why, but it gradually became clear that the Dominion encountered something... worse. Much worse. A new Big Bad.

[DarkMoineau]

Hmmm, intriguing.

I guess if I were doing that, I would have them go through and find the Dominion in ruins. Nobody is quite sure why, but it gradually became clear that the Dominion encountered something... worse. Much worse. A new Big Bad.

And Odo would have the answer?

[Atekimogus]

Hmmm, intriguing.

I guess if I were doing that, I would have them go through and find the Dominion in ruins. Nobody is quite sure why, but it gradually became clear that the Dominion encountered something... worse. Much worse. A new Big Bad.

Well...to be honest...I would be against a new "big baddy" like the Borg or something.

My idea would be more the following....yes...the dominion is in ruins. But not because of a new alien threat...but simply because after they lost the war, the whole system they were based on collapsed. The founders were not viewed as gods anymore, the Jem*Hadar went rouge, fought against pretty much anyone and themselves, were ultimately not able to sustain themselves as a military force and with the founders no or limited interest in leading anymore the whole thing collapsed on itself.


Enter the UFP......a series set there is free to explore all the known and yet of unknown civilistations and phenomena of the gamma quadrant (ds9 never really went there, they got kicked out pretty much immediately) and considering rouge and/or mercenary Jem*Hadar, and a fractionioning dominion (basically a macedonian empire after Alexander the Great died) this could be an incredibly interesting setting, with plenty of "problem of the week" episodes as well as enough material for multiple overreaching arcs spanning a couple of seasons, imho.

Since Star Trek always was also a mirror of our times.....would fit quite nicely with what happens currently in the middle east/north africa...and how to deal with it. If you want to be really edgy...have half the gamma quadrant flee the chaos of the dominions destruction into the alpha quadrant ....but this might be far to obvious;).

[Graham Kennedy]

I can certainly see that working, and for a lot more than a miniseries. It's a cool idea.

I just think it would also be a cool idea to introduce a new Big Bad by showing them having destroyed somebody as big and strong as the Dominion.

[DarkMoineau]

Since Star Trek always was also a mirror of our times.....would fit quite nicely with what happens currently in the middle east/north africa...and how to deal with it. If you want to be really edgy...have half the gamma quadrant flee the chaos of the dominions destruction into the alpha quadrant ....but this might be far to obvious;).

Hum,

the refugees crisis could be mirrored both with the fall of the Romulan Empire than the Dominion.

But the Dominion setting would maybe allow more liberty even if I don't think a Star Trek show ever showed us a lot of Beta Quadrant as there is two empires blocking the way, Romulan and Klingon. Alpha and Delta quadrant are more well known than Beta and Gamma.

[bladela]

They could also take some time to repair the damage done by B & B to the Borg...

sorry...dreaming a bit...

[AlexMcpherson79]

my pitch:
A five-part miniseries following the First contact with, start of hostilities, declaration of war, war, and end of war between the Federation and the Cardassians.

Part One: First Contact, and terrible interactions that lead to war, with the Cardassian Central Government declaring several federation border worlds theirs. (At this point the Cardassians we see are outright EVIL. They're all Dukat. Wait, there's an idea...we know he's at least two people anyway! Anyway the whole 'they're evil' is because of the basic mentality that leads to just who gets into the military, into the obsidian order, and who gets declared guilty and THEN put on trial for something they might not have done or did do but it is viewed as 'bad'... no seriously this is the impression I get from ds9 season 1-3 depiction of cardassia)

Then it happens, Starfleet comes to blows with the Cardassian Military, who are making a First Strike on a border world, and three starfleet ships make way. There, they find that the Cardassian military have like, six Galor-class vessels, which are individually more advanced, and the mix of ships starfleet sent are no match. The USS Excelsior NCC-2000 is badly damaged, as is some much newer ships but smaller, like a New Orleans or whatever.

Part Two, features the two powers going to war, but halfway through after multiple battles and the federation attempting peace.
In the background the Klingon Empire are giving the Federation support, often placing ships in a position to respond to distress calls, while not participating in battle from the start themselves - the FEderation basically told them that 'we can handle it', and the then-chancellor doesn't believe them, quite rightly, viewing it as "federation pride". in the end, the Klingons officially never do enter, but a LOT of klingons do fight for the Federation, one big ole 'very close diplomatic ties' thing.

We see a GOOD member of the House of DURAS!
Anyway, this part is about the post-first-battle build up to actual war, to declaration, and the results from the opening battle, which sees several ambassador class ships destroyed, and oddly, the Excelsior and Miranda class ships have the highest survivability. (more modern ships have comparitively less defensive capability or something? slower because they're bulkier or something to do with the modern starfleet: more scientific, versus the Kirk Movie era seeming more military, like how the Ent-A had a weapons locker in the galley.

Basically at the end, one of the main characters of the piece - Owen Paris, comments that starfleet have gotten soft, since they haven't had a constant threat from the likes of the Klingon Empire. Cardassia is a threat.

Part four is basically entirely within the war, but with a stronger view from cardassia, showing a marked difference between military and civilians, basically sowing the seeds for what does happen at the end of season 3/start of season 4 in ds9. And after several cardassian colonies ARE wiped off the map, a civilian uprising attempt, but the Obsidian Order foils it, with a young pre-obsidian order Elim Garak regretfully at the centre, since it seems his actual mother was part of it. turns out, Mila ISNT his mom. Also provides the whole irony of what role he eventually takes himself, decades later. This also adds to why Tain didn't claim Garak as his own blood, though not in an 'I'm ashamed' but 'yet another reason to protect you'.

Part five is the end of the 'Border Wars', an incident since classified by both governments... the deployment of a Protomatter Genesis Device, completely decimates a strategically-located world in the border region, that had been subject to intense ground conflict on both sides. And no one knows which side used it - The Federation who haven't used anything outside of conventional means in the war before hand, but do know how to make it, or Cardassia, who as far as both Central Command and the Obsidian Order are aware, dont know how to build one, but DO use any and every means that they do have access to?

Only the audience would learn that it was Sloan. Yes, the head of Section 31. because of course he would, to end a war. Only one non-s31 character in-story would know: Owen Paris.

An epilogue to the miniseries would show the aftermath of Wolf 359, just 'ten years later' or something, (I'm slotting the border was as in the 2350s), and he says that line "Starfleet had gotten soft" in response to how badly they were beaten by the Borg. Not because the borg were so far ahead, but that after the end of the border wars with the Cardassians, Starfleet slid back into the 'science only' mentality. Which he says such from the bridge of a Galaxy Class starship performing after-battle rescue of the various survivors, and he passes a grieving father and son.... a black-skinned lieutenant commander from the Saratoga.
And an almost identical sequence in the aftermath of the battle of sector 001, this time he's an admiral, and witnessing from the bridge of a defiant-class ship, seeing the galaxy class he'd previously been on. And he says something that basically means, "Lesson learned."

Then, final shot: from another ship, in orbit of cardassia. "I think we learned it a little too well..."

[DarkMoineau]

I really like your idea.

It's strange I feel disturbed by having DITL contradicted by your story with Ambassador inferior to Excelsior (it contradict Yesterday Enterprise too, no?) butI really like everything else, specially the point with Sloan and Owen Paris on Wolf 359, Earth and Cardassia.

[Nutso]

It's been 3 months, I still have no ideas. Even after the news of Captain Picard returning, I can't imagine any scenarios for that one.

[AlexMcpherson79]

I really like your idea.

It's strange I feel disturbed by having DITL contradicted by your story with Ambassador inferior to Excelsior (it contradict Yesterday Enterprise too, no?) butI really like everything else, specially the point with Sloan and Owen Paris on Wolf 359, Earth and Cardassia.

Well, there must be a reason why the Excelsior and miranda are still so ubiqitious, yet the Ambassador has hardly ever been seen? Especially given the dominion war? (the hint is in the name, perhaps?)

This perhaps explains that when its actual purpose fails, its not that good? And even better, this plays extra emphasis on incidents like a certain romulan attack on a klingon installation. That it wasn't designed for combat, but science and diplomacy, so when time came to christen a new Enterprise, an Ambassador was selected?

Lets look at the history of 'Starfleet Enterprises'.

NX-01: Earth Starfleets' flagship, lead ship of a brand new advanced line of cruisers. even if it was small compared to what would to come.

NCC-1701 of the Constitution class. A Heavy Cruiser., one of the largest ships built by starfleet at the time. Designed for science, diplomacy and combat all rolled into one 289 metre-long package with over four hundred souls aboard.

But then we get the NCC-1701-B, of the Excelsior Class. This time, the ship is actually 467 metres long, with a crew of over seven hundred. It is primarily designed for science and diplomacy. The class itself was designed in the era when tensions between the United Federation of Planets and the Klingon Empire practically dropped to nothing, and only rogue agents such as Commander Kruge, among others on both sides, threatened to put the two powers to war - a war that for the large part, people in both powers didn't want. Glory in battle for klingons? yes, destruction of their civilization for the sake of glory? no. As Kahless once said, Destroying an empire, to win a war is no Victory, and ending a battle, to save an empire is no defeat."

The Enterprise-B came after a strong, lasting peace was made with the klingons, a race that venerate honour in battle. The Romulans had, in the aftermath of that treaty being signed, turned inward and isolationist, and very little would be heard from them in the next, century, or so. Starfleet is facing very few threats, in other words, and they're all small ones, not the constant threat of an entire empire breathing down their throat.

The Excelsior Class was constructed since 2285 or so, peace being signed less than ten years after the USS Excelsior originally launched as the NX-2000, and by the time the treaty was signed, had been rechristened NCC-2000. The NCC-1701-B was launched in 2293 - though it left spacedock without, well, a lot of systems. (IT wasn't due until TUESDAY!... today is tuesday!)

Then we get to the NCC-1701-C of the Ambassador class.
We don't have canon data on when it was launched, though Lost Era novels say 2332. The date it fought at Narendra III was 2344, so it would be twelve years old.

So say I am right, that the class name is indicative of the general capabilities of the ship - it's more about science and diplomacy, than combat, and its combat skills compared to other just-as-modern-ships of the time reflects this focus.

Lets do some basic comparisons. The Excelsior is 467m long, crew of over 700. The class itself started life during a time of peace uncertainty, so combat was still of high concern, but it was still built as a explorer and cruiser. It is equipped with 12 phaser banks, and four photon torpedo tubes. For its time, it was fast. Warp 8.6 maximum cruise, warp 9 for twelve hours.

The Ambassador class is large - 564m, just as the Excelsior is larger than the constituion. But the scale of increase is not so great. If anything, it should still have a larger crew, but it doesn't - just over five hundred. It only has ten phaser arrays, although the sheer difference between banks and arrays could, technically, mean that the ambassador actually outguns the excelsior by a large margin, if you follow the idea that the array is essentially a series of sequential emitters taken only slightly modifed from the 'banks' arrangement. Even so, it only has two photon torpedo tubes. For its time, its actually not that much faster, 8.8 maximum cruise, 9.2 for 12 hours.

Now, perhaps it was supposed to fill the role of excelsior from 2330s onward, but, it didn't. Why? Maybe because it's a more restricted purpose design?

The Consitution, and then the Excelsior, and in effect, Nebula and then Galaxy, onto Sovereign, they all had something in common - High crew counts, as compared to other classes, large size as compared to other ships of the time, and a specific mix of both Scientific, Diplomatic and combat capability, which the Ambassador class maybe lacks? If anything, the one argument for its case, fails on account that the Enterprise-C was still destroyed during the battle of Narendra III.

Speaking of Narendra III... It was supposedly a pivotal point in Federation-Klingon relations. Peace had lasted for about five decades by then, (2293+fifty years: 2343, the battle occured 2344) Without either side being aware of what actually occured that day causes war between the Federation and Klingons, and for the latter, it seems even worse perhaps, because it was an "Ambassador Class Starship", AND bearing the name "USS Enterprise-C" that, in their mind, attacked their outpost? With such low capabilities, the Klingons would view that attack not just as an insult, "How dare you attack us with such a puny ship!" (They're consider it less of one if it was perhaps an Excelsior-class? Older but much stronger-defined capabilities?) but also a dishonor of those serving in the klingon outpost there - "You LOST TO SUCH A PUNY SHIP?!"

Yet actually knowing who attacked - romulans - brings it a MASSIVE reversal - Here we are, a people who embrace honor in battle, about to loose to a foe that prefer dishonorable tactics, and we're being defended by a starship that is not designed for it, the crew onboard therefore so far out of their element, yet they did so with such success? Of course Songs would be sung in Captain Garretts' honor!

I like this dichotomy, that the Enterprise-C name was given to a ship of a class purpose-built for peace and peaceful exploration, yet fought at a level so much higher than its, 'weight class' you could say, that immortalised that ship and its crew in the eyes of the Klingon Empire in a way that could only happen if the Ambassador Class is actually a very wimpy class.

Which brings me back to the idea of the Excelsior being better, despite being older - it was likely designed at a time when 'Modular' was king, and this same principle of modularity was built into the Nebula/Galaxy family (which also had ships like the Cheyenne, New Orleans, Springfield, among others). The Excelsior family include the Centaur and the Shelley. The Ambassador has the Niagara, which presumably wasn't so good, while again, ships of the excelsior and constitution families went on to serve for several decades, with new vessels of those classes still being built, albeit likely to new standards with new components fitted to the modular design.

Kind of like how some fighters and bombers have served for several decades, with the F-14 Tomcat only being phased out relatively recently, while others allegedly more advanced barely get out of the design stage... Or the A-10 Thunderbolt still being preferred over the F-35 for CAS. older, but goddamn it can take a beating? Infact I'll run with that: The Excelsiors modularity meant that it could take a hell of a beating and still be working away in combat, when the Ambassador, a bit more integrated and newer technologies built into the design instead of 'around' it, suffered this problem. An A-10 is designed to still fly, on manual reversion, while missing half the tail, half a wing... among other missing pieces. The F-35 would probably shit its pants, pardon the language, if it so much as got a scratch. yet thats what so many want to replace the A-10 with.

Huh, I got a bit, into it here.

[Reliant121]

Well...I am bored by every "prequel" Star Trek...so here is my pitch, DS9 ended in 1999.

The new series is set 20 years later. After the end of the dominion war the wormwhole remained closed and no expedition was started into the gamma quadrant for diplomatic reasons. Between everything that happened in the meantime (Nemesis, supposed destruction of Romulus (or maybe we should just conveniently forget about it, or pretrend that in the prime universe Spock was successfull saving the planet) the focus shifted away from Bajor completely.
It never joined the federation and fell back into a more isolated, religious society with little progress. DS9 - once the strategically most important port in the galaxy - is - again - kinda rundown ever since the federation either left completely or only had a token presence there.


Enter ther series....the wormwhole sends out signals and "wakes up" (enter technobabble) and what looks like dominian ships are entering the quadrant. Not sure if this is the overture to renewed hostilities the UFP sends their Flagship - a new Enterprise - to investigate.

It would provide plenty of "nostalgia" and "memberberries" for the fans, would bring the prime-universe up to date and - after a mini-series worth of trials and tribulations - it would end with the Enterprise finally being free to enter the wormwhole on a 1-2 year mission to freely explore the gamma-quadrant at which point WE COULD FINALLY SEE SOMETHING NEW AND CREATIVE.

For anyone who is curious about an alternative view of the "After DS9" and "After Nemesis" picture of Star Trek, a good shout are the Typhon Pact novels. There's some general plotanium going on but they're an exhilerating set of stories with involvement of most of the old DS9 gang with a few cameos from TNG and some new characters. I particularly like the new Romulan Praetor.

And some old foes rear their heads as well.

[Sonic Glitch]

... I particularly like the new Romulan Praetor.

Have you read "Serpents Among the Ruins" from the Lost Era series?

[Bryan Moore]

A "24" style day in the life of the Enterprise-D around 2364, focusing solely on Wesley Crusher. And when Wesley is not in the scene, all the other crew members are asking "Where's Wesley?!"

[IanKennedy]

A "24" style day in the life of the Enterprise-D around 2364, focusing solely on Wesley Crusher. And when Wesley is not in the scene, all the other crew members are asking "Where's Wesley?!"

The men with the straight jackets are on their way...