Fixing bad star trek series.

[Brethern]

One of the things I do when watching a series like enterprise or voyager in order make the experience watchable is think of ways to have made it better. I'm curious if anyone has ever done the same?

For example my head series of Enterprise starts on The Enterprise E in the present day the day before the anniversary of first contact. The characters would be sitting there thinking about the Events of star trek first contact and reading the historical account of what happened, there would be things in there about how great Cochran was a visionary and so forth, then the characters would say something about how history views things through rose colored glasses they would make references to how he was really motivated by greed and was a drunk most of the time. Completely opposite to federation values, they would wonder things like did the history books ever record him as he really was and if they did when did it change and why.

That would inspire Riker and Data to start digging through history to find the answers to the questions. Doing so would lead them to the historical accounts of NX-01 which is where the series starts in Ernest.

Basically the entire series would be saying this is what the history books said happened, but this here what you are seeing is what really happened in all it's gritty detail.

For Voyager what I would change is instead of the journey home it would be a character journey, Janeway would be a by the book captain who finds the notion of doing things Picards or Kirks way inconceivable (I'm using it correctly right?) and personally thinks they should have been kicked out of starfleet for the actions. She shares a similar view of the maquis Over the course of the series she would learn that not everything is covered by a regulation and that kirks method of command is necessary she would also learn that the maquis had good reason to do what they did as she sees results of federation decision making in other places with the worst case scenario happening again and again.

The series would also focus on New guy harry kim, fresh out the academy and filled with federation ideals. If they wouldn't have gotten trapped in the delta quadrant He would have eventually joined the maquis. Essentially over of the course of the series we end with a Harry who has the motivation and courage to force things to change in the federation.

With Kes the idea is that she's a visual representation of Janeway's decision. Over the series things would eventually come to light is that the ocampa were the victims of severe genetic tampering, due to reasons obvious to anyone with a basic understanding of biology and math. Eventually they would hear news as to what happened to the ocampa a few weeks after the array was destroyed the Kazon managed to dig down to them and kes is the only known survivor. (The Kazon have energy weapons shooting at the ground from orbit is a simple matter.)

That brings us to the next point The Kazon They would be remade into tragic villains they would have shared a star system with the trabe and eventually developed warp drive first, the trabe on the other hand developed powerful weapons and shields first, along with bio weapons and so forth. Through subterfuge a bio weapon would have been deployed on the kazon homeworld and they would have been made slaves, save for the single warp capable ship they built before it happened. Their rise to power again would happen 100 years later the descendants of the crew of the first ship finally have the tech to free their people. The slave kazon on the other hand would only have the stories of what they were. Due to tampering from the trabe chemical suppressants and such.

The revolt would end with the free kazon sacrificing themselves to free the others and the others stealing the tech and becoming what they are now. Their story arc would eventually uncover the tampering the trabe caused to make them slaves. Their actions are caused by chemicals and such, eventually voyager would find a way to reverse that and they would go on to become the best allies voyager has.

I could never decided what to do with Neelix but best I can come up with is that the maquis would hold him responsible for being the one who trapped them in the delta quadrant, he was the guy who started shooting at a peaceful negotiation and at the time voyager had no reason to not trust the kazon the remaining events of caretaker were caused by his actions. The only reason why he would be allowed to remain on voyager is because kes requested he stay. Over the course of her story she would see his true colors and break it off with them. Neelix stories would involve him trying to weasel himself into positions where he had power while members of the voyager crew are trying to stop him.

Chakotay and paris stories would eventually make them come to realize they're not that different and they would reconcile. Tuvok would start to wonder if stopping the maquis really is the logical thing, The doctor would remain largely the same no point in fixing what's not broken. Torres would eventually rein in her temper.

Seven of nine stories would be a better journey, for one the catsuit would be gone once the medical reason for needing it is gone (there was a medical reason.) and she would wear a proper uniform.

The final season would be building up to endgame, all the things they had in Endgame would be spread over a season and a few would change. Instead of changing history just cause she's have a real reason, during the 23 years it took to get home paris and torres child would have been assimilated during a borg encounter. The attempts to retrieve her would have lead to the deaths of Chakotay, Seven, and a dozen other crew members.

That's all I can think of for huge changes, other small things I would change is that crew deaths would be a rarity so that when it happens it hits hard.

Thoughts? Or post what you would change.

[rtxoff]

You seem to have watched pretty much of it despite you calling it bad Star Trek series. So if it is that bad as you say why did you even watch it?

[Brethern]

You seem to have watched pretty much of it despite you calling it bad Star Trek series. So if it is that bad as you say why did you even watch it?

Because I support the franchise and like to see new content generated.

[razark]

I think Enterprise could have been much better if they dropped the third season and the final episode.

The season-long story arc of "save the Earth from the evil aliens" thing was a bit too much of a departure from what the show had been, a chronicle of humanity's first steps exploring outside our local area. The last episode was just annoying, focusing what should have been the series finale for Enterprise on characters from a different series.

[pxi]

I quite liked Voyager, it took a couple of seasons to get going, but that's kind of normal for Star Trek.

Enterprise, on the other hand, the first thing that put me off it was that god-awful theme tune. Some day I'm going to go through the series though.

[Dodgey]

I think Enterprise could have been much better if they dropped the third season and the final episode.

The season-long story arc of "save the Earth from the evil aliens" thing was a bit too much of a departure from what the show had been, a chronicle of humanity's first steps exploring outside our local area. The last episode was just annoying, focusing what should have been the series finale for Enterprise on characters from a different series.

The problem with the last episode was that the series was candled so they had to wrap it up, but I agree with you about the third season. Personally I liked Enterprise the most because of how much more gritty it was, they didn't have the all powerful Galaxy Class starship of TNG, or the incredibly advanced ship of Voyager (though I did like the character development of Janeway and the ragtagness of the series). It was more down to Earth and felt more relateable. We got to see Star Fleet from its infancy and see the Vulcans in a new light. To me it really felt like they were boldly going.

One of my main gripes with the series as a whole was how much its budget showed. Especially the CG. I did love the theme song though

[Brethern]

I quite liked Voyager, it took a couple of seasons to get going, but that's kind of normal for Star Trek.

Enterprise, on the other hand, the first thing that put me off it was that god-awful theme tune. Some day I'm going to go through the series though.

The only good things about voyager were seven of nine and the EMH, the reason being Robert Picard and Jeri Ryan are extremely talented actors. If the voyager writers would have taken the time to think about things before they decided to write them the show would have been allot better. Like the whole Holodecks have an incompatible power source from the rest of the ship. Seriously? Of all all the excuses you could have used to allow holodeck stories that's the one you choose? Why not have it that the power source can supplement the ship but Janeway is pragmatic enough to realize that taken the holodecks offline is going to be bad for crew moral, this way your holodeck stories can still happen and it's something that doesn't spit in the face of NASA engineers. Who at their peak took a square peg and made it fit in a round hole using only what supplies Apollo 13 had in the capsule.

Then there's the whole Neelix cooking thing. So a stove that connects into a power conduit is more efficient that rationing your replicators? Not to mention his "survival skills" apparently the writers forget that just because something is toxic to one species doesn't mean it's toxic to another.

[Beowolf]

Then there's the whole Neelix cooking thing. So a stove that connects into a power conduit is more efficient that rationing your replicators?

Replicators were intended to be insanely expensive to use. Roddenberry's vision got corrupted after he died and others took over. But his original plan for holodecks and replicators was for them to consume absurd amounts of energy, and only make sense on an isolated starship that already had a terrawatt-size power plant to run a warp drive.

But then, like the earlier powered doors which also only make sense on a starship or space station, they became part of the Star Trek background, and started showing up everywhere. How Quark's can afford to burn a gigawatt-hour of energy to replicate a cocktail was ignored, and when they realized this broke their economic model, DS9's creators just made up that stupid "gold-pressed latinum" crap instead of fixing the real problem.

Replicators also don't create the matter they produce, any more than a current 3D printer creates its plastic filament. In Roddenberry's plan, there was a stockpile of all different elements on board. Replicators used a transporter-like device to pull what they needed out of that stockpile, then reassembled it molecule-by-molecule into the desired form. So they didn't even need to make up the latinum thing. It was just lazy writing. If you wanted to replicate something made of latinum, the recipe would be latinum + lots of energy, so you aren't going to make a profit. Turning carbon + energy into diamond may have turned a profit if you had the very first replicator, but the price of diamonds would have quickly moved to that new price-point.

/Star Trek pet peeves. If you think this was bad, you should hear me complain about how they screwed up Data's backstory.

[Brethern]

Replicators were intended to be insanely expensive to use. Roddenberry's vision got corrupted after he died and others took over. But his original plan for holodecks and replicators was for them to consume absurd amounts of energy, and only make sense on an isolated starship that already had a terrawatt-size power plant to run a warp drive.

But then, like the earlier powered doors which also only make sense on a starship or space station, they became part of the Star Trek background, and started showing up everywhere. How Quark's can afford to burn a gigawatt-hour of energy to replicate a cocktail was ignored, and when they realized this broke their economic model, DS9's creators just made up that stupid "gold-pressed latinum" crap instead of fixing the real problem.

Replicators also don't create the matter they produce, any more than a current 3D printer creates its plastic filament. In Roddenberry's plan, there was a stockpile of all different elements on board. Replicators used a transporter-like device to pull what they needed out of that stockpile, then reassembled it molecule-by-molecule into the desired form. So they didn't even need to make up the latinum thing. It was just lazy writing. If you wanted to replicate something made of latinum, the recipe would be latinum + lots of energy, so you aren't going to make a profit. Turning carbon + energy into diamond may have turned a profit if you had the very first replicator, but the price of diamonds would have quickly moved to that new price-point.

/Star Trek pet peeves. If you think this was bad, you should hear me complain about how they screwed up Data's backstory.

Why would you need elements for a machine that can change things into another? Wouldn't any matter provide the same function? Unless the wiki is wrong about their use.

Secondly, let's not get into federation economics, otherwise it's going to become clear just how stupid it is to have a civilization with no money.

[Bill Phil]

Secondly, let's not get into federation economics, otherwise it's going to become clear just how stupid it is to have a civilization with no money.

Well, you COULD use credit. One guy borrows something and eventually pays that thing back with something of equal or greater value. But that won't happen with our new money-obsessed society. The old worked for tens of thousands of years on the minimalistic side of the argument. The new one has only worked for a few thousand. We need to wait to see if civilization even works out well at all. Who knows for sure? Maybe there's a cycle of civilization to not a civilization to civilization... Not likely, I know. But the perfect society, as far as we know, doesn't exist. Or it's really hard to get to...

[Brethern]

Well, you COULD use credit. One guy borrows something and eventually pays that thing back with something of equal or greater value. But that won't happen with our new money-obsessed society. The old worked for tens of thousands of years on the minimalistic side of the argument. The new one has only worked for a few thousand. We need to wait to see if civilization even works out well at all. Who knows for sure? Maybe there's a cycle of civilization to not a civilization to civilization... Not likely, I know. But the perfect society, as far as we know, doesn't exist. Or it's really hard to get to...

The federation is far from the perfect society. If it was then there wouldn't be humans who are not part of the federation.

[Bill Phil]

The federation is far from the perfect society. If it was then there wouldn't be humans who are not part of the federation.

I wasn't trying to imply it was perfect...

[KerbMav]

/Star Trek pet peeves. If you think this was bad, you should hear me complain about how they screwed up Data's backstory.

Indulge me!

[lajoswinkler]

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but heavy nuclei were prohibitively expensive/hard to assemble using replicators, so you couldn't make stuff like gold, lead, uranium in a food replicator because of restrictions. Foods are basically all about carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, sulfur. Heavier elements come in very tiny amounts (iron, cobalt, iodine, chlorine, zinc, ...) so they aren't a problem.

What always annoyed me with Star Trek is how the producers were too lazy in some areas to they for example made up elements and coated them in "it's exotic high tech matter". No, it isn't. It's gibberish, technobabble. It suits well for people who don't know what atomic number is, but they should know better.

[Nikolai]

IMHO, Trek has suffered from a "too many cooks" problem. If a writer needs a bit of super-technology to write a story, it gets written in, with its own "explanation" and operational rules of consistency (which may or may not be consistent with other bits of high-tech story fodder). Add to this technology where the social implications are poorly thought-out (i.e., the transporter) and you're bound to find that your universe doesn't hold together as well as you'd like. Fans start to feel that you're making stuff up simply to make stuff up, and the occasional deus ex machina of super-technology becomes much more transparent.

People don't usually have a problem with invented ideas in a story, as long as the implications presented hold together and there aren't so many invented ideas that people start to lose interest in seeing how characters will overcome hurdles presented to them because you could always pull a "Then he woke up, because it was all a dream" ending (worded more "technically" with sophisticated gobbledygook about reversing the neutron charge modularity, perhaps, but the end is the same).

So what they need to do, it seems to me, is to clean up with much better definitions about the kind of "super-technology" allowed and by what principles it is allowed to work. They had an excellent opportunity to do this with the recent reboot, but blew it completely (I'm looking at you, portable transporter). I'd recommend starting with the ability to create action at a limited distance (for tractor beams and the like) and some kind of "hyperspace corridor". The transporter is replaced with flicking people through a wormhole, and avoids the whole mess of what happens when you can tear a person apart at the molecular level and assemble a copy elsewhere. Phasers are replaced with the ability to rip matter from wherever it is into wormholes that gets deposited randomly in some corner of the universe, and shields cause these wormholes to spontaneously collapse at the expense of energy.

The biggest problem I can see right away is that there's no way to set phasers to "stun". People more creative than I would have to explore these things pretty fully and determine what's allowed and what isn't. But once people got used to the self-consistency of the stories and universe, they might be tempted to give Trek new life.

[EdFred]

lulz at people getting upset that fiction isn't real. Thanks for the Friday afternoon laugh.

[Brethern]

IMHO, Trek has suffered from a "too many cooks" problem. If a writer needs a bit of super-technology to write a story, it gets written in, with its own "explanation" and operational rules of consistency (which may or may not be consistent with other bits of high-tech story fodder). Add to this technology where the social implications are poorly thought-out (i.e., the transporter) and you're bound to find that your universe doesn't hold together as well as you'd like. Fans start to feel that you're making stuff up simply to make stuff up, and the occasional deus ex machina of super-technology becomes much more transparent.

People don't usually have a problem with invented ideas in a story, as long as the implications presented hold together and there aren't so many invented ideas that people start to lose interest in seeing how characters will overcome hurdles presented to them because you could always pull a "Then he woke up, because it was all a dream" ending (worded more "technically" with sophisticated gobbledygook about reversing the neutron charge modularity, perhaps, but the end is the same).

So what they need to do, it seems to me, is to clean up with much better definitions about the kind of "super-technology" allowed and by what principles it is allowed to work. They had an excellent opportunity to do this with the recent reboot, but blew it completely (I'm looking at you, portable transporter). I'd recommend starting with the ability to create action at a limited distance (for tractor beams and the like) and some kind of "hyperspace corridor". The transporter is replaced with flicking people through a wormhole, and avoids the whole mess of what happens when you can tear a person apart at the molecular level and assemble a copy elsewhere. Phasers are replaced with the ability to rip matter from wherever it is into wormholes that gets deposited randomly in some corner of the universe, and shields cause these wormholes to spontaneously collapse at the expense of energy.

The biggest problem I can see right away is that there's no way to set phasers to "stun". People more creative than I would have to explore these things pretty fully and determine what's allowed and what isn't. But once people got used to the self-consistency of the stories and universe, they might be tempted to give Trek new life.

Honestly advanced tech isn't the problem the problem is Roddenberry What he wanted and what makes a good story are incompatible, Sf Debris covers it better in this video.

To me it's also a reason why the Borg are such a good villian, advanced tech does nothing against them, in fact it makes them come for you even more. They can't be reasoned with nor do they care about your way of life. The only thing that stopped them the first time was a major Hail mary on the part of the Enterprise. Even then they had plenty of time to bombard earth from orbit. The only reason why Earth was spared was because they wanted to assimilate it.

lulz at people getting upset that fiction isn't real. Thanks for the Friday afternoon laugh.

Um, you do realize the narrative part of fiction which everything that is being discussed is in fact real right? Edited March 6, 2015 by Brethern

[EdFred]

Um, you do realize the narrative part of fiction which everything that is being discussed is in fact real right?

This makes no sense. Fiction is, well, fiction. Unless I missed getting my Federation issued home replicator from PicardCo.

[Nikolai]

To me it's also a reason why the Borg are such a good villian, advanced tech does nothing against them, in fact it makes them come for you even more. They can't be reasoned with nor do they care about your way of life. The only thing that stopped them the first time was a major Hail mary on the part of the Enterprise. Even then they had plenty of time to bombard earth from orbit. The only reason why Earth was spared was because they wanted to assimilate it.

But the Borg are an excellent example of the "too many cooks" problem I'm talking about! They started out as technological scavengers who only cared about acquiring advanced tech; in "Q Who?", where they were introduced, there was no hint of assimilation, for example. Babies were grown in vats. It was clear that they didn't care about the Federation or its inhabitants; they only wanted the Enterprise.

Assimilation was mentioned for the first time in "Best of Both Worlds", where it made one of the best two-part episodes of the entire franchise. But they only assimilated one (influential) person. By First Contact, it was decided that entire races would fall before the Borg juggernaut -- to the point of becoming an end in itself, where technological "prizes" weren't as valuable as assimilating. (They stopped the technological development of the human race for the express purpose of assimilating them, erasing the very technology that drew their interest in the series!) It was no longer "to service us"; it was "to be part of us". They went from being something that didn't care about humans to something that cared about humans (if only as prey). It turned something thought-provoking into a zombie movie. By the time you got to Voyager, the Borg didn't even have the ability to analyze or think independently; if they couldn't assimilate, they were powerless (e.g., Species 8472). They were neither a threat nor a source for fascination; they were a farce. And that's because "too many cooks" had their own rules for how the Borg work.

It's worth noting that once they moved some of Roddenberry's big obstacles out of the way (e.g., "No conflict among crew members"), there was room to create interesting stories. I'm arguing that this "too many cooks" problem is something that could be solved with a clean-up and reboot, much as Roddenberry's big obstacles were.

Edited March 6, 2015 by Nikolai

[Brethern]

This makes no sense. Fiction is, well, fiction. Unless I missed getting my Federation issued home replicator from PicardCo.

What about the stories fiction tells are those fiction? The point of fiction is to tell a story.

[Nikolai]

This makes no sense. Fiction is, well, fiction. Unless I missed getting my Federation issued home replicator from PicardCo.

True. But not all fiction is good fiction, and the strength of good fiction comes from a variety of sources that are real (e.g., the structure and evolution of the story). It's those that we're discussing, not the realism of the fiction.

[Brethern]

But the Borg are an excellent example of the "too many cooks" problem I'm talking about! They started out as technological scavengers who only cared about acquiring advanced tech; in "Q Who?", where they were introduced, there was no hint of assimilation, for example. Babies were grown in vats. It was clear that they didn't care about the Federation or its inhabitants; they only wanted the Enterprise.

Assimilation was mentioned for the first time in "Best of Both Worlds", where it made one of the best two-part episodes of the entire franchise. But they only assimilated one (influential) person. By First Contact, it was decided that entire races would fall before the Borg juggernaut -- to the point of becoming an end in itself, where technological "prizes" weren't as valuable as assimilating. (They stopped the technological development of the human race for the express purpose of assimilating them, erasing the very technology that drew their interest in the series!) It was no longer "to service us"; it was "to be part of us". They went from being something that didn't care about humans to something that cared about humans (if only as prey). It turned something thought-provoking into a zombie movie. By the time you got to Voyager, the Borg didn't even have the ability to analyze or think independently; if they couldn't assimilate, they were powerless (e.g., Species 8472). They were neither a threat nor a source for fascination; they were a farce. And that's because "too many cooks" had their own rules for how the Borg work.

By contrast, once they moved some of Roddenberry's big obstacles out of the way (e.g., "No conflict among crew members"), there was room to create interesting stories. I'm arguing that this "too many cooks" problem is something that could be solved with a clean-up and reboot, much as Roddenberry's big obstacles were.

I'm going to agree with you on that. The Borg could have been an impressive villain for voyager if they would have though things through, the ironic thing is most of these points could have been avoided if they would have taken the time to write an essay on the universe.

[Nikolai]

I'm going to agree with you on that. The Borg could have been an impressive villain for voyager if they would have though things through, the ironic thing is most of these points could have been avoided if they would have taken the time to write an essay on the universe.

My contention exactly. Thank you for pointing out that this isn't just a Treknobabble problem -- it's a problem that tends to reduce complex, thought-provoking, and multi-dimensional alien races into one-note stereotypes. (All Vulcans are logical. All Klingons are warlike. All Ferengi are greedy. And so on.)

[Brethern]

My contention exactly. Thank you for pointing out that this isn't just a Treknobabble problem -- it's a problem that tends to reduce complex, thought-provoking, and multi-dimensional alien races into one-note stereotypes. (All Vulcans are logical. All Klingons are warlike. All Ferengi are greedy. And so on.)

Exploding bridge consoles, Janeway's inconstant character which even the actress disliked. I'm wondering is it because the writers got worn down from Roddenberry's constant shooting down of ideas did things turn the way they did, or is it because they wanted to distance themselves from past episodes that such things happened.