You in charge of Star Trek: The Original Series

Ok, it's June 1965 and the NBC television network comes to you, (because you just happen to be in 1965 and American network TV executives just keep turning up at your door), wanting you to take control of it's new science fiction show after the death of it's creator in a freak lightening related accident.

It's just after Star Trek's second pilot has been ordered and you're in charge of making the thing, and unless you're totally incompetent you should be able to get a firm order for a series. However you still have to work within the restrictions of 1960's American TV, meaning you can't just cherry pick the best bits of future Trek or future sci-fi and think 60's audiences will accept it like 90's audiences. You have to make something that sells and sells well enough to get renewed.

So how do you start one of the most notable television science fiction francises of the 20th century?

Actually flesh out the military and economic issues of the Federation before the TNG idiots have a chance to get their hands on them. Thus, Starfleet is actually a military organization with a standing mandate for exploration, while scientific staff are attached non-Fleet personnel from the "Federation Academy of Sciences." The Federation is idealist but not pacifist, and is actually prepared to fight wars if it comes to that. Not every incursion is met by catastrophe or blind luck. Warp drive and the Federation's size both get detailed appearances so that no one can screw with them later. At least one episode features an attack on Sol, such that I have an excuse to describe its productive abilities as well as fixed defensive outlays and fleet presence, and have Spock make some comment about Vulcan and Andorra being comparably defended and industrialized.

Economically, I'd flesh out a mostly post-scarcity society where advanced manufacturing techniques (which will be undefined in the name of incorporating nanotechnology and orbital refinery techniques later on) and automation in service industries allow everyone a decent standard of living but moving beyond that basic standard requires a free state education and willingness to work. Money is still extant beyond that basic standard, which is comfortable but certainly not luxurious in comparison to what someone with even the most basic of incomes can afford. Thus, most people opt for the "study and work" option. Enough of this utopian anti-consumerist crap...

As you can see, most of what I would do is aimed at heading off the morons who took over for TNG before they can turn the Federation into some kind of mush-minded ultra-liberal utopia and make it an actual functioning society with real constraints, struggles, and ideals that it doesn't always live up to.

loughery111 said:

Actually flesh out the military and economic issues of the Federation before the TNG idiots have a chance to get their hands on them. Thus, Starfleet is actually a military organization with a standing mandate for exploration, while scientific staff are attached non-Fleet personnel from the "Federation Academy of Sciences." The Federation is idealist but not pacifist, and is actually prepared to fight wars if it comes to that. Not every incursion is met by catastrophe or blind luck. Warp drive and the Federation's size both get detailed appearances so that no one can screw with them later. At least one episode features an attack on Sol, such that I have an excuse to describe its productive abilities as well as fixed defensive outlays and fleet presence, and have Spock make some comment about Vulcan and Andorra being comparably defended and industrialized.

Economically, I'd flesh out a mostly post-scarcity society where advanced manufacturing techniques (which will be undefined in the name of incorporating nanotechnology and orbital refinery techniques later on) and automation in service industries allow everyone a decent standard of living but moving beyond that basic standard requires a free state education and willingness to work. Money is still extant beyond that basic standard, which is comfortable but certainly not luxurious in comparison to what someone with even the most basic of incomes can afford. Thus, most people opt for the "study and work" option. Enough of this utopian anti-consumerist crap...

As you can see, most of what I would do is aimed at heading off the morons who took over for TNG before they can turn the Federation into some kind of mush-minded ultra-liberal utopia and make it an actual functioning society with real constraints, struggles, and ideals that it doesn't always live up to.

Click to expand...

Yeah...

For my part, I'd try to make it a bit more consistent with science, and a bit less technobabbly. There was a useful scale that someone came up with on another site--
Possible (doable today, pretty much)
Probable (some tech development, but it clearly is allowed by science)
Sufficiently advanced (aka Magic) (forbidden by known science--pure technobabble)
Bullshit (utterly, utterly, utterly impossible)

I would try to keep it on the first two, aside from certain necessary plot elements (FTL travel is firmly in 3, but is necessary; so is running into so many "Class M" planets, or so many humanoid aliens) and try to keep some of the sillier stuff (human-alien sex! and still less alien-human hybrids) out. Plots would need to stick to the first two, mostly (rules should always be flexible). "Teching the tech" would be right out.

Or was that more of a problem with TNG?

Indeed, Loughery111. You've said everything I wanted to say.

Have the Federation Marine Corp as a seperate branch, with body armor, combined arms weaponry, combat vehicles aircraft and tactics. Oh, and get rid of those annoying Transporters. And have spaceships that would actually work (Not having the bridge on 'top' of the ship for instance) Don't have retarded episodes like that horrendous Ameboa one. And axe any fur-bikini wearing blonde chicks.

Finally, make the aliens look like aliens, not humans with putty on their noses.

truth is life said:

Yeah...

For my part, I'd try to make it a bit more consistent with science, and a bit less technobabbly. There was a useful scale that someone came up with on another site--
Possible (doable today, pretty much)
Probable (some tech development, but it clearly is allowed by science)
Sufficiently advanced (aka Magic) (forbidden by known science--pure technobabble)
Bullshit (utterly, utterly, utterly impossible)

I would try to keep it on the first two, aside from certain necessary plot elements (FTL travel is firmly in 3, but is necessary; so is running into so many "Class M" planets, or so many humanoid aliens) and try to keep some of the sillier stuff (human-alien sex! and still less alien-human hybrids) out. Plots would need to stick to the first two, mostly (rules should always be flexible). "Teching the tech" would be right out.

Or was that more of a problem with TNG?

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Yes, it was more of a problem there, but TOS did the same thing. I forgot about that, I would want to clean up the weapons and shields technology somehow. Maybe make them straight-up lasers, and make it clear that photon torpedoes (stupid name, by the way) are antimatter warheads confined magnetically until detonation.

TOS didn't delve into technobabble or great detail about the tech that often, I think, at least not in comparison to TNG. Anyway, I'd largely work on the 'turd season', salvaging or outright snipping out the likes of 'Spock's Brain'. Might be nice to make some of the aliens less rubber-foreheady, but then again, there is costume budgeting to worry about, so that'd be secondary to the stories. In regards to tech, who gives a shit--the very premise of Star Trek requires it to be soft. Nobody besides nerds will really care about the terminology used.

Clibanarius said:

Have the Federation Marine Corp as a seperate branch, with body armor, combined arms weaponry, combat vehicles aircraft and tactics. Oh, and get rid of those annoying Transporters. And have spaceships that would actually work (Not having the bridge on 'top' of the ship for instance) Don't have retarded episodes like that horrendous Ameboa one. And axe any fur-bikini wearing blonde chicks.

Click to expand...

And just how are you going to pay for all that?

Remember you're working within the constraints of 1960's American TV on a show that hasn't managed to secure an initial production order yet. The network may like it enough to take the then unprecidented step of ordering a second pilot but they could well baulk at the series if it looks too expensive or they consider it too unappealing to a wide audience.

The transporters were brought in as a quick way of getting the story off the ship and onto the planets without going to the expense of filming effects for a shuttle landing, and while I dislike the bridge at the top of the ship thing too you probably won't have the money for a new Enterprise model and you need the Rule of Cool/Cool Ship factor to sell the show.

By ameboa episode I guess you mean Devil in the Dark? One of the best regarded episodes of the series and one of the first to try to introduce a genuinely alien alien?

Finally, make the aliens look like aliens, not humans with putty on their noses.

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Again where is the money for this coming from? Also TOS didn't go in for non-human aliens because of the limitation of technology at the time.

Ignore any and all calls for hard science. If you use modern hard science it will look ridiculous to well-informed 1960s audiences and incomprehensible to the 1960s man in the street. if you use contemporary hard science it will be even more outdated in a couple of decades than if you use technobabble.

Star Trek TOS generally did a better job of being multi-ethnic than subsequent Star Trek shows, but play up this utopian angle and the United Earth identity. Define the UFP early on as a looser alliance between Earth and worlds such as Vulcan against foreign powers. Come up with about five main UFP races early on (let's say humans, Vulcans, Andorians, Tellarites and one other) and sketch our their characteristics roughly in a series bible for the writers. Also two to three chief foes, say the Klingons and Romulans. Writers can still use races of the week, but tell them to keep it to a single planet or an ethnic minority within one of the enemy states - don't invent large empires out of whole cloth. Basically make the race setup more like that of Babylon 5, where almost all the main races are already well known and defined by the start of the series.

The common criticism of Star Trek is that the aliens all look humanoid, although TOS did make more of an effort to at least give them different skin tones to suggest different blood colours (the subsequent series, especially after TNG, were arguably much more lazy). Besides special-effects limitations this was also because human-alien relations were intended as a metaphor for contemporary human-human ones, because Earth was already united and happy. Perhaps this should be justified in an episode like TNG's "The Chase" early on. You could even play on middle America's worries about Spock's devilish appearance for a 'don't judge by appearances' Aesop when it turns out that we all come from the same source.

Also, if the writers want to do more period pieces, justify them: (A) time travel, as in "Assignment: Earth", (B) alternate history, played with but not really seen in "The City on the Edge of Forever", (C) groups of humans whisked off the planet by the Preservers, as in "The Paradise Syndrome", but don't overuse this. Avoid all those duplicate parallel human Earths and cultures, they were kind of silly. In case (C), which is comparable to Stargate SG-1, you might want to avoid the 'humans are special' thing by also having the Preservers take groups of other races. This would make an interesting episode if the Enterprise finds a planet where the Preservers put several groups and the relationship between them turns the crew's preconceptions upside down - for example, displaced humans and Klingons allied at war against displaced Vulcans.

TOS did make some effort for nonhumanoid aliens, which should be encouraged (e.g. the Horta) and workarounds to imply there are even more unusual aliens (like the Medusans from "Is There In Truth No Beauty", who are so mind-bending in appearance that the crew - and the audience - can't bear to look). Possibly the Kelvans from "By Any Other Name" should be played up as regular antagonists, as the conceit is that their natural form is of enormous multitentacled beings (only described, never seen) but are shape-shifted into human form for infiltration. The Tholians are also another possibility. Basically there should be more effort in general to set up recurring antagonists and allies and less planets of the week. However one does have to bear in mind that viewing habits have changed and Sixties audiences might want more self-contained episodes, so my ideas might fall flat on that score.

As far as the ship itself is concerned, I think its look inside and out is iconic and should not be messed with too much, though perhaps the consoles could be made to look more like touchscreens to look more futuristic. The lack of outside detail on the ship was a deliberate design decision due to the idea that you wouldn't put sensitive equipment in a place where it couldn't be reached for maintenance by people inside the ship; however while logical I think the ship would look better with more outside detail. Have the toy companies release their Enterprise models early on and then kitbash them to come up with ships like those from the "Star Fleet Technical Manual" to get a bit more diversity in Starfleet (and none of that 'only twelve ships' nonsense). The look of the Klingon ship is good and should be retained, but with more detail again and perhaps a different colour to make it stand out (anachronistically, perhaps green--of course the Klingons were stand-ins for the Soviets and Soviet spaceships are green, not that the West probably knew that at the time). The Romulan ship from 'Balance of Terror' is also good and should come back for future appearances, though they might want to make a new model to come up with a cruiser rather than that 'submarine' type ship. The Starfleet shuttle is disappointingly boxy but they tried to come up with a sleeker design with a curved cockpit at the time and the money just wasn't there, so I don't see how I could change that.

Just my tuppence...

loughery111 said:

Actually flesh out the military and economic issues of the Federation before the TNG idiots have a chance to get their hands on them. Thus, Starfleet is actually a military organization with a standing mandate for exploration, while scientific staff are attached non-Fleet personnel from the "Federation Academy of Sciences." The Federation is idealist but not pacifist, and is actually prepared to fight wars if it comes to that. Not every incursion is met by catastrophe or blind luck. Warp drive and the Federation's size both get detailed appearances so that no one can screw with them later. At least one episode features an attack on Sol, such that I have an excuse to describe its productive abilities as well as fixed defensive outlays and fleet presence, and have Spock make some comment about Vulcan and Andorra being comparably defended and industrialized.

Click to expand...

Obviously you meant to write Andoria, but I loved the mental image of an episode of Star Trek on a planet full of ski-resorts and duty-free shopping.

Which is one thing I'd specifically try to get rid of on designing sets: the idea that each planet is like a theme park with one environment and that's it. Why does Earth have all these varied landscapes and peoples, but Vulcan is one big desert...

loughery111 said:

Economically, I'd flesh out a mostly post-scarcity society where advanced manufacturing techniques (which will be undefined in the name of incorporating nanotechnology and orbital refinery techniques later on) and automation in service industries allow everyone a decent standard of living but moving beyond that basic standard requires a free state education and willingness to work. Money is still extant beyond that basic standard, which is comfortable but certainly not luxurious in comparison to what someone with even the most basic of incomes can afford. Thus, most people opt for the "study and work" option. Enough of this utopian anti-consumerist crap...

Click to expand...

Though it is consumerist, I would say it still is utopian, but, however, not impossible. Thoroughly agree.

loughery111 said:

As you can see, most of what I would do is aimed at heading off the morons who took over for TNG before they can turn the Federation into some kind of mush-minded ultra-liberal utopia and make it an actual functioning society with real constraints, struggles, and ideals that it doesn't always live up to.

Click to expand...

Which makes for more interesting settings. I'd apply that to the opposition as well.

And that brings me to another thing: make the opposition human as well, in their own way. Which would be one of the great mysteries of the setting (borrowed from the Traveller RPG setting).

When we go to the stars, we find them populated mostly by human looking peoples. Big surprise. And while there are several theories why that is, no one has definitive evidence pointing one way or the other. (Keeps the budget relatively low as well, and provides plot points). TNG used that for an episode. It could have been spread over an entire year of episodes...

Languages for the aliens: use language isolates as a basis at first. We have no clue where it came from anyway. And a former Basque lehendakari already had the Vulcan eyebrows, so... (for the rest, can we ask Tolkien? maybe send him a check?)

So first Andorra planet, then Basque language... next, ship design: flying paellas. Scratch that.

That doesn't mean there wouldn't be truly alien races: instead it means that when they appear they can be even more alien.

In regards of the opposition being human: also try to make them a bit diverse in customs and motivations. The "all Klingons are warlike", "all Vulcans are logical", "all Romulans are sneaky bastards" thing sucks.

Continuity. Story arcs. References to previous episodes. All the stuff they "learned" how to do after watching Babylon 5 (well, probably not from there, but B5 did it better, in my admittedly quite biased opinion).

Also borrowed from B5: no robots or cute children. Unless they get killed.

It is the 60s. But, and that's a big but, I'd put women in positions of authority. In Science and Engineering first. And in other places as well in the opposition. Keep relationships professional, but drop hints that there might be more than that. And use that as a plot point.

Keep time travel nigh to impossible (and do try to avoid paradoxes). Dimension hopping (but something a bit more elaborate than Mirror, Mirror) is a possible alternative to it (or even in combination with it), but still make it next to impossible. Otherwise the suspension of disbelief does not happen that well.

EDIT:

Aargh.

And as I was dreading, just as I was finishing my post, Thande goes and comments exactly on the points I wanted to, and in much better detail.

That's it. I'm going to bed.

I would bring in a Soap Opera Writer and put him in charge of Continuity. Characters M &F don't go around goggle eyes in one episode, and in the next act like they have never laid eyes on each other.
Get with the Writers and write a complete back story. This would allow you to Reference events that took place before the Pilot, and keep them straight.

This is a military organization, don't walk slouched, with your head down. Hold your head high and your shoulders back, like you are Proud to be in Star-fleet.

A little more organized. In the Navy --The Supply division is run by a lieutenant, but is broken into 4 departments. Each run by a Ensign
S1 is your Clerks. S2 is Storeskeepers, S3 is Cooks, S4 is Laundry.
This is also true of Engineering division, or 1st Division. The same engineer doesn't fix the Plumbing and fix the Warp Engine.
The Bridge Pilot does not Pilot the Shuttle, The shuttles would be under a Flight Officer, who would have several Pilots.

30 or so Extras to appear occasionally for 5 minute cameos, Can't be that expensive.

The Pilots could be some of the same Marines assigned to security. Different Uniforms from the Star-fleet personnel.
And go to the Kmart and buy some Uniforms. Add a little die, and some different colored ribbons sewn on for different Divisions. .
An Ike Jacket for when in Meeting, take it off for Work Time. Not that much more $$ than those silly T-Shirts

hsthompson said:

And as I was dreading, just as I was finishing my post, Thande goes and comments exactly on the points I wanted to, and in much better detail.

That's it. I'm going to bed.

Click to expand...

I did like your idea about asking Tolkien for language help. He had several conlangs he never even used for The Lord of the Rings/The Silmarillion. For example, there was Magol, which he considered using for Orkish; it sounds like it would work well for Klingon. Though I think it might be a bit too much effort for little appreciation given the audience at the time.

Make it feature more ground-invasions with Marines and more Orbital Bombardment and stuff.

An episode where one Federation world is overcome by a sudden rabies-like pandemic and in its collective paranoia attacks all the Federation ships in the area; they have to send in some Marines to secure some vital information as well as extract certain people.

I would send Shatner to a speech therapist and/or rhetoric coach. His pacing makes me nauseous and detracts from the dialogue.

Thande said:

Ignore any and all calls for hard science. If you use modern hard science it will look ridiculous to well-informed 1960s audiences and incomprehensible to the 1960s man in the street. if you use contemporary hard science it will be even more outdated in a couple of decades than if you use technobabble.

Click to expand...

There really isn't all that much difference between current and contemporary hard science, at least the big stuff. The two that have the most impact are relativity and the non-compatibility of (not closely related) species, and both have been known throughout the century. While relativity has to be ignored for a wide variety of reasons (the writers might be able to have a little fun with it, but overall it's just too much), species-incompatibility doesn't, and I think getting rid of some of the more biologically silly aspects of Star Trek would do it good.

Thande said:

Star Trek TOS generally did a better job of being multi-ethnic than subsequent Star Trek shows, but play up this utopian angle and the United Earth identity. Define the UFP early on as a looser alliance between Earth and worlds such as Vulcan against foreign powers. Come up with about five main UFP races early on (let's say humans, Vulcans, Andorians, Tellarites and one other) and sketch our their characteristics roughly in a series bible for the writers. Also two to three chief foes, say the Klingons and Romulans. Writers can still use races of the week, but tell them to keep it to a single planet or an ethnic minority within one of the enemy states - don't invent large empires out of whole cloth. Basically make the race setup more like that of Babylon 5, where almost all the main races are already well known and defined by the start of the series.

Click to expand...

This goes especially well with your idea about using mini-arcs and recurring antagonists--set up the situations early on, then come back to them later.

Thande said:

The common criticism of Star Trek is that the aliens all look humanoid, although TOS did make more of an effort to at least give them different skin tones to suggest different blood colours (the subsequent series, especially after TNG, were arguably much more lazy). Besides special-effects limitations this was also because human-alien relations were intended as a metaphor for contemporary human-human ones, because Earth was already united and happy. Perhaps this should be justified in an episode like TNG's "The Chase" early on. You could even play on middle America's worries about Spock's devilish appearance for a 'don't judge by appearances' Aesop when it turns out that we all come from the same source.

Click to expand...

Yeah...but special effects failure is probably more important. Which is why I specifically noted running into rubber-forehead aliens as a justifiable exception from SCIENCE! (or whatever)

Thande said:

Also, if the writers want to do more period pieces, justify them: (A) time travel, as in "Assignment: Earth", (B) alternate history, played with but not really seen in "The City on the Edge of Forever", (C) groups of humans whisked off the planet by the Preservers, as in "The Paradise Syndrome", but don't overuse this. Avoid all those duplicate parallel human Earths and cultures, they were kind of silly. In case (C), which is comparable to Stargate SG-1, you might want to avoid the 'humans are special' thing by also having the Preservers take groups of other races. This would make an interesting episode if the Enterprise finds a planet where the Preservers put several groups and the relationship between them turns the crew's preconceptions upside down - for example, displaced humans and Klingons allied at war against displaced Vulcans.

Click to expand...

Oooh yes, that would be pretty interesting. Playing with what you've set up...very cool.

Thande said:

TOS did make some effort for nonhumanoid aliens, which should be encouraged (e.g. the Horta) and workarounds to imply there are even more unusual aliens (like the Medusans from "Is There In Truth No Beauty", who are so mind-bending in appearance that the crew - and the audience - can't bear to look). Possibly the Kelvans from "By Any Other Name" should be played up as regular antagonists, as the conceit is that their natural form is of enormous multitentacled beings (only described, never seen) but are shape-shifted into human form for infiltration. The Tholians are also another possibility. Basically there should be more effort in general to set up recurring antagonists and allies and less planets of the week. However one does have to bear in mind that viewing habits have changed and Sixties audiences might want more self-contained episodes, so my ideas might fall flat on that score.

Click to expand...

Indeed, I don't think elaborate arcing would work well (I mean, is there *any* show from that period that ran long that had arcing, at least aside from soaps? Why couldn't there be a "man soap", anyways, less focus on relationships...? But I digress) Mini-arcs and revisiting certain things repeatedly might work anyways, though, and if nothing else you might have a significant effect on later TV (nBSG/Lost/B5-style limited/arced runs in the '70s? Hey, why not!)

Thande said:

(anachronistically, perhaps green--of course the Klingons were stand-ins for the Soviets and Soviet spaceships are green, not that the West probably knew that at the time)

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Well, they had pictures, at least of the earlier craft. Don't know if those were green, though--I think that might have been established only with the Soyuzes, and those definitely hadn't had pictures yet.

@hsthompson: Robots aren't that bad...maybe ask Asimov for a few pointers. Just need to keep away from the RUR scenario...

Chekov and Sulu are made an item. And the "Amok Time" music plays in every single fight scene, no matter how brief.

Star Trek, as is, is pretty awesome. I'd change two things:

1) I'd introduce "The Contact Team"--purple-shirt crew whose job is to explore planets. The senior crew would not beam down every episode.

2) I'd get rid of the "everybody falls out of their chairs" trope. It's dumb.

Clibanarius said:

Indeed, Loughery111. You've said everything I wanted to say.

Have the Federation Marine Corp as a seperate branch, with body armor, combined arms weaponry, combat vehicles aircraft and tactics. Oh, and get rid of those annoying Transporters. And have spaceships that would actually work (Not having the bridge on 'top' of the ship for instance) Don't have retarded episodes like that horrendous Ameboa one. And axe any fur-bikini wearing blonde chicks.

Finally, make the aliens look like aliens, not humans with putty on their noses.

Click to expand...

Most of those are impractical thanks to special effects limitations. The best you can do is limiting the military side of things to purely special forces-type operations, so the issue of combined arms never really comes up, and hope future shows will notice this instead of just using light infantry "tactics" everywhere, even in most unlikely places.

Personally, I'd do stuff like:

• Get rid of episodes like "Spock's Brain."
• Develop a Series Bible with a Fixed Canon.
  • Including More Recurring Villains and Secondary Characters
    • Including Khan, Mudd and some Aliens.
• Make more Episodes exploring Earth and the Federation.
  • Especially Starfleet and life in the Federation.
  • Actually show Small-scale military actions, like Infiltration teams and what not.
• Include more Weird Aliens.
  • Quantum Locked monsters, like Doctor Who's Angels.
  • Don't show the Aliens on occasion, especially if it'd make more sense.
• Get people like Clarke, Heinlein, and Asimov to write episodes, even if it means cutting back in other areas.

Trekkie on board...

To tell you how much, I've basically devoted a major portion of my TL to an alternate version of Star Trek. And because of massive background changes in society, and the world in general, I think I can get away with going hog-wild.

Some of these changes I've foreshadowed, others I haven't yet.

• Star Trek is written by committee. Specifically, the major "authors" of the continuity are Gene Roddenberry, Robert Heinlein, Mack Reynolds and others to be decided.
• Captain Kirk is a woman, played by alt-Marylin Monroe (She goes by Norma Jeane Baker), and is a symbol of feminist liberation.
• There is decent funding for the project.
• More attention will be placed on the society of the Federation. The post-scarcity socialist society is fleshed out much more.
• Starfleet will be a more proper military organization. Complete with Marines, internal consistency, but still keeping the general theme of exploration and tolerance.
• Someone is in charge of keeping track of continuity.
• Two words: Mobile Infantry
• Since there's less of an animation age ghetto, animation and or roto-scoping is used for special effects scenes when necessary
• Some themes of transhumanism will be explored.
• However, Khan will still be Kirk's dark mirror. Very much Foe Yay.
• Sulu gets to be out of the closet.
• A coherent backstory and history for the world will be written and more importantly explained over the course of the series
• Less monocultural aliens. Can't guarantee anything on the rubber foreheads, it's part of the charm of Trek
• No transporters. They actually have a big enough budget to deal with shuttles.
• More arc based story lines.

First thing: Write a series bible that contains all of the important information needed to keep things consistent. Make sure that it includes all this:

The UFP is Earth and her colonies, many of which are developed to the point where are close to being equal in power to Earth itself. In other words, the federation is basically the US in space.

---

Vulcan and Andoria are independent nations allied to the Federation in what is basically NATO in space.

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There are three main antagonists in the series: Romulans, Klingons and Cardassians.

The Romulans are the first ones encountered.

The Vulcan/Romulan relationship is awkward at best. They are the same species, but the Romulans were the losers in a holy war who were then exiled, "cast to the stars". While the Vulcans have whitewashed that part of their shared history (and like to pretend that it never happened), the Romulans haven't. Nor are they willing to forgive their heretical kin.

Though neither of them really remember it, Humans and Romulans each were the other's first encounter with an alien species. Earth was the first habitable world encountered by the Romulans following their exile from Vulcan, but obviously it was already taken. Regardless of what their enemies say about them, the Romulans are in their own way honourable, and are not thieves. Thus Earth was left to it's owners and the Romulans made their new home elsewhere. But human development was forever altered by the encounter: The Romulans taught more than a few of the most developed human societies how to work iron. And one lucky city-state even managed to organize itself along Romulan lines, leaving a legacy that surprised the Romulans upon their next encounter with humanity over 30 centuries later.

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The Klingons can best be described as Imperial Japan in space, with hints of Ming China and the Mongol Hordes surfacing from time to time. The Klingons aren't all warriors. Far from it in fact. Hell, the first Klingon to be shown in the series is wearing their version of a businessman's suit... The utterly ruthless Imperial Navy shows up later and comes as a shock. In a humorous twist, the Klingons consider Kirk to be the "Perfect Klingon": Cunning, ruthless, charming and usually victorious.

---

And then there are the Cardassians. Technocratic communazis who've built a totalitarian empire that covers dozens of star systems in about the same amount of time as Earth built the Federation. And to top it off, the Cardassians are the most insidious they aren't "forehead alians" but because they are actually human. As in the centuries removed descendants of primitive tribesmen/women taken from Earth by the Preservers. Earth and Cardass are each a distorted reflection of the other: recognizable but alien at the same time.

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The Preservers are a recurring but never shown alien race that may or may not be extinct. Thousands of years ago, when they first reached the stars, the found that sentient life was rare. The soon began to believe that such life was the most precious thing in existence and that for even one sentient species to go extinct would be as much of a sin as burning the Mona Lisa. (To use an earthly example.) So once they gained the means, they began terraforming worlds and settling unwitting primitives upon them. In the present, this has led to occasional encounters best described as awkward.

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Starfleet is the Federation's Navy. It is a proper military force. But it does periodically refit an older warship or two for exploration duties. Security and internal defence aboard ship is provided by the Marines, more commonly referred to as the MACOS.

The Enterprise is one such ship, a Constitution class light cruiser. She's fifty years old and nearing the end of her projected service life, but still ruggedly built and reliable. though the refit removed most of her weapons, the Enterprise can still overpower most of the threats she is expected to face, and she can still outrun almost anything else.

Though captain Kirk is young for his rank, he got there through competence and hard work, not through luck or patronage.

Spock is a Vulcan military liaison officer assigned to Enterprise for the duration of the mission.

Fill this in for the rest of the main and recurring cast.

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Second: Use a mixture of stand alone episodes and multi episode arcs. If possible, plot out an over-arching arc for the whole season.

Third and most difficult: Keep the network execs happy. Try not to do too much that falls outside of their "comfort zone". And try to get the show into syndication ASAP, money and ratings from the re-runs will help convince the network execs that the show is worth keeping.