Neptunes Trek

Carl Schwamberger

Lets imagine the network chiefs were enamored with early US history. Roddenberry is told his Star Trek idea is great, but set it in 1795 instead. Captain Kirk commands the doughty new US Frigate Enterprise on the three year voyage to explore...

So how are the scripts reworked to fit the late 18th Century landscape? What cultures are nodded to for placing the existing ST stories? And, what do Tribbles translate to???

Many of the characters on the Enterprise would need no adaptation, Kirk & McCoy need only a costume change. Sulu might be better passed off as a Carrabiean or maybe a North American native. A Black Female as the young Lt in charge of the signal flags won't fly, but we might get away with a black skinned male. Spock is more problematic. What culture of 1795 do we tap for Vulcan substitutes? & whatever we pick are there Remulans?, and who are the Klingons????

When Kirks says 'Set Phasers on stun.' His cohorts reverse their flintlock pistols, ready to crack skulls with the butt handle.

& will this last out the first season?
 

Carl Schwamberger

Driftless said:
... Perhaps a logically minded polymath in the mold of Rene Descartes?
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Yet somehow I can't see the Court of Versailles making convincing Vulcans. Maybe instead of a 'race' the Vulcans are the inheritors of the Enlightenment Philosophies? Alternately Spock might be a Asian warrior monk. A Buddhist or Confucian scholar & officer in some Asian emperors military. Sent to study the barbarians of the eastern land who have government without a aristocracy. But I like Spock as Descartes student.
 

Sam R.

Errolwi said:
An idealistic (ex?)Royal navy officer, intent on assisting the young country?
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Irish-Catalan catholic bastard deist proto-hegelian.

It worked in Aubrey/Maturin.

It works in *Kirk/*Spock.

You know where I'm going.

Viola/Violin.

yours,
Sam R.
 

Jellico

Errolwi said:
An idealistic (ex?)Royal navy officer, intent on assisting the young country?
Click to expand...
Historically it would have to be a Frenchman. The French were the elder guide to the young nation. The English would be the Klingons.

In 1965, yeah, it would be an Englishman. More money to be made selling the show to the BBC.

OTOH, who can be the bad guy the Enterprise can run into at semi regular intervals? The Brits are everywhere. The 1960s go-to bad guys very much aren't.
 

Cryhavoc101

Make the principle enemy an actual 'ally' - say a senior Privateer who as a die hard Anti Royalist is out to ruin Kirk as Kirk is from a 'Royalist leaning family' and hates that Kirk has been given command of a USN vessel while he is only a Privateer

It worked for Sharpe who in many cases was under greater threat by those enemies he made 'on his own side' than those of the 'enemy'

As to a Female character have one of the young midship'men' actually be a woman - lots of examples of this happening in RL
 

Carl Schwamberger

Jellico said:
H...
OTOH, who can be the bad guy the Enterprise can run into at semi regular intervals? The Brits are everywhere. The 1960s go-to bad guys very much aren't.
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Given the general ignorance of 17th Century history about any montage of unidentified groups would do. Asiatics who are close enough to both the Pacific and the Indian Ocean to be vaguely plausible.
 
WaterproofPotatoes

WaterproofPotatoes

Carl Schwamberger said:
Yet somehow I can't see the Court of Versailles making convincing Vulcans. Maybe instead of a 'race' the Vulcans are the inheritors of the Enlightenment Philosophies? Alternately Spock might be a Asian warrior monk. A Buddhist or Confucian scholar & officer in some Asian emperors military. Sent to study the barbarians of the eastern land who have government without a aristocracy. But I like Spock as Descartes student.
Click to expand...

Maybe a rogue Souhei, one of the warrior monks of Mount Hiei, fascinated by the outside world, and gives up the comforts of familiar surroundings in the pursuit of knowledge of what lies beyond...
 

Jellico

Oh dear. As if the OS Klingons weren't something-face enough. Yellow-face for everybody :S
Heading into Asia is just asking for more Yangs and Kohms .
 

Carl Schwamberger

WaterproofPotatoes said:
Maybe a rogue Souhei, one of the warrior monks of Mount Hiei, fascinated by the outside world, and gives up the comforts of familiar surroundings in the pursuit of knowledge of what lies beyond...
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Thats it exactly. This also balances the underlying racism with non white Klingons.

Jellico said:
Oh dear. As if the OS Klingons weren't something-face enough. Yellow-face for everybody :S
Heading into Asia is just asking for more Yangs and Kohms .
Click to expand...

They can be some sort of brown faced southern Asiatics. With facial tattoos.
 

Carl Schwamberger

Tribles would be some sort of really cute little rodent that tames easily, & reproduces at exponential rates.

If this is a 17th Century British Enterprise, then the scripts have a opportunity to point out the engineering a other superiority in China of the era. I wonder if the director and script writers would even think of this?
 
WaterproofPotatoes

WaterproofPotatoes

If you really want to get around the racism aspect for the Klingons, perhaps make them a sort of martial if not outright violence-worshipping cult. Heavy tattooing or face masks for anonymity and rejection of one's previous identity can be their defining feature.
 
Driftless

Driftless

Donor
Cryhavoc101 said:
100% yes

Also Maturin as a complete land lubber gave the Author a 'vehicle' to explain nautical terms without insulting the reader
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Yup. There's a useful (IMO) early chapter in the written "Master and Commander" where crewmen take Maturin around the ship both below decks and up in the masts literally explaining the purpose of various elements of the ship's design. It's a helpful guide.
 

Cryhavoc101

Driftless said:
Yup. There's a useful (IMO) early chapter in the written "Master and Commander" where crewmen take Maturin around the ship both below decks and up in the masts literally explaining the purpose of various elements of the ship's design. It's a helpful guide.
Click to expand...

Exactly - and one of the Best reading experiances of my life that book

The book basically starts with Aubery walking down the steps to the Quey side in the port city of Mahon in Malloca for his first command and I was reading the book just outside a Quey side cafe right next to 'said' steps in Port Mahon. :eek:

Maturins inability to grasp anything nautical (which includes things like grabbing ropes while trying to board the ship) becomes an ongoing joke in the series with the entire crew well drilled in all aspects of everything from having dry clothes ready to a cup of olive in which to put his soon to be salt water sodden watch in as soon as they get him 'safely' on deck.

A great series of books
 
Michel Van

Michel Van

What else we got for a Vulcan substitutes in 18 century ?
This adventure of USS Enterprise a US vessel, He could could be Native Americans or Amish
Other extreme are a Extremist Calvinistic Dutch, no drinking, no gambling, no sex and no fun as Bones would label mister Puck...

But it's more likely that producers in good old Hollywood fashion just created a Fictional Nations were our Vulcan substitutes comes from.
easier to adapt and less problems, see like how Mission Impossible deal there location are most fictional nations...
 
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