I'm not sure I'd change anything. A sci-fi show that led to a dozen movies and 4 followup series can only be considered to be wildly successful by any measure...
You in charge of Star Trek: The Original Series
- Thread starter Landshark
- Start date
True, but we could refine it to coincide with details of later series.
Spock: He was too perfect. The later series made the Vulcans a little more workable. Also, the notion of humans interbreeding with a species that has green, copper-based hemoglobin is not necessary for the success of the series.
Warp speed: It would eventually be defined better in Voyager. Speed = c*e**(x-1), x being the warp number. So warp 1 = speed of light, warp 2 = 2.718 times the speed of light, etc.
I think the point is that the OP has Roddenberry dead -- TNG as we know it will not exist. (Indeed, one presumes it wouldn't exist at all w/o your input..)
Actually, this could be more of a poll; keep TOS as unchanged as possible; what to do with the movies and newer series, etc.
The thing to remember is that the series enjoyed big popularity in syndication in the early and mid seventies. It became the "ranking" space adventure until Star Wars in 1977. [Possible reason: the real moon landings were tough acts to follow.]
YES.
Very much so.
And the whole "we aren't really doing anything" that happened between '72 and '81, when everything was sort of just waiting on the shuttle. It's no surprise that TNG picked up in '87--exactly when space was getting active again (allowing for delays in signing agreements and such). It's actually one of the things I'm thinking about for that Apollo TL--what happens to ST in a more space-active world?
EDIT: And all of that is one reason I want ST to be "better"--more realistic, in both the sociopolitical and scientific senses. A more realistic structure for the Federation (USA in SPAAAAACE!!!), more interesting (and recurring!) antagonists, more innovative story-telling styles--though I'm realistic, I can't fully do a lot of that, certainly not at first. But (like other people have said), it makes future shows much more likely to be realistic as SFX get cheaper and better and the budgets increase and so on.
I said what I meant and meant what I said: Skylab was a pure gap-filling exercise, and I strongly suspect no one took it for any real activity (the deal with it was that NASA was trying to get ready for the shuttle station they were going to have, and, well, fill the gap between Apollo and Shuttle).
DISSIDENT
Banned
I would make the Federation a totalitarian, corrupt and militaristic society with tensions between an ideological civilian government and the military, beset by violent internal revolutionary movements and hostile human colonies and alien species.
I would make Kirk a semi-terroristic political revolutionary.
I would make Spock a psychopathic computer hacker with a murderous streak.
Janice Rand would be a former space pirate and drug runner.
Scotty would be a gambling thief who pretends to be stupid to avoid working.
McCoy would be an aggressive pretty boy with an afro who keeps trying to start fights with Spock.
In other words, I like Blake's 7 more to be honest.
I would make Kirk a semi-terroristic political revolutionary.
I would make Spock a psychopathic computer hacker with a murderous streak.
Janice Rand would be a former space pirate and drug runner.
Scotty would be a gambling thief who pretends to be stupid to avoid working.
McCoy would be an aggressive pretty boy with an afro who keeps trying to start fights with Spock.
In other words, I like Blake's 7 more to be honest.
Following up on Thande's notes about the Star Fleet Technical Manual (and always bearing in mind that it may not be perfectly canonical), readers will note that even in the original appropriation, Starfleet was provided with several dozen major combatants in addition to the original 12 Constitution-class heavy cruisers (which may be where the "12 ships" idea came from in the first place). By the last appropriation (still under construction) recorded in the manual, Starfleet had hundreds of major combatant vessels, and we're not even thinking about all the lesser ships, the cutters, patrol vessels, small personnel and cargo transports, small survey vessels, etc., etc., etc. of which there would surely have been thousands or even tens of thousands.
One class of ship that I would introduce from the Manual is the dreadnought. Can you imagine what a pants-browning moment it would have been for Kirk and Company in the 2nd-season episode "The Ultimate Computer" if they had heard Robert Wesley order the Federation, on its shakedown runs (of which the maneuvers were a part), in to destroy the M5-controlled Enterprise before it wrecked the rest of the task force?
I would also try to take a longer look at Starfleet's groundside/support arm. What we saw in "Court Martial" was intriguing, but unhappily never went far enough. Agree also on taking a look at 23rd-century Earth, which, contrary to Roddenberry, I believe could have been done without any excessively specific predictions about who came out on top in the Cold War. (I suspect Roddenberry intended the audience to infer that the Cold War, in the TOS timeline, ended up in a modus vivendi between the Western and Eastern blocs, probably spurred by the Eugenics Wars.)
Oh, as to the UFP itself? I envision it as NATO IN SPACE!
One class of ship that I would introduce from the Manual is the dreadnought. Can you imagine what a pants-browning moment it would have been for Kirk and Company in the 2nd-season episode "The Ultimate Computer" if they had heard Robert Wesley order the Federation, on its shakedown runs (of which the maneuvers were a part), in to destroy the M5-controlled Enterprise before it wrecked the rest of the task force?
I would also try to take a longer look at Starfleet's groundside/support arm. What we saw in "Court Martial" was intriguing, but unhappily never went far enough. Agree also on taking a look at 23rd-century Earth, which, contrary to Roddenberry, I believe could have been done without any excessively specific predictions about who came out on top in the Cold War. (I suspect Roddenberry intended the audience to infer that the Cold War, in the TOS timeline, ended up in a modus vivendi between the Western and Eastern blocs, probably spurred by the Eugenics Wars.)
Oh, as to the UFP itself? I envision it as NATO IN SPACE!
Skylab and Apollo-Soyuz drew attention to the real space program, so sci-fi stayed close to earth from 1970-77. A big contributor was 2001: A Space Odyssey. (The movie had flaws, the biggest being a second half that was written to be read, not watched through the technology of 1969.) But the first half showed space ships and space stations that we still think, 40 years later, might look very much like the earliest ones of their kind, especially for missions beyond Mars.
Star Wars brought a breakout of space adventures in 1977. Soon, television had Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers in the 21st Century and the short-lived comedy Quark. Star Trek, for having been at the front of the line for lack of competition for so long, was well-received as a movie in 1980.
Everything Thande said. Plus the following:
Obviously, dealing with 1960s television practices means that you can't have a story arc structure -- or even a loose one like the earlier seasons of "Stargate SG-1" had. However, given that TV shows tend to start airing even when the later episodes of the season are still being shot, it can't hurt to put in a couple of callbacks to earlier episodes in the latter half of the first season, and further callbacks in later seasons to earlier years. Just as a sort of bonus for loyal viewers, and to make the "world" of Star Trek seem more real.
Again to make the world seem more real, I want to do two major things to the crew: 1 -- give Spock pale green skin; 2 -- Give Scotty, Sulu and Uhura different names (names which somebody from Scotland, east Asia and east Africa might actually have), and (in the case of the latter two) first names. I think I'd also shake up the crew's positions a little: give the navigator position to Uhura and the communications position to a rotating group of random people rather than vice versa (and if the network is all like "You can't have a black woman navigator" I'd make her the helm officer and Sulu the navigator, and be like "Okay, there, she's the driver -- happy now?") Regarding Christine Chapel, I'd make her the ship's biologist rather than McCoy's nurse (in her OTL introductory episode they even say she used to be a bio-researcher, and interestingly Sulu was originally the ship's biologist in "Where No Man Has Gone Before"). In the second season I'd start showing some people on the graveyard shift, which is how Chekov gets introduced (as he originally served as a temporary replacement for Sulu while George Takei was off filming The Green Berets) -- and when Takei comes back, Chekov will become a security officer (red shirt) who regularly goes on away missions.
Speaking of red shirts -- I'd keep the body count down to something believable. Injuries can be common; deaths, rare. And speaking of uniforms, I'd make the command colour green rather than yellow (that is, I'd make sure that it actually looks green on the screen). Green just looks better.
There's also something that's annoyingly ambiguous in the original series -- is the Enterprise an Earth ship, or a ship of the Federation as a whole? And if the latter, then why is there only one non-human aboard? So I'd officially state that the Enterprise is an Earth ship specifically, and part of the Federation Starfleet which is filled with ships from all the member worlds (Earth ships, Vulcan ships, Andorian ships, etc.) This also establishes the Federation as a loose confederation of worlds rather than one strong central government, which I think is the way to go. And we'd actually see at least one of the ships belonging to each of the other major Federation worlds during the course of the series' run.
Finally, stardates: they're of the form "Stardate XYZA.BC", and typically only the "C" will change within a single episode. One stardate equals about 50 days (so 0.01 stardates equals about 12 hours), and Stardate 0.00 is the exact time of First Contact on Earth. Stardates are an Earth unit of measurement invented for use in outer space where things like days and years are meaningless: as the Enterprise is an Earth ship, that's what they use.
Following up on Thande's notes about the Star Fleet Technical Manual (and always bearing in mind that it may not be perfectly canonical), readers will note that even in the original appropriation, Starfleet was provided with several dozen major combatants in addition to the original 12 Constitution-class heavy cruisers (which may be where the "12 ships" idea came from in the first place). By the last appropriation (still under construction) recorded in the manual, Starfleet had hundreds of major combatant vessels, and we're not even thinking about all the lesser ships, the cutters, patrol vessels, small personnel and cargo transports, small survey vessels, etc., etc., etc. of which there would surely have been thousands or even tens of thousands.
One class of ship that I would introduce from the Manual is the dreadnought. Can you imagine what a pants-browning moment it would have been for Kirk and Company in the 2nd-season episode "The Ultimate Computer" if they had heard Robert Wesley order the Federation, on its shakedown runs (of which the maneuvers were a part), in to destroy the M5-controlled Enterprise before it wrecked the rest of the task force?
That'd be one of the things I'd do too. While doing the planning for the series, I'd have an extended brainstorming session with the rest of the team, and as part of hashing out a sort of 'bible' to guide episodes and set down what's what- setting up a consistent backstory & universe, I'd try to at least sketch out designs, in addition to the Constitution as the standard first-line CA, do at the very least scout/science vessel, a FF/DD, a CL (perhaps an older design) and possibly a battleship. Even if there's never the budget to build models (or I can't get a toy company to do it for me), I'd like to have them far enough along to be referenced in dialogue and have diagrams show up in on-screen displays or reference books/manuals.
The Star Fleet Technical Manual IIRC, is semi-canonical; in the mid-70s, Roddenberry & Franz Joseph had a falling-out over the direction of the ST franchise, Roddenberry wanted to go the utopia route that resulted in TNG, while Joseph was thinking along the lines of a more realistic, militarized Federation that a lot of the posters here are leaning towards. The dispute resulted in protracted litigation, and eventually a settlement where Joseph was found to have some rights to the material of the franchise, provided he didn't use the canonical TOS characters, which he split off into a parallel universe that formed the basis for the Starfleet Battles games. However 4 of the classes from the Star Fleet Technical Manual became partially accepted into canon as the external appearance of unknown Federation starship classes by virtue of appearing in on-screen displays in some of the TOS movies, the Hermes scout, the Saladin DD, the Federation dreadnought, and the Ptolemy tug. See here for more info.
However, I'm not sure about some of the ships from the Star Fleet Technical Manual, as I don't like them that much- they seem a bit ungainly and too much like kitbashes using Constitution-class components, which seems a bit lazy and unoriginal IMO, which is something I'd like to avoid, as well as not doing something like a proto- or TOSized-Miranda, or an 'Akiraprize'. From internet fandom, a couple designs that I like would be the Avenger from the 'Starfleet Museum' as a DD, and for the light cruiser, if I go the older ship route (which would make Miranda more logical as the new CL thinking ahead to the movies), then the Texas class from Starfleet Battles might do, or if a more modern design, then perhaps the B-24-CLN or a TOS-ized 'Alka-Selsior' (both abortive study models used in the 'space junkyard' in the TNG episode Unification) could be options.
I also agree with fleshing out elements such as Federation marines and supporting elements as much as possible, as well as making it more of a space navy (and for the science part, remember that in the mid-19th century, scientific survey & explorations was one of the things navies did- Darwin travelling on HMS Beagle, the Wilkes & Franklin expiditions, etc.) More practical weapons than the canonical phasers, especially the hand-phaser & the rifle would be better as those are ergonomic nightmares that can't really be aimed properly. Body armor for marines- if finding some military surplus flak jackets & helmets (or even hardhats or pseudo-ones for decoration) that can be redecorated or something that can be tossed together that looks similar on the cheap isn't doable, then the forcefield idea might work if it wouldn't be too much of a FX budget issue to show the shield blocking the shot or coming up with a convincing handwave as to why the deflection effect is invisible.
Going from there, also agree with improvements to the writing, such as doing away with some of the absurd stories like Spock's Brain & the one with the Roman world (unless an Earth-clone/transplant worlds mystery is going to be an arc), and doing mini-arcs, although given the attitudes of the 1960s, gay characters and minorities/women in positions of authority would be ASB (network interference got rid of Majel Barret being the XO as too radical for the time, and the Kirk-Uhura kiss was almost censored as examples of this.)
Another thing that kind of bugs me is the uniforms, which I suppose should be made into a more practical duty uniform, without the bright colors- department/branch colors might be changed to trim or insignia pins, and perhaps a more traditional dress uniform, with rank marking a bit more like traditional naval ones. Also, the different breast insignia for each different unit seems a bit absurd- perhaps a unit patch on the shoulder for duty uniforms.
One last little nit that I'd take care of is to fix the illogical registry numbers- it always struck me as absurd that the registry number of ships of the same class could be so far apart- Constellation being NCC-1017 & Enterprise being NCC-1701 & so on (don't get me started on some of the Oberths having triple digit numbers)- as part of the series bible would be to write down a class list of the Constitutions, starting with the Constitution as NCC-1700 (keep Enterprise as 1701), & arranging the subsequent ships (do a class of more than 12 as well) not all with consecutive registry numbers, but say in batches of 2-4, that would be representative of different yards being awarded contracts for a couple hulls at a time over several years of appropriations (i.e. 1700-03, 1707-10, 1713-15, 1727-30, etc.)
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Archibald
Banned
Interestingly, in its novel Voyage Stephen Baxter had a manned mission to Mars happening in 1986, just in time for TNG. And in fact TNG turned out to be quite different, dealing with a small crew aboard a small starship exploring space further and further... I have next to zero knowledge of the Star Trek franchise, but I'll try to post more details...
More elaboration of Klingon culture to fit in with TOS' Klingons.
The transporter has to have a receiving station on the other end, or some portable equivalent. That way, you could keep it, but still make regular use of the shuttlecraft.
More aliens on board. Even though Spock was a prominent character, they could still have a few more species be extras every few episodes. Maybe have an Andorian and Tellarite purple shirt.
Actually diverse alien worlds. They should be at least as diverse as Earth, and it would give the writers more use of their imaginations.
Show different types of Federation ships. The Technical Manual has lots (I had a copy, but I lost it. However, http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/ has loads of pictures...
The transporter has to have a receiving station on the other end, or some portable equivalent. That way, you could keep it, but still make regular use of the shuttlecraft.
More aliens on board. Even though Spock was a prominent character, they could still have a few more species be extras every few episodes. Maybe have an Andorian and Tellarite purple shirt.
Actually diverse alien worlds. They should be at least as diverse as Earth, and it would give the writers more use of their imaginations.
Show different types of Federation ships. The Technical Manual has lots (I had a copy, but I lost it
. However, http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/ has loads of pictures...
Thande
Donor
Interesting story about that. It's not actually realistic for a man with green blood to have green skin; we have bright red blood after all yet even the people with the least melanin blocking the way have only very pale orange skin as the merest suggestion of the red inside. (Also, someone pointed out later on that given Vulcan's baking hot desert terrain wouldn't it make more sense for most of them to be black - hence Tuvok as a belated nod to that). Now, TOS did give Spock yellowish skin to reflect his green blood, which is realistic. However, this isn't always obvious because there were crossed wires between the makeup and SFX departments - Leonrd Nimoy would painstakingly apply yellow makeup, and then the SFX people kept thinking it was a lighting error and carefully 'correct' it back to a normal human skin tone
(From Inside Star Trek: The Real Story)Ooh, that's interesting.Interesting story about that. It's not actually realistic for a man with green blood to have green skin; we have bright red blood after all yet even the people with the least melanin blocking the way have only very pale orange skin as the merest suggestion of the red inside. (Also, someone pointed out later on that given Vulcan's baking hot desert terrain wouldn't it make more sense for most of them to be black - hence Tuvok as a belated nod to that). Now, TOS did give Spock yellowish skin to reflect his green blood, which is realistic. However, this isn't always obvious because there were crossed wires between the makeup and SFX departments - Leonrd Nimoy would painstakingly apply yellow makeup, and then the SFX people kept thinking it was a lighting error and carefully 'correct' it back to a normal human skin tone
It's funny -- you'd think after the fuck-up in the screen tests for "The Cage" (where they were testing the green makeup for the Orion woman and the SFX guy kept correcting the "lousy green skin tones" until the producers finally came down to the lab, realised what was happening and told him to stop) they'd be on the lookout for things like that.
Okay, then so Spock is yellow.
A couple of things that even at the time of TOS were silly:
1. The Captain, First Officer, Chief Medical Officer and (sometimes) the Chief Engineer. all get to go to the surface of a planet where dangerous or potentially dangerous situations are known to be going on. Picture Admiral Nimitz personally leading the charge on to Iwo Jima. That's what junior officers are for. So I would create an Admiral "Old Man" type to send Kirk and his buds in harms way
2. In super-advanced societies computers never have circuit breakers or software overrides and tend to blow up like an 1860 boiler when confronted with logical problems presented by Spock or Kirk. Have the writers come up with more creative ways
3. The depiction of attacks on the Enterprise always involved the Bridge Crew being thrown out of their chairs. I guess seat belts had been forgotten. Any technology that prevents inertial effects from turning the crew into chunky salsa during FTL acceleration should be up to the task.
1. The Captain, First Officer, Chief Medical Officer and (sometimes) the Chief Engineer. all get to go to the surface of a planet where dangerous or potentially dangerous situations are known to be going on. Picture Admiral Nimitz personally leading the charge on to Iwo Jima. That's what junior officers are for. So I would create an Admiral "Old Man" type to send Kirk and his buds in harms way
2. In super-advanced societies computers never have circuit breakers or software overrides and tend to blow up like an 1860 boiler when confronted with logical problems presented by Spock or Kirk. Have the writers come up with more creative ways
3. The depiction of attacks on the Enterprise always involved the Bridge Crew being thrown out of their chairs. I guess seat belts had been forgotten. Any technology that prevents inertial effects from turning the crew into chunky salsa during FTL acceleration should be up to the task.