Star Trek Star Trek: Foundations Development Thread

[Captain X]

I probably won't get around to working on this for a while yet, but I thought I'd kick things off here with the idea that anything we can come up with will just be here ready to go whenever I can start working on it again. 😕

This is actually something of a return to form for this project, as it initially got its start as a public thread, just like this, on the forum Subspace Comms Network back in the early 2000s. Back then it was just known as Enterprise Redux, and I just thought I'd start talking with people about the kind of ideas they had about redoing Star Trek: Enterprise, with the goal of making it fit better as a prequel to TOS, and this really paved the way for me to start working on the pilot miniseries. Even the name, "Foundations," came from that thread and was the winner of a poll made up of other ideas.

For a while there, other people joined on and became part of a development and writing staff, and this turned into a "virtual series." The show was hosted on another website for a while as one of a few such virtual series, which ironically included a fan continuation of ENT from the end of "Terra Prime." Unfortunately we kind of lost our momentum a bit after our first planned break, and not long after that the host kind of gave up and let the domain expire, which meant a lot of the plans we had posted in our development forum were lost, and I kind of lost my desire to keep working on it at that point. This included a fairly good idea of exactly how many people were on the ship, and even a breakdown of who was on each of four watches that a member of the US Navy came up with for us. I only have myself to blame, of course, as I just failed to make a backup copy of all this stuff.

Anyway, the upshot is that I'd like to get back to this at some point, because I still have the remnants of these good ideas we came up with bouncing around in my head, but I also want to go back and essentially reboot my reboot to address some of the weaker aspects of the show. So I was wondering if anyone here would be interested in helping me with that by doing a bit of brainstorming with me.

 

[The Whispering Monk]

Cool. I'm no Trek expert, but I do like SciFi!

 

[SpaceOrbis]

As somebody who has watched most of the episodes of Star Trek, I like to think I have some idea on how to ensure this fits with the old show of the 1960s.

As for what some of those ideas are one would be no aliens at the start. The NX-Enterprise is a United Earth ship first and foremost. It should start off as purely a United Earth ship and alien crewmembers are added later over time. Another is the Enterprise crew should still fundamentally only use the shuttlecraft. Just because the transporter is capable of transporting biological materials doesn't necessarily mean that it is entirely safe to transport biological materials. Failures should be a risk that the crew knows about and those risks shouldn't be overlooked at least for a while. This is the 2150s...a lot of what was the norm in Kirk's day was still new ideas in Archer's time.

 

[Atarlost]

Failures should be a risk that the crew knows about and those risks shouldn't be overlooked at least for a while.

Very much this. Even at the time of the Enterprise's major rebuild there were still people with concerns about transporter safety and for graphic reasons.

 

[Captain X]

I suppose at some point I should make a post about the stuff as I have it in my head so far.

T'Pol and Phlox will be there from the start for sure, though. Earth does not have transporters or shields or tractor beams, but I am keeping the concept of strengthening the hull armor using "polarization." I'm also keeping my version of the decon chamber scene.

Right now one of the biggest questions I have is if I should keep the character of Georges Picard or come up with essentially a new character. I actually got the idea for him from another poster at SCN, who substituted him in place of Reed. He is of the Picards who settled Mars mentioned by Captain Picard in Generations. I liked this idea, but I also liked the idea of Reed and ended up keeping both characters, and just did a bit differently with them. Lately though, I'm starting to wonder if it isn't a bit of lame fanwank to have a character named Picard, whether he is a direct relation or not to the 24th century captain.

If you haven't read any of the show yet and you don't want to be spoiled, you may not want to read what's in the spoiler tags.

I'm also looking back at my pilot and wondering if there isn't a better way to get certain parties involved, as well as a better way to resolve things.

Spoiler

For example, the reason the Andorians get involved is pretty weak. While I like the bits with the ruined planet, just revealing the fact the Tellarites destroyed the outpost there probably wouldn't be enough to get the Andiroans involved in this other conflict the humans they've never heard of are having. The issue with the Tellarites is the same way, even if they are basically mercenaries getting paid. I just feel I need stronger reasons for them getting involved. I also feel I need to come up with better backgrounds for the Andorians and Tellarites. At the time I started this project, I was able to have it be a bit of a joke that I made the Andorians communists (with plans for them to move away from that) fighting the Tellarites, who were literal capitalist pigs. The world being what it is now, though, I just can't do that anymore.

 

[Captain X]

Okay, here has some thoughts as far as the "world" of Star Trek: Foundations, starting with Earth.

I've gotten tired of the old "kicking the can down the road" as far as the Eugenics War(s) and WWIII go in Star Trek lore, and have settled on the "world" of Star Trek being an AU to the real one. It kind of fits with what's already established, too, thanks largely to GR's backdoor pilot involving Gary Seven. As I recall, he sabotaged an orbital nuclear weapons platform during the late 1960s, which was not something we actually had at the time, as far as we know. VOY going back to "current day" kind of ruins this, though someone did try to salvage it by putting a DY-100 sleeper ship model in the background of the SETI office, but VOY does tend ruin things, after all. It also started the "kick the can" trend I'm referencing. I know some people like the idea of the world of Star Trek somehow being "possible" in our future, but I don't really. For me, the show has always had a tendency toward being allegorical to begin with, so why not extend the trend to this bit of lore? So assume a higher tech level more akin to 2001: A Space Odyssey. So the Eugenics War(s) totally took place in the 1990s and WWIII followed some time after.

As far as tech level when Foundations takes place, Earth has artificial gravity and inertial dampeners, which are both derived from the same technology, which may or may not have been shared with them by the Vulcans. The Vulcans used to be more helpful in the past as far as helping humans to develop their tech, but not long after the United Earth Space Probe Agency was created, they insisted on sending warp-powered drones out randomly, and their early manned missions were somewhat overly optimistic as far as meeting other aliens, which resulted in conflict with the Kzinti or some other stand-in. This has made Vulcan much more reluctant to help Earth to further develop their warp tech since that point, so the Enterprise is something of a triumph for Earth. But artificial gravity and warp tech are about the only things in common with what was seen in the other shows. Well, the navigational deflector as well, I suppose. But they do not have the ability to generate anything like shield bubbles or force fields, nor can they generate tractor beams. Their directed energy weapons are laser and plasma-based, as well as having what are essentially standard missiles with impulse engines driving them, which will include the nuclear-tipped variety. They do have hand-held stun weapons similar to what was seen in Firefly, but these are designed as "less than lethal" for humans and may or may not be as effective on non-humans as designed. For example, they do not effect Vulcans as strongly as humans. There may also be aliens who would be killed rather than stunned, or even humans, for that matter, if they are in poor health. The laser and plasma weapons are designed to kill, though, and should be treated more like contemporary firearms rather than the phasers of the previous shows.

As mentioned, there is a United Earth Space Probe Agency rather than Starfleet. It is a civilian organization funded through legislature similar to NASA, and could be thought of as a combination of NASA and NOAA Corps. There have always been politics associated with it thanks to the naivety (real and imagined) of the organization. Early UESPA ships were not armed in any way and did not have a dedicated security force, but thanks to encounters with hostile (or at least less than friendly) aliens, UESPA has started arming their ships and taking on more Coast Guard-like roles, and have started using security forces from the military. There are politics involved with this as well, with some feeling very strongly against having weapons or military personnel on their ships, and some who feel UESPA should be absorbed by the military.

As for the military, initially I had it as a combined force with internal branches, perhaps somewhat similar to the Canadian military's structure, but lately I've been rethinking that. What do you think?

Another thing I'm re-thinking is ship name prefixes. I'm thinking the "United Earth Ship" prefix should be reserved for the military ships, and that I ought to come up with something else to make the UESPA ships sound distinctly different, perhaps even using a V, for "Vessel" rather than an S for "Ship." Also because SSV Normandy sounds pretty cool. I was thinking something along the lines of ESV for "Earth Science Vessel," but I'm curious what other people think.

 

[Captain X]

Had some thoughts on the Andorians and Tellarites. Was kind of thinking of making the Andorians could be based a bit on the Scottish clans and the French Empire, and the Tellarites could be based on the British Empire, with the ones helping Alpha Centauri in the pilot being akin to the East India Trading Company.

 

[Captain X]

Had some thoughts on the Andorians and Tellarites. Was kind of thinking of making the Andorians could be based a bit on the Scottish clans and the French Empire, and the Tellarites could be based on the British Empire, with the ones helping Alpha Centauri in the pilot being akin to the East India Trading Company.

I'm reviving this in the hopes that maybe I could poke some brains a bit to help me re-work my pilot miniseries a bit so that it makes more sense in terms of everyone's motivations and how things end up the way they do.

In addition to the last post about the Tellarites being somewhat based on the British Empire and the Andorians being somewhat based on the First French Empire, the conflict between Alpha Centauri and Earth could be seen as analogous to the American Revolution. Which is to say that it is a popular view on Alpha Centauri that they are in an exploitative relationship with Earth and that they really ought to have self-rule, which is something the Martian colony already got for itself without nearly as much trouble, especially considering that Alpha Centauri is in a completely different system from Earth. There was actually a previous non-violent attempt at rebellion, where their local legislative body essentially voted themselves independent from Earth, only to have the military sent in and a new governor appointed by United Earth's president. Ironically enough, after spending some time on AC, he's actually come around in their favor and is now trying to help their cause. Since I am working off of established cannon, though, there is actually another character who will become the first president of AC following the events of the pilot.

In my first version of this, I think I ended up going a bit too ham-fisted both with the governor (Franklin) and with the man who will eventually become the AC president (Cheet). In this version, the two are actually at odds with each other, and he ends up leading a counter-revolution against Franklin and his hired Tellarite mercenaries, because he recognizes the danger of getting the Tellarites involved, and also wishes for there to be a more peaceful solution that doesn't involve direct military conflict with Earth, which he feels AC would most likely lose. This is why Franklin seeks the help of the Tellarites, as their ships are more powerful than Earth's, and they make a surprise appearance at the beginning of the pilot.

Enterprise, meanwhile, is on its first mission, having just received T'Pol as a Vulcan exchange officer, when it gets diverted to help with the crisis unfolding on AC. They're basically being sent to talk Franklin down and get him to surrender peacefully while the military assembles a task force in the meantime in case that falls through. Thanks to Archer's inexperience, he kind of messes things up and they get into a fight with the Tellarites that doesn't got with for them, and they end up tucking tail and running. They end up running into the Andorians and talk them into helping, mainly through convincing them that they have a common enemy. I'm not going to lie, this is actually the weakest part of the story. Basically Archer seeks the Andorians out, based mainly on T'Pol explaining that they are in something of a cold war with the Tellarites which occasionally goes hot due to border conflicts. They find an Andorian outpost on a planet filled with the ruins of an ancient civilization and find that it was attacked and destroyed by Tellarite weapons, so when Shran shows up with some ships, he's able to show them, and without much prompting he just decides it would be worth it to hit back at some Tellarites. That's the upshot anyway.

On my second take, I'm thinking Cheet and Franklin might actually be on the same side as each other, with Cheet actually serving somewhat as a Ben Franklin analog that has been trying to build alliances against Earth preemptively since they know their own home-grown military is no match for Earth's military, especially since they've been somewhat de-fanged over the previous attempt at declaring independence. Maybe they went to the Andorians and got turned down and ended up talking to the Tellarites instead. AC is a pretty resource rich planet, which is why Earth doesn't really want to give it up as a colony, but this is ultimately what interests the Tellarites. Specifically, there is a Tellarite organization similar to the East Indian Trading Company that is interested, and agree to help out in exchange for setting up trade with them, which might seem like a win-win arrangement to Cheet and Franklin. It would only be later on that they find out the Tellarites are planning on essentially doing to them what the EITC did to both India and China.

So I guess my main problem is how to approach this in the story. Do I do it more or less how I did it in my first take with just these changes I've made to characters and aliens, or should I incorporate time skips since diplomacy (specifically with the Andorians) would probably take time? Should I still do the Great Machine plotline?

Are there any other thoughts any of you might have?