Less Phasers, More Politics

Since we know that Strange New Worlds will be ending in about 20 episodes and don't have a clue if Starfleet Academy will go beyond the first season, I've been thinking about what I'd like to come next for Star Trek.

If it were up to me, I'd like to expand Star Trek TV shows beyond Starfleet. One of the things I liked most about the first season of Picard (and I think the first season was the most interesting and the best season) was that many of our heroes may have come from Starfleet, but none of them were Starfleet officers. Starfleet was there, but wasn't central. I'd like to see more of that sort of thing.

If we're not on a Starfleet starship, I think we should focus on a group from the Federation's diplomatic corp.

A smallish diplomatic team of Federation citizens from many different worlds would have a starship and travel around the Alpha and Beta Quadrants to different worlds and starbases getting involved with political and diplomatic intrigue.

I'd set the series after Picard so the show can explore things like the Alpha Quadrant's recovery from the Dominion War, the destruction of Romulus (which was ignored after the first season of Picard), and the Ferengi joining the Federation.

New worlds would be visited.

Alliances would be forged.

If the series need to have a legacy character to be hung on, I'd bring back Molly O'Brien. After Picard she'd be in her late 30s/early 40s which is the perfect age for her to be leading a diplomatic team for the Federation. She was born on a starship. She grew up, practically, on Bajor and (if you count the relaunch books) Cardassia. She has experience with lots of non-humans and non-Federation citizens.

I don't know if Hana Hatae is still acting. It'd be great to use the same actress, but -- for no good reason that I know of -- they recast Bruce Maddox, so... you know, there's precedence.

I see great potential for political and spy stories with this setup. Which I guess means Section 31 could show up. If they do, can we please go back to how they were portrayed in Deep Space 9 and Enterprise? You know, when they were the bad guys. Section 31 is the antithesis to what the Federation and Starfleet stand for. They should always be the enemy. They are never in the right.

And, while I often enjoy serialization in TV shows, can we tone it down some? Take it back to an older style of TV serialization? One of the things I disliked about Picard and Discovery was how our heroes kept losing over and over until the last episode. Why can't they have some real victories? Wven if the victories don't relate to the season long arc? Maybe move to the Enterprise season 4 style of serialization and do 2-3 episode arcs. I thought that worked really well.

That's what I'd like to see out of a new Star Trek. I'll be there for whatever, though.

A Thought

I had a thought yesterday:

What if there were a sentient alphabet?

An alphabet that worked to make people understand how to read it and forced them to use it?

An alphabet that reproduces by people writing with it so others would use the same alphabet?

An alphabet whose very twists and edges to had meaning we couldn't understand, but changed how we think?

If there is such an alphabet, could we know?

A Horrible Idea

I had this idea eight years ago and this is what I wrote:

It's like My Fair Lady, but with nerds. A gorgeous girl decides to learn how to be a nerd. She goes to an expert, a know-it-all comic book shop owner. He teaches her to talk the talk then plays down her look so she can walk the walk.

It's all okay, though, because in the end she decides that it's okay to like geeky things and still look gorgeous. End with her in a super slutty looking costume of some sort at a con being stopped to have her picture taken then pull back to the guy who "trained" her nodding in a knowing way, because he did his job perfectly.

I've pushed it forward as a draft for a long time because I thought I'd flesh it out. You know how well that turned out.

Blog Post Idea Realized

This may ramble and not make a lot of sense, but here's where my NaNoWriMo is going to be coming from.

After the World Trade Center fell, my aunt was so afraid that she questioned letting her kids go to school. She lives 3,000 miles from New York. The green sign on the side of the highway that tells you that you have entered the town she lives in has about two hundred people. The entire county has about 55,000 people in it. The tallest building is, I think, six stories, but that's three miles away from the school her kids went to.

When I school started a few weeks later, I heard some of the students saying that they were scared to be there. What if something like what happened in New York happened there. And I thought they were crazy because no one was going to crash a plane into a university that no one, outside of the state, had heard of.

But hearing these sorts of things got me thinking. How would people like my aunt and those scared students react if terrorists attacked the US like they have attacked Israel? What would the average person here do if coffee shops or pizzerias were bombed? What if the places bombed were a store that had hundreds of branches in the US, earns billions of dollars each year, and nearly everyone has visited at one time or another? What if several bombings happened at exactly the same time? What if there was at least one bombing in each state?

How would people react? How quickly would people be able/willing to get on with their lives? Would those people try to have the exact same life as they had before? Would people be able to simply go to the grocery store to pick up some milk? Would the people in the cities and towns that weren't bombed be able to move on faster than the people in the cities and town that were bombed, or would they constantly be waiting for the other shoe to drop?

What would the government do? If the multibillion dollar company began failing, would they bail it out? Would stores start placing metal detectors at the doors? Would government security be provided for the stores? Would people be screened before they could enter a store to buy some ice cream? Would only a limited amount of people be allowed in at a time? (At the time, I wondered if the government would start looking at passports to get into the US from Canada or Mexico, but since that's starting at the end of this year I no longer have to speculate.)

So, I've been wondering these sorts of things for about five years, but I couldn't figure out how to use them (other than log on to some terrorist website and say, "Hey, guys, I have a suggestion..." but that didn't seem like a smart thing to do). Last month, I figured out how I can use them. Looking at all the thoughts now, it would probably make for a decent political thriller, but that's not my sort of thing (Okay, I enjoy watching political thrillers, but I don't think I could write one, at all.) and it seems like the usual way an idea like this would go.

Late last month, I figured out how to use this stuff and make it a real human story, how to make it about someone more than about something. I filed it away in my brain and assumed that I'd never write it. A couple of weeks ago, I was reading a blog that mentioned the writing month and, after much hemming and hawing, I decided that this would be the place to get this out of me.

I only hope it works.

An Idea For a Blog Post

I've been having trouble writing the things that I want to be writing here. Mostly stuff about comics (especially the JSA, apparently there are some comic fans (more specifically they're DC comic fans) who don't get it) and some horrible news about one of my favorite TV shows and the general loathing I have toward my job and, by extension, my life right now. Also, there are two letters that I should really respond to right now (I should have responded to one last week, actually). I can't/don't, for some reason.

In my private stall this afternoon, I was pondering the reasons for the lack of motivation. Am I just lazy? Do I have nothing to say? Am I trying to save writing for NaNoWriMo? Which I thought was silly. You can't save writing, can you? Maybe you can. Maybe you want to write, but don't and that need to write just builds up inside of you until, in a fluffy of activity, you churn out four long blog posts and a rough draft for a short story and an outline for a screenplay in on day. What I really mean is that I can't save up writing. If I don't do it, it just disappears. Gone. Forever gone.

That led me to thinking about my idea for my NaNoWriMo and how I haven't written anything down. I haven't written sketches about the main characters, not even their names. I haven't outlined the main points the plot should hit. I haven't even come up with a title. Should I be doing these things? Is it cheating? It won't be part of the finished product, so I could do it, right?

And then I was wondering if I should just share my idea here. I'm going to be seeing many of the people who read this stuff on a semi-regular basis on Saturday and I expect that at least one person, who isn't a parent, to ask me about it. (Although he could be distracted by the goings on, and even if he's not distracted by the goings on he's usually easy to distract with certain topics.) Maybe I should head off any questions and just write about my idea here.

That's when some jackass voice said not to. Said that I should keep it a secret. Why keep it a secret? The only person I (sort of) know who's doing this madness as well has her own ideas and would never use mine. So, what's the point of keeping mine secret.

The jackass voice had no response to that.

So, guess what I'm going to do! Tomorrow, though, because it's almost time to go and I'm going to see a movie tonight.

A Wonderfully Horrible Idea

It came to me while I was doing dishes. An idea that I first thought was horrible, then I realized that if I had friends in the TV business it would probably be marketable. Awful.

I call it Rivendell High.

We all know what happens in the end of The Lord of The Rings, but what were Sam, Frodo, and all the rest like when they were in high school? That's what this animated show's about.

Frodo, Sam, Pippin, and Merry are Freshmen and the only Hobbits at Rivendell High (a boarding school that was originally for Elfs, of whom there are the most, Humans and Dwarfs were eventually allowed in, and finally, with these four, Hobbits), are unpopular, and seem to attract trouble like iron to a magnet, but they are all destined to greatness, right? It's thier first time away from the Shire, but they have more than enough Shire in them to drive the other students and the teachers nuts. They don't mean to cause trouble or "borrow" things, it's just what being a Hobbit is about and it's about time Rivendell learned to adjust.

With the help of some seniors, Aragorn AKA "The Stride" (an aloof and dirty, handsome ranger in training), Gimli (loudmouth dwarf who's the fiercest fighter and fiercest friend you could want), Legolas (archery champ and the least popular Elf in school because he hangs out with a Dwarf), and the mega-popular Arwen (the principal's daughter and Aragon's squeeze), the Hobbits are out to foil the plots of History of Middle-Earth teacher Saruman, and his favorite student Wormtongue, who wants to take over the school from Principal Elrond and his Assistant-Principal\Magic teacher Gandalf. Some other teachers include: Bilbo, Poetry and Song; Galadriel, Healing and Herb Lore; Tom Bombadil, Creatures of Middle-Earth; and Thodin, Horsemanship.

When the Hobbits and their friends aren't foiling the plots of Saruman and Wormtongue they are out to keep the school from losing to Mordor High School, where the evil Headmaster Sauron is out to defeat Rivendell in everything with his hordes of under-educated Orc and others of their ilk.

And lurking around the school is the mysterious Gollum, always searching for his Precious, but never finding it or any help from the students he meets.

There you have it. My horrible idea for Saturday morning's newest hit. I know you'd be curious, even if you would never admit to actually watching. Don't even try to deny it.