Star Trek: The Next Frontier

Series Proposal

INTRODUCTION
Creating a new series for Star Trek has the challenge of trying to satisfy the diehard fans while still attracting new viewers who have not seen all 728 episodes of every incarnation of Star Trek. Any series that has any chance of moderate success has got to find a way tackling this problem J.J. Abrams's Star Trek movie from 2009 attempts to do this by resetting the timeline completely, which had also had the impact of alienating many fans and possibly invalidating all of the prior history in Star Trek. Episodic television is not a format current TV viewers with DVRs or on demand watchers consider acceptable anymore. Any new series must have a longer, well thought out storyline. It also needs to be able to be free for writers to not be constrained by 50 years of Star Trek canon. The way to solve this problem is to set Star Trek almost entirely in a different location. Voyager tried to do this by being sending a single ship against their will to a distant location. Explorers hundreds of years ago took major risks. They often left their friends and families behind, and were cut off from communications nearly entirely. And they did this without having a clear picture of what they will see on the other side. Christopher Columbus spent five weeks crossing the Atlantic the first time. This concept attempts to recreate this sense of exploration and risk, albeit with a crisis driving the need to get to a new land as quickly as possible.

SERIES CONCEPT
The year is 2393. This is the six years after the Supernova destroys Romulus in the 2009 Star Trek Movie. This assumes the same Prime Timeline with no changes at this point, ignoring the entire 2009 Star Trek movie except for the events that happen in 2387. As a point of reference, this is also 14 years after Star Trek: Nemesis. Random stars throughout the galaxy are suddenly reaching their expected near end of life millions of years early. Red giants are showing up in places where they should not be. Most of the time, it has little immediate impact as most solar systems are not supporting any intelligent life, but it is causing the scientific community to worry of the lasting effects. By the time anyone figures out this is happening, it is already too late for the star. Eventually a Federation system's star turns into a red giant. Readings are taken showing the presence of a ship, one of completely unknown design. It never warps away, but it does disappear suddenly. The Federation sends numerous ships to investigate and defend the stars of the most inhabited systems. This leads to battles with this unknown enemy. Their ships have considerable speed and seemingly can disappear at will, but only do so when they absolutely must before being destroyed. Their weapons and defensive capabilities are roughly on par with the Federation. The battles become more and more fierce, and without any official declaration, they are clearly at war. The pace of the star transformations increases and tensions are getting higher. Finally, the Federation has a break. In one of the battles, the Federation stops a ship from disappearing. They board the ship, but not before the damage is done to the star. They find no crew on the ship, but are able to look at their computer systems. Everything is extremely foreign looking; they still don't even have any idea who these beings are. After months, the best and brightest engineers are able to interface with their systems. There is nothing historical on the ship, no mission. Starfleet engineers manage to get the navigation system online and they can't believe what they see. The ship's origin is the Triangulum Galaxy and there is a route calculated back. Thinking that they can't get much more

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information out of the ship, a group of volunteers from many different Federation Species make an attempt to go to another galaxy to see if they can find out more about who is attacking them and if this technology really works. The ship arrives in the Triangulum Galaxy after a three week journey which cannot be stopped. The humans are okay as well as a few of the other races, but many of the multi-species Federation crew are either dead or very ill. Symptoms were minor at first, but once crew members reported major symptoms they found the navigation control system would not allow them to stop or alter course. Obviously this inter-galactic travel is very dangerous to certain kinds of anatomy. 25% of the energy on the ship is depleted during the journey. Considering that all of the energy from a star was drained for their fuel source, getting to another galaxy comes at a serious energy cost. In four trips, they would have expended their entire energy supply. So, this explains what is happening - this unknown force from outside of the galaxy has come for our most precious natural resource - our stars. Its a tough call getting back to the Milky Way. There are dozens of the crew in really bad shape - some elect to try to make the trip back home. One human Starfleet Doctor and about a dozen nonhuman crew who were not in the best health are dropped off at the nearest M-Class planet they can find with no timetable of when they can come back. Except for the doctor, these volunteers realize this might have been a one way trip and may never see their homes ever again, at least until it can be determined what happened during the journey. They make the journey back home, which kills a few more of the dramatically affected but not dead crew members who did not elect to stay behind. This mining ship comes back to the Milky Way and the volunteers report back the results of the mission. The return has major political ramifications as so many of the volunteers died during the test journey, and yet the humans had no impact. Obviously things are heated, and now the Federation alone has the technology to drain energy from stars and travel to the Triangulum Galaxy while no one else can. This leads to agreements the Federation makes about usage of the technology, who controls the technology, and who is allowed to use it. The technology to go to Triangulum goes under lock and key. A delegation of Federation members authorizes the use of the technology in only the most extreme circumstances. Of course the Federation would like as they need as much help as possible to fight these armed invaders of the Milky Way, and they do not want to do it alone. And in some respects, as there are only a handful of alien races that are able to make the trip, they arent able to rely on too many allies. After a few months, a very small number of heavily armed Prometheus Class ships with primarily human crews take the trip to the Triangulum Galaxy after being outfitted with technology from that single mining ship. The only coordinates they know how to make operational currently are to the single point left by the one ship as well as the return coordinates. Their mission is to find out who has been traveling to the Milky Way and destroying stars. They have a very hard time finding similarly configured ships but do eventually find some of them and go after them. Obviously they'll find some other inhabited planets along the way but they are on a primary mission. Some of these allies aid in helping with the battles as they have the same crisis dealing with this unknown enemy in their own galaxy mining their stars. A handful of battles occur with some casualties on both sides. No view screens with dialog, no diplomatic negotiations. The other side simply retreats and doesn't come back. It's an empty victory with no immediate resolution and leaving the threat on the horizon in the future. There are no hints as to who it was really was. But we've made a few allies in this new galaxy as well.

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The underlying premise is that the opposing side is simply energy miners and it isn't worth their effort at the moment to mine the Milky Way after getting this push back. But if their other sources become direr, their employers may force them to come back.

THE STAGE FOR ENTIRE NEW SERIES

At least initially only human crews (and some other select alien) can travel to other galaxies. Once they are there, they cannot come back often and the cavalry is not there to protect them. The Federation sends Starfleet personnel to establish a starbase in an environment unlike anything else they've created before. The situation would more mirror England's colonies in the New World. The journey is not to be taken lightly and very infrequent. Communications are nearly almost non-existent back to Starfleet Command. A fleet is established with ships with different missions. Exploration / Stellar Cartography / Diplomacy (Ships) Medical (On Starbase and a single Medical Ship) Science / Research (On Starbase and a single ship) Tactical / Defensive (Several Prometheus Class Ships)

The Starbase has one Admiral in charge of all operations in the Triangulum Galaxy. In addition, the Starbase would eventually also have a shipyard, as well as a group responsible for sourcing raw materials necessary to expand the Starbase, create new ships, and make serious repairs to the fleet. This isn't like Voyager as they can return to the Milky Way, it is just very infrequent. The key part of this show would be a major departure from the other Star Trek series is that while there could be a primary ship to focus on, there would be other regular ships throughout the series. When ships are destroyed in the fleet, there will be merging of personnel. What once was a minor character could become a major one in a later season. From a writing point of view none of the existing plot lines would have any real impact as virtually everything from Enterprise to Voyager is in the Milky Way. And just coming back seems like a moral decision that must be weighed every time.

WRITING GUIDELINES FOR EPISODES

No "reset" switch after each episode. The series is meant to have continuity with itself and is designed to be watched with longer storyline arcs. Single, self-contained episodes are expected as well, but this is not a recreation of TNG format. No time travel No plotlines involving the Borg No dark federation material. It seems as if nearly every Admiral was corrupt on TNG. Characters need to be flawed, but ultimately the vast majority of Senior Officers need to be plausibly doing what would be morally right from their point of view. Exploration and moral dilemmas are critical. Any cameo or long term involvement from characters from prior series must be made in a way where previous viewing of their character is unnecessary to understand their involvement.

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ADDITIONAL OVERALL SERIES GUIDELINES

Exploration after and some during the conflict are a necessity. Like TNG, there needs to be moral dilemmas explored on a regular basis. I'm not including names or characters, but it needs to be very seriously character driven. We need to really care about the people and crews on those ships and they need some in depth back stories. When we lose someone on the show, it needs to be a real loss. Conflict and battles are part of Star Trek, even on TV. The movies are always higher stakes per minute, but we can't rule out armed conflict. There's no take down of Starfleet and the Federation, but the "Utopia" that the Federation embodies is trillions of miles away. Not everything will have clear, resolved answers or necessarily need to. Everything is new. Every race, every planet. But you can still go back to the Milky Way when absolutely necessary. This is the Next Frontier of exploration.

EXISTING STAR TREK CHARACTERS

The core of the show needs to have brand new crews, but anyone from any previous series that is still alive is fair game to come back as a cameo for the fans. Except for characters with special aging considerations (The Doctor, Data/B4), everyone has aged appropriately in real life to have them be in the series. They shouldn't stand out and should be necessary to the plot POSSIBLE EXAMPLES: Captain Riker on the Titan La Forge running the team of engineers to figure out the intergalactic space travel Admiral Picard negotiating the use of this intergalactic space travel and of mining of stars inside of the Milky Way Miles O'Brien teaching Engineering at Starfleet Academy Dr. Crusher selecting medical personnel for deployment to Triangulum. (She was implied to be head of Starfleet Medical in cut scenes from Nemesis).

CHARACTERS
Characters introduced in the first few episodes should seem unconnected at first, but will eventually serve to be major characters that wind up in the Triangulum Galaxy. Examples: Cadets from Starfleet Ship Captains Engineers from Utopia Planatia Starfleet Medical personnel

Spock's 1/2 Vulcan, 1/4 Human, 1/4 Romulan, Son or Daughter (Saavik is the mother) who would be a little over 100 at this point. Robin Curtis could come back to play Saavik, and she was a Starfleet Officer and likely to still be in Starfleet. Identity is not revealed until later in the show. Could make him/her aboard a science vessel as both

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Spock and Saavik were Science Officers. This is based on the script from Star Trek IV and while not entirely popular, leaves a connection back to TOS.

EPISODES PARTS / IDEAS Start the pilot on an alien world very similar to Earth with a preindustrial population going about their regular routines. Suddenly the hue of everything turns red and you see their sun in the sky expanding in size into incredible proportions and everything getting very warm on the planet. The camera zooms out into outer space and the red giant increases in size enough to consume the entire planet. Cut to a professor in a science class at Starfleet Academy discusses the sudden appearance of Red Giants and the students postulate theories as to why this is happening When sourcing raw materials in the Triangulum Galaxy, many conflicts get into resource rights. Clearly the Federation does not have claim to any part of the Galaxy and needs to negotiate even keeping a starbase in another Empire's territory. This will serve as a parallel to the number of bases the United States has on foreign soil and explore that moral dilemma. Evidence of inactive Iconian Gateways are found in Triangulum and hinted to they may be the employers of the mining vessels. Many different populations are aware of stories of the Iconians and were rumored to come from the Milky Way Galaxy. Ships traveling to the starbase from the Milky Way and returning would be a planned schedule as communications are impossible. All of a sudden, the next planned ship to arrive does not, and this leaves everyone considering if they are going to have to eventually mine stars in the Triangulum Galaxy. Would that not make them just as bad as those who were mining the Milky Way Galaxy? Repairs would be difficult and making sure they are enough resources to even produce power for the ships and the starbase should be a concern, especially at the beginning. This would be an opportunity to do what was not done on Voyager. The Federation does not have virtually unlimited resources in the Triangulum Galaxy. An abandoned mining vessel is found that matches the configuration of the one found in the Milky Way. This contains other coordinates inside of Andromeda and is used to try to figure out how the navigational input actually works. A connection is made to the Hobus star going supernova in Star Trek (2009) and Star Trek: Countdown. A ship is revealed to having being seen in the vicinity of the star right before it went supernova. It is explained that something must have went wrong in the energy extraction process causing the events Star Trek (2009) to happen. Subspace repeaters would need to be placed or a similar technology's use negotiated with allies as communications between the Starbase and the ships will become more difficult as they push further out. A ship is attacked when making the trip between the Milky Way and Triangulum literally in between Galaxies.

NOTES
Making humans being one of the few species able to travel to the Triangulum is a deliberate choice. Viewers are more likely to identify with those who are most like themselves. The Star Trek ideal of race not being a factor in the future should certainly be a large part of the show, but if we made the primary crew choices anything but human/humanoid, viewers would certainly identify less with what they are seeing on screen.

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