Hypothetical Star Trek Show that will never be created

I like all Star Trek except for STD, but I really like Deep Space Nine more than the others. I was rewatching the series and just for fun, I started writing down every unspeakably awful thing that happens to Miles O'Brien. If you really hate spoilers, and haven't watched DS9 stop reading now because I'm going to build on DS9 a lot.

It's a testament to his strength of spirit that he is a highly competent Starfleet officer and not gibbering to himself in a padded cell.

There was an episode where Mile's eight year old daughter, Molly, falls into a time anomally and ends up 300 years in the past. She survives ten years by herself on a wilderness planet and came back a feral wild child. Because it involves a time anomally they were able to hit the reset button and return Molly to eight years old. Still, I couldn't help thinking. "This girl is a badass surviving that long in the wilderness completely by herself." She was also a great athlete and capable of beating people up.

I thought, what if she kept the indominantible spirit and boundless creativity and combined it with formal Starfleet training? She would be a demigod. If she inherits her father's trait of being a cosmic magnet for interesting but difficult life events, there would be infinite story potential for her.

I want an adult Molly O'Brien to be the lead character on a Star Trek series that is a direct sequel to Deep Space Nine, probably as the captain, but I would be okay if she were the first officer.

So Commander Molly O'Brien is the anchor for the cast. What is the main story? Exploration or Politics?


Both

A Plot

At the end of Deep Space Nine, the Dominion surrenders to the Federation and presumably stops brutalizing people with the Jem Hadar.

This means the Gamma Quadrant is now fully safe for the Federation and their allies to fully explore, but it also means that all the petty warlords, criminals, and despots that until recently were kept in line by the Dominion are now unleashed.

If you feel like you absolutely need to create a new megavillain to replace the Dominion or the Borg, then you can easily justify a new Big Bad in the Gamma Quadrant.

B Plot

At the end of DS9 there was tons of positive wheels in motion.

-Bajor is on track to become a full member of the Federation and they are moving towards peaceful cooperation with their old enemies Cardassia.
-The Ferenghi are turning over a new leaf and showing more compassion
-The Cardassians are turning over a new leaf and respecting individual freedom and peaceful diplomacy more.
-The Klingons are trying to root out corruption and focusing on real honor and not just the pretext of honor.
-The Romulans are to a lesser extant, trying to be more open and less duplicitous.
-The Breen used to exist on the fringes, now they can't hide in the background anymore.
-The Federation has begun building purely military ships. They are also trying to purge Section 31 from their ranks.
-The Dominion has begun acting less interventionalist

All these things are generally positive, but every one of these societies is going to have hardline Conservatives that want to return things to how they were before. They are each going to have hardline Progressives who want to see much larger reforms. There are going to be third party groups poking around the territories of these powers hoping to get power, and wealth by playing factions against each other.

All these disaprate groups are going to be pushing against each other. You could have civil wars and emerging terrorist groups. Not every conflict need be violent. You can have meddling beuaracrats, slimy con artists, and cold hearted mercenaries stirring up trouble.

There is no shortage of political conflict and it would be very easy to set up red herrings. You can also have a lot of reluctant allies of convenience. What if Bajoran and Cardassian extremists opted to work together to sabotage their own governments so they could get back to killing each other unknowing that the Breen and Romulans are pulling their puppet strings?


While I think Molly O'Brien would be a fantastic protagonist. Star Trek needs an ensemble to be at it's best. I'm figuring Molly O'Brien would daring and prone to taking risks. It's tradition to make the captain and the first officer compliments with different styles. The deuteragonist, should be cautious and methodical. That's sort of the Star Trek formula. The captain and first officer have opposite but complimentary personalities.

I would be thrilled if the previous cast members of DS9 made cameos once in a while, but I don't think we need to put any on the main cast. The most logical character to reintroduce after a 20 year time skip would be Nog because his career was just taking off. The problem is, Aron Eisenberg, the actor who plays Nog, was actually older than most of the rest of the cast and played young. He's in his fifties now. It mgiht be weird for him to play somone in his thirties or he might be sick of Star Trek by now. I would not be opposed to giving him a protege. The second Ferengi in Starfleet has to fight through all the Ferengi prejudice, but would get less coddling because he (or she I suppose) is not the exciting first one.

Worf's son Alexander might be an interesting foil to Molly O'Brien. Molly is a human with the soul of a warrior and Alexander is a Klingon with the soul of a diplomat. But the fan base doesn't really like him much, so that's probably not a good casting choice.

I really didn't like Ezri Dax, but she's much older now. I might like her more as a wise matron than a wide eyed youth.


I really want to follow Bajor's growth, so I'd like to see a Bajoran on the main cast. How about make the doctor a Bajoran. The Bajoran doctor would be very knowledgeable but also prone to pray for healing too. This could create a philosophical divide with the chief engineer or the chief science officer but eventually they become friends and respect each other's viewpoints.


Most versions of Star Trek have a Pinnochio character of some sort or someone with split heritage. On some level Molly has split Japanese/Irish heritage but in the Star Trek universe that is not a big deal. You could justify adding a friendly changeling to the cast, but it woudl be hard to top Odo. I would add a Jem'hadar or Vorta that is trying to assert his/her independence. Though one could easily invent a new alien or shake the dust off one of the one-off forgotten aliens.


If we need a split heritage character, I would create a Bajoran/Cardassian half-breed who doesn't fit into either society very well and hoped to find a new identity in Starfleet. He or she (probably she because Star Trek's handlers like to make halflings sexy females) would be a great way to introduce subplots from both Bajor and Cardassia.


Star Trek doesn't like to introduce non-sexy female characters, but a female Ferengi in Starfleet that is doubly pushing against her societal norms might be interesting though I'd be concerned that her character arc would get completely hijacked by SJWs in a bad way.


I liked Garok and Quark providing an outsider's view of the Federation in DS9. I liked Kes and Neelix providing an outsider's view of the Federation in Voyager. I think I would like to add a mostly friendly but not fully trusted Romulan character for this story niche.


With all these exotic characters, it's probably okay to round out the cast with some normal humans, as long as they have good actors and reasonable character arcs.

So the captain is the fearless and bold Molly O'Brien

The first officer is a no-nonense by the book human. Maybe s/he can be much older than Molly but he is outranked by Molly because he joined Starfleet late in life as a second career. It just so happens that he has some skeletons in his closet from his first job that will come up from time to time.

Chief Medical officer is a spirital Bajoran who believes in holistic medicine in addition to advanced science.

Chief science officer is a human. Maybe a love interest to Molly O'Brien or the chief medical officer.

Head of security is a new breed of Jem'Hadar created to mend fences with the Alpha Quadrant.

The loveable scamp is a miserly Romulan quartermaster.

Fill in two or three more characters and we got a show.

 

Yeah I also think that wouldn't quite work.
Such a character would be cool to have, and I like O'Brien, but the environment is what builds most of a character, not genetics.
A Molly with a loving home and all the stuff Star Fleet has... she would probably be a lot less badass.

Otherwise some nice ideas there!

 

That sounds kind of kickass. I can imagine each commander of one of each ship would have a different personality and a different appetite for risk.

You wouldn't even have to base the series around this. You could have a single season like this, perhaps the season finale before it the main cast had to abandon their original flagship or space station.

This is a nature versus nurture question. I still say most eight year old children would not thrive like she did, so the potential for greatness is there.

Also, she is daughter of Miles and Keiko O'Brien.

Miles has had numerous weird and unspeakable things happen to him. I can pull up my complete list but some highlights include
-Every friend he has except for Julian Bashir dies. One friend was replaced by a Cardassian spy.
-He got infected by weaponized plague...as a reward for helping a troubled world
-He had to fight his own clone
-He got drafted into being the messiah for a Bajoran town attacked by a weird monster
-He got drafted into being an undercover mole against the Space Mafia
-Caught in a time loop, he died three times.
-When the crew's imaginations were coming to life, Miles was haunted by the only unpleasant appartion
-He got tortured and put on trial for his life by the Cardassians
-He got sentenced to 20 years of simulated torture by a Gamma Quadrant alien
-He gets beat up a lot.
-He found out Klingon bachelor parties are not nearly as much fun as they sound.

Keiko was possessed by an alien entity at least twice. She was also caught in a time anomally and thrown into a child's body with an adult intellect, gave me in a turbolift shaft, and a variety of other things.

Rootbeer and Replicators or not, I'm sure Molly will experience something else that will galvanize her into steel. Perhaps the traumatic and exotic death of her Rasputin-like father. When Mile's story is not going to end with "then he died peacefully in hi sleep."

 

For that reason, I would like to see a Tellarite become a member of the senior staff on the next Star Wars show. Tellarites are the least human-looking of all the founding members of the Federation but they are arguably more human (in the sense that they are not ALL alike) than most other Star Trek aliens.

Most Star Trek species take one thing humans value and elevate it above all other values. Ferengi value profit, Vulcans value logic, Bajorans value spirituality, Cardassians value a strong state, etc.

Tellarites are huge free speech advocates. Arguing is considered polite. They believe strongly in discussing all views and view to not do so is a sign of close mindedness. In a way they view this a means of averting war. Better to fight over ideoloogy with words than with weapons.

That general attitude would put them big on the Federation's ideals of multi-culturalism and inconclusiveness but it would be interested to see how it would play out a Federation military starship. I imagine a Tellarite would be a huge asset during brainstorming sessions but would be a minor liability during tactical decisions where split second decisions must be made.

What little I know about Tellarites comes from this video. A single major Tellarite character would of course open the door for their culture to be fleshed out more.



Also, Tellarites are supposed to be very mechanically inclined and I was having trouble coming up with a hook for the chief engineer, so make him or her a Tellarite. I noticed the video doesn't mention gender dynamics at all. I'm GUESSING they are egalitarian, but most of the characters that show up seem to be male. As a Federation Founding member that wants to hear all views of all issues they are probably egalitarian and the reason we don't female Tellarites is because Star Trek's handlers avoid showing female aliens that are not sexy.

The downside is a Tellarite could easily become hated by the audience if he or she is constantly questioning a more popular character. To get around this, you need to have the popular characters be wrong often enough that the Tellarite can save the day by coming up with a better idea, but not TOO often often so they don't becomea new Wesley. On that note, I guess I'd rather the hypothetical Tellarite character be female so she is not accused of mansplaining.

It's very common for characters to form unlikely friendships with opposite personalities. In this case we would want to pair our Tellar off as a plutonic couple with an alien race known for always being right. There are many options: Bajoran, Vorta, Vulcan, Cardassian, or possibly a Romulan.

 

Good idea. To expand on this lopsided sexes, they could also have liters to make up for this with twins and triplets being the norm. Single births might be superstitiously viewed as bad luck. OR what if males are nearly always born as twins or triplets and females are usually born singly.

They would of course have interesting mating customs. The logical outcomes would either be polyandry or extremely status conscious mating where only the richest and most prestigious males get to breed.

Sort of makes me think of Selonians in the Star Wars expanded universe. They have no biological compulsion for their mating practice but it is unusual.

Males and females are born at a 1:1 ratio. About one in a dozen females becomes a mother. The vast majority of the males work to take care of the children and the females that get pregnant once per year.

The other females are the ones that go off planet, fight their battles, fly their starships, trade with humans, etc. It might be a contributor but female Selonians have a sexual dimorphism sort of like hyenas. The females are noticeably bigger and stronger than the males.

Sadly, despite playing A LOT of Star Wars RPG games with many different characters, no one found a Selonian interesting enough to play as a character despite their slew of powerful traits: high Dexterity, high movement rate, functioning claws.

No one wanted to play a furry character that wasn't a Wookie or Defel (Defel's are amazing at stealth able to literally mimic shadows). In fact, I think we had three games where Wookies and Defels made great tag team. The Wookie draws everyone's attention while the Defel sneaks in and hacks the computers or robs the vault.

Well, they are overdue for an overhaul. Particularly if we want to review the trend about non-human aliens always being evil that @Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl pointed out.

Nothing humanizes a character more than explaining the perfectly valid explanation for why they act the way they do.

Also, it's topical. A lot of the biggest advocates for free speech come off as jerks.

That would be an interesting dichotomy to explore with a Tellarite character. Especially if a new show looked like TNG where fighting and diplomacy were both needed.

 

Inexplicably, Star Trek Discovery was renewed for a third season. The dark ages of Star Trek will continue for another year.

Mahrlect Kelvin timeline...

 

I believe it is most popular with non-Star Trek fans.

It's an exciting space adventure but it is not really Star Trek and the creators are deliberately trying to radically change the Star Trek continuity which has made nerds point out to me so I can point out to you that STD along with the recent movies is set in the Kelvin timeline which is not the same timeline with the original series, TNG, DS9, and Voyager.

 

For me Star Trek ended with Voyager.
I did enjoy the new movies (I was pretty surprised I did because they also contain a lot of things that I dislike) but I couldn't get myself to watch the "Enterprise" show nor do I want to watch the show that shares its abbreviation with sexually transmitted diseases.