Star Trek - Space: The Final Frontier

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I haven't seen the show, but I'm still trying to make sense of this whole Romulan supernova thing.

First off, it's not going to trigger some sort of refugee crisis; a Star Trek empire that covers a visible slice of the galaxy is too big for that. It's like saying that Washington DC gets wiped out in some natural disaster so American refugees flee to China. Ridiculous. And it sounds like an evacuation fleet was being built, but got blown up by robot terrorists... so how did the Federation "abandon" the Romulans, exactly? And why is everyone pissed off at Picard?

I could buy something where the loss of the metropole sets off a multi-faction civil war, which in turn sets off a refugee crisis.

A supernova might plausibly affect another solar system if it were directly north or south of the nova (well, magnetic north or south). That would actually be kind of interesting because it sets off a catastrophe in the future. Prolapse IV is four light years from the supernova so now we have four years to evacuate the planet before the gamma ray burst hits. In that period, all sorts of crazy stuff might go down.

I really think they came up with a situation, but have absolutely no idea what chain of events might lead to that.
You know, the idea of a supernova effecting other civilized solar systems within several lightyears sounds like a damn interesting plot. Also, could they have simply evacuated the Romulan planet decades prior to the supernova?
 
You know, the idea of a supernova effecting other civilized solar systems within several lightyears sounds like a damn interesting plot. Also, could they have simply evacuated the Romulan planet decades prior to the supernova?
TBH the romulan government being so pig headed and arrogant and its leadership filled with assholes who would rather pretend nothing was wrong then admit weakness enough to assume they could contain/delay the supernova indefinitely is fairly in character for them, and would not only tie in nicely with how the klingon government had its own chernobyl in movie VI but also correlates nicely with china's failure to deal with the bat-soup-shits these past few months

Hell if you really wanted to use established canon to cobble together an explanation as to why the supernova was so fucking nasty and galaxy threatening without delving into convoluted conspiracy and iconian fuckery, have it be revealed that the romulans, in the ultimate gesture of arrogance were using omega particles to fuel the containment shit around/within it, thus ensuring that when disaster inevitably struck, it did so in a way that would utterly annihilate subspace on a galactic level and thus end interstellar transport forever, which spock and friends only found out at the last minute and thus necessitating that whole red matter horseshit as a technobabble way to reverse its effects/prevent it spreading further than the Romulus system, but even then it seriously fucks up just about everyone in the alpha quadrant in the same way a massive EMP pulse would fuck up earth, leading to widespread death and suffering and starfleet paralysed until the red matter shit at the heart of the omega explosion is able to repair most of the gaps in subspace.

Once this happened, and the federation higher ups found out about how the romulans almost destroyed all interstellar civilisation because their government was so fucking selfish and uncaring that they would rather risk galactic annihilation than suffer the inconvenience and minor political embarrassment of having to move their capital world because of standard cosmic phenomena, despite the federation bailing them out with shinzon, and after centuries of selfish atrocities and betrayals and duplicity aimed at them and their allies, starfleet command and the higher echelons of government finally snap and decide that they are an existential threat that must be subdued, even though they are already a broken power and complete non-threat to anybody at this point.

Have this be the starting point for a federation that has been so jaded by borg incursions, war with the dominion, and now this shit pulled by their oldest enemies, coupled with the fact they are now the sole superpower in the alpha quadrant because of all the aforementioned events hitting their rivals and klingon allies far harder, that they are actually experiencing a widespread and distinct crisis of identity after so much shit in the past few decades, and that this could go in a really nasty direction if things dont improve as ordinary citizens have not only had to deal with war and fear of assimilation for a generation now, but also had a near apocalypse caused by a supposed ally who had already been screwing them over their entire history.

I know it all sounds fanficky as fuck but atleast its not "THUH FEDUHRAYTION IS NOW RAYSIST BECAUSE TRUMP AND BREXIT!" for gods sake
 
You know, the idea of a supernova effecting other civilized solar systems within several lightyears sounds like a damn interesting plot. Also, could they have simply evacuated the Romulan planet decades prior to the supernova?

Right now, we're pretty certain we can pick out stars which will be going supernova within the next few thousand years. There's been a lot of excitement about Betelgeuse recently. So, the Romulans, using present knowledge, would have a lot of warning that something was up.

Right now, we can't predict the date of supernovas with any sort of accuracy; the error is measured in millennia. I'd expect they could by the time of Star Trek; IIRC there's at least one story where they go to an impending supernova, so they can probably predict it within a few weeks.

But if we ignore that or just postulate unexpected forces ("We didn't realize the nebula would accelerate the process to this degree!"), there's room for a story about how they knew it was coming, but since the astronomers kept blowing their predictions everyone stopped listening to them, not that they would tell that.

And yeah, knowing years ahead of time that a populated planet is about to get fried might make this work. I have no idea what sort of starlift capability the Federation or Romulans have; IIRC back in TOS they were pretty clear there was no way Starfleet could evacuate the entire population of a planet. Heck, they had twelve Constitution class starships.

So that huge rescue fleet they were building on Mars was to evacuate a planet which would be hit by a gamma ray burst in a few years. Meanwhile, the Romulans are constructing shelters which will buy time, but will not save the population indefinitely. Then the robots blow up the rescue fleet, and the Romulans assume Federation let it happen... and there, we at least have a reason the Romulans might plausibly think they were "betrayed" by the Federation. Not hard at all.
 
Nothing fixes the glaring plot hole of the Romulan Star EMPIRE being far larger then just its capital system. It would be like if China had a really bad earthquake and Beijing fell into the earth. Yeah, it would suck hard for China but its not like Shanghai and all the other cities are gone. I am also calling shenanigans on the supernova destroying the other planets too. The Federation is said to be spread out across 8,000 light years. One could assume its major rival power would be similar to that. Any supernova occurring in their capital system would take thousands of years to have its effect spread across the Empire.
 
Well about that... That was Patrick Steward too. He says the federation being darker is his way of "responding to the world of Brexit and Trump"




I'm not defending either Kurtzman and Abrams because this is clearly what they wanted as well.





Yeah after reading Patrick's opinions I already quoted, I have to say that I have nothing but respect of him as an actor, but he really has no place in dictating the writing at all.

I've seen interviews of Both Janeway and Seven of 9 actresses, and Robert Picardo saying that they understoood that part of what made Trek so special was that it was an optimistic view of the future.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=vJEUCSguMAQ
https://youtube.com/watch?v=E9iVbSAl8fI
Judging by all his comments about ST: Picard, I don't think Patrick truly believed in that message after all.
I guess theres no point complaining about "what could've been" when they (everyone from Kurtzman to Stewart) clearly wanted to rape the series from the beginning. It's so obvious how they could've EASILY fixed the most heinous things about the series, they could've made all of this shit happen on a distant planet, they could've had this based around a conspiracy within the federation, etc.

It's really transparent how they feel about the Brexit/Trump crowd too. One the best aspects of Star Trek was that every decision was logical - everyone and every species has a real motivation. People who vote for Trump or for Brexit have real motivations and reasons for wanting what they want. Instead, they interpret this as just bigotry, plain bigotry. Great.
 
TBH the romulan government being so pig headed and arrogant and its leadership filled with assholes who would rather pretend nothing was wrong then admit weakness enough to assume they could contain/delay the supernova indefinitely is fairly in character for them, and would not only tie in nicely with how the klingon government had its own chernobyl in movie VI but also correlates nicely with china's failure to deal with the bat-soup-shits these past few months

Hell if you really wanted to use established canon to cobble together an explanation as to why the supernova was so fucking nasty and galaxy threatening without delving into convoluted conspiracy and iconian fuckery, have it be revealed that the romulans, in the ultimate gesture of arrogance were using omega particles to fuel the containment shit around/within it, thus ensuring that when disaster inevitably struck, it did so in a way that would utterly annihilate subspace on a galactic level and thus end interstellar transport forever, which spock and friends only found out at the last minute and thus necessitating that whole red matter horseshit as a technobabble way to reverse its effects/prevent it spreading further than the Romulus system, but even then it seriously fucks up just about everyone in the alpha quadrant in the same way a massive EMP pulse would fuck up earth, leading to widespread death and suffering and starfleet paralysed until the red matter shit at the heart of the omega explosion is able to repair most of the gaps in subspace.

Once this happened, and the federation higher ups found out about how the romulans almost destroyed all interstellar civilisation because their government was so fucking selfish and uncaring that they would rather risk galactic annihilation than suffer the inconvenience and minor political embarrassment of having to move their capital world because of standard cosmic phenomena, despite the federation bailing them out with shinzon, and after centuries of selfish atrocities and betrayals and duplicity aimed at them and their allies, starfleet command and the higher echelons of government finally snap and decide that they are an existential threat that must be subdued, even though they are already a broken power and complete non-threat to anybody at this point.

Have this be the starting point for a federation that has been so jaded by borg incursions, war with the dominion, and now this shit pulled by their oldest enemies, coupled with the fact they are now the sole superpower in the alpha quadrant because of all the aforementioned events hitting their rivals and klingon allies far harder, that they are actually experiencing a widespread and distinct crisis of identity after so much shit in the past few decades, and that this could go in a really nasty direction if things dont improve as ordinary citizens have not only had to deal with war and fear of assimilation for a generation now, but also had a near apocalypse caused by a supposed ally who had already been screwing them over their entire history.

I know it all sounds fanficky as fuck but atleast its not "THUH FEDUHRAYTION IS NOW RAYSIST BECAUSE TRUMP AND BREXIT!" for gods sake
Damn, that sounds like a more up-to-date allegory than whatever Brexit/Drumpf nonsense they wanted to pull up. You got an existing superpower the Federation (USA), dealing with the arrogance of a supposed ally, the Romulans (China), whose covering up a dangerous or catastrophic event (the coronavirus) that would harm much of interstellar (modern) civilization. Then you got the same sole superpower dealing with skirmishes like the Borg (Islamic terrorism) and the like. Maybe I'm thinking this too much, but you get the idea.
 
If I were running a Star Trek show today I think I would make the captain a Tibetan. It would make Hollywood supremely uncomfortable and be legitimately subversive (as opposed to "stronk independent black womyn") in today's climate.
 
I want a Star Trek with a Klingon doctor that struggles with human bedside manner and gives kids Gagh-flavored lollipops.
 
Sounds like he'd be the brother of the fat, accordion-playing Klingon chef from DS9.
I still say that guy could have carried his own show... I want to see a sitcom set in the Star Trek Universe where a jovial Klingon father has to balance family life (give him a wife, 2 kids, and a mother in law, and what the hell, a pet targ.) with running the most popular restaurant on a backwater space station that suddenly becomes a galactic hub thanks to the wormhole.

Unfortunately, I just looked up the actor and...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Taylor_(actor) he passed away in 2002
 
I still say that guy could have carried his own show... I want to see a sitcom set in the Star Trek Universe where a jovial Klingon father has to balance family life (give him a wife, 2 kids, and a mother in law, and what the hell, a pet targ.) with running the most popular restaurant on a backwater space station that suddenly becomes a galactic hub thanks to the wormhole.

Unfortunately, I just looked up the actor and...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Taylor_(actor) he passed away in 2002
Who would be the recurring guest star that the live studio audience goes crazy for? My money would be on Quark.
 
Who would be the recurring guest star that the live studio audience goes crazy for? My money would be on Quark.
Quark would be his nosy next door neighbor, always trying to sabotage the klingon restaurant to drum up business in his bar.
 
I want a Star Trek with a human raised by Vulcans, who bitterly resents them because he was always at the bottom of every class.

Eventually, he finds out they couldn't help but admire his oddball intuitive problem-solving skills and stubborn refusal to ever give up.
 
So that huge rescue fleet they were building on Mars was to evacuate a planet which would be hit by a gamma ray burst in a few years. Meanwhile, the Romulans are constructing shelters which will buy time, but will not save the population indefinitely.
NuTrek writer: What's a gamma ray?
 
I still say that guy could have carried his own show... I want to see a sitcom set in the Star Trek Universe where a jovial Klingon father has to balance family life (give him a wife, 2 kids, and a mother in law, and what the hell, a pet targ.) with running the most popular restaurant on a backwater space station that suddenly becomes a galactic hub thanks to the wormhole.

Unfortunately, I just looked up the actor and...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Taylor_(actor) he passed away in 2002
Please. We all know that if there was going to be a Klingon sitcom (gods I wish) the only choice to play the lead would be James Avery.
 
I want a Star Trek with a Klingon doctor that struggles with human bedside manner and gives kids Gagh-flavored lollipops.
Or a Tellarite. "Oh dear. My sick bay bed has a giant, ugly stain on it. Oh, it's talking. It must be a patient."

I want a Star Trek that focuses more on the other founders of the Federation, and maybe later the first nine on the council (Denobulans, Risians, and furrybait Caitians). Tellar and Andoria are founders of the UFP, and they barely get mentioned. Sure, they're originally goofy: blue guys with antennae, and so on. No, I don't want a prequel, I just want more exploration of what the fundamentals were.
 
Oh god, they're going to make a Brunt "Make Ferenginar Great Again" episode, aren't they? Shit. Well, at least I'd see Jeffery Combs again.
I don't think the writers know who that is. I'm still truly surprised the writers know Hugh and Icheb. I have to imagine there's like one guy who makes these suggestions when the others come up with ideas like "if only there were other Borg characters! If only there was some character from Seven's past she was close to!"
 
Please. We all know that if there was going to be a Klingon sitcom (gods I wish) the only choice to play the lead would be James Avery.
You have not experienced The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, until you've seen it in the original Klingon...
 
NuTrek writer: What's a gamma ray?

For that matter, Starfleet officers might call it a "delta ray" since that did for Captain Pike. Gamma rays are defined as a very wide portion of the electromagnetic spectrum (actually, it's a little more slippery than that with X-Rays overlapping with Gamma Rays) and it's perfectly reasonable that as different parts of the spectrum are used more they'd invent a term for some more granularity, in the same way people now talk about "Near" and "Far Infra-Red." It is likely that in the time of TOS Gamma radiation had an upper limit and beyond that came Delta. Where that boundary is is hard to day.

Actually, since Delta Radiation was written in a 1966 episode, it's more likely it derives from early models of radiation, with Alpha, Beta, and Gamma being defined without being better understood; Delta would be a logical progression, much like Colonel McCauley flying on a Neptune rocket in a series produced when Von Braun was working on the Jupiter and Saturn rockets.

Generally speaking, nowadays Alpha and Beta radiation are particles while Gamma is a form of electromagnetic radiation. It's reasonable that a 1966 SF writer might not get the distinction straight.
 
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