Between Kevin Kelly and Sly Stallone, What Trek's Writers Missed.

In Season Two of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the writers had things go badly of the rails in the Demilitarized Zone between the #Federation and the #Cardassians. It's good plotline and not the problem. Things in the DMZ basically went wrong because the Federation signed a bad treaty. The #Maquis plotline shows us what happened to the #Colonists who stayed. But that is only half of the equation.

People in 24th century are smart. Are we to believe that nobody sensed that this treaty would be really bad and got out of dodge before the hammer fell? And where did those people end up? In my version of #StarTrek, some of these people founded the lasted version of Nothing, Arizona. Some people might say that doesn't gel with Star Trek as we know it. But I respectfully disagree.

Let's wind things back a bit and asked the question....Why did those colonists move out there in the first place? I would answer with a simple: Earth has become boring. But it's deeper then that. So I'd like to quote Kevin Kelly at this point:

“A world without discomfort is utopia. But it is also stagnant. A world perfectly fair in some dimensions would be horribly unfair in others. A utopia has no problems to solve, but therefore no opportunities either.”

Part of human nature is that to grow, to learn, we have to leave our comfort zone. #Earth (and the other core Federation worlds) have become one giant comfort zone. So to find growth, to find challenges, the colonists left and settled at the border of Federation space. And now those people are forced back into the core of the Federation. Where - having spent years on the borders - they no longer fit in. Or to quote the 1993 movie Demolition Man, starring Sly Stallone (and Wesley Snipes):

See, according to Cocteau's plan, I'm the enemy. Cause I like to think, I like to read. I'm into freedom of speech and freedom of choice. I'm the kind if guy who wants to sit in a greasy spoon and think, "Gee, should I have the T-bone steak or the jumbo rack of barbecued ribs with the side order of gravy fries?" I want high cholesterol. I want to eat bacon, butter and buckets of cheese, okay? I want to smoke a Cuban cigar the size of Cincinnati in a non-smoking section. I wanna run through the streets naked with green Jello all over my body reading Playboy magazine. Why? Because I suddenly might feel the need to. Okay, pal? I've seen the future, you know what it is? It's a 47-year-old virgin sittin' around in his beige pajamas, drinking a banana-broccoli shake singing "I'm an Oscar-Meyer Wiener". You wanna live on top, you gotta live Cocteau's way. What he wants, when he wants, how he wants. Your other choice: come down here, maybe starve to death.

Now replace Cocteau with the word Federation and you realize the exact pickle that these (former) colonists are in. So what do they do, they find a ghost town that is off the grid. That officially doesn't exist and where they can life as they see fit. Without the Federation breathing down their necks about 'correct' and 'healthy' living.

And thus the town of Nothing, #Arizona was founded once again in 2367. (I can't speak of the actual, real-life founding of 1977. I wasn't there. I wasn't even born.) Of course, this is just my #fanfiction interpretation. #Canon / #Official Star Trek has never addressed this issue. Hopefully it will do so one day.

(Just for the record. Once the town was founded, it attracted others that had fallen through the cracks of Federation society. Including, ironically, Cardassians refugees, deserters and dissidents. Fueled by the Dominion War, Nothing has a population of rough 900 people by the end of 2375.)

Regards,

Ruben Hilbers

PS: The Forgotten Frontier website is: https://startrekforgottenfrontier.eu/

Don't Blame The Viewer

In my previous article, I said that writing is a lot like sport. If you want to read that dull piece of text, here's the link:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-do-i-post-what-ruben-hilbers-ljhwe/?trackingId=QX4Pu6s45jaLkbay%2FibBbA%3D%3D

And I want to keep that analogy going here. Writing stories and novels is individual sport, but making a TV-show is a team sport. Soccer, American football, Curling or Cricket, you pick one you like in your head. The writer's room is the team and the show-runner is the coach.

The reason this article come with a Federation flag as included pic, is because Team #StarTrek hasn't been doing well recently. In fact, their latest bout, #StarfleetAcademy has been getting bad reviews from the average audience. Which has led to fiery responses from actors - especially Robert Picardo - and accusations of review bombing. Especially since critics seem to love the show. However, I feel that somebody needs to come out and say the obvious.

TV critics are essentially sport commentators, whereas the actors are on the team payroll. Both groups are telling the team and more importantly, the team #sponsor - #ParamountSkydance - what they want to hear. It's called #survival. They can't afford to get sacked or locked out of the stadium, they have bills to pay.

A good demonstration of this is John Boyega, who didn't air his true opinion about how #Disney treated his #StarWars character Finn until he was no longer financially depended on them.

So, where does #YouTube and the audience fit into this model? Starting with #YouTube, reviewer there are like people who have a good camera and a friend who lives near the stadium with a balcony. They can see the sport being played, but they are not part of the traditional system. And because they are not dependent on the studios for their survival, they can be honest. Hence the brutal burning of #StarfleetAcademy.

And the audience. The audience just wants to see a good game. Good entertainment. And if your team sucks - which as an audience member I can tell you, #StarTrek has been since 2017 under #AlexKurtzman, #AkivaGoldsman and #SecretHideout - they call you out on it. #StarfleetAcademy is not being review bombed, it's just bad. Stop blaming the viewer, learn how to play the frakking game.

Regards,

Ruben Hilbers

PS....In an ironic twist, the only parts of post-2017 #StarTrek that have been watchable have been the parts that neither Kurtzman or Goldsman have had anything to do with. Meaning Star Trek Prodigy and Picard Season 3. Talk about poisoning your own well.

One word #StarTrek plan that could save the #franchise...

....but won't, because nobody dares to #risk anymore. Paramount Skydance Instead, they just hide behind #rules and #lawyers. Anyway, our #magic word is...

Rassilon

Mad and arrogant, #Rassilon is the former #president of a lovely planet called #Gallifrey. BBC Studios (Lawyers throwing a fit yet?) Long story short his people - the #TimeLords - realized just how much of a jerk he was and were fine with it when one of their heroes - the #doctor - exiled him. Unfortunately for him, when Razzie got boot, his universe was pretty close to dying of old age...

The Plot (How Rassilon could be used exercise Kurtzman Trek from history)

...So #Razzie decides to move to another universe. Which happens to be the #Trek universe. But there is one major hiccup. Time Lords get around in TARDIS'es. Which draw power from the universe they call home. Taking them to another universe. Well, it's like putting #gasoline in a #diesel engine. Fortunately for Razzie, he has access to every log of every #TARDIS, including our favorite #Type 40, belonging to the Doctor.

In the "Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel." Two-part (#DoctorWho) episode, the TARDIS crashes in an alternate universe. But it survives because of a tiny, crystalline power cell. Which Razzie plucks from the logs and decides to scale up to 12. How? He arrives in the distant past, where he messed with the geology of the planet #Boreth. Specifically, the planet's supply of dilithium crystal. Thus explaining how the Time Crystals that are key to Star Trek Discovery came about.

Crucial about these Time Crystals is that you need a SUPERNOVA to charge them. And the Time Lords have the means to cause these. A device called the Hand of Omega allows them to remotely mess with stars. It has even been seen causing a #supernova in the DW Serial "Remembrance of the #Daleks." (Unlimited rice pudding, etc, etc.) Rassilon causes the supernova that wiped out the Tkon Empire, charging his TARDIS with enough power to travel to the 32rd century.

This, however, brings him face-to-face with a new problem. Starfleet and their allies are guarding this part of the timeline. And Rassilon, wanting to be the supreme ruler of time, feels he needs to get rid of them. And he knows a thing or two about messing with genetics.

Back in the early days of Gallifrey, Rassilon created a gene (sequence) called the Rassilon Imprimatur. It binds a Time Lord to their TARDIS and keeps them from being torn apart on the molecular level when they activate the engines.

Using his knowledge of genetics and eugenics, Rassilon brings about The Burn. It's no longer some half-baked coincidence, it's a deliberate, well thought out plan by a supervillain. Except said supervillain didn't do his homework. The Romulans use black holes to power their ships and zero dilithium. He has now created a timeline where the Romulans reign supreme. And to make this worse, his TARDIS needs to recharge.

So he travels back to the 24th century, where he causes the #Romulan Supernova, killing two birds with one stone. He takes the Romulans out of the picture and recharges his ride. Now all he has to do, is whisper the right things into the right ears, causing the Time Wars. Being a survivor of the Last Great Time War, he can do this as easily as you and I put on #socks.

The major powers - including the Federation - then do exactly what he wants them to do. They outlaw time travel altogether. Leaving Rassilon free and clear to mess with the timeline at his leisure.

How to do the #Reset ?

The Doctor figures out what Razzie has done. Because his TARDIS doesn't function in the Trek , he has to join up with a Starfleet crew to stop the former president. They succeed in arresting Rassilon in the 32rd century. Thus starting the chain of events unraveling and the timeline going back to normal.

After a quick pit-stop in the 22nd century to sabotage the creation of Control AI program, our heroes travel to the ancient past. They restore Boreth's geology to normal, removing the time crystals from the timeline. No Red Angel suit, Micheal Burnham's parents aren't killed, so she never gets adopted....

The only thing they can't fix is the Tkon supernova, which turns out be a fixed point. When the timeline finishes correcting itself, 99.9 percent of the #SecretHideout era has been retconned out of existence. The remaining 0.1 percent being the ship that the Doctor has used throughout. So, which ship would I give the role?

The USS Prodigy. Her crew having experience with time travel and then some. And by using one of the animated ships, you don't have to build sets or make props. It's a way to do the whole thing on the cheap. Plus, her Protostar drive is a build-in McGuffin that the Doctor would have no problem modifying into a time drive to allow for the necessary time hopping.

(And could no doubt could be used as an explanation for my the Prodigy itself wasn't deleted when the timeline reset. Because if that happens, we wouldn't get a clean reset, but all sort of timey-wimey fluxing nonsense.)

The Doctor takes Razzie and goes back to his home universe, where the crazy president becomes another writer's room's headache.

And thus ends my pitch on how to clean up the mess that is Kurtzman Trek quickly, quietly and cleanly. Of course, it'll never happen because #lawyers.

Trumpvilles?

Hi Alex,

A while ago, I started my own Star Trek RPG. I need a place to start my story and for reasons, I picked the ghost town of Nothing, Arizona. The rest of the story doesn't matter for this letter. 

What does matter is that by the 24th century, Nothing is a shanty town made out of tents, converted shipping containers and all sorts of makeshift homes. There are even a few brick and mortar buildings.

Nothing is home to roughly 900 people who fell through the cracks of the United Federation of Planets. But the most important thing is that the people of Nothing are there voluntarily. 

And all of this was some harmless fun....until Trump called the National Guard into Washington, DC. Which made we wonder....

How long before life imitates art ? How long before Nothing, Arizona really is repopulated. Except this time, there will be nothing voluntary about it. This time, it will because people will be forced into these...Trumpvilles (or Tarkin Towns if you've seen Star Wars: Rebels)...at the barrel of a gun. While that...chimpanzee...in the White House sells it as....*does his best Trump voice*....his Big and Beauty final solution for homeless people. *end Trump voice*

After all, what better place to dump the homeless the a ghost town. No locals to complain, no votes to lose. *Trump voice* After all, it's not like these homeless people as allowed to vote. And if they are, I'll pass another Big, Beautiful law to end that. *End Trump voice.* 

I really think this is scenario is a distinct possibility. Alex, Americans....please, worry.

Regards,

Ruben A. Hilbers (aka @Dantes74302 on X)

PS. Alex is not a real person, it is my version of Hello, Kitty/Dear Sigmund.

My Pitch For Star Trek: Elite Force - Legendary Edition

Hello World, 

So it's been a while since we've had a good Star Trek game. And the Trek franchise could use a win. Fortunately, there were two games back in the early 2000's.....Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force (2001) and it's sequel Star Trek: Elite Force II (2003). There is also an expansion for the first game that adds a virtual USS Voyager that you can tour and do stuff in.  

Both First Person Shooters, these games tell the story of the Hazard Team and its leader Alex Munro. The Hazard Team is an elite force of security officers created by Tuvok to help the USS Voyager survive the dangers of the Delta Quadrant. 

Elite Force II sees Voyager return to the Alpha Quadrant and the Hazard Team disbanded. Fortunately, in 2380, Alex Munro has a chance meeting with Captain Picard and the team is reformed aboard the USS Enterprise-E...

Time to move on to my Board Room Pitch...

Phase One

These games are OLD and so are their graphics. Especially the first game is VERY blocky. So Phase One is overhauling what is already there. The Legendary Edition would include both games and an extra section. 

This extra section would have the virtual USS Voyager and several mini-games that you can unlock in Elite Force II. There would be no changes to the story, with one exception...

• The one flaw in Elite Force II's story is the lack of Geordi LaForge. No offense to Dwight Schultz, who did his best with Reginald Barclay (as Chief Engineer), but it wasn't the same without LaForge. So pay LeVar Burton to record lines, please...

Phase Two

These days, computer games are expensive. Nostalgia alone is not enough to get people to buy this game. And you have to give some extra for new players. So while I would not change anything (else) in the existing games, I would add a third section of story. This would start after the end of Elite Force II. Which brings me to...

The Setting:  USS Dallas

An Excelsior-class ship seen and wrecked during the events of Elite Force II. Her crew was rescued by the USS Enterprise-E and she was send to Starbase 12 for repairs. One of the main characters, Ensign Telsia Murphy was her Chief of Security while the team was disbanded. She ended up back on the Hazard Team after Enterprise came to Dallas aid.

The Set-up:

After Voyager came home, Captain Janeway recommended keeping the Hazard Team around. But she was ignored. At the end of Elite Force II, Captain Picard tells Munro that he is going to recommend establishing more Hazard Teams on exploratory vessels. 

In the new section, we learned that this is exactly what he did. Janeway has been promoted to Admiral and is able to influence Starfleet Command's reply this time around. So this time, the recommendation is taken. 

And because what happened to it during Elite Force II, the Dallas is picked as first ship to get a Hazard Team. Munro and Murphy are thus send to the Dallas to set up the new incarnation of the team. 

The Real-Life Reason:

The Dallas is already in Elite Force II. The map is going to get a graphic overhaul as part of Phase One anyway. This means that you don't have to create the map from scratch. You can simply modify it for the third piece of story.

Another reason is because there is only one voiced character other then Murphy of the Dallas crew that survives the events of Elite Force II, Chief Engineer Katarina Scott. And she can easily be written out. I'm thinking she's been reassigned to oversee construction of the Voyager-A, giving the game a nice Star Trek: Prodigy eastern egg. 

But more importantly, once she is written out the only voice actors you need to get back from the original cast are Munro's and Murphy's. Everybody else can be (relatively) cheap unknowns for this part of the game.

The Story: 

Starting six months after the end of Elite Force II, the new campaign opens with Munro and Murphy arriving aboard the Dallas. The ship, having been repaired and refit, now looks like the Enterprise-B version of Excelsior-class on the outside.

Dallas launches and heads towards Attrexian space to see how things are going there after the end of Elite Force II. (This is where the Dallas was wrecked.) However, before they arrive, the Dallas is intercepted by a small scout-ship belonging to race called the Paloric. 

The Palorician homeworld has been invaded by a hostile race called the Xavor. And the invasion is Munro's fault....Back in 2376, Munro destroyed a space station called the Forge. The Forge had trapped many spaceships, including a Xavor scout that was on it's way back to Xavor Prime to report that Paloric IV was worth conquering and plundering. 

Now the Munro and Murphy - with help of the Dallas crew and a new Hazard team - have to find a way to Paloric IV and clean up this mess...

And that's where my pitch ends.  

The Darkness in Picard S3...

 ....That Nobody Is Talking About

The Borg have been defeated for once and for all ! Yay ! Long live the Federation. But....at what price did this victory come ? Yes, the Borg Collective is evil. Yes, they were planning to wipe out Earth and needed to be stopped. And the queen was an insane (insert whatever curse you think is best here). Picard and crew did what needed to be done. It's not them I'm doubting, but I think the situation is nowhere as black-and-white as it appears at first glance. 

Let's talk about a man called Fred....Fred is just a random guy living on random planet in the Delta Quadrant. Then one day the Borg roll up to ruin everybody's day by assimilating them. Including Fred. He loses his family, he loses his friends, he his loses his mind. And then the neurolytic pathogen ruins the collective. Let us look at the possibilities for Fred.

1. If he's really unlucky, he dies a horrible death and then gets eaten by Queen. Only to be briefly revived as a mindless cyber zombie when Picard and co visit. He is then put out of his misery when the Borg ship explodes.
2. The Pathogen simply kills him.
   
3. He gets stuck in regeneration mode, like the Cube seen in Let Sleeping Borg Lie. And then...
1. Because of people's fear of the Collective, nobody rescues him...ever.
2. Somebody comes across his Cube and he is given the 'Icheb Treatment / aka dissected alive for his implants".
3. Even if he get rescued by somebody who doesn't Icheb him, where's he going to go ? As I said above...friends, family, gone. And what about his homeworld ? Even if the Collective didn't total it, who knows how long Fred has been in the Hive Mind. Is his world still there ? Has it been taken over by somebody else ?....

Which takes us away from Fred and back to the bigger picture. As established by Voyager, Borg Space is big. And like any other nation, the Borg have neighbors. Neighbors who are going to figure out that the Collective is falling apart. And try to conquer their space, either by colonization or warfare. 

A situation that is going to lead to the death of innocents drones like Fred. Bloody wars between these states. Yes, the Federation has won, but the Delta Quadrant is burning. And let's not forget there is also the fact that everybody who was taken over, now probably has PTSD. Not mention the elephant in the room...

Where did this pathogen come from ? Neurolytic Pathogens don't exactly grow on trees. And even if it could be made in the Sickbay of the USS Voyager, I doubt The Doctor would allow it. Yes, he was part of the developing of the nanite weapon they used against Species 8472. But that was with the galaxy at stake. And Voyager's goal was not genocide. In fact, this was a major source of tension between Janeway and the Borg.

The only other option is that Admiral Janeway brought it with her from 2404 to 2378. But it doesn't answer the question of how she got it. Replicators don't make lifeforms. Somebody had to grow it. Somebody rather ruthless. Somebody know for attempting genocide by virus....

Basically, the whole thing screams Section 31. And where they failed when they tried to wipe out the Founders, this time they succeeded.

That's all I....No wait, it was.   But after sleeping on it for a night, it's not anymore. (Short) RANT ALARM !! 

What about the Borg splinter states ? The Borg Cooperative from the Voyager episode Unity and the Unimatrix Zero, whose former members were liberated. Are they gone as well ? Will Section 31 use the pathogen to wipe the Cooperative out to prevent the rise of new Collective !? Will Starfleet just stand for that ?

Moving on.....I know that some people consider Prodigy and Lower Decks non-canon. But based on the upcoming SNW / Lower Deck crossover, the folks running the show(s) think differently. Which brings us to "Let Sleeping Borg Lie". 

The USS Protostar crew managed to get out. But they had the luck of having a Medusan along for the ride. So how many of these dormant Borg ships are out there, waiting to ruin somebody's day ? These ships are basically landmines, ready to restart the Collective if whoever boards them messes up. 

In short, it's a huge frakking, bloody mess. And it's the Federation's fault. They needed to get back to the Delta Quadrant and get to cleaning it up. Or as Commander Adama would put it...

"You cannot play God, then wash you hands of the things you've created. Sooner or later, you can't hide from the things you've done anymore."

Regards,

Ruben A. Hilbers (Commander Nash)