Before I get started....I was planning to send this letter to Robert Meyer Burnett by means of his website. Alas, GoDaddy is being a pain and blocking said site. So here we go...
Hello Rob,
With Prodigy Season 2 now out in the world and Skydance buying Paramount, the future of Trek in now flux. But one thing that remains constant are rumors that folks in the upper echelons think that Trek has gotten way to complicated. Messy timelines, multiple realities, etc. Since I don't trust Kurtzman to write a grocery list, I thought I would take stab at how to clean up the mess he's created. I figure that even people think my plan is stupid, it would get the conversation started. Spoiler warning, folks, here we go...
In Season 1 we learn that the USS Protostar went through a wormhole that send them from 2383 to 2435 in an alternate universe. The show's baddies, the Vau N'akat, weaponize the ship and plan to send it back to wipe out Starfleet. But Chakotay beats them to the punch and send the ship back on autopilot, wrecking their plan. So the baddies send a hundred ships to find it. Let put a pin in that. It's really important.
Season 2 see our heroes trying to save Chakotay from 2435 Solum. Needless to say, it doesn't go according to plan. These leads to shenanigans as our heroes work to get the timeline back on track. In the end, they succeed and the Protostar ends up where she needs to be. Starfleet then makes peaceful first contact with Solum. Which brings us back to our pin...
The Protostar is not thing needed for the puzzle of Season 1 to work. Those one hundred ships still need to go after the Protostar in order for things to work out. Fortunately, because those one hundred ships are from an alternate universe, they are not affected by current day Solum getting its happy ever after. So how does this turn into a reset for the Trek universe ?
Because there are 98 Evil Vau N'akat (and their ships) out there that we haven't seen yet. They're scattered through time and space and affecting history all over the place. That's one whopping loose end that still needs to be dealt with.
My season 3 would start with an alien called Dave attacking the USS Prodigy - the new ride our heroes got at the end of season 2 - because he thinks Gwyn is one of the 98. It's turns out some of the 98 did something that doomed his world. And now Dave wants revenge for his lost people. Which is cruelly ironic, since that is the same mission the 98 were on.
Our heroes now have to deal with Dave, the 98 and their influence on the timeline. This gives the writers a McGuffin which lets them decided what parts of canon they want to keep and which they want to dump. Because the 98 can be anywhere and affecting anything the plot requires them to.
(Want to get rid of Discovery ? Have the 98 mess with Klingon history. Clean up the mess that was Picard season 1 and 2 ? Put one those Vau N'akat in the right time, place and job and you're off to the races.)
Even if you don't want to change things, maybe you can make the story better by world building and adding pieces. And yeah, I can hear people complaining "That makes it more Doctor Who then Star Trek". So ? Lean into it. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Dave turned out to be alternate version of a certain wheelchair bound, Dalek creating, mad scientist. Stop being so crossover-phobic.
Anyway, Rob, that's all I have. Thoughts ?
Regards,
Ruben Hilbers
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