Star Trek

[Buster's Uncle]

I've never seen that very healthy man -he runs, or did, and he's only three years older than Mom- actually look old before.  I am sad.

[Buster's Uncle]

So - Trenacker wants to play re-cast, and Voyager is the one I always fantasized most about how to fix, so I'm definitely game.

Starting at the top, where I always wanted to, I think key to playing this game is thinking about what's most important about the presence of the character... Is it that the character is good-looking, or smart, or tough or what?  What is the most important thing(s) about, and what actor has that/those qualities?

With Janeway, I'd venture it's that she's an exceedingly tough WOMAN - and I also think new to captaincy/top command at the beginning, and learning her way, though the show didn't emphasize that, but it would have been a nice character beat to throw in the mix and DO something with.

I cast this definitely -according to Mylochka- years ago, but I want to let Trenacker go first.



I'll also note that I think Geneviève Bujold's try at the part early production -google "Nicole Janeway" and have a look at the video- is widely wronged by fans who know nothing about acting and don't allow for the difference between raw footage and Kate Mulgrew's finished, scored, fully-produced effort at the same scene.  She played Janeway as a MAN's idea of a tough woman, not a real woman, and like a soap opera hack, a loud and obvious performance.  Bujold played it lower-affect, w/ subtlety, and I daresay Brannon Bragga and company don't know what to do with subtle.



Take it, T!

[Buster's Uncle]

I have some thoughts about Sargon, the Preservers, Organia and the galactic barrier, but that's a different conversation than the one about Spock...

One is that the Organians saw V'ger coming and triggered plans to leave this universe -a thought TNG, etc., fans ought to love if they think about the implication- the neighborhood was getting crowded w/ base-type beings, enforcing the Oganian Treaty was turning out to be annoying/distracting work, and they might could pop back into this universe to continue to run their varied projects just as easily as moving around inside it.

Some more of those further implications of the Original Earth and Progenitor hypothesis:

(For convenience, I have and will refer to ST Earth as our Earth, even though it clearly had diverged by sometime in the 90s -Khan- at latest.)  I surmise that our Earth is maybe still on the original track, dominated by Europeans and their descendants, which explains -probably- a lot of what I've observed about the pale humanoids being over-represented all over this end of the galaxy, at least.  I also conclude that we're one of the experiments running -obviously- just not diverged yet - or not diverged, anyway, from the dominated-by-Whities part.

One of those Golden Age SF tropes (Race, as I'm grappling with and trying to handwave is another - Issac Asimov concluded in his autobiography that his mentor, Golden Age Giant John W. Campbell, was actually a benign unreflected racist, preferring a future full of super "Americans" in all-but-name and Star Trek suffered from same for similar and related reasons, for all that it labored so hard and commendably on representation issues.  Nets nurds do racism -and LOADS of misogyny- all over the place to this very day, frequently appearing to not know that's what they're doing.)

Starting over, that paragraph got away from me, one of those Golden Age SF tropes Star Trek base-assumed w/o reflection is the Inevitable Shape Of Human Evolution, to wit, in 10,000 years our descendants will look like Talosians.  Huge heads, mental powers, likely powerfully psychic, not formidable physically.  Now, we know that is dumb if we understand how evolution works - our descendants might be good at breathing pollution without getting sick - THAT is how evolution works; smarter space people w/ superpowers is only one possibility that would be survival-positive.

However, Star Trek rolled w/ the big heads and all, base assumption.  And we meet the Talosians in The Menagerie, Trelane, who appears to have mostly ascended, in The Squire of Gothos, the gambling disembodied brains of The Gamesters of Triskelion,  Ascended Apollo of the Greek Gods in Who Mourns for Adonais? - Later, powerful telekinetics, likely related, in Plato's Stepchildren, Lokai and Bele, half-black/white bigots with considerable mental powers in Let That Be Your Last Battlefield --- and, of course, the intellectually-advanced Vulcans, who, if Spock is typical, are capable touch-telepaths.  -All somewhere on that 'futureman' evolutionary track.


The Preservers -I use that as a blanket term for all the post-human godlikes under discussion, past and present, whether they do any preserving or not- probably arose from a mental mutation in a specific population on the Original Earth, and when stocking the galaxy, naturally favored their own descendants and relatives for more than one reason.

See, there's no reason to assume an energy being can 'breed' more energy beings.  (See also the Voyager episode with Q -yuck- being half of the first Qs to breed.)  -And no reason to assume their evolution had placed them beyond wanting to.  So, it follows that they did two obvious things that have so far been stumbled over:  stock the universe in convenient reach with primitive relatives who CAN breed and hold the potential to evolve on their futureman track, and build the galactic energy barrier that zapped Gary Mitchell to occasionally speed things up.  It's very credible to assume that if Mitchell had survived longer, he was going to become an energy-being god, and who knows where he'd have ended up doing what after he shook off the birth pangs...  Different beings thus zapped/boosted could go on to do an infinitely great range of different things, but some would probably join the similar beings, Organian and/or Metron.  -But I bet it works on the humanoids stocked everywhere, not, say, Gorns or Tholians.

Now maybe they could 'breed', but wanted to encourage some evolutionary variety on compatible tracks, as an element of their own growth and evolution - that works, too, as an explanation of what's known.


For godlikes, TNG-and-later had a grand total, off the top of my head, of Q, the old man in The Survivor, I think it was,  who reflexively wiped out an entire interstellar empire race who killed his human wife, and the hyper-intelligent people on that planet galactic coreward who manipulated Barkley.  It's a breathtaking departure from actual Star Trek in need of hard handwaving to fit, and I think I've managed that, assuming that Q and Trelane and Apollo are part of the same thing, left this universe about the time of the first movie -Apollo talked somewhat along those lines- and Q and Trelane are stunted throwbacks, to engage in such stupid antics...


And I think that finally concludes my thoughts on these lines, save mentioning that Spock must have had comic-book telepathic shields to not get zapped at the galactic barrier even before Mitchell and Dehner...

[Buster's Uncle]

...I left out the Thalasians of CharlieX, who look a lot like more of the same godlikes -and they boosted Charlie, too- and whomever big-heads of The Empath, clearly humanoids on the futureman model, testing the human-looking psychic of the title...

[Trenacker]

I think I’d take a page from several recent audio dramas and call for a ship that is tasked to provide patrol duties in a little-known area of space where there is potential for first contacts, skirmishes, and also some exploration, perhaps of a region once controlled by a fallen empire.

I’m enjoying Gilded Age quite a lot and I think that Morgan Spector would make a terrific captain. He conveys a lot of self-confidence, but also convincing warmth. Alternatively, I think Mark Rylance is the world’s best actor. He’s right in the same mold as Patrick Stewart, but I’d overlook that because I loved the intelligence and disarming honesty of the character he played in Wolf Hall. Another similar but softer option would be Alfred Molina, another actor with a lot of gravitas.

I think the XO should be a younger officer with very contrasting qualities. Maybe Jim Parsons, who played Sheldon Cooper, or even Joshua Malina (Will Bailey on West Wing). Someone unexpected. I’d also take a hard charger like Cara Gee (Drummer from The Expanse). Could also go with Taylor Kitsch, taking it in a more bullheaded direction.

I’d want a Cardassian or a Sulliban as an exchange officer in a new role: strategist. For that, you’d want someone fairly intense. Say, Jeffrey Donovan from Burn Notice?

At Tactical, maybe Jung Woo? He does a very convincing casual cop in Mad for Each Other. I’d also put MACOs/marines on board, under a lieutenant. Maybe a guy like Robert Patrick.

As ship’s counselor, take a guy who’s more sitcom dad than psychiatrist. Definitely someone like Richard Kind.

Science station, try Arthur Hughes from Shardlike. Or Elizabeth Olson, after her turn in Wind River.

For medical, Allison Janey as a doctor fleeing the tragedy of having lost her family to a past tragedy. Maybe a plague. Otherwise, Jeffrey Wright?

At the helm, let’s add Victoria Justice. Believable as an ensign.

Lately, I also enjoyed Pierce Brosnan in various movies from the 1980s, so I could see him in a recurring support role.