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.

[Buster's Uncle]

Okay, this is the creating a whole new show, not what I thought we were gonna do at all.

I think you need to write-up/describe the characters -and premise- in some detail first, or you're just casting a video playing in your own head.

Once you mentioned Molina, I recognized half the names you brought up, mostly performers I like just fine.  I just KNEW you had to be a West Wing-head...  Funny you should mention Allison Janey...

[Buster's Uncle]

I have written the beginning of a book in here in a couple days, and have yet to find out anyone read a word I said about anything -save some minor part of my Enterprise remarks- but an aside about Here Come the Brides and a remark about George Takei losing his voice - hardly the interesting parts.

[Buster's Uncle]

Tren - do we have a time machine and can afford whomever and they're all available?  I like to put that in the ground rules of casting games, it being more fun to have Humphrey Bogart and Richardo Montalban -and even Richard Burbage- available - and we could certainly use more actors in the pool we're both familiar with...

[Buster's Uncle]

Hmmm.  I was looking for when I shooped a photo of Kirk younger, and ran across this - often better than the other day's re-do/summary, very much so, having just re-watched the episode.

Related to what I said earlier, has anyone realized the implication of Miramanee's people thinking "Kiroc" was a god because he was a stranger who came from the "temple"?

Consider the following observations:

Mirmanee said they had been brought there from far away - the Preservers didn't just knock them out and they woke up in a strange land with a strange night sky - they were told something.

No actual description of the "Wise ones" - but nothing about them being extra-mysterious or hidden, either.

I already said why I think they're advanced humans, noting that there's unmodified humans all over the place - most of them looking European-descended, BTW.

The People don't seem to have developed much of a religion around the Preservers.  Spock thought he recognized three tribes the population was probably derived from, looking across the lake.  -Again, evidence of recent transplantation.  I think it was only 400 years ago, maybe as little as 300, roughly when European diseases started decimating native populations all over North America before most of them even heard of white people.  There may have also been a cultural preservation motive in the mix.

Kirk is white.

In The Omega Glory, a parallel Earth (didn't look like Earth from orbit, like Miri's planet) with an America w/ identical-looking constitution and Asian communists who fought a biological WWIII, one Komm's father was alleged to be over 1,000.  If true, this means the paraAmerica with that We The People constitution was 800 years, minimum, ahead of Earth...  !!!

You'd think that even if you set up parallel societies, you'd want to check back in on them from time to time, whatever the reason for setting them up.  Long-term projects, though not as long-term as terraforming.  Note Miri's planet, and that there are an INSANE number of really hospitable Class M planets around that look exactly like Northern California ranches.  And whoever made the Shore Leave planet made the Keeper looking like a tall old white Human.

Naturally, when Miramnee's people saw the white man come from the temple, they called him a god, because they meant Preserver.



My conclusion?  The Preservers aren't only human, they're so recently active that they're probably still around, and may be a known race concealing their sophistication and power.  Miramanee's people met some of them, and found them pale, but not so strange as to have appearances worthy of mention in her brief account.  They may be well on their way to evolving to the Organian/Metron stage, or not.  (Sargon's people had gotten part of the way...)  Probably Gary Seven's backers, too...

Earth is one of the Preservers' experiments/projects.

[Trenacker]

Provide at least one suggestion for a living actor at their respective current age for each role, just to ensure familiarity. But as long as you make one recommendation within the rules, I’m open to other options.

My vision is for a show set in a relatively unexplored area of space, but mostly quiet until now, where the Federation has relatively few resources near at hand. Our ship is the equivalent of a light cruiser—designed to operate alone on long voyagers, but better-equipped to run from serious threats than to neutralize them. It’s expected to conduct survey, rescue, and patrol missions, not show up in a battle line.

The captain, played by Rylance or Molina, is a storied combat veteran but has been put out to pasture in a quieter era and resents it, causing him to take risks that the crew resents. If played by Spector, he is seen as a “thruster” or gloryhound.

The first officer, whose career stalled after a period as a prisoner of war, feels that he must “protect” the crew from their captain, but gradually learns to take risks again. Played by Parsons, Gee, or Kitsch.

The tactical officer supports the captain most of the time, butis considered an “untrustworthy” or violent sort of alien by the rest of the crew. Later, it turns out they’re actually an old adversary of the captain’s who he recruited from disgrace. Played by Donovan.

Tactical is competent but resents the “backwater” posting until they find purpose saving the lives of imperiled spacers. Played by Jung Woo.

The MACOs under Patrick appreciate the captain. There is tension with the other crew because of the explicit military associations and the feeling that the MACOs embolden the captain to solve too many problems with threat or use of force.

The counselor, Kind, has an unconventional approach, replicating cans of beer and befriending crew members—more like a friend than a medical professional, but he helps calm the conflicts described above.

At the science station, overseen by Hughes/Olsen, a lot of the action revolves around trying to organize effective rescue strategies.

In sickbay, Doctor Janey, who should be an alien, grapples with the biases of the crew. The Doctor spends a lot of time with the XO trying to address their lingering PTSD.

At helm, the navigator (Justice) finds that her academy training has done little to prepare her for her first posting. She eventually becomes close with the science officer as they work together on rescues.

[Buster's Uncle]

I'm gonna pass, sorry - WAY too many actors I'm not familiar with -I got broken of watching TV in the Texas years, and that's back in 2010-13- still not nearly enough premise and character description to go on.

[Buster's Uncle]

I've been spending a lot of time off-camera this week reading and reacting to Mylochka's latest fanfic.  She expects something of an editor run, so a lot of suggestions, a lot of work being clever in perceiving her structural purposes, and diplomatic in critique, and I'm going to have some proprietary pride in the result, 'cause the first draft's already good, and I had a little input a very long time ago about the idea(s) for the story.

This is what set off the big tear I'm on about the Preservers and all, as I've said - I'm trying to channel my frustration that no one cares into enthusiasm for doing a reader read, though I'm unhappy about how little conversation THAT's generated, too.  Siiigh.


Any questions about the Preservers and Sargon and paralllel Earths and all that?

[Buster's Uncle]

Y'know, the IDEA "Starfleet Academy" for a movie has been mooching around for about 45 years, which is pretty lame. 

-However, I can spot nothing objectionable, even The Doctor - and I didn't spot, but commentors said something about Admiral Kim --- he finally got promoted above Ensign, apparently...

[Buster's Uncle]

29 Years Later, Star Trek Is Revisiting A Beloved Lost Era
Story by Ryan Britt • 6h •
3 min read



Paramount Pictures


What is Star Trek’s most unexplored era? With a timeline that spans the 22nd century to the 32nd century, it’s either very easy, or very hard, to pick a point in all of Trek’s fictional history that seems undocumented. And yet, the one era that fans have been most curious about for decades is easily the period of time between the end of The Undiscovered Country (2293) and the start of the The Next Generation (2364). It’s a big period of time, and when most fans talk about this era, we’re often focused on Captain Sulu, and the USS Excelsior. And now, in a roundabout way, Trek canon is giving fans a glimpse into this lost era through a clever framing mechanism for a different lost era entirely.

As revealed at San Diego Comic-Con 2025, the upcoming podcast audio series, Star Trek: Khan won’t only just tell the story of what happened to Khan and his followers on Ceti Alpha V, between the years 2267 and 2285, but the framing for the story will be centered around some lost logs of Khan’s discovered by Starfleet sometime around the late 2290s. In Star Trek: Khan, George Takei will reprise the role of Captain Sulu, alongside Tim Russ, returning as Tuvok.


Star Trek: Khan Trailer

As SDCC 2025, the first major trailer for the scripted audio series, Star Trek: Khan laid out the basic nature of the series, lost logs of Khan’s discovered in the 2290s, and flashbacks to Khan’s ordeal on Ceti Alpha V in the 2260s.

In addition to Takei and Russ, one more new cast member was revealed; Sonya Cassidy as Dr. Rosalind Lear, a new character in the Trek franchise. As previously announced, Khan will be played by Lost veteran Naveen Andrews, while his wife, and former Starfleet officer, Marla McGivers, will be played by For All Mankind’s Wrenn Schmidt.


Star Trek: Khan’s Two Timelines, Explained


Khan (Ricardo Montalban) and Marla McGivers (Madlyn Rhue) in “Space Seed.” | Paramount/CBS


As revealed at SDCC 2025, the format of Khan was fully explained. On the USS Excelsior, with Sulu in command and Tuvok still an ensign, Dr. Lear will present new evidence that Khan’s life on Ceti Alpha V wasn’t at all what anyone knew. The concept here is that Lear has some “lost logs” of Khan’s which, as she says in the trailer, “Khan was much more than a mad tyrant.”

So, essentially, Khan will take place in two timelines. The primary series is set in 2267 through 2285, right after Khan’s exile at the end of “Space Seed” and up until the beginning of The Wrath of Khan. But, the framing for the show will be set on the Excelsior, sometime in 2293 or later.

This will be the first time since the 1996 Voyager episode “Flashback” that both Russ and Takei will be playing Tuvok and Sulu in this exact context. Not only will this show tell us more about Khan, but also, shine a bit of light into the shadows of Captain Sulu’s adventures, during Star Trek’s most fascinating lost era.

Star Trek: Khan will debut on podcast platforms on Star Trek Day, this year, September 8, 2025.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/news/29-years-later-star-trek-is-revisiting-a-beloved-lost-era/ar-AA1JlX0e?ocid=winp2fptaskbarhover&cvid=261e5637d6094372cc7efc537115fc0b&ei=11


It would be nice if there was ANY indication that this was something official, and not just a fan production.  However, the relative cheapness and simplicity of producing an audio drama hints that this one will actually happen and Takei and Russ' involvement indicates they're sure the lawyers won't be too difficult, if it's not official.  A San Diego Comic-Con premier is at least a good sign on that front.

Audio drama via podcast also means it's not gonna make a big splash, even if it's good.

Tim Russ has been behind several ST "fan" productions, and is clearly is either One Of Us, or pathetically hard up for work, and I don't think you produce expensive non-profit films when you're hard up - this has the smell of he was behind it, notwithstanding that Voyager made young Tuvok's service on Sulu's Excelsior canon, so it's not an awkward Tuvok insert.  Good on you, Tim, if this is paid work.

Many of us have wanted that Captain Sulu show forever, and, despite having reservations all over the place about what the article describes, this is surely all we can get with George 88 now, and I wish the venture success.

[Trenacker]

Y'know, the IDEA "Starfleet Academy" for a movie has been mooching around for about 45 years, which is pretty lame. 

-However, I can spot nothing objectionable, even The Doctor - and I didn't spot, but commentors said something about Admiral Kim --- he finally got promoted above Ensign, apparently...

I anticipate significant backlash over the new show, led by people who mostly enjoy the attention they can farm by claiming to be offended, and to a lesser extent by people who take special delight in complaining whenever anything isn't explicitly designed to cater to their interests.

Do I love the premise of a show about Starfleet Academy? No. Do I think Star Trek is at its most interesting when it tells the story of a starship and its crew? Yes. Do I think it's a mortal sin to innovate and build on a beloved intellectual property to try something new? No. Is social commentary bad? No. In fact, that's what Star Trek has always been--even if it sometimes fell short.

As for the Khan show, I'm excited about the possibility. I do hope it isn't a fan production, which can be very hit or miss. I love two of the fan-casted audio dramas but haven't enjoyed the cast-made materials of which Russ, Picardo, and Ryan have all been a big part. I find a lot of the acting for those shows to be extremely wooden. I was excited to buy a copy of Star Trek: Renegades, only to be put off what I felt were terrible, un-expressive performances. Ironically, I think a lot of fan efforts fail because their amateur actors don't look the part, whereas Renegades failed because the characters didn't sound the part.

I think as long as Khan stays away from trying to delve too deeply into a story about the alternate 1990s, it will be okay. Much as I'm a fan of alternate history, I really like that Star Trek pulls me far, far away from anything too approachable.

The unexplored segments of the Star Trek timeline between TOS and TNG are really prime material because there's so much that can be done before we get a much more definitive set of boundaries about what has happened in the universe.