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Bootcha
Nov 13, 2012

Truly, the pinnacle of goaltending
Grimey Drawer
My DreamTrek is basically "Star Trek: The West Wing" a little after the Khitomer Peace Accords and well before TNG.

In short, we follow the newly elected president of the Federation and what his administration does in relation to the Federation as a whole. Yeah a human and probably due to producer leanings it'll be a Martin Sheen stand-in so let's just call the Federation president Martin Sheen for this DreamTrek. Maybe Martin Sheen is from the old school of thought but is actively learning and embracing the new order of the universe, or perhaps he's the first wave of what the TNG Federation would become and he's trying to get people to embrace that future. But always at the core of every challenge or problem, is the investment of the beliefs of diversity, knowledge, and peaceful resolutions.

How did the early days of the Federation-Empire get along? Where did all these notable TNG near-historical figures come from, from a wider perspective? Diplomacy, Alien-of-the-Week, the graduation of technology from TOS to TNG, questions about the greater good or the individual right, moments of light brevity, interpersonal drama, analogies to real world problems. It's all applicable to this "better version of ourselves", at a slower more well adjusted wider scale than trying to crush the problems of the world into a single moment of a frantic bridge crew spat.

Of course, there's going to be a push for a "big bad". What's our old Klingons? Or our pre-Borg? As a main antagonist, the Romulans are kinda an easy out, but I'd prefer they'd just be a worthy chess opponent you don't take your eyes off of for one second. I'd honestly say, there should really only be a small but obvious pushback on progress from within the Federation, meaning our biggest bad is "ourselves", or at least our worse tendencies that surface every now and then.

But as far as a big drama arc, I give you the Season 2 and 3 big arc: Andoria is Burning.

One of the things that I wonder is why TNG and beyond didn't have a lot of Andorian presence. Sure ENT made something work on that, and Disco at least has some background dressings with Andorians, but after ST6 it seemed like Andorians were exceedingly rare. This would be my attempt to create a reason for it.

Andoria, is a stand-in possible-analogy for America right now: Fighty, mouthy, brash, often non-cooperative. But at least in Star Trek terms, they understand the importance of the Federation. For some reason, that changes. Andorian politics get more isolationist and antagonistic. They don't like being at peace with the Klingons, and old dogwhistle slurs start to pop into their diplomatic exchanges. They withdraw from agreements and treaties, while demanding more authority over "security" matters. Feud fights get more frequent, and more deadly. Andorian politics begins to split the race in two main factions vying for control of Andoria's future. And then, civil war erupts on Andoria. The rest of the Federation is beside itself trying to figure out how to stop this ethically, without a full peacekeeping invasion, suppression, and occupation. Martin Sheen has to still play nice and smile for both factions, because Andoria never seceded from the Federation, and while he'd prefer the side that's more sensible, both have their chances at pissing him off. At a point, the Federation has to make a choice of who to back militarily to end the bloodshed. It turns out to be a bad move, because the opposition gets desperate and uses WMDs. The fighting stops soon after the war crimes, but the damage is done: 60% of Andorians are dead. They aren't endangered, but they are a shadow of what they once were. No one wins.

And yet, Martin Sheen still believes in the value of Andorian life, and publicly asks the Federation and allies for help. Because it's the right thing not just for them, but for everyone. That we'd lose something that makes the Federation so special, even worth dying for, if the Andorians were left to die out, out of indifference or spite, for causing so much trouble.

On the other hand, this also leads to the amended articles of what TNG referred to as the Prime Directive, so that the Federation never makes the same political mistake again.

Those are the kind of things I'd see explored, in what I'd call Star Trek: Federation.

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