January Meme: Nostalgia-Free Star Trek

What would a Star Trek show not rooted in nostalgia be like?

Well, for starters, it would not be set earlier than post Nemesis/Voyager finale. I mean, of course I'd be interested in, say, the aftermath of the Dominion war on Cardassia (i.e. the ideal ground for a Garak/Bashir reunion), but DS9 nostalgia is nostalgia, too. No, ideally, it should have enough time span between the DS9 & Voyager finales and the TNG movies so that we're in a new era.

Also, no characters from the previous shows, much as I love them. I look forward to Picard because he's my Captain and I love everyone else whom we know to be back in some ways (even if just by cameos), but that is nostalgia. So the potential ST show should truly dare to have only new characters.

Now, since it is supposed to be a ST show, not just a generic sci fi show, here's what I think it could do about using elements of the rich established ST canon and develop them further without this feeling like appealing to the fans' longing for ye olde days: pick a setting that has been indicated, but not yet really explored.

The Romulans come to mind. Rihannsu novel fans, bear with me here. I'm talking screen canon. One of the many loathed elements of Nemesis was the concept of the Remus and the Remans. And then the first reboot ST movie blew the Romulan homeworld up. Well: previous ST shows have known to take underdeveloped ideas, especially people, and to flesh them out. TNG did it for the Klingons, DS9 did it forthe Ferengi (and the Cardassians and Bajorans of course, but both of these had already started out three dimensional, as opposed to the Ferengi), Enterprise did it for the Andorians. So instead of just retconning godwaful Nemesis and the Remans away, why not meet the challenge head on and make it into something interesting? For example, a Romulans-and-Remans-centric show set about seventy, eighty years post Voyager, which shows us what Remus, the Remans and the Romulans developed into by then - and with their history, it's bound not to be utterly harmonious - with flashbacks throughout the millennia of Romulan/Reman history interspersing the show? By which I don't mean with the Vulcans. The Romulan/Vulcan history can come in in season 3 or four at the earliest, but the first few season flashbacks should establish the Romulan culture as it developed post separation from the Vulcans. It could also deal with colonialism and slavery head on, since that's what Remans offer as a concept, and show us their development as a slave culture living under constant opppression. Make the Remans more than second rate orcs!

The present day plotlines should have both Romulan and Reman main characters. The Romulans as a former superpower which feels humiliated and has lost their homeworld, though presumably not their other power bases, could be on the rise again - will they repeat old mistakes? Have they actually learned from history? And the Remans: who have they become once they aren't enslaved anymore, a few decades into the future?

Human characters: only one or two, and none of them the lead; they also shouldn't be Starfleet. Maybe archaelogists, trying to use the chance to finally being able to do research on Romulan and Reman history, or medics, or hey, even some extravagant musician who wants to research Romulan music and finds herself trapped, unable to return to Federation space for some plot reason.

The Other Days

January Meme: Favourite Underrated Historical Figure

Well, there's always the question "underrated by whom?", because in history, as with every fandom, the monent you name someone as neglected or only appreciated by a few, dozens of voices show up to declare "no, I totally appreciate X too!" or "are you kidding, X is so super popular!"

Also, I have more than one favourite. Still, for now, I'll name Fritz Bauer, because he's still not known by a lot of people in the English-speaking world, i.e. underrated. As a German-Jewish gay social democrat judge going after Nazis in post-war Germany, instrumental in the Mossad finding Eichmann, prime mover of the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials, working where the majority of his colleagues in the justice system still were, in fact, Nazis, as a former exile whose surviving family remained abroad, Bauer had to put up with such a lot of hate mail (the old fashioned type, in the pre cyber age, was just as disturbing) and direct verbal abuse even after the Third Reich was over - and yet, he kept believing in the law, having witnessed its most terrible abuses. He believed in humanity, having witnessed the worst it was capable of. He believed we can be better, not by ignoring the past but by taking responsibility for it. He put himself on the line not like some action hero with a gun, but by facing the hate and indifference around him every day while doggedly continuing to work for justice.

He was also capable of befriending Thomas Harlan, son of Veit Harlan, aka the director of some of the most vicious Nazi propaganda movies (including Jew Suess). (An article about their relationship in German apropos the publication of their correspondance is here. ) In more recent years, Bauer was honored through institutions, museums, speeches, publications etc. in Germany, - only last year, on the 50th anniversary of his death, our head of state, President Steinmeier, held a speech about him in the Paulskirche in Frankfurt -, and of course the movie The People vs Fritz Bauer alerted a new generation to his story, but still, in the non-German speaking world, this courageous and very human man is mostly forgotten, and thus most definitely underrated. In a world which is rapidly turning backwards, we would do well to remember him and, like him, act, even if it looks hopeless.

The Other Days