- 11 months ago
Borrowing story ideas is nothing new, whether you're in the 23rd, 24th, 25th, or 32nd centuries!
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00:00With nearly 60 years of history behind it, it's inevitable that there's going to be some reusing
00:04of ideas and episode plots in Star Trek. That's fine. We're looking at the episodes that have
00:11been released since the return of Star Trek, as in the premiere of Discovery in 2017. When you
00:18start to see reusing of plots in a smaller amount of time, that's when they start to stand out a
00:23little bit more. I'm Sean Ferrick for Trek Culture and here are 10 modern Star Trek plots that are the
00:30same. Number 10. Sam Rutherford vs Red, Data vs Lore. In Lower Decks' third season episode Reflections,
00:37Ensign Rutherford finds himself at odds with himself, or at least he's battling a variation of himself,
00:43a holdover from a time before his implant was grafted to his skull. This version of himself, Red,
00:49is far less agreeable and far less of a people pleaser. The two sides of this personality
00:54must battle each other for control of the one Rutherford body. In Picard's third season episode
00:59Surrender, Data and Lore are revealed to now be sharing the same golem body. Without total control,
01:05it seems as though the Titan A will fall to the Changeling forces under Vadik. There follows a
01:10beautiful exchange between the brothers, as Data hands items from his memory to his evil twin.
01:15Though neither outcome was unexpected, there is a catharsis in seeing both Sam Rutherford and Data
01:20gain complete control over themselves again. It is certainly a similar plot point between the two
01:25shows, with some lovely easter eggs in Picard, hello Tasha, and some crucial information in Lower Decks,
01:31Commander, Buen Amigo? Here, it simply boils down to taking a good idea and applying it across the board.
01:37Number 9. End of the Universe. Oh no! Control will wipe out everything! How can we stop it? Oh no!
01:43The Burn destroyed all warp capable ships! How can we fix it? Oh no! The DMA is destroying planets at
01:49random! How can we avoid it? Does the crew of the USS Discovery ever get a week off? Do they get a bit of
01:54downtime where they can just have shore leave, catch up with friends, maybe go to the bar for a drink or
01:58some food? No? It seems as though every few minutes a new devastating calamity is waiting to swallow them
02:04up and spit them back out again. It certainly makes perfect sense that the Discovery, equipped with its
02:08spore drive, would be the first ship called on in most situations. What gets a bit repetitive is when
02:13despite all of the advancements made, it's still the only ship. Star Trek has more often than not
02:19focused on a single ship so that isn't the issue. The issue is the dialogue in which the ship is often
02:23referred to in almost messianic terms, not far away from, well if Discovery can't do it we're doomed!
02:29Doomed! Seriously, build a better fleet, or maybe make friends with some Q or something!
02:35Number 8. Pellia Guinan. Picard's second season sees Picard meeting Guinan in the past,
02:41specifically the 21st century down in LA where she is tending bar. Though they have of course already
02:46met several times, this being the second time from Guinan's point of view after San Francisco,
02:51there are many rules around time travel that must be observed. Almost concurrently, La'Anne Noonien
02:56Singh and James T. Kirk are traipsing from Toronto to Vermont to see Pellia, a similarly long-lived being
03:03building her huge collection of antiques, hoping for her help. The Strange New Worlds episode
03:07Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow depicts these two officers, both from different futures, being
03:12flung back into their common past in 2023. The fact that there are two alien women on planet Earth at
03:18the same time is hardly the shocker here. It's the fact that these two alien women, both of whom will
03:22still be alive in the 23rd and 24th centuries, are the sole means of help for our standard time
03:27travellers. It's a little too similar not to notice, no matter how much fun it is to see them in the past.
03:32Number 7. Texas Class. Star Trek Lower Decks' third season concludes with the revolt of the Texas
03:38Class ships, fully automated, attacking starships and starbases alike. There is, in fact, a fairly
03:43harrowing scene depicting the starbase taking an absolute pasting from these vessels, with several
03:48people very clearly killed as a result. The sequence is very similar to the assault on Space Dock,
03:53depicted in Star Trek Picard's final two episodes, Vox and The Last Generation. This again is a harrowing
03:58sequence depicting a fully automated Starfleet armada training all of their weapons against the
04:02most recognisable of landmarks. This series does go one step further, Space Dock actually does fall
04:07to the barrage. While the Texas Class ships do considerable damage to their Space Dock, Picard
04:11manages to depict a station that's fighting back. Though the end result is negative, it's a significant
04:16difference between these two stories, despite the premise being almost identical. At least one
04:21similarity between the episodes end up saving a lot of lives. There are only three Texas Class ships to
04:27contend with, and though the armada in Picard is called the entire fleet a number of times, it's
04:32clearly only a portion of what Starfleet has to offer. If either show had shown anything close to
04:37Starfleet's full potential, it's entirely possible that the only thing appearing post-2401 will be
04:43floating debris in space. Number 6, Living Construct. And here we go again, automation threatening Starfleet.
04:50This time it comes in the form of the Living Construct, a devastating AI weapon that's placed on board the USS
04:55as Protostar, turning the finest of Starfleet ships into a ticking time bomb, ready to cripple any
05:01Federation ships that get too close. There are just enough subtle differences in this plot that it's
05:05not exactly the same as either Lower Decks Texas Class or Picard's Assimilated Armada, but in essence
05:10we have another fleet that's being controlled from a central evil source, ready to infect every Starfleet
05:16ship that it comes into contact with. There's no arguing that the sequence showing the Living Construct
05:20going live is almost as chilling as Skynet's inevitable rise, and the visuals remain as gorgeous as the
05:25first time we saw them. But it all simply begs the question, between this, the Texas Class which
05:30would have come before, and the Borg infected fleet, has Starfleet got any firewalls in place on its ships?
05:36Number 5, Frontier Day. Let's put aside the notion of gathering the entire fleet in one spot for a
05:42moment and concentrate on, yes you've guessed it, another fully automated fleet being hijacked. In this
05:48scenario Starfleet sets itself up for demise by creating Fleet Formation, a system that will allow other
05:54ships to join in on the fun, should one become incapacitated. On paper there is perhaps a bit
05:59of merit to this idea, however this is set in 2401, after the awful experiences with both the Texas
06:05Class ships and the Living Construct aboard the Protostar. The kinks clearly haven't been worked
06:10out of the system, shown when not only are the Borg able to infiltrate the ships, but then both the
06:15Titan A and the Excelsior are able to overcome it for however short a time. The truth of the matter is that,
06:22though the storyline is problematic in its own way, the fact that all three of these shows take
06:27place so close together in terms of airing, it's very hard not to immediately lump them together.
06:33One has to struggle to stop oneself from shouting at the screen, HAVE YOU LEARNED NOTHING?
06:39Number 4, It's the Borg. There. Are. Other. Villains. So, the first season of Picard saw the return,
06:47in a manner of speaking, of the Borg. Starfleet's greatest enemy of all time. They arrived with a
06:51twist. This impressive Borg cube was in fact crewed by XBs, drones who had been liberated from
06:57the Collective. They shared their space with Romulan refugees and were eventually betrayed by them.
07:01The second season of Picard saw the return, in a manner of speaking, of the Borg. This time they had
07:06a new ship and a new version of the Queen. After a season of time travel hijinks, the Queen was revealed
07:11to be an assimilated Agnus Jurati, and the Borg were, in fact, friendly. The third season of Picard saw the return,
07:17in a manner of… Ok, you get the point. While the final version of the Borg, seeing the return of
07:22the Borg Queen, voiced once more by Alice Krieg, was certainly the most intimidating, there was no
07:27escaping the fact that they had become a little old hat at this point. The franchise's over-reliance
07:31on them as a primary antagonist dulls the impact of their arrival, so that the reveal of the Borg cube
07:36behind the red door in Jack Crusher's mind was a bit like… Ok then. That's not to say the following
07:43episodes weren't impressive, but please, for now at least, let the Borg die.
07:50Number 3 – Evil Starfleet
07:52Starfleet is evil! Now, that sounds like a heck of a statement, but when evil Starfleet storylines
07:56get pitched again, and again, and again, it seems as though this once glorious organisation
08:02is, in fact, one of the most devastating empires in history. Star Trek Picard depicted a Starfleet
08:06that was bruised and broken but refused flat out to help the Romulans after the incident on Mars.
08:12Billions died as a result. Star Trek Discovery depicts a Starfleet that would happily commit
08:17genocide on the Klingon homeworld, or created a programme that could wipe out all life in the
08:21galaxy. Star Trek Lower Decks depicted yet another evil admiral in the form of Buen Amigo. Once again,
08:27this is an example of the writers in the franchise not collaborating on their efforts. This theme of
08:32an evil or darker version of Starfleet while not new to Star Trek, having so many examples of darker
08:38Starfleet so close together seems like several good ideas tripping up over each other. Number 2 – Time
08:44Travel from an Alternate Future
08:46Let's travel back in time so we can fix the future that's broken! Star Trek Picard's second season
08:50spends the bulk of its running time in the past, or our present to be more exact. With Q having
08:55interfered to teach Jean-Luc a lesson, the future is now controlled by the evil Confederation. Picard is a
09:01brutal warlord and Seven as President of Earth. Seems a bit sus really. The heroes travel back in time
09:06via the trusty slingshot around the sun technique before working on setting things to right. Thankfully
09:11Q sends them home again. In the Strange New Worlds episode Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow,
09:15which has already appeared on this list, L'Anne and Kirk are flung back to the 21st century. In this case,
09:21it's Kirk who has travelled from the darker future, one where Starfleet and the Vulcans are not allies,
09:26and both are facing crushing losses to the Romulans. Thankfully their actions in the past ensure the
09:30restoration of a brighter, more hopeful future. Both stories have their ups and downs, but the time
09:34travel gimmick tends to get a little old quite quickly. Number 1. Genetically Engineered Pariah
09:41Strange New Worlds, Prodigy and, to a lesser extent, Picard, have all gone in with storylines about
09:46genetic engineering. If we look at Trek of old, certainly Disgust, Space Seed, The Masterpiece
09:51Society and Statistical Probabilities all dealt with it head on. In Picard, Core is hidden away from the world
09:57due to her father, Adam Sung, his inability to create the perfect genome for her. Though this is cured
10:02by Q, it leads to Adam reaching out for a folder titled Project Khan. This may only be a small nod
10:08to the history of Star Trek and the Eugenics Wars, but Prodigy and Strange New Worlds both take on the
10:13subject much more overtly, and arguably in a very similar fashion. Una Chin Riley and Dal's experiences
10:19with Starfleet, including their initial rejection due to their genetically engineered status, neither of which
10:24they were responsible for, is incredibly similar. Both of them face discrimination for their status,
10:29and both are eventually welcomed into, or back into, service. Whether it's Advocate Neera's passionate plea
10:35to accept Una's Asylum, or Admiral Janeway's direct influence to make Dal a Warrant Officer,
10:40both examples depict Starfleet of the future upholding the centuries-long ban on genetic engineering,
10:45effectively barring both individuals from service for something entirely beyond their control.
10:50That's everything for our list. What do you think folks? Do you think that there's a few more plots
10:55between the various modern Star Trek shows that share more than a few similarities? If you do,
10:59let us know in the comments below. Thank you very much as always for following along. Now please
11:03remember you can go and follow us on Twitter at TrekCulture, same as BlueSky at TrekCulture,
11:08and Instagram at TrekCultureYT. You can find myself at Sean Ferrick on Twitter as well, I'm also on
11:14Instagram and BlueSky. Thank you so much to our wonderful editor Martin for making this thing look as good as it did.
11:20Everyone, until I see you again, make sure that you look after yourselves, make sure that you look
11:24after your nearest and dearest, lead with kindness, and above all else, live long and prosper. Thank you very much.
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