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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
00:23bit more. I'm Sean Ferrick for Trek Culture, and here are 10 modern Star Trek plots that are the same.
00:31Number 10. Sam Rutherford vs. Red, Data vs. Lore.
00:35In Lower Decks' third season episode Reflections, Ensign Rutherford finds himself at odds with
00:40himself, or at least he's battling a variation of himself, a holdover from a time before his
00:45implant was grafted to his skull. This version of himself, Red, is far less agreeable and far less
00:51of a people pleaser. The two sides of this personality must battle each other for control
00:55of the one Rutherford body. In Picard's third season episode Surrender, Data and Lore are
01:01revealed to now be sharing the same golem body. Without total control, it seems as though the
01:06Titan A will fall to the Changeling forces under Vadik. There follows a beautiful exchange between
01:11the brothers, as Data hands items from his memory to his evil twin. Though neither outcome was unexpected,
01:16there is a catharsis in seeing both Sam Rutherford and Data gain complete control over themselves
01:22again. It is certainly a similar plot point between the two shows, with some lovely easter eggs in
01:27Picard, hello Tasha, and some crucial information in Lower Decks. Commander, Buen Amigo? Here,
01:33it simply boils down to taking a good idea and applying it across the board.
01:38Number 9. End of the Universe. Oh no! Control will wipe out everything! How can we stop it? Oh no!
01:43The
01:47DMA is destroying planets at random! How can we avoid it? Does the crew of the USS Discovery ever get
01:52a week off? Do they get a bit of downtime where they can just have shore leave, catch up with
01:56friends,
01:57maybe go to the bar for a drink or some food? No? It seems as though every few minutes a
02:01new
02:01devastating calamity is waiting to swallow them up and spit them back out again. It certainly makes
02:06perfect sense that the Discovery, equipped with its spore drive, would be the first ship called on in most
02:10situations. What gets a bit repetitive is when, despite all of the advancements made,
02:16it's still the only ship. Star Trek has more often than not focused on a single ship, so that isn't
02:20the issue. The issue is the dialogue in which the ship is often referred to in almost messianic terms,
02:25not far away from, well if Discovery can't do it we're doomed! Doomed! Seriously, build a better fleet,
02:32or maybe make friends with some Q or something! Number 8. Pellia Guinan. Picard's second season sees Picard
02:39meeting Guinan in the past, specifically the 21st century down in LA where she is tending bar. Though
02:45they have of course already met several times, this being the second time from Guinan's point of view
02:50after San Francisco, there are many rules around time travel that must be observed. Almost
02:55concurrently, La'Anne Noonien Singh and James T. Kirk are traipsing from Toronto to Vermont to see
03:00Pellia, a similarly long-lived being, building her huge collection of antiques, hoping for her help.
03:06The Strange New Worlds episode Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow depicts these two officers,
03:10both from different futures, being flung back into their common past in 2023. The fact that there are
03:16two alien women on planet Earth at the same time is hardly the shocker here. It's the fact that these
03:20two alien women, both of whom will still be alive in the 23rd and 24th centuries, are the sole means
03:26of help for our standard time travellers. It's a little too similar not to notice, no matter how much
03:30fun it is to see them in the past. 7. Texas Class
03:34Star Trek Lower Decks' third season concludes with the revolt of the Texas Class ships, fully
03:39automated, attacking starships and starbases alike. There is, in fact, a fairly harrowing scene depicting
03:44the starbase taking an absolute pasting from these vessels, with several people very clearly killed as
03:50a result. The sequence is very similar to the assault on space dock depicted in Star Trek Picard's final two
03:54episodes, Vox and The Last Generation. This again is a harrowing sequence depicting a fully automated
03:59Starfleet armada training all of their weapons against the most recognisable of landmarks. This
04:04series does go one step further, space dock actually does fall to the barrage. While the Texas Class ships
04:09do considerable damage to their space dock, Picard manages to depict a station that's fighting back.
04:14Though the end result is negative, it's a significant difference between these two stories,
04:18despite the premise being almost identical. At least one similarity between the episodes end up saving
04:23a lot of lives. There are only three Texas Class ships to contend with, and though the armada in
04:29Picard is called the entire fleet a number of times, it's clearly only a portion of what Starfleet has to
04:34offer. If either show had shown anything close to Starfleet's full potential, it's entirely possible
04:40that the only thing appearing post-2401 will be floating debris in space. Number six, Living Construct.
04:46And here we go again, automation threatening Starfleet. This time it comes in the form of the Living Construct,
04:52a devastating AI weapon that's placed on board the USS Protostar, turning the finest of Starfleet ships
04:58into a ticking time bomb, ready to cripple any Federation ships that get too close. There are just
05:03enough subtle differences in this plot that it's not exactly the same as either Lower Decks Texas Class
05:08or Picard's Assimilated Armada, but in essence we have another fleet that's being controlled from a
05:13central evil source, ready to infect every Starfleet ship that it comes into contact with. There's no
05:18arguing that the sequence showing the Living Construct going live is almost as chilling as Skynet's
05:23inevitable rise, and the visuals remain as gorgeous as the first time we saw them, but it all simply begs
05:27the question, between this, the Texas Class which would have come before, and the Borg infected fleet,
05:33has Starfleet got any firewalls in place on its ships? Number five, Frontier Day. Let's put aside the notion of
05:40gathering the entire fleet in one spot for a moment and concentrate on, yes you've guessed it, another
05:45fully automated fleet being hijacked. In this scenario, Starfleet sets itself up for demise by
05:51creating Fleet Formation, a system that will allow other ships to join in on the fun, should one become
05:56incapacitated. On paper, there is perhaps a bit of merit to this idea, however this is set in 2401,
06:02after the awful experiences with both the Texas Class ships and the Living Construct aboard the Protostar.
06:08The kinks clearly haven't been worked out of the system, shown when not only are the Borg able to
06:13infiltrate the ships, but then both the Titan A and the Excelsior are able to overcome it
06:18for however short a time. The truth of the matter is that, though the storyline is problematic in its
06:24own way, the fact that all three of these shows take place so close together in terms of airing, it's
06:30very
06:31hard not to immediately lump them together. One has to struggle to stop oneself from shouting at the screen,
06:36have you learned nothing? Number four, it's the Borg! There are other villains!
06:45So, the first season of Picard saw the return, in a manner of speaking, of the Borg, Starfleet's
06:49greatest enemy of all time. They arrived with a twist. This impressive Borg cube was in fact
06:54crewed by XBs, drones who had been liberated from the Collective. They shared their space with Romulan
06:59refugees and were eventually betrayed by them. The second season of Picard saw the return, in a manner of
07:04speaking, of the Borg. This time, they had a new ship and a new version of the Queen. After a
07:08season
07:09of time travel hijinks, the Queen was revealed to be an assimilated Agnes Jurati, and the Borg were,
07:14in fact, friendly. The third season of Picard saw the return, in a manner of, okay, you get the point.
07:19While the final version of the Borg, seeing the return of the Borg Queen, voiced once more by Alice
07:24Krieg, was certainly the most intimidating, there was no escaping the fact that they had become a little
07:28old hat at this point. The franchise's over-reliance on them as a primary antagonist, dulls the impact
07:34of their arrival, so that the reveal of the Borg cube behind the red door in Jack Crusher's mind
07:39was a bit like, okay then. That's not to say the following episodes weren't impressive, but please,
07:45for now at least, let the Borg die.
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 is,
08:02in fact, one of the most devastating empires in history. Star Trek Picard depicted a Starfleet
08:06that was bruised and broken, okay, not evil, but refused flat out to help the Romulans after the
08:11incident on Mars. Billions died as a result. Star Trek Discovery depicts a Starfleet that would
08:17happily commit genocide in the Klingon homeworld, or created a programme that could wipe out all
08:21life in the galaxy. Star Trek Lower Decks depicted yet another evil admiral in the form of Buen Amigo.
08:26Once again, this is an example of the writers in the franchise not collaborating on their efforts.
08:31This theme of an evil or darker version of Starfleet, while not new to Star Trek,
08:36having so many examples of darker Starfleet so close together seems like several good ideas tripping up
08:42over each other. Number 2. Time travel 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,
09:01Picard as a brutal warlord and Seven as President of Earth. Seems a bit sus really. The heroes travel
09:06back in time via the trusty slingshot around the sun technique before working on setting things to
09:10right. Thankfully Q sends them home again. In the Strange New Worlds episode Tomorrow and Tomorrow and
09:15which has already appeared on this list, L'Anne and Kirk are flung back to the 21st century. In this
09:20case, it's Kirk who has travelled from the darker future, one where Starfleet and the Vulcans are not
09:25allies and both are facing crushing losses to the Romulans. Thankfully their actions in the past ensure
09:30the restoration of a brighter, more hopeful future. Both stories have their ups and downs,
09:34but the time travel gimmick tends to get a little old quite quickly.
09:381. Genetically Engineered Pariah Strange New Worlds, Prodigy and, to a lesser extent,
09:44Picard have all gone in with storylines about genetic engineering. If we look at Trek of old,
09:49certainly Disgust, Space Seed, The Masterpiece Society and Statistical Probabilities all dealt
09:54with it head on. In Picard, Coray is hidden away from the world due to her father, Adam Sung,
09:59his inability to create the perfect genome for her. Though this is cured by Q, it leads to Adam reaching
10:04out
10:04for a folder titled Project Khan. This may only be a small nod to the history of Star Trek and
10:10the
10:10Eugenics Wars, but Prodigy and Strange New Worlds both take on the subject much more overtly and
10:15arguably in a very similar fashion. Una Chin Riley and Dal's experiences with Starfleet, including their
10:21initial rejection due to their genetically engineered status, neither of which they were responsible for,
10:26is incredibly similar. Both of them face discrimination for their status and both are
10:30eventually welcomed into, or back into, service. Whether it's Advocate Neera's passionate plea to
10:36accept Una's asylum, or Admiral Janeway's direct influence to make Dal a warrant officer, both
10:41examples 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.
10:51That's everything for our list, what do you think folks? Do you think that there's a few more
10:54plots between 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 and
11:08Instagram 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
11:19as good as it did. Everyone until I see you again make sure that you look after yourselves, make sure
11:23that
11:24you look after your nearest and dearest, lead with kindness and above all else, live long and prosper.
11:29Thank you very much.
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