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Given how much Star Trek there is, let's check out how much there isn't!
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00:00Hello my friends, Sean Farrick here for Trek Culture, and today's video is brought to you by
00:04Star Trek Fleet Command. Hooray! More on that now in a second.
00:07When Star Trek first hit the screens in 1966, there were a lot of ideas that were swirling
00:12around this brand new show and what Roddenberry's team of writers could come up with. Ideas and
00:17suggestions abounded, with entire fleshed out proposals dismissed and hastily rewritten.
00:22Plot threads and episode ideas were hashed out and rehashed out over and over again,
00:27until a finished product could be brought to screen. While some stories and ideas would fall
00:31foul of creative differences, some would be discarded due to scheduling conflicts and
00:36production difficulties. This is true of almost every television show, but given just how vast
00:41the franchise of Star Trek has become over the decades since Captain Kirk first sat in the
00:46captain's chair, there's a lot that was left on the cutting room floor. With a fanbase as passionate
00:50as Trek's, it's no surprise that many of these details have been dug up and discussed at length.
00:56So with that in mind then, I'm Ellie with Trek Culture and here are 10 abandoned Star Trek
01:00ideas that would have been incredible.
01:03My friends, just before this video starts, I just want to take a quick second to shout
01:06out and thank our sponsor Star Trek Fleet Command. Fleet Command is a free to play game available
01:12on both iOS and Android and it's available via the link in the description to this video.
01:17You may be wondering why I'm dressed this way while talking about Fleet Command, I think
01:22you know where this is going. Star Trek Strange New Worlds is coming to Fleet Command.
01:27Yes, that is true. To coincide with the launch of the show on Paramount Plus, it is launching
01:32in-game. What does that mean? It means you get to use the souped-up Enterprise. It also
01:36means you get to use the holodeck, which is a little bit cool, but we have new characters
01:41coming. Those characters including Captain Pike, you've got Lieutenant Spock, and you've got
01:46Lieutenant La'Anne Noonien Singh, who I would follow into battle in a heartbeat. Of course,
01:52as you know, the game itself is open world. It's constantly evolving, so there's always
01:55new games, new things to do. In fact, there's more than 25 new missions on the way with Strange
02:01New Worlds as well. There's also a little bit of a surprise for those of you who feel he
02:05didn't get his due. While he's not Strange New Worlds exclusive, there is a rare Reginald Barkley
02:11that you can play as. Now, initially, he's only going to be available on PC before he extends
02:15into the mobile game as well, so make sure that you grab him where you can. Just to say
02:20again, thank you so much to Fleet Command. It is available via the description in the
02:23link to this video. Straight away, let's go.
02:25Number 10, Maurice Hurley's plans for Q. After the tumultuous production of The Next
02:31Generation's first season, head writer Maurice Hurley was ready to pack in the whole bridge
02:36crew and start afresh. He had said in an interview with William Shatner that he had hoped to kill
02:40off the main cast and build the second season around finding a new crew for the Enterprise.
02:44Pretty drastic. Maurice Hurley eventually left the show at the end of the second season,
02:49and the 1988 writer's strike put pay to many of his plans. Many of the episodes that he had
02:55intended weren't produced, and those that did make the screen were often last-minute replacements to
03:00scrapped plans. Hurley's plans for Q would have been extensive. The idea was that early in the second
03:05season, Q would pay another visit to the Enterprise to torment Picard and warn him of the dangers that were
03:11out there. Because of this, Q would be stripped of his powers and have to live on the Enterprise for
03:16a time until he was able to regain his abilities. If all of this sounds familiar, it's because this
03:21plot was condensed into two episodes, Q Who and Déjà Q. The Missing Q arc was essentially Q having to
03:28adjust to humanity and learn how to get along with Picard as an almost equal. Ronald D. Moore later
03:33commented that Hurley's plans were more plot-focused, and after his departure from the series, the show
03:39became much more character-focused. He stressed that they didn't want to overuse characters like Q,
03:44which this arc may well have done. Pivotly, however, there was one difference in Q Who that didn't make
03:49it into this arc. Q wouldn't have introduced humanity to the Borg. That would have been something
03:54else entirely.
03:55Number 9. Maurice Hurley's plans for the Borg. Q wasn't the only Season 2 plan that Maurice Hurley
04:02had to leave by the wayside. Initially, his plans were for the first season finale episode,
04:08The Neutral Zone, to be the first of two parts. The second part would focus on the Enterprise and
04:13the Romulans being forced to work together to unravel the mystery of the missing colonies
04:17in both their territories. The answer to that mystery? A migratory insectoid hive-mined species
04:23called the Borg. That's right, in the eyes of the man who came up with them, the Borg weren't meant
04:28to be a race of cyborgs. They were meant to be space army ants. They were extracting all materials
04:34from planets in their way. The Enterprise would discover that they were heading deeper and deeper
04:38in the Federation, and would have to scramble to collect allies in facing off against this threat.
04:43The Romulans and Klingons would be among them. This plan would have seen the complete defeat of the
04:48Borg at the conclusion of the second season. Just think on that for a moment. The Borg were
04:53only meant to appear for a single season, and they weren't introduced by Q. Perhaps it's for the
04:58best that the writers strike through these plans as sunder, because afterwards Maurice Hurley left
05:03the show and it took a very different direction. A better one? Perhaps not, but a fascinating one,
05:09certainly.
05:10Number 8. Giant Ferengi
05:12A script by Stephen DeKnight for Deep Space Nine was simply going to be called Giant, and would have
05:17placed a humorous bent on Ferengi evolution. Wolf, while accompanying Jadzia Dax for a drink in Quark,
05:23would have found a Ferengi hitting on Jadzia and angrily dismissed him. He would have uttered the
05:28line, there's no honor fighting a single Ferengi, only to hear, I'd say the same thing about Klingons
05:34from behind him. Wolf would then be faced with a Ferengi who was at least his equal in height and
05:39body mass, and the two of them would engage in a traditional barroom brawl. Eventually, it would
05:44turn out that these two Ferengi, one little and one large, were brothers on the run from Ferengi space.
05:49Wolf and Dax would have been tasked with escorting them back there, discovering that the two of them
05:54had discovered a scientific formula to activate the genes for physical strength and prowess that
05:59was deep within the Ferengi genome. They explained that Ferengi were once large and strong, but had
06:04developed down an evolutionary path to be smaller, sneakier, and thus not considered a threat by
06:09larger species. When the four of them were attacked by Jem'Hadar on the way, they'd all have to work
06:14together to survive. Eventually, Wolf would have to acknowledge the history of the Ferengi as warriors
06:19in their own right. Could have been fun!
06:22Number 7. Ronald D. Moore's obsession with musicals
06:26Yes, before Buffy the Vampire Slayer hit us with its beloved musical episode, Ronald D. Moore wanted
06:32the next generation to have a musical episode. When the idea didn't go over particularly well there,
06:37he attempted to get it made on Deep Space Nine, and was again shot down. Ron's ideas were never fully
06:43fleshed out. His desire sprang simply from thinking that making a musical episode for
06:47either show would be fun. He's quoted as saying,
06:49There's some tech virus that infects the crew and they can only communicate in song, you know?
06:54And just do it and have a ball! Alas, nobody was interested in pursuing it, and the idea went
06:58nowhere. Coincidentally, Linda Park pushed to have a musical episode on Enterprise as well,
07:04given that she was a trained singer, as were John Billingsley and Scott Bakula. This idea didn't
07:09go anywhere either. Given the enduring popularity of Buffy's Once More With Feeling, maybe it might
07:14have been wise to cash in on the musical vibe. Also, has anyone attempted to adapt that Buffy
07:18episode into a stage show yet? If not, why not?
07:22Number 6. The literal year of hell
07:25Scuttlebutt would have us believe that the plans for Voyager's year of hell were much more extensive
07:29than the two-part episode that we eventually received. While this two-parter was sufficiently
07:34brutal as we witnessed the degradation and crippling of our beloved Voyager over an extended
07:39period of time, it could have been more. The plans for the year of hell were for it to have
07:43spanned an entire season, with the Krenim temporal ship haunting them for more than 20 episodes.
07:49Voyager would have accumulated more and more damage as time went by, as there would be nowhere
07:53for the ship to repair itself and they would slowly lose crew members. The two-part episode did do an
07:58excellent job of conveying the damage that Voyager is continually subjected to, but picture that
08:03breakdown spread over a whole season. Picture the sense of loss and isolation that could have been
08:08worked into the very fabric of the show as it progressed, mirrored by the increased frustration
08:13of Anorax as he tries to shape an entire quadrant to his liking until it's unrecognisable.
08:18The ultimate conclusion of the season would still have been the same, with Janeway destroying both
08:23the crippled Voyager and the Krenim time ship in a spectacular final space battle.
08:27Eventually, the plans for the season-long arc were reduced to the two-part episode we watched.
08:32Jerry Taylor and Brannon Braga felt that a season-long investment that would be reversed at its
08:36conclusion was too much for the audience to bear. Voyager, for all of the excellent solo episodes
08:41that are within it, overall lacked cohesion as a series and this missed opportunity could have
08:46paved the way for more overarching stories, the kind that Voyager's very premise demanded.
08:51But it wasn't to be.
08:53Number 5. Who's Killing the Great Voyagers of the Delta Quadrant?
08:57And why, yes, that title is directly taken from Who is Killing the Great Chefs of the Europe.
09:01The premise of this episode, put forward by Brian Fuller, was to follow the adventures of
09:06several alternate reality Voyagers. These different Voyagers are being systematically
09:10hunted down and destroyed by an unknown force that can somehow jump between these realities.
09:15Ideas included a completely Klingon version of Voyager, where the Klingon Empire had defeated
09:20the Federation back in Kirk's day, complete with Kate Mulgrew in full Klingon makeup,
09:25and a version that was completely crewed by Holograms, as well as a few others.
09:29Eventually, our Voyager and her Captain Janeway would discover what's happening.
09:33They would be confronted by another Voyager, this one commanded by Chakotay, whose marquee
09:38crew had overwhelmed the Starfleet crew. This alternate Chakotay had become convinced
09:42that Janeway was responsible for them being stranded in the Delta Quadrant, and while he
09:46had found a way to jump timelines, he hadn't yet found a way to cross the vast distance to
09:51return home. While this episode never panned out, it would have given Chakotay a lot more
09:55to do and probably would have been pretty fun. We'd already seen Worf jump from timeline to timeline
10:00in the Next Generation episode parallel, so why not a rampaging alternate Voyager?
10:05Number 4. The Tantalus Prison of James T. Kirk
10:08You all remember the Tantalus device, yes? It was a minor plot point in the classic original
10:13series episode Mirror Mirror. When Captain Kirk, Dr. McCoy, Hurrah, and Scotty are transported
10:19to the Mirror Universe by a freak ion storm, Kirk discovers a device in his opposite number's
10:24quarters. This is the Tantalus device, something that could simply make a selected target
10:29completely disappear. This device later cropped up in the palace of Emperor Georgiou when she
10:34used it to keep an eye on a wayward Michael Burnham. Frequent Star Trek novelist Judith
10:39and Garfield Reeve Stevens had pitched a two-part episode for Star Trek Enterprise that featured
10:44the Tantalus device, where it would have been revealed that it didn't kill people at all.
10:48It simply transported them back in time, about 150 years, to an isolated penal planet.
10:53Since Mirror Spock, resplendent in his goatee, had used the device on Mirror Kirk just after the end
10:59of Mirror Mirror, this means that Kirk could still be there in the 2150s, when Captain Jonathan Archer
11:05and his crew would find him. You see, in the original pitch for this episode, the Mirror Universe
11:10hadn't been created by the 2150s. It didn't exist yet. Mirror Kirk and Archer would have tried to
11:16figure out what happened to it, and somehow, in some grave experiment, they would have accidentally
11:20created it. Yes, the plans for the Mirror Universe episode, In a Mirror Darkly, originally included
11:26a role for the evil version of Captain Kirk. While the episodes we did receive were amongst
11:31the strongest of Enterprise's fourth season, just imagine having had Kirk in the mix as well.
11:36Number 3. The first season of Enterprise
11:38So, the first season of Enterprise could have turned out very different from the one that
11:43we watched. The pitch by Rick Berman and Branham Braga was for a show that was set entirely
11:48on Earth, for the first season at least. Much of the premise still made it into pilot episode
11:53Broken Boat, but some of the plot points from the fourth season, such as anti-alien resentment
11:58amongst some humans, would have made it into this storyline. Essentially, the series would
12:02begin with first contact with the Klingons, which would have left Starfleet Command scrabbling
12:06to finish their first Warp 5-capable ship. So far, so familiar, but there was no temporal
12:12Cold War in this proposal, and humanity would have stumbled at the first hurdle. The brand new
12:17Enterprise would have been destroyed in its first attempt at a launch, leading the design
12:21team to go back to the drawing board. Eventually, this idea was rejected, and the show we got
12:25was a lot more like its predecessors in the original series, The Next Generation, and Voyager.
12:30Eventually, Enterprise would shake up its format with the Zindi War, but the first two seasons
12:35were not what they could have been.
12:37Number 2. The Godhead
12:39A scrapped episode from the third season of the original series, The Godhead was meant to be
12:44the 26th episode. This would have put it to be the very last, beating out the somewhat
12:49troublesome Turnabout Intruder. In this episode, the crew of the Enterprise would have discovered
12:53an ancient alien race that had discovered a way to accumulate all of their vast knowledge
12:58and place it inside a single person. While the details of who this single person were to
13:02be weren't released, it was likely to have been one of the crew, but unlikely to have been
13:07either Kirk or Spock. Whoever they turned out to be, The Godhead themselves would have been
13:11driven mad with power and would have become determined to use the Enterprise to conquer
13:15the galaxy. This story was actually put into the first stages of production, but the final
13:20two episodes of the third season were cancelled by NBC, and this one never saw the light of day.
13:25The Godhead is one of many original series episodes that could have been. In fact, our very
13:31own Brie has made a whole video talking about them, which includes some Oscar-worthy acting
13:35by Adam Cleary, so be sure to check that out. But for now, number one, Star Trek The Beginning.
13:41The tentative title for an 11th film that never came to pass, The Beginning was meant to be the
13:47first of a trilogy of films that bridged the gap between Star Trek Enterprise and Star Trek The
13:52Original Series. A full treatment was approved and multiple versions of the script were written,
13:56but the project fell apart in favour of going with J.J. Abrams' reboot film in 2009.
14:01Set four years after the events of Terra Prime, the United Earth's Stellar Navy is being folded
14:07into Starfleet, and a few officers are resentful of the move. One called Tiberius Chase has family
14:12ties back to the Terra Prime movement, who wanted to drive all alien influence from Earth.
14:17Somewhat suddenly, a massive Romulan attack fleet emerges from behind Earth's moon.
14:21They demand for Earth to turn over all of the Vulcans living on the planet, to which Admiral Gardner
14:27refuses and manages to rally Starfleet and UESN forces.
14:30When the Romulans are just barely driven off, it's discovered that the Romulans are planning
14:35to regroup with reinforcements. Tiberius Chase and his band of survivors track down the nuclear
14:40stockpile of an isolationist group, then hijack the USS Spartan from its dry dock in Saturn and
14:46attempt to bring the war to the Romulans. This would be the opening moves of the much-talked-about
14:51Earth-Romulan War, during which the two sides did not see each other face to face. The war was fought
14:56entirely in ships, and a subsequent Neutral Zone treaty was negotiated over subspace transmission.
15:02In one final detail, Tiberius Chase would be sending letters to Penelope Gardner, the
15:06daughter of Admiral Gardner, who is a schoolteacher in Iowa, where a certain Captain was born.
15:12While the 2009 reboot of the franchise seemed like a better bet, the franchise lost a lot
15:17by not following through with this project. But given how much of Star Trek there is, we,
15:21its faithful fans, must always remember that there were so many more ideas out there.
15:26Many would have sucked, but so many would have been just awesome. In theory, out there in an
15:31alternate timeline, they all got made for our viewing pleasure. Just think on that one.
15:35And that concludes our list. If you can think of any other examples, then do let us know in
15:40the comments below, and while you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe and tap that
15:43notification bell. Also, head over to Twitter and follow us there, and I can be found across various
15:48social medias just by searching Ellie Littlechild. I've been Ellie with Trek Culture. I hope you
15:52have a wonderful day, and remember to boldly go where no one has gone before.
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