no transporters - they just make no sense, and ruin perfectly good stories, remove threat.
site-to-site replication might exist, beaming the things energy and 'blueprint',
but this could easily act as a weapon, given the energy content of matter
gay and trans people exist!
no holodeck - however a matrix-like neural simulator exists, but is controversial
tactile button-based controls for priority posts
replicators exist, but require supplies of raw materials
many people prefer to cook their own food, replicating the ingredients instead
forcefields are limited (only flat planes, no shaped fields), and have not replaced airlocks.
orbital mechanics are respected, as are the newtonian laws of motion
planetary exploration is carried out by specially-trained away-teams (rather than bridge crew),
launched in drop-ships that have to actually deorbit & undergo re-entry,
not just fly downwards from the presumably magically static-floating ship
articial gravity exists as a passive, solid-state technology: that is, it works even when unpowered.
Major command decisions should require the consensus of at least 2 of the 3 senior officers.
In fact, the command structure should be less militaristic in general.
Quick decision-making still goes to the senior officer.
Show the need for different shifts more: there are multiple people to fill every role on the ship, usually 3 or more.
The UFP's success is due to fusing the pursuit of scientific knowledge with compassion for fellow people.
The Federation is by definition a post-scarcity civilisation; people don't NEED to work, but it is encouraged that everyone contributes to society in a way that pleases them, and/or according to their ability.
People show a great deal more goodwill and willingness to help others than in the West now.
Having large crews man starships has implications that are not positive; it implies that the societty has (and must have) 'little people'; people of little achievement (implied to be of little worth, 'stepped on') who must do relatively menial or undesirable jobs. Gene Roddenberry's original goal was to have technology remove the NEED for people to 'empty the bins', as it were (or scrub the plasma manifolds etc). A better setting would be a much smaller crew, the bulk of which consitute the central cast. No nameless extras.
due to logistical constraints, starships are usually only single- or dual-species environments, so that their atmospheres, temperatures, humidities, aromas etc can be tailored to the comfort of their crew.
Dual-species ships have the advantage of also acting as long-term exchange programs, allowing members of each species to get to know each other by working alongside each other a real-world environment, rather than in the phony politeness of ambassadorial missions.
Mixed-species crews, while sometimes facing major logistical problems (materials which have desirable mechanical properties in all temperature ranges its species are comfortable in?) , are also better able to handle challenges which would otherwise overwhelm members of a particular species. In the same way the Voyager's doctor (and TNG's Data) act as non-biological backups when everything goes wrong, one species would not be vulnerable to the same things as the other.
What if there were other multi-species civilisations, with high-minded goals not dissimilar to the Federation itself; yet they and the Federation have tense relations (possibly due to a disagreement on some obscure political principles, a la the tendency of the Left to schism)?
The idea being, to not have simple straw-man enemies that it's obvious we're supposed to dislike.
'Enemies' should have a viewpoint that is understandable (or at least partially) yet misguided,
or for which there are people out there today who believe the same.
- use fewer-to-no examples of an american proxy/metaphor -- no big, heavily-armed military organisation with thinly-veiled colonial tendencies
- no "it's for your own good" and gunboat diplomacy
- replicators can assemble relatively simple shapes from existing materials -- but they can't perform alchemy; they need the right raw materials, as elemental fusion is prohibitively costly of energy, and probably wasteful This means there's still a need for supply of raw materials, both onboard starships and as societal resources
Warp drive exists because it has to, for the premise of an intersolar civilisation to work at all.
It's a riff on the alcubierre drive theory, or whatever seems plausible and fashionable in physics now.
the UFP operates as an 'Asynchronous Society': because of the time dilation effects of warp drive (which may be less drastic than in real life, but still present to some extent), solar systems act isolated pockets of local time.
Going on a far intersolar mission means 50 or more years will have passed back home; this is why starship crew bring their family along!
Artifical life has been banned, after a war for survival which nearly wiped out all biological life
-- yes, I'm copying Dune's Butlerian Jihad somewhat
computers and large computing machines are allowed, but neural nets are forbidden,
and small electronics are allowed on a case-by-case basis
along with this, electronic body modification is an extreme taboo(maybe?)
- Seatbelts. Much cheaper than inertial dampeners, and saves on cheesy 'bump' acting
- People have to finish announcing their intended recipient before a comm badge connects them to that recipient
- Stop referring to Starfleet as "Humans", or acting like everyone in starfleet knows all about Earth history
- No more tokenboobs catsuit & pushup bra crewmembers; just put the same characters in a normal uniform!
- People don't all know how to use all computers & interfaces
- Other species may have multiple cultures: pacifist klingons, emotional vulcans...
- there aren't just energy weapons & shields -- sometimes kinetic weapons work better.
- Use real units and materials where possible -- no gigaquads, instead gigabytes; no isorems but rather millisieverts.
- Equally, stop inventing a new form of radiation every week as a throwaway plot-point
- No wave or beam can penetrate a planet, without also destroying that planet
- Heat dissipation and deceleration are still challenges
- R-squared law must still be respected -- for all things, like explosions, sounds, point-sources
- parabolic dishes should also come into play at least as much as they already do -- ie the Deflector Dish
- There are crazy, enterprise-like starship designs, and then there are those suitable for atmospheric travel.
- A ship with big sticky-out nacelles on thin pylons will always suffer unnecessary structural stresses when turning at speed;
- structural forcefields would help, but only with enough power to run them.
More sensible designs should always win out
- structural forcefields would help, but only with enough power to run them.
- Individuals are not suddenly and irrevocably dead when a machine makes a persistent whining noise
- Also stop using the 80s medical drama metaphor of defibrillator usage
- i hate it when they say "clear!" and the person on the bed has to lurch slightly
- also hate the whine, and someone is instantly, irrevocably dead
- your heart can stop for up to ~15 minutes, and you can still be revived
manipulation of gravity
highly efficient reaction drives (needing far less fuel than anything today)
warp drive (an extension of the gravitational technology)
from an alternate universe where the USSR only collapsed at the same time as the uSA, following a nuclear exchange.
The new government of Earth inherits equally from both powers
production-wise, it's more like a soap-opera than a finite-length seasonal show. Cast members come and go gradually over the years, better mimicking the nature of a rotating crew.
there are no universal translators. Because of this, the purportedly scientific nature of the UFP is better backed up by the fact that a significant portion of the fleet is dedicated to long-term, ongoing amabassadorial/anthropological work: round-table, good-faith talks with willing cultures, collaborating with them to figure out a way to communicate.
Think Picard's Darmok and Jalad at Tenagra, but more planned and indoors.
This is another possible setting for episodes: the ship visiting cultures in the process of initiating diplomacy with the fedeation.
Their post-scarcity society still highly values linguistic information, and may trade with other more familiar cultures (with which they already have established diplomacy), in order to give this communciations development a boost.
The lack of a universal translator is ameliorated by a UNIVERSAL AUXILIARY LANGUAGE: Tuki Nuwa!
what if the UFP was formed AFTER humanity colonised other worlds, and they're getting 'back out there' into space to meet those lost human cultures?
maybe this is a society formed after an event by the ANCIENT TECH HUMANS who brought about a change in the laws of Physics, which stopped electricity from working?!
(insert age of gritty gruesome post-apocalyptic here)
that would explain why no former colony planets came to visit fallen earth in their intact uncollapsed spaceships
what if in this series, the Primary Human Civilisation is actually the aggressor?
What if we're the baddies??