lyb42

Maybe not, but if I ever want to write stories about it, it's got to be worked out. Perhaps I should start a new thread, though, just for the E5C4P3; so I don't keep tying this one up...

Chris

I think it fits here well enough for the time being.

Writing fan fiction or something about how you'd go about building it?

lyb42

Goes back to a post I made some time ago: Star Trek needs a sit-com. I think it's also time for a Trek series with protagonists who are not in Starfleet.

crazy_diamond

that would be good

Chris

Something based on a planet?

lyb42

Not exactly. Do you remember our conversation about "Griswolds/Huxtables in Space"? Picture a nice family in Harlowton, MT, in the year 2385 (give or take). Dad's kind of a tinkerer who's been restoring an old, broken-down Kombi class he found in someone's barn so he can take his family on a road-trip vacation to someplace other than Mt. Rushmore. He and his wife are both ex-Starfleet, so they know what they're doing in space (or they used to--hilarity ensues). Their mid- to late-teen-aged daughter is dating a boy who, though they don't approve of him, gets to come along for reasons I have not yet decided upon. Their 12-year-old-ish son is...incomplete. All I really know about the boy is that I don't want the Charles Wallace boy-genius cliché. There might be another kid in the family, but I haven't gotten that far.

Chris

Sounds interesting. Are you familiar with the old series Lost in Space?

'cuz otherwise the daughter would threaten to stay at home with grandparents?

lyb42

I'm more familiar with the late '90s movie with Matt LeBlanc and (wasn't it Gary Oldman?). I never did watch the series, and the movie was so much video shelf filler. The boy in that story, though, is what I mean by the Charles-Wallace-Genius cliché that I want to avoid.

That could work, especially if said grandparents were likely to take her side. After all, they're not 100% sold on the Dad's restoration work and aren't thrilled about anyone going on the trip... I had thought about the boyfriend being Klingon, but I'd rather use a different species-of-which-Dad-won't-approve.

Chris

I never saw the movie and only vaguely remember the tv series.

I take it that you're not a big Wesley Crusher fan.

Well, it's one thing to rely on a questionably restored jalopy around town. Taking it across the universe requires a whole other level of reliability.

Your dad figure sounds like my hubby. He's a real tinkerer, can usually successfully fix pretty much anything. Except computers.

lyb42

"Can fix anything but a computer" would be an awesome handicap for the Dad I also had the thought: what if the boyfriend was a reclaimed Borg? Named Victor....

Chris

A Victor Borge reference?

lyb42

Absolutely Though, I wouldn't want to beat folks over the head with the reference, so it would be unlikely to go beyond the character's name.

My wife suggested, yesterday, that the kid brother could have Asperger's Syndrome, a la Sheldon Cooper as a way around the boy-genius cliche. I'm still not sure.

Chris

hmm ... as long as it's portrayed accurately.

Feel free to come and join us on the Off Topic thread if you'd like.

Chris

lyb42

Hmmm... I think I know what to get my wife for Christmas