Over the years, Star Trek has ventured deep into the future, showing audiences wonderful imagined futures filled with advanced technology and a plethora of diverse and interesting alien races. When Roddenberry first began his adventure and created The Original Series, he had no idea what his science fiction brain child could accomplish, even influencing the development of modern day technology. Since its creation in the late 1960s, much of the futuristic timeline has been filled out. It has, through various TV shows and movies, showcased what happens between the year 2151 (explored through the prequel series Enterprise) and 2399, with the recently released Picard season 2. Discovery even leapt hundreds of years into the future to show us the beginning of the 32nd century.
Despite the extensive timeline exploration, there are some fairly prominent gaps yet to be explored by a Star Trek project, something that could potentially be explored by one of the various secret projects in development by Paramount. So what are some of these unexplored pieces of the timeline?
The 23rd century has been largely covered through Star Trek: Discovery and The Original Series show and films, as well as the newest addition to the franchise, Strange New Worlds. This century has various small gaps along the way, but it’s only after the year 2293 that things start to get a little vague. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country was set in this year, but after this event nothing is really properly explored until the year 2364, when the fan-favorite show The Next Generation began with the memorable episode “Encounter at Farpoint.” That’s a 71-year gap, and there's little information about exactly what happened during this time.
What is most exacting about this timeframe is what it might mean for future Star Trek projects. While nothing was specifically explored on screen about these years, audiences are made aware of some pivotal events. Most memorably, one event was fairly unexplored during the transition between The Original Series and The Next Generation: the Federation and Klingon war ended. The Klingons had always been the brutish villains of The Original Series, so to bring them center stage through the tragic eyes of Worf was a wonderful piece of storytelling whiplash. The alien race turned from moral enemies to surprisingly likable, all while never changing their characteristics, but rather through examining them more closely.
The event that provided the catalyst for the piece was the heroic actions taken by Captain Rachel Garrett, whose story was told in just one episode from The Next Generation entitled “Yesterday's Enterprise.” She captained the Enterprise-C and sacrificed herself and the ship to protect a Klingon settlement, despite the ongoing conflict between the two races. The Klingons respected her bravery, and a whole new tentative era of peace began. While this was briefly documented, there is much more to Garrett’s story yet to be told, and the potential adventures the Enterprise-C embarked on.
Another significant event took place between the years 2333 to 2355, where the USS Stargazer was captained by the one and only Captain Picard. Little is officially known, at least in terms of official canon, about this time period, or the young shenanigans Jean Luc got himself into. Before he was captain, it’s suggested he rose through the ranks aboard the Stargazer, serving previously on before as the ship's flight controller. Looking for more information, it’s possible to turn to non-official Star Trek novels for ideas, most notably the book Vulcan’s Heart, where it’s suggested the previous captain for the ship in 2329 was captain Anton Manning.
This time period would provide a great story to tell, with the potential of a young Picard as a young man almost reminiscent of Wesley Crusher. While nothing specific is known about these years, that’s both daunting and exciting for any storyteller, giving them the ability to write pretty much whatever they want as long as the show can wind its way, however loosely, to the start of The Next Generation. If Paramount is going to create yet another prequel show, or perhaps “midquel,” this period of time would be perfect. Setting it aboard the Stargazer would give the audience an insight as to what happened between the Kirk era and the Picard era, and what made Jean Luc the surprisingly heartfelt man he is during The Next Generation. It would also give a great narrative grounding to tell the story and show the transition of Klingon and Federation negotiation and eventually peace, a process often talked about yet never fully explored within the Franchise.
There is of course an endless amount of time that comes after Picard, some of it in the very distant future. Audiences see a glimpse of the year 2404 (only 5 years after the events of Picard) in the fan not-so-favorite series Voyager episode “Endgame,” but Discovery showed a totally uncharted future, all the way to the 3100’s. There is then an episode of Star Trek: Short Treks that shows what is potentially the year 3200 (it could easily have been more), but these both are so wildly far off and self-contained within their own storylines that it’s impossible to see much of what the world looks like in this distant future. There is a plethora for Paramount to latch onto here, a vast amount of fairly unwritten time that could be filled by new and exciting stories. While the USS Stargazer would make a great show heavily based in existing Star Trek history and lore, with countless chances to hark back and reference much loved chapters and events, it is within this vast time that Picard fans believe will be where Paramount taps into next, boldly going where no one has gone before.