3 Star Trek episodes that could be the next movie

It's been two years since J.J. Abrams rebooted Star Trek in a remarkably action-packed parallel universe, and we're still waiting for details about the expected sequel. I think one of the reasons it's taking so long is the difficulty of putting together a workable story. They have to distill everything that worked in the last movie, but they can't make it too similar or people will get bored. Once again they face the task of keeping the soul of Star Trek alive in the strong body of modern cinema.

It occurs to me, then, that they could probably make a great story by fleshing out a skeleton established by one of the hundreds of beloved episodes. Recycling an old story might sound like a dangerous pitfall for stumped writers, but it's actually worked very well for Star Trek in the past. Remember the Next Generation episode "I, Borg?" The crew found a Borg drone whose link to the collective consciousness had been severed. He started off hostile, but eventually warmed up to his individuality and to the friends who helped him achieve it. Voyager used exactly the same idea, just implemented on a larger scale. It became the character ark of Seven of Nine, one of Voyager's most beloved characters.

And then there was "One," the Voyager episode in which the ship was passing through a region of space that would kill you unless you were unconscious. Only Seven was immune to the effect, so she kept the ship running while everyone else was in a medically-induced coma. The loneliness was overwhelming, and she began to hallucinate. Just a few years later, Enterprise did an episode called "Doctor's Orders" with a nearly identical story, just slightly refined to make a more interesting psychological thriller.

So I began to wonder which old stories might look good in the new universe. Here's what I came up with:

This was an interesting Next Gen story involving Romulans, who the 2009 movie established as a villain race in the public consciousness. "The Pegasus" tells the story of the Enterprise's mission to retrieve or destroy an abandoned federation starship equipped with the failed prototype of a cloaking device. It's essential that the ship not fall into Romulan hands, because such a cloaking device is outlawed by the ridiculously unfair Treaty of Algeron. If the Romulans find it before we do, there will be war.

I think this story would work in the rebooted universe because it follows up the events of the last movie very well. First of all, the Treaty of Algeron was signed about a century before the events of the movie, which means it exists in both universes. But more to the point, the destruction of Vulcan by a Romulan ship is going to cause some serious tension between the Federation and the Romulan Star Empire. Even though Nero explained that he was a free agent, independent of the Empire, people are still going to say "Romulans are Romulans." People might even suggest that the Narada's attacks constitute acts of war, nullifying the treaty and allowing the Federation to revive their old secret cloak project, which the Enterprise will be sent to recover.

The other fun thing about this story is Terry O'Quinn. In "The Pegasus" he played Admiral Erik Pressman, who commanded the old ship that tested the Federation cloaking device, and boarded the Enterprise to lead the search for it. O'Quinn is now better known for his portrayal of John Locke on Lost. That means someone at Bad Robot still has his phone number. He couldn't play the same character because "The Pegasus" is set about a century after the movie, but maybe he could play his character's grandfather. (There's precedent for that, too. Michael Dorn played Worf's grandfather in The Undiscovered Country.) In fact, that almost makes sense. Suppose Erik Pressman's grandfather, Edwin Pressman, advocated the cloaking device project back in those pre-TOS days. In the main universe he was ignored, and lived just long enough to see his grandson achieve his goal. But in the new universe, after the Kelvin was destroyed by Romulans, maybe someone gave old Edwin a chance to make his case.

The best part, of course, would be when Kirk tells Pressman, "You can't just violate interstellar peace treaties because you hate Romulans!" and Pressman answes, "Don't tell me what I can't do!"

This was the episode that showed us Romulans for the first time. A lone Romulan ship, armed with a cloaking device and a powerful plasma weapon, was destroying Federation outposts, one after another. The Enterprise swooped in to investigate and save the day.

This story translates well into the new series because, like the above, it showcases the political fallout of the events of the last movie. Maybe the Federation was very understanding with respect to the whole Nero thing, but the paranoid Romulans suspect that we're just biding our time, rebuilding out fleet in preparation for an attack, so they send that ship to destroy our outposts as a preemptive strike.

This story really educates the viewer about Romulans in general. Since it focuses on actual representatives of the Empire (rather than half-crazy miners just out for revenge), we can see how calculating and sinister they really are. Captain Picard famously observed that "it's always a game of chess with them," and that didn't really show in the 2009 Romulans.

And then there's that one little thing that would make this story so infinitely perfect. At the end of "Balance of Terror," when the Romulans had been beaten and their ship was about to blow up, Kirk and the Romulan Commander (played by Mark Lenard, later known for Sarek) have a touching conversation over subspace. Kirk offers to beam the Romulans to the Enterprise, saving them from their ship's imminent destruction, and the Romulan declines, refusing to abandon his ship. "It is not our way," he says. "I regret that we meet in this way. You an I are of a kind. In a different reality, I could have called you friend."

How epic would it be if the Abramsverse really was that reality? Just imagine: Kirk and the Romulan ship spend the movie in their chesslike dogfight, an endless battle wits, with taunting and baiting and deceiving galore. And then, at the end, Kirk somehow manages to convince the Romulan Commander that the Federation just wants peace. They were both hardened warriors when they met in the original timeline, but here they're idealistic youths, open-minded and ready to think outside the box of war. They settle their differences and warp into the neutral zone to stop the impending war. The Romulan fleet is on one side and the Federation fleet on the other, and then two battle-scarred warships appear in the middle and cry out for peace over subspace.

This is a classic Next Generation two-parter, especially memorable for the appearance of Spock. And this was back when there was only one Spock. Nimoy's Spock. When "Balance of Terror" introduced the Romulans, the Federation had been dealing with them over the phone for a hundred years, so everyone was quite shocked to discover that they were apparently an offshoot of Vulcans. In "Unification," Spock has gone to Romulus to stir up a reunification movement, believing that a recombining the two sundered cultures will benefit both of them, as well as furthering the agenda of galactic peace.

Now, this wouldn't be the plot of a movie so much as a subplot. Especially if Leonard Nimoy is willing to make another movie. (I know it's a long shot, but let's just pretend.) Vulcans are an endangered species, and Spock Prime is helping his people settle on some colony world. This is the Spock who's carrying around memories of the original timeline, in which Romulus was destroyed before his reunification movement could really get going. I bet he's thinking that reunification is more important now than ever, if only because there aren't enough Vulcans left for a viable gene pool.

This probably wouldn't be the main plot of the movie, but it would make a really interesting subplot in the background. Imagine if the "Balance of Terror" ship decides that one of the outposts it attacks will be the Vulcan colony? In fact, what if the Romulan government specifically targets the Vulcans because Romulans want a unique genetic and cultural identity? Maybe they consider themselves a shadow, a of copy of Vulcans, and they need to destroy the original to secure their place in the universe. Then it becomes all about the Romulan mind. Watch in awe as Ambassador Spock psychoanalyzes their entire species, and convinces them that reunification is the right path.

Now that's closure!