Starting next week, Star Trek is coming back in a big way, with not just the new movie Star Trek Beyond hitting theaters but also a large San Diego Comic-Con presence planned for the franchise as it celebrates its 50th anniversary. And then of course there’s also the brand new TV series that’s heading to CBS’ All Access streaming service at the start of 2017, to be led by Hannibal’s writer-producer Bryan Fuller. In fact, Fuller will be moderating a “Star Trek: Celebrating 50 Years” panel at SDCC which may or may not offer up some tidbits of information about the new show.

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The Captain Pike Years

Captain Pike (Jeffrey Hunter) in the first Star Trek pilot, "The Cage"

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100 Years After Next Generation

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Old Picard is old.

So far, we know almost nothing about Fuller’s program other than the fact that it will be the seventh series set in Gene Roddenberry’s universe, and the first to air since Enterprise ended over a decade ago in 2005. As for premise, story or characters, basically the only thing that’s certain is that it will be set… somewhere in outer space.Considering how deep the world of Star Trek runs, the new series could take place virtually anywhere… or any-when. Add to that the rumor that the show might go the seasonal anthology route ala American Horror Story, and the possibilities become even more intriguing. So let’s run through some of the settings and time periods that we’d like to see the new Trek explore. Engage! (Had to say it -- sorry.)Captain Christopher Pike never could get a fair shake in Star Trek, no matter which universe he was in. The Jeffrey Hunter version from the Original Series’ first pilot wound up scarred and disabled, and could only find peace finally by living in a telepathic make-believe land granted to him by the Talosians. Meanwhile, the rebooted Kelvin timeline (or Abramsverse, or whatever you want to call it) version played by Bruce Greenwood was also gravely injured. Unlike his counterpart, however, he didn’t get a mind-trip consolation prize in the end but was instead killed by Star Trek Into Darkness’ version of Khan.And while Pike’s story has been filled in some in expanded media (like the Star Trek: Early Voyages comic), we’ve seen precious little of this original Enterprise captain or his crew onscreen. That crew, by the way, even featured a familiar face: an apparently more emotional Spock, though he wasn’t yet second-in-command. No, Pike’s exec officer was a woman known only as Number One (and played by Majel Barrett, the eventual wife of Trek creator Gene Roddenberry), and it was she who seemed to be the one in strict control of her emotions.Setting the new show, or even a season of the series, during Pike’s run opens up lots of possibilities in that it can explore a period of Trek history that hasn’t really been touched upon in the original timeline. It could also allow for the inclusion of another Enterprise captain; in the regular (non-rebooted) continuity, Pike was the ship’s second skipper after a guy named Robert April. The series could even start things off with Pike taking over from April, but with April still giving the marching orders from Starfleet Command. But perhaps most interestingly, since the audience knows that Pike is ultimately going to meet the tragic fate that he does, the show could carry with it a fatalistic sense of sacrifice for the greater good. As Pike himself said in the pilot, “I'm tired of deciding which mission is too risky and which isn't. And who's going on the landing party and who doesn't. And who lives. And who dies.” What was “too cerebral” some 50 years ago could make for must-binge TV today.Just as The Next Generation was set a century (give or take) after Captain Kirk’s original five-year mission, delving even further into the future of Star Trek could be… fascinating. And jumping ahead a hundred years after TNG would seem to make sense for this new era of Trek TV that we’re about to embark on.At this point we’d be at what, the Enterprise-H? Enterprise-I? Just as our collective worlds were rocked by a Klingon serving on the bridge of the Enterprise-D when TNG debuted, one can only imagine what the state of Starfleet and the United Federation of Planets might be in the year 2464. That’s assuming there even is a Federation anymore. I mean, let’s face it, the chances of the UFP facing some serious setbacks eventually are pretty likely considering the kind of threats that are constantly speeding through the Alpha Quadrant.So who knows, maybe you set the show in the future but you shake things up by going in the opposite direction that Roddenberry and his team did when they launched Captain Picard’s crew in 1987. That clean, smooth, potted-plants-in-the-hallway/shrink-on-the-bridge look could give way to a more rag-tag, survival first, science last mentality and design aesthetic. How do humankind and their fellow Federation races pull themselves back from the brink after a galactic tragedy? Certainly the times in which we live today seem far removed from the idealism of Picard’s world, alas, and such an approach could mirror our own struggles in the early 21st century.And setting the show 100 years in the future doesn’t preclude including familiar characters in cameos or guest shots. Just as a very old Doctor McCoy showed up in the first TNG episode (and several other classic characters eventually followed), Future Science could enable Captain (Admiral? Ambassador?) Picard to still be kicking around, for example. And what would old Jean-Luc be like in a world where everything he’s fought for his whole life is on the verge of being lost forever?