Like what? Lolcats? Stories without finding new life an be good, but you need interaction at some level and that means lifeforms. Needs to be a rich array of plots, and that's going to include new aliens. One of TNG's finest episodes, Darmok, was a race we'd not seen before and beat any number of ones featuring known aliens.
Okay, to touch on a few points from the OP: Agreed on all except the Andorians. Enterprise did a good job of tantalizing, but I don't think they've been as explored as a species as the others have. The Bajorians and Cardassians are as fleshed out as they need to be. I supposed if the series you propose took place some time after Nemesis, the crew could possibly drop a few lines of exposition as to how they are doing post-Federation acceptance (and how Cardassia handled getting their asses handed to them), but they need not be the focus of a long-term SL Double for the Klingon Empire. That said: How do you figure that? Aside from practical story-telling purposes, those folks that created the race still have to get paid. This is the reason that TPTB created the characters of T'Pol and Tom Paris instead of going with T'Pau form Amok Time and Nick Whatshisface from that one TNG episode, respectfully. The writer of "Q Who" also receives a royalty check for every use or mention of the Borg as well, if I'm not mistaken. I had a long post for this initially, but then I realize that in the age of the Internet and Trek fans as a whole being a bit ahead of the curve, Paramount could kind of "Arrested Development" this and have it go directly to online outlets. Solves the issue that the latter two shows had about network interference, and one wouldn't have to be beholden to sponsors or pandering to the lowest common denominator to tell the stories that they, as the creative staff, wish to do. After all, this is the same lot of fans that were paying nearly 200 bucks a season for the original DVD sets, which even for the early to mid 2000's was about four times what most other sets were going for. But even without that, TV's changed a lot in ten years. Internet streaming and DVR recordings alike are taken into account now, and most shows today are more serialized than they used to be, which is why DS9 has found itself in more favor now than twenty years ago. The next series has the potential to be even stronger than DS9 for that reason. Overall, I think these ideas aren't half bad. And speaking of: Geez, dude. You're getting way too obvious now.
From Forbin's, I would love to see the post-Dominion War Gamma Quadrant one. Would the Federation and its allies' victory in the Alpha Quadrant, combined with the Founders' illness, change the power structure of the Gamma Quadrant? Would the Founders be able to hold onto their territory? If their hold weakened, would the Vorta and Jem'Hadar turn on each other? Who would try to take advantage of any resulting vacuum?
Re: the royalties -- I know it applies to characters, but to races too? I can't find anything definitive on that.
You mean they discover Wordforge? Shit, there goes your future political career! (Dayton for prez, 2032!)
Here's an idea: Dayton: shut the fuck up about Star Trek. For about 20 years. Don't say shit about Star Trek for two decades.
About 20 mins to half an hour I'd say, assuming you change at Bank. Probably best to whack on an extra five minutes to account for any queues, packed trains or escalator shut downs. Should be fine though. As ever, always check for line delays, but then you know that already.
So the crux is, mix Star Trek with Battlestar Galactica w/ Law and Order casting, and Stargate plot development? I'm with you on the metaphysical Galactica angle, but changing up a Star Trek cast??? Stargate had no real plot development after season 7; it just jumped all over the place and people stopped watching. Dropping the Alphabet letter of Enterprise? No, I don't like those ideas.
I'm down with dropping the alphabet letter registry suffix for Enterprise. Fuck's sake, who would have bought the Enterprise NX-01-H? Or, in the real world, the Enterprise, CVN-65-B? If we're not sticking with the "frontier exploration" idea, let's let Kirk's corpse fuckin' rest, arready.
Have a series/episodes based on Risa. Star Trek crossed with Las Vegas. Have a series/episodes that follow a band of Orion pirates.
Screw all that political bullshit, just explore the galaxy! Find strange new worlds! Explore how mankind reacts to new ideas, civilizations and technology, and how they affect mankind. Ya know, science fiction?
My intention is to have Wordforge removed from the internet in time for my Presidential run. That failing, even with some moderate campaign funds from the Koch Brothers, I should be able to pay people not to mention anything about me. And if that fails, there are always other legitimate options.
Actually, the new Trek series would work better if every episode featured liberal God like aliens that cause the crew to time travel in nearly every episode. The new Enterprise would be powerful as fuck, but it would get blown apart by a garbage scow in the first episode (while trying to perform a starship separation) That's the riveting shit that will keep viewers watching. The main character would be a mixed race alien who is part Human, part Klingon, part Romulan, and part Cardassian. Since his ship gets blown up in the first episode, he doesn't get to go anywhere. He stays on Earth pretty much every episode. He has a pet dog who was once assimilated by the Borg. His dog wears a catsuit. Most episodes are very humorous. There would be one space battle per season, but it would consist of reused footage from Star Trek 6 and DS9.
23) No "disease of the week" episodes. Now, I can tolerate episodes about a disease striking the crew, but not a "disease of the week". By that I mean a disease that strikes in the first 5 minutes of an episodes, threatens most everyone's lives for 30 minutes and then is cured and forgotten in the last five minutes. If you're going to have a story about a disease, make it have some real impact. Imagine having the entire ship chain of command having to be quarantined or too weak to do their duties for two or three episodes. Or a disease that left one or two main characters permanently altered physically in some way. 24) No more "reset buttons". If it happens it happens. Such as in "Star Trek: Vanguard". Arguably the best Star Trek book series ever. The reset button is a huge encouragement for writers to get lazy and write what amounts to "false drama" by causing major changes (deaths of characters for example) and then using a reset McGuffin to avoid those very changes at the end. 25) No more "silly episodes". Like "Little Green Men" and "One Little Ship" (ironic how a good series like DS9 seemed to have a good share of "silly episodes" When an episode actually as ONE OF THE CHARACTERS in the episode laughing out loud at it's primary plot (as Kira did in "One Little Ship") then you know it's too silly for airing.
I would like to see a Tribble starship captain who frequently butts heads with his Horta first officer. Over the course of many seasons they would eventually become comrades in arms.
I can see it now: The captain being fired out of the Horta's cannon. After the battle, the Horta recollects the battle over drinks at Quark's with the captain's grandchil-- uh, great-grandchildren. Fucking Tribbles.
The theme song would be R.E.M.'s "Man on the Moon." The main character would be a Muslim who stops the ship 6 times a day, rights it, and prays to Mecca 2.0. The ship is the Enterprise XXX, and the series takes place a mere 50 years after the events of Nemesis. In the interim there were several wars - almost weekly - resulting in the destruction of almost 75 USS Enterprise's - hence its designation. No one would be allowed to marry in this future but urges are what they are, so people have sex, have babies, and form "families." God is a character - though he's played for laughs. He was discovered a few wars ago residing on Risa. He's pretty old and completely impotent - as evidenced by his inability to get anything right. The ships engineer is actually an alien with split personality: One a female nymphomaniac, the other a steroid induced muscle man with a penchant for slapping female subordinates around. Really, the alien got the job because of the female half.
26) Avoid deux ex machinas or technological cure alls. In modern Star Trek it was often with the deflector dish or some other "field emitter device". I fear in future Star Trek it will be nanobots. Microscopic robots too small to be seen by the human eye are a near perfect technological cure all and I fear them being used to dig writers out of plot holes.
23) No strong feelings either way on that 24) Voyager used up the reset quota for the next five series, IMHO. But that said, some of Trek's more memorable episodes haved used that to their advantage, such as Cause and Effect, Timeless and Enterprise's Twilight. But if it needs to be used, make it count for something. 25) Like anything else, I see that as a case to case thing. The examples you quoted are hardly entirely deficient in entertainment value...hell, the latter took paintaking detail in remembering that while the characters shrunk in size, the air outside the ship didn't. Personally I never minded the silly episodes of DS9, with two exceptions, because somehow the writing team was talented enough to pull them off. The other series....not so much. But all that said, I wouldn't mind having a humerous subplot to some episodes. It need not be the focus of a whole episode, but no show can get away with having NO humor at all.