So basically, put more focus on the Federation's political situation than on sci-fi novelty or technological futurism? Or would Discovery's plot so far be fine if they just changed the dates and replaced the Klingons with, say, the Cardassians or Jem'Hadar?
Neither (or in a way both). A couple of examples that COULD be interesting (with a small or big timeline jump - pick your flavour depending on whats already canon by past series):
- What are the XXX doing now? (insert your favorite alien former (still?) "enemy" race (i.e. Borg, Jem'Hadar/Dominion, Breen, Species 8472)
- Whats the fallout (if any) of the Dominion War in Federation space (social, political, etc... - timeline jump dependent)?
- What new races/dangers/tech (spore drive anyone?) exist?
- Star Trek split the Milky Way in 4 quadrants. Is nothing more to discover about it? Isnt there anything else beyond?
- Civil War? (not serious but... - only took our own FedCom Civil war idea)
- New danger from beyond the galaxy?
- Explore neighbour galaxy with newly invented spore drive?
- Did past time jumps made by some characters payed off on the long run? (thinking of Janeway in the last VOY episode for example if someone cares about that of course)
- Search for Kirk? (im joking)
Some random general thoughts. If you want I could expand on those or try to come up with more but I guess you get the idea. Im also lazy but at least I dont have to earn my income writing Star Trek episodes.
Damn it. I bet that if we here in this topic join our ideas we can come up with a couple of cool concepts for a Star Trek series that doesnt suck big time and doesnt do past mistakes and doesnt redo canon as we know it.
All can boil down to what style one aims when doing a Star Trek series (storywise I mean).