Summary

• Writer Ronald D. Moore reveals a cut scene in Star Trek: TNG's "Relics" that would have addressed the fate of Scotty's Enterprise crew.
• Scotty's meeting with Captain Picard and the crew was a well-received union of two generations of Star Trek.
• Scotty's scene with Counselor Troi was cut because it would have cluttered the episode with direct references to other characters' fates.

Scotty (James Doohan) guest starred in a classic episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation and writer Ronald D. Moore explains a cut scene that would have referenced the fates of the crew of the USS Enterprise from Star Trek: The Original Series. Star Trek: TNG season 6, episode 4, "Relics," brought Montgomery Scott, the famed Chief Engineer of Captain James T. Kirk's (William Shatner) Starship Enterprise to the 24th century. Scotty meeting Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and the crew of the USS Enterprise-D was a well-received union of two generations of Star Trek that came a year after Ambassador Spock's (Leonard Nimoy) own TNG season 5 appearance.

In the Star Trek oral history "The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years" by Mark J. Altman and Edward Gross, the writer of Star Trek: The Next Generation's "Relics," Ronald D. Moore, says that a scene between Scotty and Counselor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis) was left out of the episode. Troi and Scotty's moment would have addressed what happened to Scotty's Enterprise crew. Moore gives the reasons why the scene was cut, and that, had the moment been included, Scotty wouldn't want to know what became of Kirk, Spock, and their friends. Read Moore's quote below:

Ronald D. Moore: Originally, Troi was going to ask Scotty if he wanted to know what happened to his colleagues aboard the Enterprise. There was a line in a scene that got cut out between Troi and Scotty where she said, “Would you like to know what happened to all your friends and family,” and he said, “No, I’m not ready to hear that.” That was the closest allusion we were going to make. My thought is it would clutter it up a little bit to make direct references, since once you bring up Bones and say that Mr. Spock is James Bond now and underground on Romulus, you have to talk about everybody else, and we didn’t want to say what happened to everybody else because we didn’t want to lock ourselves into it.

James Doohan also spoke about how well he was treated on the set of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Read his quote below:

James Doohan: It was terribly easy to do, because they treated me like a king, and if they had been Japanese, they’d have been bowing all over the place. It was just a marvelous experience, and everybody treated me so well.

What Happened To Star Trek: The Original Series' Crew

Kirk's Enterprise crew had different endings.

At the time Scotty appeared in Star Trek: The Next Generation season 6, only two other Star Trek: The Original Series characters were seen in the 24th century: Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy (DeForest Kelley), who cameoed in TNG's premiere, "Encounter at Farpoint," and Ambassador Spock in TNG season 5's "Unification" two-parter. In 1994, Star Trek Generations, which included Scotty and Pavel Chekov (Walter Koenig) in a 23rd-century-set prologue, killed off Captain Kirk. J.J. Abrams' Star Trek 2009 then revealed Spock time traveled and crossed universes into the alternate 23rd century Kelvin Timeline. Sadly, Spock never returned from the parallel reality, and the Vulcan hero died in the Kelvin Timeline, as seen in 2016's Star Trek Beyond.

The Star Trek franchise hasn't canonically revealed what happened to Captain Hikaru Sulu (George Takei), Nyota Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), and Chekov after the 23rd century. season 3's ending featured a voice cameo by Walter Koenig as Federation President Anton Chekov, who is implied to be Pavel's 25th-century son or grandson. Star Trek also hasn't said what became of Scotty after he left the USS Enterprise-D in a shuttle at the end of Star Trek: The Next Generation's "Relics" or if he eventually learned what became of his friends from the Enterprise NCC-1701 "no bloody A, B, C, or D."

Star Trek: The Next Generation is available to stream on Paramount+.

Source: The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years: From The Next Generation to J. J. Abrams: The Complete, Uncensored, and Unauthorized Oral History of Star Trek by Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross