I am fond of chess... not good at it, but fond of it. My current game project is loosely based on chess. You could say it's a creative interpretation of chess, although its connections to the traditional game are largely visual and not much else.
I think there are lots of ways to add to or work with the theme of chess, you already mentioned an interest in a Star Trek theme. There are lots of options here, you could use space vessels as pieces - pawns could be small escape pods, and the king/queen could be larger vessels. Or you could use characters from the series as pieces. You could add extra rules, like "beaming up" which allows pieces to teleport every so often, or laser rifles which let pieces attack from range. Maybe every few turns an asteroid strikes a random tile on the board and any pieces on that tile are destroyed. You would have to design and balance around any new rules of course!
If you're curious about my game, you're welcome to take a look at my development blog,
http://breadman3d.tumblr.com/I think you have a great starting point, start sketching out some ideas! I bet some other Playmakers on the forums here would love to help as well.
