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* [[2-D Space]]: There's a z-axis, but missions rarely use it, and shields only care about the four directs, even if you are directly above or under your target.
* [[Abusive Precursors]]: {{spoiler|Remember how Picard thought that the Iconians had a bad rap due to their frightening teleportation technology? ''He was wrong. [[Manipulative Bastard|Very.]] [[Dark Is Evil|Very.]] '''[[Despotism Justifies the Means|Wrong.]]'''''}}
* [[Actor Existence Limbo]]: having quests without voiced dialog isn't weird, being an MMO and all, but one arc of time travel quests had cameos of the The Original Series's cast over different missions. This means McCoy and Scotty (who were played by now dead actors) are placed in missions without voice acting, but Spock (Leonard
* [[Adam Smith Hates Your Guts]]:
** I have to spend twenty credits to get a drink out of the replicator? What, did my crew bring a bag lunch and never use them? For that matter, I have to pay Starfleet to have better guns mounted on my ship?
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* [[Author's Saving Throw]]: Several missions put you in contact with NPCs interested in the Hobus supernova (the one that destroyed Romulus), all of which say things that boil down to "yeah, this doesn't make one damn bit of sense", which it didn't. An arc in the Lieutenant Commander levels reveals {{spoiler|the supernova and its FTL blast wave were the result of a weapon deployed by Romulan Admiral (then Praetor) Taris at the behest of alien "dark masters", AKA the Iconians.}} This is a take-off from the new movie's prequel-comic ''Countdown,'' and the game also acknowledges that Data is alive and commanded the Enterprise-E after Picard finally retired. Much to the chagrin of players who haven't read ''Countdown,'' this information is only displayed in tooltips, and they do not elaborate on ''how'' Data survived.
* [[Awesome but Impractical]]:
** The Federation Dreadnought Cruiser, aka the "Galaxy-X" or the refitted USS ''Enterprise''-D from "All Good Things," the last episode of ''[[Star Trek: The
*** This is actually a problem for any cannon-toting ship that has a wide turning circle, like the larger Klingon cruisers. The [[Mighty Glacier|Bortasqu']] has an elegantly simple solution, though - its Subspace Snare console ''teleports the enemy in front of its main guns''.
** "Boarding Party" a lower level Bridge officer space ability sends, you guessed it, a boarding party onto the target ship. However they don't do much and tend to get killed quite easily (even though your ship sends three shuttles at once) and beyond that the logic makes it even worse. What if you lose all three shuttle craft? About 30 crew members are "dead" yet you can do the whole thing again in about 90 seconds...
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* [[BFS]]: The Klingon Bat'leth sword, which can be used by both playable factions. They are also carried by ''[[Demonic Spiders|Klingon Swordmasters]]'', and it would be wise to take them down before they can get close enough to use it.
* [[Beware the Nice Ones]]: The Federation has gone to war. Enough said. Also ''might'' apply for the peaceful hunter-gatherer Aelasians - see the [[Superweapon Surprise]] entry below.
* [[Bifurcated Weapon]]: The Admiral level variant of the ''Galaxy''-class [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKNsvO5HieY#t=1m25s can separate into the Saucer and battle sections], just like in ''[[Star Trek: The
** Among the Tactical, Operations, and Science variety Odyssey Class ships, the Operations can do a saucer separation, and Tactical can launch an escort from the back. Sadly, while you can use both consoles on one ship, you can't use both abilities at the same time (splitting into three sections).
* [[Big Bad]]: STO actually has narrative arcs throughout its main-line story content that feature major antagonists and foils for your crew.
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** As mentioned above, Zefram Cochrane's shotgun from the Mirror Universe. It's essentially the weapon with which the Terran Empire was founded... most people probably have it sitting in their banks waiting for a Borg mission.
* [[Breather Episode]]: "Cold Comfort" in the Breen series. The episode features no combat whatsoever, and only several dialog puzzles.
* [[Broad Strokes]]: It does not exactly match up with the expanded universe novels, and given the official position that televised works take precedence over any other work as canon, then this game can only be considered canon by this metric.
* [[But Thou Must]]: No matter how much of a straight-laced, by-the-book, moral paragon you may imagine (and occasionally make the offered in-game choices) for your Captain to be, you will still end up working for Section 31 at some points of the storyline. (Or Imperial Intelligence if you're a Klingon, but they're more of a state fixture, so.) Not even being manipulated into doing it, just out-and-out accepting missions from them. It's at least somewhat implied that Section 31 isn't quite the batch of genocidal secrecy-psychos they used to be and are more of an "open secret" in Starfleet, but it's still a bit jarring for the game to just assume you'll go along with them with nothing more than some token grumbling.
* [[Call a Hit Point a Smeerp]]: You don't often see a Starfleet captain looting destroyed ships and tacking their disruptors and engine arrays onto their own ship. Of course, in the game you can equip all kinds of weapons you pick up as random drops. [[Unpleasable Fanbase|Cue fanbase complaining it's not realistic.]]
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* [[The Cavalry]]: In the ultimate battle for Deep Space 9 in "Boldly They Rode", despite preparing for the battle, the forces to recover Deep Space 9 ''still'' find themselves being pushed back. That is until Captain Shon {{spoiler|of the U.S.S. Enterprise-F {Odyssey Class}}} arrives to help turn the tide of the battle.
* [[Captain Ersatz]]: If you look around, you will find a lot of custom species characters of non-Trek alien species, recreated to varying degrees of accuracy.
* [[Casual Interstellar Travel]]: More so than the rest of ''[[Star Trek]]'', necessarily due to it being an MMO played in real-time. As there is no actual interactivity needed once you set your destination, you can walk away and do whatever while your ship flies unguided.
* [[The Chains of Commanding]]: The Duty Officer System. Nearly every assignment has a risk to your crew. This means that ''yes'', they can come back on death's door, and ''yes'', they ''can'' actually die. With this knowledge, do you send your crewmates on a risky recon mission? Do you send your medical staff to fight an outbreak of a deadly plague?
* [[Character Customization]]: Just in case we haven't hammered it home yet: '''[[Serial Escalation|Mother. Of. God.]]'''
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* [[Competitive Balance]]: The idea between the three classes and ship types. Players can customize themselves to extend beyond the original class they chose through skill point distribution.
* [[CPR: Clean, Pretty, Reliable]] / [[Worst Aid]]: This was the original way to revive a downed character. It has since been replaced with a quick tricorder scan. This is slightly justified, though. Things such as revive spells and whatnot, that one would encounter in other MMOs, would be out of place in the ''[[Star Trek]]'' universe.
* [[Crapsack World]]: The 25th Century. Then again, Federation-Klingon relations have been going back and forth since early on in ''[[Star Trek: The
** It's also only "crapsack" in relative terms - Earth isn't a smoking ruin or anything, for example. But it's definitely not as peaceful and idealistic as the franchise was during the early ''TNG'' days. The game has a feeling closest to the latter seasons of ''Deep Space Nine'' and the more action-oriented movies.
* [[Critical Existence Failure]]: Ships suffer damage and systems can be affected, but until you suffer a warp-core breach (read: death), there's no downward spiral of failing systems, like the shows.
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** The top-level escorts explicitly have holographic crews. That would pretty much explain everything, except it's noted as unusual.
* [[Defeat Means Playable]]: The special reward for defeating the Breen during the Deferi story arc? A Breen bridge officer. Repeated with the Romulan/Reman missions, though technically it's {{spoiler|the Romulans}} you're defeating and {{spoiler|a Reman bridge officer}} joining you.
* [[Design
* [[Detachment Combat]]: Several ships can turn parts of themselves into separate, independent craft, increasing their firepower and distracting the enemy. The Galaxy-class can detach its saucer, the Bortasqu' can deploy a heavily-armed escort ship, [[Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs|and the Advanced Odyssey can either detach its saucer or deploy a heavily-armed escort ship]]. The Prometheus-class escort takes the prize, though - true to [[Star Trek: Voyager|the series]], it can split itself into ''three'' equally-powerful ships, and you can choose which one you want to command the formation from.
* [[Development Gag]]: During one patch, the space station K-7 was accidentally removed. The in-game [[Game Master|Game Masters]] claimed it was "Cloaked by Klingons" and that "Federation scientists were working to rescue it". Once it was re-added, a group of Security officers could be found interrogating a Klingon about how and why she helped to cloak the station. Similarly, due to all the confused newbies asking "Where's Sulu?", numerous NPCs were changed to be discussing his location, all across Sol Station. This didn't seem to help anyone at all, however, and now you don't need to physically find Sulu anymore. Still, the immortal question lives on in the NPC conversations.
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* [[Dude, Where's My Respect?]]: Beautifully averted. Once you reach the rank of Rear Admiral, just walk into the general vicinity of the auditorium at Earth's starbase, and ''EVERYONE'' in the room immediately turns and salutes you, holding that pose until you walk away.
* [[Eject! Eject! Eject!]]: An ability all captains get late in the game, your crew evacuates and the ship blows itself up. May or may not be used when said ship is moments away from destruction.
* [[The Engineer]]: One of the playable classes.
* [[Everything Is Trying to Kill You]]: Lampshaded. Upon encountering some hostile ice spiders in a cave during the {{spoiler|Reman Uprising}} arc (not too long after fighting off hostile jackals), one of your officers loudly questions why every new species you encounter always wants to kill you.
* [[Evil Is Deathly Cold]]: The Breen, complete with [[Human Popsicle]] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzuUFomZVCI grenades and lasers.]
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* [[Mythology Gag]]: When Garret Wang attended a live event where it was announced he'd be joining the voice cast of the game, the developers presented him with a black collar pip, officially (and finally) promoting Harry Kim to Lieutenant Junior Grade. (In the actual game, Harry is actually a Captain.)
* [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero]]: Combined with a bit of Fridge Brilliance. {{spoiler|You manage to defeat B'vat, and save Miral, after entering the Guardian of Forever. The Klingons got the genetic samples they needed from her to cure the Augment Virus, however, and you don't stop them from using it, which means, uh, that ''you'' are responsible for the Klingons getting their ridges and infamous over-aggression back, just like B'vat wanted, and it means that you are indirectly responsible for the Fed-Klink war in the 25th century. [[You Can't Fight Fate|And since you come from a time when Klingons have ridges and are incredibly warlike]], [[Mind Screw|you were always destined to do so]]. [[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine|Temporal Investigations]] is gonna love this one.}}
** Played ''far'' more straight in "Divide et Impera", an early Romulan-centric story mission: {{spoiler|you infiltrate a Romulan starbase and slaughter everyone there under the orders from the Admiral accompanying you, while looking for subspace tear weapons (think ''[[Star Trek:
*** This is made even worse in that {{spoiler|you have no option to question the "Admiral" or your orders the way Picard and Riker did in the TNG episode "The Pegasus" and you are [[Stupidity Is the Only Option|literally forced by the mission design]] to carry the [[Idiot Ball]] when many players could easily tell something's not quite right about the situation (as pointed out by your officers repeatedly through it). The only way to avoid being [[Stupidity Is the Only Option|forced into said stupidity]] is to choose never to do the mission (or drop it partway through) and miss out on the reward. How easy it would have been for you to expose the Undine plot by refusing to kill any more Romulans after gathering enough evidence, and watching the thwarted Undine still sabotage the Romulans' research and escape. Thanks Cryptic, your [[Writers Suck|script writers are morons.]]}}
* [[No Sidepaths, No Exploration, No Freedom]]: Many ground missions that take place on a ship or space station will give you very little freedom in the way of completing the mission. You'll have to travel through the area to the designated path, completing various tasks along the way. In "Boldly They Rode", {{spoiler|The Founder tells you that you're the best candidate to infiltrate Deep Space 9 to reclaim it from the inside by saying that the Jem'Hadar are designed for assault and not infiltration, while Starfleet training covers space walks and such.}} Your character lampshades this by saying "Why do I feel like I've just been [[Railroading|railroaded]]?"
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** The [[Hunting the Most Dangerous Game|Hirogen]] basically have this as their [[Planet of Hats|hat]]. They're an overconfident, cowardly bunch who prefer to pick on crippled, defenceless prey and go on and on about how they're the greatest hunters ever until you send them running off to their Romulan daddies. At one point, they even pull a [[Wounded Gazelle Gambit]] to get sympathy from a passing Romulan patrol after their ambush goes horribly wrong.
* [[So Long and Thanks For All the Gear]]: This can only be invoked by the players themselves, but the game warns you whenever you want to get rid of one of your officers or ships that any gear that's currently equipped on them will be lost as well.
* [[Space Clothes]]: Fully customizable ones, including the uniforms from ''[[Star Trek: The
* [[Space Elves]]: Vulcans, Romulans, and Remans all fit the bill. As far as Star Trek goes, they all fit the Elvish archetypes. Vulcans are a straight Type 2 example. Romulans border between type 2 and type 3 due to their mistrust of others (especially after what happened to their homeworld), and Remans are unfairly categorized as a type 3 due to their physical appearance and how their whole race has been treated as 2nd class citizens by the Romulans. There are a few other races who have at least pointed ears {{spoiler|including the [[Ancient Astronauts|Preservers]], who definitely qualify as a type 2}}.
* [[Space Is an Ocean]]: Oh so very much, it's Trek afterall.
* [[Space Marine]]: Starfleet/KDF Tactical Officers are essentially this, focusing on weapons buffs and squad command/support tactics. Starfleet Security also, naturally, as they've been like this since ''[[Star Trek:
* [[Spiritual Successor]]: Watching the trailers focusing on tactics and space combat, one might assume the developers had played quite a bit of ''[[Star Trek Starfleet Command]]'' or ''[[Star Trek: Bridge Commander]]''. [[So Cool Its Awesome|There's a fair number of people who don't object to this in the slightest, mind.]]
** A few others might describe the overall experience (with the mix of ship and ground action and whatnot) as the old Spectrum Holobyte games, but with the proper level of technology behind it now to pull it off and design gone terribly, wonderfully ''right'', especially in the recent weekly missions which give you lots of plot and dialogue options on top of the fighting.
* [[Sorting Algorithm of Evil]]: Every enemy faction you encounter has a hierarchy of [[Mooks]] of varying degrees of "ability to kick the players ass". For instance, the Klingon's mook hierarchy seems to be:
{{quote|Warrior
Officer
Munitions Officer, [[Goddamned Bats|Targ Handler]]
[[Demonic Spider|Swordmaster]]
[[Anticlimax Boss|Boss Character]] (Klingon Captain or what have you) }}
* [[Stealth Pun]]: the most recent (as of may 2012) addition to the Federation Fleet is the [[The Battlestar|Atrox Carrier]], a Vice Admiral level starship designed by the Caitians, a race of [[Catfolk|humanoid felines]]. {{spoiler|its a Cat Carrier}}.
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* [[Techno Babble]]: Naturally. Science-type vessels and officers literally ''specialize'' in technobabble-based powers, to buff you or your friends or debuff your enemies.
* [[Technology Porn]]: Your very own customizable starship. The graphics are optimized to make her look as sexy as possible.
* [[Ten-Minute Retirement]]: Executive Producer Dan Stahl, who left in late 2011 to work for [[
* [[Theme Naming]]: {{spoiler|The Undine, formerly Species 8472, who are now named [[wikipedia:Ondine %28mythology%29|after the water elemental of German myth]]. Their ships follow a similar naming convention, such as [[wikipedia:Tethys %28mythology%29|Tethys]] and [[wikipedia:Dahut|Dahut]].}}
** [[Meaningful Rename]]: Sort of. {{spoiler|While they didn't "choose" to rename themselves, the proper name for the Undine makes sense [[Captain Obvious|given that they come from "fluidic" space]], and nearly all references to "8472" in-game are replaced with the new name.}}
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** The game also restores the pedigree of the ''Klingons'', as well; one of the first things you encounter them doing once the "real" game starts? ''Engaging in the full-blown'' '''''sacking''''' ''of a starbase.'' And [[It Got Worse|it only gets worse]], evidently.
*** On the other hand, you kill more Klingons yourself in that mission than Kirk did in his entire career. That can't be good for their [[Badass]] reputation.
* [[Violence Is the Only Option]]: The game has been accused of making [[The Federation]] into [[The Empire|The Klingon Empire]]. This is despite the fact that the Federation is currently fighting a major war on several fronts, {{spoiler|and has been infiltrated by the Undine.}} It should also be pointed out that the only films in the franchise where violence wasn't an option were [[Star Trek: The
** That said, the fairly linear nature of the missions can result in a few instances where it seems like you don't act like too much of a Starfleet officer; see the [[Unwitting Pawn]] and [[You Can't Thwart Stage One]] examples below.
** Of course, it's also possible to see this as part of the larger point; this era of Trek started out very idealistic in TNG, but after all the Borg invasions, the Dominion War, the trouble with Romulus, and the constant issues with the Klingons, [[Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism|the higher-ups of the Federation have become inured to, and too used to, answering problems with violence]]... just like what began to happen in DS9's 4th season.
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{{reflist}}
{{Star Trek Franchise}}
[[Category:Science Fiction Video Games]]
[[Category:Atari]]
[[Category:Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game]]
[[Category:Military Science Fiction]]
▲[[Category:Star Trek Online]]
[[Category:Video Game]]
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