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An MMO developed by Cryptic, makers of ''[[City of Heroes]]'' and ''[[Champions Online]]'', set in the original ''[[Star Trek]]'' universe in the year 2409, thirty years after the last appearance of the [[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Next Generation]] crew in film, and 22 after Romulus was destroyed in the prime timeline as per ''[[Star Trek (film)|Star Trek XI]]''. The game was originally being developed by Perpetual, but was auctioned off as the studio was facing ''severe financial troubles at the time'', and actually had to lay off nearly half of the development staff.
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The consensus so far is that the game is essentially a mix of ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' '''<small>[[Recycled in Space|IN SPACE! ]]</small>''' combined with ''[[Star Trek Starfleet Command]]''... and that this isn't necessarily that bad a thing at all. Especially with the new weekly "Featured Episodes", small content updates centered around a fairly lengthy and involved mission, and the advent of a pretty good branching dialogue tree on top of the combat, the game is finding a fairly solid set of legs and and a strong following after a admittedly rocky start. Additions like the "Foundry" content generation tools may allow the game to carve out an even larger niche for itself, as well.
As of January 17th, 2012 the game has gone Free-To-Play with the standard Subscription option containing boosts such as more wallet space, the ability to create content in the Foundry, a stipend of their Store Points, and so on, so lifetimers don't have to feel gypped at the game going free.
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{{tropelist}}
* [[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 Nimoy was alive at the time of production) is not.
* [[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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* [[Air Guitar]]: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wMEcxqX2ws One of the emotes.]
* [[All Your Powers Combined]]: The Federation and Klingons' ultimate ships, the Advanced Odyssey and Bortasqu', actually come in three varieties, each tailored to a different career type, and each with a unique console appropriate to that career. There's nothing stopping you from loading all three consoles on one ship if you have them, though, and you even get a handy set bonus for it (not to mention some useful synergies, like using the Subspace Snare on your Bortasqu' to teleport some poor sap in front of your [[Wave Motion Gun|Disruptor Autocannon]]).
** This has become standard for all ship sets with a Tactical, Science, and Engineering version. The Scorpion dreadnought variants, for instance, comes with consoles that let you pull off moves it has from the movie, such as firing while cloaked and using the Thalaron pulse.
* [[Alternate Continuity]]: ''Averted'', in fact; this is the original Star Trek universe, the one in which ''Star Trek'', ''The Next Generation'', ''Deep Space Nine'' et al happened. Vulcan is fine, while Romulus is a shattered husk of the world it once was. {{spoiler|This is evidently going to mean Very Bad Things for just about everyone in the Alpha Quadrant, since the Romulans are ''all'' tattooed [[Battlestar Galactica|NewBSG-esque]] aggressive space gypsies now.}}
** Played with even further in "The Needs of The Many," where a former Temporal Investigations agent remembers events from the game, the [[Star Trek Novel Verse]], and the [[Star Trek (film)|J.J. Abrams movie]], suggesting that any and all continuities can intersect whenever the heck they feel like it.
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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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* [[Beam-O-War]]: The Split-Beam Rifles have a focus fire attack that splits the energy beam and hit up to 3 targets at once while doing the same amount of damage per beam. It'll vaporize multiple Exposed enemies!
** Not a beam, but Heavy Plasma Torpedoes can be shot down or repelled by a tractor beam. Bonus points if you destroy one with ''another'' heavy plasma torpedo.
* [[Beam Spam]]: Beam: Fire at Will is the most literal interpretation given that it ends up with your phasers blasting away at anything in sight, but really, any broadside from a beam-laden high-level cruiser qualifies. If we count cannons, Cannon: Scatter Volley is about as spammy as they come. The playstyle for cruisers is to keep a side to the enemy so all your beams can attack a target at once.
* [[Beehive Barrier]]: Your away team members can set one up for you to take cover behind. And then you've got ones ''[[Up to Eleven|on a planetary scale.]]''
** The Engineer gets one automatically around Lieutenant Commander 5 (level 15), bonus points because this uses the same graphic as the Power Armor Block ability in ''[[Champions Online]]''.
* [[Betting Minigame]]: With the release of Season 2, Dabo is now been introduced in which you can earn Gold Pressed Latiumn. Due to the mechanics it mainly functions as a method of converting mostly Energy Credits into Latiumn that can be used to buy some cosmetic items.
* [[BFG]]: ''Many of them''. Your away team will likely be decked out with these after about three or four hours of gameplay.
* [[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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** Of course, you can earn all the Dilithium Ore you want, but it must be refined before you can spend it, and you can only refine [[Cap|8,000 per day]]. At current rates<ref>223 dilithium to 1 CP; Feb 14 2012</ref>, that translates to 35 CP per day. Most items cost 400 CP or up. [[Magnificent Bastard|Cryptic Studios know what they're doing.]]
* [[The Bridge]]: Players can choose from several different bridge layouts for their ships.
* [[Bridge Bunnies]]: ''Customizable'' Bunnies, no less. Yes, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paLanXn6m94 if you're a male captain you can have an all-female bridge crew.] [[Mr. Fanservice|Yes, if you're a female captain you can have an all-male bridge crew with flattering shirts.]] [[Yuri| You can even be a female captain with the other female members of your crew dressed in tiny miniskirts.]] They also serve as the cornerstone of your away teams, especially if playing solo or in a small group.
** [http://www.egscomics.com/egsnp/?date=2010-02-05 Illustrated quite well in this El Goonish Shive strip.]
* [[Break Out the Museum Piece]]: The TOS Constitution Class starships, complete with blue phasers. The Miranda class are also still going, while a refit Excelsior class can be bought. The NX class would seem to be this, being over 250 years old at this point, but is actually a ''replica'' with modern systems.
** 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.]]
** Janeway did it a few times.
*** And Starfleet looted Jem'hadar ships like mad during the Dominion War.
* [[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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** [[Star Trek: Voyager|Admiral Janeway.]]
** Among the ships you will hear about will be USS ''Kirk,'' USS ''McCoy,'' USS ''Montgomery Scott,'' USS ''Archer'' and USS ''Tucker,'' among others.
*** Notable for following this tradition but breaking from the pattern is the USS ''Opaka''.
** Sela is the Romulan Empress. Not too many people mind any of this, and it's all quite well-explained.
** The Galaxy-Class bridge set alone has plenty. The side consoles from ''[[Star Trek Generations|Generations]]'', the modified tactical console from the [[Future Badass|future Enterprise-D]] in "All Good Things", and a large transparent console panel behind the tactical station ''very'' similar to the one seen in the ''TNG'' seventh season episode "Parallels".
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** "The 2800" story arc is not only a continuity nod but also a ''continuation of a story arc from one of the series.'' {{spoiler|A Dominion fleet suddenly emerges from the wormhole, attacking (and taking over) Deep Space 9, and still thinking the Dominion war is still going on despite checking a calendar since then}}. Starfleet is baffled by where they came from. {{spoiler|It's the same fleet that the Prophets had willed out of existence when Captain Sisko and the Defiant single-handedly headed into the wormhole to confront.}}
* [[Convection, Schmonvection]]: An early mission in the Romulan story arc places you on a planet that has active volcanic activity on the surface (along with local plant life that thrives in the lava). You can walk all over it and it won't hurt you.
** Of course you can also take a disruptor blast to the face and not disintegrate. Personal shields are a wonderful thing.
* [[Cool Starship]]: Many ships from across Trek canon have made their way into the game (Including an old-fashioned Constitution-Class and Miranda Class as starting vessels), and a few have been made especially for it, such as the mighty [http://www.startrekonline.com/ships/odyssey Odyssey] and [http://www.startrekonline.com/node/2842 Bortas] end-game ships.
* [[Combat Tentacles]]:
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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.
* [[Crystal Spires and Togas]]: The Deferi come pretty close.
* [[Custom Uniform]]: The developers were able to [[Hand Wave]] the glaring flaw about Star Fleet's uniform code by stating in one of the [[Loading Screen]] notes that Star Fleet relaxed their uniform codes to help it's officers feel a little more comfortable, just as long as they still wore their primary color associated with their position. The player can customize the outfits of their underlings freely, meaning it's perfectly possible to make [[Fullmetal Alchemist (anime)|all female officers wear TINY MINISKIRTS]] as a mere ''lieutenant''.
* [[Death From Above]]: Engineers get the Orbital Strike skill, capable of wiping out a large group of enemies in one hit. It also works indoors for some reason. And then you get to "Cutting the Cord" and its optional objective of calling in orbital strikes, and all of a sudden your ship is a veritable [[Kill Sat]], wiping out Romulans and fighters left and right.
* [[Death Is a Slap on The Wrist]]: If a player is killed or has their ship destroyed (possibly killing them), they can simply respawn with their ship shiny and new...minus a few [[Red Shirts]]. And the dead redshirts will be restored after a short period of time. Presumably Starfleet ships are crewed by Tribbles. Mitigated somewhat by the addition of the difficulty slider, which adds a death penalty at higher levels in the form of injuries, which can be removed at starbases or with items.
** 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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* [[Evil Versus Evil]]: The main reason that the Federation and Klingon Empire haven't been all turned into cyberzombies or wiped from creation is that, even decades after the events of ''Voyager'', the Borg and Undine still hate hate '''''hate''''' each other and gleefully rip one another apart at every opportunity. The Federation and Klingons still ally against the Borg despite having a war on in other sectors.
** Also, Empress Sela and Praetor Taris. The former has a ''few'' less atrocities to her name, but they're both still pretty unpleasant.
** In the last massive space battle of the Iconian War, {{spoiler|Sela brings in the Dominion to fight the Iconians}}.
* [[Expy]]: The ''Vesper'' for the ''Excelsior'' Class, and the ''Excalibur'' as a 25th century equivalent to the ''Constitution'' class. Both the original ship classes can also be bought.
** The ''Excelsior'' is in a different tier than the ''Vesper''. There's a Tier 3 version (the Advanced Heavy Cruiser) and the Tier 5 Retrofit, just like the ''Galaxy'' Retro). So it fills a different niche.
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* [[Face Palm]]: One of the emotes you can do is a Picard face palm.
* [[Falling Into the Cockpit|Falling Into The Captain's Chair]]: This is more or less how the Fed side of the game starts out. You're beamed to a damaged ship to help out, and while you are away, the senior staff of the ship you started on gets blown to smithereens, and you, a lowly ensign, now have to take command of an entire starship... [[Oh Crap|against the Borg.]] The fact you actually ''win'' is why command makes your command position permanent.
** The redesigned intro has a little less of this, and is much more of a plot [[Shout Out]] to the ''Star Trek'' movie reboot.
* [[Fake Defector]]: {{spoiler|In the mission "Under the Cover of Night", Frankin Drake is actually a member of Section 31, and recapturing him is just part of a ruse to feed the Romulans false information.}}
* [[Fan Disservice]]: The scantily-clad, hideously ugly Fek'lhri Ravagers.
* [[Faster-Than-Light Travel]]: Par for the course. [[EVE Online|Thankfully, there is no such thing]] [[Nothing Is Scarier|as a Warp Queue]].
* [[Fighting for Survival]]: The Iconian War becomes this, far more than any other war the Alpha/Beta Quadrant has faced up to that point. The Klingon head of the timeship taskforce explicitly calls this on Captain Shon when Shon protests the idea of going back in time and making sure no Iconians escape the assault on their homeworld.
{{quote|"You speak of words such as duty. Principle. ''Honor''. But words is all they will be if we lose this battle. There will be none of us left to give them meaning. When we survive the day, we can again begin to discuss what was right or wrong."}}
* [[Four-Star Badass]]: The current maximum rank a player can achieve is <s>Rear Admiral 5</s> Vice Admiral. Rather quickly in universe, one would imagine.
* [[Fragile Speedster]]/[[Glass Cannon]]: On paper, the Escort class ships are supposed to be this: Quick and deadly, but light on defense. Player customization and skill determines if that is true or not.
* [[Future Me Scares Me]]: {{spoiler|Past-B'Vat, complete with TOS Klingon style smooth forehead, is terrified at what he will become in the future, and helps the player in taking down his future self}}
* [[Gameplay and Story Segregation]]: Of a sort. The Duty Officer system represents your junior officers, and every ship is supposed to have their crew number's worth of Doffs. However, you start at 100 for free, up to a max of 400. However... some ships crew numbers don't fit with this, like the Galaxy with a crew of ''1,000'', or the Defiant with a crew of ''50'', or the Runabout class shuttle, which has a maximum crew compliment of ''5''. Very few ships have Doff numbers close to their crew numbers, while others are either hopelessly understaffed, or unrealistically packed.
** Since it likely would have been a pain to create and maintain an entire different method of out-of-combat healing for each faction (as well as forcing players to have to learn two entirely different breeding tables), your Klingon characters are just as happy to give their tribbles a cuddle as anyone else (and the tribbles seem fine with it too).
** Enemy drops are entirely random based on level (which, most of the time, is scaled to your). As a result century old ships in time travel missions, which are non-threats to your modern one if they don't outnumber you by at least a dozen, will drop the same ship parts any other enemy of the same level will which will make it roughly equal to your current stuff at worst.
* [[Gatling Good]] / [[More Dakka]]: One of the options for either yourself or your crew while on foot is essentially the energy-weapon version of a Squad Automatic Weapon. Having one of these around is rather handy. [[Star Trek Elite Force|Not the first time we've seen 'em, either.]]
* [[Genre Savvy]]: During one mission that involved time travel you wind up saving the orignal U.S.S. Enterprise from a ambush that normally they would have survived but was destroyed due to interference. After you do so you immediatly jump out of system to avoid contaiminating the time line. Then at the end while fighting more Klingons the Enterprise jumps in system to help you fight them off. Then Commander Spock sends you a message saying that he's had experience with the Guardian of Forver and recognizes the portal. He then pretty much tells you he understands why you're not talking back and urges you to go back to your time before you cause any damage to the time line.
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* [[Gladiator Games]]: {{spoiler|Prominently featured in the Cloaked Intentions episode series.}}
* [[Glass Cannon]]: The Escort.
* [[Godzilla Threshold]]: Towards the end of the Iconian War, {{spoiler|Sela calls in the Dominion to take part in the final battle, rationalizing that allowing ships full of Changelings and Jem'hadar into the heart of the Alpha/Beta Quadrant could not possibly make things worse at that point}}.
* [[Guile Hero]]: You get the chance to be this on occasion, especially during the [[Time Travel|Drozana Station]] missions.
* [[Guns Akimbo]]: Klingon Swordmasters and other types of enemies often use twin disruptor pistols, but the [[Player Character]] and their [[Bridge Bunnies]] can too. Somewhat justified, in that these are energy weapons, and thus would have nonexistent kickback.
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* [[Green-Skinned Space Babe]]: The Orion Vixens, complete with confuse-inducing Seduce skill. They're also a popular choice amongst the RP community.
* [[Heel Face Turn]]: {{spoiler|The Remans, and particularly Obisek, who starts off stealing thalaron weapons and siccing fighters on you.}}
* [[Heroic Sacrifice]]: In
** {{spoiler|K'Valk does a suicide run into the core of the Doomsday Machine to at least try to disable it. And he does it while singing the Klingon War Song.}}
* [[Humiliation Conga]]: {{spoiler|Hakeev}} gets put through one once his plans start falling apart. As the [[Anticlimax Boss]] entry notes, ''it doesn't even end with his death''.
* [[Hurricane of Puns]]: ''[[Crowning Moment of Funny|The Tribble With Klingons]]'', Which gives us such gems as: {{spoiler|Wack A Tribble, Tribble Saviour, Tribble Topia, ect.}} Be warned, this has undergone ''rapid'' [[Memetic Mutation]] in the player base.
** The KDF has a lot of this. One of the Klingon [[Player Versus Environment]] missions is called [[Incredibly Lame Pun|"Sulfur My Wrath."]] Players collectively groaned upon seeing it.
** Most mission titles, really, as seems to be MMO tradition.
* [[Hyperactive Metabolism]]: we will have this trope in the future.
* [[I Just Want to Be Normal]]: Poor Miral Paris. She hates the fact that she is considered the Klingon Messiah. She just wants to be the head of security on the U.S.S. Kirk.
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{{quote|{{spoiler|'''Thot Trel''': "...But... I'm... Thot... Tr..."}}}}
* [[Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better]]: Played with. Torpedoes are far and away the most damaging weapons in your starship's arsenal, but they kind of suck against shields. That's where [[Energy Weapons|phasers and disruptors]] come in. On the ground, meanwhile, melee weapons have the advantage of ignoring shields and Borg adaptation, guaranteeing a steady damage output if you're willing to risk your skin up close.
** Kinetic ranged weapons such as the T-116 and Zefram Cochrane's Shotgun also have the benefits of shield penetration and avoiding adaptation. They output less damage overall, but if you're dealing with heavily shielded enemies (or Borg) they're still good choices.
* [[Klingon Scientists Get No Respect]]: So much so that the Klingons don't actually have dedicated Science Vessels. Instead, they have Birds-Of-Prey, small, ultra-manoeuverable ships that have universal Bridge Officer slots which can be assigned any type rather than being limited to one.
** Then again, their Carriers have similar capabilities to Science Vessels (less weapons, increased shields, extra Science stations, Auxiliary Power bonus...).
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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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** Majel Barret was ready, willing, and able to provide the voice for various combat notifications and alerts, but she has since passed on, and a replacement had to be brought in for the announcements at Prison Facility 4028 during "The 2800" episode. Her replacement manages to sound almost exactly like her though.
* [[Percussive Maintenance]]: The "basic engineer" at Starbase 39's starship area, on the console linked to the Federation bank, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YPEXATsaWg is continually hitting the console with fists, repeatedly.]
* [[Artistic License Economics|Post-Scarcity Economies]]: The most basic (and largely worthless) currency is "energy credits", a representation of how much replicator use you are owed. Actually important stuff is ultimately paid for with dilithium, which replicators can't create (or require more dilithium to create than it produces. The mythos never clarifies).
* [[Physical God]]: Q, of course, who spends much of his time hanging around Earth Spacedock, dispensing boons to passing captains and occasionally [[Baleful Polymorph|turning them into small housepets]].
** It should be noted that the above mentioned Q is not the rogueish Q we are most accustomed to, nor is it his [[Star Trek: Voyager|lover, Q]]. Nor is it his [[Star Trek: The Next Generation|close friend Q]]. The Q in question is actually his son, [[Star Trek: Voyager|Q]], who seems to have grown up much like his father, despite his aunt [[Star Trek: Voyager|Kathy's]] influence.
*** Well, he is much more of a [[Trickster Mentor]] than his father was... much of his meddling with Starfleet captains is either subtly or blatantly beneficial, or just plain fun, with the worst he ever really gets being "disruptive".
* [[Pint-Sized Powerhouse]]: The [[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine|Defiant-class]] and its variants, naturally. Made all the more apparent by the fact that lower-tier, weaker escorts (especially the Akira, the class you use before upgrading to the Defiant) are much, much bigger. And then you get to the Vice Admiral-tier retrofit, which (being Vice Admiral-tier) is one of the most powerful ships in the game, and throws in the Federation's only [[Stealth in Space|cloaking device]] to sweeten the deal yet further.
** Another example is the Aquarius Escort, a tiny bundle of cannons and torpedoes that serves as a very nasty surprise for anyone stupid enough to take on an [[Mighty Glacier|Odyssey Tactical Cruiser]].
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* [[Scenery Porn]]: Let's take a gander; [[Earth Is the Center of the Universe|Earth Spacedock]], [[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine|Deep Space Nine (Complete with the Bajoran Wormhole!)]], [[Star Trek: The Original Series|Deep Space K7]], [[Tear Jerker|the memorials at Wolf 359 and Romulus]], ''good lord''. That's not even mentioning the amounts in random and story missions.
** [http://www.startrekonline.com/dyncontent/startrek/uploads/Wallpaper-23-1680x1050.jpg Space] [http://www.startrekonline.com/dyncontent/startrek/uploads/Wallpaper-24-1680x1050.jpg is] '''[http://www.startrekonline.com/dyncontent/startrek/uploads/Wallpaper-25-1680x1050.jpg really]''' [http://www.startrekonline.com/dyncontent/startrek/uploads/Wallpaper-26-1680x1050.jpg pretty.]
* [[Rubber Forehead Aliens]]: Engine limitations restrict mean you'll never see an Edosian
* [[Rule of Cool]]: All over this game, as the demands of MMO players for character customization cause mundane concerns like consistency and believability to take a back seat.
** The [[Awesome Anachronistic Apparel]] (see above), in which characters can choose to mix-and-match pieces of uniforms, going all the way back to the TOS or even ''Enterprise'' era. When was the last time the US Army let its soldiers come to work in Civil War or Revolutionary Army uniforms just because the soldiers thought they ''looked cooler'' than modern fatigues?
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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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* [[What You Are in the Dark]]: One for the player in "Operation Gamma" {{spoiler|A Ferengi agrees to help you contact the Dominion, but when you do, she angers the local Cosmozoan life forms, and warps out, leaving you to fight for your life in a little shuttle. When you catch up to her, she ran into the Dominion, who disabled her, and are about to destroy her ship for illegal activities in their space. In exchange for the Dominion's help, they ask you to carry out the sentence against the Ferengi. You can either destroy her, or let her go back through the wormhole. The only people who will know are your loyal crew on your little shuttle, and the Dominion, who will see it as simply a legal matter being settled as it should be. You have to make a choice...}}
* [[Whole-Plot Reference]]: The last two Breen Featured Episodes to [[Star Trek: The Next Generation|The Next Generation]] episode "The Chase".
* [[You Are in Command Now|]: Used to explain why the player has control of a ship almost immediately out of the academy.
* [[You Can't Thwart Stage One]]: {{spoiler|Despite the ''numerous'' hints as the mission goes on that something is terribly wrong, you cannot out the Undine masquerading as Admiral Zelle early and you'll end up helping it infiltrate the Romulans no matter what you do.}}
** This one is ''especially'' grating for some people, as one of [[The Next Generation|TNG's best episodes]] had the message of "the first duty of a Starfleet officer is to the truth"; {{spoiler|yeah, that's great, so could the game please let us pursue the truth ''before'' we have to slaughter dozens (more like hundreds, considering that those warbirds you scrap in orbit don't launch any escape craft) of innocent Romulans?}}
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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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