Line #4 VideoGame/StarTrekBridgeCommander


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bridge_commander.jpg]]
2	->''"You are the Captain. You have the Conn."''
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4	Developed By Totally Games, who years prior gave us ''VideoGame/XWing'' and ''VideoGame/TIEFighter'' from [[Franchise/StarWars that other franchise]], Star Trek: Bridge Commander is a [[SimulationGame space sim]] set in the Franchise/StarTrek [[TheVerse universe]]. The plot revolves around an inexperienced captain (read: YOU), trying to prevent an interstellar war, shortly after the end of [[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine another]].
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6	Bridge Commander was an ambitious attempt to replicate the feel of the various series, with generally positive results. It's the first game in the franchise to nail the feeling of flying around in one of the huge capital ships, and still has a very active fan community. Not bad at all for a barely advertised game from 2002.
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8	The game is presently available through Website/GOGDotCom.
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10	!!Examples:
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12	* TheAlliance: The Federation tries to form one with the Klingons and Romulans against House Arterius and the Kessok. The results are...not pretty.
13	* AlternateContinuity: Bridge Commander forms part of a strange sort of alternate universe, having links to the [[VideoGame/StarTrekArmada Armada]] games, [[VideoGame/StarTrekEliteForce Elite Force/II]], and [[VideoGame/StarTrekStarfleetCommand Star Trek: Starfleet Command III]]. All these games were published by Activision.
14	* AllThereInTheManual: Bridge Commander's ''tenuous'' link to [[VideoGame/StarTrekStarfleetCommand SFC 3]] is shown in the description of the Sovereign-class in SFC 3's instuction manual.
15	* ANaziByAnyOtherName: The Cardassians in the game behave like the ones from before the Dominion War.
16	* ApocalypseHow: A class X-2 Example.
17	* ArtifactOfDoom: The Kessok Solarformers. [[spoiler: Subverted as they weren't intended to be weapons but the Cardassians manipulated them with their crude technology and accidentally destroyed a star. Then they decided to turn them into weapons.]]
18	* AssholeVictim: [[spoiler: Legate Matan is sucked into a sun along with all of his crew in the final battle. Couldn't have happened to a nicer Cardassian. While your officers are discussing if they can lock a tractor beam on his ship or beam him out, Kiska bluntly says to let him burn.]]
19	* BigBad: Legate Matan is responsible for House Arterius' war against the Federation in the Maelstrom.
20	* BigDamnHeroes: You in several missions, [[spoiler: the Enterprise]] about three times.
21	* BigGood: Admiral Liu serves as this for the game.
22	* BloodKnight: Captain Korbus, as befitting a Klingon warrior.
23	* CanonImmigrant: Several races, and many ships for the existing canon races.
24	* CaptainsLog: All of the crew give a log entry or two at some point except for the Player Character.
25	* TheBridge: The entire game takes place on the bridge of your two starships.
26	* TheCaptain: Played with. Your Captain gets pasted before the ''credits even roll'', but was by all accounts from his peers, a pretty damned [[CoolOldGuy cool guy]]. Also used in your interactions with fellow starfleet captains during the game.
27	* ContinuityNod: The game makes several references to the then-recent Dominion War and the alliance between the Alpha Quadrant races.
28	* CoolShip: The ''Dauntless'', and later [[spoiler: the ''Sovereign'', class progenitor and sister ship to the ''Enterprise-E''.]]. Those provided by the game's still ''very'' active modding community are too legion to list. In other words, pick any CoolShip from the television series or movies ([[{{Crossover}} or other series]], they're in there.)
29	* CrewOfOne: Subverted, while you can take control of systems manually, the ship is normally run by your AI crewmates, who will actually do a pretty good job keeping it in one piece. This mainly extends to maneuvering the starship and targeting/firing its weapons though, although you can also personally set power allocations and repair priorities.
30	* EarthShatteringKaboom: The main plot of the game revolves around what caused a star to suddenly go nova in the game's intro, and after trying to prevent it from happening again.
31	* ExplosiveInstrumentation: Predictable in a ''Franchise/StarTrek'' work, although of the non-lethal variant. Consoles spark up a lot throughout the course of the game but fortunately, no-one dies, not even the unnamed officers on the Sovereign's bridge.
32	* FalseFlagOperation: The Cardassians [[spoiler: convinced the Kessok the Federation was planning to invade their territory and enslave them. The Kessok thus built the Cardassians a massive fleet to wage war against the Federation on their behalf.]]
33	* FantasticRacism:
34	** Kiska has an intense prejudice against the Cardassians. It gets to the point Commander Larsen has to tell her to knock it off. ''Everyone'' is prejudiced against the Romulans, except, potentially, you.
35	** This is reflected with all the other ships as well. Every single ship captain talks trash about humans, the other races, the Federation, or all three.
36	* FeaturelessProtagonist: The player character is never seen or heard. The only information about the character comes in the intro while your doomed Captain is dictating his log, and identifies the player character in an offhand remark as a [[AlwaysMale male]].
37	* FieldPromotion: The Captain becomes, well, the Captain due to one of these.
38	* GameMod: Dozens. A notable example is Kobayashi Maru, which combines many of them, dramatically altering the game and refining the gameplay such as being able to deploy and pilot shuttles, separate the Galaxy class and Prometheus class vessels and loads of ships added to the game, most of them containing their respective bridge to use as well and adding additional ships from factions not seen in ''Bridge Commander'' such as Borg, Dominion, Species 8472/Undine and even non-canon ships such as the [[VideoGame/StarTrekArmada Aegian Class Frigate]]. There's even custom scenarios to play and a limited scenario editor, one of the examples being the UnwinnableTrainingSimulation that the mod gets it's title from.
39	* GoodIsNotSoft: The Federation, for once, is willing to break out this trope. When House Arterius attacks Biranu Station, they proceed to deploy the ''Sovereign'' and all of their available forces in the area to defeat the Cardassian/Kessok alliance.
40	* GuestStarPartyMember: Both Captain Picard and Commander Data show up to participate in your war against the Cardassian-Kessok alliance.
41	* HeKnowsAboutTimedHits: Picard occasionally refers to the keyboard when tutoring the player on the game's interface.
42	* HeelFaceTurn: [[spoiler: The Kessok turn on the Cardassians if you talk to Captain Neb-lus rather than attack him.]]
43	* HeroicMime: The player character never speaks.
44	* HitboxDissonance: Found in poorly-made player mods. One Cardassian ship featured a hit box that was twice the size of the model. This made flying against it with collisions on frustrating.
45	* HopelessBossFight: To a degree: You can NOT destroy Matan's ship. You can cripple it, but the hull won't break. Even your chief engineer is impressed. Incidentally, it is still possible to lose the game once you've done this. There are also a few situations in the game where you're encouraged to run, not fight (You know how [[UnwinnableTrainingSimulation The Kobayashi Maru]] was 1 on 3? Try 1 on 12!).
46	* HonorBeforeReason: The Klingons, of course, have several moments one of them. Captain Korbus has one of the more heartwarming ones is a Klingon Captain betraying the High Council and risking discommendation to repay a debt to you.
47	* JustifiedTutorial: The first episode of the game. You're more or less allowed free rein with little prompting, but are accompanied by [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration Captain Picard]], in case you need a little extra guidance.
48	* LittleHeroBigWar: Played with. The ''Sovereign'' is a big part of the Federation's efforts during the war in the sector but there's a lot of battles going on off-camera. Likewise, the conflict never gets out of the Maelstrom.
49	* ManipulativeBastard: Legate Matan has managed to build himself a fleet to rival the Federation in the Maelstrom by [[spoiler: playing on Kessok xenophobia.]]
50	* MercyRewarded: If you take the opportunity to talk to Neb-lus, it's ship will be one of the two to accompany you on the final run to the Kessok homeworld. And if it is present, the Kessok ships protecting the homeworld will stand by while you fight the Cardassians.
51	* MildlyMilitary: The Federation as usual. It's notable Commander Larsen is uncomfortable with the way the crew bicker and chat during their missions and implies she's used to a more disciplined ship.
52	* MyFriendsAndZoidberg: Saffi pulls this ''on herself'' when she mentions the crew are TrueCompanions all loyal to their Captain--except her.
53	* ObviouslyEvil: Kessok look like demons with horned skulls for heads. [[spoiler: They're also a DarkIsNotEvil race misled by the Cardassians]]
54	* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: Admiral Liu gets so sick of the Cardassians after the [[spoiler: destruction of the ''Dauntless'' that she orders the ship to find their home base and blow it all to hell. She feels this is un-Federation-like behavior.]]
55	* TheRemnant: The Cardassians faced in this game are the remnants of the ANaziByAnyOtherName military government which fought with the Dominion and oppressed their population. Played with as its implied House Arterius is solely involved because of Legate Matan and are following him more out of personal loyalty than ideology.
56	* RenegadeSplinterFaction: The Cardassians have one of these in House Arterius who serve as the central villains of the game. They launch their own private war against the Federation in the sector despite not having the support of their homeworld. [[spoiler: They, instead, have the support of the Kessok.]]
57	* RookieRedRanger: You serve as this to the ''Dauntless'' and later ''Sovereign.''
58	* SimulationGame: Spaceflight.
59	* SpaceCompression: Bridge Commander is an offender here. Distances across solar systems are measured in ''kilometers''.
60	* SpiritualSuccessor:
61	** The game is this to ''VideoGame/StarTrekStarfleetAcademy'' and ''VideoGame/StarTrekKlingonAcademy'', which were both space combat-heavy games which also had an emphasis on controlling the functions of your ship, albeit to a lesser extent than in this game.
62	** ''Star Trek: Excalibur'', a fan-made game in the works that utilizes the Nano Fx Graphics Engine, is intended as thus. It is also intended to be more easily moddable.
63	* StarfishAlien: Played with. The Kessok are HumanoidAliens but are sexless and silicon-based.
64	* StarKilling: The destruction of a star at the beginning of the game is the central mystery of the story.
65	* SubsystemDamage: And how! Calling for a damage report when your ship's been reduced to the point where it's being held together with little more than good intentions will pound it home to you as Brex starts rattling off what's not working. May or may not cause an OhCrap moment for the player. It can get worse, since you can only have three subsystems at a time on the repair queue and it's SO slow.
66	* TokenHeroicOrc: Captain Neb-lus [[spoiler: who doesn't believe the Cardassians are trustworthy.]]
67	* TooAwesomeToUse: Unless you know where all the hidden reloads are, quantum torpedoes may be this. They pack much more wallop than regular photon torpedoes, but you have a much smaller magazine of them, and there are no infinite restocks at Starbase until late in the game (when you definitely ''need'' to be liberal with them because of difficulty spike.)
68	* WeAreStrugglingTogether: A large portion of the game deals with how all of the other powers are willing to shoot each other over the most trivial of reasons. The game would be about twenty-minutes long if everyone shared information and was willing to hold off on shooting one another. [[spoiler: In proper ''Star Trek'' fashion, the best result comes from NOT being trigger happy yourself.]]
69	* WeComeInPeaceShootToKill: ''You''... maybe. [[spoiler: After several hostile run ins with the mysterious Kessok, you find one, with its shields down, in front of an object you're after, with no life signs aboard. Adrenaline pumping, your first instinct is to take advantage and blow the farker up (ok, YMMV)... ''However'', you can also try ''hailing'' the vessel, which results in a peaceful dialog Gene Rodenberry would be proud of.]] Also, [[MercyRewarded hailing the Kessok ship will cause it to join with you on the final mission, which in turn will cause the Kessok fleet around their homeworld to leave you alone.]]
70	* WorthyOpponent: Captain Terrik comes to view you as this well before the Romulans start to work with you officially.
71	* VariableMix: The combat music shifts in intensity and mood based on your ships status, and what you (and your allies) are up against. Ranging from confident, neutral, and panic tracks.
72	* YouAreInCommandNow: The ''Dauntless'' has its captain killed within the opening minutes of the game, making you the receiver of this trope. {{Justified}} as you're its first officer. Made somewhat questionable when, despite being young for captain of the ''Dauntless'', you're made commanding officer of the prototype super-ship the ''Sovereign'' soon after.

Context VideoGame / StarTrekBridgeCommander