An MMO developed by Cryptic, makers of ''CityOfHeroes'' and ''VideoGame/ChampionsOnline'', set in the original ''Franchise/StarTrek'' universe in the year 2409, thirty years after the last appearance of the [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration Next Generation]] crew in film, and 22 after Romulus was destroyed in the prime timeline as per ''[[Film/StarTrek 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.

The Borg are back, deadlier than ever before, and the galaxy is once more on the edge of war. TheFederation and [[TheEmpire The Klingon Empire]] are at each other's throats again, and the tattered remains of the Romulan Empire post "Countdown" may be scattered, but they remain a credible military threat to both. That's only compounded with a newly democratic Cardassia facing a civil war against True Way rebels helped by Dominion renegades, and the Undine (formerly Species 8472) infiltrating everyone.

In other words, the 25th century ''Franchise/StarTrek'' universe has become a CrapsackWorld ([[CrapsackOnlyByComparison relatively speaking]]), and it's up to the player(s) to find a way make it right.

The game combines space travel with on-foot segments and a healthy dose of combat in both. A proprietary engine was created to randomize missions, star systems, and planetary surfaces, in order to provide new and different experiences every time a player engages in a mission or quest.

And, of course, being a Cryptic game, CharacterCustomization is suitably bonkers and may in fact eclipse every other thing they've done. You have an absolutely astounding number of ways to customize your captain; not only has almost every facial feature from the TV series been included, but Cryptic has included all kinds of inventions of their own. And then they allow you to apply the same level of customization ''to your entire bridge crew''. And '''then''' you get to customize the hull of your ship, and '''''[[SerialEscalation then]]''''' you get to customize your bridge and more interior customization is coming and... well, you get the idea. Oh, and you can create a new custom species for your captain.

The consensus so far is that the game is essentially a mix of ''WorldOfWarcraft'' '''[-[[RecycledInSpace IN SPACE! ]]-]''' combined with ''StarTrekStarfleetCommand''... 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.

When the game started, there were only two playable factions: the Federation and the Klingon Empire. After three years of rumors of more factions being added, the ''Legacy of Romulus'' expansion adds Romulans and Remans as playable races, along with iconic ships like the Bird of Prey and the D'deridex Warbird.

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 cheated at the game going free.
----
!!This Game Provides Examples Of:

* TwoDSpace: Averted; all ships start out on the plane of the ecliptic and that's used as a "reference point" for the camera, but the ships have ''considerable'' z-axis freedom, just like in ''[[Film/StarTrekIITheWrathOfKhan Wrath of Khan]]''.
** The only problem is that the ships are limited in how much they can pitch up or down (to about 75 degrees relative to the plane of the ecliptic) and are unable to execute any kind of rolling maneuvers other than banking during turns. This is likely to prevent players from getting horribly confused and turned around, but it also does make "vertical" attacks difficult to pull off; this unfortunately makes [[LightningBruiser escorts]], with their narrower firing arcs, a bit harder to use than they probably should be.
* AbusivePrecursors: [[spoiler: Remember how Picard thought that the Iconians had a bad rap due to their frightening teleportation technology? Thanks to season 7 and the revelations about the Dewans, ''he was wrong. [[ManipulativeBastard Very.]] [[DarkIsEvil Very.]] '''[[DespotismJustifiesTheMeans Wrong.]]''''']]
* ActuallyFourMooks: Sensor contacts, and selections, overlap at long range. Though you can probably see visually there's more than one ship, or that if there was a single ship the size of that selection box you ought to be able to see it!
* AdamSmithHatesYourGuts:
** 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?
** Trade goods vary in price at different locations, but always sell for a price slightly lower than the cheapest price you can buy them for, so you can't make trade runs across the galaxy with a full load of them, only buy them for missions and research.
** Also averted in two ways. 1: You don't have to pay a penny to get the stock weapons, shields, etc that come standard on your ship (like the phasers and photon torpedoes that the Enterprise always had; we never saw them trade up for better weapons!). 2: You will get so many loot drops throughout the game that you can sell, so that you will eventually be rolling in Energy Credits (the ingame currency) anyway and can afford the awesome upgrades.
** Reinforced by the Omega and Romulan reputation systems where you can earn powerful upgrades to your ship and character, but you have to grind in-game resources for weeks just to ''unlock'' them and then you have to pay one of the ingame currencies (that takes FOREVER to grind but you can conveniently buy for real cash) in order to buy most of the items once they have been unlocked.
* AnAdventurerIsYou: Initially played straight with the three main classes of ships: Escorts are best at dealing a lot of damage fast, cruisers are best at soaking up punishment, science vessels are best at healing, buffing and debuffing. The lines start to blur a little at higher levels and with some C-store ships like the ''Nebula'' and ''Excelsior'', and there's definitely wiggle room, but by and large each class has its strengths along the lines of the MMO Holy Trinity.
** Blurs earlier than that. The cruiser, with its high hull rating can be a tank, but with engineering crew can also heal itself and a friendly's shields, making it a buffer too. The science vessel, with its strong shields can be a magic tank, and debuffer with good science personnel. The tactical vessel is a good combo of the blade-master and backstabber with good tactical officers, although an escort with the right skills and load-out is just as much capable of taking damage and dishing it out as well. The real difference between vessel types is not determined by their base stats, but the number of bridge crew and console slots for a particular field and ''their'' abilities, which like almost everything else, can be infinitely customized.
* AirGuitar: [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wMEcxqX2ws One of the emotes.]]
* AllegedlyFreeGame: Averted. See BribingYourWayToVictory below. You can get the best ships and things in the game without ever having to spend a penny. You just have to spend more time to earn it.
* AllYourPowersCombined: 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 [[WaveMotionGun Disruptor Autocannon]]).
* AlternateContinuity: ''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 [[Series/BattlestarGalacticaReimagined 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 StarTrekNovelVerse, and the [[Film/StarTrek J.J. Abrams movie]], suggesting that any and all continuities can intersect whenever the heck they feel like it.
** Note, however, that the game is still non-canon. CBS' (and before that Paramount's) official policy is that only the movies and TV series (including TAS) count.
* AlwaysABiggerFish: The Iconians are fond of this one. The second time they show up, they're wiping out the two Borg Cubes coming after you. The third time, just as you're in a fight for your life with [[spoiler: Empress Sela]], an Iconian ship [[spoiler: shows up, snags her ship and sucks her through a Gateway.]]
** It should say something that after everything we went through with the Dominion in Deep Space Nine that for the Dominion's official policy revealed by Eraun in an optional conversation is "Take what you want Mr. Iconian Sir." ''What the hell are the Iconians doing that made the '''DOMINION''' curl up and act like a nerd being picked on by the captain of the football team!?''
* AmazingTechnicolorPopulation: Given the game's practically infinite character customization options, it's not uncommon to see player-characters with practically any skin and hair color you can possibly imagine, from the dull and mundane to shades that will burn your eyes from clear across the room.
* {{Ambadassador}}: S'taass, the Gorn ambassador for the Klingon Empire during the "Second Wave" mission. [[spoiler:When [=DS9=] is boarded by the Dominion his first reaction is to leap over the table and tear a Jem'Hadar apart with his claws! His second reaction is taking up the hobby of running up to Jem'Hadar and pummeling them to death with his bare hands and biting their throats out!]]
** The Player Characters can become this as well, thanks to a Diplomacy XP system capped by gaining the official status and title of Ambassador, [[AndYourRewardIsClothes complete with spiffy Dress Uniform]].
* AncientAstronauts: [[spoiler: At the end of the Breen arc, a planet is found with thousands of living Preservers in stasis, with many choosing to awaken and explore the Galaxy created by the various species in the Trek verse whose worlds they seeded billions of years ago.]]
* AndIMustScream: Getting assimilated by the Borg in ground missions will result in a temporary version of this, as the player will no longer be in control of their character, who will proceed to engage any nearby allies just like another drone until they're finally put out of their misery.
** It's unclear what [[spoiler: Sela]]'s fate was, but it's implied after her kidnapping she's facing this as an enemy of the Tal Shiar.
* AndYourRewardIsClothes: The Vice Admiral overcoat and Ambassador dress uniform awarded to Federation players for reaching those ranks.
* AntiAir: During the mission 'Cutting the Cord', the player can use their personal weapons to shoot down a Romulan Scorpion fighter craft.
* ApocalypticLog: Several of the random exploration missions on dead worlds or empty stations. Examples include [[AxCrazy mind control experiments]] GoneHorriblyWrong, [[HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace teleportation experiments]] GoneHorriblyWrong, and other such things [[OverlyLongGag Gone Horribly Wrong.]]
* ArbitraryMaximumRange: In space combat, 10 kilometers. Some ships can cross that distance in a handful of seconds. Some turret satellites and the fleet starbase in the PVE missions involving it can engage targets slightly beyond this range however.
* ArtificialAtmosphericActions:
-->Starfleet NPC: [[MemeticBadass Is that (Rank and Player Name), captain of the (Ship Name)?]]
** If a custom title is used, that replaces the Rank when people speak to you. This can lead to some strange results, however.
-->Starfleet NPC: Good day, Moist (Player Name).
* ArtificialStupidity: The Borg seem to ignore any mini-ships you send at them, like the Scorpion Fighters. All you have to do is run outside of combat range while they slowly but surely deal hull damage and eventually destroy them.
* ArtisticLicenseAstronomy: You'll be hard pressed to find any area of space outside of Earth that isn't engulfed by millions of miles of stellar gasses, dusts, and nebulae painting the backdrop, and AsteroidThicket is in full effect here.
** Later maps are much better about this. Mainly because a lot of people complained. A good example is the revamped Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine exterior which ditched the nebula for black space, with a hint of the purple denorios belt that was sometimes seen in the series and a lens flare sun representing the Bajoran star.
* AscendedFanon: The game follows the movie and television canon to the letter. Cryptic does, however, have the option of incorporating "soft canon" like the novels however they please, so they've gone ahead and thrown in a few things like the Luna-class from StarTrekTitan and [[StarTrekNewFrontier Captain Mackenzie Calhoun]], and stated that the ''Titan'' novels will be part of the game's backstory as Riker's first command (except for the ''Destiny'' series where [[spoiler:The Borg Collective gets finally destroyed]]). There isn't yet a comprehensive list of what has or hasn't been put in from soft canon, however.
** The ''Vesta''-class starships added in Season 7 are a direct reference to the ''Destiny'' novels.
** The harness-like designs and special combat functions of many of the away team "kits" (not to mention the [[{{BFG}} big screwoff disruptor-miniguns]] and the like) suggest that ''VideoGame/StarTrekEliteForce'' may well be continuity with STO as well.
** The mention of the StarfleetCorpsOfEngineers and of the ''U.S.S. [=DaVinci=]'' in a couple of non-story mission suggest that some elements of the S.C.E. novels may be canon now, as well.
** That whole business about Andorians having four genders is almost completely taken from the books.
** The [[http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Rihannsu Rihannsu]] novels, which fleshed out the Romulan culture, seem to have been incorporated completely, as well, with Romulan missions making multiple references to what was depicted therein.
** Some of the StarTrekDeepSpaceNineRelaunch novels are canon, too; certainly the book about Garak (written by Andrew J Robinson no less), as the past religion of Cardassia is in the game. However, it seems the entire series hasn't been incorporated whole-cloth, as The Sisko doesn't seem to have returned yet, among other things. They may be saving ''that'' one for an in-game event.
** [[StarTrekTitan Admiral]] [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries Leonard James]] [[StarTrekExpandedUniverse Akaar]] shows up in one mission during the [[spoiler: Romulan]] arc.
** Elements of the epic [[DianeDuane Diane Duane]] novel [[http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Spock%27s_World Spock's World]] show up in a Diplomacy mission on Vulcan.
* AsteroidMiners: Players can now strap on their EVA suit and mine for in-game currency on, yep, an asteroid.
* AsteroidThicket: Usually as a planet's rings or a debris field. At least in the early missions, though, [[NarmCharm it's just a bunch of rocks floating in the middle of nowhere, for no reason whatsoever.]] Worse, the thickets tend to exist just around the mission area. Meaning that if you're not surrounded by asteroids you're likely far from where you should be. Less of a problem with later missions.
* ATeamFiring: Dual pistols and assault rifles have a spray-and-pray special ability which, fittingly, has a chance to cause Expose. The primary fire is actually very accurate.
* AttentionDeficitOohShiny: Ten of Ten, a Liberated-Borg Caitian duty officer who is obtained through a critical success from the Support B'Tran Cluster Colonization Efforts assignment.
-->''"My time in the Collective honed me. I am more focused on ... hey, that light is blinking!"''
* AuthorsSavingThrow: Invoked. Several missions put you in contact with {{Non Player Character}}s 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.
* AwesomeAnachronisticApparel: Who says you can't wear a Tux in the 25th Century? This also extends to anyone who wears the various older uniforms of Starfleet.
** Played with with the introduction of ''future'' uniforms. Obviously anachronistic, presumably awesome in your eyes if you decide to use them -- and exactly the opposite of old-fashioned.
* AwesomeYetPractical: The Prometheus-class Tier 5 retrofit's [[DetachmentCombat Multi-Vector Attack Mode]]. Being able to turn one ship into three near-equally powerful ones with the click of a button is exactly as visually impressive and gloriously overpowered as one would imagine.
** It might seem insane to bring a bat'leth or lirpa to a gun-fight, but 50% of their damage can go right through personal shields, and a lunge attack can knock ''several'' enemies down if they're close enough together, leaving them exposed. Especially useful against Hirogen, who like to beam into the midst of your group.
* BadassCrew: After the first story arc of the game, the player and their BridgeBunnies more than qualify for this status. And if you fill your Duty Officer ranks with Uncommon to Very Rare [=DOFFs=], your ship's crew readily qualifies as well.
* BadassLongcoat: By the time you reach Level 51 (the level cap currently), you are very badass indeed. And what is your reward for all this badassery? A knee-length Vice Admiral's overcoat.
* BadassLongRobe: The content update "Common Ground" added off duty outfits for the players to wear, including a selection of robes.
** NPC [[EliteMooks Klingon Captains & Dahar Masters]] will also sport these.
** Fleet embassies that have reached a certain level can unlock these for members.
* BadPresent / BadFuture: Just as the episode it is a sequel to, technically ''Temporal Ambassador'' is the present from the perspective of your character, but in all other respects fits Bad Future better -- up to and including being the result of someone from the past ending up in the future.
* BaitAndSwitchBoss: Inverted in [[spoiler:one of the endgame missions, when [[PhysicalGod Q]] tosses you into battle against [[OhCrap three Borg Cubes]]... and then when they're just outside your weapons range [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9Mlk0dgLlc#t=1m57s he decides to go easy on you and handwaves two of the Cubes out of existence.]]]]
* BaldOfAwesome: One of the customization options for your character is to lose the hair and make like Picard.
* BaldOfEvil: Obisek plays this early on in the Romulan storyline.
** Hakeev plays it even straighter throughout the entire storyline.
* BareYourMidriff: One of the premium uniforms is the TOS Mirror Universe Terran uniform.
** There's also the various {{Stripperiffic}} outfits worn by Orion women in the game (both players and NPC's) that leave next to nothing to the imagination.
* BayonetYa: Some of the Klingon rifles have a wicked-looking blade affixed to them under the barrel. Couple this with the rifle striking melee attack, and you have a nasty surprise for anyone foolish enough to get up close with someone wielding these.
* BeamOWar: 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.
* BeamSpam: 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.
* BeardOfEvil: Appropriately, this seems omnipresent in the Mirror Universe Terran Empire. At least for the men.
* BeehiveBarrier: Your away team members can set one up for you to take cover behind. And then you've got ones ''[[UpToEleven 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 ''VideoGame/ChampionsOnline''.
* BettingMiniGame: With the release of Season 2, Dabo is now been introduced in which you can earn Gold Pressed Latinum.
* {{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 ''[[DemonicSpiders Klingon Swordmasters]]'', and it would be wise to take them down before they can get close enough to use it.
* BewareTheNiceOnes: The Federation has gone to war. Enough said. Also ''might'' apply for the peaceful hunter-gatherer Aelasians - see the SuperweaponSurprise entry below.
* BifurcatedWeapon: 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 ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration''. And then there's the multi-vector attack mode ''Prometheus''-class, which can [[SerialEscalation split into three separate ships.]]
** 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).
* BigBad: STO actually has narrative arcs throughout its main-line story content that feature major antagonists and foils for your crew.
** In the late Lieutenant and for most of the Lt. Commander levels, [[spoiler:"Ambassador"/General B'vat, who will do just about ''[[OmnicidalManiac anything]]'' to keep the Fed/Klink war going so that Klingons don't turn on one another.]]
** While Romulan space lacks one specific Big Bad, [[spoiler: Praetor Taris ultimately ends up being the source of quite a few of the problems you have to face in that section of the game - not to mention the fact that she's responsible for the deaths of ''billions'' in more than one continuity]].
** The Borg [[spoiler:and the Undine (Species 8472)]] serve as the end-game big foes, and make brief appearances earlier in the game to set up the threat for later.
* BigDamnHeroes:
** ''You'' as a player get a whole bunch of these moments. This is also the entire purpose of the Fleet Support ability, which lets you call in another Federation ship once your hull integrity drops below 50%.
** You're also on the ''receiving'' end of one of these in an early mission: [[spoiler:You find out that the ambassador you've been escorting really is an Undine/8472 infiltrator, and he's beamed back to his ship... a Tethys-class dreadnought that you cannot possibly hope to fight under any circumstances. You can only hope to survive by shooting down the plasma torpedos it spews at you... and then help arrives in the form of the USS ''Kirk'', leading a flotilla of warships which open up an incredible can of whoopass on the dreadnought.]]
** The [[spoiler: U.S.S. Enterprise-F]] coming to the rescue in Boldly They Rode.
* BloodKnight: [[spoiler:B'vat, far beyond even the standards of other Klingons. He is obsessed with keeping the new Fed/Klink war going in perpetuity, because he fears that without a great enemy to fight then the Empire will turn on itself and rip itself to shreds in civil war, just to slake the Klingon thirst for warfare... [[DumbassHasAPoint just like it, uh, did happen]] in TNG and ''Klingon Academy''. He's willing to slaughter ''billions'', revive terrible weapons [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and kidnap Miral Paris]] to make sure the Fed is willing to fight the Empire as long as possible.]]
** He's so far gone that [[spoiler:when you meet his past self during a TimeTravel mission, he asks you to give his future self an honorable death.]]
** Amusingly enough, this character (almost to a T) duplicates one from ANOTHER videogame franchise - these are exactly the motivation AND the actions of [[spoiler:Admiral Tolwyn from the ''VideoGame/WingCommander'' franchise, as shown in ''Wing Commander IV'']].
* BondVillainStupidity: [[spoiler: Played perfectly straight by Hakeev - right down to the EvilGloating - after cornering you in a cutscene in the Cloaked Intentions feature episode series.]]
* BrainwashedAndCrazy: [[spoiler: Praetor Taris seems to be this. She's pretty much unflinchingly loyal to her "dread masters", and for a Romulan that is ''weird''.]]
* BribingYourWayToVictory: A whole bunch of things, both gameplay-affecting and cosmetic, can only be obtained using "Zen", which must first be purchased by someone on Perfect World Entertainment's website. Having said that, they can then be sold again in exchange for Dilithium, which any player can get a fair amount of every day. So, while ''someone'' has to spend real money eventually, it doesn't have to be you.
** 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[[hottip:*:88 dilithium to 1 CP; Jan 17 2013]], that translates to 90 CP per day. Most items cost 400 CP or up. [[MagnificentBastard Cryptic Studios know what they're doing.]]
*** Granted, it's 8,000 ''per character'', and even free players that refuse to invest a cent into the game get another character slot once they've gotten a high enough level on their Fed character. Still, you can't transfer unrefined dilithium between characters, so that means you have to spend the time to earn 8000 dilithium ''per character'' if you want to reach the full cap.
* TheBridge: Players can choose from several different bridge layouts for their ships.
* BridgeBunnies: ''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.]] [[MrFanservice Yes, if you're a female captain you can have an all-male bridge crew with flattering shirts.]] They also serve as the cornerstone of your away teams, especially if playing solo or in a small group. Cryptic has stated you can have upwards of ''twelve'' of them under your command, as well.
** [[http://www.egscomics.com/egsnp/?date=2010-02-05 Illustrated quite well in this El Goonish Shive strip.]]
* BreakOutTheMuseumPiece: 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 of the game's Third Year Anniversary event, the Ambassador class - the same class as the ill-fated Enterprise-C. A ship that never seemed to be put into large production ''because'' of what happened to it, although a few are seen fighting quite effectively during the Dominion War.
** The common Constitution (the TOS one is a C-store buy, the one that can be gotten for free is the Refit version) and the starting Miranda are at least of the Movie era -- the Romulans' starting ship will be the TOS Romulan Bird-of-Prey.
* BreatherEpisode: "Cold Comfort" in the Breen series. The episode features no combat whatsoever, and only several dialog puzzles.
* CallAHitPointASmeerp: 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. [[UnpleasableFanbase Cue fanbase complaining it's not realistic.]]
** Janeway did it a few times.
* CanonDiscontinuity: While Cryptic does have the option of incorporating any "soft canon" such as other games or novels as they see fit (see SureWhyNot below), they've also outright discarded certain soft canon events, such as the entirety of the ''StarTrekDestiny'' novel trilogy and its immediate successors.
** The StarTrekVoyagerRelaunch novels are a good example, as only ''some'' of them are in the bin. A character who was KilledOffForReal there ([[spoiler:Janeway]]) is alive and well here. Having said that, another plot point introduced there ([[spoiler:that Miral Paris is the ''Kuvah'magh'', TheChosenOne for the Klingon people]]) is ''also'' alive and well here.
* TheCavalry: 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.
* CaptainErsatz: If you look around, you will find a lot of custom species characters of non-Trek alien species, recreated to varying degrees of accuracy.
** The Ferasans are essentially this of the Kzinti, who were unable to be used for copyright issues.
* CasualInterstellarTravel: More so than the rest of ''Franchise/StarTrek'', necessarily due to it being an MMO played in real-time.
* TheChainsOfCommanding: 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?
* CharacterCustomization: Just in case we haven't hammered it home yet: '''[[SerialEscalation Mother. Of. God.]]'''
** While STO comes with an amazing variety of options to customize a character's head and allows for pretty alien looking body proportions, the options for clothing and non-humanoid body parts are far behind those of [[ChampionsOnline Champions Online's]]. This is especially noticable on the Klingon side, where many costume pieces are only available to specific races. [[MyRulesAreNotYourRules Of course, [=NPCs=] get no such limitations at all.]]
** The Klingons also got the short straw for ship customization, with only two designs per ship instead of the Federation's usual three, and even then it took quite a long time before any of them even got a second appearance or allowed you to customize different parts of the ship such as the hull and nacelles.
* ChekhovsGun: In one story mission, [[spoiler: an Andorian scientist you've just rescued makes an offhand comment about making progress on a cure for irumodic syndrome.]] Anyone who has seen [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration The Next Generation's series finale]] knows the possible [[hottip:* :and potentially awesome]] implications of this.
* CivilWar: According to blogs released by the developers leading up to Season 7, it appears the Romulans are falling into this in an attempt to fill the power vacuum left by [[spoiler: Empress Sela's disappearance]] since the mission "Cutting the Cord". As [[AllThereInTheManual 'The Path to 2409']] makes clear, it wouldn't be the first time in recent decades. Or the fifth. Or the sixth.
* ClownCarBase: The Klingon Vo'quv carriers, Fek'Ihri Kar'Fi battle carriers, and Orion battleships & Corsair flight deck cruisers can carry an almost ridiculous number of fighters, and have no qualms about spitting out squadron upon squadron to take you out.
* CombatMedic: The Federation employs NPC's seen on ground missions that are specifically called this; they have higher health and shields than normal medics, and stronger abilities as well, making them an even [[ShootTheMedicFirst higher-priority target]] when you find yourself fighting against them.
** The Romulans have their own versions as well.
* CombatTentacles:
** The Aehallh worms found in the Colliseum aren't ''exactly'' tentacles, but they're pretty close.
** Changelings like to choke your character by the throat and toss you around like a ragdoll by this method.
* CompanyTown: The player can be sent to a planet with a Romulan mining town, completely controlled by a Ferengi and a mining company.
* CompetitiveBalance: 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.
* TheComputerIsACheatingBastard: The D'deridex Warbirds used by the Romulans and Remans can fire several heavy plasma torpedoes in a row at you. Player ships are only capable of shooting one of these at a time.
** Averted in Season 7 with the introduction of the Romulan Hyper Plasma Torpedo launcher obtainable from the Romulan reputation system.
* ConflictBall: To people who haven't gotten deep into the STO universe and plotlines (and maybe even to some who have), the whole Federation-Klingon conflict can easily seem to be a contrived reason to have StuffBlowingUp.
* ContinuityNod / CallBack: The game is positively dripping with them to the point they could warrant their own page.
** The Wolf 359 System. Especially with the Federation memorial in the middle (when you get close you start to hear the comm traffic from the battle).
** [[Series/StarTrekVoyager Naomi Wildman]] is the commander of Deep Space K-7. Icheb appears as a mission giver, too.
** [[Series/StarTrekVoyager Miral Paris]] is a plot-centric character whose storyline first introduces you to [[spoiler: the Guardian of Forever and the MirrorUniverse.]]
** Akira Sulu is the Great-Grandson of Mr. Sulu.
** [[Series/StarTrekVoyager 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.
** 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 ''[[Film/StarTrekGenerations Generations]]'', the modified tactical console from the [[FutureBadass 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".
** One of the engineers over at Memory Alpha is ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Kirayoshi O'Brien.]]''
** One of the Starfleet contacts at K-7 is [[StarTrekNewFrontier Mackenzie Calhoun]].
** Deep in Cardassian space, you will encounter Joshua Riker, the son of a transporter-created clone of old Will Riker.
** [[spoiler: And then, who should show up from the mirror universe? Captain James ''O'Brien''. Aboard the [[MeaningfulName ISS ''Molly.'']]]]
** Expect to encounter any and ''all'' types of food that are ever shown or mentioned throughout any of the series, including ''Chateau Picard'' wine. They even have Prune Juice, repeatedly [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration mentioned]] and [[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine referenced]] as Worf's drink of choice.
** The entrance to the [[spoiler: Preserver archive]] resembles the Asteroid Deflector from the [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries TOS episode "The Paradise Syndrome"]]
** "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.]]
** Gul Madred from the TNG episode "Chain of Command I & II" is the leader of the Cardassian side of the True Way Alliance. Pity, though, that player captains never get the chance to debate with him whether there are four lights or five...
** Admiral Chakotay was promoted to the head of Starfleet Intelligence in 2406, and thanks to Voyager's encounters with the Undine, he was able to convince Starfleet to start "expecting" them to be among personnel, and start developing technology to help detect Undine Infiltrators.
** Much like the 2800 story arc, the 3rd Year Anniversary mission is a direct continuation of a series episode, this time from TNG and the episode being Yesterday's Enterprise.
** Many of the Exploration Missions are directly these, involving the Gorgons, the burial remains of the dead alien race from "Masks", and various other stuff (though it tends to play out Kirk-style).
* ConvectionSchmonvection: 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.
* CoolStarship: 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.
* CPRCleanPrettyReliable / WorstAid: This was the original way to revive a downed character. It has since been replaced with a quick tricorder scan.
* CrapsackOnlyByComparison: Things have gone downhill compared to the era the shows took place in, but it's still a much better world to live in than say, the settings of VideoGame/DeadSpace or VideoGame/MassEffect3.
* CrapsackWorld: Nimbus III. It was bad in Film/StarTrekVTheFinalFrontier. But the Federation pulled out a hundred years ago in game ( [[ShownTheirWork and in the Expanded Universe]] ). Now its home to nothing but raiders, pirates, slavery, prostitution and nightclubs.
* CriticalExistenceFailure: 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.
* CrystalSpiresAndTogas: The Deferi come pretty close.
* CustomUniform: The developers were able to {{Handwave}} the glaring flaw about Starfleet's uniform code by stating in one of the LoadingScreen notes that Starfleet 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.
* DeathFromAbove: 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 KillSat, wiping out Romulans and fighters left and right.
** Also the various mortar weapons that can be erected by Engineering players & NPC's during ground missions.
* DeathIsASlapOnTheWrist: 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 RedShirts. 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.
* DeathWorld: Nukara Prime, a Y class "Demon" planet with a surface temperature of 500 degrees Kelvin, a corrosive sulphuric atmosphere, and rivers of acid. Players are REQUIRED to wear environmental suits if they don't want to be immediately engulfed in flames and die a gruesome death by bursting into ashes.
* DefeatEqualsExplosion: Par for the course with space combat. The initial explosion of a ship can damage you, but a few seconds later the warp core blows up for a second explosion. For ground combat, while most enemies who die from an "exposed" attack get vaporized, Tholians can actually self destruct, causing damage to anything around it. Mechanical devices, such as the various turrets and whatnot also explode when they're destroyed.
* DefeatMeansPlayable: 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.
* DefectorFromDecadence: The entire Reman Rebellion is this to what's left of the paranoid Romulan Government. And You in the Legacy of Romulus.
* DesignItYourselfEquipment: The player's ship.
* DetachmentCombat: 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, [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs 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 [[Series/StarTrekVoyager the series]], it can split itself into ''three'' equally-powerful ships, and you can choose which one you want to command the formation from.
* DevelopmentGag: During one patch, the space station K-7 was accidentally removed. The in-game {{Game Master}}s 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 Earth Spacedock. 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.
* TheDevTeamThinksOfEverything: With the Season 6 update, all enemies started using more level appropriate skills to add a little more challenge. Enemies can now use the same skills that players use. Gravity Wells, Ejecting Warp Plasma, various healing abilities, etc. Klingons in particular now use Bio-Neural Warheads. They're a bit like Tricobalt Devices, but ''exceptionally'' more powerful and have built-in disruptors to bore a hole in your shields before impact. This invoked a bit of FridgeLogic among the player community. Certain missions involves the player traveling back in time to the 23rd Century, where they interact with with Dr. [=McCoy=], Scottie, Spock, and even save the original ''Enterprise'' in battle. Some players think that the Klingons of that era shouldn't have access to these weapons, but the developers wrote into the story that Admiral B'Vat went back in time and shared his new technology with his old self long before the Season 6 patch was even planned.
** Also leave tribbles in your inventory and some food? Well when you log back in the food is going to be gone and more tribbles will be there. This is used by player to get better tribbles. There is ''one'' exception, however: ''Polygeminus grex canibalis'' does not eat food in your inventory. They eat ''other tribbles'' in your inventory.
* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: The Fek'lhri arc basically involves carving your way through TheLegionsOfHell, confronting Klingon Satan, and sticking a bat'leth through his face.
* DifficultButAwesome: The handful of larger ships that can mount cannons, like smaller and faster-turning escorts. Trying to keep cannons on a target with a cruiser's turn rate would be completely impractical, and requires unorthodox tactics:
** The Galaxy-X dreadnaught has a cloaking device; a skilled player can use this to sneak up on an unsuspecting ship, de-cloak as close as possible and unload on the target before it has a chance to move out of range. The ship's unique phaser spinal lance does huge damage in a single shot, and fires twice when triggered; it's more than enough to ensure the first volley is fatal against another player ship in [=PvP=] if weapons are fired in the right order, fast enough so the target can't pop any defensive buffs. When the ship is already in combat and can't cloak right away, Tractor and Repulser beams can be used to keep the target in front and a Subspace Jump Console can be used to teleport the Galaxy-X directly behind a target, facing it.
** The Klingon Bort'asqu comes with a Subspace Snare Console that takes a different approach than the Subspace Jump Console; it teleports the ''target'' in front of the ship.
* DoNotRunWithAGun: You cannot run and shoot at the same time in ground missions. Similarly, firing weapons (or taking fire, for that matter) in space missions will drop your ship from full impulse to a slower maneuvering speed. Full impulse will also divert some of your weapon power to the engines as well.
* DramaticSpaceDrifting
* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler: K'Valk in the Doomsday Machine due to his part in helping the machine being activated. See Heroic Sacrifice below.]]
* DudeWheresMyRespect: 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.
* DumpStat: For a long time, ground combat skills were a DumpStat because most players didn't want to waste valuable skillpoints on it when space combat was considered to be much more fun and the primary appeal of the game. This was changed, making it mandatory to invest 20% of one's skillpoints into ground skills, but mercifully added 20% more total skillpoints to allow for this without ruining the builds that veteran players had created. Now the DumpStat is a matter of playstyle: most players neglect science skills in favor of [[MoreDakka tactical]] and engineering(healing and survivability) skills unless they fly science ships. For science ship captains, tactical skills are the least relevant since they have fewer weapons per ship than either escorts or cruisers and they rely more on control and damage abilities in the science skill tree.
* EarthShatteringKaboom: The Planet Killer (yes, ''[[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries that]]'' Planet Killer) does this to a planet in a cutscene to give the player an idea just what kind of power they're up against.
** The Dewans apparently did this to themselves when they hooked an Iconian gateway up to a geothermal power system and tried to activate it, wiping themselves out and leaving Dewa III (or New Romulus as it would later be known) uninhabitable for centuries.
* EasterEgg: In the Borg front mission "State of Q", players can find one of these in the form of the USS ''Enterprise''-D, seen through one of the hull breaches on the USS ''Saratoga''. Also counts as a bit of an anachronism, as the ''Enterprise'' didn't make it to the [[http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Battle_of_Wolf_359 Battle of Wolf 359]] until after the ''Saratoga'' and the rest of the fleet had been destroyed.
* EjectEjectEject: 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.
* ElitesAreMoreGlamorous: The Omega Force, a joint Federation/Klingon task force developed to take on the threat of the Borg, generally gives this impression.
** Starfleet and the Klingons have this as well in the form of MACO and the Honor Guard, respectively. Both come with fancy armor, weapons, and ship equipment that makes their 'normal' counterparts look pathetic by comparison.
* EliteZombie: The Borg have this in the form of the Elite Tactical Drone; almost twice as tall as a normal drone with tons of health as well as an ArmCannon that drains the players' personal shields and does major damage.
* EverythingIsTryingToKillYou: 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.
* EverythingsSquishierWithCephalopods: The Nanovs roaming the Atlai on New Romulus.
* EvilIsDeathlyCold: The Breen, complete with HumanPopsicle [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzuUFomZVCI grenades and lasers.]]
* EvilSoundsDeep: The voice of the Collective in Borg space missions, coupled with a bit of VoiceOfTheLegion (naturally).
* EvilVersusEvil: 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 (there's even one instance during a mission where the Borg abruptly break off from fighting the player to go after Undine and will totally ignore the player's ship unless fired on). 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.
* {{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.
** Frankly, most of the ship variants count. Each Tier contains: 1) a ship from the TV series, and 2) two more ships that ''look'' different but are basically cosmetic redesigns. This allows the mix-and-match customization, since the warp nacelles, engineering hull, etc are all in the same position, but the cosmetic redesigns themselves are of variable aesthetic quality.
* ExecutiveMeddling: Popular discussion among the official forums by both the players and developers is that there some things that the developers want to add into the game that they can't do unless they have CBS's permission to do so, because they own the intellectual property rights to the entire Star Trek series. For example, adding Tier 5 refits of lower level ship designs. They kinda need CBS's approval before they can touch any ship class that was shown in the series, like the Constitution or Akira class ships.
* ExpansionPack: ''Legacy of Romulus'', due to launch in late May 2013. Will include the long-awaited Romulan playable faction as well as huge changes to the rest of the game as well.
** Although WordOfGod is that it will work just as the previous Season updates (that is, a free and (if you want to play the game) obligatory update to the game that comes with a number of additions to the microtransaction store). It will just be a much, ''much'' larger update than any of the previous Seasons, which is why they are calling it an expansion pack instead.
* ExplodingBarrels: Players can find these on the promenade of [=DS9=] in the mission "Boldly They Rode", and can use them to take out some of the Jem'Hadar without having to engage in protracted firefights.
* ExplosiveInstrumentation: This ''is'' Star Trek. How else do you duty officers get hurt realigning a sensor array or some of the other tasks that have the possibility of injury?
* ExtraEyes: All the wildlife on New Romulus have six eyes, presumably due to mutation caused by long-term exposure to the radiation on the planet's surface.
* FaceHeelTurn: Expository text in the loading screens reveal [[spoiler: that Worf had severed all ties to the Federation after they declined assisting the Klingons in fighting the Undine/Species 8472.]] [[spoiler:Of course, given that he was worried about Starfleet Command and the Federal Parliament being shot through with Undine infiltrators and was rebuffed after being told it couldn't happen, exactly who ended up the face and who ended up the heel [[GreyAndGreyMorality is a matter of perspective]].]]
* FacePalm: One of the emotes you can do is a Picard face palm.
* [[FallingIntoTheCockpit 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... [[OhCrap against the Borg.]] The fact you actually ''win'' is why command makes your command position permanent.
* FakeDefector: [[spoiler: In the mission "Under the Cover of Night", T'Par is actually a member of Section 31, and capturing her is just part of a ruse to feed the Romulans false information.]]
* FanDisservice: The scantily-clad, hideously ugly Fek'lhri Ravagers.
* FanService: Orion Females play this straight, especially the Player Character ones. This also applies to female toons with the Enterprise-Era and TOS-Era Mirror Uniforms.
** Special note to Nimbus III's Orion Hideout and Titty Bar, Shangdu. There is fanservice for ANYONE in this nightclub with scantily clad dancers everwhere. This is notable because it's not just the standard hot chick schtick and features as the three main ones a Trill Female in a bikini, a [[FurryFandom Caitian Female]] in a [[ZettaiRyouiki tank top and go-go boots]], and a Human ''[[GayOption male]]'' in a speedo. The equality of it was actually praised on the forums.
* FasterThanLightTravel: Par for the course. [[EveOnline Thankfully, there is no such thing]] [[NothingIsScarier as a Warp Queue]].
* FightingYourFriend: Some of the missions (such as the Starbase 234 patrol mission for Fed players) has the player engaging in 'wargames' against their allies to hone their combat skills. This is also the main premise of the same-faction (Fed vs Fed, KDF vs KDF) PvP missions, where players square off against others from their own faction.
* FlunkyBoss: Just about every elite level boss ship you have to kill (and some battleship-level mobs) will have a squadron of escort ships or fighters buzzing around it.
** Some high-ranking ground enemies will have the ability to summon low-level grunts as backup.
* FourStarBadass: The current maximum rank a player can achieve is [[strike:Rear Admiral 5]] Vice Admiral (Federation) and Lt. General (KDF). Rather quickly in universe, one would imagine.
** There are plans to up the cap even further to full Admiral and General ranks.
* FragileSpeedster[=/=]GlassCannon: 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.
** The fighters, runabouts, and shuttlecraft can also also be considered this; small, agile craft good for quick hit and run attacks, but will be slaughtered wholesale by battleships and cruisers that get a clear shot on them.
* FriendlyFireproof: Other players and friendly NPC's won't be harmed by a stray phaser beam or torpedo during combat.
* FunnyBackgroundEvent: In the 20-man FM event ''Starbase Fleet Defense'' the freighters you escort for a full minute make rediculous but easily missed comments ranging from SpaceIsAnOcean to discussing about their romantic encounters with the comm channel over.
* FutureMeScaresMe: [[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]]
* GameplayAndStorySegregation: 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.
** The New Romulus story introduced in Season 7 has what one can call Story And Story Segregation: continuity-wise it explicitly takes place after and relies on events in the Romulan arc in the Federation story (for instance, [[spoiler: the disappearance of Sela is the reason for the civil war that is the reason for the New Romulus exodus, while the Tal Shiar's actions are influenced by the loss of Hakeev]]), but there's no restriction on doing the New Romulus missions before even ''beginning'' the Romulan arc.
** More Story and Story Segregation in the Third Anniversary mission, "Temporal Ambassador". Given that the mission guest-stars Tholians and [[spoiler: 29th Century Starfleet timeships]], the mission ''should'' be set somewhere near the Endgame and post-Endgame content. However, the level restriction for "Temporal Ambassador" is level 6 - Lieutenant rank, a far cry from Endgame.
* GatlingGood / MoreDakka: 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. [[VideoGame/StarTrekEliteForce Not the first time we've seen 'em, either.]]
* GenreSavvy: 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.
* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: One of the Duty Officer assignments is 'Retrieve DNA Sample from Romulan Senator', which is easier to accomplish if the officers you assign to it have the 'Seductive' and 'Unscrupulous' traits. Oh ''my''.
* GladiatorGames: [[spoiler: Prominently featured in the Cloaked Intentions episode series.]]
* GlassCannon: The Escort.
* GodSaveUsFromTheQueen: As of season 7, the Borg Queen. Empress Sela as well, to a minor extent.
* GrenadeLauncher: The disruptor rifle available as part of the Klingon Honor Guard ground set has one of these built in. Engineering players can also erect automated grenade-launching turrets.
* GrievousHarmWithABody: One of the weapons the player can get is a severed Borg arm cannon, which makes for a form of HoistByHisOwnPetard since it's most often used against other Borg.
* GuileHero: You get the chance to be this on occasion, especially during the [[TimeTravel Drozana Station]] missions.
* GunsAkimbo: Klingon Swordmasters and other types of enemies often use twin disruptor pistols, but the PlayerCharacter and their BridgeBunnies can too. Somewhat justified, in that these are energy weapons, and thus would have nonexistent kickback.
* GoodOldFisticuffs: Just because you ''have'' a [[RayGun Phaser]], doesn't mean you ''always have to use it''. Far from being an EmergencyWeapon, some enemies just go down faster if the player simply ''holsters their weapon and hands them their ass''. Having the Leg Sweep ability for crowd control makes this even more useful. See also {{BFS}}.
* GreenSkinnedSpaceBabe: The Orion Vixens, complete with confuse-inducing Seduce skill. They're also a popular choice amongst the RP community.
* HandWave: Story-wise, the Tutorial shows that your character is merely an ensign who's ''very first assignment'' out of the academy takes them to the Vega Colony, where the Borg very specifically kill off all the commanding officers on your ship while you transported over to the U.S.S. Khitomer to help them get their ship back up and running. This technically placed you as the highest ranking officer in the chain of command, and Admiral Quinn decides that you have earned the right to remain as captain of your vessel due to the dire situation all around the Alpha Quadrant, and they need every last ship they can use in service. Players are actually given the choice to skip the Tutorial if they want. If they do, they start the game in Starfleet Academy, and have to go see the Commandant of the academy for graduation. He decides that your academics are so admirably remarkable that he recommends you for a command assignment. That's it. He tells you to go grab some supplies from a nearby locker, select a first officer, and get to work.
* HealthDamageAsymmetry: The absolute maximum hitpoints a player ship can have is roughly in the 60k range, however boss ships on elite difficulty have hundreds of thousands to millions of hitpoints. In a subversion, these boss ships often have OneHitKill weapons that have to be avoided rather than tanked. Player ships can do some serious damage too, but nothing that can solo kill a boss in one or two hits.
* HeelFaceTurn: [[spoiler: The Remans, and particularly Obisek, who starts off stealing thalaron weapons and siccing fighters on you.]]
* HellBentForLeather: Even in the 25th century, the typical Klingon military uniform still looks like something you'd expect to see members of {{Music/KISS}} wearing.
* HeroicSacrifice: [[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.]]
** [[spoiler: Admiral D'Vak nearly does one too; sacrificing his ship to draw fire from insanely powerful Borg weapons. [[SuicidalGotcha He survives, though]].]]
* HumansAreLeaders: The only race with the Leadership skill, which increases subsystem repair and hull regeneration. An entire crew of purple quality Human bridge officers lead by a Human captain will have a very fast regeneration rate and recover from subsystem attacks that temporarily knock them out such as Target Subsystem: Engines.
* HumiliationConga: [[spoiler:Hakeev]] gets put through one once his plans start falling apart. As the AnticlimaxBoss entry notes, ''it doesn't even end with his death''.
* HurricaneOfPuns: ''[[CrowningMomentOfFunny 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'' MemeticMutation in the player base.
** The KDF has a lot of this. One of the Klingon PlayerVersusEnvironment missions is called [[IncrediblyLamePun "Sulfur My Wrath."]] Players collectively groaned upon seeing it.
* HyperactiveMetabolism: we will have this trope in the future.
* IJustWantToBeNormal: 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.
** [[spoiler: Even worse is that the Guardian of Forever confirms the fact that she is the Kuvah'magh.]]
* ImplacableMan: If you don't have a frequency remodulator device, Borg drones can easily become this once they adapt to your weapons. The only way to stop them then is to engage them in melee combat, where you risk possibly being assimilated.
* ImprobableWeaponUser: The Gorn equivalent of the [[DemonicSpiders Klingon Swordmaster]] likes to grab a chunk of the ground and throw it at you. Yes, even on a space ship/space station.
** Orbital Strike for Engineer captains. It doesn't matter where you are--on the surface, underground, on another Federation starship, ''even back in time.''
* InsurmountableWaistHeightFence: There is one very prominent example on the Starfleet Academy map. Your character is not able to access the waterfront, even though there's only a literal waist-heigth fence in your way - one that you could jump over under normal circumstances. Many other maps (including player-created Foundry stories) use noticable [[InvisibleWall Invisible Walls]]. Those are most prominent around the edges of maps, where your character suddenly can't go any further for no apparent reason, although in some maps (e.g. some of the Borg ones), there are energy fields acting as these.
* InterchangeableAntimatterKey: "Lock Boxes" need to be unlocked using a "Master Key," which costs 100 CP. (Even better, the lock boxes themselves drop frequently enough that, unless you use real money, you're likely to have ''way'' more of them than keys. Fortunately they're a limited-time promotion. First started with Cardassian lock boxes that gave the possibility of a Galor class ship, and currently there are Ferengi lock boxes that can reward a D'Kora Marauder vessel.)
** "Limited-time promotion" is a ''gross'' underestimation: there are now lock boxes for ''every'' major story event (including Tholian and Temporal lock boxes), with the latest being Dominion lock boxes.
* InterfaceScrew: Some missions will require you to hide your ship inside a nebula. Inside these nebulae, static interference will obstruct your entire view of everything on the screen save for the UI itself. Your map will also be obstructed by static as well.
** Getting assimilated by the Borg during ground missions will also implement a fisheye lens-type effect on the camera that lasts until your character is defeated.
** Being critically low on health in ground combat will cause the screen to grey out.
** Having your ship boarded by an enemy in space combat will cause the edges of the screen to flash red until the effects of the boarding parties have expired or been neutralized.
* InterfaceSpoiler:
** In a mission where you've secretly been in a Holo-Deck the entire time, your away mission's map shows a yellow grid pattern.
** An early Romulan mission involves checking three systems -- Dewa, Gamma Eridon and Galorndon Core -- to see which is the most suitable for colonization to become 'New Romulus'. Thing is, Dewa's name on the sector map is Dewa III/''New Romulus''...
* AnInteriorDesignerIsYou: Sort of; you get to choose what kind of bridge your ship has, and you can now [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5CZZ3M2pbk&hd=1 run around your ship's interior]]. Cryptic has stated outright that they want to expand greatly upon this and eventually give you full control of your ship's interior and possibly even a starbase for player-made fleets.
** You also get to design the ''exterior'' of your ship from several options for each major ship section, natch. It took them a while to add Klingon options, however.
** Starbases have finally been added, which allow for ''very'' limited customization of both exteriors and interiors.
** Also, the Foundary allows for the creation of custom missions, as well as custom mission maps, including indoor, outdoor and outer space mission arenas.
* ItemCrafting: The system has gone through several iterations and is slated for updates including [[Series/StarTrekVoyager craftable Delta Flyers.]]
** Craftable Delta Flyers have now been removed and are only available through the C-Store.
* KillItWithFire: Some weapons, particularly plasma-based weapons, will often set targets ablaze when they hit an enemy. Applies to both ground and ship-based versions.
** The 'four spectres' the player fights in Gre'thor and Fek'Ihr himself will also use this trope to devastating effect. Get caught in the area of one of their flame attacks and you can pretty much kiss your ass goodbye.
* KilledMidSentence: [[spoiler: During the Breen arc.]]
-->[[spoiler: '''Thot Trel''': "...But... I'm... Thot... Tr..."]]
* KineticWeaponsAreJustBetter: 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 [[EnergyWeapons 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.
* KlingonScientistsGetNoRespect: 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...).
* LargeAndInCharge: The more important the Breen, the bigger they are. [[{{Mooks}} H'ren]] are a bit shorter than humans, senior officers are OneHeadTaller, and [[BigBad Thot Trel]] is an absolute colossus.
** Exaggerated further with the Fek'lhri, who range from the wast-high Hordelings to the Slave Masters, who are twice your height... and the Horde's senior leadership are even bigger than that.
** The Gorn seem to be fond of this as well; low-level grunts look like anemic midgets compared to their superiors. One could be forgiven for mistaking a high-level Gorn officer for a ''T. rex'' or Franchise/{{Godzilla}}.
** Kar'ukan, the leader of the Jem'Hadar near the end of the Dominion storyline, is twice as big as the other Jem'Hadar under his command.
** The Tholians employ this to some degree as well, most noticeably when wearing environmental suits; Ensigns are roughly human-sized, whereas the Captains are almost twice as big!
* LaserBlade: Yes, in ''Franchise/StarTrek''. There are Nanopulse Lirpas and Bat'leths (which is by the way based in an ACTUAL canon technobabble) which give off the glow full time. The one that is kinda controversial is the new Tholian Energy Sword which harnesses energy shot at it's wielder and converts it into an energy blade that reflects incoming fire like a lightsaber. the controversy comes from the fact it's so blatant about it and being an AssPull of tech. It's still moderately popular simply because of the trope though.
* TheLegionsOfHell: The Fek'lhri are a ''space-faring'' version of this. They are malicious souls of the damned. Spirits sent to Gre'thor, the Klingon version of Hell. The Klingons have a story arc where you and your crew are sent down to Gre'thor itself, where you must find why and how the Fek'Ihr reappeared. Along your travels you will fight, among other demons, the physical personifications of Treachery, Cowardice, and Dishonor.
* LevelEditor: The "Foundry" content creation toolset. Even in its initial "beta"-ish release state (as Cryptic calls it), it's quite robust and will only get moreso, and will likely allow STO to carve out a very solid niche for itself.
* LevelScaling: In order to maintain some of the challenge, all instances that the player enters into will feature enemies that scale up to your level. This also helps please the fanbase by maintaining that the Klingons, the Orion Syndicate, the Gorn, and all the other races you engage in the low level story arcs are still a viable threat against you at level 50[[hottip:*:and that while an assault cruiser (e.g. Sovereign class) is still clearly significantly more powerful than a light cruiser (e.g. Centaur class), it is not by several orders of magnitude as happens when comparing two players with a 40-level difference]]. Public areas like space conflicts still scale the enemies to their appropriate levels, making it very easy to destroy entire Klingon armadas with only a few phaser shots to drop the shields and a torpedo to finish off the ship.
* LightningBruiser: The Escort class ships. Once you learn and train your tactical officers with the Cannon Rapid Fire ability, you will tear almost any ship's shields to shreds faster than they have time to turn around and start fighting back. Add torpedoes into that mix and they'll be dead in seconds. Defense can be easily enhanced through shielding and skill distribution into science or engineering skills.
* LoadsAndLoadsOfLoading: One of the few nearly-universal complaints about the game is that due to the way sector space, solar systems and human-scale stuff is divided, you have to transition between loading screens a ''lot''. Admittedly, because of the way they go from environment to environment in the ''shows'' so quickly, there wasn't all that much of a way of escaping scene changes, but on older machines or lower-quality connections the load times can hurt.
* LowerDeckEpisode: played with. You are, of course, TheCaptain, so it wouldn't make sense for you to be deeply involved in one of these. However, the game does offer "[[RedshirtArmy Duty Officers]]," who are semi-randomly generate and whom you can ''send'' on Lower Deck Missions, bringing back small amounts of EXP, EC, dilithium and "Commendation Experience," a second set of levels which give you some new abilities. What's interesting is that [[FanNickname Doffs]] themselves are SeriousBusiness. The cheapest Bridge Officers, the {{NPC}}s that form your [[FiveManBand away team]], start at like 100 EC at the exchange. The cheapest Duty Officers start at ''10K''.
* {{Machinima}}: The ''"The Veil Of Space"'' trailers.
* MacrossMissileMassacre: The "High Yield Torpedo" abilities allow a single launcher to fire 2, 3, or 4 torpedoes at a single target, but the prize goes to the "Torpedo Spread" ability that fires 3 (reduced damage) torpedoes each at up to 3 targets (9 total) at lowest level moving up to a theoretical maximum of 9 torpedoes each at up to 9 targets (that's up to '''81''' total) from a single launcher at the top end.
** The Borg command ship from the sector invasion events love to use Torpedo Spread on the players. For a ship of it's size, from the player's perspective, it looks like you're getting hit point blank with buckshot from a shotgun. Say goodbye to your shields and 90% of your hull from the initial impact.
** Plasma Torpedoes launcher don't fire more than torpedo at High Yield (it gets modified into a slower, destructible, but ''much'' more damaging torpedo instead), but the Romulan Hyper-Plasma Torpedo fires three High Yield torpedoes ''as the default mode''. Torpedo Spread doesn't have quite the impact it does on other torpedoes (it goes from 2 torpedoes per three targets to 2 torpedoes per 5 targets), but on the other hand, 10 torpedoes ''is'' pretty impressive for a single attack by a single ship.
* TheManBehindTheMan: [[spoiler:The Iconians, architects of '''all''' the strife sweeping the galaxy. All it took was one Iconian Portal to literally walk into Fluidic Space and mess around with the Undine, a race who simply wants to be ''left alone'', enough times to get them to do all the rest of the work.]]
** On a smaller scale, this trope applies to the Romulan Empire. While Empress Sela does in her own right hold a great deal of authority and power, [[spoiler: The Tal Shiar have always had their own agenda and goals of operation. They work under their own masters, and don't recognize Sela as the true ruler of the empire.]]
* ManipulativeBastard: This is the [[spoiler: Iconians']] [[PlanetOfHats Hat.]] They're responsible for starting ''EVERYTHING'' that has happened. ''Everything.''
* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: During the invasion of Klingon space by [[TheLegionsOfHell the Fek'lhri]], nobody is quite sure whether they're up against demons or artificial constructs. [[spoiler:It may be a bit of both.]]
* MediumAwareness: During "The State of Q", Q himself will speak through the yellow text message pop up on screen that says "Intense, isn't it?" These yellow messages are typically reserved for system notices such as when you receive a reward for completing quests, goals, duty officer assignments, and such.
* MegatonPunch / TouchOfDeath: It's possible (though very rare) to ''disintegrate'' enemy [=NPCs=] or other players with [[GoodOldFisticuffs hand-to-hand]] criticals.
* MeleeATrois: Upon arrival at the [[spoiler: Preserver]] outpost world, the player finds several Breen and Jem'Hadar ships fighting for control of whatever's on the surface. The player's crewmates encourage them to attack while both are distracted.
* MemeticBadass: In universe. The player fully achieves this status, complete with random Starfleet [=NPCs=] fawning over the player's character... ''as early as the first moment you arrive at Earth spacedock.'' [[JustifiedTrope Justified]], in that...oh hell, just ''read this page from top to bottom''. Don't even ''bother'' looking behind the spoilers.
* MildlyMilitary: As ever for Starfleet. In fact, you can customize the uniform on your captain and on each bridge officer - while they'll still be Starfleet uniforms, they don't even have to ''match''. With TOS, TNG, ''Deep Space Nine'', the various films, and even ''mirror universe'' uniforms available, they don't even have to have the "new" look.
** Averted with regards to the M.A.C.O. marines, who are definitely NOT MildlyMilitary. The player gets away with the multiple uniforms at higher levels despite being one because they're primarily Starfleet with a dual commission. The STO tie-in novel, ''The Needs of The Many'' actually shows what being a M.A.C.O. is like and they sounds like any marine you've met in real life. Their uniform doesn't change much, it's based on what Mark equipment your using and how good you are.
* MilitaryBrat: [=NPCs=] in Starfleet include the children, grandchildren, or other descendants of Hikaru Sulu, Mira Romaine, Miles O'Brian, Tom Paris and B'Elanna Torres, and Samantha Wildman. (The latter two were born aboard ''Voyager'' during that series' run.) Civilian descendants include those of Harry Mudd and Cyrano Jones.
* MissingTrailerScene: The game suffers from this occasionally, as some content seen in trailers for the various seasons is either changed or outright removed from the actual version, such as a scene from the season 6 trailer showing players in EV suits fighting Tholians onboard a damaged starship.
* MoleInCharge: [[spoiler:Undine seem to be good at this, given how the ''entire Klingon Empire'' is at war with the Federation because of them.]]
** At least two missions ([[spoiler:"Diplomatic Orders" and "Divide et Impera"]]) have you escorting someone who turns out to be an [[spoiler:Undine]] imposter.
* MookMaker: [[GoddamnedBats Klingon Targ Handlers]] wil spawn an endless legion of creatures to attack you until you take them down. On the other side of the neutral zone, Tactical Player Captains can summon a two man team of NPC redshirts from their ship to fight for them every two minutes. [[RedshirtArmy But if you combine that with the Tactical Initiative skill]], [[ZergRush which instantly recharges all of your abilities...]]
* MoreDakka: Whereas Cruisers are more into BeamSpam, Escorts' ability to equip considerable numbers of rapid-firing cannons puts them into this trope instead. Especially since most cannon-related abilities involve increasing their rate of fire ''even further''. The current king of dakka is the Federation's Andorian-designed ''Kumari''-class escort, a pure GlassCannon with an AlphaStrike that looks like something out of a BulletHell game.
* MundaneUtility: Onr duty officer mission has you sabotage a provisions stockpile of the KDF. Do you destroy the food or poison it? Nope you just beam over about three tribbles and let them do it for you.
* NegativeSpaceWedgie: Standard fare for Star Trek, but the higher tier Romulan Warbirds have the short range Singularity Jump ability which takes you out of the path of enemy weapons and, if close enough, leaves a miniature black hole for them to deal with.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: 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. [[YouCantFightFate And since you come from a time when Klingons have ridges and are incredibly warlike]], [[MindScrew you were always destined to do so]]. [[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine 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 ''Film/StarTrekInsurrection''). However, you discover that the Romulans weren't working on such weapons... they were working on methods of finding Undine infiltrators. And the admiral, surprise, ''is'' an Undine, who uses the genetic data of the commander of the base to assume her identity and escape into Romulan space, tricking the Romulans into thinking that it's their foremost expert on finding shapeshifters. So you wrecked up the Alpha Quadrant's best hope of finding Undine infiltrators and put a dangerous one right into the heart of the Romulan Empire. Stonking great job, cap'n.]]
*** 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 [[StupidityIsTheOnlyOption literally forced by the mission design]] to carry the IdiotBall 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 [[StupidityIsTheOnlyOption 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.]]
* NoSidepathsNoExplorationNoFreedom: 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]]?"
* OldSchoolDogfight: Not only do you have massive ships flying around like it's 1941 again, but [=NPCs=] often have fighter ships accompanying them. Tiny one or two shots to kill but annoying little fighters.
* OneGenderRace: While it is implied that there are female members of the Gorn, Nausicaan, and Lethean races, the fact that one has never shown up in any canonical source (or even described in any of the ExtendedUniverse books) prevents the developers from allowing the female gender of these races to be playable. Strangely averted with a few federation races though. For example, there's never been any ''confirmed'' depiction of a female Tellarite anywhere in the series, and the same for a few other races, yet they all have both genders available to play as.
** Played even straighter with the Jem'Hadar; since they're all genetically-engineered cloned soldiers, there's no need for two genders for biological reproduction.
* OneHitKill: Many boss-level NPC ships have weapons that can do this, but the worst offenders are possibly the thalaron weapon of the Scimitar dreadnoughts and the plasma energy bolts of the Borg Unimatrix 0047 command ships in the red alert missions; the torpedoes will vaporize any ship they hit just like the weapons used by V'Ger in ''Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture''.
* OneProductPlanet: Certain stellar bodies are often noted for being useful for one type of industry. For example, asteroids are usually only inhabited because of their mining qualities. Some planets will describe how it's native races became known due to their huge advancements in agriculture or what-have-you.
* OrwellianEditor: An out-of-game example. After a patch on August 23rd, 2012, Klingon players started noticing a new ship design flying around while they fought against Starfleet enemies. The ship in question was the ''Wells Class'', the same as the ''U.S.S. Relativity'' from Series/StarTrekVoyager - a Time Ship from the '''29th century.''' Cryptic made sure that no screenshots were allowed to be posted on the forums by diligently deleting any thread where one was posted. Now that the ship has been officially released though, they no longer have to hide anything from the media.
* OurDwarvesAreDifferent: Tellarites, plain and simple. They're short (an average height of 4 feet tall,) usually have [[BadassBeard epic beards]], aesthetically ugly (pig-like facial features and wrinkles,) and ''LOVE'' to argue with others just because they can. Add a love of alcohol in there, and you'd have a dwarf by any other name in a more traditional fantasy setting.
* PercussiveMaintenance: 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.]]
* PermaStubble: Even if you choose to have your male character clean-shaven, zooming in on his face will still show him to have a 5 o'clock shadow.
* PhysicalGod: Q, of course, who spends much of his time hanging around Earth Spacedock, dispensing boons to passing captains and occasionally [[BalefulPolymorph 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 [[Series/StarTrekVoyager lover, Q]]. Nor is it his [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration close friend Q]]. The Q in question is actually his son, [[Series/StarTrekVoyager Q]], who seems to have grown up much like his father, despite his aunt [[Series/StarTrekVoyager Kathy's]] influence.
* PintsizedPowerhouse: The [[Series/StarTrekDeepspaceNine 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 [[StealthInSpace 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 [[MightyGlacier Odyssey Tactical Cruiser]].
* PistolWhipping: One of the melee attacks your character (or your away team members) can use is to smack enemies with the butt of their weapon. [[Film/StarTrekNemesis Works far better than when Picard tried it though]].
* PleasurePlanet: [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lzjn-gGyY6E There's really nothing to do in Risa but hang out and/or party.]]
* PosthumousNarration: A variant. Leonard Nimoy provides narration in-character as Ambassador Spock, describing many recent events. His character was not really killed in his last prime-universe appearance, but everyone in the prime universe would reasonably assume him dead and he was thrown back in time and into an AlternateUniverse well before the events that he describes.
* ProtagonistCenteredMorality: In several missions you're sent to keep Borg technology out of the hands of your enemies. After all, it's simply too dangerous to meddle with, right? And then you get the Special Task Force rewards. That's right, [[spoiler:a full set of Borg technology for your ship.]]
** It should be noted that this is expanded on in the Legacy of Romulus expansion. The players use Borg tech to modify their ships but they don't let the Borg stuff start assimilating their vessels like Nero did in Franchise/StarTrek. Hakeev starts letting the borg tech completely take over his flagship. The result is a [[spoiler: Narada-class dreadnought.]] The moral changes to "using salvaged tech is all right, but don't use it to create a massive planet-eating fleet destroying WMD." Further expanded on ''just'' prior to finding out about the [[spoiler: Narada-class dreadnaught]] -- salvaging Borg tech is one thing, doing experiments with Borg tech involving [[spoiler: ''implanting it into captives until they become asssimilated'']] is another.
** It's also possible to be as Ferengi as a Starfleet officer possibly can be in-game (especially if the PC is ''playing'' a Ferengi character): In the Duty Officer missions "Confiscate Contraband from Crew", "Inspect Civilian Freighter", and "Investigate Reports of Trafficking in Contraband", your duty as a Starfleet officer is to confiscate contraband items from those who should not possess them (such as Federation civilians, smugglers, ''your own crew''). Normally, you could turn the Contraband over to a Starfleet Tactical officer at a starbase... ''or'' you could ''sell it'' at the in-game auction house, The Exchange, for ''obscene'' amounts of in-game currency ("Energy Credits").
*** Then again, how often did the protagonists of the various ''Star Trek'' TV series look the other way when someone obtained illegal Romulan ale, as long as ''they'' could partake as well?
* ProudWarriorRaceGuy: The archetypical examples are a whole ''playable faction'', and they pick up a few other lesser-known Trek examples under their banner too.
** Given the mind-blowing freedom the character creation tool gives the player in creating ''their own alien species'', we can expect quite a few running around out there.
** The Breen are this, according to the first set of Featured Episodes. The Undine consider themselves this as well. The Romulans also have shades of this, with elements of Rihannsu being incorporated into STO's story. And then there's the Cardassians, Jem'Hadar, [[spoiler:Terran Empire]], Remans, Hirogen...
* RecursiveAmmo: Cluster torpedoes. Each one produces more than a dozen homing mines.
* {{Red Shirt}}s: Of course. If you have less than four Bridge Officers who can beam down on an away mission with you (or you just don't want to bring them), they get replaced with Redshirts. They are in fact nameless, lack personality, ''and [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential you can even use them for cover]]'', if [[YouBastard you so wish]].
** The "death penalty" (as it was supposed to be implemented) for being defeated in space is a loss of part of your Redshirt crew; lose too many and ship functions are impaired and you must return to a starbase for repairs. There is no death penalty for normal difficulty, and you can go from a ship full of corpses to being fully manned by alive crewmen within minutes. On higher difficulty settings, you will accumulate injuries and ship damage that reduce stats and need an item or returning to a starbase to remove.
** This trope is taken UpToEleven when you get the Fleet Support ability. You summon a nameless starship to help you in space combat. The ship can be destroyed just like any other. Nobody's gonna care that the nameless science vessel got destroyed. Just a whole crew of redshirts who gave their lives because you ordered them to. On the other hand, you do need to be in moderately serious trouble before you can request a whole other ship to bail you out, so there's that.
* TheRemnant: The Romulan Star Empire, after Romulus gets destroyed (as seen in the 2009 ''Film/StarTrek''). The {{Backstory}} of how they break up and unite repeatedly, [[JustForFun/SurprisinglySimilarStories strikingly resembles]] what happened to [[StarWarsExpandedUniverse a certain other franchise's]] [[TheEmpire Empire]].
* ReptilesAreAbhorrent: The Gorn turn it around by finding mammals repulsive.
* LaResistance: [[spoiler: The Remans, to the Tal Shiar and their "Dark Masters".]]
* ReversePolarity: The skill "Reverse Shield Polarity" which causes energy weapons to increase rather than damage the shields.
* RidiculouslyCuteCritter: Tribbles. So cute they restore tons of HP to the player when you give them a cuddle. The Targs are somewhat less adorable.
** Sehlat cubs have been added to the C-Store. Basically huge [[CuteKitten kittens]].
*** Adult Sehlats are equally adorable, looking like cheetahs with lion manes, except more cuddly.
** The Epohhs on New Romulus also count. You can even domesticate them and keep them as pets.
* RookieRedRanger: Combined with a hefty dose of EnsignNewbie. The player character is given command of a starship at the rank of ''Ensign''. It's somewhat justified, in that these aren't the best times in Federation history, and that [[YouAreInCommandNow Starfleet is grabbing capable commanders from wherever it can find them.]]
** The above is not only justified, it's ''[[LampshadeHanging outright stated in-game by the Admiral you get your orders from]]''
** Also, you did take out a Borg Sphere in the tutorial. It just gets better.
* RuleOfCool: 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 AwesomeAnachronisticApparel (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?
** Starship armaments and components can be scavenged from the wreckage of enemy spaceships--and Federation ships can field phasers, disruptors, plasma cannons, or whatever the heck their player feels like slapping into them. Likewise, individual officers strip weapons and armor off of corpses and carry whatever armament they feel like, up to and including the equivalent of heavy machine guns. The 25th-century Starfleet seems to be made up of 17th-century buccaneers.
** Putting Ensigns and Lieutenants in charge of entire starships. True, the Abrams movie did put raw academy graduates on the bridge, too, but at least it ranked them accordingly.
*** well, You ''did'' [[BadAss blow up a Borg Sphere as your very first act of command]]. If Starfleet has enough resources to not only pump out countless ships but ''tailor them to the CO's whims,'' then its likely a case of having a surplus of captain's chairs to fill and a need of skilled Captains more than anything.
* ScarfOfAsskicking: Three were released during the Winter Event. There's also the Tholian Silk Scarf in the Lobi Store.
* SceneryPorn: Let's take a gander; [[EarthIsTheCenterOfTheUniverse Earth Spacedock]], [[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space Nine (Complete with the Bajoran Wormhole!)]], [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries Deep Space K7]], [[TearJerker 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.]]
** The city of Hathon on Bajor and New Romulus are freaking gorgeous and really shows how the art has evolved since launch. Hathon being our first real look at a Bajoran city (on Deep Space Nine, Bajor was only seen indoors, in monastaries or in remote mountain regions due to budget constraints) and New Romulus being the first open world adventure zone in game featuring everything from cities to rivers and forest and craggy mountains..
** [[DoomedHomeTown Virinat]] (the Romulan starting tutorial zone). OH GOD VIRINAT. People are actually upset it's not a social zone on Tribble (which means it's subject to change).
* SchmuckBait: How do you get the Borg Science Boff Candidate from the Khitomer in Stasis STF mission? Jump into the Borg instant death machine!
* ShootTheDog: The Klingons' pursuit of the [[spoiler: Undine]] has led them to declare war on virtually every Alpha Quadrant power they ''think'' may be infiltrated by them[[hottip:* :such as the highest levels of power of the Federation, according to Starfleet Intelligence]], even setting aside the actions of [[spoiler: Ambassador B'Vat and his followers,]] the Klingon's are probably guilty of numerous war crimes. [[spoiler: Never stopping to think that maybe they're just as heavily infiltrated as they assume everyone else is.]] Several missions, however, show that there are those in the empire who [[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine remember the lessons learned from the Dominion War]], and who wish to secure a cease-fire at the very least.
** What makes it worse is that there's every indication that they're ''right'', but going about it in completely the ''wrong'' way.
* SerialEscalation: "Avatar" customization, as noted above. It isn't just your captain, '''''everything''''' involved with your "Gestalt Avatar" in the game (ship, officers, etc) is customizable. This is a massive step up from Cryptic's previous efforts, which ''already'' set the bar for character customization in an MMO. '''And they keep adding ''more'' options.'''
* ShoutOut: With the release of the ''[[Film/StarTrekIIITheSearchForSpock Excelsior]]'' comes a Transwarp drive. Activating it starts a countdown: 5, 4, 3, 2--- [[EpicFail *clunk*]] (Although the player is lucky -- that only happens ''sometimes''....)
** In one of the Breen Featured Episodes, [[spoiler: the player must interrogate several Breen prisoners to find a way to remove a Breen neural implant that is driving one of the Deferi mad.]] One of them happens to be a Breen Combat Medic named [[DrTran Tran]].
** Not to mention that nearly all the place- and ship-names in the Romulan storyline are references to Diane Duane's noncanon-but-popular Rihannsu novels.
** The "Frozen" featured mission is a one big shout out to TheEmpireStrikesBack, as it features a rebel base inside an Ice cave, and...
-->''The Tal Shiar have entered the base!''
*** Rhi Aerial Assault is also an Empire Strikes Back shout out, with small one man fighters going up against [[HumongousMecha Elachi Walkers]] while protecting a colony!
** The final boss of the Borg sector defense missions looks almost exactly like [[Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture V'Ger]]. Popular fanon theory says that V'Ger was enhanced by the Borg and sent back to Earth.
*** The confirmation option Federation players click on when choosing to partake in these missions being one of [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration Picard]]'s famous catch phrases.
** The 2800 storyline happens to reflect upon another [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/The4400 story involving people vanishing and reappearing decades later.]]
** The 'Temple Offerings' mission chain essentially has the player re-enacting the B-plot of the ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space Nine]]'' episode "[[http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Progress_%28episode%29 Progress]]".
** Some of the 29th century timeships introduced with the Temporal Lockboxes have the ability to "[[Series/SevenDays Backstep]]", rewinding time by [[GalaxyQuest 13 seconds]].
** The ''Armitage''-class Escort Carrier, a refit of the ''Akira''-class heavy escort, [[Anime/ArmitageIII carries on]] its predecessor's tradition of [[Manga/{{Akira}} anime shout-out names]].
** The prototype anti-proton assault rifle looks like a modified neutron wand from ''Film/{{Ghostbusters}}'', and even the same visual effects when using the alt-fire mode. Given that it's found when fighting the Devidians, there's not much of a surprise there... Combine it with the right Engineer kit (the one with a backpack that looks suspiciously similar to a proton pack) and you can roleplay as a Ghostbuster!
** One of the accolades Fed players can earn in the mission "Rapier" is called "[[Film/TopGun Negative Ghostrider, the Pattern Is Full]]". Players earn it by buzzing [=DS9=] after exiting the wormhole.
** The Elachi [[spoiler: /Dewans]] look like ET. But instead of phoning home, they like to bomb yours.
** Taris' [[http://s733.photobucket.com/user/Wilv79/media/STO/screenshot_2013-04-21-20-04-36_zpsc1f37b4e.jpg.html Iconian Gate Control Room]] in the Hobus System looks alot like a gateroom from [[StargateSG1 another series]]...
** Pretty much confirmed here[[http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=9775921&postcount=16]]. As forumite said commented on later in the thread, Nick Meyer said that all works of art are products of their time on the ''Film/StarTrekVITheUndiscoveredCountry'' commentary and that the same applies to STO.
* ShownTheirWork: during one of the Franklin Drake missions, you have to help calibrate a "cortical stimulator" based on tricorder readings of affected brain cells. The neuron factoids are basically spot-on.
* SimulationGame: Of ''Franchise/StarTrek'' in general, from the landing missions to exploration, and oh-so-much {{Technobabble}}.
** Hilariously, though, one of the reasons for so many complaints about the game is that it isn't simulation ''enough'' for some, who had envisioned a kind of "player bridge crew" game and a constant bridge-view of combat, ala ''Bridge Commander'' (even though that game also had a view outside the hull). Once Cryptic established that everyone would be a captain and that full player crews were not even on the drawing board, the rage from some corners was... [[FlameWar palpable]].
** A lot of hardcore fans were/are also hoping and expecting the game to be a lot less RuleOfCool and a lot more serious and canon, and complain about hundred-year-old ships being able to go toe-to-toe with more recent ones, etc. (Of course, good luck getting any group of more than a half-dozen Trek fans to agree on what counts as "canon"...)
* SixthRanger: Players who have preordered their copy get an additional [[HeelFaceTurn rescued Borg crewmate]].
* SlippySlideyIceWorld: Q's Winter Wonderland, complete with a foot race on an ice track. You can even buy boots that reduce your traction and leave you sliding around ridiculously.
* SmallGirlBigGun: Occasionally you'll spot height-challenged female player-characters lugging massive weapons such as the Antiproton Assault Minigun.
* SmashMook: Gorn ground troops have very large soldiers who attack you by either trying to punch you or throw large boulders at you, with no reliance on energy weapons at all.
* SmugSnake: Hakeev, BigBad of the Cloaked Intentions arc. [[spoiler:His anticlimactic death]] only rubs it home.
** The [[HuntingTheMostDangerousGame Hirogen]] basically have this as their [[PlanetOfHats 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 WoundedGazelleGambit to get sympathy from a passing Romulan patrol after their ambush goes horribly wrong.
** Another SmugSnake-hatted species is the Breen Confederacy. An encounter with Breen ships will ''inevitably'' involve their commander calling you for a round of smarmy taunting, seconds before you blow him and his buddies out of the sky.
* SnowballFight: The 2012 Q's Winter Wonderland event included this as one of the festivities, with animated snowmen as the opponents. The player could even purchase two different guns that fire snowballs to give them an edge over the normal hand-thrown projectiles.
* SoLongAndThanksForAllTheGear: 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.
* SpaceClothes: Fully customizable ones, including the uniforms from ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' and the latter TNG films, and the tunics from ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' and the more naval oriented red uniforms worn in ''Film/StarTrekIITheWrathOfKhan'' and onward. The game also provides an array of late 24th/Early 25th century uniforms for the players and crew to wear. It's a space clothes ''jamboree''.
* SpaceElves: 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 [[AncientAstronauts Preservers]], who definitely qualify as a type 2]].
* SpaceFillingPath: A few ground maps are like this. "The Cure" is one such map, of the ping-pong path variety.
* SpaceIsAnOcean: Oh so very much, it's Trek afterall.
** Actually [[DiscussedTrope ''discussed'' ]] in the 20-man Fleet Event by one of the freighters.
---> "You know, Space really ''is'' like an ocean."
* SpaceMarine: 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 ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' at the very least.
** There's also the [=MACOs=], Omega Force and the Klingon Honor Guard. Their job? ''Killing Borg.'' And the player joins them at Level 45.
* SpecialGuest: Not only do you have Leonard Nimoy taking up his role as Spock from ''[=TOS=]'', but Denise Crosby makes an appearance as Tasha Yar in the 3rd anniversary mission.
** Don't forget Zachary Quinto as an EMH during the tutorial mission and Chase Masterson reprising her role as a (holographic representation of) Leeta from Deep Space Nine.
* SpiderPeople: The Tholians. They scuttle around sideways like a crab and can wrangle you in by entrapping you in their webbing.
* SpiritualSuccessor: Watching the trailers focusing on tactics and space combat, one might assume the developers had played quite a bit of ''StarTrekStarfleetCommand'' or ''StarTrekBridgeCommander''. [[SoCoolItsAwesome 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 weekly missions which give you lots of plot and dialogue options on top of the fighting.
* SortingAlgorithmOfEvil: 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:
-->Warrior
-->Officer
-->Munitions Officer, [[GoddamnedBats Targ Handler]]
-->[[DemonicSpider Swordmaster]]
-->[[AnticlimaxBoss Boss Character]] (Klingon Captain or what have you)
* SplashDamage: Most slow-moving projectiles such as tricobalt torpedoes cause area of effect damage, which means you can harm yourself if you're too close when it detonates. The gigantic plasma balls that Borg Unimatrix units shoot at you is actually the best way to destroy them. They are OneHitKill weapons, so unless you roll an extremely lucky roll to dodge the plasma ball, you will be vaporized in the process, but if you've taken down the Unimatrix's shields first, then one shot will knock it down by about 40% of it's life. They fire them frequently enough that you'll have it dead before too long. It's also quite satisfying to see the entire unimatrix be vaporized in the same manner that happens to your ship.
* StaffOfAuthority: The Shrouded Phantasm, the 'leader' of the Devidians invading Drozana Station, carries one of these.
** Players can also get one of their own when the Devidian featured episode is running.
* StarfishAliens: The Horta from the Original Series make a return as an NPC 'pet' the player can acquire. There's several variations, some of which the player can use in combat to attack enemies. The Undine and Tholians both meet enough of the requirements cited on the page to count as well.
* StealthPun: May 2012's addition to the Federation Fleet is the [[TheBattlestar Atrox Carrier]], a Vice Admiral level starship designed by the Caitians, a race of [[CatFolk humanoid felines]]. [[spoiler:its a Cat Carrier]].
** Another one is third anniversary KDF ship, the Kamarag-class. Kamarag was the name of the Ambassador seen in Film/StarTrekIVTheVoyageHome and Film/StarTrekVITheUndiscoveredCountry. The pun? [[spoiler: It's the Klingon Ambassador-class and the Federation counterpart is the Ambassador-class.]]
* StoneWall: The Cruiser class ships are huge and turn at a snail's pace, but are supposed to have the best defenses in the game if you play them right.
** MightyGlacier: Another way to play the cruiser allows significant toughness (though less than the all-out defense build) while maintaining a pretty dangerous offense. You're still slow and won't turn for anything, but when you shoot (especially broadside) - the enemy WILL feel it.
* StealthInSpace: Various [[TheEmpire Klingon]] ships have the ability to cloak, the Bird Of Prey having a Battle Cloak that allows the small ships to perform hit and run attacks. TheFederation didn't...[[CoolStarship until the inclusion of an Admiral level variant of the]] [[BadAss Defiant equipped with a cloaking device]]. ''[[OhCrap Let the games begin...]]''
** There is also the Galaxy-X; which can cloak.
* SuicidalOverconfidence: "Do you think you can withstand the might of the ''(insert name of randomly generated alien race here)''? Ha! [[BullyingADragon I laugh at your arrogance!]]"
* SuperweaponSurprise: The reason everyone treads lightly around the [[SpaceAmish Aelasians]], a one-shot race in the Romulan arc, who used to be the mightiest empire in the galaxy before they forsook their warlike ways. Nobody's quite sure if they have any 'just in case' stuff left over from their glory days, and ''nobody'' wants to find out firsthand.
* SymbolSwearing: The standard MMO profanity filter.
* {{Technobabble}}: Naturally. Science-type vessels and officers literally ''specialize'' in technobabble-based powers, to buff you or your friends or debuff your enemies.
* TechnologyPorn: Your very own customizable starship. The graphics are optimized to make her look as sexy as possible.
* TenMinuteRetirement: Executive Producer Dan Stahl, who left in late 2011 to work for [[{{Farmville}} Zynga]], and later returned to Cryptic to work with the Foundry, before finally resuming his post as Executive Producer in mid February 2012.
* ThemeNaming: [[spoiler:The Undine, formerly Species 8472, who are now named [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ondine_%28mythology%29 after the water elemental of German myth]]. Their ships follow a similar naming convention, such as [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tethys_%28mythology%29 Tethys]] and [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahut Dahut]].]]
** MeaningfulRename: Sort of. [[spoiler:While they didn't "choose" to rename themselves, the proper name for the Undine makes sense [[CaptainObvious given that they come from "fluidic" space]], and nearly all references to "8472" in-game are replaced with the new name.]]
* TheyDontMakeThemLikeTheyUsedTo: The Galaxy class is a 60 year old design by the game's timeframe, yet you'll be hard-pressed to find a tougher nut to crack. Many other top level cruisers are more offensively capable, but "The Big G" is one of the few ships that can survive the special OneHitKill attack from an elite Borg tactical cube that would turn any other ship into a rapidly expanding vapor.
* TimeyWimeyBall: How [[spoiler:Natasha Yar from ''Yesterday's Enterprise'']] returns in the 3rd Aniversary Mission.
** Tholians apparently have a non-linear time empire consisting of territory from multiple timelines and dimensions. This is only referenced ONCE in the entire STO Continuity and its via WordOfGod no less.
* ToHellAndBack: One of the [[PlayerVersusEnvironment PVE]] Klingon missions involves your captain storming the gates of Gre'thor and killing Molor and his LegionsOfHell.
* TrollingCreator: The devs are known to be this. From causing borg invasions during live podcasts in game, making fun of their own bugs and lots of easter eggs.
** One that they had to explain because people were getting angry was about a lockbox on top of a stack of crates in the Starbase Incursion fleet event. Since the mission takes place in your own fleets starbase, the joke was about the fact that everyone had stashes of lockboxes tucked away.
---> "The idea for this map had been set, but it's flavor had not been. The visuals for this map went through a few revisions on what it could be (i.e. lab, computer core, etc.), on the drawing board before it was finally decided on storage/cargo bay. Someone said to fill it with crates. With all of the lockbox debates going on, and all of the people declaring that they just collect, but never open any of them, in my mind, this is the storage bay in your starbase where everyone dumps their lockboxes. I figured every crate was filled with lockboxes. It was meant as a little nod, a wink, a joke. Perhaps in poor taste, but that's all it was meant to be. Originally I had the holo-crate in the center be a lockbox, but figured that was too blatant, so I moved it off to the side, out of the way." - Tumerboy/Tacofangs
* TronLines: Not too long after ''Film/TronLegacy'' came out, a new equipment set included these for ships. Especially the ''Maelstrom'' class fleet escort. With a dark hull, it looks like it could have come right from the movie.
* TwentyFourHourArmor: Players can wear combat armor permanently as their character costume if they wish. This includes extremely tough looking elite endgame armor complete with helmets that hide the face.
* TwoKeyedLock: Make that Three Keyed Lock in [[spoiler:Infected]]. And [[spoiler:[[ThatOneLevel there are five of them]].]]
* TheTurretMaster: The Engineer 'Away Team Kit', including NPC Bridge Officers.
** Can also be done in space by any player who has the Heavy Satellite Turret device equipped on their ship (though it can only be used a limited number of times before being completely expended).
* TheUnintelligible: As per their depiction in ''Deep Space 9'', the Breen still speak in a series of metallic, electronic sounds, though the text still shows what they're saying, though most of the time it's typical villainous boasting.
* TurnsRed: Back when the Crystalline Entity was a boss you could fight with a group of up to 20 players, it sent out small crystal shards to impact player ships and was a relatively easy to kill DamageSpongeBoss. Those shards would then return to the main entity to heal it. The shards were easy to run away from or shoot down, so the fight was well balanced. Then the devs decided to make the fight more difficult: they changed it so that once you got the entity down to 30% health (which took a good while, even with 19 other guys helping), it would erupt shards at every player and OneHitKill almost everyone too slow to evade. This allowed the entity to heal itself back to to 100% in seconds, making it nearly impossible to defeat. Eventually, the boss would be removed from the game, not because the playerbase had raged over how they left the encounter untouched for over a year, but because the in-game event calendar was filling up with so many new and different events that it just wasn't practical to keep a near-impossible boss in the lineup.
* {{Vaporware}}: People thought for a long time that this would happen to the version of the game being developed by Perpetual, who never seemed to make any headway (and who [[EpilepticTrees are rumored to have taken on the project for less than savory purposes]]), and then the project was transferred to Cryptic. It was six years between announcement and release.
* UnwinnableTrainingSimulation: The Kobiyashi Maru itself. A group of five players engage in a holographic simulation in which they must protect a civilian freighter against wave after wave of enemy ships. Each wave is harder than the last. The mission itself ''can'' be beaten if a group somehow manages to defeat all 10 waves, but the mission is designed so most players won't make it past 5 or 6.
* VideoGameCaringPotential: The Tholians have captured federation and Klingon officers on Nukara Prime. Freeing the prisoners from your own alliance can result in them giving you a component needed to shut down the spacial rifts that the Tholians are entering in from (though you can earn these just by killing the Tholians as well.) In fact: the mission associated with freeing the prisoners is called ''[[LampshadeHanging Rescuing Redshirts]]''.
* VideoGameCrueltyPotential: The game does in fact track player position and ranged attacks get interrupted by moving behind other objects. "Other objects" that provide cover include ''your own bridge officers or [[RedShirt redshirts]]''.
** And then you have some players preferred method of getting rid of Tribbles dominating their inventory: [[spoiler: [[DeathByIrony feeding them]] [[SugarApocalypse into the replicator]].]]
* [[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale Video Game Designers Have No Sense Of Scale]]: Very nearly everything is out of scale with one another. If you visit the bridge of your ship and travel the corridors, or even visit any place on foot, it looks like the ceiling is a good 10 meters tall, if not higher. The distances between stars are ludicrously small. Example: in game, the distance between Sol and Wolf 359 is roughly 2.6 light years. Wolf 359 is a real star that's 7.8 light years from Sol. Same thing with Vulcan - in game the distance between the two is 6.3 light years, but in canon Vulcan orbits 40 Eridani A, a star that's 16.45 light years away from Sol. And then we get to the ArbitraryMaximumRange of starships - not just weapons like phasers and torpedoes, which was already covered above, but the absurdly small range of ship scanners - I have to be 15 kilometers away from a ship before I can find out what type or level it is? This is supposed to be the 25th century - ships during the Next Generation and Deep Space 9 era had scanners with a much greater range than that, and the technology is supposed to have only gotten more advanced.
** Weapons Ranges is possibly justified by everyone having also improved their Electronic Countermeasures, allowing them to spoof sensors at anything beyond close range.
*** Weapon ''Damage'' works like this, too. A Kirk-era Type 2 Phaser packs more of a punch than a standard 25th Century Type 2 Phaser (and ''scales'' with the player's level), even though the 25th Century phaser is ''supposed'' to be ''two centuries'' more advanced.
** Also justified for RuleOfFun reasons. One of the problems the devs ran into while designing the game was that they wanted everything to be their canon size. They realized this was going to be a problem when they made Deep Space Nine's map... and [=DS9=] turned out to be so small it looked pathetic and weak. In-game its about '''FIVE TIMES''' its canon size simply to keep the station's pedigree.
** The light years thing is also a case of RuleOfFun. Any low level player will tell you it can take up to 5-10 minutes to cross Sirius Sector Block at their initial warp speeds.
* VillainPedigree: Multiple interviews have stated that the developers want to try and refurbish this for the Borg, after all the [[VillainDecay decay]] they suffered during Voyager; the Borg are intended to be a big, scary endgame threat, and visually and narratively Cryptic is taking steps to make them seem legitimate. It worked, too - most of the uber-powerful endgame weaponry is designed for killing Borg, and [[DemonicSpiders boy, will you need it]].
** VillainDecay: But... then they make players fight Borg in the tutorial who don't adapt to weapons and damaged cubes that can be killed by [[RedShirt Miranda light cruisers]].
*** Subverted in that one of the [=NPCs=] you talk to makes it clear there is something wrong with the drones, and the cube is nearly-dead. You can take on full-strength Borg ships very early on though in the Sector Defense Scenes, and it will become clear ''very'' quickly that your Miranda, limited to Lieutenant grade equipment, is no match whatsoever for even a Borg Sphere at that point. Even if by some miracle you and the other ships manage to beat four cubes in the time allowed... [[spoiler: the Borg call in a [[FinalBoss Unimatrix]], which is basically an expy of V'Ger from the first movie.]] At that point, the most useful thing you can do is throw yourself on a Plasma Torpedo so it doesn't hit anyone else.
** [[spoiler:[[Series/StarTrekVoyager Species 8472]] is also getting this treatment in a big way after one of the episodes of Voyager similarly de-fanged them (after, ironically enough, introducing them). They're one of the {{BigBad}}s of early Fed content, and are once again committed to their campaign of subterfuge and genocide in the name of paranoid self-preservation, with several tangles with their Tethys dreadnoughts in the early stages of the game... just to drive home the point that you can't hope to beat anything larger than their scoutships without a ''ton'' of help.]]
** 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 [[FromBadToWorse 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.
*** One of the early story arcs for Klingon players is a full-scale strike on a Federation shipyard orbiting Mars...the planet ''right next to the one housing Starfleet Headquarters.'' The very next arc sees you and four guys invading Gre'thor, a.k.a ''KLINGON HELL,'' just so you can get a crack at killing Fek'lhr, a.k.a. ''KLINGON SATAN,'' for so much as ''looking'' at Klingon space with intent to invade it. If you need any further proof of the Klingons' BadAss credentials...
* ViolenceIsTheOnlyOption: The game has been accused of making TheFederation into [[TheEmpire 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 Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture and Film/StarTrekIVTheVoyageHome, and that Film/StarTrekIITheWrathOfKhan, easily one of the most violent, is one of the most well received films in the franchise. In fact between Wrath of Khan, Film/StarTrekFirstContact, [[Film/StarTrek and the 2009 film]], the majority of the highest grossing entries in the film franchise involve the protagonists kicking ass and the game clearly attempts to channel that same mojo.
** 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 UnwittingPawn and YouCantThwartStageOne 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, [[SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism 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.
* TheUnFavorite: The KDF in general. They have less than a quarter of the content of the Federation, an even smaller proportion of the game's famed character and ship customization, and a good chunk of the content they do have is copy/pasted from the Federation version to the point that it's not unheard of for the mission journal to list the objective "Hail Starfleet." They're also locked out of completing the accolades for the new Borg invasion because the Federation can access the Klingons' home sector but not vice versa, and tucked away in the free-to-play announcement was the minor note that fully half of the levels would be removed for KDF play in the future. Cryptic has also been remastering lower-level Federation missions with cinematics and voice acting while the KDF still has a whopping eight missions across thirty levels that aren't copy-pasted. Every once in a while Cryptic tosses KDF players a bone, but otherwise Klingon players are the game's resident [[ButtMonkey Butt Monkeys]].
** However in the "Legacy of Romulus" update it appears that KDF players are going to be able to start at level 1 with content for them.
* UnnecessaryCombatRoll: Just watch your Bridge Officers in a ground fight scenario... You can do these too, if you so wish.
** Of course, it could well be taken as a homage to [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries The Original Series]]. [[NarmCharm Intentional or not.]]
** The roll wasn't originally in the game, but enough players requested that the "Kirk Roll" be included.
* UnwittingPawn: A savvy player might expect to go up against some clever schemes when going into Romulan territory... [[spoiler:but you probably wouldn't guess just how often your ''own'' people are the ones pulling the gambits on you. First, you are tricked by an Undine posing as an admiral into wrecking the Romulan effort to out Undine infiltrators, and you end up inadvertently enabling the Undine to infiltrate the Romulans and cripple their chances of ever discovering infiltrators; then, immediately afterward, you get sent to intercept a diplomat who seems to be selling secrets to the Romulans. You intercept the dude, manage to catch him, but the Romulans get away with the info... and then you find out that the "diplomat" is a Section 31 agent who fed the Romulans false information, and you were the sucker sent to make the agent look genuine. By the time you find this out, even your normally somewhat passive bridge officers are complaining about how everyone you meet seems to have several agendas at once.]]
* UrbanWarfare: The ground phase of "Cutting the Cord" has the player engaging in this; assaulting a Tal Shiar base in a city on Brea IV.
* WaveMotionGun: The ''Galaxy''-class dreadnought has the phaser spinal lance, but the biggest wave motion gun in the game likely belongs to the Romulan ''Scimitar''-class warbirds, which can open their wing foils and fire off a massive area-effect thalaron attack capable of vaping weak ships in a second. And they can do it [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard mere seconds after decloaking.]]
** Player ships can of course use the Beam Overload, Torpedo: High Yield and Cannon: Rapid Fire skills, which do ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin.
* WeaponizedExhaust: the Eject Warp Plasma ability.
* WhatYouAreInTheDark: 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...]]
** [[spoiler: It should be noted however, the Prime Directive dictates that you carry out the sentence; since allowing her escape would interfering with Dominion internal affairs. Also, executing her is logical since you were sent to the Gamma Quadrant with orders to secure the Dominion's assistance. So letting her go would actually be both A. Defying in the Prime Directive (not a big deal every captain seems to do it at least once) and B. Violating orders to secure the Dominion's assistance (not a big deal since they help you anyway, and their "help" consists of not trying very hard to talk the BigBad down.]]
* WholePlotReference: The last two Breen Featured Episodes to [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration The Next Generation]] episode "The Chase".
** The Third Anniversary mission "Temporal Ambassador" refers to another [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration The Next Generation]] episode, "Yesterday's Enterprise".
* TheWorfEffect: For the game's two-year anniversary, Cryptic included the launch of the brand-new ''Odyssey''-class cruisers, including the ''Enterprise-F''. Eight months later and the ''Odyssey''-class ''USS Houston'' shows up in the Special Task Force mission "Hive Onslaught", for the sole purpose of getting [[OneHitKill one-shotted]] by the weapons of the Borg Unimatrix ships. To make this example truly complete, the ''Houston'' is under the command of Worf's grandson, Admiral D'Vak.
* YouAllLookFamiliar: Most of the NPC's you see during ground missions or when visiting starships or space stations will pretty much be clones of each other, which is amusing given how adamantly cloning is abhorred in the storylines it comes up in.
* YouCantThwartStageOne: [[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 [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration 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?]]
*** This mission seems to be intentionally this as it marks a change in what the player's options are and how they are treated by [=NPCs=]. Section 31 basically uses an Undine infiltrator simulation to recruit them and when the same situation arises in Terradome, the PC tells [[spoiler: Undine!Sulu]] to piss off and goes in anyways to fix it. The player even brings up the situation with Zelle later on in the Romulan arc during ''The Vault''. It seems it was more intended to be MyGreatestFailure for the player.
* YoungAndInCharge: You in the Fed Storyline as every single officer on your ship got killed except for you.
* ZergRush: Very much the case for some of the Borg-based Special Task Forces. Yes, there ''are'' a lot of Borg. Yes, they ''are'' in every room. Yes, they ''will'' all jump you unless you manage your aggro very carefully. And yes, they ''do'' [[GoddamnedBats spawn more]] and they ''do'' adapt to energy weapon attacks.
** The borg where bad, but Season 6 brought the Tholians. On Nukara (in the outside portions) there are so many Tholian Ensigns with rediculous (10 second) respawn timers with super advanced detection AI (they can see you THROUGH WALLS) and will chase players across the map until they beam to a new location. While do a degree this fits canon (the Tholians are notorious xenophobes), it adds a degree of difficulty for doing the exterior missions solo (though any science officer with healing abilities will be practically unphased). The Interior missions are a little bit easier to manage when fighting the Tholians, but take longer to complete due to the size and layout of the maps.
* ZettaiRyouiki: The TOS uniforms for the ladies are rocking some serious grade B goodness if you go with the skirt and thigh-high boots. Grades C and D are also represented.
----