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Allies
Iconian Resistance
A broad alliance encompassing with members from three Quadrants of the galaxy (Alpha, Beta and Delta), the Iconian Resistance aims to resist the Iconians and their servitors however they can.
- Enemy Mine: Not really the Resistance itself — the previous reputation and story developments have made for a bit too firm aligning of the members for this trope — but tiering up the reputation reveals Sela is angling to place herself as this versus the Iconians, and act as a go-between to factions that for one reason or the other are unwilling to work with the Resistance while still being hostile to the Iconians.
The Iconians
The Iconians
The Iconians
- "So you are the heroes of the Milky Way? You have come further than we expected, but still you chase our shadows."
A conquering species that existed over 200,000 years ago, they were presumed wiped out when the races they ruled finally revolted and got rid of them. That is not the case. At all.
- A God Am I: How they view themselves.
- Aliens Are Bastards: Not only to humans, but to other races. They're more than happy to kill off the humans, they damn near killed the Romulans and they wouldn't stop there.
- Newly added dialogue to some beings who transcend time and space indicates that the ancient races thought the Iconians were bastards even when they were on par with them.
- Then, it turns out they weren't like this at all at first! They were a tad arrogant, maybe, but that's because they didn't want to share their technology with lesser civilizations in the case of them using it for harm or harming themselves by accident. Of course, some races didn't like that at all and teamed up to eradicate them and take their tech.
- Alien Non-Interference Clause: The past Iconians had this, mostly because they were afraid those lesser species would try to harm others or accidentally harm themselves.
- Cain and Abel: The Cain to everyone's Abel. The Guardian of Forever and the Prophets both call the Iconians the first "Children." Knowing in Trek lore the Preservers were the first humanoid race and call the descended races their "children" its easy to put two and two together and realize the Iconians are their firstborn. You can fill in the blanks from here.
- The Chessmaster: Oh, yes. It's been hinted that everything that's happened since the Dominion War has been their fault. Also, a lot of the stuff from before the Dominion War was their fault. They have been around for hundreds of thousands of years, if not millions.
- Cutscene Incompetence: The Iconians' main superpower seems to be inducing this, starting with one of them gating straight into the Klingon High Council chambers on Qo'noS, vaporizing the entire High Council apart from the Chancellor, and not one single person present even took a shot at him. Ditto the Iconian in "Blood of Ancients" who turns up and monologues for a little while then kills a Preserver in passing, again, all while the PC was standing two feet directly behind him.
- Evil Gloating: Used effectively, the first Iconian we meet uses this to intimidate the entire cast of STO during the victory celebration on Qo'noS following Surface Tension. It was clearly building up to a "The Reason You Suck" Speech before Councilor Woldan and the Klingon High Council interrupted her. She murdered them with her mind for it.
- Fatal Flaw: If Sela is to be believed, they are completely and utterly convinced that they own the galaxy and that they just don't get the idea that space is vast and not a hop-skip-jump away.
- Freudian Excuse: They were a Higher-Tech Species that was bombed into the Stone Age by a coalition of species they'd refused to give their technology to under their own version of the Prime Directive. To make matters worse, one of the time travelers who tried to rescue them (Sela) turned on them and shot a few of them. So they decided to blow up Hobus in an attempt to exterminate the entire Romulan species and then conquer the galaxy.
- Greater-Scope Villain: They're behind everything wrong with the Star Trek universe since the Dominion War (and several other plots from before then), having manipulated the various races of the galaxy into warring with each other to prevent organized resistance when they return. They finally step out of the shadows and become the Big Bad in Season Ten: The Iconian War.
- Immortal Procreation Clause: They seem to have an unlimited lifespan, but the same twelve Iconians that survived the destruction of their homeworld are the ones alive in 2410.
- Implacable Man: To everyone, even Trek's other Implacable Man, the Borg.
- Karma Houdini: The end of their story arc basically has them getting a MacGuffin back and just up and leaving without even a whoopsie-daisy for the tens of billions of innocent people they murdered. They don't even stop their Ax-Crazy sister T'Ket from continuing the war on her own.
- Large Ham: Dear lord, the Iconians love their melodrama. The first one we see vapes the entire Klingon High Council for no apparent reason while essentially daring the players to challenge them, and the ham only gets bigger from there.
- Let's Get Dangerous!: If the final events of Surface Tensions are anything to go by, they are officially done tolerating the player's interferences with their plans and are ready to take them and the Federation/KDF/Romulan Republic head on.
- Then Uneasy Allies reveal that they are ready to invade and them poking around the Andromeda Dyson Sphere was the last straw.
Iconian: YOU WERE WARNED. YOUR GALAXY IS FORFEIT. - My Greatest Failure: The destruction of their Empire 200,000 years ago. The survivors left in the gateways and are back, really pissed off.
- When it gets witnessed first-hand, it turns out it was also their Start of Darkness. While arrogant, they were basically peaceful, with a bent towards the artistic and a principle similar to the Prime Directive... and then they had their homeworld bombed into oblivion because they were reluctant to share their technology.
- Orcus on His Throne: According to Sela in "What's Left Behind", the Iconians don't do any sort of dirty work on their own; they allow their servitor races to do the dirty work.
- Power Floats: The Iconians that survived the bombardment of their home world gained this ability; in addition to their phenomenal powers, they also levitate themselves several feet above the ground (something of a necessity for L'Miren, seeing as she lost her legs to Sela's disruptor).
- Self-Made Orphan: They inflict an Earth-Shattering Kaboom on the Preservers in "Blood of Ancients", completely wiping them out.
- Stupid Evil: While the Heralds have some pretty effective AI, the Iconians themselves don't seem to use any tactics other than brute force, and even the Heralds are easy to fight once you get used to them.
- Sufficiently Advanced Aliens: What they actually are.
- Particularly evident in "Surface Tension" where an Iconian casually murders (by vaporization) the Klingon High Council with her mind and a snap of her fingers.
- Time Abyss: They were the first humanoids to evolve after the Preservers, which makes their race millions of years old at least.
Word of God even implies that they are biologically immortal as well, and that these are the same Iconians who witnessed the fall of their empire 200,000 years ago. - Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: If you talk to the Guardian of Forever after entering the Delta Rising events, he'll tell you that he knows of the Iconians and that they've never passed through the gateway, that time travel is way beyond their capabilities. Eventually this is indicated to be due to a quirk of Iconian biology — the operation of their minds involves the use of chroniton particles, which helps to orient them after gateway usage... but also means that time-travel by any means causes memory loss.
- Tragic Villain: The Iconians say they gave their technology to the other races as a means of bringing about peace and expanding their knowledge to other cultures. They repaid that by blowing the shit out of them. This made them quite salty. Turns out this is true... to a point. While they did give their technology to other races, their most advanced technology, such as their gateway tech and genetic engineering tech was off-limits because they felt they weren't ready for them. The races got really pissed-off, mostly because they were war-like creatures or creatures too desperate for an easy way out and decided to go the easy way and bomb shit and dig everything out.
- Troll:
- To the Borg Collective. Considering they used an Omega particle to lure a Borg Cube in "Sleepers" only to gate out their central plexus when they began to experiment. The Iconians don't need to lure them to do that as they can easily destroy or disable the cube, the only answer left is For the Lulz. Especially since the Iconians have known the Borg for god knows how long (their species number is the lowest known at 47) and have never once been assimilated by them.
- They do it again in Surface Tension when J'mpok is about to call off the KDF-Fed war, an Iconian walks in, gives a monologue, then casually murders, via mental vaporization, the Klingon High Council, gives a Post-Mortem One-Liner and walks into a gateway. Note: this is happening at what is essentially a grand celebration, causing what is essentially like having the Emperor crash the victory celebration at the end of A New Hope.
- We Have Reserves: The Iconians themselves are very few in number and Word of God has hinted that they cannot breed. They do however possess a nearly unlimited force of ships, Mecha-Mooks and soldiers called Heralds who are a sub-species of Iconia. Their grand battle strategy so far has been to smother the alpha/beta quadrant powers with their forces. Federation leadership have implied that defending against the Heralds has been as effective as a candle trying to evaporate an oncoming tsunami.
M'Tara
Voiced By: Lani Minella
The leader of the Iconian forces and the first Iconian seen in the Milky Way in the last 200,000 years.
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: In "Broken Circle", when she finally decides to just disintegrate the player character, she starts by reminding them of that power... then repeats herself... at which point it sinks in that it's not working.
- Marathon Boss: Once she's finally drawn in for a fight the game lets you participate in, she's very durable. And reluctant to stay long.
- Never My Fault: Forum users have noted that her Bond One-Liner in "Surface Tension" makes little sense: she warns the Alliance not to "attract their attention again", even though the entire mess beginning with Hobus was the Iconians' doing to begin with. How did the Alliance attract the Iconians' attention?
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Her appearance at the end of Surface Tension was obviously designed to try to fear the factions into submission. All it did was strengthen the alliance she was desperately trying to stop.
- Purple Is Powerful: Her primary color.
- Post-Mortem One-Liner: After casually murdering the Klingon High Council."We give you a single warning: Do not attract our attention again."
- Redemption Rejection: When a Preserver begs her to stop with their conquest and find another way to settle things, she sadly tells them that it's too late for that.
- Self-Made Orphan: She is the first Iconian to kill a Preserver. Notable in that she does it very reluctantly.
- Suicidal Overconfidence: She never seriously believes that the foolish mortals can kill an omnipotent energy being such as herself. This proves her downfall in "Broken Circle".
- Too Dumb to Live: Continues to attack someone who's shrugged off literally everything the Iconians have thrown at them, who's rampaging through the Iconian ship, and is shutting down the power cores that she needs to survive with her cool powers. She does this repeatedly, getting increasingly weaker each time, until she dies of exhaustion.
- Unflinching Walk: Again, after murdering the Klingon High Council. She gives her Post-Mortem One-Liner as she walks back into the gateway.
T'Ket
Voiced By: Lani Minella
An Iconian who faced Kahless in battle and lost her arm for the trouble.
- An Arm and a Leg: Loses her left arm to Kahless in "House Pegh".
- A God Am I: In "House Pegh", after B'Eler disables her with technobabble and Kahless winds up for the kill."INSECT! YOU DARE STRIKE A GOD?"
- Blood Knight: Tales from the Iconian War has her mention that the only thing she wants at this point is to kill everyone. She also refuses to make peace at the end of the Iconian War, leaving her as something of The Remnant.
- Dragon Ascendant: Becomes the Iconians' new leader after M'Tara is killed, and remains so until the player recovers the World Heart, after which T'Ket separates from the other Iconians and L'Miren takes her place.
- Fantastic Racism: The standard Iconian disdain for 'mortals,' plus... a very specific grudge against Romulans due to the actions of Sela, who traveled back in time and tried to exterminate the survivors of Iconia's bombardment, at least killing one of them and injuring L'Miren. This leads to the Hobus Supernova and the destruction of Romulus and Remus. Her intense hatred for Romulans is one of the reasons she strikes out on her own after the war, as not even slaughtering the entire species would sate her hatred.
- Hero Killer: She killed Kahless the Unforgettable! Okay, it's his clone, but even still... Of course, Kahless gave her a lot of help..
- Ignored Epiphany/Redemption Rejection: At the end of 'Midnight,' T'Ket is confronted with the fact that her revenge against the Romulans due to Sela's attempt at killing them in the past was the result of the Iconians,' and hers especially, vengeance against the Romulans via the Hobus Supernova, as this occurred in Sela's past and would cause her grudge against them, leading to her traveling back in time with that goal in the first place. T'Ket and Sela's temporal vengeance loop is the root cause of the deaths of billions, multiple Iconians included. However, while this realization horrifies Sela into a Heel Realization, T'Ket does not care, and decides to continue the conflict on her own while the rest of the Iconians and their Heralds withdraw to rebuild Iconia.
- Large Ham: That insect line...
- Put on a Bus: She was absent for quite a while after the conclusion of the Iconian War, despite her vow to continue her vendetta regardless of the other Iconians' cessation of hostilities, and when she showed up again in "Quark's Lucky Seven", she was sought out rather than the other way around. Turns out she hasn't done much more than travel around with her fleet, fighting everything in her path and collecting trophies of her victories and defeats, like the singularities of several Romulan warbirds, a melted ball of Starfleet combadges, her own left arm and the Sword of Khaless.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Red to L'Miren's Blue. Also literally Red.
- The Starscream: There's implication that T'Ket tampered with M'Tara's power alongside you in "Broken Circle" in order to get the other Iconians in on her "kill everyone" plan.
L'Miren
Voiced By: Lani Minella
An Iconian who directly advises M'Tara alongside T'Ket.
- An Arm and a Leg: The mission "Midnight" reveals that the reason L'Miren doesn't have any feet is because Sela shot her in the legs with a disruptor, leading to an off-screen amputation.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: The player's efforts in helping L'Miren and the other Iconians in the past and returning the World Heart to her is what leads her to calling an end to the Iconian War.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Blue to T'Ket's Red. Also literally Blue.
- Utopia Justifies the Means: Unlike most of the Iconians, L'Miren is fairly cautious and lacks a lot of her brethren's megalomania. She seems to regard conquering the Milky Way a necessary evil to pave the way for her kind leading the younger races to peace. Until the player kills M'Tara. Then L'Miren was all too eager to join T'Ket's new plan. She fortunately calms down in Midnight when she's reunited with the World Heart..
Servitor Races
The Heralds
The Heralds were a non-intelligent species on Iconia until the Iconians modified them - first to become their servants, and later their elite soldiers.
- Boss in Mook's Clothing: The Harbingers are this.
- Brutish Character, Brutish Weapon: Brutes have huge gravity hammer-like weapons.
- The Dragon: The Harbingers serve as this to the Iconians.
- Elite Mooks: The Heralds are the oldest and most direct servants of the Iconians.
- Evil Sorcerer: Harbingers have this kind of feel to themselves. They summon mooks via teleportation, wear priestly robes, and use portals to shoot death at foes.
- Fantasy Naming Convention: Most Heralds are named after the Iconian they served.
- Forced into Evil: They underwent a Face–Heel Turn because their masters did.
- Happiness in Slavery: The Heralds are completely content to be the Iconians' servants.
- Path of Inspiration: The Heralds seem to worship the Iconians as gods.
- Servant Race: The Heralds serve the Iconians as this in addition to being their armies. They do this willingly, as they love them as their uplifters and creators.
- Slave Mooks: The Heralds are rather tragically utterly devoted to the Iconians and deployed without care by their masters.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: They switched to becoming a militant and warlike people at their master's behest.
- Undying Loyalty: Their loyalty to the Iconians is complete and unyielding.
- Uplifted Animal: The Heralds were nonsapient before the Iconians uplifted them.
- We Have Reserves: The Heralds take on the entirety of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants by themselves during the Iconian War. They come perilously close to winning.
- Zerg Rush: They pull this on the galaxy and almost succeed.
The Elachi
A mysterious race whose only previous appearance in canon was as an unnamed ship that faced down Captain Johnathan Archer.
- Arc Welding: Their first appearance in Star Trek canon was in the Enterprise episode "Silent Enemy", where they were an unidentified, hostile species. They become antagonists during the Legacy of Romulus storyline, which reveals their name and their alliance with both the Tal Shiar and the Iconians from Star Trek: The Next Generation.. Then, the Awakening arc reveals the species originated in the Mycelial Realm from Star Trek: Discovery.
- Better to Die than Be Killed: The first Elachi captured by the protagonists commits suicide rather than answer any of their questions and without even saying anything.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Hargh'peng Radiation from House Mo'kai torpedoes drives the Elachi insane, alongside the other destructive effects on the Mycelial Realm. Some are spared the madness and instead regain their pre-transformation memories
- Canon Immigrant: Beneath the Skin reveals them as inhabitants of the Mycelial Network. Whether they always came from there or were recruited out of it by the Iconians isn't determined.
- Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: Some Elachi have cybernetic implants that are very Borg in design. As Iconian allies, it may be that some of Hakeev's Borg tech modified with Iconian Technology.
- In Beneath the Skin, the effects of J'ula's weapons in the Mycelial Network leads some of them to recover their pre-conversion memories, with one recalling his life as the Romulan Tarsev.
- Expy: Of the Collectors from Mass Effect 2. Both are mute cyborgs who abduct people from ships and colonies for the purposes of reproduction at the behest of the resident Greater-Scope Villain.
- Face Full of Alien Wing-Wong: The Elachi are fungi-based lifeforms who reproduce by infecting humanoids they capture with spores that consume them from the inside out and then coalesce into a newborn Elachi. Basically, they're sentient mould.
- Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: Zig-zagged to hell and back. Prior to the Romulan Mystery revamp for the fifth anniversary, the first time players in the Federation and the Klingons meet the Elachi is in the mission "Installment 18", then you don't see them again until "Sphere of Influence". The Romulan Mystery revamp fixes this for the Federation, but the Klingons are still in the dark.
- Heel–Face Turn: House Mokai's threat to the Mycelial Network leads them to join the Alliance in combating them. Completing "Beneath The Skin" even lets you recruit an Elachi as a Bridge Officer!
- Teleport Spam: Post-Awakening, the Elachi ships are equipped with spore drives, allowing them to jump from point to point during space battles.
- The Reveal: We finally see what they look like in the Nimbus arc's finale (although they were already seen in Star Trek: Enterprise).
- The Unseen: For most of the Romulan Arc and the first seven seasons of STO.
- The Voiceless: They seem to be completely mute; the only time they communicate is in the Romulan Republic tutorial mission; rearranging words from Tovan Khev's hail.
- Averted in "Awakening"; they prove able to communicate to other ships when fighting alongside them, and the Elachi who recover their pre-conversion memories start to use their vocal abilities for the first time in ages.
- Was Once a Man: New Elachi are "made" from abducted humanoids exposed to Elachi spores. After J'Ula disrupts the Mycelial Realm with her Hargh'Peng weapons, some Elachi begin to remember who they used to be, notably Tarsev, a former Romulan.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Their status following the Iconian War is unknown, as they haven't been seen since "What's Left Behind".
- Finally followed up with in the Awakening update, fittingly tied in with Discoverys Mycelial Realm.
The Solanae
A species that kidnapped the crew of the Enterprise-D in "Schisms". They're the creators of the Dyson Spheres, and fill out the scientists to the warrior Elachi and the subversive Bluegill.
- Body Horror: What they inflict on a number of the experimentees. Also inflicted upon themselves, since they are lifeforms descended from carbon-based life until an accident irradiated their ancestors with tetryons and converted them into solanogen-based life.
- Evil Minions: They dedicated their entire society to the Iconians, thus everything they do goes back to them.
- The Greys: They live up to this in behavior, if not quite in appearance.
- Mad Scientist: Their hat, from what we see.
- Punch-Clock Villain: They flee in terror whenever the player confronts them.
- Tragic Villain: They're not natives of Subspace. They used to be just like us. Until the accident occurred. They were only to help the Iconians build the Solanae Dyson's Sphere as far as we know. Now serving the Iconians is the only link back to their old lives.
- The Voiceless: The only form of auditory communication they possess is a series of clicking sounds which the Universal Translator doesn't even seem to notice.
The Bluegill
- "You will understand, once we are all brothers under the skin!"
The Bluegill seem to function as the Iconians' subversive agents, allowing them to infiltrate organizations and take them over to allow for more direct control of them. Currently, the Bluegill have taken over the Vaadwaur leadership and delivered them Iconian technology to wage war on the people of the Delta Quadrant.
- Expy: They didn't have much characterization in Conspiracy so the dev team decided to make the bluegill a cross between the Goa'uld and the Bugs from Starship Troopers.
- Foreshadowing: There are two subtle hints to their presence, shortly before the reveal. One, the 'Super Vaadwaar' you fight on the Lleiset is basically immune to non-lethal energy blasts. Two, you're noted after the fight that there was strange isoboramine readings, a ST term usually referring to Trill parasites and involved neurotransmitter chemicals. Both of which basically line up with the Bluegills behavior in Conspiracy.
- Super-Soldier: Taking over a Vaadwaur (or anyone other than Joined Trill, really) allows them to grant their host super strength and a massive resistance to energy weapons. The first time our characters encounters one of them during "Capture the Flag", they're forced to shove him into the Lleiset's singularity core to kill the guy.
- Unexpected Character: In and OUT of universe. They were only seen one time in The Next Generation, not Voyager. Only adding to the effect is that it's been about forty years in-universe between appearances.
- Walking Spoiler: Knowing anything about them is a huge spoiler. So much so, that all the PvE queues involving them are locked down until you have completed the mission they're revealed in.
The Dewans
A pre-warp species that lived on Dewa III 150,000 years ago.
- Apocalypse How: Type 4. They tried to reactivate a 50,000 year old Iconian gateway using geothermal taps. The result was a geological cataclysm that destroyed their civilization and irradiated the entire planet.
- Apocalyptic Log: A survivor of the cataclysm records the events that led to the extinction of his species and warns anyone who finds it not to attempt the same thing. The Republic doesn't listen.
- Shout-Out: They look a lot like ET. They also resemble the Elachi, initially leading some players to believe the two species are one and the same. The developers have implied that this was unintentional, and that they are two separate races.
- Lizard Folk: They looked like hobbit-sized humanoids with elongated heads and toothy jaws.
Vaadwaur
The Tal Shiar
