History Trivia / StarTrekOnline

** One that caught everyone off-guard was the "Sphere of Influence" mission. With the talk of Season 8 and the Dyson Sphere, players were convinced that "[=SoE=]" would lead to the first encounter to those inside, especially the [[spoiler:Voth]]. Instead, [[spoiler:players [[WhamEpisode get a firsthand look inside the Iconian Gateway System and learn of the Iconians' plans.]] Only a minor action sets you on the path to Season 8.

** Creator/MajelBarrett was ready, willing, and able to provide the voice for various combat notifications and alerts, but she has since passed on, and a replacement, Creator/LaniMinella, had to be brought in for the announcements at Prison Facility 4028 during "The 2800". Thankfully, Minella manages to sound almost exactly like Barrett.

* RecycledScript: "Storm Clouds Gather", the introductory mission to 2018's Gamma Quadrant-focused ''Victory Is Life'' expansion, follows fundamentally the same structure as 2012's "Second Wave" (part of the formerly featured episode ''The 2800''). In both missions you arrive at Deep Space 9 for a major interplanetary conference and do a lot of talking to {{NPC}}s, then have to defend the station against an attack through the wormhole on the ground and in space (an invasion of [[spoiler:time-displaced]] Dominion ships in "Second Wave", [[BugWar the Hur'q]] in "Storm Clouds Gather").

** The ''Series/StarTrekDiscovery''-era Federation tutorial "Graduation Day" is for all intents and purposes the exact same mission as the normal post-season 8 Fed tutorial but with ''Discovery''-era ships and characters: in both cases, you graduate from Starfleet Academy and get your first assignment as XO of a light cruiser on a training cruise, only to be attacked by Klingons and [[YourAreInCommandNow have to take command when your CO is killed]].

* ExecutiveMeddling: The developers have stated on the game forums that there are certain things they want in the game that they cannot add without the permission of CBS; for example, Tier 5 refits of lower level ship designs. They need CBS's approval before they can touch any ship class that was shown in the series, like the ''Constitution-'' or ''Akira''-class ships.

** The "Victory is Life" expansion in June 2018 brought several ''[=DS9=]'' alumni to the game, including Creator/AlexanderSiddig as Julian Bashir, Creator/NanaVisitor as Kira Nerys, Creator/ArminShimerman as Quark, Creator/SalomeJens as the Female Changeling, Creator/AndrewGRobinson as Elim Garak, Max Grodénchik as Rom, Creator/JeffreyCombs as Weyoun, and Creator/ReneAuberjonois as Odo.

* AccidentallyCorrectWriting: Per canon, 24th century and later Romulan ships are powered by micro-black holes rather than fusion or matter/antimatter reactors. Since at least ''Legacy of Romulus'', when they're destroyed, they collapse into their drive singularity, which then explodes in a PlanarShockwave that causes damage to nearby ships equivalent to a warp core breach. The PlanarShockwave is as unrealistic as it usually is, but a black hole of that little mass would decompose by Hawking radiation almost instantly and release the energy equivalent of what mass it had in (for all intents and purposes) a single burst, much like a matter/antimatter explosion. Given E=mc[[superscript:2]], that's ''a bloody lot of energy''.
* ActorAllusion: Averted. Ambassador S'taass was thought to be voiced by Creator/CharlieAdler, who has history of both [[WesternAnimation/SwatKats being a badass]] and [[WesternAnimation/GIJoeResolute being a]] [[WesternAnimation/GIJoeRenegades reptile]]. Hell, the devs once indicated he was voiced by "Cobra Commander"! The real voice actor is named Sam Mowry.
* ColbertBump: Creator/TheCynicalBrit ended up tweeting his ship build from the STO Academy's webpage. He promptly brought the website down temporarily.
* DescendedCreator: A couple full-time employees of Cryptic also did some early voice work for the game, though this ceased after Cryptic signed a contract with SAG-AFTRA to provide their voice work going forward: they have a limited number of slots they can use for non-union actors, and chose to prioritize SpecialGuest appearances by non-union actors from the live-action ''Franchise/StarTrek'' shows.

** 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 [=NPC=]s 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.
** When transporting from the Klingon shipyard, you could sometimes end up back in the shipyard. With the release of ''Legacy of Romulus'', the old transporter officer (a Klingon) has been replaced by a Lethean, and you will no longer transport from the shipyard to the shipyard. You can ask the Lethean where the old transporter officer went, and he'll say, "executed for incompetence," which is one of the duty officer missions KDF captains have available to them. For bonus points this is directly taken from the witty note left by a developer on the release notes when this change was made.
* DuelingGames: With ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'', a fellow FreeToPlay MMO likewise based on a long-running soft science fiction franchise. ''STO'' came out first but ''TOR'' was in a more complete state at launch, though the gap has long since vanished and both games are profitable. ''TOR'' also later added multiplayer space combat, while ''STO'' remains the first major MMO to have fully supported both space and ground combat at launch (later joined by ''VideoGame/StarCitizen''). The FandomRivalry of their respective parent franchises is certainly there, though there are large numbers of gamers who unashamedly play both.

** When the "Cardassian Struggle" storyline was redone, Captain James Kurland's pre-"2800" appearances and the chapter "Rapier" were removed. [[RealLifeWritesThePlot This was likely due to STO now being a Screen Actors' Guild project]], while Kurland and many characters in "Rapier" were voiced by non-union voice actors (including one of Cryptic's programmers).
** Captain Akira Sulu used to be a relatively important character but by 2014 every mission he was involved in has been removed. Nowadays he pretty much just stands around Earth Spacedock ([[WordOfGod he's the station CO according to Kestral]]) and doesn't even have any lines.
** Ja'rod used to be a RecurringCharacter for the Federation character, but by Season 11, he only appears in "Turning Point" and in the PVE raids "The Cure Found" and "The Cure Applied".
* 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.
** After it was discovered that a popular character was most likely going to be killed off via a Facebook post, players discovered that Cryptic had ended up becoming a member of the Screen Actors Guild (Dev [=TacoFangs=] says it wasn't recent and probably harks back to obtaining either Michael Dorn or Tim Russ back in Season 8), which limits the usage of non-SAG members. Sadly, that may mean a ''lot'' of characters might get dumped.
* GodNeverSaidThat: The mocking "''Delta Rising'' is the best expansion EVER and the players LOVE IT!" quote was never said by anyone in Cryptic. The original quote was thanking players for making ''Delta Rising'' a ''financial'' success.

** Mark "[=H2Orat=]" Valentine, a video artist for Cryptic, lost a long-running battle with cancer in September 2013, and the forum agreed there should be some in-game remembrance made (ideas were floated ranging all the way up to a cross-faction ''Valentine''-class playable starship). In the end, Cryptic spotlit Valentine's Foundry mission [[Recap/StarTrekOnlineFoundryTheRisingPhoenixPart1 "The Rising Phoenix, Part 1"]] for the second time, and added a memorial with an ever-burning torch to the Starfleet Academy map.
** A second memorial was added to Vulcan and New Romulus on March 5, 2015 in remembrance of Creator/LeonardNimoy, who reprised his role as Spock for the Federation narration, as well as a mission on the Federation side. Additionally, plaques were placed on ESD, Qo'noS, and New Romulus Command honoring the passing of other ''Star Trek'' cast & crew over the years.
** Given the timing of "Delta Flight"'s release, the USS ''Pratchett'' seems to be a ShoutOut to author Sir Creator/TerryPratchett, who had died the previous month.
** [[https://www.startrek.com/news/star-trek-online-remembers-rene-auberjonois Players spontaneously mounted their own in-game candlelight vigil in Odo's security office on Deep Space 9]] after Odo's actor Creator/ReneAuberjonois unexpectedly passed away in December 2019.
** After Creator/NichelleNichols died in 2022, players gathered around Starfleet Academy and other in-game social hubs to honor her by raising torches.
* MarthDebutedInSmashBros: The main characters of ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekLowerDecks'' first appeared as DOFF characters in game. This was also the first piece of information that D'Vana Tendi, one of the four, was Orion.
* MemeAcknowledgment: Borticus, one of the devs, has as his signature "Kurland here." He's the guy who voiced Capt. Kurland, and admitted later that it wasn't his best work.
* MilestoneCelebration: The game has done numerous events for each of its anniversaries, beyond giving out rewards:
** For the first anniversary, Earth Spacedock was changed to its circular incarnation, while the mission "The Vault", the first part of "Cloaked Intentions", was released.

** For the third anniversary, the Featured Episode "Temporal Ambassador" was launched, with Denise Crosby reprising her role as Tasha Yar and allowing players to obtain an ''Ambassador''-class, the last of the ships that bore the name ''Enterprise'' to appear in-game, or a ''Kamarang''-class ship.
** For the fourth anniversary, the Featured Episode "A Step Between Stars" was launched, with Tim Russ reprising his role as Tuvok and allowing players to obtain (unlike the third anniversary's Ambassador, through a time-gated grind) special Dyson Sphere-inspired ships for the Federation, Romulans and Klingons.
** For the fifth anniversary, a new Featured Episode dealing with the Kobali will be launched, with Garret Wang reprising his role as Harry Kim. Like last year, a time-gated grind will be used to obtain a Kobali-based ship. As well, the "Cloaked Intentions" Federation Episode line will be revamped to make it more in line with the current canon. It will also introduce a new [=BOFF=] system, a new Specialization line and a new addition to the Foundry.

** For the ninth anniversary, Cryptic launched two new featured episodes, starting the new Mirror of Discovery arc with "Para Pecum" and "Illusion of Communication". It also features a time-gated grind for a Vulcan ''T'Pau''-class scout ship from [[Series/{{StarTrekDiscovery}} Star Trek: Discovery]].
* MissingEpisode: Of the stage variety. Season 8.5 removed "War is Good for Business" due to the fact that the stage was incredibly tedious. Season 9 removed "State of Q" and "A Light in the Dark", replaced "Fluid Dynamics" with a radically different version with a new story and reason behind it, and consolidated "Asset Recovery" and "Collateral Damage" into a single episode ("A Gathering Darkness"). The fifth anniversary update condenses the original Romulan Mystery Arc from eleven missions to four, condensing "By Any Means" and "S'haren's Swords" into "By Any Means", turns "Taris" into a combination of its original version and "Ground Zero", adds two new missions and removes the rest, including the hated "Divide et Impera".
* NoExportForYou: Like any other Perfect World-published game, if you live in the former Soviet Union (say, in GloriousMotherRussia), you cannot play the game. In addition, several East Asian countries such as China, Taiwan, and South Korea are also barred from playing.
* OlderThanTheyThink: The Doff mechanic of randomly-combined names, job specialty and personality traits is reminiscent of the first ''Star Trek CollectibleCardGame'' released by Decipher in the mid-90s. ([[http://www.decipher-games.com/startrek/CardImages/1E/PremiereEdition/full/ST1E01EN215.jpg Sample card.]])

** Since Creator/JamesDoohan had passed away well before production of the game started, a replacement voice had to be brought in for [[spoiler: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOQa8yerXRs The Guardian of Forever]]]], and his accent slips through quite often.
** When the game ''does'' feature VO for established characters, the devs go out of their way to get the old actors back to help. Creator/DeniseCrosby and Chase Masterson are good examples, and in season 8 Creator/MichaelDorn voiced Worf to much acclaim from the fanbase. This has become the rule rather than the exception since then, with Cryptic stating a preference for having the original actors over imitators.
** Creator/MajelBarrett was ready, willing, and able to provide the voice for various combat notifications and alerts, but she has since passed on, and a replacement, Creator/LaniMinella, had to be brought in for the announcements at Prison Facility 4028 during "The 2800" episode. Minella manages to sound almost exactly like Barrett though.

** Due to Cryptic getting SAG-certified, many voices will be swapped out for new ones. The first confirmed is Lian [=McIntyre=], who will replace Creator/JonStJohn as Chancellor J'mpok.
** In the Vaadwaurs' original ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS6E7DragonsTeeth Dragon's Teeth]]", Gaul was played by Creator/RobertKnepper. In ''Delta Rising'' his voice work is provided by Creator/LiamOBrien.

** Creator/ChaseMasterson is back as [[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Leeta]][[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDBITGf9MHQ ...sort of.]] (Leeta licensed her holographic image to Quark for his dabo tables.)
*** [[spoiler:In season 11, she also stars as mirror Leeta]]
** Creator/DeniseCrosby returned as Natasha Yar for the 3rd Anniversary mission featuring the ''Enterprise''-C, "Temporal Ambassador". She also reprises her role as Sela for her appearances in the Romulan storyline and Romulan-centred Featured Episode series, ''and'' is the voice congratulating a Romulan character on being promoted.
** Creator/MichaelDorn is back as Worf for the Featured Episode "Sphere of Influence" and (after a short delay) for his scenes in the early Klingon missions.
** Creator/TimRuss is back as Tuvok not only for the Feature Episode for the Fourth Anniversary ("A Step Between Stars"), as well as Season 9 and onward.
** Creator/LeonardNimoy as Mr. Spock who narrates and appears in an early Federation mission.
** Creator/GarrettWang, Creatir/EthanPhillips, Creator/JeriRyan, and Creator/RobertPicardo will be returning in ''Delta Rising'' as Harry Kim, Neelix, Seven of Nine, and the Mk I Emergency Medical Hologram, respectively.
** Season Ten saw Creator/RobertDuncanMcNeill reprise his role as Tom Paris, Lisa [=LoCicero's=] likeness and voice was used for his daughter Miral, and Aaron Eisenberg returned as Nog from ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine''.

** Season 13.5 has J.G. Hertzler reprise his role as Martok from ''[=DS9=]''.
** September 2017 has Creator/LeVarBurton returning to the role of Geordi La Forge from ''TNG'' for a special mission commemorating the series' 30th anniversary, as well as several other missions in Season 14 onward.
** The "Victory is Life" expansion in June 2018 brings several ''[=DS9=]'' alumni including Creator/AlexanderSiddig as Julian Bashir, Creator/NanaVisitor as Kira Nerys, Creator/ArminShimerman as Quark, Creator/SalomeJens as the Female Changeling, Creator/AndrewGRobinson as Elim Garak, Max Grodénchik as Rom, Creator/JeffreyCombs as Weyoun, and Creator/ReneAuberjonois as Odo. Chase Masterson also returns once again, this time voicing the ''REAL'' Leeta.
** The year of Klingon expansion saw the hiring of Creator/RobertOReilly, but only as the temporally displaced grandfather of the late Gowron [[spoiler: and later Gowron's ghost in Sto'Vo'Kor.]]
* RecycledScript: "Storm Clouds Gather", the introductory mission to 2018's Gamma Quadrant-focused ''Victory Is Life'' expansion, follows fundamentally the same structure as 2012's "Second Wave" (part of the formerly featured episode ''The 2800''). In both missions you arrive at Deep Space 9 for a major international conference and do a lot of talking to {{NPC}}s, then have to defend the station against an attack through the wormhole in ground, then space stages (an invasion of [[spoiler:time-displaced]] Dominion ships in "Second Wave", [[BugWar the Hur'q]] in "Storm Clouds Gather").

** Cryptic is allowed to use anything from the TV shows and prime timeline films because CBS owns the licenses to them. However, the [[Film/StarTrek2009 JJverse]] is off-limits (they were allowed to use the story details up until the ''Jellyfish'' and ''Narada'' left the prime timeline, since they appeared in the ''Countdown'' comic series), and anything from the ''Franchise/StarTrekExpandedUniverse'' has to be negotiated for. Cryptic also had to negotiate to use the Guardian of Forever at the end of the "Klingon War" storyline, since the rights to that episode belong to a different copyright holder. CBS has also put at least three ships off-limits to be used or given major upgrades, the confirmed ones being the ''Enterprise''-J from ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'''s Temporal Cold War episodes, the Constitution-refit from the films[[note]]While there ''is'' a Constitution-refit ship in the game, it's only Tier 2 and CBS refuses to allow them to make a Tier-5/Fleet variant.[[/note]] and the ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' Warbird[[note]]In about the same manner as the Connie refit -- the Romulan player actually ''starts'' with one, but this is Cryptic's explanation for why there is only a Tier 1 version of it.[[/note]] Apparently some kind of agreement or change happened with the lawyers before ''Agents of Yesterday'', however, as it included both a visit to the 'Kelvin Timeline' as well as usable ships from the films and related materials -- including a Tier 6 ''Constitution''. And then Cryptic went one up with the introduction of the R&D-only prize of the T6 Light Cruiser/Warbird set, which gives players the mythical endgame Prime Universe ''Constitution''!
** This also extends to non-canon ships. While the game ''does'' have novelverse ships, including the ''Vesta''-class and the ''Luna''-class, Cryptic has gone out of its way to state that the legal red tape is such a hassle that they'll just be making their own ships once canon ones run out.
** In early 2015, as a new featured episode starring Gaius Selan was about to come out, news broke that his actor had been sacked due to PWE and SAG deciding to leave the few non-SAG spots for the game's voice acting cast *strictly* for non-SAG Star Trek actors, essentially writing out all the STO cast members who were not in SAG. As of right now, it is unclear how badly this is gonna go for the cast of STO, but the lawyers definitely screwed the original characters of ''Star Trek Online''.

** 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.
---> '''Tumerboy/Tacofangs:''' 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.
** One that caught everyone off-guard was the "Sphere of Influence" mission. With the talk of Season 8 and the Dyson Sphere, players were convinced that "[=SoE=]" would lead to the first encounter to those inside, especially the [[spoiler:Voth]]. Instead, [[spoiler:players [[WhamEpisode get a first hand look inside the Iconian Gateway System and learn of the Iconians' plans.]] Only a minor action sets you on the path to Season 8.]]

* TroubledProduction: It started out being owned by Perpetual Entertainment and was given a set schedule for launch. However, two years into development, they had ''plenty'' of pretty conception work, but no actual gameplay and it's been said that Perpetual was only doing this for shadier reasons. Either way, CBS was angry at the waste and gave the license to Atari and Cryptic, who forced the companies to rush out the game (though it was thankful that Cryptic had the easily compatible engine from ''VideoGame/ChampionsOnline'' to use). However, even ''that'' wasn't enough as the game was bleeding players as Atari used the money the game brought to pay off their massive debts. It wasn't until Perfect World Entertainment bought Cryptic that the game would flourish.

** Perpetual Entertainment's version of the game would have been substantially different, with more [[TheBridge bridge]] simulation elements rather than the standard MMORPG design. The Borg and The Gorn were considered as playable races.
** The Romulan PC was second choice for the Romulan flagship RRW ''Lleiset''. Seriously. The player could have been the Romulan equivalent of Picard! They ultimately decided on the player keeping their ship so they're not bound to do the boring flagship stuff its mandated to do.

** When Delta Rising dropped, players were told that they could play other missions while leveling up to 60. Many players found an exploit that not only allowed them to plow through patrol missions in Tau Dewa to level them up faster, but also could farm dilithium after reaching the ultimate level cap. Cryptic quickly put a stop to that.
** This is actually quite a problem with the forums since mid-2014 as players have caused initially-innocent-looking threads to devolve into Cryptic attacks, going so far as to comparing them to Nazis and trying to send out death threats. Popular threads such as "What's your beef with the Galaxy Cryptic?" and "DOOOOOOOOOOOM! The Game is Finished! Everything is Doomed! Thread" were shut down because of these reasons.
** For awhile, Cryptic used to have contests involving ships and their designs/names. However, the "Choose the Next ''Enterprise''" contest went massively pear-shaped: There were multiple accusations of plagiarism, and of discrimination by Cryptic since non-US residents were barred from the contest for legal reasons (several entered anyway, including a couple who ended up as front-runners in the polls). And then [[ExecutiveMeddling CBS vetoed the fan-picked winner in favor of a design that wasn't even in the Top 20]], the ''Odyssey''-class. The resulting backdraft pretty much guaranteed that player-submission contests like that would never happen again. (The 2015 Federation carrier contest involved Cryptic-created designs.)

* WordOfGod: The dev team often tweets about stuff they intended to come across in-game but that wasn't actually stated, such as Akira Sulu's current (as of ''Legacy of Romulus'') position in Starfleet (he's the actual CO of Earth Spacedock; Admiral Quinn just has his offices there). [=ThomasTheCat=] also confirmed something about the Odyssey uniform color scheme that was implied in-game but not actually stated in the color guide he put out: that Starfleet Intelligence personnel have their own divisional color, black.

* IKnewIt: When Cryptic told fans that the "Sphere of Influence" mission was being held back, fans had assumed they were adding voices. When people took notice that Worf's model had been revamped to look like how he was in the series, but older, people figured that the reason had to do something with Michael Dorn.

* DuelingGames: With ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'', a fellow FreeToPlay MMO likewise based on a long-running soft science fiction franchise. ''STO'' came out first but ''TOR'' was in a more complete state at launch, though the gap has long since vanished and both games are profitable. ''TOR'' also later added multiplayer space combat, while ''STO'' remains the only major MMO to have fully supported both space and ground combat at launch. The FandomRivalry of their respective parent franchises is certainly there, though there are large numbers of gamers who unashamedly play both.

** Creator/JeriRyan and the Cryptic devs both tried to get Seven of Nine to wear something that wasn't some sort of catsuit for her reappearance. Didn't stick.

** For awhile, Cryptic used to have contests involving ships and their designs/names. However, the "Choose the Next ''Enterprise''" contest went massively pear-shaped: There were multiple accusations of plagiarism, and of discrimination by Cryptic since non-US residents were barred from the contest (several entered anyway, including a couple who ended up as front-runners in the polls). And then [[ExecutiveMeddling CBS vetoed the fan-picked winner in favor of a design that wasn't even in the Top 20]], the ''Odyssey''-class. The resulting backdraft pretty much guaranteed that player-submission contests like that would never happen again. (The 2015 Federation carrier contest involved Cryptic-created designs.)

* WordOfGod: The dev team often tweets about stuff they intended to come across in-game but that wasn't actually stated, such as Akira Sulu's current (as of ''Legacy of Romulus'') position in Starfleet (he's the actual CO of Earth Spacedock; Admiral Quinn just has his offices there). [=ThomasTheCat=] also confirmed something about the Odyssey uniform color scheme that was implied in-game but not actually stated in the color guide he put out, that Starfleet Intelligence personnel have their own divisional color, black.
* WrittenByCastMember: Christine "Kestrel" Thompson, the lead writer for the game, also voices Lieutenant Kyona, the ''Enterprise''-F's tactical officer, in "Facility 4028".

** The year of Klingon expansion saw the hiring of Creator/RobertOReilly, but only as the temporally displaced grandfather of the late Gowron.
* RecycledScript: "Storm Clouds Gather", the introductory mission to 2018's Gamma Quadrant-focused ''Victory Is Life'' expansion, follows fundamentally the same structure as 2012's "Second Wave" (part of the featured episode ''The 2800''). In both missions you arrive at Deep Space 9 for a major international conference and do a lot of talking to {{NPC}}s, then have to defend the station against an attack through the wormhole in ground, then space stages (an invasion of [[spoiler:time-displaced]] Dominion ships in "Second Wave", [[BugWar the Hur'q]] in "Storm Clouds Gather").

* TalkingToHimself: Harry Kim and Keten quite literally in the mission "Dust to Dust", as Keten is the original Harry Kim revived as a Kobali, and both him and Harry are voiced by Creator/GarrettWang, making for some... interesting conversations between the two characters during the mission.

* AlternateContinuity: The backstory of the game is a blend of the ''Literature/StarTrekNovelverse'' and ''ComicBook/StarTrekCountdown'' (with bits of ''Literature/{{Rihannsu}}'' thrown in to flavor the Romulans). Once the third-generation Trek streaming series started, Cryptic began including the ones with earlier settings in its backstory (including a mission series based on ''Series/StarTrekDiscovery''), but ''Series/StarTrekPicard'' is mainly incompatible with it. Cryptic redid Seven of Nine to look like her show counterpart (but otherwise left their own preexisting story intact), and there are uniforms/items/etc modeled after those in the show, but otherwise it hasn't occurred in STO.
* BuiltWithLEGO: [[http://i.imgur.com/YPukHkb.jpg The Elachi Monbosh Battleship]] was, thanks to caasicam from the forums.
* CanonMarchesOn:
** Although CBS Television Studios did ask to borrow Cryptic's notes before producing ''Series/StarTrekPicard'', the final product contradicts large chunks of the game, and although the series's prequel comic shows Picard commanding an ''Odyssey''-class starship, it's set two decades earlier than the ship debuted in-game. That didn't stop Cryptic from putting out a promo bundle with the ''Picard''-era Starfleet uniform, the Inquiry-class ship, or a holo-simulation of the Attack on Mars. [[note]]Given that a later mission allows travel to the Kelvin Timeline, it can be inferred that due to the increased awareness/ability of temporal manipulation in the 25th century, the game's timeline is able to observe events in closely-connected timelines, and even replicate their tech/ship designs/etc with a little effort.[[/note]]
** Inversely, as of Season 2 of ''Picard'', four of STO's newest ship designs - updated variants of the Miranda, Galaxy, Shepard, and Nebula starships - have migrated over from the game to the show. As of Season 3, the Odyssey class follows in their footsteps.

* DirectedByCastMember: {{Inverted}}. Captain James Kurland, CO of Deep Space 9, is voiced by Jeremy "Borticus" Randall, one of the devs. After [[MemeticMutation "KURLAND HERE"]] went memetic he commented that it wasn't his best work.

* OutdatedByCanon: ''Series/StarTrekPicard'', which came out eleven years into STO's run, contradicts most of its backstory. Creator/CrypticStudios continues to develop the game as an AlternateContinuity.

** Largely averted, mostly because the game's older content was largely unvoiced, but since Creator/JamesDoohan had passed away well before production of the game started, a replacement voice had to be brought in for [[spoiler: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOQa8yerXRs The Guardian of Forever]]]], and his accent slips through quite often.

* WrittenByCastMember: {{Inverted}} to something like Voiced by Writer. Christine "Kestrel" Thompson, the lead writer for the game, also voices Lieutenant Kyona, the ''Enterprise''-F's tactical officer, in "Facility 4028".

** When the game ''does'' feature VO for established characters, the devs go out of their way to get the old actors back to help. Denise Crosby and Chase Masterson are good examples, and in season 8 Michael Dorn voiced Worf to much acclaim from the fanbase. This has become the rule rather than the exception since then, with Cryptic stating a preference for having the original actors over imitators.

** Denise Crosby returned as Natasha Yar for the 3rd Anniversary mission featuring the ''Enterprise''-C, "Temporal Ambassador". She also reprises her role as Sela for her appearances in the Romulan storyline and Romulan-centred Featured Episode series, ''and'' is the voice congratulating a Romulan character on being promoted.
** Michael Dorn is back as Worf for the Featured Episode "Sphere of Influence" and (after a short delay) for his scenes in the early Klingon missions.
** Tim Russ is back as Tuvok not only for the Feature Episode for the Fourth Anniversary ("A Step Between Stars"), as well as Season 9 and onward.
** Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock who narrates and appears in an early Federation mission.
** Garret Wang, Ethan Phillips, Jeri Ryan, and Robert Picardo will be returning in ''Delta Rising'' as Harry Kim, Neelix, Seven of Nine, and the Mk I Emergency Medical Hologram, respectively.
** Season Ten saw Robert Duncan [=McNeill=] reprise his role as Tom Paris, Lisa [=LoCicero's=] likeness and voice was used for his daughter Miral, and Aaron Eisenberg returned as Nog from ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine''.
** Tony Todd plays General Rodek (Worf's mindwiped brother Kurn from [=TNG/DS9=]) in Season 12.

** The "Victory is Life" expansion in June 2018 brings several ''[=DS9=]'' alumni including Creator/AlexanderSiddig as Julian Bashir, Creator/NanaVisitor as Kira Nerys, Creator/ArminShimerman as Quark, Salome Jens as the Female Changeling, Andrew Robinson as Elim Garak, Max Grodénchik as Rom, Creator/JeffreyCombs as Weyoun, and Creator/ReneAuberjonois as Odo. Chase Masterson also returns once again, this time voicing the ''REAL'' Leeta.
** The year of Klingon expansion saw the hiring of Creator/RobertO'Reilly, but only as the temporally displaced grandfather of the late Gowron.

* NamesTheSame: Elisa Flores, the characterized tac boff the Starfleet PlayerCharacter gets in the post-Season 8 tutorial, has the same last name as Marissa Flores, the child who helped Picard decades ago in Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration: [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E5Disaster "Disaster"]] (and ''not'' [[Fanfic/MarissaPicard the horrible Mary Sue she spawned into]]), but there's no evidence that she's related to her yet. (And probably won't be, since she basically [[DemotedToExtra stops being an actual character]] after the tutorial.[[labelnote:*]]The backlash over [[TheScrappy Tovan Khev]] means that any future prefab boffs with locked-in names and backgrounds will be removable after the tutorial, and thus can't be a hardcoded part of any storylines.[[/labelnote]])

* CanonMarchesOn: Although CBS Television Studios did ask to borrow Cryptic's notes before producing ''Series/StarTrekPicard'', the final product contradicts large chunks of the game, and although the series's prequel comic shows Picard commanding an ''Odyssey''-class starship, it's set two decades earlier than the ship debuted in-game. That didn't stop Cryptic from putting out a promo bundle with the ''Picard''-era Starfleet uniform, the Inquiry-class ship, or a holo-simulation of the Attack on Mars. [[note]]Given that a later mission allows travel to the Kelvin Timeline, it can be inferred that due to the increased awareness/ability of temporal manipulation in the 25th century, the game's timeline is able to observe events in closely-connected timelines, and even replicate their tech/ship designs/etc with a little effort.[[/note]] Inversely, as of Season 2 of ''Picard'', four of STO's newest ship designs - updated variants of the Miranda, Galaxy, Shepard, and Nebula starships - have migrated over from the game to the show.

* FanNickname:
** "Boff" / "[=BOff=]" / "BOFF" for "Bridge Officer" (AKA your BridgeBunnies). Likewise, some variation of "Doff" for "Duty Officers", the RedshirtArmy who run your [[LowerDeckEpisode Lower Decks]].
** Among others, KDF players are Klinks or Klanks, spiral wave disruptors are pissbeams, the Caitian Atrox Carrier is the catbus, and the Jem'hadar Attack Ship is the bugship or Jem bug.
** "Rainbow boats" or some variation thereof for a {{Noob}} mistake of not making your weapon types match up[[labelnote:*]]Tactical consoles that boost a particular energy type provide greater increases than ones that boost a weapon type; and making your weapon types match up makes it more likely you'll be able to score a proc (think StatusEffects [[RecycledInSpace IN SPACE!]]) when attacking.[[/labelnote]], because of the resulting beams being in all colors of the rainbow. As one guy on the forums remarked on one of these who used cannons, "every time he fired it looked like a pack of Skittles exploded."[[note]]Season Eight's Fleet Spire Tactical Consoles have made doing this more viable, but it's still looked down upon by most players for being a newbie mistake.[[/note]] With the addition of several subtypes of weapon, it's possible, and even somewhat desirable, to have a "rainbow boat" that uses a single energy type. Phasers, in particular, come in truly dazzling array of colors and effects.
** The forums use so much shorthand for builds and abilities it's practically a second language you have to learn.
** The new Obelisk carrier has also been dubbed the "Obisek" carrier, noting how close it was to the well-known Reman character of the Romulan storyline.
** "T'Its", or some variation thereof, for [[LadyNotAppearingInThisGame the nameless Vulcan lady with plentiful cleavage that graces a lot of the promo art]]. By the same token the pretty Romulan who was on the ''Legacy of Romulus'' art got dubbed "So'Hott" until she was revealed as Commander Tiaru Jarok, the Romulan Republic's flagship captain.
** In a similar vein, "Handsome Phaser Guy" for the unnamed [[HumansAreWhite white male human]] Starfleet captain on the box art [[SeanConneryIsAboutToShootYou pointing a phaser out of the cover]].
** "Grinderversary", a derogatory name for the fourth anniversary by some because of the fact that the ship released for this event could only be obtained by grinding.
** "Fake Majel" to refer to the actress who has replaced Majel Barrett in death as the Computer/Tutorial voice. The actress is Creator/LaniMinella, same person who voices Admiral T'nae.
** "Tacscorts", a portmanteau of "tactical" and "escort", is exactly what it sounds like: tactical officers flying escorts heavy on tactical boff powers.
** "The Great Content Drought", a span of of time from February 2011, when the "Cloaked Intentions" Featured Episodes were dropped, to December 2011, which was the release of Season Five: Call to Arms. During this time, ''no'' major content was released due to Atari's mishandling of the game and the uncertainty of PWE's buying.
*** It also has another nickname - "The Year with No Cups", referring to the fact that when funding to STO was cut, it lead to a point where they couldn't even afford ''cups'' in their breakroom, let alone a dev team.
** "Dread-Not", "Dreadnot" or other variations refer to the ''Galaxy-X'' Dreadnought Cruiser by PVP-based players who put down the ship after its recent updating.
** "DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM" or some other variation referring to [[RageQuit players crying that STO isn't how THEY want it and threatening/are leaving and thus the game is dying.]]
** [[StarfishLanguage The Clicky Aliens]] for the Solanae.
** "Bortascrew" has been used as a derogatory term by those who see the ''[=Bortasqu'=]''-class as a TierInducedScrappy.
*** "[[Film/{{Spaceballs}} Spaceball-1]]" is used for the flyby of the ship during the 2014 First Contact Day/Day of Honor/Republic Day.
*** "Captain Whiny B*tch of the IKS ''Whineatyou[='=]''" turned up after 90% of Koren's lines in "Surface Tension" consisted of her harping that Starfleet was only able to send two ships (USS ''Voyager'' and the Fed player character) to [[spoiler:defend Qo'noS from a full-scale Undine assault]]. This after she was present for [[spoiler:much of Starfleet's reserve forces getting trashed defending the Sol system from what the Undine considered a diversion]].
** "DOH" for the Day of Honor, more used in a hilarious derogatory manner (as in [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons Homer's trademark "annoyed grunt"]]) due to the fact that the [=Bortasqu'=]'s tactical officer has a Cannon skill and the ship ''has'' no cannons.
** "Junior Officer Unappreciation Weekend" for a weekend event comprising both a doff XP boost and an "opportunity" to grind for doffs at the respective academies. The former was appreciated, as was the free unique doff (although the fact that there was apparently supposed to be a unique Romulan version for whom the quest target was never added has been thoroughly savaged), but the grind, coming as it did not long after the Mirror Invasion grind and the Grinderversary, has pissed off the forums to no end.
** "Veterans", a title used by certain older players, used in the effect to as to why Cryptic shouldn't change X for the new people.
** "What's your beef with X?", used by players who want to know why Cryptic "hates" a certain ship/race/etc. Made popular by the long-running "What is your beef with the Galaxy Cryptic?" thread which players have been discussing at great lengths the importance of having the Exploration Cruiser made better BOFF-wise (which eventually happened with the ''Andromeda''-class at Tier 6).
** "Slapped in the face", used by players who felt insulted by certain moves by Cryptic (e.g. making the Risian Luxury Cruiser a better ship than the ''Galaxy''-class).
** "Gozer the Iconian" is a derogatory one towards the first appearance of an Iconian by detractors.
** "[=Aux2Bat=]" is the nickname whose ships utilize a build that centers around the BOFF power "Auxiliary to Battery" which, if players time it right, can grant a ship's beam weapons full power without losing power to weapons.
*** "[=Aux2Dulmar=]" is the nickname that uses the [=Aux2Bat=] in coordination with the DOFF Marion Frances Dulmur, which increases a player's attack power even more when using a certain skill.
** "MUH IMMERSHUN!" is a derogatory name towards the reasoning people hate certain aspects of the game or why a certain thing should or shouldn't happen: ruining one's immersion.
** "Craptic", a derogatory term slung at Cryptic itself, mostly when they alter a portion of the game that anger players.
** In ''Delta Rising'', "Vaads" for the Vaadwaur, a term that's also used InUniverse among Ten Forward's fan fiction writers as a way of NicknamingTheEnemy. Ditto "Zombies" for the Kobali (who reproduce by converting corpses into more Kobali).
** "Plasma Doping", an exploit that allowed players to combine the powers of the Embassy Plasma Consoles (which gave attacks a certain amount of Plasma DOT) with the Vulnerability Locators (which increased the chances for Critical Hits)
** "Recluse Nanny", having the Tholian Recluse Carrier essentially "carry" you through a DPS run, artificially boosting your DPS to higher levels.
** The "Blog War", mocking Cryptic's [[TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot inability or unwillingness to make the Iconian invasion more immersive]] and instead telling much of the story through [[AllThereInTheManual a series of blog entries]]. Supposedly the Iconians are kicking everyone's asses, but in-game they really only have one actual battlefield victory,[[note]]"Blood of the Ancients", the only Iconian victory the [=PCs=] weren't railroaded into handing them on a silver platter for no good reason.[[/note]] and outside the featured episodes and a couple [=STFs=] there is zero evidence the war is even going on.
** "Ch'Mol'Rihan" has been adopted by a subset of ''Literature/{{Rihannsu}}'' fans as a [[AsLongAsItSoundsForeign more grammatically correct]] name for New Romulus in Romulan. For reference, while ch'Rihan ''is'' the Romulan name for Romulus, it means "[homeworld] of the Declared" ("the Declared" being the Romulans themselves), so the canon name "Mol'Rihan" actually means something like "new Romulan" rather than "New Romulus".
** After the fiasco in "Broken Circle" where he tried to ZergRush ''the freaking Herald Sphere'', Captain Kagran from the KDF got renamed "Zapp Kagran" after [[WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}} Zapp Brannigan]].
** "Connie" for the ''Constitution''-class, the class of the original ''Enterprise''. "Konnie", the nickname for the Kelvin Timeline ''Constitution''. "Donnie" for the ''[[Series/StarTrekDiscovery Discovery]]'' era ''Constitution''.
** [[https://stoheidy.wordpress.com/2016/08/24/mirror-event-defend-the-waffle/ Waffle Station]] for Vauthil Station, which you defend from the Terran Empire in the revamped Mirror Invasion event. (The nickname comes from Obisek's somewhat odd pronunciation of the station's name.)

* AlternateContinuity: The backstory of the game is a blend of the ''Literature/StarTrekNovelverse'' and ''ComicBook/StarTrekCountdown'' (with bits of ''Literature/{{Rihannsu}}'' thrown in to flavor the Romulans). Once the third-generation Trek streaming series started, Cryptic began including the ones with earlier settings in its backstory (including a mission series based on ''Series/StarTrekDiscovery''), but ''Series/StarTrekPicard'' is mainly incompatible with it. Cryptic redid Seven of Nine to look like her show counterpart (but otherwise left their own preexisting story intact), and there are uniforms/items modeled after those in the show, but otherwise it hasn't occurred in STO.

* CanonMarchesOn: Although CBS Television Studios did ask to borrow Cryptic's notes before producing ''Series/StarTrekPicard'', the final product contradicts large chunks of the game, and although the series's prequel comic shows Picard commanding an ''Odyssey''-class starship, it's set two decades earlier than the ship debuted in-game. That didn't stop Cryptic from putting out a promo bundle with the ''Picard''-era Starfleet uniform, the Inquiry-class ship, or a holo-simulation of the Attack on Mars. [[note]]Given a later mission allows travel to the Kelvin Timeline, it can be inferred that due to the increased awareness/ability of temporal manipulation in the 25th century, the game's timeline is able to observe events in closely-connected timelines, and even replicate their tech/ship designs/etc with a little effort.[[/note]] As of Season 2 of ''Picard'', four of STO's newest ship designs have migrated over from the game to the show.

* AlternateContinuity: The backstory of the game is a blend of the ''Literature/StarTrekNovelverse'' and ''ComicBook/StarTrekCountdown'' (with bits of ''Literature/{{Rihannsu}}'' thrown in to flavor the Romulans). Once the third-generation Trek streaming series started, Cryptic began including the ones with earlier settings in its backstory (including a mission series based on ''Series/StarTrekDiscovery''), but ''Series/StarTrekPicard'' is completely incompatible with it: Cryptic redid Seven of Nine to look like her show counterpart but otherwise left their own preexisting story intact.

* CanonMarchesOn: Although CBS Television Studios did ask to borrow Cryptic's notes before producing ''Series/StarTrekPicard'', the final product contradicts large chunks of the game, and although the series's prequel comic shows Picard commanding an ''Odyssey''-class starship, it's set two decades earlier than the ship debuted in-game. That didn't stop Cryptic from putting out a promo bundle with the ''Picard''-era Starfleet uniform, the Inquiry-class ship, or a holo-simulation of the Attack on Mars. [[note]]Given a later mission allows travel to the Kelvin Timeline, it can be inferred that due to the increased awareness/ability of temporal manipulation in the 25th century, the game's timeline is able to observe events in closely-connected timelines, and even replicate their tech/ship designs/etc with a little effort.[[/note]]

** Creator/VicMignogna, who plays Captain Kirk in the ''WebVideo/StarTrekContinues'' fan series, plays Captain Isaac Garrett in the TOS Starfleet origin story.

** "Rainbow boats" or some variation thereof for a {{Noob}} mistake of not making your weapon types match up[[labelnote:*]]Tactical consoles that boost a particular energy type provide greater increases than ones that boost a weapon type; and making your weapon types match up makes it more likely you'll be able to score a proc (think StandardStatusEffects [[RecycledInSpace IN SPACE!]]) when attacking.[[/labelnote]], because of the resulting beams being in all colors of the rainbow. As one guy on the forums remarked on one of these who used cannons, "every time he fired it looked like a pack of Skittles exploded."[[note]]Season Eight's Fleet Spire Tactical Consoles have made doing this more viable, but it's still looked down upon by most players for being a newbie mistake.[[/note]] With the addition of several subtypes of weapon, it's possible, and even somewhat desirable, to have a "rainbow boat" that uses a single energy type. Phasers, in particular, come in truly dazzling array of colors and effects.

* ApprovalOfGod: When fans found out that the ''NX-Refit'', Doug Drexler's popular go-between of the ''NX''-class and the ''Constitution''-class, was going to show up in Season 12, the fans asked Drexler if he knew about this. Not only did he know about it, but he also gave his approval and is so happy that his design is finally being used somewhere outside of books.

* AlternateContinuity: The backstory of the game is a blend of the ''Literature/StarTrekNovelverse'' and ''ComicBook/StarTrekCountdown'' (with bits of ''Literature/{{Rihannsu}}'' thrown in to flavor the Romulans).