What happens when you give the Star Trek Online devs access to a Star Trek Tabletop RPG? Well, a pretty good look at what they'd rather be making if they weren't held up by a the constraints of a video game! Star Trek Online: Pathfinder is the Official Star Trek Online dev team's Star Trek Adventures rpg game, centered around the U.S.S. Pathfinder, the lead ship of the Pathfinder-class exploratory vessel.
The origins of the Pathfinder campaign go way back to the launch era of the game when a fan named Thomas Marrone got noticed by Cryptic Studios and sold a number of minigame concepts to the studio. One of his payments was to get an NPC in game. Then they hired him. At the time of their Delta Rising expansion, they had Thomas design an update to the Intrepid-class he named the Pathfinder and then-Lead Writer, Christine "Kestral" Thompson made his in-game NPC the Captain of Pathfinder. Captain Marrone and the Pathfinder made a handful of appearances in the game afterwards including in the finale of the Iconian War plotline and had been a subject of some fan discussion over the next few years until the RPG show Shield of Tomorrow came out using the Star Trek Adventures system. Community Manager Mike "Ambassador Kael" Fatum proposed doing a one shot on stream to tie into Shield and to help crosspromote STA. Under the stewardship of Game Master Jesse Heinig, and with Thomas playing his own in-game NPC Captain, the campaign was born.
The first game, was surprisingly successful and the campaign was agreed to become a regular feature of the STO weekly livestreams, with the hopes of being a monthly campaign, which didn't quite happen due to the intense workload of launching both the Victory Is Life expansion and suddenly needing to tie in and stay consistent with a new Star Trek TV series in Star Trek: Discovery. They still stream when the staff isn't overworked or exhausted and are still considered some of the better content set in the STO timeframe, with a better look at the 25th Century with more focus on diplomacy and other content that works better in a non-video game format.
You can watch the recordings of most of the STO:Pathfinder streams on the official Star Trek Online youtube page.
Character Page tropes
Captain Thomas Marrone
The Captain of the starship Pathfinder, and a former engineer on Memory Alpha. Captain Marrone, made his mark by designing the new LCARS UI seen throughout Star Trek Online, before being promoted to Captain. Even after the Iconian War, probably one of the most idealistic people in Starfleet.
- Ambadassador: Thomas proves himself to be one, preferring diplomacy over violent solutions. That being said, when it comes to fighting, he's a proven leader. He also manages to manipulate the leader of the Kalkrit with with subterfuge.
- Badass Bookworm: He used to be an engineer.
- Boring, but Practical: As a former Engineer, this is preferred style.
- The Captain
- Curse Cut Short: He tries to do this, not that he always succeeds.
- Precision F-Strike: A few times.
-
The Danza: Captain Marrone is Thomas' in-game persona after all. - Deadpan Snarker: Most famously, his "Belay that Sass, Lt." line, but in general, Thomas has enough one-liners to make the others burst out laughing, question their choices, or just shut up.
- Good Is Not Soft
- The Pollyanna: Thomas never loses his idealistic streak at all despite seeing some of the worst of the galaxy, including the Iconian War, and a collection of space fascists in the Kalkrit. He also hoped sincerely that the rogue VI on Kylexis was genuinely a self-aware being and even lamented its loss even though it wasn't sentient and had killed 4 billion people.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Diplomatic, peace-preferring, but willing to fight in self-defense. He's also willing to hear out both sides of an argument before making a decision, and tries to keep an open mind. And if it turns out that someone is completely unreasonable (such as the space fascist species the Kalkrit), he still would prefer an option that would result in a Heel–Face Turn rather than a solution involving phasers.
- Renaissance Man: An engineer, diplomat, student of military history, an artist...
- Science Hero: He's out here to explore and study strange new worlds, after all.
- Scientist vs. Soldier: An internalized version. Captain Marrone is an engineer but also a military history buff and now the Captain. Also present in his player (since Captain Marrone is just Thomas Marrone in Star Trek), who is someone with an arts background, but also a lover of military history.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Believes in this strongly. He was the staunchest defender of the rogue VI on Kylexis, and later when a crew proposed using an adaptive holoprogram he wouldn't approve the plan unless they made sure it was done ethically and without becoming a self-aware being.
Commander Kyona
Formerly the head of the security of the *Enterprise*-F, Kyona was promoted to XO of the *Pathfinder*. At least in this campaign setting.
- Authority Equals Asskicking
- Cat People: Being Caitian, its also Played for Laughs as Kyona frequently gets distracted by shiny objects and at one point nearly chases several bird people around who came on board.
- Reached a Dude, Not Funny! moment in the Second Life stream where Kyona was straight up turned into a house cat for Q's version of The Wizard of Oz as the Expy of Toto, which she did *not* enjoy.
- Commanding Coolness
- Crossplayer
- Gamer Chick: Her favorite hobby is playing Captain Proton on the holodeck. She also participates in the in-game weekly Dungeons & Dragons campaign the crew partakes in.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Much like her Captain, Kyona prefers diplomacy over violence, a cultural trait of being Caitian. That doesn't stop her from kicking ass.
Lieutenant Commander Thox
The Pathfinder's science officer, who also happens to be a Klingon. Despite this, he has no actual competency as a Warrior for the most part, but he is a very good astrophysicist.
- Butt-Monkey: If someone's going to be the victim of a hillarious physical attack, its Thox.Mike Fatum: "Best. Klingon. Ever."
- Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Subverted! Thox does has several scientific specialties and he does man the general science station on the Pathfinder but he is a specialist in Astrophysics (with Warp Dynamics and Fields as a subfocus), Xenoanthropology and Xenoarcheaology, and computer technology. However, he has the lowest possible Engineering score of a science officer (1), and has issues with biology (such as being confused by Romulan sexual dimorphism, and thinking the Trill doctor is a human.)
- The Pollyanna: He's surprisingly optimistic for a Klingon.
- Proud Warrior Race Guy: Subverted, he is by his own admission a terrible warrior. He was also once beaten up by a Janitor Bot.
- Science Hero: Expert hacker, analyst, and generally good at smart guy things.
Centurion Tellon Myrrai
The Pathfinder's Ace Pilot and an exchange officer from the Romulan Republic. Largely optimistic but a bit too keen on violence and puns.
- Ace Pilot
- Attack! Attack! Attack!: Her preferred way of dealing with things.
- Crossplayer
- Gamer Chick: A regular feature at the Pathfinder's D&D game
- Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome: Developed it in the unaired pilot after being kidnapped and nearly killed and replaced with a robot duplicate.
- Pungeon Master: A staple feature of Ryon's that eventually rubbed off on everyone else.
- Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Her way of dealing with any kind of threat.
Doctor Lera Jennan
The ship's doctor, a Trill who was nearly joined to an injured symbiont, but the symbiont died before the joining could finish. Joining Starfleet she's become the Pathfinder's CMO.
- Action Girl: And *how*. Dr. Jenan is generally considered the most badass of the crew, with a surprisingly high non-lethal body count.
- Badass Boast: Gives one to Kelkrit Supreme after he has one of his own men commit suicide, she tells him off and saves the man's life.
- Badass Bookworm: Fantastic Doctor, also fantastic at self defense.
- Gamer Chick: Both Tiffany Chu and her character apply for this. Dr. Jenan is a regular the Pathfinder's D&D game.
- Shout-Out: To Leeroy Jenkins.
- Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: In episode 2, she wide angle stuns all the Kalkrit boarders who just teleported into her sickbay.
- Subverted in Episode 1, where instead of shooting the robot in close range, she stuns it with a headbutt to the face, since she's in an EV suit with a metal helmet.
Lieutenant Ethan Yeager
A rarity in Starfleet, an openly genetically augmented human who genuinely wants to better himself. Despite an insanely meta build, its only makes up barely for the fact that his player has stage 2 Wheaton Syndrome.
- Born Unlucky: If he wasn't genetically engineered, he'd probably be dead.
- Butt-Monkey: The genetically engineered superman who has terrible luck. So that results in both discimination against him and terrible dice rolls.
- Fantastic Racsim: Was the victim of it. Augments aren't allowed in Starfleet due to the Eugenics Wars. Somehow, Ethan managed to get enrolled despite that (probably due to the many wars going on in the STO-era), and overcame it.
- Genius Bruiser: Tactical officer first. But that's an emphasis on tactical. Having come up with some pretty smart strategies including prolific uses of holographic tech, and even once calculating in his head the gravitational displacement of a Phaser's particle beam in a high-G environment.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: A major part of his character's beliefs. As an augment, he has those aggressive tendencies Khan has. But his #1 value is that he is NOT Khan Noonien Singh.
Ensign Ricky
The crew's recurring Redshirt NPC who doubles as a Shout-Out to Family Guy.
- Expy: Has several others on the crew such as Ensigns Nikki, Vicky, Schlicky, and Sticky.
- Redshirt
- Running Gag: Something bad either happens to Ensign Ricky or they've named another character after him.
Lieutenant Tardigrade
Originally a fan NPC in the Twitch stream chat created by Stream Moderator Duncan Idaho, was mentioned a few times on stream before getting a plot relevant appearance in Episode 4. As his name suggest, he is a Mycelial Tardigrade like the one seen in Star Trek Discovery, but without any jump capability.
- Ascended Fanboy: The Character at least.
- Nice Guy: Officially he's one of the nicest characters on the crew.
- Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Lt. Tardigrade has been depicted as a Security Officer and a Science Officer. He does have a specialty in Mycelial Biology, however.
- You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry!: Once cracked all three pairs of knuckles he has. However, it was all bluster as Lt. Tardigrade is very peace loving.
Nurse Dillon Kennedy
Tiffany Chu's secondary character, Nurse Kennedy is a human woman with a really nasty mean right hook, but also a healer at heart.
- Badass Bookworm: She's considered really scary by the rest of the cast and crew, but she's also a very good nurse and scientist.
- Combat Medic
- The Intern
