Shout Outs in Star Trek Online.
- With the release of the Excelsior comes a Transwarp drive. Activating it starts a countdown: 5, 4, 3, 2—- *clunk* (Although the player is lucky — that only happens sometimes....)
- 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 The Empire Strikes Back, as it features a rebel base inside an Ice cave, and...Reman Red Shirt: The Tal Shiar have entered the base!
- Another reference to Empire Strikes Back in the episode "Home".Loriss: This one goes here, that one goes there!
- The final boss of the Borg sector defense missions looks almost exactly like 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 Picard's famous catch phrases.
- "The 2800" storyline happens to reflect upon another story involving people vanishing and reappearing decades later. Also the final mission is named "Boldly They Rode", hearkening back to Miles O'Brien and Julian Bashir quoting from "The Charge of the Light Brigade" before engaging the Dominion in DS9: "Sacrifice of Angels".
- Some of the 29th century timeships introduced with the Temporal Lockboxes have the ability to "Backstep", rewinding time by 13 seconds.
- The Armitage-class Escort Carrier, a refit of the Akira-class heavy escort, carries on its predecessor's tradition of anime shout-out names.
- Next came the Alita class..
- The prototype anti-proton assault rifle looks like a modified neutrona wand from Ghostbusters (1984), 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 could earn in the deleted mission "Rapier" is called "Negative Ghostrider, the Pattern Is Full". Players earn it by buzzing DS9 after exiting the wormhole.
- Taris' Iconian Gate Control Room
in the Hobus System looks alot like a gateroom from another series. Pretty much confirmed here[1]. As forumite said commented on later in the thread, Nick Meyer said that all works of art are products of their time on the Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country commentary and that the same applies to STO. - During the summer event on Risa, players can witness a male Klingon (in a Starfleet uniform) arguing with a female Trill...
- In the torpedo room of a ship during "Smash and Grab", one of your officers comments that most things in the room don't react too well to weapons fire.
- In the Romulan mission "Tradecraft", the accolade for "telling" the Tal Shiar what you think of falsified information? "It's a fake!"
- There's a DOFF character named Charles Xavier Brown. His quote? "Trust me, I've heard all the jokes. Football, beagles... can we talk about something else?" No word yet if he runs a school.
- In the Foundry editor, the caption for the NPC contact "Elachi Lieutenant Scanner 01" reads "EXTERMINATE. EXTERMINATE."
- Similarly, some Temporal Lock Boxes have these beacon things that you can use to get time travel assignments for your DOFFs. One has your DOFFs "Initiate a Lightning Storm above Ancient Time Travel Test Site", another has you advise an ancestor of an important diplomat not to go on the maiden voyage of an "unsinkable" ship, and others reference various time travel issues throughout Star Trek. You'll get DOFFs that are also references, not only to Star Trek, but also to other time travelers, such as a Martha Jones Smith, whose occupation is "Doctor", and her quote is "Let's hope this box is big enough for the both of us."
- A Fleet miner DOFF has a quote that he's "completed the entire Battlecruiser Vengeance episodes!"
- In "A Step Between Stars", when you try to convince Dr. Cooper to join you and Tuvok in the spacesuits, you can tell him you can leave him with the Voth. When he starts to freak out, you reply "Then, you can come with us if you want to live."
- One of the new weapons is the Tethered Quantum Mine Launcher. Now you, too, can proclaim "My ship is dragging mines!"
- A new accolade in the remastered "Stop the Signal"? "The Combination to the Luggage"
- The card for Veol, one of the Risian conn officer doffs available in the 2014 summer event, reads, "I've made the Tour the Galaxy run in under 1500 light-years."
- Before the episode was removed, the destruction of the USS Indianapolis in "The New Link" was likely a reference to the real-life sinking of the American cruiser of the same name during WWII. Complete with awarding the "Sharks in the Water" accolade for rescuing the surviving crew from the True Way.
- Bug Hunt is entirely a reference to the film version of Starship Troopers, complete with the ensign NPC being an Expy of Johnny Rico, served on the USS Buenos Aires, repeatedly quotes the films ("Medic!" "The only good bug is a dead bug!"), and includes the dialogue option "I would like to know more."
- The accolade rewarded for defeating VanZyl within thirty seconds in "Uneasy Allies" is called "Curse Your Sudden but Inevitable Betrayal!"
- The Herald ships first seen inside the Andromeda Dyson sphere in "Uneasy Allies" look a lot like the Aparoids from Star Fox: Assault.
- "Delta Flight" has Tom Paris making references to Independence Day, Star Wars, and Mission: Impossible, among others.
- Season 10 added loading screens with World War II style propaganda posters including an Orion verson of Rosie the Riveter.
- One of ships in "Delta Flight" is named the U.S.S. Pratchett.
- The 2015 Risian Lohlunaut Festival pets, the Lunarian Carucal, look remarkably like either a Eevee or Stitch. There's also the Klingon Targ Hog Superior Mini-Powerboard, which seems to resemble a certain Bulldog Hoverboard.
- The "Future Flyer" hoverboard, released on October 21, 2015 is an even more explicit reference to Back to the Future Part II.
- A decorative piece that closely resembles a Flux Capacitor is present in a Krenim temporal research facility.
- Temporal Agent Crey has noted "unauthorized uses of crude flux capacitance technology throughout the late 20th century". According to him, the destruction of the time travel device in the 20th century sent two things forward in time, plans for the Hoverboard, and what is implied to be the Gray's Sports Almanac.
- Shon quotes from The Charge of the Light Brigade right before the Enterprise-F makes its final stand against the Iconians in "Midnight". Also serves as a Call-Back to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's "Sacrifice of Angels", in which Miles O'Brien did the same thing.
- "The Breach" has you leading a small fleet of ships into the Voth Fortress Ship, destroying the reactor, and then outrunning the explosion as you escape the hull. Sound familiar?
- The Season 11 premier episode "Sunrise" had quite a few references to another sci-fi franchise, particularly the part where the player beams aboard Kal Dano's timeship.
- Starfleet Captains wearing the Oddessy uniform are entitled to have white shoulders on their uniform, much like the Royal Manticoran Navy's White Berets.
- The Assimilated Snowmen in Q's Winter Wonderland will occasionally declare "This is the Winter of your discontent!"
- The final act of "Vorgon Conclusions" has you fight your way through a Starfleet Intelligence cache full of many of the anomalous artifacts and technology they've found over the centuries. The objects in question range from dangerous alien devices like Bok's thought-maker, to the black box from the USS ''Kelvin'', to... a bottle of Chateau Picard.
- The sub-mission The Unmitigated Gaul has a dilemma where the player must choose a single group of civilians to save. This is a reference to an episode where the Doctor ended up emotionally paralyzed for weeks over having to choose between two patients to save. The Doctor's commentary is eerily similar to that episode.
- In the Na'kuhl red alert mission, the player has to rescue a number of civilian freighters that are under attack. Your NPC contact for the mission start is the captain of the freighter Beowolf.
- In 'Survivor', you find a record from a Tal Shiar prisoner. Their prisoner ID number? 24601.
- For Halloween 2017, the rewards for completing the special mission "Hearts and Minds" was an emote called "Zombie Dance" that had the player-character start dancing to Michael Jackson's Thriller.
- The rogue hologram in 'What Lies Beneath' was named Gein.
- The mission "Quark's Lucky Seven" is an apparent parody of Ocean's Eleven.
- One of the open missions on Kobali Prime is called "Kobali Killed The Vaadwaur Comm".
- During the intro quests for a Discovery-era Starfleet character, three of the cadets on the bridge - two of whom you meet at the Academy beforehand - are named Peart, Lifeson and Lee.
- In the 'One Night In Bozeman' patrol, one of the tasks is to erase the memories of some civilians that you save from being assimilated by the Borg. The interaction is called Neuralyze Memories.
- In "The Centre Cannot Hold", Ganbral of House K'lek calls the Player Character an "assassin of joy".
- In Manhunt, several of the prisoners on Rura Penthe (Vrenn and Klimor to name two) are named after Klingon characters in The Final Reflection.
- The 'Operation Wolf' task force operation has the players defend a trio of exocomps as they hack (a simulated version of) the Terran Empire's version of Earth Spacedock. These exocomps bear the names Acid Burn, Zero Cool, and Cereal Killer.
- Manhunt ends with a Klingon Bird of Prey performing a Big Damn Gunship rescue by decloaking just above your party and blasting the enemy; not unlike Spock's rescue of Kirk and company in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.
- There's also a very involved storyline set on the planet Nimbus III, which somewhat redeems the planet for its appearance in the above film.
- During the Iconian arc, Kagran tells the PC that, since Sela has beaten them at chess, now it's their turn to beat her at klin zha.
