Star Trek

The follow-up to Star Trek Online’s fantastic Breen arc begins this Saturday. This new five episode arc takes us back to the Neutral Zone to battle the Devidians, a ghostly, extra-dimensional race which feeds off the life energy of mortal critters. One of the story missions in the area had us closing the portals which allowed them entrance to the physical realm; they have once again managed to infect reality. A ghostly race for a spooky time of year! ...

There’s a gulf between the MMOs I WANT to be playing – such as EverQuest, where I currently have a max-level rogue – and the MMOs I ACTUALLY play – which, these days, are Dungeons & Dragons Online and Star Trek Online. (Wizard101 is on the back burner as we wait for the expansion). EverQuest is famous for being a social, more ‘sandbox’ open world where reputation matters and the things you do have consequence. Well, not so much anymore; SOE has fully bought into the instanced adventure scheme and now, nothing anybody does has any effect on the world. But ONCE UPON A TIME, it did. The point being, though, was it WAS a virtual world, where you could just hang out in places and chat, role play, run events or do whatever you wanted – and even occasionally pull on the heavy boots and wade into dungeons and battle for treasure. ...

I’ve been wanting to write more blog posts, but every time I sit down to write about Minecraft, I end up playing Minecraft, and then it’s suddenly midnight. If you’ve managed to avoid all the Minecraft hype over the past few weeks, I hope it’s warm and cozy under your rock. The basic premise is, you’re plopped with nothing into the middle of a world that is fully moldable and destructible. At night, The Monsters Come. You must first build some sort of shelter and hide before the sun goes down. ...

I could while away the watches, Berating Ensign Hodges But that would cause a scene Oh I’d be the pride of Starfleet – Among captains, I’d be elite If I only had a Breen…. Oh, I could tell you why we ejected the warp cores, We wanted an extra week on Risa’s sunny shores And so we beamed straight down for more I might find at my court martial, that I will serve a partial ...

I’ve just been informed that Episode 5 of the Breen arc will be called “Cold Cream”. You heard it here first, folks. The Breen take off their masks and it is finally shown, for the very first time, that the Breen hide their faces because they have very dry skin. This episode is very similar to the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “The Chase”, where Picard & crew went looking for genetic markers throughout known space in order to find and decode a message from an enigmatic race that were the progenitors of humanoid life throughout the galaxy, in this one, the good guys race the Breen to discover a message left behind by the Preservers, another enigmatic race responsible for shepherding the cultural evolution of younger races. ...

Lt. Commander Krontar commanding the IKS Van’tek, to the High Council: Qapla’! I, Krontar, report as commanded. I ask once again to be allowed honorable death by Mauk-to’Vor instead of this shameful sentence as a flat-headed victim of the augment virus. This more human appearance is a disgraceful punishment for the crime of allowing a human ship to leave the field of battle. Nevertheless, I obey. ...

In last week’s episode, “Cold Call”, we were introduced to the Deferans, a race that believes in balance in all things. They, for instance, see no reason to side with either the Klingon Empire or the Federation, and consider both allies against the Breen. Searching for ancient Preserver technology, the Breen found evidence on the Deferan homeworld; and found as well, a non-violent, pliable civilization that they could exploit for their own, cold-hearted purposes. ...

“Cold Call” is the first of Star Trek Online’s “Feature Episodes”. The first series deal with those cryo-suited Alpha Quadrant villains, the Breen. Staying more or less out of galactic affairs after their defeat along with the rest of their allies at the close of the Dominion War, they have returned. Those Federation diplomats who negotiated a treaty between the Ferengi, the Rigelians and the Deferans in the Starbase 39/Sierra diplomacy mission may remember Ambassador Surah as the Deferen Ambassador. Klingons will be reminded of an ancient pact between the Klingons and the Deferens where the Klingons promised aid when asked – that time has come. Though simply knowing that they would face the Breen would be reason enough for the Klingons to show. ...

Cryptic starts their new weekly episode tomorrow, with “Cold Call”. I’m pretty excited to see what they’ve come up with! I’m not sure any subscription MMO has ever done weekly content updates before. All players level 10 or higher will be able to access the Featured Episode: Cold Call starting at 11:00am PDT (6:00pm GMT) on Saturday, August 28. Once the Episode is live, you may begin the new mission by traveling to the Defera Sector and contacting Deferi Ambassador Surah. (K, Surah, Surah?) ...

Where does this portal lead? It’s a mystery – but let’s back up a bit. The USS Monterey has her regular patrol – exploring the expanses of the B’Tran Cluster to keep the systems closest to Borg space safe, the occasional mission for the Federation Diplomatic Corp, helping out on any fleet actions that may arise. This is the bread and butter of life in Starfleet. But on occasion, some brass with shiny medals plastered up and down their uniform sends an encoded transmission for My Eyes Only, and then we’re off, and these entries in my Captain’s Log are all the record there ever will be outside of the locked corridors in Starbase 01. ...