Star Bunny

I’m fairly certain after the last Cardassian Struggle mission, I spring-boarded right into the next one. This one stood out a lot as it had quite the couple of unique locations for it: Jabberwocky. Since I had already done all of the Terran Gambit, hearing that I would be seeing the Mirror Universe again in this mission got me really intrigued (and I also wanted to see if this would introduce some characters from the Terran Gambit as well).

It starts off heading to Bajor to place the Orb of Possibilities recovered in the previous mission, so we headed on out from Deep Space Nine to make the trip there!

The place was absolutely gorgeous! I took in the scenery for a little bit and explored here before continuing on with the mission itself. The area was kind of limited, but there’s just so much detail packed into it, that it felt much larger than it was letting on.

After exploring and relaxing for a bit, I headed to where I was needing to go, and it was where the Orb of Possibilities was to be placed: on an altar of sorts, which apparently wasn’t the right altar for it to go.

So, apparently this version of the Orb belongs in the Mirror Universe and was brought to the Prime universe some eons ago. We’re tasked to take it to Mirror Bajor and place it where it’s supposed to go, and that leads us into the Badlands again to find the rift to take us there!

Returning to the Badlands, there’s some resistance from the Cardassians, but we do eventually find the rift that we’re needing to head into and blast the critter with Tachyon Radiation, because that’s always a good idea to do.

Once the Tachyon Radiation is delivered, the rift to the Mirror Universe opens and we’re able to hop on through. One thing that did crack me up was the interface to enter said rift literally said “Press ‘F’ to enter rift,” and I got a good laugh out of it.

Upon entering the rift, we were now in the Mirror Universe as well as their version of the Badlands. This version traded out all the orange for a lovely ‘Blegh Green.’ Only moments upon entering this Badlands, we’re greeted with the welcoming party and a metric ton of phaser fire! This fight was kind of rough, part of which was due to said ambush and having to orient where they were versus myself. I think they might have been stronger ships, but that’s speculation comparing to the previous missions.

Once recovered from nearly being blown out of the stars, we headed to Mirror Bajor. It’s a quick warp from the Badlands to Mirror Bajor, not really a large galaxy map to fly through, so getting there was just a simple click.

Mirror Bajor was something else. Upon arriving there, it felt like something way out of place for even the Star Trek universe. Then again, this is the Mirror Universe so I suppose it works quite well since it’s the complete opposite of everything the Prime Universe stands for. The place was gloomy, rainy, rather suggestive neon signs everywhere, and really felt like a scene out of some cyberpunk universe.

There was a bit of Mirror Universe fighters here that we had to contend with to go and acquire the Orb, for in which most were dispatched with fairly easily. The ‘boss’ of the area turned out to pack a bit more of a punch, but we were able to succeed without any major setbacks.

The altar here was similar to that on the Prime Bajor’s, except instead of it being surrounded by beautiful buildings, it was tucked away in one of the skyscraper-like buildings and felt more like any other alleyway. Finally the orb was ours to take back to our universe! One more vision upon picking up the orb and it was finally time to head back to the Badlands to return back to Prime Bajor!

A couple of hops, warps, and jumps later, we’re back in the Prime Universe and on Bajor to deliver the news. I can’t recall from here if we brought the Prime Orb of Possibilities back or not with us on this mission, that part of the mission itself I can’t exactly recall. I know once it was returned in the Mirror Universe, the altar on Bajor Prime had one as well. Perhaps it materialized there once we took it back to the Mirror Universe or something like that.

I loved this mission; it was so much fun! I’ll probably have to revisit it eventually for some equipment in the Mission Replay options to help where I am nudge in the right direction to continue more of the missions. However for now, it was a really fun mission that had us delve into the Mirror Universe and see other aspects of it!

This might have been the absolute best April 1st event I’ve ever done in any MMO. Star Trek Online is(was) doing something pretty comical for April Fools. Most of the sound effects for practically everything were replaced with Artisanal Audio from the developers making the sounds themselves. Everything from ‘Pew pew!’ for phasors and weapons, all the way to things exploding and hearing all sorts of sounds from fart noises, ‘booms,’ and literally one person saying the word ‘explosions!’

Going to warp had someone bellow out ‘WARP!’ and using slipstream one time had one of the developers simply saying ‘Yaaaay~!’ That one did change though, so each time it was something just as comical. Just… so many really hilarious sound effects that were just pure bonkers and for fun!

It was such a hoot! To do missions or just sit near Deep Space Nine and see other ships shoot off fireworks, or do whatever effects they had at their disposal and hear all of these absurd sound effects was great fun. Even the menu sounds were all made up. Doors would do ‘swish’ sounds and nearly every NPC at both Deep Space Nine and Earth Space Dock was playing an accordion!

I wasn’t on very long, but that whole session was so great and memorable. Will have to make time next year for the next April 1st just to hear all of these sounds make a return while doing whatever Mission I’ll be on at that time. I kind of wish other games/MMO’s would do this as well. Just think… back in Eorzea we could just repurpose all of Hildibrand Manderville’s sound effects for April 1st.

After the rather brisk time with the U.S.S. Astera III, it was time for another promotion and a brand new starship. Out of all the choices for the successor to Astera III, the Galaxy Class was definitely going to be the choice here.

The U.S.S. Astera IV is almost identical to a standard Galaxy Class. The color patterns on the hulls along with the bulges at the rear of the warp nacelles being the only major changes, and even at that, they’re pretty minor. Nearly all of the missions involving The Cardassian Struggle and the Borg Advance are where the Astera IV’s missions resided before the successor came along. The Cardassian Struggle was pretty unmemorable, but the Borg Advance was fun even if the difficulty really began to show itself.

After a quick shakedown around Earth Space Dock, it was time to head out to the next set of missions. Initially having us head out to Deep Space Nine to start these next series of missions, which eventually led us back into the Badlands to find out what this sub-group of Cardassians, named the True Way – a terrorist group within the Cardassians, were up to.

This whole ordeal had something to do with an Orb that the Obsidian Order failed to return after the war, and after hearing about raiders, there is suspect that has something to do with said missing orb.

So we go into the Badlands, poke around for said orb, find some ‘friends’ waiting for us, blow some ships up, and discover where said orb is being held. So we head to said location, an outpost near a moon, and beam over to said outpost to take it back. The outpost section I can’t really recall being all that eventful, it was really just an over-the-top ‘retrieve’ quest and then back out into the Badlands’ space. I’m not necessarily complaining about this mission being so straightforward, as there are a bunch of ones before and after that are bonkers long and pretty challenging.

Anyway, back in Badlands’ space, some True Way ships are hot on our nacelles, so we have to deal with them pretty quick but soon discover that this somehow has the Mirror Universe involved too! We end up scanning the Mirror Universe tear anomaly, which has a couple of Mirror Ships come through that we’re swiftly dealt with and thus the mission concludes.

This was a fairly quick mission session, and I think I either ended up heading back to Earth or staging the next area before heading out. I know I did mess around with some of the emotes and such as I hadn’t done so a whole lot since starting out playing Star Trek Online, so I did that and kind of just relaxed for a spell.

The next mission ends up being a bit more involved, but pretty fun nonetheless with some rather interestingly chosen cut scenes to go all along with it.

Until next time, and the next Episode of Star Bunny IV~!

This era was really quick thanks to a few exp bonus weekends back to back. The U.S.S. Astera III ended up being something that resembles a starship crossed between the Constellation and Stargazer classes.

I honestly didn’t like this ship all that much aside from the bridge officer positions. It did serve me well before I was high enough rank to reach the next class of starships though. Once the U.S.S. Astera III was christened and all fitted up with parts from the U.S.S. Astera II (consoles, weapons, and such that were meaningful to carry over), we were off to complete the Romulus Missions.

This is where I did the Coliseum Mission which was a lot of fun! The vast majority of it was a ground mission, but it was very enjoyable and did even have the song from Star Trek: ToS that Kirk and Spock fought to! It started out as a routine mission to try and find a mission Reman ship, only to stumble upon a space station (satellite?) that immediately zaps us upon scanning it!

It doesn’t outright blow us up, but we have to investigate it to figure out why it was holding us. This part had no combat, but it was a ground section, and was a big puzzle. The puzzle itself wasn’t too hard, but it was really neat to have this little section and it did make me think about how to solve it. Aftrewards though, was the whole coliseum section after my transport back to the ship was intercepted by someone.

The Coliseum section was fun & fair for the most part, which ended up leading into the finale section. This section was also a ground mission about getting far enough away to call for help. It was some stealth, collecting items, and fighting, which all and all did take a bit of time to complete, but once it was done, I was back on my ship all safe and sound ready for more space adventuring!

I headed back to Earth Spacedock as around this point, I was high enough rank for the next starship, and that’s when this started to get a smidgen more difficult… I took a breather, got a nice lovely dressy outfit together and checked out some more Earth Spacedock before heading out into the next series of Episodes.

With the Terran Gambit Missions all completed, I went back to where I was supposed to be in the story quests, which led me back to once again the Romulan Mystery Missions. By the point I’ve already done a handful, including mentioning being ambushed at a Romulan outpost in Star Bunny II: Episode 1.

I’ll touch on this a smidgen right now, but a lot of the later missions were taken under the U.S.S. Astera III; for the most part the lot of these went rather uneventful and felt like it was building up a prologue to another part of the story later on. Some had neat space fights, while others had… well tolerable/fun ground missions for the most part. I recall ‘Cutting the Cord’ really frustrating me for the ground part. However, on the opposite side ‘Coliseum’ was so much fun even with it being a bit more challenging.

There were a couple of missions with some neat space sections, the first being one that I cannot recall the name for the ears of me has one flying around a planet with a polygonal grid system surrounding it, and unintentionally interacting with it is not a good time.

The U.S.S. Astera II did have an untimely fate during this mission, but it was fun. Another of note had me encountering a planet with a neat hexagonal shield system. I think this was the ‘Taris’ Mission, but I might be mistaken.

From there, really just did some more missions/side missions and flew through another ten levels rather quickly. My little U.S.S. Astera II’s decommissioning day was looming at this point.

It didn’t feel so quick with my second starship, but it kind of was. The exploration and battles that I took her into were so memorable; she was a tough little ship and still one of my favorite class’ of Federation Starship to this very day. More space exploration awaits~!

This is it! The final Terran Gambit Mission! This was an incredibly long mission with multiple parts and I think it took me almost 2 hours to complete, but it was so gosh darn fun! From what I recall since this was a long while ago, and I still prior to this mission wasn’t very good at documenting these things, is in the Mirror Universe the Emperor (who is Wesley Crusher) was able to get assistance from The Other which is V’Ger’s counterpart in our Main Universe.

The initial mission has us racing The Other through the Sol System as it’s on the way to intercept Earth. We help out the fleet and stop at the Jupiter Station to help the station evacuate while The Other ‘deletes’ it from existence, along with every other planet in the Sol System. Afterwards we head to Mars and do a similar objective, but get as many people off the surface as we can.

The Jupiter one went pretty effortlessly, but the Mars’ part was bonkers! A lot of space firefights going on while trying to transport folks off the surface. It took a few tries. After that, everyone falls back to Earth to defend it from the incoming super threat. Upon arriving at Earth none other than V’Ger arrives to help defend against The Other.

My little U.S.S. Astera II taking on a large I.S.S. fleet alongside the flagship herself, the U.S.S. Enterprise F was such a blast to do! After coming out victorious in the skirmish, we’re lead into the inner section of The Other to stop Emperor Crusher.

This section was so neat!! It was so similar to scenes from Star Trek: The Motion Picture! The detail was incredible! While flying through this enormous entity, there were a few more skirmishes with more Mirror Universe starships. Nothing really of difficult until the final section.

Unfortunately, I don’t have any images from this part, but if you’ve seen Star Trek: The Motion Picture, it’s that part where Kirk and the Away Team have to set out on foot to reach V’Ger. This part was fairly difficult, even with now understanding how to swap to shooter mode for the ground missions. I honestly think this part took the longest, but after almost dying a few times, we made it out on top and stopped the Emperor with the help of his mother and The Other stopped its attack on Earth.

All factions and teams, Mirror Universe as well, stop at Earth Space Dock to debrief and everyone heads back to their respective realities. The Other puts everything back that it ‘deleted’ and heads back to the Mirror Universe with everyone else. This whole series of Missions were so fun, even if they got difficult, and the finale was SO AWESOME! I very much was squeaking and geeking out while doing it.

From there, I just decided to relax at Earth Space Dock until another day.

Learned how to wear comfier clothes instead of my Starfleet uniform while on ‘off duty,’ and took a long-earned rest until the next mission.

After my over-excitement for acquiring my new ship had dissipated, I set off to explore and pick up a new mission or two. I don’t believe any new Terran Gambit missions had come out by this point, so I picked up where I left off on the Romulan ones. Before disembarking from Earth’s Spacedock, I took a quick tour around the inside as I hadn’t done so prior on my first ship.

Most of the interiors for any starfleet ship, at least the ones I picked, seemed to all be really similar except the bridge module can be customized to a degree. I decided to pick one that was homage to a Galaxy Class’ bridge. After a walk around of most the interior (I think I overlooked sickbay and the transport room on this walk around), I headed out.

Whatever the reason, I detoured and headed out to see Deep Space Nine. It was a pretty good hike from Earth Spacedock to Deep Space Nine, but it’s not too rough once a course it set in, just sit back and watch the stars flyby as one heads to their destination. When I got close, I was prompted to ‘enter the sector,’ and then was greeted with a gorgeous view!

I docked with Deep Space nine, and took a quick look around before heading out on a new mission. I ended up in front of a rather ominous Romulus Outpost, and without paying attention, got ambushed and nearly destroyed! The mission was pretty straightforward if I recall, and once that one was over ended up flying through a really pretty area of space filled with a nebula and asteroids.

It was a pretty short session with only one or two missions being completed, but it was a lot of fun and being able to fly around in the new starship made it all the more enjoyable! I headed back to Deep Space Nine at the end to get a nice rest.

A lot of this early exploration I still hadn’t really documented all the well yet, but I know the closer to when I finished the Terran Gambit it gets a bit more clear directed. Until next time~!

This is more of an interlude between the ending of ‘Star Bunny,’ and ‘Star Bunny II’ since I had no idea where to squish this in before I started to document my interstellar travels across the galaxy in Star Trek Online. During this time from level 1 to 10 as a whee rank of Lieutenant, I flew around the galaxy jumping from sector to sector taking on intro missions, some story missions, side-missions, and just plain trying to figure things out.

Fairly quickly, I got the general understanding of space combat, which is a lot of fun! Ground combat, however, is a smidgen wonky. It’s not bad per se, but it’s just not well worked into the MMORPG aspect as much as it could be. There’s two modes to ground as well: Standard, and Shooter; shooter makes it more in line with a FPS whereas standard is more in-line with MMO’s – just click/target an enemy and pew pew. Standard was giving me trouble early on, so once I learned about shooter mode, I swapped over to that for ground portion of missions only. While running around doing more casual things, I leave it in standard mode; the nice thing is it’s just a quick toggle at the push of a keystroke.

I mentioned in Episode 1 that one can sometimes be able to do mission series out of order, and the missions just scale to your level (or that’s how I believe it works). Somehow while doing all of the early side-missions, at around level 5 or so, I gained access to the Terran Gambit story line missions. I started up the first one, and after a few minutes into it somewhat realized that I probably wasn’t supposed to see this yet as it was showing and mentioning characters I have not yet encountered.

One thing I forgot to mention in the prior Episode is that the missions are mostly voiced and a lot of the original cast from the various Star Treks reprise their roles as their characters from the shows, and it’s absolutely wonderful! The tutorial mission for Starfleet has Admiral Janeway explaining what you’re doing, and the Starfleet general things is narrated by Leonard Nimoy just as two examples. Back to the Terran Gambit, I got through the first mission fairly well and somewhat felt quick (mission lengths vary from 20-30 minutes to sometimes near a hour or more), and decided to just keep going with them since it was fun and I liked where the story was going after the first couple of missions.

The second one tore me up big time. I was still trying to learn ground combat and also blew up my ship a few times in the process. It was a little frustrating to say the least, but I persevered and made it through it, but it took well over a hour to complete! I believe right around that time, along with another couple of side-missions, I was able to obtain level 10 and rank of Lieutenant Commander! The Rank-Up quests immediately come up on the screen and you’re able to accept/warp immediately back to Star Base to claim the new ship for said rank (up to a certain rank). I warped myself back to Earth, and collected my first ship upgrade: The Constitution II (or Refit, depending on your reference point). Initially, once first acquired, it looks like it flew right out of the Star Trek movies, but is capable of a lot of customization choices.

I spent a good hour or so fiddling with the customization options for it, and landed on something that looked like a Mini-Sovereign Class, but with a Galaxy Class styled bridge. Thus the U.S.S. Astera II was christened; I used the same registry number and added an ‘A’ to the end of it, but the names can’t be identical if keeping the previous ship, so I just added a ‘II’ to the end of it and all subsequent ships thereafter.

With all of the affairs taken care of, and back out in space, it was time to see what she could do! Since I was already fairly deep into the Terran Gambit story line at this point, I decided to continue on that, and then figure out how to get back on the right track for the story to be done in proper order.

Far back in April of this year, I finally delved into watching Star Trek: Picard. Upon finishing the first season and, I believe, the second season, I decided to look into some Star Trek games. I remember a few articles that Massively OP did on Star Trek Online, as well as some things about it on YouTube, so I decided to give it a try.

I don’t have much in terms of well-done record keeping at the time, but I do know I spent about 2 hours in the character creation making my character since I wanted her to not be one of the standard ones to pick from. It’s very extensive as to what one can do to their character if they choose to spend the time on it.

I picked Starfleet in Modern time for my faction. There’s three different Starfleets to choose from: Modern, TOS, and Discovery; aside from those, there’s Klingon, Romulan, and Dominion. After the character creation and the faction, it’s off to what is basically the tutorial mission. It’s a rather thorough tutorial explaining the games basics and mechanics off the bat, which is really nice! Once the tutorial mission is completed, one is free to explore, customize, socialize, and do missions at their leisure. The customization for the starships are so nice and really in-depth as well! Starfleet starts with a Miranda Class straight out of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, but I was able to make it look like it was more so out of the 24th Century instead.

Two large things to point out; the Missions (Episodes) can kind of be done out of order, for in which I wish I knew that beforehand, but it somewhat worked out. The other thing being a lot of the actors and actresses from the Star Trek Series make guest appearances in Star Trek Online, giving it a really nice depth to it all as well.

Anyway, from here my decision was to get to level 10 quickly, as that was the next rank up for a new ship. The game does a fairly decent job at easing one into more difficult content, but there are some difficulty spikes along the way as well. Each Rank does up the difficulty, but if you’re somewhat prepared, it doesn’t seem too rough at least not yet.

Thus the voyages of the U.S.S. Astera began all across the Galaxy! The name ‘Star Bunny’ came about as I’m a Viera in Final Fantasy XIV, so it felt appropriate for that to carry over. The voyages have been mostly a lot of fun, but not exactly sure what the hoobers we’re doing!