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.