Fight for the Federation

Put on your best Starfleet uniform, sit your butt down at your computer and prepare for Star Trek Online!

It may just be us, but somehow we always hated how the Federation and the Klingon Empire got so buddy-buddy in the latter Star Trek series set in the 24th century. Well, in Star Trek Online, the highly anticipated MMORPG from Atari and Cryptic Studios arriving next Tuesday, it’s 2409, roughly 30 years after 2002’s Star Trek: Nemesis, and that pesky Khitomer Accord has gone up in galactic smoke. The war is on with those nasty, ridge-forehead sporting Klingons and you’re the captain of your own ship for either Starfleet or the Klingon Defense Force. Watch for plenty of PvP but not a ton of recognizable characters.

Back when the game was first announced in 2008, interest in the franchise was dismal, but last year’s $258-million J.J. Abrams reboot, which takes place in an earlier, alternate timeline, has suddenly made Trek products a much more lucrative gamble. So we asked the game’s exec producer, Craig Zinkievich, if there was an inside nod to the director that made his universe hot again. “There is not a J.J. Abrams character in the game at launch,” says Zinkievich, “[But] maybe we can call [a ship] the U.S.S. Abrams. It's this ship that rescues you at some point in time.” Like, perhaps, 2010?

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