After last week’s epic episode, “Coliseum”, those of us at the Federation News Service were intrigued to see just how they could possibly top that nod back to the high point of the Star Trek franchise — the very beginning.
Maybe they could have stayed in a retro mood, and maybe it would have been better if they had. “Cut the Cord”, the finale of the “Cloaked Intentions” arc, instead took its cues from “Star Trek Nemesis”, the movie that finally killed the Star Trek franchise. Nonetheless, it was still a fun, if literally on rails, experience.
Details, and spoilers, after the break.
cloaked intentions
Star Trek Online FE304: Coliseum (spoilers)
You can’t think of “Star Trek” and coliseums together without thinking immediately of the original series episodes “Bread and Circuses“, where the Enterprise crew beam into a 20th century version of the Roman Empire, and “Amok Time“, where Kirk and Spock battle to the death on the planet Vulcan. (The director of “Bread and Circuses”, Ralph Senensky, blogs about directing that episode — a must read! Includes bloopers!)
In “Coliseum”, the folks at Cryptic have managed to include nods to BOTH episodes AND to the Star Trek Enterprise episode “Desert Crossing“. If it sounds like there’s a lot going on in this episode, then you heard right. And speaking of sound — make sure your sound and especially your music is turned on. There’s a point in the episode where you expect to hear a certain bit of music — AND YOU DO.
Spoilers after the break. Or, if you read this on my RSS feed, prepare to be spoiled. I’m going to be switching between screenshots of my Federation and my Klingon runs… they were identical aside from the PCs (who were played both times by Longasc and me).
Star Trek Online FE303: Frozen (Spoilers)
In the first episode of “Cloaked Intentions”, the third Feature Episode arc, we visited a semi-abandoned, giant space station called “The Vault” deep within the Romulan neutral zone. There, we met Obisek, a Reman rebelling against the half-human Romulan empress Sela and her scattered empire of refugees. In the second episode, “Mine Enemy”, we followed Obisek’s suspicions to a hidden Tal Shiar (Romulan intelligence agency) base deep within a mining colony inhabited by the rock-like Horta.
The third episode, “Frozen”, brings us to the Remans once more… after the break.