The Admiral’s Log: My Journey Through ‘Star Trek Online’ – Part LIII

Written by John Edward Betancourt 

‘Hearts and Minds’ – The Spooky Side of ‘Star Trek’

​Okay, so, I know what you’re thinking. I keep promising a particular visit to a particular place, only to quickly change course and visit someplace else and for that, I apologize. But dang it, sometimes Star Trek Online dangles something in front of you that is so shiny and magnificent that we just have to talk about it right then and there and well, that’s what happened in regard to today’s log. Because in my many years of playing this game and sharing my experiences about it with all of you, I keep forgetting to settle in and discuss the wonder the scary story that STO offers up to Trekkers/Trekkies everywhere. Because every Friday the 13th and every Halloween, something wicked comes to the galaxy.
 
For there is a horror themed mission present in this game, one entitled ‘Hearts and Minds’, and it is quite the unique mission to play when all is said and done, provided of course you can find it. Because even when you’re searching for it during the appropriate time frame, it’s not exactly broadcast within the game itself. Sure, you’ll find it on the Events calendar, and you’ll hear about it on social media. But if you want a 25th Century scare, you’ll need to dig into the Incoming Hails section of the menu, and in that place, if you look under your archived chats with Franklin Drake, you will see the title of this particular tale. And once you agree to take on the mission, you’re headed to the Donatu System in the Donatu Sector in order to check in on the now silent Doctor Sibak and that’s when the fun begins.
 
Because the good doctor’s research facility is a disturbing place filled with surprises untold. Granted, I don’t want to spoil the surprise before the next holiday launch of this spooky mission, so instead, I want to talk about what makes this mission sinister in its own right. For there are some genuinely creepy moments to be found here, most of them involving Sibak. For his ominous log entries and how they’re presented, and your encounter with him (that spoils nothing), are pretty chilling in their own right. In fact, it’s the log entries that bug me every single time since they’re just so unsettling and the mission gets serious credit for its atmosphere as well. For the lighting here is eerie in its own right and you never quite know what is waiting for you in the shadows.
 
But while creepy moments are cool in their own right, what really impresses me about this particular episode, is that it fits the mold for the franchise. For whenever any iteration of Star Trek tried to creep us out, it kept the stories grounded in science, giving us a tale that more or less showed us scientific missteps or beings from another dimension that swung by ours to do us harm. And for a fine example of this, check out The Next Generation episode, ‘Schicms’, and you’ll see what I mean. But back to this episode, it too is grounded in science, and everything you encounter here is never over the top or outlandish and it is nice to see the game pay homage to the scary Trek stories of yesteryear and offer up a unique experience for the player as well.
 
If anything, this is one that oddly is worth replaying, largely due to the fact that there’s a limited window to do so, and that’s why I broke away from our standard journey to talk about it today. Because Halloween was the perfect time to enjoy this adventure once again and I dunno, it would be weird to talk about it in the middle of the holiday season since there is a Friday the 13th in December. But now you’re prepared to tackle this mission if you’ve never had the chance to play it before, and hopefully you enjoy it as much as I do. And now that we are done with this twisted journey, it’s back to that all-important second journey through the galaxy, I promise, and I’ll see you in the Alpha Quadrant next week when we set foot on Bajor. Until then.   

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