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

Written by John Edward Betancourt 

A Return to Deep Space Nine 

​You know, I have to admit that my second journey through the galaxy in Star Trek Online is helping to make me realize that I truly get lost in the stories that this game is working to tell. Because there is some wonderful beauty to be found in this digital galaxy, the kind that I’m missing as I rush to save the day and that’s not a bad thing by any means. Because one can always return to a particular destination at any given time by either replaying a mission, or by just hanging out if it’s open to everyday player traffic and that’s precisely why I decided it was high time to revisit one last space bound location one more time before returning to my planet bound adventures, because Deep Space Nine truly deserved an in depth and quality visit on my part.
 
Because I breezed through the station during my first two visits there during the Bajor and Victory is Life story-arcs, and any other time I’ve spent there has been at the Dabo tables to complete the ‘Win X GPL’ task in my Endeavor missions. So, it made perfect sense to return here after my visit to Space Station K-7 to properly wander the halls of this iconic place and I’m so glad that I made this my next destination choice. For I’ve never taken the proper time to appreciate the screen accuracy of this space station since the folks at Cryptic clearly went through a painstaking process in order to make DS9 look and feel like it did on the series and one element that demonstrates how successful they were, is how busy the station is inside and out.
 
For, there are ships constantly surrounding this station, which makes sense since it’s a major hub in the Alpha Quadrant, and it is something that truly reminds me of the series since we often saw exterior shots with ships floating about DS9’s docking rings on the show and the Promenade only enhances this experience further. Because that place was always hopping on the series, and it’s just wonderful to see species from all walks of life wandering about the floor in game, giving this part of the station an on-screen feel as well. But while those parts of Deep Space Nine are pretty awesome to visit, they both pale in comparison to Quark’s, because it’s just a real honor to meander about this iconic place and have a lengthy conversation with Morn and man, the characters of DS9 weren’t kidding back in the day when they said he rarely shut up.
 
But all of that aside, truly the centerpiece of the station is Operations, since many a powerful moment took place in this part of Deep Space Nine on the series, and it is wild to stand where iconic characters worked to save the Alpha Quadrant from the Dominion so long ago and special attention needs to be paid to the Captain’s office that awaits at the top of the stairs. For the specter of Captain Benjamin Sisko hangs heavy over this place, to the point where you pay the new commander of this station no mind. Because it was in this room that Captain Sisko made some incredibly tough calls over the course of the series, and this is where he and Admiral Ross discussed the finer points of the Dominion War from time to time and it is so cool to see that his baseball still sits on the desk, all out of respect for a great commander.
 
If anything, it was just wonderful to walk these hallowed halls and reminisce about a series that took the franchise by storm in all the right ways, and truly I have to tip my cap to the folks at Cryptic for putting together a flawless digital replica of such an iconic place in Star Trek history, and it is just so cool that anyone can visit this station as often as possible once it becomes available to them in game and I think it’s one I need to return to more often as time goes on. Just because it really is an oasis in the lonely Alpha Quadrant since there are but a handful of places to interact with in that part of space. But now that we’ve visited this station one more time, I would venture to say that my time in the void has come to an end for just a little bit, for it is high time we feel the heat of a sun from the surface of a planet, and I know the perfect one to start with… until next time. 

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