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

Written by John Edward Betancourt 

The Wonder of the Dyson Sphere 

The crew of the U.S.S. Galactica takes in the enormity of the Jenolan Dyson Sphere.

​I’m starting to find it quite funny, how many amazing things I’m outright missing in Star Trek Online simply because the game feels like home to me. For all these landmarks are second nature in my mind and traveling through or by them is just another part of my daily duties as an Admiral. But I’m glad I’m starting to take the time to really pause and appreciate the beauty and majesty of this game. Because taking a moment to stop and smell the tribbles is really allowing me to appreciate it on a whole new level and well, this is on my mind today simply because I’d like to recap exactly what brought to me this newfound level of appreciation, and really it all starts with the last Log entry I put to digital paper.
 
Because my voyage to the Delta Quadrant could only have been achieved one way, and that was by using the Iconian Gateway that’s located in the Beta Quadrant, since that transports you to the Jenolan Dyson Sphere and that name, should ring a bell in the back of your mind whether you’re a casual or hardcore Trekkie/Trekker. Because that particular location was featured prominently in The Next Generation episode ‘Relics’, and this massive body in space just so happened to house a Captain Montgomery Scott who managed to interact with the crew of the NCC-1701-D. And the gravity of the fact that the U.S.S. Galactica, was using a place where Captain Picard’s first Enterprise picked up a legendary chief engineer, as an interstellar express lane, didn’t really sink in until this last voyage when I really took a moment to just let the ship sit there so I could soak in the enormity of this beautiful creation.
 
If anything, that’s really what I want to talk about today, the fact that the two Dyson Spheres present in the game are incredibly marvelous and rich places to visit, because of the incredible detail that they boast. For the Jenolan Sphere is quite frankly a flawless replica of the one found in ‘Relics’ and I even re-watched the episode briefly to see how perfectly the design team matched it to the one featured on screen, and I am hard pressed to find a single flaw. In fact, I would venture to say that they have improved upon it since the detail is a little richer in the game since the buildings and structures on the surface of the sphere, pop on the screen and really, the Jenolan sphere and all of its incredible visuals are nothing more than a mere appetizer for the detail that the Cryptic team placed into the fabric of these majestic spheres.
 
For the Solanae Dyson Sphere gives you actual areas to outright explore, three of them in fact, and as you traverse the vast landscape, you can see every single building and structure beneath your vessel and that is quite frankly, a breathtaking sight. Because it honestly just ignites one’s imagination and leaves you to wonder what went on down there oh-so long ago, since so many of these ancient cities are still intact and in pristine shape, and perhaps the best part of this particular Sphere, is that you get to beam down and explore it up close. Which truly gives one an understanding of the sheer enormity of these Spheres since the beam down point gives you an entire city and a park to explore in great detail and it’s just incredible to know that this world is so large that you cannot see your own ship in the sky, even though you know she’s right above you.
 
Either way, taking the time to venture back through these places was definitely worth the effort since it adds a real sense of scale to things, and I almost forgot to mention the fact that there is basically an entire Starbase to explore inside the Jenolan Sphere, because it’s just that damn big. And while I know this isn’t quite the planetary adventures I promised, we needed to take a moment and appreciate the sheer majesty of these locations since they are so cool and so unique, and now that we’ve wrapped up a few bonus celestial bodies in our second tour through the galaxy, it’s time to return to terra firma by making a stop at a nearby planet, one that holds great weigh in Star Trek canon as of late. Until next time. 

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