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

Written by John Edward Betancourt 

Walking in Q’s Winter Wonderland 

About this time last year in Star Trek Online, my nerdy plate was pretty full. I was working hard to get the Galactica-B up to snuff, there were some new patrols I wanted to try out and there were also some new missions in my queue that I needed to get to, and while this is a short list of first world problems to say the least, from a gamer’s standpoint, it did force me to put a few things on the backburner in the game, like taking the time to enjoy a little bit of fan service from The Next Generation era since the holiday season is all about the legendary and omnipotent being, Q.
 
Because this time of year features a special sub section of missions in the game and all of them exist because of the titular Q, who just so happens to pop up at Earth Space Dock to see if you are brave enough or crazy enough (all a matter of perspective I suppose) to take on his Winter Wonderland and well, seeing as to how I was tied up last year, I made a vow that come this year, I was going to make the time to see what this special event was all about and since I had a little time on my hands this past week, I made good on my personal promise and boy, am I glad I stopped by Q’s throne, because once I asked him to whisk me away to this special place, I was privy to some incredible sights. 
 
For his Winter Wonderland is exactly as advertised, since it’s a snow covered world straight out of our favorite holiday stories, complete with a massive and shimmering ice-like gazebo for everyone to congregate within and once you venture past that point, you’re surrounded by snow and snowmen and fellow players prancing through these wintery delights and at first glance, this world seems like the anthesis for everything that Q stands for since he loves mischief and mayhem and well, it doesn’t take long for the player to understand that everything twisted that this being loves is present here, you just have to step away from the sight-seeing to dig into it.   
 
For there are interesting activities abound in this place, like all kinds of races and competitions and me personally, I’m not big on racing games or racing events in games, so I flat out skipped those. Instead, I felt the need to go ice fishing, Klingon style and that…was pretty wild in its own right. Because these proud warriors don’t cut a hole in the ice via a shanty and wait for the fish to arrive. You hunt that sucker down with a hand gauntlet and pull that fish right out of the water and if that’s not wild enough for you, well, once you’ve put enough fish in a giant community coffer you have to fight off a giant gummi monster and well, that’s about as Q as it gets to be honest and he wasn’t quite done with keeping this activity filled wonderland in an abstract place.
 
Because Q also has his own nightmarish version of the Krampus for you to face and that, well that was just plain fun as I took the time to chase them off and run and hide as necessary and while this part of the game may not be as in depth and expansive as the galaxy itself, this is still quite the lovely little break from the everyday rigmarole of the 25th Century. Because anything goes in this Winter Wonderland, but I fully understand why it’s a limited event. For firing snowball guns and racing about in the cold can only go so far, but all of that aside, I won’t lie, it was a tad intimidating to stand before a powerful being that challenged Captain Jean-Luc Picard on a regular basis and even brought the Borg to Federation space.
 
But in the end, this was just plain fun, and I’m glad it’s present in the game. However, all fun aside, there are still systems out there needing help and patrols to complete, so now that this adventure is out of the way, it’s back to the stars, and keeping the peace… 

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