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Ten ForwardStar Trek Online and Memory Beta (Reply | Watch)

Continuity[]

This forum is to discuss the status of STO as MBeta declared "canon". My thoughts are that it shouldn't be considered part of the same timeline as the novels, comics, etc. as it has already shown a disregard for critical events in novels, such as the Destiny trilogy, and as such, follows an alternate timeline from that of the "prime" timeline, so my thoughts are that STO portions of articles should be relegated to a sub-section and, for example, Tal'Aura's death in 2384, as stated by STO, will, with the announcement of the Typhon Pact novels, become STO-timeline only. --WTRiker 04:36, January 14, 2010 (UTC)

I suggest you have a read of the "Conflicts" section of our Inclusion Policy which explains how we treat cases like this (Star Trek Online is hardly an exceptional case we have to deal with contradicting information all the time).
Your example of Tal'Aura isn't the best, as the two conflicting continuities don’t actually conflict on her history; there's nothing in the novel continuity so far that precludes her death some years later. When there are overt contradictions then we separate the information, in most case that isn’t currently necessary. At most the Tal'Aura article (currently) needs a background note explaining the information originates from partially incompatible continuities and thus may or may not be how events play out in future prose-verse appearances. --8of5 06:02, January 14, 2010 (UTC)
The term "canon" doesn't much apply when comparing two non-canon topics ;)
I think putting the weight of this discussion on STO is also wrong, as it presupposes that the novels are the 'correct' version of history. To put it bluntly, I'd rather that the book versions not have gone the way that they have, as its a dismal way for the post TNG era to end up.
As to the game, it's going to have its own history and the TNG-era books may or may not catch up to there. As 8of5 says, these aren't exactly universe shattering contradictions -- a couple of years off describing some same events, some characters die but the descriptions differ slightly.
After all, the books say the Borg are done, but the game says the Borg technology is still around. I hate to point out the hole in this, but if the Borg technology was reasserted somewhere between the two, they'd all fit a little better. Perhaps even the STO history books were written from bad viewpoints -- if the 25th century writer who chronicled the history of the 2380s was wrong for example -- imagine parts of Destiny and the Typhon Pact being classified secrets that no 2409 history books would have access to. Changes the whole perception? -- Captain MKB 13:07, January 14, 2010 (UTC)
Trying to claim that there aren't major, major contradictions between the novel continuity and STO continuity is absurd. The Borg Invasion never happened in the STO continuity; billions of people were not killed, 40% of Starfleet wasn't destroyed, and numerous worlds were not devastated or exterminated. That's huge. And the idea that you can reconcile them is absurd -- that's like saying there's no real difference between a timeline where World War II happened and one where it didn't. (And the idea that the Borg Invasion -- an event that involved trillions of individuals -- could ever be classified or kept secret is equally absurd -- it's like saying they could keep World War II a secret.) Even if we disregard the idea that there are no more Borg, the invasion itself is such a huge, huge event that it makes it impossible to reconcile the STO and novel continuities as one continuity. They're clearly separate, and they present such radically different series of events that information from one or the other really ought to be clearly labelled in a different section of any given article. -- Sci 10:46 15 JAN 2010 UTC
No, not unless that article deals with a topic that is different in the two realities. While the Borg issue is a sticking point, there are many other topics where the two continuities agree and can be chronicled without any such clutter. -- Captain MKB 13:33, January 15, 2010 (UTC)

Yes and no. I know you've previously stated your wish for the following to be the case Sci, but: If we sideline the Star Trek Online continuity on whole just because it is in places irreconcilable, it has huge implications for the organisation of Every article on the site. If we set the precedent of every alternate continuity having to be in a distinct sub-section - as opposed to our current practice of only doing that as a last resort in the case of incompatibility specific to each article - most articles would not be a cohesive (readable!) account of the history of a subject, but a horrific jumble of different continuities, because a single fact in whatever novel/comic/game etc makes story after story incompatible with every other one.

Now there's a lot in Star Trek Online that simply isn't compatible with the major novel continuity yep, everything from Destiny and beyond is ignored by Online. So for plenty of subjects it is indeed entirely necessary to have the different continuities separated. But for certain articles the fact a Borg invasion didn't happened has no effect on the outcome for that subject. And don't pretend the novels or comics exist in some perfectly formed universe, they conflict themselves often enough that even the main novelverse cant be considered a cohesive whole at times!

To expand on Mike's argument: Let's take an example with a less contentious history than Tal'aura (who does appear in the post-Destiny novels already so there's a little more case for a split history on her). Take B-4, his story was tied up in the novelverse way back at Resistance and Articles of the Federation. The novels then rush off to a war with the Borg that doesn’t feature in the Star Trek Online history. However B-4's story does continue in Online, and Countdown. So should we split B-4's article in half just because events that have nothing to do with his individual history, events in books he doesn't even feature in, contradict, or should we present B-4's history as a cohesive whole as presented across the various stories he appears in?

I would suggest rather than thinking about these stories as massive cohesive continuities you should thing of each and every single title separately. If a subject appears in 6 different stories, and those stories provide a consistent history for that subject then the subject has a consistent history. If one of those six stories flatly contradicts the other five, then sure, the continuities need to split. --8of5 13:– 34, January 15, 2010 (UTC)

I've started to add some information from STO to the wiki, specifically articles on Miral Paris and the USS Kirk and 8of5 directed me to this discussion. I'm not really experienced with wikis and my additions will be slow going but no doubt others with contribute.

I'm going to post below about STO's content, but I think the wiki's own inclusion policy about conflicting sources covers the inconsistencies you are going to encounter. I don't read the novels but I know about the pretty radical events in the recent ones but apart from the Borg's inclusion in the game, I'm not sure of anything else that's wildly different. -- ST Games 11:52, February 7, 2010 (UTC)

The following posts have been moved by User:8of5 from lower down the page up to this section so not to disrupt the discussions in the other sections of the page and maintain the discussion about continuity in this section:
  • I have to agree with Sci, you can't ignore the events that have been told in the "Star Trek:Destiny" trilogy books and all the novels that have been written after that(except for the new ST:O novel "The Needs of the Many").If you do, you're just saying that you don't care about the characters and what happens to them. One more thing I have to say: Captainmike, what novels are you talking about? I haven't read any novels that contradict themselves. - unsigned by an anonymous user who is apparently not interested in learning correct talk page etiquette
Anoynmous user, this is not a discussion about the continuity of the novels. Please do not disrupt the talk page with off topic discussion. Novels contradict themselves all the time within the Pocket Book series, with some characters (Stone, Nakamura, et al.) having two, three or four first names each because writers aren't loyal to previous novelists' versions. But this is not the place for discussing it, we're discussing the game presentation in Star Trek Online. Any comments off of that topic will be interpreted as violations of policy.. -- Captain MKB 03:47, February 28, 2010 (UTC)

My comments do have to do with the presentation of "Star Trek Online", due to the fact that the content that the game has largely ignores the primary timeline.PrimeDirective 04:30, February 28, 2010 (UTC)

Moved comments end here

Right, I've moved this up to the relevant part of the page. You are welcome to voice your opinion about continuity issues but please do not disrupt other important discussions (such as the citation policy discussions below) to do so.

Now then: No one is ignoring Destiny or any other source, as clearly described in the linked inclusion policy above Memory Beta covers all licensed Star Trek sources with no bias. That means we include information form the novels, And we include information from the games. If there is a contradiction we include both sets of information and note the incompatibility issues.

And you have a very funny idea of the primary timeline - that being the timeline that includes all the series and movies with the exception of last year's movie in the new alternate timeline. The novels build on that prime reality, so does Star Trek Online, in fact Star Trek Online's back-story includes information from novels! The novels version of Star Trek history is not the correct one in opposition to Star Trek Online’s made up alternate, they are both possibly interpretations, neither more correct than the other.--8of5 13:02, February 28, 2010 (UTC)

I still think that the ST:O timeline, as Admiral Paris is still alive, and the Borg never invaded, etc., should be treated like the alternate reality and done like the Miral Paris article, with a subsection titled "Online timeline" or something like that.– WTRiker 17:40, August 19, 2010 (UTC)

Article sources[]

So, now that people are actively playing, we should clarify how people cite and proof their additions based on STO -- one user yesterday asked if we were adding some fact that was on an informational screen during the game -- basically, when we cite {{web}}... STO, how do we clarify what part of the game it was from -- i guess there are retrievable information modules, items achieved in play, and more simply in-game visual observations, etc. that we should probably keep track of so that things are clear to researchers expanding articles after the fact.

This is compounded by the fact that many users cannot independantly verify what is said. If User X says he/she saw a Melkotian in a certain location in the game, I personally don't have the ability to log in and go to that place and see it myself. This user must bear the weight of proving how they correctly determined it was a Melkotian. Was there a text piece saying that, or did the person assume based on appearance? Was it a similar alien this person mistook--maybe it was another space brain. Should we make screenshots our preference for cases like this, just to make sure we are being thorough? -- Captain MKB 13:57, January 15, 2010 (UTC)

Not been looking forward to this can of worms... well for starters, anything citing with {{web}} would be not from the game but from one of the game websites, which we can verify. I'd think the game would use the normal {{g}} citation.
If we're going to ask for screenshot verification, how would we arrange that? Basic screenshots aren't always great for illustrating articles (they need to be cropped for better framing and what-not), and a screen shot for everything that needs to be evidenced would also be more than most articles need, so would we need to set up a separate image upload system somewhere else just for keeping a record of verification images or something??
I'm more concerned about users getting confused about what is appropriate to add here. Typically on a game our information comes from the solid unchangeable story elements of the game, and does not include how the user plays the game. So in Star Trek Online as I under stand there are episodes/levels to play through, which I assume are effectively the same for everyone, that should be recorded, but what shouldn't is the myriad of custom starships and characters the player creates to play through that level. What I'm less clear about though is what happens in the more player directed parts of the game; there seems to be a system for exploring the galaxy which I think includes some degree of random planet and alien creation, how on earth do we decide what is then game or user generated? --8of5 14:09, January 15, 2010 (UTC)
To summarize -- just because you kill Character X in a game, doesn't mean that Character X will always necessarily die. Thus, each individual's 'exploits in gameplay' would not be appropriate here -- indeed, they could probably fill up another whole wiki. (thoughts for later - any other franchises with MMORPGs have wiki framework set up? perhaps we could copy)
Correct on the {{g}} corretion -- but perhaps we could expand or supplement with a new citation if more is needed.
I think that raw screenshots would be fine, but would probably need to be recropped as a revision -- possibly a version of the stub message could be required saying 'raw screenshot' and place it on a list of required maintenance, just like stubbed articles? -- Captain MKB 14:21, January 15, 2010 (UTC)

Re: alternate citation template, I think we'll be ok, as while the Online game is maybe bigger than most, it seems it relies on upon a set of missions that come with it as standard and any major additions to the game will come in the form of add-ons to the game later which I imagine we can cite as another title.

Your idea of a raw screenshot stub system seems like a very workable system. Even if we don’t end up needing it specifically for this it might be worth introducing for other screenshots and images in general. --8of5 22:05, January 15, 2010 (UTC)

As another user has recently pointed out Online is now in pre-order play and will be open to all users very soon. So we need to finalise what the system for Online is going to be if it is to differ from a normal game at all. Some input from players of the game would be extremely useful at the moment. I'm particularly concerned about the game's use of "episodes"; I'd like to know how full a story these are, are they comparable to a normal level in a computer game, or a bit more? Are they more akin to chapters in a novel, or short stories in an anthology? Because if it's the latter then we shall need to start generating pages for each "episode", and a suitable citation template to use with it.
Whether we're citing individual episodes or the whole game, can I also confirm support for my suggestion a little while ago that we consider Star Trek Online two entities, the single game, and a series, and with that in mind any citations to the game should identify the series as STO, rather than general ST.
The above discussion also raises something; we probably need to update our inclusion policy to make clear that information from any game should not include user generated content or actions, just the given elements from the game.
And finally, if we're going to have a screencap for evidence system we need to outline what we need users to provide in the screencaps and get a template in place. And again input from Online players would be useful; how practical would a screencap for evidence system be? --8of5 06:27, January 31, 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure why it's so hard to get a description from these users -- the most desciptive thing i've seen since we asked for qualification is someone saying 'yes, that's in the game' (talk:Naomi Wildman). In it 'how?
Screen captures aren't too difficult to do. I've already been takings some. However, I would like to know whether there are any copyright issues with using them and also whether we need to blur out players' usernames (for privacy person). As for templates, I leave those to people more knowledgable than I. – Lenonn 22:19, February 9, 2010 (UTC)
As I suggest, such caps with uncertain statues should be tagged as {{raw image}} ... also, keep in mind all caps are copyright of cryptic so they must be copyright tagged as {{imagesource}} "Cryptic Studios". There should be a substantial writted description and possibly an absolute requirement of talk page involvement for users who want to add caps... basically, no one should add images without being ready to discuss what they are adding and why they are adding it. -- Captain MKB 22:39, February 9, 2010 (UTC)
Based on the content described below, and from what I can gather from the very informative new Star Trek Online wiki, I'm starting to think this system of screencaping for evidence might be slightly over-kill. We need to write into our inclusion policy something about user-generated content and actions been inappropriate from all video games. And as I'm starting to understand it, apart from being a much bigger game, and having a slightly higher proportion of user-generated content, Star Trek Online isn't all that different form a normal game in terms of how we would approach including content from it.
So long as we make clear which parts of the game are acceptable content I don’t think we'll have too much of a problem. And another thought; will screencaps actually prove it one way or the other? As surely someone could upload a screencap of something user-generated, claim it to be game-generated, and make an article about that. (Further comments on inclusion stuff in the section below) --8of5 05:37, February 12, 2010 (UTC)

Star Trek Online Content[]

Missions in the game are as follows;

Story Missions - These are the main core of the game that everyone plays through and stay the same for everyone. There is a lot of attention to detail in these and a lot of links back to established Trek. Mission relating to Miral Paris, the Guardian of Forever, Klingon Augment virus, the events of Countdown and the latest movie which I think all should be added.

Exploration Missions - These are the randomly generated missions in randomly generated systems with content that are different for everyone. I wouldn't suggest having these added otherwise you will have lots of one line articles along the lines of 'A starfleet ship found some strange energy readings from an ancient civilisation in sytem J4-7849-C'.

Patrol/Defend Missions - These are the same for everyone but are really just "Go here, defeat these enemies" or "Go here, scan these anomalies" events. What you do get in some of them however is something that adds to the story in a small way. For instance one mission I completed had you discovering the wreckage of the USS Noble, which was said to be one of the medical ships that responded to the destruction of Romulus and was destroyed by Nero during Star Trek Coundown. Information worth recording I think.

Then you have the other content in the game;

Persistent locations and NPCs - Systems and key planets in the game could be recorded from the story missions and galactic map, and stations such as Starbase 39, Deepspace K7 & Earth Spacedock. Also the different NPC admirals and officers you get missions from could be added, and some are from or are related to known Trek characters. For instance, Naome Wildman is commander of K7, Captain Calhoun is stationed there as a wartime fleet commander also.

Ship Classes - The different ship classes for the races in game such as the Romulans, Nausicaan, Orion and Hirogen are faithful to canon and can be included just as the ship classes for other games have been. The only problem is the hull customisation players can make in game, but the base classes like they are listed on this page could be included without much difficulty.

Ship/Ground Equipment - There are so many different types of weapons, equipment and abilities you can equip and customise as well as upgrade and modify would make it very difficult to catalogue them all. I guess you could just make one article covering all subtypes such as "Phaser Auto-Assault Rifle" but it would be a lot of work!

Hopefully some of this helps.. ST Games 12:26, February 7, 2010 (UTC)

Thank you ST Games, very useful indeed! In regard to equipment, is the issue that they are also user modifiable? Or simply that there are a lot of different types of equipment, pre-defined by the game, in the game? If the latter, we would aim to list them all; we have plenty of examples of huge lists of references!
In regard to ship customisation, yes I agree we should just include the base classes, maybe with a background note describing the options for customisation.
Are the exploration missions completely random and unique to each player? Or if a different player went to the same part of the map could they also find the same planets and species?
And as a general approach I'm definitely leaning towards having separate pages for episodes/missions. That way we can cite information to specific parts of the game, which should hopefully make it more accountable. By the sounds of it some things would have to be cited to the game in general, the things that are always available, not as part of one particular mission, but a lot can be cited to specific episodes within the game. What say we all? --8of5 05:37, February 12, 2010 (UTC)
I was going to say something similar - some things are generic and will need to be attibuted to the game. For the mission/episode-specific info., we'll need to make sure to get remember to get the episode names as we play them and make we attribute the proper events, people, et al. to the correct mission. But so far, sounds good. I'm already trying to compile a list of systems and sectors from the maps. – Lenonn 02:17, March 1, 2010 (UTC)

Ok, so any further thoughts here? Cite the game as a whole, or specific "episodes" of it? Do the episodes have that depth? Do we wait until the first major update to the game and see how that effects our interpretation? --8of5 13:02, February 28, 2010 (UTC)

I think requiring an episode specification when adding the data is going to help a great deal -- we have overly eager people coming here, disregarding our basic rules for edits and formats, and just smearing STO info on random pages. If we required them to bring an actual citation (what part of the game did you get this from?), it would require they pay a little more attention to what they are doing ( which they haven't been, at all). -- Captain MKB
It might also help keeping in keeping track of updates as new episodes are added. However the drawback is the episodes don’t cover everything in the game, there is as I understand it general places, ships, characters, equipment, etc generically in the game and in parts of the game that are not "episodes". So it wont be as simple as saying "hey, your article doesn't have a specific mission citation, so we're going to delete that". Should still make it easier though, as it should be relatively easy to identify if it's correct or not as the episode citations will be for story stuff while the more generic STO citations will be for more generic information.
And in that case: Do we go with the episode terminology and use the existing episode template? Or make a new "mission" one? and in either case, do we go with "STO episode/mission: "title of mission"", or STO - Star Trek Online episode/mission: "title of mission""? Baring in mind that STO currently redirects to the series page rather than the game itself. --8of5 15:16, March 1, 2010 (UTC)

I've created the template below to list all the missions in the game, so far as they are listed here. Can a player possibly comment on the completeness of this list, and whether we would want/need all of them listed as mission pages or if some should be omitted (or expanded in some way) for some reason? --8of5 19:20, March 6, 2010 (UTC)

Star Trek Online missions
Federation missions Tour of Duty Storyline "Prelude to a Crisis" • "Khitomer Crisis" • "The Price of Liberty" • "Assimilation" • "Gather Equipment" • "Line in the Sand" • "Welcome to Earth Spacedock" • "Skills Trainer" • "New Orders?" • "Promotion Vice Admiral"
Defend "Defend the Sirius Sector Block" • "Defend the Regulus Sector Block" • "Defend the Pi Canis Sector Block" • "Defend the Alpha Centauri Sector Block" • "Defend the Psi Velorum Sector Block" • "Defend the Iota Pavonis Sector Block" • "Defend the Beta Ursae Sector Block" • "Defend the Alpha Trianguli Sector Block" • "Defend the Zeta Andromedae Sector Block" • "Defend the Gamma Orionis Sector Block"
Exploration "Explore the Delta Volanis Cluster" • "Explore the Servin System" • "Explore the Xleen System" • "Explore the Hromi Cluster" • "Explore the Arucanis Arm" • "Explore the Eridan Belt" • "Explore the Khazan Cluster" • "Explore the Afehirr Nebula" • "Explore the Betreka Nebula" • "Explore the Rolor Nebula" • "Explore the Zenas Expanse" • "Explore the B'Tran Cluster" • "Chart the B'Tran Cluster"
Klingon front Storyline "Stranded In Space" • "Diplomatic Orders" • "Hide and Seek" • "To Boldly Go" • "Scientific Mandate" • "Stop the Signal" • "Researcher Rescue" • "The Kuvah'Magh" • "War is Good for Business" • "Treasure Trading Station" • "Secret Orders" • "Task Force Hippocrates" • "The Ultimate Klingon" • "City on the Edge of Never" • "Past Imperfect" • "The Doomsday Device"
Patrol "Patrol the Vulcan Sector" • "Patrol the Orion Sector" • "Patrol the Ring" • "Patrol the Kassae Sector" • "Patrol the Celes Sector" • "Patrol the Argelius Sector" • "Patrol the Hromi Sector" • "Patrol the Mempa Sector"
Fleet Actions "Starbase 24"
Romulan Front Storyline "Under the Cover of Night" • "Minefield" • "Divide et Impera" • "Saturday's Child" • "Preemptive Strike" • "Hunting the Hunters" • "Project Nightingale" • "By Any Means" • "Ground Zero" • "Ghost Ship" • "Friend of My Enemy" • "Taris" • "Venture into Deep Space" • "S'harien's Swords" • "Trapped"
Patrol "Patrol the Teneebia Sector" • "Patrol the Sierra Sector" • "Patrol the Vendor Sector" • "Patrol the Hyralan Sector" • "Patrol the Onias Sector" • "Patrol the Mylasa Sector" • "Patrol the Z-6 Sector" • "Patrol the Bolarus Sector"
Cardassian Front Storyline "Badlands" • "Suspect" • "Temple Offerings" • "Rapier" • "Forging Bonds" • "The Long Night" • "The Tribble with Klingons" • "Tear of the Prophets" • "Crack in the Mirror" • "The New Link" • "The Other Side" • "Cage of Fire"
Patrol "Patrol the Cardassia Sector" • "Patrol the Bajor Sector" • "Patrol the Kalandra Sector" • "Patrol the Algira Sector" • "Patrol the Almatha Sector" • "Patrol the Dorvan Sector" • "Patrol the Orias Sector" • "Patrol the Vanden Sector" • "Patrol the Arawath Sector" • "Patrol the Kora Sector"
Borg Front Storyline "To Boldly Go: Explore the B'Tran Cluster" • "Report to Gamma Orionis" • "Collateral Damage" • "Asset Recovery" • "State of Q"
Undine Front Storyline "The Return" • "Assimilation" • "Fluid Dynamics" • "A Light in the Dark"
Breen Front Storyline "Cold Call" • "Serve and Protect"
Patrol "Aiding the Deferi"
Miscellaneous "Salvaged Relationships in the Neutral Zone" • "Keeping the Klingons at Bay" • "New Officer" • "Slowing the Expeditionary Force" • "Breaking the Planet" • "Ending Klingon Expansion" • "Crystalline Catastrophe" • "The Big Dig" • "DS9 under Siege!" • "Hostile Engagements Against Klingon Heroes" •
Klingon missions Tour of Duty "Defend the Gamma Orionis Sector Block"
Klingon Sector Storyline "Explore the T'Ong Nebula" • "Bringing Down the House" • "The House Always Wins" • "Second Star to the Right, Straight on 'til Morning" • "Behind Enemy Lines" • "Keep Your Enemies Closer" • "Blood of the Empire" • "Destiny" • "Afterlife" • "The Gates of Gre'thor"
Fleet Actions "Punch Through the Federation Blockade"
Undine Front "Assimilation" • "The Return"
Miscellaneous "The Look of a Warrior" • "Honor Bound" • "Leading the Way" • "Empire Defense Against Federation Spies" • "Welcoming the Federation" • "Captain Killer - Klingons" • "Ship Killer - Klingons" • "Turret Killer" • "Good Luck Charm" • "The Most Dangerous Game - Ground" • "A Good Day To Die - Ground" • "Crystalline Catastrophe"
Special task force "The Infected" • "The Cure" • "Khitomer Accord" • "Into the Hive" • "Children of Khan" • "Terradome"
Diplomacy "Ancestral Sin" • "Trade Deal" • "Standoff" • "Family Ties" • "Hostile Takeover" • "Quarentine" • "Shady Supplies" • "Taste of Home"
Feature episodes The Breen ("Cold Call" • "Out in the Cold" • "Cold Comfort" • "Cold Case" • "Cold Storage") • The Devidians ("Skirmish" • "Spin the Wheel" • "What Lies Beneath" • "Everything Old Is New Again" • "Night of the Comet") • Cloaked Intentions ("The Vault" • "Mine Enemy" • "Frozen" "Coliseum" • "Cutting the Cord"

So... are we going to go ahead with this citing the mission thing? We have more and more STO articles and the longer we leave it the more imprecisely cited articles we will accumulate. --8of5 16:16, April 9, 2010 (UTC)

Ok, we need to get this sorted, we can't just put {{STO notice}} on every STO article forever! I propose the following be added to the Memory Beta:Cite your sources page:

STO missions template[]

I started playing Star Trek Online when it first came out. I bought the collector's edition and bought a lifetime membership. Yet, I quit after playing it for a little over a month. It didn't seem like Star Trek to me for the reasons given above. In fact, I didn't care for the 2009 Star Trek movie for the same reason. It wasn't Star Trek, but rather an alternative timeline of it. With some time and revisiting the movie these opinions softened. I went back in the game about a month or two ago and found that I love it.

The missions template given above is based on an old verision of the game. Star Trek Online like many MMOs evolve greatly over time. The order given is based on Cryptic's in game drop down box for people to easily see what missions they have in different sectors of the map. The idea of "storyline" missions is not somehting Cryptic called it, but what the community called the missions. The idea of "episodes" was added sometime during my absence from the game.

I created a new template that can be broken down easily to weed out missions that don't need to be linked with a certain article. Instead of breaking it down by location as it is in the table above, I broke it down by mission type. These types are very clearly labled in the mission name (e.g. patrol: x sector), others are learned by reading the mission objectives. I think grouping them by type rather then location would make the table easier to read. --Pinkkeith 18:36, March 19, 2012 (UTC)

Star Trek Online[]

Owing to the uniquely complex and continuing expansion of the video game Star Trek Online we utilise a modified citation system for entries relating to the game: Where possible all information from STO should be cited to the specific mission the data originated from. The USS James T. Kirk for example appeared in the mission "Diplomatic Orders" so uses the special {{STO}} template to give the following citation (STO mission: "Diplomatic Orders"). Only information not given in missions, such as general information on starship classes in the game, should be cited using the standard video game template ({{g}}). Like all video games only information given by the game should be included, individual player actions are not suitable information for this wiki (see Memory Beta:Inclusion policy).--8of5 10:17, June 28, 2010 (UTC)

How should we cite things such as entries from Cryptic's STO blog (e.g. this dev blog on the Mogh-class, or the one I cited on the USS Belfast page)? So far I've been using {{web}} with the arguments 'STO' and the name of the dev blog but that comes out looking awkward (especially when there's multiple entries involved). Should we perhaps put together a new template for those citations? --StarSword (talk) 01:02, April 22, 2014 (UTC)
As I was glancing at the section for wanted pages, I noticed there were a fair amount wanted articles that centered around ships and things in the game. I figured I'd add some information, but then realized the only sources we could possibly cite are from missions. The problem is, some information, such as that about ships classes..do not appear in the missions. There had been a link to a complete list of ships and information regarding them, but that link has become inactive. It seems the old Star Trek Online website was abandoned for another, which seems to lack the same source content. Thus, I've realized it seems to be impossible to correctly cite anymore articles, unless they are expressly mentioned in missions. I suppose I am asking what the answer to this could be, as the Star Trek Online wiki does have these answers, but copying from other wikis is by no means allowed. --Mushroom359 (talk) 21:56, August 16, 2014 (UTC)
You can get around the fact that some of the old web pages are missing via the Wayback Machine. That's what I did for the Vo'Quv-class article: I dug up its page on STO website : Ships of the Line in the wayback machine and transcribed. --StarSword (talk) 23:17, August 16, 2014 (UTC)
It seems to be down at the moment or it's not longer up. I'll check again later though. --Mushroom359 (talk) 00:13, August 17, 2014 (UTC)
I tried to dig through the snapshots but to no avail, it's either buried or unrecoverable. Is there an alternate way? I suppose if there isn't, I could gather what information there is from various missions. --Mushroom359 (talk) 00:21, August 17, 2014 (UTC)
pain to say, probably would be best to cite the official Blogs and info sites using HTML ref tags -- best way to individually ratify each reference. sometimes a blog or website may be deprecated as the game is updated. Dev Blog/Official Site data should be clearly marked with ref tags to make it easily identifiable in case it is deprecated. I say this because deprecated info should be moved to the background/apocrypha section. it is the danger of adding STO dev blog and path to 2409 data -- they frequently abandon or alter the concepts and make the data from these ancillary sources as a deprecated source in regards to the current continuity reflected on the wiki. -- Captain MKB 03:53, August 17, 2014 (UTC)
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