Omega Squad itself was a team consisting of:
- Nog (The Alien): The first Ferengi in Starfleet and a transplant from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Nog attempts to fit in despite his merchantile activities.
- Kamilah Goldstein (The Heart): A beautiful woman of mixed Palestinian/Israeli descent trying to serve as a peacemaker.
- Matthew Decker (The Lancer, later The Leader): A hotheaded descendant of Starfleet royalty who constantly gets them in trouble.
- T'Priell (The Smart Girl): A Romulan agent impersonating a Vulcan within Starfleet Academy.
- Pava Ek'Noor (The Action Girl): A hot-blooded Andorian warrior that has some interesting ideas on interspecies relationships.
- Edam Astrun (The Sixth Ranger): A male Betazoid who joins Omega Squad later than the others.
Although generally forgotten today, Starfleet Academy was considered to be among the best series in Marvel's Star Trek run, both in terms of art quality and storytelling (their use of original characters allowed them greater freedom).
It is notable for being the first Expanded Universe series in the franchise to feature primarily original characters (debuting several months before Peter David's Star Trek: New Frontier novels; David himself wrote a few young adult novels about Worf at Starfleet Academy that introduced some New Frontier characters). It is also the first Star Trek series to directly address homosexuality (Cooper himself is gay).
With Pava's inclusion as a minor character in Star Trek: Titan, the series has been retroactively incorporated into the Star Trek Novelverse.
A miniseries of the same name was released in 2015 by IDW, with a new set of cadets and set in the Kelvin timeline of the 2009 movie.
Tropes seen in Star Trek Starfleet Academy include:
- Academy of Adventure: It takes place in Starfleet Academy on Earth in San Fransisco. Which is apparently full of Swiss-Cheese Security, weird alien contacts, and dangerous situations.
- Adaptational Villainy: Red Squad was under the impression that it was a test of Starfleet security when they sabotaged the Earth power grid in "Homefront" while here they're fully aware it's part of a larger plan to launch a coup against the President.
- Axe-Crazy: Selke is a Romulan impersonating a Vulcan with a dangerous split personality and barely suppressed violence.
- Big Bad: Sub-Commander Thokol serves as this to the series, being a Romulan out to destroy Starfleet Academy.
- Bizarre Alien Reproduction: Andorian mating rituals. Just as in the novels, they have four sexes (two male, two female).
- Canon Discontinuity: A minor example. Red Squad, perhaps due to their Adaptational Villainy, is expelled from Starfleet and sent to rehabilitation therapy. In the later DS9 episode, "The Valiant", we find out Red Squad wasn't even expelled and became the crew of said Defiant-class ship.
- The Chess Master: The Founders; possibly the Talosians as well (see Xanatos Gambit below). Both of them play a game of chess manipulating the Jem'Hadar and Starfleet Academy students against one another.
- Continuity Porn:
- One of the main characters is a descendant of Commodore Decker from The Doomsday Weapon and relative of Captain Decker from Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
- Charlie X is one of the antagonists, from the selfsame TOS episode.
- The Talosians from The Cage show up as enemies of the Founders from the Dominion War.
- Admiral Leyton's coup forms part of the backstory, occurring during Nog's time at the Academy.
- Cool Old Guy: Boothby, the campus groundskeeper. As in "The First Duty", he remains a source of advice and stability to cadets.
- Crisis Crossover: The Telepathy War arc brought the Cadets into contact with the crews of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
- Culture Clash: One of the major recurring themes.
- Nog's sexism, even improved from his time on Deep Space Nine, is a source of serious tension with the female majority Omega Squad.
- Pava's Proud Warrior Race and Boisterous Bruiser tendencies offend the more Technical Pacifist nature of Starfleet.
- Dark and Troubled Past: T'Priell's father was killed during her attempt to prove herself in the Forge despite the fact women weren't required to take the same test as boys.
- Evil Plan: The Dominion and its attempt at genocide stirs up a lot of conflict.
- Gambit Roulette: Ambassador Spock speculates that the entire Telepathy War may have been orchestrated by the Talosians in order to obtain a race of Jem'Hadar slaves to reclaim the surface. This is neither confirmed nor denied by the Keeper.
- Hero of Another Story: Decker and Omega squad serve as this to the events of the DS9 episodes, "Paradise Lost" and "Homefront." Decker is recruited to help sabotage Earth's power grid and immediately attempts to inform Starfleet, only to fail because Admiral Leyton is behind it.
- Heteronormative Crusader: Halakith, a rare justified example, being from a species that was dying, nonreproductive relationships such as same sex couples were taboo.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Edam Astrun has a terrible attitude despite being one of the heroes. His attitude is notably a My Species Doth Protest Too Much due to the reputation of Betazoids as Nice Guy and Nice Girl types.
- Killed Off for Real: Kamilah dies in issue five.
- Literary Allusion Title: "War and Peace" is a reference to the novel by Leo Tolstoy.
- The Mole: T'Priell is an agent of the Tal'Shar. But she doesn't know it due to being Brainwashed and Crazy.
- Memetic Mutation: A rare in-universe example, as the Dominion plots to exterminate all telepaths with a deadly Ear Worm. Notably, this was written years before Dawkins's theory of Memes was popularized by the Internet.
- Not Quite Dead: Possibly Kamilah, although we will never know.
- One-Steve Limit: This one puts an aversion into the Star Trek universe with Matt Decker, who is named after his great-grandfather, the commodore of the Constellation from "The Doomsday Machine".
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Pava alone against three Jem'Hadar soldiers. Despite her immense skill, she is quickly overwhelmed. What did you think was going to happen?
- Stuffed In A Fridge: Kamilah. Subverted in that her death primarily affected Pava.
- Take That!: Issue #2 takes shots at the then-popular practice of collecting comics without reading them. Nog opens up Decker's comic book collection and reads them, which infuriates the latter. Decker then reads them himself and decides to appreciate them for their campy storytelling value. Nog also makes it up to Decker by giving him a 1940s comic he snagged in "Little Green Men."
- Two Beings, One Body: T'Priell and Selke eventually agree to share the body despite being a Romulan and Vulcan respectively with diametrically opposing worldviews.
- Xanatos Gambit: The Founders trick the Federation into believing that they plan to annihilate a Telepath conference; in reality, they want the delegates evacuated to spread a memetic virus. In any event, the virus has already been implanted and the evacuation would facilitate the spread.
