Nightmare Fuel / Star Trek Online

As a moments subpage, this page is Spoilers Off.

• During the Mission "What Lies Beneath" the player is trapped in a small, poorly maintained part of Drozana Station with practically no lighting. Then, out of nowhere, you hear... this.
  • For those who don't want to listen: Bonnie-kin, Bonnie-kin, I see you. Bonnie-kin, Bonnie-kin, what will you do? Bonnie-kin, Bonnie-kin, dress all in red. Bonnie-kin, Bonnie-kin, soon you'll be dead!
  • It's not much better when you learn what the source of the creepy gloating is—It's a hologram working in that Creepy Basement you're stuck in, driven mad by the Devidians.
  • THEY sent you, didn't they, my little Bonnie-kin? To halt my WORK! To change my PROGRAM! You'll not survive to perform such tricksies, oh no, my little Bonnie-kin...
  • Did we mention that this episode was originally released around Halloween? Or that it was one of the first times voice-overs were used in missions?
  • The new voice actor's performance is even more deranged, and Cryptic tweaked the distortion a bit to make it sound even more broken and unsettling.
  • What Lies Beneath was complete nightmare fuel. All throughout the mission, the corridors are so dark you can barely see at all (the optional flashlight doesn't help much), you're assaulted by not-there-before groups of Devidians and these cat-sized spiders, and at the beginning, you and your away team find yourselves not at the level you expected, then next thing you know, the doors close and lock behind you. And that's not mentioning talking to a person through an intercom, suddenly they scream in terror, then silence... and when you force the door open, you find a body with phaser burns so fresh, they're still warm. And your scared tactical officer asks what could have possibly killed her in a locked room...? Sweet dreams!
    • Furthermore, this mission contains a fair amount of graphical bugs. Like blue outlines of humanoids frozen in place only visible from certain angles.
    • Another bug in this mission has the NPC members of your away team drop through the floor one by one. It's like something out of a horror movie and only adds to the creepiness factor.
• The Borg Warzones, especially when your rank is low. Sure, you might be able to blow up all the Borg facilities and the lower end ships defending them with a little help, but don't you dare think you're safe after that. At any moment, if you don't mind your surroundings, a cube or worse, a Tactical Cube can come looming out of the debris clouds right behind you and snag you with tractor beams, completely stuck. And that's when the worst part begins: the boarding of the small, helpless vessel by dozens and dozens of Borg drones...
• During the Tie-In novel, The Needs of the Many we get treated to understanding what it is like to be an Undine infiltrator. Unlike the Changelings of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the Undine don't just copy your body, they copy every part of your body including your internal organs and how your neurons fire in your brain. This means they don't just copy you physically, they copy your soul. Worf in particular had to deal with this threat after he was injured in a battle and Undine tried to replace him, but due to his injuries he had a memory lapse during the struggle and the next thing he remembered was seeing himself be thrown into a Vulcan body disintegrator (a means of disposing dead bodies since the Katra is what matters, not the body). For the next 30 years Worf is horrifyingly confused as to whether he's Worf, Son of Mogh or an Undine who believes he's Worf and that the Worf personality overwrote his Undine one so thoroughly that he's just complete fake. Jake Sisko notes that he can blatantly see TERROR in Worf's body language. The worst part is, for a reader who's full aware of the trope that Worf made, you know it's highly possible that this is an Undine who thinks its Worf. The Paranoia Fuel of this concept literally is what made the game and the entirety of the STO universe bloody terrifying.
• The Fek'Ihri. Alleged demons from the Klingon underworld who have returned to avenge Molor's defeat at the hands of Kahless hundreds of years ago. They take many forms, from ghostly apparitions to massive troll-like beasts, and can field fleets of powerful Eldritch Starships capable of giving the KDF a run for its money. In their introductory appearance ("Blood of the Empire") they bring Qo'noS to its knees, and over the course of the next few missions they nearly conquer the Klingon Empire before the player manages to stop them at the source. But it's hinted in "Mine Enemy" that they aren't done yet and are merely hiding somewhere in Klingon space, waiting for another opportunity to strike...
• In Colosseum, a mission in the Cloaked Intentions story arc, you return to your ship from a fairly easy away mission and wake up in a prison run by brainwashed Tal Shiar working for the Iconians. You're left to wonder how you ended up in this predicament when during your escape from the arena, you see it. An Iconian gate. And you realize how you ended up in their arena, they just walked into your quarters or your ready room and took you. The Iconians can literally just kidnap you without anyone ever knowing and take you somewhere no one will ever find you. Pure Paranoia Fuel.
  • It's more implied they intercepted your transporter beam, but the paranoia remains.
• The bad future in the timeline created by the Enterprise-C's jumps to the TNG and STO era. First, the Feds lost the war but continued to fight guerilla warfare. However, at the same time, a Bajor that was never conquered by the Cardassians discovered the Wormhole and the Dominion swarmed in. With no Starfleet, Section 31 or The Sisko to stop them, they cubstomped the KDF and Romulans and destroyed Earth. The Tholians were spared by signing a non-agression treaty (as seen in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) and control Tau Dewa where the player and their starship is now a freighter serving the Tholians. Along the way you meet your 3 most senior Bridge Officers who are run down people who never experience joy in their lives, and meet many of your friends from other STO missions. It says something when Admiral T'Nae, a Vulcan, doesnt even bother being coldly logical anymore and blatantly emotes depression. And to add some Fridge Horror to the mix, because the Romulans were defeated, the Iconians never destroyed Romulus, which means the JJ Timeline ceased to exist. Yes, that's right. The Enterprise-C's time travel adventure nearly caused TWO timelines to face non-existence.
• "Devil's Choice" finally gives us a close look at the Elachi...and it isn't pretty. It turns out that they are trying to convert their Romulan captives into creatures like themselves. The results are anything but pretty and anyone you cannot save you decide you need to destroy to be merciful.
  • For bonus points with Fridge Horror. All those Elachi you killed? They could have been your friends and family from your colony. Though it was probably a Mercy Kill.
  • And it gets even worse: [converting those poor colonists into creatures like themselves? That's more-or-less exactly what the BORG have been doing - you're simply fighting biological vampires instead of half-mechanical zombies.
  • At the end of the mission, you manage to destroy the main Elachi base in the Beta Quadrant. Crisis averted? Nope, because the moment the Elachi realize what's happened they virtually send their entire fleet to attack New Romulus. Plus a dose of Fridge Horror: they're not doing it for revenge. They're doing it to replace the troops you just destroyed.
• One mission in the Romulan faction, "Mind Game", forces your captain to undergo Tal Shiar mental reprogramming. You can resist, but the will of Empress Sela drowns out your first officer and in order to continue, you have to do some pretty awful things. Mind Rape at its worst.
• The fourth mission of "The Borg Advance" is merely called "Assimilation", where your captain investigates some unusual Borg activity. There you find out the Borg have assimilated some Undine, something once thought to be impossible, and upon replays is easy enough to connect to Iconian influence. Oh, Crap!. The player stops the knowledge from being transmitted, but there's nothing saying it can't happen again...
  • The disembodied Undine body parts scattered through one room of the Borg Cube are pretty disturbing to look at as well.
• Fighting the Borg is always pretty scary, especially if it's your first time since the tutorial and you've forgotten to acquire frequency remodulators. Few things are more Oh, Crap! inducing than a wave of Borg advancing on you when your weapons are having absolutely no effect.
  • The first time one of your away team gets assimilated is also rather horrible. One of your own team, someone who may well have been with you since the tutorial, is now advancing on you with bits of Borg-tech sticking out of their head and there's nothing you can do about it but shoot them into unconsciousness. Fortunately, you can then revive them as usual, but it's not a pleasant thing to have to do if you've gotten attached to your away team.
• The Featured Episode "Sphere of Influence". Thanks to dumb luck and disaster, you've tossed yourself into the Iconian Gateway System. Even worse, there's evidence that they've been watching everyone - the Federation, the Klingon Empire, the Romulan Republic, the Dominion. You've found their plans and what they want to do with everyone, including wiping out everyone in the Sol System, wipe out the Romulans (with the hint that they may kill Empress Sela if they can't brainwash her) and when everyone's conquered, head for the Dominion and destroy them, too. They even have gateways in the Delta Quadrant, and the Andromeda Galaxy.
  • Even worse, that disaster that dumped you there? Their fault.
  • And worse than that? Them having well explained reasons for why they're taking each action. The Sol System and Humans? Too creative and hate captivity (in a nice Call-Back to The Cage). Klingons? Well, their warrior society has already turned everyone into a walking soldier and ease of taking orders: take control of the Great Houses and install puppet leaders and control them that way. The Romulans? Tried it once, didn't work out. We underestimated them. Not this time, eliminate them OR get Sela pacified in captivity and send her back as a new Hakeev. The Dominion? Both sides are fighting to a stand still. Do what the Dominion failed to do and take the Alpha and Beta Quadrants and use the resources to take them out (which says everything about the Dominion in hindsight). The Kelvans? Stick some gateways in Andromeda and keep them busy and out of this. Once everyone's pacified and the Iconian Empire rules again? Make the servant races terraform the homeworld back to it's native beauty and keep them under their thumb forever. Damn.
  • Just the concept of the Iconians having a massive foothold in Andromeda is scary. Prior to this, if shit got really bad and we had to leave the Milky Way, it was implied they couldn't follow via gateway. Looks like that's not possible anymore, the universe is their oyster and they will hunt us down.
    • If they are all over the Milky Way and are confirmed to have territory in the Andromeda galaxy (which is 2.5 million light-years away from us), just how many other galaxies could they (or do) have in their grip? Could there be other galaxies with billions of races at their whim?
  • Hell, the Iconians used to come to Earth to spread plagues and internal strife for study on us since the ancient past. Paranoia Fuel for Real Life.
  • Yet another reason to be paranoid? The Iconians have fingers in everything that's happened in STO: from inciting the Undine's attack, causing the Klingons to go to war with the Federation, getting the Tal Shiar and the Elachi to kidnap races from all over the galaxy for study, and so on. And soon we can add the Voth to that list too.
• Speaking of the Voth, the ending to "Sphere of Influence". What's on the other side of that Iconian gateway? If you said the Dyson Sphere, you're correct, but don't know the real reason why it's a big deal. The entire structure is a system-sized manufacturing facility for Omega Molecules, which hold so much power yet the slightest mistake would cause massive, WMD-level destruction across space - even the Federation tosses out the Prime Directive to get rid of them, as they're that dangerous. The Iconians had such power at their disposal prior, which is scary enough, but it's definitely a problem if anyone else gets a hold of such power... such as the Voth.
  • The Dyson Rep makes this worse. The first Rep cutscene is a message from a rogue Voth scientist. The Voth have encountered evidence suggesting the Iconians are in the sphere RIGHT NOW! His government is covering things up due to the doctrine and attacking the Joint Task Force to be a distraction. Even worse, occasionally you're attacked by Iconian Probes or Solanae Swarmers in the Sphere. You'd better hope that those are left over, still-functioning defenses, because otherwise? They're here. NOW.
  • At Tier 3 of Dyson Reputation you learn a bit more about the Solanae. You know how they're made of Solanagen? A material that can't exist in real space? And how subspace really isn't a habitable environment regardless? They're not naturally made of Solanagen. They're from our galaxy, built that Dyson Sphere and then it went horribly wrong altering the star and altering their chemical composition. Imagine one day being so irradiated you stop being carbon-based life. Brrrr.
  • Dyson Reputation Tier 5 has the ultimate What the Hell, Hero? towards the Voth: They want to weaponize Omega molecules for the express purpose of defeating a foe. They don't care if they end up isolating themselves or harming other races - they want to win, no matter the costs.
• "A Step Between Stars" gives us the frightening idea that the Romulan Republic, the Federation and the Klingons might be on a collision course for an all-out war with each other over the new Sphere. And it's all thanks to the Undine.
• "Surface Tension" shows us the leader of the Iconians, M'Tara. And she casually kills all six members of the High Council with a wave of her hand, then gives this line to the main cast:
  M'Tara: We give you a single warning: Do not attract our attention again.
• Hey, remember the neural parasites from the TNG episode "Conspiracy"? They're back and they've infected the Vaadwaur! Even worse? They have bigger, badder and uglier forms!
• Watch throughout "Dust to Dust" and see how the original Harry Kim slowly transforms into a Kobali. It's really unnerving.
• "Uneasy Allies", Sela notes that it's night in the Iconian's dyson sphere because the Iconian fleet covers the entire sky. And then...
  T'Ket:: I SEE YOU.
  *little later, as you're fleeing*
  T'Ket:YOU WERE WARNED. YOUR GALAXY IS FORFEIT!
  • In the same mission, Gaius Selan's body is hijacked through his Borg implants as part of Sela's escape plot. When the player rescues him, it's made clear that he was conscious the whole time but unable to control his actions at all.
  • There's also the fight with the Herald. If one of them gives you a hard time...!
• "Blood of Ancients" and "Delta Flight" show the beginning of the ultimate war against the Iconians + Heralds... it isn't pretty. These two forces show exactly what it's like to be facing hordes of enemies who hit fast, hard, and can appear anywhere they wish at anytime, no matter if it's with a random soldier or fleets of ships.
• The fate of the Krenim, as revealed in "Time in a Bottle". Their Imperium fell to a genocidal Vaadwaur invasion that saw nearly the entire species exterminated to ensure their temporal technology could never be used against the Iconians. The only surviving colony worlds, Kyana Prime and its moon, had to shift themselves out of phase with the rest of the universe to escape destruction, and now they're forced to live in a terrifying Phantom Zone where the slightest malfunction in the system could either return them to normal space where they would be wiped out by the Vaadwaur within hours, or collapse their pocket of spacetime altogether and doom them to Cessation of Existence (or worse).
• Remember the Sphere Builders? Turns out they haven't been idle since their defeat in Star Trek: Enterprise: the "Agents of Yesterday" expansion reveals that they've been experimenting with better ways to create Expanses, and they're just about ready to come back to the Milky Way for round two... this time with new allies in the Vorgons, Na'Kuhl, Krenim, and Terran Empire.
  • And those experiments? They wiped out entire alternate universes in the process, murdering countless civilizations and god-knows-how-many trillions of people in cold blood. They see this as perfectly justified at best, and completely irrelevant at worst, because of what happened to them (which was ultimately an accident no one intended to cause). They may be the best example of Omnicidal Maniacs in the whole Star Trek franchise.
    "Do we not have a right to return home? We were all but exterminated by the Alliance and its allies. We fled their actions, only to find ourselves trapped in this pocket of space. Do we not have the right to try to set things right for our people? And if a few universes are altered or, yes, even destroyed along the way, this is perhaps the price we must pay. There can be no higher priority. This is the very cornerstone of our culture."
  • It's worth reiterating that their ultimate goal is to terraform the galaxy to support their new extradimensional physiology. Not the planets, space itself.
  • They've also been messing around in the Kelvin Timeline, and appear to have turned at least some of the Klingon factions there into proxies, just like they did with the Xindi. Considering how strained Federation/Klingon relations are in that time period, this alliance does not bode well for anyone living in that universe.
  • There's also the Battle of Procyon V (the climatic battle between the Sphere Builders and the Federation), which due to Timey-Wimey Ball is constantly replaying itself every time the timeline is tweaked, but with subtle changes each time. What worked for Starfleet in one iteration of the battle may not work in the next one, so they constantly have to be on guard for shifts in the timestream that could turn the tide against them. Even worse, the battle is a perfect case of Evil Only Has to Win Once: if the Sphere Builders ever do manage to prevail, Reality Is Out to Lunch. Forever.
• Scylla and Charybdis gives us the Hur'q. Remember Krall's Swarm ships in Star Trek Beyond? Now imagine that in video game form, against a fleet of Federation, Klingon, Romulan and Tzenkethi ships and a rattled DS9. DS9 gets wrecked by these things. The only thing saving everyone is the Dominion. They have saved your bacon twice.
  • The reason The Hur'q are trying to destroy everything in their path? They were biologically dependent on a radiation-absorbing fungus that existed only in their homeworld, Havas-Kul. The early Dominion tried to turn them into a warrior race, which they eventually did with the Jem'Hadar. They did so through blackmail, by wiping out the planet-bound fungi during the millenium-long hibernation and keeping the surviving fungi as a bargain chip. When the Hur'q woke back up, they went mad due to a combination of an unfulfilled biological dependency and sheer, unrelenting fury and hatred towards the Dominion. Before their civilization collapsed into a barbaric Horde of Alien Locusts, the Hur'q were highly advanced pacifists. Due to the Female Founder's actions, they became maddened monsters, lashing out at all living things.
• J'Ula's first Time Crystal vision in "Knowledge is Power". When she touches it, she's suddenly standing in the middle of a damaged First City, with burning debris strewn across the streets. She looks towards Praxis and sees J'mpok's flagship, the IKS Kri'Stak, obscure the shattered moon and fire the Mycellial Weapon towards the city, unleashing untold amounts of destruction. She later touches the Sword of Khaless with her foot and to her utter horror, she realizes Martok, Adet'pa, Worf, the player and countless other Klingons are lying dead in the floor. A horrified J'Ula looks upwards one more time, witnessing the Elachi joining J'mpok's slaughter of her people before an explosion engulfs the Great Hall. At the end, the vision moves to outer space, as several Mycellial explosions ravage Qo'nos' surface, as the dying world fills with cracks and ultimately explodes, ending the vision. Whatever one may think about J'Ula, her reaction is perfectly understandable.
  J'Ula: AH! NO! No, no!
• Before we begin playing "Firewall" properly, we see the Terran Emperor - albeit in an environmental suit - floating in space, somewhere close to an unnamed planet. He activates something on his suit, and then suddenly the entire planet is engulfed in damaging energies, which utterly consumes it and leaves nothing left, not even debris. The Emperor intently watches the devastation occur, and then seemingly phases/teleports himself to elsewhere. Not a word was said, yet what's he capable of is made horrifyingly clear long before we truly meet him.
• The end of "The Calling". Despite all the player character and the other heroes' actions, the Terran Empire is able to turn Mirror Priors into both a weapon and a calling device, summoning "The Other", which is Mirror V'Ger. Upon its arrival, it proceeds to fire its energy weapon, destroying the ship that contained the device needed to hop dimensions. This puts you in a difficult spot as you need to shoot down various energy projectiles to save your allies and defend yourself against the attacking Terrans. Then the Terran Emperor arrives in his own ship and it seems like all is lost. Thankfully, you're saved by the still-alive Commander DeSoto, but the need to escape means that The Other and the Terran Emperor are now working together.
  • In the prime timeline, V'Ger simply sought "the Creator" and did it's job of "collecting" data along the long journey, which was enhanced by a childish need after achieving consciousness (and resulted in childish anger when this need wasn't met). By contrast, The Other feels abandoned by it's creator... and not only is it angry, it wants revenge, and intends to do so by working alongside the Terran Emperor. Such an alliance is a threat to the existence of both universes; it's no wonder Admiral Leeta saw the madness of it all and came to us for help.
• In "The Eye of the Storm", the fleet is battling the Terran fleet until the Emperor's personal ship freezes everyone in chroniton stasis, leaving him, Tilly, and the Inquistor (ie mirror player) to go to the Other's heart. While fighting their way there, its forces seem to be too much, and the Inquistor says that they may need to withdraw... but the mere suggestion makes Emperor Crusher snap "NO! Unacceptable, Inquistor! WE WILL NOT WITHDRAW!". He then coldly states he's disappointed in them, and that if they fail again, they won't live to regret it. Because nothing - not them, or the Empire itself - matters more than his conquest of the Other; they are all nothing more than a means to an end. Even the fanatical Tilly is shaken by his words, albeit briefly.
  • Then, despite Leeta's Pah-Wraith enhanced strength (and the Inquistor's latter turn), Crusher manages to forcibly merge himself with the Other. Everyone else can only flee ASAP, with the Alliance fleet heading back to the Prime universe... yet after taking stock of the situation and warping away, the audience sees that the Other is already there, digitizing Pahvo to nothingness.
    Emperor Crusher: (voice echoing, eyes glowing purple) And so it begins. Time to deal with this 'pale reflection'... time to shatter the Mirror.
• The ground portion of “Scorpion’s Abyss” is an exercise in terror.
  • The player is set to lower the shields on the Mirror Borg’s base, but, one by one, your Bridge Officers are taken down. Then, sensing something, you turn around to find nothing… only for a Borg to grab you by the neck and inject you with nanites. The next scene shows you and your Bridge Officers assimilated. And this is no holodeck simulation as you spend the rest of the mission with those implants. Yes, you get rid of them, but you now have that feeling of violation and ickiness that Picard and Boimler had, as shown by your character silently lingering upon the experience in DS9's Sick Bay.
  • When you regain control, you're under the will of the Borg. Resistance Is Futile is no joke, your only conversation options are total subservience. You're tasked with assimilating the rest of Starfleet's presence on the Unimatrix, which you perform with brutal efficiency. To drill in the point, your name and those of all of your bridge officers are changed to Drone.
  • This culminates in a firefight between your squad and Ezri Dax, Harry Kim, and Captain Kuumaarke. And speaking of Kuumaarke, seeing the assimilated Captain, one of her dearest friends, bearing down on her with murderous intent is what finally breaks her. She's a complete wreck for the rest of the mission: when the Borg King lays defeated on the floor yet chillingly speaks of how this isn't the end, she shoots him in cold blood (to the others' shock, because that isn't like her at all), shaking with tears as she sinks to the floor, saying she had to over and over. All the others are worried about her afterward, in particular Erzi Dax seeing her as suffering from clear PTSD.
  • And finally, just as the Terran Emperor is Mirror Wesley Crusher, the Borg King is revealed to be Mirror Harry Kim. Our Prime version is shaken not just realizing this before the fight, but can only stare at the corpse of what's left after it's over, needing Erzi's words to break through before he can leave the scene.
    "I've heard that encounters with your Mirror self can be rough, but... I not only met him, I fought him... and then watched him die..."