Roleplay / Star Trek Defiance

Space... The Final Frontier.

Star Trek: Defiance is a play-by-post RPG set after Star Trek: The Next Generation and follows a number of player-owned starships in the wake of The Borg overrunning Federation space, forcing the surviving members to flee to the Gamma Quadrant where they're faced with new threats while trying to take back their home.

The game doesn't focus on a singular crew, as players can own their own ship and populate it with their own characters. However, the main storyline revolves around the crew of the USS Titan, who find themselves being tested to their limits in a hostile universe where the utopia of the Federation is now nonexistent. They soon become major players in a massive war that spans the entire galaxy.

The game can be found here.

This Game Has The Following Tropes

• Assimilation Plot: The Borg, naturally. After years of being trounced by the Federation they've gone through a massive upgrade to return to the Alpha Quadrant and proceed to take over the whole of Federation space. And culminating in the effective assimilation of Earth. So the goal of the game is to undo this.
• Break Out the Museum Piece: The USS Titan is a 200 year old ship pulled out of mothballs and retrofitted with modern 24th century technology. It is always on the brink of falling apart, yet proves to be more than capable in numerous encounters. The same can be said of several other player ships, as they can hail from the earliest part of Star Trek canon.
• The Chains of Commanding: Cam is often at odds with his own sense of right and wrong and the obligations that come with being a starship captain. That being said, he's just as likely to beat you with the chains if you piss him off.
• Darker and Edgier: The game essentially destroys every last shred of optimism Star Trek ever had. The Borg have taken over Earth and the rest of the Federation, leaving the survivors to flee to the Gamma Quadrant. Only for the refugees to face The Dominion and a number of new horrors while trying to regroup and take back their home. Many people are so desperate they're willing to commit several evils just to stay alive. However...
• Deconstruction: This is because the game is trying to deconstruct the "Roddenberry Ideal" and show it for the flawed and somewhat Anvilicious thing that it truly is. Many of the characters are actually meant to embody the best traits of Star Trek without the "incessant ego stroking" that was often found in later Trek. In many ways, the game tries to return to the feel of the Original Series and contrast it to later Trek.
  • For example, Cam is an Expy of James T. Kirk. Cam is a highly competent captain, but is at odds with everyone else in Starfleet. He is openly disgusted with the Federation's sense of superiority and more accepting his flaws as well as humanity's, even if it means that he's a pariah in the eyes of Starfleet. Like Kirk, he has broken numerous rules to do what was right, but unlike him, Cam was thrown out of Starfleet for his actions.
• Development Gag: Saren is one, and a case of What Could Have Been in regard to a dropped side-plot in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock regarding Saavik and Spock having a child after she helped him through his accelerated pon-farr.
• Hopeless War: The whole thing started when Romulus was destroyed. The Klingons went to war with the Federation for trying to help Romulan refugees, and just as the war was at its peak... The Borg returned. Since then, they've been slowly wiping out Federation planets without any sign of stopping. At the start of he game they manage to destroy the Enterprise-E, and later on succeed in assimilating Earth. Now, the last remnants of Starfleet have retreated to the Gamma Quadrant in an attempt to put space between them and The Borg in the hopes of, one day, retaking the Alpha Quadrant... Then The Dominion shows up...
• The Kirk: Cam, it's entirely intentional.
• Military Maverick: Captain Cameron Gunner. So much so that he was thrown out of Starfleet after doing something at Virmire IV that resulted in a nasty court martial. If it weren't for The Borg wiping out a majority of Starfleet, he wouldn't be in the captain's chair.
• Rag Tag Band Of Misfits: The crew of the Titan, and pretty much every other ship.
• The Spock: Saren, again it's intentional. And a given since he's the son of the Trope Namer...
• Shout-Out: Apparently one of Janeway's favorite sayings is "I'm not eating Harry!"
  • In fact the game likes to hint at the possibility that Janeway is the game's Greater-Scope Villain, much like how SF Debris does.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: One of the main themes of the game. Cam is prone to doing this.
• Took a Level in Badass: The Borg. After being defeated by the Federation numerous times they decided to go through a massive update. They got rid of the Borg Queens and became a true Hive Mind, as well as updated their methods of assimilation. They now send out swarms of nanomachines to assimilate entire planets. And they now actively attack anything that moves regardless of their threat level.
• UST: Cam and R'ana's relationship seems to stem from the fact that they both want to "boldly go."
• What a Piece of Junk: The Titan, again. She's a Franklin-class ship from the 23rd Century (the Franklin first being seen in Star Trek Beyond serving a similar funtion), and is prone to breaking down at the drop of a hat. Despite that, she is incredibly fast thanks to her size and the newly retrofitted engines.