Star Trek Online is celebrating a decade of its continuing voyages through the Star Trek universe with brand new adventures featuring stars from the latest Star Trek television series. Cryptic Studios and Perfect World are launching Star Trek Online: Legacy today on PC and on March 3rd on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Legacy is designed as an homage to more than 50 years of storytelling in the Star Trek universe. It adds two new episodes to the game that feature Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine from Star Trek: Picard (and previously Star Trek: Voyager) and Sonequa Martin-Green as Michael Burnham from Star Trek: Discovery.
Videos by ComicBook.com
“Seven is back,” Ryan tells ComicBook.com “She’s 20 years more mature. She’s been through a lot in the last few years. They’re staying very consistent with Seven in the new world of Picard, the new series. She’s helping the players sort of battle between ultimate good and ultimate evil along with Sonequa’s character, Michael Burnham, and it’s pretty cool.”
Ryan has voiced Seven for Star Trek Online before, back when the game first ventured into the Delta Quadrant – where the USS Voyager first encountered Seven – and during the war with the Iconians that followed. During those missions, Seven was depicted as being not too far from who she was on Voyager, a human recently freed from the Borg collective. The Seven we meet in Legacy is more as she is in Star Trek: Picard, which changes how Ryan approaches the character.
“I can bring much more of myself to the character now,” Ryan says. “Seven, as we saw 20 years ago, was very, very different from my personality. I laugh easy, I cry easy, I’ve got a lot of emotions, and all of that was new and sort of hidden for her. So she’s much more human now 20 years on.”
Ryan’s history with Star Trek seems to be coalescing in a series of milestones in 2020. She’s back in Picard and she’s helping Star Trek Online celebrate its 10th anniversary at the same time that Voyager is celebrating its 25th.
“Star Trek has never been out of my life because once you’re in it, you’re sort of part of the family,” Ryan says. “All of the actors have been doing conventions and talking about these characters for the last 20 years. So they’re never fully out of our lives. But did I think I’d be playing her again? No, never. I was sure that I was finished. I was sure that we had told her story, and I was done. I said goodbye and moved on and that was kind of that.
“So, I was very surprised when they first approached me. It was about two years ago. It’s been brewing for a long time. My friend James Duff, one of the creators, approached me… and he said ‘I want to bring Seven back,’ and I laughed, but he said ‘I’m serious,’ and he explained how he sees her developing and what she’s become, and it was surprisingly really intriguing, but I didn’t think anything would come of it. Then cut to a year later at the Creative Arts Emmys last year. I’m lined up backstage getting ready to go on and I’m standing behind Alex Kurtzman, and he’s like, ‘Oh yeah, we’ve been talking a lot about Seven in the writers’ room.’ I was like, ‘Oh, so it’s actually real,’ which is kind of crazy. It’s still very surreal, but it’s fun. She’s cool. I love her. I love who she’s become.”
While Ryan is enjoying getting to reprise Seven of Nine, fans shouldn’t expect a full Voyager reunion show any time soon. “Would I love to reunite with some of those characters? Sure, I think that’d be great,” she says. “I don’t necessarily need to do a Voyager show again. I think that I’ve done that. But I’m not a writer. I can’t really tell you anything.
“I’m having a great time on Picard. It’s a very happy set. It’s a very relaxed set, which has been great. I didn’t have a phenomenal overall experience shooting Voyager. I don’t look back on that as a super fun four years for me, unfortunately, so to be revisiting this character in a more pleasant work experience is great.”
When asked about Seven’s lasting appeal, Ryan says “I think she was just a really beautifully written character, so I have been very, very lucky. I think that it’s her struggle to find humanity and feeling like an outsider. And I’ve talked to a lot of people over the years who’ve said they relate to Seven because they felt like outsiders, a lot of people on the autism spectrum, a lot of people in the LGBTQ community have approached me over the years to say that they appreciate that they were seeing themselves, which I think is really pretty special.
“And she’s one of the characters who set off as an outsider looking in on humanity and learning about humanity. I think that’s another great tradition like Spock in The Original Series and Data in Next Generation. I think people are attracted to those characters. And the Borg is just a fantastic villain because I think there’s nothing more terrifying than having your individually taken way. I think that’s what makes them feel threatening. Plus, they just look really cool.”
Star Trek Online: Legacy is arriving on PC ahead of Seven’s debut in Star Trek: Picard. Looking ahead, Ryan says, “I’m excited to hear the fans’ reactions as they see it. I think they’re going to really enjoy it. They’re going to enjoy reconnecting with these characters and seeing who they’ve become over the past years. And Seven’s a badass! She’s a lot of fun. I think people are going to enjoy it.”
The new episodes are inspired by the classic Star Trek episode “The Savage Curtain.” As in that episode, Star Trek Online captains will travel to the planet Excalbia where they’ll meet allies and face threats from throughout Star Trek‘s history as they take part in an experiment to judge the true worth of good and evil.
Star Trek Online: Legacy also introduces a new Task Force Operation and anniversary events that allow players to earn the new Khitomer Alliance Battlecruiser. The full features list follows:
- Two New Featured Episodes – Captains hailing from all of the game’s factions can experience two brand new episodes, “Measure of Morality” Parts 1 and 2. A strange anomaly calls players to Excalbia where they are tasked with proving once and for all that good is better than evil. Players will team up with heroes like Seven of Nine (Star Trek: Picard) and Michael Burnham (Star Trek: Discovery) to navigate a series of trials that pit them against some of Star Trek’s most dangerous enemies.
- New Task Force Operation: “To Hell With Honor” is a brand new 5-player space TFO that takes place on the surface of the moon, where J’Ula and her Klingon forces are building a new shipyard for her fleet. Players will need to work together to destroy this base before enemy forces take them down with Mycelial weaponry.
- Anniversary Celebration – Over the next month, Star Trek Online players can earn credits toward the brand new cross-faction T6 Khitomer Alliance Battlecruiser by playing new episodes, TFOs and the Omega Anniversary Event. This special event is a STO favorite, which sends players on a mission to stabilize particles that Q has scattered across the galaxy.
- Mycelium Task Force Operation – The popular TFO introduced with Star Trek Online’s last update, Awakening, has been added to the game’s standard rotation of Task Force Operations. This special ground mission lets up to five players battle the Elachi, as they shut down probes that threaten to destroy the Mycelial Network.
Star Trek Online debuted in February 2010. Now celebrating its 10th anniversary, Star Trek Online is one of the longest-running Star Trek series in the franchise’s history. The game features 183 episodes, over 50 Task Force Operations, four expansions, and 18 seasons of playable content. Over the past 10 years, Star Trek Online has revisited material from Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: Enterprise, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Star Trek: The Next Generation, and featured returning Star Trek stars as voice actors including Leonard Nimoy (Spock), LeVar Burton (Geordi LaForge), Michael Dorn (Worf), Denise Crosby (Tasha Yar), Armin Shimerman (Quark), René Auberjonois (Odo), Mary Wiseman (Tilly), Anthony Rapp (Stamets) and others.
Star Trek Online: Legacy is available now for PC and on March 3rd for Xbox One and PlayStation 4. The game is a free download and free to play.
