The Video Game That Influenced Star Trek: Picard Years Later

Back in the early 2000s, it looked like “Star Trek” was pretty much done for. After 9/11, as wars began, audiences weren’t really in the mood for a sci-fi franchise about gentleness, peace, and diplomacy. The national mood was reflected in the failure of Stuart Baird’s “Star Trek: Nemesis” in 2002, often called one of the worst in the franchise. Then “Star Trek: Enterprise” was canceled in 2005. It wouldn’t be until 2009 that “Star Trek” would be revived, in the form of J.J. Abrams’ rebooted feature film.

This time, however, “Star Trek” was faster, simpler, and more violent. Abrams’ film was not about peace and diplomacy but trauma and revenge. The reboot set the tone for “Star Trek” for the next decade, ensuring that newer “Trek” projects were all about high-octane action and a little more rough-hewn.

Such an approach certainly seemed to be an influence on the 2010 video game “Star Trek Online,” one of the most popular video games in the franchise’s history. Although noncanonical, “Star Trek Online” took place back in the Prime “Star Trek” timeline, a few decades after the events of “Nemesis.” In the game, peace between the Federation and the Klingon Empire had collapsed, and anathema to “Star Trek,” war was raging. At the same time, the Borg returned, the Romulans attempted to get a battle fleet going, and multiple other antagonists appeared. Players served as captains aboard their own ships and assembled their own crews.

“Star Trek Online” featured new voice performances from literally dozens of “Star Trek” actors, lending the game an air of legitimacy. So when “Online” presented the world of “Star Trek” as an Abrams-like place of embattled violence, Trekkies kind of accepted the new tone. Not only that, but the makers of newer “Star Trek” TV shows eventually began to pay attention to the game, and they even started incorporating design elements from it into on-screen adventures.

One such element was the Enterprise-F, which made its debut in “Star Trek Online” before coming to “Picard.”

As mentioned, the central highlight of “Star Trek Online” was the extensive involvement its “Star Trek” actors. As a player, one could choose to make a crew of any number of extant “Star Trek” characters, allowing Trekkies to assemble their very own dream-crews. Players could also select any number of extant ships, no matter where they originally appeared in the “Star Trek” universe. One could stock the original U.S.S. Enterprise with “Deep Space Nine” characters, for instance. It was a fun way to play mix-and-match.

But many new ships were designed for the game, following the timeline of “Star Trek” as accurately as possible. In the early 25th century of “Star Trek Online,” for instance, the Enterprise-E (as seen in “Nemesis”) was replaced by the Enterprise-F, a massive, Odyssey-class vessel. The new flagship was commanded by Captain Va’Kel Shon, and the player first saw it defending Deep Space Nine from an enemy attack. The design for the Enterprise-F was the result of a mail-in contest wherein fans would be permitted to submit their own designs. Adam Ihle won that contest, and his Enterprise-F was used in the game starting in 2012.

Fast-forward to the third season of “Star Trek: Picard” — specifically to the episode “Võx” (April 13, 2023) — and the Enterprise-F was there too. In a fun bit of fan service, the Enterprise-F looked just like it did in the game. The “Star Trek Online” universe had suddenly become semi-canonical. The timeline of “Online” kind of syncs up as well, as the game takes place in 2409, while the third season of “Picard” takes place in about 2401. That’s close enough for jazz.

In an interview with Inverse“Star Trek: Picard” designer David Blass — who put together all the ships and computer panels for the show — admitted that he took many ships from “Star Trek Online,” mostly as a result of a bad scene he assembled in the show’s first season. The end of that season saw dozens of Federation vessels descending on a Romulan attack force, and Trekkies noticed that a lot of the ships … looked kinda the same. This was different from usual “Star Trek” lore, which saw fleets of many different kinds of ships. Blass admitted that the copy-paste nature of the fleet was employed for practical, budgetary reasons, but he was aware that it make Trekkies mad. For the following season, Blass went online and found exactly what he needed. He said:

“I found these ships from ‘Star Trek Online,’ and I was like ‘Damn, these are really good-looking!’ -…) I was like, ‘Why are we not doing something here?’ So I reached out to (‘Star Trek Online’ designer) Thomas (Marrone). (He knew) people who know how to design ‘Star Trek’ ships and that (know) a ‘Star Trek’ ship is not a ‘Star Wars’ ship.”

Thomas Marrone was hired to be part of “Star Trek.” The basic starship design aesthetic of “Star Trek Online” was henceforth officially incorporated into the “Star Trek” TV universe. One can even buy models of “Online”-only starships, making the connections even stronger.

Additionally, the warlike tone of “Star Trek Online,” which was already inspired by the J.J. Abrams film, was, in turn, incorporated back into the new spate of “Star Trek” TV shows that began airing on Paramount+ in 2017. The post-“Nemesis” era was marked by a crumbling, a downfall of many “Star Trek” ideals, and the galaxy seemed like a much rougher, less friendly place. “Star Trek Online” was riding that wave seven years earlier.