OFC, this is all my speculation based on what the devs have said, but it makes sense. This fits with all of the previous information While the likely end of major STO story arc, Cryptic has mentioned cut one off missions/patrol ideas over the years that they could introduce as stand alone missions, patrols, or possible encounters in some hypothetical new exploration system. This TNG/Borg expansion would have likely been the end of major story content for STO. Just as STO began with a Borg invasion, the game ends with a Borg invasion. By whatever means, the Borg come back, stronger then ever, and become STO's final end game enemy. The TNG expansion would end up focusing on the great big bad introduced in TNG, the Borg.
This arc would end just before Expansion 5, which would likely be a TNG focused expansion since we already got a Voyager themed one with Delta Rising, a combined Enterprise and Original Series expansion with Agents of Yesterday, and a Deep Space 9 expansion with Victory is Life.(Maybe the Terran Emperor is a TNG character like Riker or something) This would have likely been STO's big "Mirror Universe" arc, unlike past arcs where we just jump over once or twice. In the typical 18-20 month time gap between the end of Victory is Life, and Expansion 5, we would have gotten another 8-9 mission story arc involving Leeta, whatever alien races she found using the data she stole from the future, and her attempts to overthrow the mysterious and enigmatic Terran Emperor. In the latest episode of Priory One, their 400th episode where the crew go to Cryptic studios and interview the devs, Al mentions that before AoD came along, he had about two years worth of story ideas planned.Īll of these comments are fairly well consistent with each other, and If we take them all together, we can actually form a somewhat clear picture of how the game was going to go before Age of Discovery threw a wrench in it.
In said livestreams its also been mentioned that some of the Devs have been pushing for a TNG expansion for some time nowĦ. In various livestreams done throughout January, we have learned that the original post Victory is Life story was going to involve Mirror Leeta, and finishing up her storyĥ. Throughout the years Cryptic has repeatedly mentioned wanting to do a new Borg arc, making the Borg scary end-game enemies againĤ. Back in November of last year, in another interview with P1 Podcast, Al mentioned that he was glad all these new Trek shows are coming out because they were coming up on the end of story ideas for STO, and that they only had a couple left.ģ. Way back before AoY came out(it had been announced but not released IIRC) Al Rviera gave an interview, I do believe with Priority One Podcast, where he made the comment that Cryptic had high level ideas for all the way out to a possible Expansion 5.Ģ. I will start this off by admitting I don't recall the exact interviews/livestreams the devs said most of in, so I wont have links to much of it. ( STO - The 2800 mission: " Second Wave")Īs the fleet traversed the Bajoran wormhole, it was temporally transposed by the Prophets from 2374 to 2409, at the request of Emissary Benjamin Sisko.In my years of playing STO I have regularly listened to many of the Dev's interviews, and livestreams, and have come away with little bits of dev comments that pose a rather interesting picture of how STO could have gone had Age of Discovery not happened. Loriss and the Jem'Hadar Kar'ukan were put in charge of the 2800. In 2374, the Founders dispatched a fleet of 2800 ships from the Gamma Quadrant to join the Dominion's Alpha Quadrant presence during the Dominion War. Loriss 3 was the third version of Loriss.