Who are the most important characters in all of the Star Trek canon? Is it the brave Starfleet captains? The smart science officers? The scrappy junior officers of the “lower decks”? Or maybe the various alien species in the massive Trek galaxy? The answer could be any or all of these types of characters, but perhaps, the most important characters in all of Star Trek aren’t people, but instead, the ships.
“I do feel very strongly that the ships are characters,” says Thomas Marrone, the art director for the popular MMORPG, Star Trek Online. Along with IDW comic book editor, Heather Antos, Marrone recently talked to Inverse about an epic crossover between starships from Trek comics warping over to become playable ships in Star Trek Online. “There's definitely a personality to every single ship,” Antos tells Inverse. “Every ship has a personality that goes along with it and fits the whole vibe.”
Star Trek Online has over 600 ships to choose from. At numerous points in the game, you can head on down to Starbase 39, find the Ship Selections Officer, and choose what bells and whistles you want. Some ships are fast, others have tons of weaponry, and all tend to have very specific special abilities. Since 2010, Star Trek Online has been bringing in new starships, either from the existing films and TV shows, or, in several cases, creating brand-new ships unique to the game. (Many of which have become onscreen canon in recent years thanks to Picard.) But, in this case, Star Trek Online is importing new starships and variants that previously have only existed in the comics.
One of the comic deep-cuts that Star Trek Online is celebrating is the USS Theseus. But just like the famous Ship of Theseus paradox, when you rebuild a Trek starship piece by piece, moving it from the shows to the movies to the comics and then to the games, is it still the same ship? In an exclusive conversation with Inverse, Antos and Marrone revealed how this incredible crossover came about and how and why the idea of individual Star Trek starships has endured.
Origins of The USS Theseus
Starting with issue #13 of the Star Trek comic book series Year Five — which chronicles the fifth and final year of The Original Series — a new, sleek starship has been part of the extended continuity of Star Trek. That ship is the USS Theseus, a ship that begins its life in the 23rd century, only to become a new ship for a reborn version of Captain Sisko in the ongoing Star Trek comic book title, specifically in the series “Godshock.”
In both its 23rd and 24th century incarnations, the Theseus is a very cool ship, and so, bringing it over to the world of Star Trek Online was a task that Marrone and Antos didn’t take lightly.
“The Theseus does a lot of stuff, and there are a lot of interesting things about it that show up in the comics,” Marrone explains. “And it has a prototype protostar drive, and it’s cool to tie Scotty's influence into that and tie that into Star Trek: Prodigy. But we also had the Protostar in the game, and we didn’t want to make that less special. So, we had to come up with something still tied to the action of the comics.”
Essentially, Marrone is revealing the essence of how Star Trek ships are created; if they’re all overpowered, there are no good stories to tell. Like superheroes, having every single Trek starship be like Superman would get boring. This thinking parallels the creation of the USS Titan in Picard Season 3, a ship which became the Enterprise-G in the final episode. “It can totally get its ass kicked in the wrong situation,” Picard showrunner Terry Matalas told Inverse in 2023. “It’s an underdog.”
Carrying Over Trek Comic Canon
Essentially, all Star Trek ships that aren’t the Enterprise-D have to feel a little underdog-ish, especially if you’re putting those ships in a game. But, when these ships are created in the comics, like the Theseus, do the writers worry about the various power levels and abilities of each ship?
“Obviously, for something like STO, it's a little bit more important to have that stuff nailed down,” Antos says. “But in terms of for what we do in the comics, unless it is very story specific or based on something that has come before that we have that information, we don't get super super down to the nitty gritty.”
In a sense, the IDW Star Trek comics have free rein to create new ships and new characters, but, at the point at which those aspects get moved into Star Trek Online, Marrone and his team have to define the abilities of those ships more clearly. Antos teases that later this year, a new Trek comic book will “feature a couple versions of a new ship that we are getting a little bit more granular about what makes this version different and from what we've seen before.”
Marrone says the key to making it all work in the game is to remember what makes these ships cool to begin with. As someone who “drew pictures of the Enterprise when I was supposed to be paying attention in Math class,” Marrone understands that getting lost in these designs is part of the fun for fans.
“It’s that Star Trek's a big universe, and you have all these different threads. And so you have to decide, especially with our ships, they have their ability and their profile, but they all come with usually one or two unique powers,” Marrone explains. “If something has the Swiss Army Knife approach to it, you have to zero in on what’s going to make it unique.”
