An Introduction to Fleet Operations

Taken from DOCa Cola and Optec’s Musings

The Fleet Operations Universe splits off somewhere during the show Voyager. The events of Fleet Operations themselves take place at the turn of the next century, around 20 years after the Dominion War (between 2390-2395). Romulus is still the heart of the Romulan Empire in 2392, where most of the "Eraudi Incident" begins that starts much of the Alpha-Quadrant relevant story part of the Fleet Operations Universe.

The differences between canon Star Trek and Fleet Operations emerged because the story of Fleet Operations was written and planned while Voyager was on TV in Germany (roughly 1995). The Developer Team included some aspects of newer films and shows as the storyline evolved. The FO Universe emerged out of a scenario that was made up and developed long before Voyager found its way home - that is why the FO Universe and the Star Trek Universe have some differences in the post-Dominion War time. Some events were included, but some were not. Most of the terminology in Fleet Ops is taken from official sources - like the shows, technology books or similar stuff. The Developers all love the canon style and try to keep as much "crazy fan-tech" out of Fleet Operations as possible, but sometimes you have to do an agreement, such as getting names for the various unnamed classes of vessels. In that case, the Team uses the stuff that's accepted by the community. Just look at the Romulans for example: if you wanted only to stick to canon stuff, the faction would have .. well.. only a handful of ship classes... counting The Original Series warbird! Although Fleet Operations takes place roughly at the beginning of the 25th century, the team favors continuing the "The Next Generation style" for ships, instead of pushing into a new style, like Star Trek Online does.

Species 8472 plays an important role in one or two events, too, but they no longer invade normal space. The FO Storyline is focused around the Alpha, Beta and Gamma Quadrant and Species 8472 does not play a major role in those areas. Besides that, the Developer Team thinks it’s much more interesting to have map events where fluidic gates open and super powerful ships jump out.

In the final version there will be four admirals for each faction, including Special Agent Lewitt, from Star Fleet Intelligence, who has some "uncommon" weapons. Perhaps there will be Janeway or someone with stronger ties to Section 31, but Section 31 is meant to be an NPC faction and there will be no Section 31 avatar in the predictable future.

The mirror universe is not part of the Fleet Operations storyline and there will not be inter-dimensional/universe travel. Perhaps some strange-painted ancient Federation derelict will appear here and there on some maps…

Note that the FO storyline will change a little from what is portrayed here as it is quite difficult to simply take the story laid out in the Role Playing Game (RPG) played by Detektor and DOCa Cola (and invented by Optec) and transplant it into a computer game. The Developer Team would like to use this story one day for a campaign, but there will be much space for newly developed scenarios, such as alternative timelines or events from the past. Although most of the information on the factions presented in the "Intelligence Reports" is accurate and up to date, since the Ciadan and Iconian have not yet been "normalized" for entry into the Fleet Operations Universe (in other words, Optec has not yet determined all of their story and attributes), the information presented in their respective sections is the most arcane and the most likely to change.