Video Game / Star Trek: Bridge Commander

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Developed By Totally Games, who years prior gave us X-Wing and TIE Fighter from that other franchise, Star Trek: Bridge Commander is a space sim set in the Star Trek universe. The plot revolves around an inexperienced captain (read: YOU), trying to prevent an interstellar war, shortly after the end of another.

Bridge Commander was an ambitious attempt to replicate the feel of the various series, with generally positive results. It's the first game in the franchise to nail the feeling of flying around in one of the huge capital ships, and still has a very active fan community. Not bad at all for a barely advertised game from 2002.

The game is presently available through GOG.com.

Examples:

• The Alliance: The Federation tries to form one with the Klingons and Romulans against House Arterius and the Kessok. The results are ... messy. But in the end, the same alliance that won the Dominion War holds true, with the Federation managing to wrangle the Romulans on one hand and the Klingons on the other hand into a united front.
• Alternate Continuity: Bridge Commander forms part of a post-Insurrection, pre-Nemesis shared universe, having links to the Armada games, Elite Force I & II, Starfleet Command III, Invasion, Hidden Evil and Away Team. All these games were published by Activision.
• All There in the Manual: Bridge Commander's tenuous link to Starfleet Command III is shown in the description of the Sovereign-class in SFC 3's instruction manual.
• A Nazi by Any Other Name: The Cardassians in the game behave like the ones from before the Dominion War. It is implied that these are hardcore revanchists who want their Empire back and are simply using the Kessok for the technology and resources to do so.
• Apocalypse How: A class X-2 Example. The game starts with the destruction of the Vesuvi system, which takes with it Captain Wright and the Draegos colony. The final mission is a race against Legate Matan using the Kessok Solarformers, responsible for the Vesuvi explosion, to inflict the same upon the Riha system.
• Artifact of Doom: The Kessok Solarformers. Subverted as they weren't intended to be weapons but the Cardassians manipulated them with their crude technology and accidentally destroyed a star. Then they decided that this was actually a great outcome in their crusade against the Federation as revenge over the Dominion War.
• Asshole Victim: Legate Matan is sucked into a sun along with all of his crew in the final battle. Couldn't have happened to a nicer Cardassian. While your officers are discussing if they can lock a tractor beam on his ship or beam him out, Kiska bluntly says to let him burn - and is sharply rebuked by the XO, but no-one seems too cut up over the fact that they couldn't save him in the end.
• Big Bad: Legate Matan is responsible for House Arterius' war against the Federation in the Maelstrom.
• Big Damn Heroes: You in several missions, the Enterprise about three times.
• Big Good: Admiral Liu serves as this for the game.
• Blood Knight: Captain Korbus, as befitting a Klingon warrior. Oh God Korbus.
• Canon Immigrant: Several races, and many ships for the existing canon races.
• Captain's Log: All of the crew give a log entry or two at some point except for the Player Character.
• The Bridge: The entire game takes place on the bridge of your two starships.
• The Captain: Played with. Captain Wright gets pasted before the credits even roll, but was by all accounts from his peers, a pretty damned cool guy. Also used in your interactions with fellow Starfleet captains during the game.
• Continuity Nod: The game makes several references to the then-recent Dominion War and the new alliance between the Alpha Quadrant races.
  • The U.S.S. Sovereign later appears in Star Trek: Prodigy as the lead ship of a Starfleet armada alongside the Enterprise-E.
• Cool Ship: The Dauntless, and later the Sovereign, class progenitor and sister ship to the Enterprise-E. Those provided by the game's still very active modding community are too legion to list. In other words, pick any Cool Ship from the television series or movies (or other series, they're in there.)
• Crew of One: Subverted, while you can take control of systems manually, the ship is normally run by your AI crewmates, who will actually do a pretty good job keeping it in one piece. This mainly extends to maneuvering the starship and targeting/firing its weapons though, although you can also personally set power allocations and repair priorities.
• Earth-Shattering Kaboom: The main plot of the game revolves around trying to figure out what caused a perfectly normal star to suddenly go nova in the game's intro, and then trying to prevent it from happening again.
• Explosive Instrumentation: Predictable in a Star Trek work, although of the non-lethal variant. Consoles spark up a lot throughout the course of the game. Fortunately, no one dies, not even the unnamed officers on the Sovereign's bridge.
• False Flag Operation: Matan and House Arterius convinced the Kessok the Federation was planning to invade their territory and enslave them. The Kessok thus built Matan's forces a massive fleet to wage war against the Federation on their behalf.
• Fantastic Racism:
  • Kiska, a Bajoran, has an intense prejudice against the Cardassians. It gets to the point Commander Larsen has to tell her to knock it off. Miguel Diaz is also vaguely prejudiced against Klingons for unexplained reasons. Everyone is prejudiced against the Romulans, except, potentially, you.
  • This is reflected with all the other ships as well. Every single ship captain talks trash about humans, the other races, the Federation, or all three.
• Featureless Protagonist: The player character is never seen or heard. The only information about the character comes in the intro while your doomed Captain is dictating his log, and identifies the player character in an offhand remark as a male.
• Field Promotion: The Captain nominally becomes the Captain when the ship's previous commander is killed in the introduction, but there is no indication that he is actually given a field promotion. The implication being that he is promoted formally into the position during the interlude period when the ship is in drydock being repaired.
• Game Mod: Dozens. A notable example is Kobayashi Maru, which combines many of them, dramatically altering the game and refining the gameplay such as being able to deploy and pilot shuttles; separate the Galaxy class and Prometheus class saucers; and loads of ships added to the game, most of them containing their respective bridge to use as well. It also adds additional ships from factions not seen in Bridge Commander such as Borg, Dominion, Species 8472/Undine and even non-canon ships such as the Aegean Class Frigate. There are even custom scenarios to play and a limited scenario editor, one of the examples being the Unwinnable Training Simulation that the mod gets its title from.
• Good Is Not Soft: The Federation, for once - perhaps tellingly as this is post-Dominion War - is willing to break out this trope. When House Arterius attacks Biranu Station, they proceed to deploy the Sovereign and all of their available forces in the area to defeat the Cardassian/Kessok alliance. Although they never bring in fleets the size of that seen in the Dominion War, it is arguable this is mostly due to the limitations in game mechanics.
• Guest-Star Party Member: Both Captain Picard and Commander Data show up to participate in your war against the Cardassian-Kessok alliance.
• He Knows About Timed Hits: Picard occasionally refers to the keyboard when tutoring the player on the game's interface.
• Heel–Face Turn: The Kessok turn on the Cardassians if you talk to Captain Neb-lus rather than attack him.
• Heroic Mime: The player character never speaks. Which leads to some of the annoyance with Saffi from community as she nominally speaks for the ship and Captain in their place...
• Hitbox Dissonance: Found in poorly-made player mods. One Cardassian ship featured a hit box that was twice the size of the model. This made flying against it with collisions on frustrating.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: To a degree: You can NOT destroy Matan's ship. You can cripple it, but the hull won't break. Even your chief engineer is impressed. Incidentally, it is still possible to lose the game once you've done this. There are also a few situations in the game where you're encouraged to run, not fight (You know how The Kobayashi Maru was 1 on 3? Try 1 on 12!).
• Honor Before Reason: The Klingons, of course, have several moments. Captain Korbus provides one of the more heartwarming ones as he betrays the High Council, at the risk of discommendation, to repay a personal debt to you for saving his ship and crew.
• Justified Tutorial: The first episode of the game. You're more or less allowed free rein with little prompting, but are accompanied by Captain Picard, in case you need a little extra guidance.
• Little Hero, Big War: Played with. The Sovereign is a big part of the Federation's efforts during the war in the sector but there's a lot of battles going on off-camera. Likewise, the conflict never gets out of the Maelstrom. But it is implied this is a local conflict with the Cardasians a small rogue faction and the Federation, Klingon and Romulan factions only using their local forces and not bringing in substantial reinforcements from outside the Maelstrom.
• Manipulative Bastard: Legate Matan has managed to build himself a fleet to rival the Federation in the Maelstrom by playing on Kessok xenophobia.
• Mercy Rewarded: If you take the opportunity to talk to Neb-lus, their ship will be one of the two to accompany you on the final run to the Kessok homeworld. The Kessok ships protecting the homeworld will stand aside while you fight House Arterius.
• Mildly Military: The Federation as usual. It's notable Commander Larsen is uncomfortable with the way the crew bicker and chat during their missions and implies she's used to a more disciplined ship.
• My Friends... and Zoidberg: Saffi pulls this on herself when she mentions the crew are True Companions all loyal to their Captain—except her.
• Non-Standard Game Over: There are multiple instances where failing to achieve or prevent certain conditions from happening will result in a game over. This usually results in you being forcibly relieved of command. There are even multiple Disappointed in You speeches from Admiral Liu relieving you of command depending on when and how badly you screw up.
• Obviously Evil: The Kessok look like demons with horned skulls for heads. They're also a Dark Is Not Evil, isolationist race misled by House Arterius into a xenophobic furor. They will open up to you if you offer peace to Neb-lus in the final mission.
• OOC Is Serious Business: Admiral Liu gets so sick of the Cardassians after the destruction of the Dauntless that she orders the ship to find their home base and blow it all to hell. Even she feels this is unbecoming behavior of a Starfleet officer.
• The Remnant: House Arterius, the game's main villains, are the remnants of the Cardassian military government which fought with the Dominion and oppressed their own population. Played with, though, as its implied House Arterius is solely involved because of Legate Matan, who follow him more out of personal loyalty than ideology. Although it would hardly be the first time the Cardassians played the 'disavowed rogue element' card such as their arming 'Colonies' in the Demilitarized Zone and the Obsidian Order private fleet to attack the Dominion...
• Renegade Splinter Faction: The Cardassians have one of these in House Arterius, who serve as the central villains of the game. They launch their own private war against the Federation in the sector despite not having the support of their homeworld. They, instead, have the support of the Kessok, a powerful isolationist race they've manipulated into an arms development deal with.
• Rookie Red Ranger: You serve as this to the Dauntless and later Sovereign.
• Shout-Out: The planet that Starbase 12, the player's home base, orbits around is named New Holland, after game designer Lawrence Holland.
• Simulation Game: Spaceflight.
• Space Compression: Bridge Commander is an offender here. Distances across solar systems are measured in kilometers.
• Spiritual Successor:
  • The game is this to Star Trek: Starfleet Academy and Star Trek: Klingon Academy: both space combat-heavy games with an emphasis on micromanaging your ship, albeit to a lesser extent than in this game.
  • It is also a spiritual successor to Lawrence Holland's Star Wars space sims, X-Wing, TIE Fighter, X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, and X-Wing Alliance.
  • Star Trek: Excalibur, a fan-made game in the works that utilizes the Nano Fx Graphics Engine, is intended as thus. It is also intended to be more easily moddable.
• Starfish Alien: Played with. The Kessok are sexless, silicon-based Humanoid Aliens. Their body chemistry is so far outside the boundaries of known species that Federation sensors don't pick them up at first.
• Star Killing: The destruction of Vesuvi at the beginning of the game provides the story's central mystery.
• Subsystem Damage: And how! Calling for a damage report when your ship's been reduced to the point where it's being held together with little more than good intentions will pound it home to you as Brex starts rattling off what's not working. May or may not cause an Oh, Crap! moment for the player. It can get worse, since you can only have three subsystems at a time on the repair queue and it's SO slow.
• Token Heroic Orc: Captain Neb-lus who doesn't trust House Arterius. They're the key Kessok you can convince to have their fellow captains turn against Matan in the final mission.
• Too Awesome to Use: Unless you know where all the hidden reloads are, quantum torpedoes may be this. They pack much more wallop than regular photon torpedoes, but you have a much smaller magazine of them. Starbase 12 also carries no infinite restocks thereof until late in the game (when you definitely need to be liberal with them because of the difficulty spike.)
  • Counts partway for the Phased Plasma torpedoes, introduced late game. You have a single magazine of them that cannot be replenished and there is a small, but very real, chance of them detonating and burning one of your torpedo tubes through a misfire. On the other hand, they pass straight through enemy shields and are powerful enough to quickly destroy enemy subsystems.
• We ARE Struggling Together: A large portion of the game deals with how all of the other powers are willing to shoot each other over the most trivial of reasons with the Federation, as per usual, trying to drag everyone to sit down at the table and work together. The game would be about twenty-minutes long if everyone shared information and was willing to hold off on shooting one another. In proper Star Trek fashion, the best result comes from NOT being trigger happy yourself.
• We Come in Peace — Shoot to Kill: You... maybe. After several hostile run-ins with the mysterious Kessok, you find Neb-lus's flagship: its shields down, in front of part of the Solarformer you're after, with seemingly no life signs aboard. Adrenaline pumping, your first instinct is to take advantage and destroy the ship... However, you can also try hailing the vessel, which results in a peaceful dialog Gene Roddenberry would be proud of. Also, hailing Neb-lus ship will cause the Kessok guarding their homeworld to join you in stopping Matan.
• Worthy Opponent: Captain Terrik comes to view you as this well before the Romulans start to work with you officially.
• Variable Mix: The combat music shifts in intensity and mood based on your ships status, and what you (and your allies) are up against. Ranging from confident, neutral, and panic tracks.
• You Are in Command Now: Captain Wright of the Dauntless dies in the opening cutscene when the star of Vesuvi explodes. You are the benefactor of this trope: Justified as promoting an Executive Officer to Captain is not uncommon in Starfleet, even though it is spelled out that the XO was rather fresh to the role. Some credibility is stretched when despite your character's inexperience behind the Dauntless, you're made commanding officer of the prototype super-ship Sovereign soon after. Possibly justified because the Sovereign was also having its bugs ironed out at first.