Skant hardly wait
As a game, Star Trek Online might not quite be the best MMO ever, but as a ball of fan service, it’s right there among the best of the best, and that’s not a bad thing to be when your thing is Star Trek. Especially these days, with a whole passel of new Trek properties and developments to riff off of. Take, for example, the latest “season” of the game, Season 14: Emergence, slated for release on Tuesday, October 3rd.
Along with the requisite advancements to STO’s storyline, developer Cryptic is also taking the opportunity to celebrate Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s 30th anniversary with a handful of TNG throwbacks for fans to get excited about. Chief among them is the addition of LeVar Burton to the voice cast, reprising his role as Geordi LaForge, Chief Engineer of the Enterprise in TNG, and now captain of the U.S.S. Challenger. Geordi will play a key role in the story missions set to advance the new season, involving the Federation and its allies conflict with the alien Tzenkethi.
That’s all well and good, but the real meat of Cryptic’s commemoration is in the other content, like a show-accurate rendition of the Galaxy-class starship interior, and now, a much-requested deep cut from the Star Trek fashion archive: The “Skant”. Present in just a few episodes of The Next Generation, the Skant was a unisex tunic-style dress that Trek creator Gene Roddenberry himself suggested as a uniform option. The idea was that gender equality would allow such a uniform to be worn by both male and female crew members. A fine idea, but in execution, it may have been a bit ahead of its time, with a unisex jumpsuit making for the standard uniform moving forward. Skant and unisex skirt options have been made available for characters throughout the game, including Klingon and Romulan faction players. Further, kilts have been added, for would-be Scotties to go full Scotland in their off time. The Skant and other items, like a playable TNG-style Type-7 Shuttlecraft and show-accurate uniforms based on the new show Star Trek: Discovery, are being given away for free through October 5th.
