Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is a Simulation Game released by Interplay on September 12, 1997 for PC, with a Mac port released the following October. This game, released at the dawn of the 3D Acceleration era, featured much improved graphics and far better space battles. Moreover, it included live action cutscenes with several Star Trek actors (including William Shatner, George Takei and Walter Koenig) playing their characters. There were a lot of similarities between this game and its console forerunner (the character names were mostly the same, for instance), though it was quite different structurally. An expansion pack, Chekov's Lost Missions, was released the following year.
The game had a spiritual successor, Star Trek: Klingon Academy, released in 2000. Interplay were apparently planning a true sequel which would have taken place during the era of Star Trek: The Next Generation, though they lost their Star Trek license before they could do any serious work on the game. Several leftover ideas, such as ship classes, wound up in the 2004 starfighter-sim Star Trek Shattered Universe, which was also to be published by Interplay much earlier than released.
See also Star Trek: Starfleet Academy – Starship Bridge Simulator for the earlier console game also by Interplay.
Provides examples of:
- The Ace: Discussed and defied in Captain Kirk's introductory speech, in which he explains that individual talents are useless if people can't pool those talents."It is often said that Command School cadets are the best of the best, and it's also said that I commanded the best. The best ship and the best crew. The truth is there's no such thing as "the best". One ship may be brand-new state-of-the-art, but it also has countless bugs to work out. Another ship may be a hundred years old and shake like a rattle, but the bugs are long gone, and that's why she's a hundred years old. The same goes for your crew. They may be technical wizards, but if they can't work as a team, their skills are useless to you."
- A God Am I: In an early mission in the PC version, you come across an alien cult leader who has gained immense psychic powers from a close encounter with the Galactic Barrier. As you can probably guess, his message isn't one of peace and enlightenment.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Surprisingly, mostly averted in the mission "The Ultimate Klingon", where the Klingon Automated Command Unit One seems to be functioning just fine, unlike the M5 computer it was based on. Unfortunately, this is bad news for you, since you have to fight it. You can defeat it the conventional way, or reason with it by pointing out that, if it succeeds in its mission and is made standard throughout the Klingon fleet, then it will make Klingon warriors obsolete, and they will now end up dying of old age in their beds rather than gloriously in battle. The computer, having been programmed with Klingon values, reacts badly to this and immediately self-destructs.
- Ain't No Rule: They never fixed the Loophole Abuse that Captain Kirk used to win the Kobayashi Maru.
- And Starring: George Takei receives a "special appearance by" credit separate from William Shatner and Walter Koenig.
- Artistic License – Physics:
- If your impulse engines are knocked out, you will stop instantly instead of, you know, continuing with the same velocity for eternity or until an outside force changes it. This can lead to trouble since enemy ships are likewise afflicted; you'll be in close pursuit, shoot them, and then crash into them since you were going full speed and they stopped with about a picosecond for you to notice and swerve.
- In the same vein, the fact that starships handle basically like airplanes in their ability to change direction. This may be an Acceptable Break from Reality, since few would want to fly a starship that moves realistically.
- Batman Gambit:
- Sulu and Aex Rotherot come up with a way to flush out the saboteur after Forrester's Kobayashi Maru stunt.
- Kirk pretends to join the Vanguard in order to figure out where they've planted bombs across the Federation.
- Big Good: Captain Kirk is this for the entire Federation, natch. Sulu also serves as this beside Commandant Rotherot.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Faith Gage frames Robin Brady for her terrorist activities.
- Blue Blood: M'Giia is an Andorian noblewoman and the daughter of a prominent ambassador.
- The Captain: Forrester is this for the Cadets and their simulated crew.
- The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: The Kobayashi Maru simulation will keep spawning Klingon ships until you eventually get destroyed, thus technically also making this an in-universe example.
- Costume Inertia: Sulu has been promoted to captain by this point and is set to take command of the the USS Excelsior once he ushers Forrester's class to graduation. However, he continues to wear the insignia of a commander and the gold shirt and accents of an engineering-division officer.
- Damage Control: One of the game mechanics allows you to divert repair teams to prioritize different bits of Subsystem Damage.
- David Versus Goliath: One mission pits you in a Constitution-class against a much larger Klingon Bertaa-class heavy cruiser — and you have to win three times. The first time, you get a pair of Miranda-class ships as backup; the second time, you only have one Miranda-class helping you; the third time, you're on your own.
- Disobeyed Orders, Not Punished: In your second mission, Rotherot orders you to destroy a radioactive buoy — except, as a cultural artifact, it's not supposed to be destroyed. If you refrain from destroying it...nothing happens to you. Rotherot even admits that the order was an error, and a good officer shouldn't just blindly follow orders.
- Failure Is the Only Option: About halfway, you are forced to play through the famed no-win Kobayashi Maru simulation. In a subversion, it is possible to win in both editions, via a cheat code in the console versions, and making exactly the right story choices in the PC version.
- False Flag Operation: A complicated example. Bicea is destroyed by a cybership but the Vanguard take advantage of this to blame the Klingons.
- Fantastic Racism:
- The Vanguard are a human-centric terrorist organization that considers other races to be inferior.
- Frank Malan is also extremely xenophobic. He's Vanguard too. So is Faith Gage.
- M'Giia vehemently hates the Klingons due to being a Sole Survivor.
- Fragile Speedster: The Oberth-class is the most maneuverable Starfleet ship you can command on a mission, but it's lightly armed with relatively weak shields and hull strength.
- Friendly Fireproof: Averted. If you don't believe it, try randomly firing at a target where a friendly ship is in the way. Or worse, just try just firing at a starbase for fun. Commandant Rotherot (or Sulu, Chekov, or Kirk) will not be amused.note
- Hate Sink: Frank Malan is the absolute worst combination of The Bully and The Rival.
- Interquel: The PC version is this to Star Trek V: The Final Frontier and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Notably, it has Sulu newly promoted to captain, and working at the academy while he waits for the USS Excelsior to have its failed transwarp drive torn out and replaced with a more conventional model.
- Live-Action Cutscene: The PC version was one of a host of games in the mid-late 90s which used live-action actors in the cutscenes.
- Matryoshka Object: Chekov uses this as a metaphor during a Mission Briefing to suggest that there's more going on than there initially seems.
- Meaningful Name: Malan is named for the Prime Minister of South Africa who introduced apartheid.
- My Nayme Is: The chief instructor in the earlier console title, Alex Rotherot, becomes "Aex" Rotherot in the PC version. And this isn't one of the game's many typos — the actor in the live-action cutscenes always pronounces his name as this too.
- Obviously Evil: Frank Malan is a bigoted bully that immediately takes a dislike to Forrester.
- Recycled Soundtrack: The game borrows a few cues that its composer, Ron Jones, previously wrote when he was working on Star Trek: The Next Generation.
- Red Alert: This is actually the name of one of the tracks from the PC version's soundtrack. Naturally, it tends to play when the shooting starts.
- Right-Wing Militia Fanatic: The Vanguard as as close to this as can exist in a utopia like the Federation.
- The Rival: Frank Malan is this for the PC, Forrester.
- Rival Turned Evil: Frank Malan goes from being a Jerkass to actively working as a terrorist against the Federation.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: One mission pits Forrester against a duplicate of himself who's out to avenge his uncle, who was killed in battle against the Klingons.
- Rouge Angles of Satin: The PC version is full of typos. Fortunately, none of them are so bad that they make the game any harder to complete, but it's surprising to see so many in a game made by a major developer.
- See the Invisible: Your fourth mission requires you to locate a cloaked Romulan ship. Sturek comes up with a plan that takes advantage of the trace gases throughout space, as the Romulan cloaking device would mask those as well. Two Miranda-class ships, the Alexandria and the Rutherford, help you by screening out sensor anomalies.
- Self-Deprecation: One of the training simulations is a partially disguised recreation of the Battle of the Mutara Nebula in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, which Kirk sheepishly admits begins with the lesson that when a ship is approaching you and refusing to communicate, you are supposed to take a defensive posture and raise your shields.
- Sequel Hook: During the course of the PC version, you meet Chekov as he is working on some new simulation scenarios for the Academy. These eventually form the basis of the Chekov's Lost Missions expansion pack.
- Shout-Out: The Kobayashi Maru scenario takes some cues from the 1989 Pocket novel The Kobayashi Maru, including its depiction of Kirk's "unique" solution. Also, in a scenario where you fail by accidentally (or maybe intentionally) firing on a friendly ship and destroying it, Kirk will reflect to you about the events in the episode where the Enterprise destroyed fellow starship Excalibur. Although it wasn't his fault since he wasn't the one in control of his ship at the time, he still carries that memory to this very day.
- Shrinking Violet: Robin Brady may be brilliant as The Engineer of The Squad, but he's inherently quiet and diffident when people try to talk to him.
- Sidetracked by the Analogy: When asked why they were using such old simulations (including Kirk's Kobayashi Maru simulation complete with his cheat), Checov gives a Russian parable about a wolf eating an old man. Forrester clearly has no idea what the hell he means when it was just, "they're still good."
- Smug Snake: Frank Malan is an arrogant Fantastic Racism bigot with absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
- Sole Survivor: M'Giia is this on Lursen Prime, when the colony was wiped out by Klingons.
- Space Cadet Academy: The game features the eponymous institution.
- Unexploded Military Ordnance: Your first mission is to destroy two minefields from a long-forgotten war."Captain's Log, stardate 2957.5. Weapons of war do not recognize truces, cease-fires, or peace treaties. They are capable of killing millennia after their wars have been forgotten. Our mission involves these weapons. We must neutralize several dangerous minefields that are threatening Federation space."
- Upper-Class Twit: Geoffrey Corin is a rich kid from Alpha Centauri who can be arrogant and insensitive.
- What the Hell, Player?: If you fire weapons at the starbase in the PC version, the mission instantly aborts and Rotherot chews you out, saying that "Starfleet is an institution for adults, not children.". If it's during one of the missions that is given by Kirk, Sulu, or Chekov, they will also chew you out in their own way.