STO: Both Worlds: Battle of Wolf 359

[Markonian]

Star Trek Online has released its 31st season update, Both Worlds.
The update includes a battle re-enactment for 2411-era Khitomer Alliance starship captains. The training scenario recreates the Battle of Wolf 359.
In addition, you can visit the Wolf 359 System in STO. With Both Worlds, the Wolf 359 Memorial Station has been added. The station includes docking ports with 31 shipwrecks from the battle.

What I find interesting:
• We get to see all 40 ships that took part in the battle.
• The ships and their classes are inspired by the unofficial, unlicensed, fan-made Wolf 359 Project.

In the reenactment, five players fly their starships into the historic battle. To keep things somewhat era-appropriate, instead of seeing the players' ships, each of the five ships takes on the "role" of a historic Battle of Wolf 359 vessel. It is only the appearance of the ship that's changes, not it's abilities. This led YouTube Michael Plant to discover that the Galaxy-class saucer separation function works on some the other classes!
Specifically, Constellation and Nebula class. YouTube video link for Nebula class saucer separation:

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And I just tried it with the Cheyenne class!

Technically, this is a gaming topic. But because the Battle of Wolf 359 from "The Best of Both Worlds" and "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II" is to pivotal among TNG episodes, I thought Tingers would like to discuss this.

Does anyone of you play STO?

 

[NCC-73515]

Started twice and dropped it both times cause it's too tedious. Looks great, but not a game for my patience

 

[Hawku]

This was a lot of fun. Wish you could fly your own ship for it, but it was cool to see the sequence of events during the battle, including Sisko's progress and Picard's dialogue.

 

[David cgc]

I was surprised by the saucer separation working on other ships and wondered if it might point to some plan for that function to be more widespread (either an abandoned idea, or one for the future), but then I remembered that STO ships are aggressively modular in every possible respect, for customization and resource-sharing. There was a whole video on the nuts-and-bolts of the system. I guess the code is just very liberal about sectioning a ship into its standard components, grabbing whatever piece corresponds to the saucer and moving it away from the rest of the model. I wonder if the Prometheus-class version of the feature works, too, since that had three variants depending on which section the player wanted to fly after separation.

 

[somebuddyX]

I like the idea of Online but I don't really want to play it. Or if I did I don't know if I'd want to do missions. I'm playing GTA 5 and i just like grabbing a plane and seeing what dumb shit I can do with it. If I could grab the Enterprise and crash it in San Francisco Bay I would sign up this week.
I do like Online's lore a lot though, mostly when they do something new with some element, like bringing in Mirror Wesley or the 2400 Jem'Hadar.

 

[Markonian]

Oooh, I’m gonna try to fly a Prometheus at Wolf 359 tonight and see what happens when I vector my multi.
EDIT: no animation on the Niagara-class when engaging MVAM.

This is the list of 36 ships as per STO :
https://x.com/tumerboy/status/1749953547419148348?s=46&t=WH2XBVE_jZUsA7VIk1399g

 

[Markonian]

Battle of Wolf 359 starship size chart!
Art by Pundus.
X link: https://twitter.com/trekonlinegame/status/1752013831058972826/photo/1

 

[Dukhat]

Oooh, I’m gonna try to fly a Prometheus at Wolf 359 tonight and see what happens when I vector my multi.
EDIT: no animation on the Niagara-class when engaging MVAM.

This is the list of 36 ships as per STO :
https://x.com/tumerboy/status/1749953547419148348?s=46&t=WH2XBVE_jZUsA7VIk1399g
View attachment 38364

Battle of Wolf 359 starship size chart!
Art by Pundus.
X link: https://twitter.com/trekonlinegame/status/1752013831058972826/photo/1
View attachment 38374

There are several mistakes in that chart.

1. Many registries of TNG-era ships are too low (although I don’t play STO so I don’t know how they manage things like this)
2. The USS Gage’s class is wrong.
3. The USS Hood could not have participated in the battle and/or gotten destroyed.
4. The USS Republic could not have participated in the battle and/or gotten destroyed.
5. The USS Roosevelt’s class is wrong.
6. The USS Tolstoy’s class is wrong.
7. The USS T’Pau has a name conflict with the T’Pau from Unification, unless they are meant to be two separate ships.
8. The registry for the Nebula Melbourne is wrong.

 

[Markonian]

Very good observations!
At least some of the changes are intentional. For instance, the Wolf 359 Project postulated that Bill Krause's Essex-class USS Endurance was at the battle. But STO doesn't have that ship from the SOTL calendar, so they kept name + registry but swapped the class.
1. Some TNG-era ships may have inherited both name and registry from an earlier predecessor. In STO, most of the ships from the Battle of the Binary Stars were replaced by ships with the same name, class and registry, for instance.
2. The Gage didn't make it onscreen. I didn't even know that - I'm so used to the ships list from Ex Astris Scientia.
3. Yeah, I wonder why STO didn't include the USS Endeavour instead? Apparently, the Hood is meant to be the only survivor of the battle. Strange it wouldn't be mentioned whenever the ship pops up in TNG/LDS?
4. You are right! According to DS9 "Valiant", the Republic had not left the Sol system for decades. The T.S. Republic NAR-1371 was included to represent the wrecked Constitution II-class at the battle.
5. Presumably, STO ignored the Excelsior-class Roosevelt from the Star Trek Encyclopedia.
6. According to Memory Alpha, there is no canon class for the Tolstoy.
7. The T'Pau gave me pause as well. Probably one is a rando civilian ship and the other Starfleet proper.
8. The P.C.U. Melbourne was re-registered to resolve the continuity gaffe by the DS9 people. Personally, I'm fine with replacement ships carrying the same registry number.

 

[Tuskin38]

There are several mistakes in that chart.

1. Many registries of TNG-era ships are too low (although I don’t play STO so I don’t know how they manage things like this)

STO's Wolf 359 is inspired by the Wolf 359 fan project
The names, registries and classes (for the ships not already established canon) come from that.
https://www.wolf359project.com/

With STO making substitutes for classes not already in the game. I.e.The USS Sha Ka Ree in the 'book' is a Shangri-La class, but STO doesn't have that so it was replaced with the Vesper, which is a TNG Era Connie variant.

I know at least one ship in the book and STO, the USS Righteous comes from Beta canon. It's the hero ship in that FMV Borg game with Q.

from the Battle of the Binary Stars were replaced by ships with the same name, class and registry, for instance.

No they weren't. Those images in those blogs are not in-universe, they're just examples of a notble ship of the class.

 

[David cgc]

The STO depiction of the battle is heavily based on "We Have Engaged the Borg: An Oral History of Wolf 359," a fanfic project that was completed last year. There's a thread on it in the Fan Fic forum, with links to the completed eBook and some discussion. I just asked about the Republic being wrecked in it, myself, despite being established as the Academy's official training ship in an episode that took place years later (it was an oversight, but perhaps it's Academy tradition to name their permanent training ship Republic, and Jake, not being in Starfleet, wasn't aware it had been replaced with a newer one).

 

[Tuskin38]

There are several mistakes in that chart.

1. Many registries of TNG-era ships are too low (although I don’t play STO so I don’t know how they manage things like this)
2. The USS Gage’s class is wrong.
3. The USS Hood could not have participated in the battle and/or gotten destroyed.
4. The USS Republic could not have participated in the battle and/or gotten destroyed.
5. The USS Roosevelt’s class is wrong.
6. The USS Tolstoy’s class is wrong.
7. The USS T’Pau has a name conflict with the T’Pau from Unification, unless they are meant to be two separate ships.
8. The registry for the Nebula Melbourne is wrong.

2. The Gage was never seen on screen, it has no canon class
3. Nothing in canon prevents it from being there.
4. The Republic has been explained above by David cgc, it was on oversight on the author that STO copied.
5. The USS Roosevelt never appeared on screen, it doesn't have a canon class
6. The USS Tolstoy never appeared on screen, it doesn't have a canon class
7. The T'Pau in Unification is a civilian vessel part of the Vulcan merchant fleet. It doesn't have a prefix.

This is the list of 36 ships as per STO :
https://x.com/tumerboy/status/1749953547419148348?s=46&t=WH2XBVE_jZUsA7VIk1399g
View attachment 38364

The Saratoga and Ahwahnee are being removed from the museum due to continuity errors
https://twitter.com/Tumerboy/status/1750340083767804403

Though I'm not sure why he needs to remove the Ahwahnee, just say it was retired later on and put in the museum after that.

The Hood is also there for the same reason. It participated in the battle and survived and was later donated to the museum after it was retired.

 

[Markonian]

There's a thread on it in the Fan Fic forum, with links to the completed eBook and some discussion. I just asked about the Republic being wrecked in it, myself, despite being established as the Academy's official training ship in an episode that took place years later (it was an oversight, but perhaps it's Academy tradition to name their permanent training ship Republic, and Jake, not being in Starfleet, wasn't aware it had been replaced with a newer one).

Thank you!
That leads me to another oddity - the USS Ahwahnee NCC-73620 is a wreck at Memorial Station but was in service (presumably salvaged and repaired) after the battle. Perhaps both the Republic and the Ahwahnee were both salvaged and repaired?

The Saratoga and Ahwahnee are being removed from the museum due to continuity errors
https://twitter.com/Tumerboy/status/1750340083767804403

Though I'm not sure why he needs to remove the Ahwahnee, just say it was retired later on and put in the museum after that.

The Hood is also there for the same reason. It participated in the battle and survived and was later donated to the museum after it was retired.

Oh no! I'm disappointed to see ships removed without replacing them with something else.

 

[Dukhat]

2. The Gage was never seen on screen, it has no canon class
3. Nothing in canon prevents it from being there.
4. The Republic has been explained above by David cgc, it was on oversight on the author that STO copied.
5. The USS Roosevelt never appeared on screen, it doesn't have a canon class
6. The USS Tolstoy never appeared on screen, it doesn't have a canon class
7. The T'Pau in Unification is a civilian vessel part of the Vulcan merchant fleet. It doesn't have a prefix.

This chart isn't 'canon.' Canon has nothing to do with it. The chart was made in an effort to have a listing of all 40 participants for a non-canon videogame. Since whoever made the chart made sure that the ships seen on screen were listed, and then extrapolated the rest, I pointed out that there was conflicting information listed in an official Paramount publication. No, they don't have to follow that information, but since the idea behind the chart was to fill it with as much known info as possible, then there is nothing wrong with me pointing out that there was official info out there that they either weren't aware of or chose to ignore.

As for the Hood, we have evidence in dialogue that of the 40 ships, 39 of them were completely destroyed. Since the Ahwahnee was known to have survived and was in service during Picard's tachyon grid, then the Hood (which was also still in service after the battle) could not possibly have been one of the 40 ships.

 

[Tuskin38]

This led YouTube Michael Plant to discover that the Galaxy-class saucer separation function works on some the other classes!

This doesn't mean the ships can saucer separate in-universe. I see you already added it to Memory-Beta, which you really shouldn't have because it's not evidence they have the capability.

In the TFO you're still flying your starship, you just have a holographic disguise over top of it making it look like one of the ships that was at Wolf 359. So if you're flying a ship that can use Saucer/Chevron Separation and the disguise you have has a 'saucer' part, it will play the separation animation.

 

[Markonian]

Most Starfleet ships of that era are likely to be separable - we can see the seamline on the Cheyenne, for instance.
Either way, the separation of these classes can be seen right on screen when engaging saucer separation.

 

[Tuskin38]

Either way, the separation of these classes can be seen right on screen when engaging saucer separation.

Because of an oversight. It’s not intended behaviour, which you can tell because the power breaks, it doesn’t spawn the saucer pet.

That’s why Saucer Separation is disabled on the Binary Stars TFO.

this is not proof these ships can separate in-universe.

 

[Markonian]

Plenty of Star Trek content only exists because of oversight, like having two USS Melbournes at the battle.
It's on screen, it exists.

 

[evilchumlee]

Plenty of Star Trek content only exists because of oversight, like having two USS Melbournes at the battle.
It's on screen, it exists.

Easily explainable. One of them is the Federation starship, another was reinforcements from the US Navy.

 

[Tuskin38]

Plenty of Star Trek content only exists because of oversight, like having two USS Melbournes at the battle.
It's on screen, it exists.

This isn’t one of these things. It’s just a game bug not lore