Mirror Of Discovery Is The Middle Chapter In Star Trek Online's Building Drama

Last week, Cryptic Studios and Perfect World Entertainment announced the next installment in the Star Trek Online Discovery storyline. Titled Rise of Discovery, the third update in the storyline offers players a look at the history of one of the more infamous characters in the Discovery series, Captain Gabriel Lorca.

As with the previous installments, Age of Discovery and Mirror of Discovery, this installment provides players the opportunity to get to know one of the show's characters a little better. As cool as that is, you can't help but feel like they're building up to something here. With that in mind, we thought now might be a good time to take a look back at Mirror of Discovery -- for those that may have not delved into it yet. (If you still haven't checked out Age of Discovery, we took a look at it a while back.)

In Mirror of Discovery, it seemed like the STO team was planning to gather the biggest baddies from 2255 to the 25th Century. They started by bringing the Klingon J’Ula forward, ready to continue what she and her brother started so long ago.

Mirror of Discovery brought another piece of the past to Star Trek Online when the infamous Captain Killy -- the Mirror Universe's version of Ensign Tilly -- arrived in the 25th century. As story-based updates go, this one was fairly short, consisting of just two missions. But it did the job of introducing the player to Killy and establishing her as a continuing threat to the game's present. From the outset of the first mission in this part of the storyline, the player was interacting with Killy, and even spending time on board the Mirror Universe's version of the Discovery.

The missions also brought another important "character" from the series to Star Trek Online -- the planet Pahvo. The Mirror Universe's Discovery and her crew arrived in the Prime universe via a portal near Pahvo, bringing their own Klingons with them and attracting the attention of the Federation. Of course, by the time the player arrived in Pahvo space, there are Klingons to fight in space and not only will they board the Discovery, but they will also visit the surface of the planet.

Mirror of Discovery, like Age of Discovery, seems to be setting up a plot point that will pay out somewhere down the line -- just how far down the line I don't know, but I suspect we won't be seeing the big payoff in the next update. It seems Cryptic is playing the long game here, and if the first two installments are anything to go by, whatever they have planned is going to be big. You really can't get that many villains in one spot and not have something major happen.

Whatever it is, we're definitely ready to see what happens next. And, if for some reason you haven't already checked out the Mirror of Discovery missions, go ahead and do it. You'll be primed for the next update.