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Star Trek Online adds a Discovery cast member this September
The Star Trek Online gaming universe is about to expand again this September 10 as the Star Trek MMORPG begins a new storyline, Star Trek Online: Awakening, which brings the timeline back to the 25th century, and introduces a holographic Lt. Commander Paul Stamets, voiced by Anthony Rapp from Star Trek: Discovery.
Following in the footsteps of last year's multi-part saga, Age of Discovery, which first introduced the characters and timeline of the current Star Trek: Discovery series into the game world, Awakening players will embark on a mission in 2410 to recover stolen Mycelial technology from J’Ula and the Klingons.
Captains (what players are called in the MMORPG game) will have to rely on the astromycology expertise of the sentient hologram version of Lt. Commander Stamets to track down J’Ula and repair the cataclysmic time rifts she has created within the Mycelial Network. If you listen to his advice on your patrols to repair time rifts, and succeed in a brand-new Task Force Operation, you just might reap the rewards of a special Mycelial Event that gives players a new T6 Elachi ship for completing missions.
We’re sure this reveal is incredibly exciting for Trek fans, but it’s also giving Rapp, a self-professed avid gamer, all of the feels to get to voice his character in this medium.
In an exclusive conversation with SYFY WIRE, Rapp admits that he helped nudge this turn of events along when he approached the Star Trek Online teams of Perfect World Entertainment Inc. and Cryptic Studios at last year's Official Star Trek Las Vegas Convention. “I went by their booth, and I was just like, ‘Hello, I would love to be a part of this, if it's possible at some point,’” he confesses. “I just wanted to put it out there just for the nerd factor alone.”
Unknown to Rapp, his co-stars Mary Wiseman (Tilly) and Jason Isaacs (Lorca) had already been drafted to voice their characters in Age of Discovery, and they reported soon after to Rapp how great the experience was. And so when the actor was officially approached to voice Stamets during the filming hiatus between Season 2 and Season 3, Rapp’s says his reaction was, "'Of course, yes! Whatever it is, I don't care. If it's even a scene!' It's just a really fun feather in my cap and exciting thing to be a part of.”
Stamets place is the story is obviously a lot more than a scene, but Rapp reveals he still hasn’t voiced his game arc yet, so even he’s still in the dark about what exactly his holographic doppelganger will be up to in this new adventure. “I don't know exactly how it's going to manifest, but the idea is the holographic personality is like a distillation of [Stamet's] personality. How it's been explained to me too is that it gains sentience as the story progresses, which is very intriguing.”
Rapp says his first recording session will be in two weeks. Meanwhile, production on Season 3 of Star Trek: Discovery is currently underway in Toronto. The last we saw Stamets in "Such Sweet Sorrow Part 2," he was injured but reunited with Dr. Culber (Wilson Cruz). However, the overall super ambigous season ending for the whole Discovery crew leaves much to be resolved in Season 3.
Rapp is sworn to silence but he did reflect back on his two seasons playing Stamets, and says what he most admires about him is, “His intelligence and loyalty and courage. It's very fun to play the part of him that gets very prickly and impatient with people. Because that prickliness and patience comes from a really high standard; it's just delicious to play that. I just feel like I was given such a gift in the first place of this brilliant, quirky, flinty scientist person, who also happens to be incredibly brave and really loyal and really dedicated. He's passionate about the work and passionate about the people, although not always warmly showing it," he laughs.
Star Trek Online: Awakening is free to play and beams down to PC on September 10 and releases on PlayStation®4 and Xbox One at a later date.
