When their game is interrupted by a call to report to the bridge, Kirk and Spock head there, but Kirk briefly runs back to the chess game he is losing and moves one of Spock's pieces! Apparently, when all else fails, Kirk still cheats, just like at the the Kobayahsi Maru simulation.

 

   The Enterprise receives a distress call from Helios Station, also known as Helios 1, a space station in an unnamed binary star system. The station may be named for the Helios-1 and Helios-2 spacecraft launched by NASA in 1974 in cooperation with West Germany; placed in a heliocentric orbit, they measured the solar processes of Earth's sun for over 10 years.

    A binary star system is a solar system with two suns orbiting a common center of gravity.
 
After receiving the station's distress signal, Kirk and Spock leave the bridge on a turbolift and head directly to the shuttle bay. But they left Scotty on the bridge...and yet he is somehow in the shuttle bay ahead of them when they arrive! Scotty also briefly makes the same argument to Kirk that he just heard Spock make to him on the bridge, that he (Scotty) and a few recruits could handle this mission without him.

 

Notice that many of the doorways on the Helios Station have a triangular design similar to the Vulcan IDIC symbol (Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations). A more direct symbology is also seen on the floor of the station's turbolift. The symbol also appears in various locations in the base on New Vulcan.

 

Kirk performs his patented drop-and-roll maneuver to avoid the solar blasts during the solar collector sequence. It's also seen occasionally in later portions of the game.
 
Kirk and Spock meet the commander of Helios Station, a Vulcan woman named T'Mar, who has known Spock since childhood. Her father, Surok, was also a mentor to Spock in his youth. It's unknown if this is the same T'Mar seen as a police officer in the original timeline novel Crisis on Vulcan.
 
The Helios Machine is capable of capturing energy from a sun and using that energy to aid in terraforming a planet (in this case, New Vulcan), which also means it can be used as a weapon. This is somewhat similar to the Genesis Device, seen in the original timeline in The Wrath of Khan. Scotty compares its power to that of red matter, the artificial substance that destroyed Vulcan in "The Vengeance of Nero". Another unintended side-effect of the Helios Machine is that it may cause rips nearby in the fabric of space-time.
 
The tricorders used in the game look similar to the original series tricorders and like the one seen in "Operation Annihilate" Part 1, rather than the more unusual-looking ones seen in "Return of the Archons" Part 1 and "The Redshirt's Tale".
 
Apparently Kirk had his phaser set to kill when he shoots the first "disturbed" Vulcan on New Vulcan. He then recommends that he and Spock set phasers for stun. As a Starfleet officer, why would he have had his set to kill in the first place?
 
Spock says "Osavensu" upon encountering Surok on New Vulcan. According to some unofficial fan sources on the web, osavensu is Vulcan for "honored teacher".
 
The game marks the first appearance of a rifle called a Vulcan pulse cannon.
 
The aliens that invade Federation space through the space rift are the reptilian Gorn, seen in the classic original series episode "Arena". The video game reveals much more about the Gorn, including that they are from another galaxy and are made up of several different species. The original timeline implied the Gorn were native to the Milky Way Galaxy (some expanded universe sources citing specifically the Beta Quadrant).
 
The Starfleet crewmembers infected with the Gorn pathogen often try to warn Kirk and the others away, even while rushing to attack them. This is similar to the actions of those infected by the neural parasites found on Deneva in the original Star Trek episode, "Operation--Annihilate!"
 
Kirk and Spock make use of portable transporters during the game. This is the first appearance of such a device in the Kelvin Timeline ST universe; portable transporters have appeared in video games and novels of the original timeline.
 
During the battle against the Gorn on the Enterprise, Kirk is surprised when a Gorn disappears using a personalized cloaking mechanism. Yet, he had already seen the Gorn use personalized cloaking earlier in the game!
 
When Spock informs Kirk he is attempting a mind meld with the Gorn lieutenant, Kirk responds, "I know. It's not my first mind meld, Spock." Kirk is referring to the mind meld performed on him directly by Spock-Prime in "The Vengeance of Nero".
 
Spock implies that the Gorn have conquered their own entire galaxy.
 
After passing through the rift, Chekov is left in command of the Enterprise for the first time in the Kelvin Timeline as Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Sulu head to the surface of the planet Lymax in a shuttlecraft.
 
During his and Spock's trek through the underground tunnels, Kirk remarks, "How did anyone ever get by without tricorders?" This is obviously a play on modern day comments about technology such as microwave ovens, cell phones, and ATM machines.
 
Aspects of the Gorn champion, as well as certain moments of Kirk's battle against it, are reminiscent of scenes from the classic Star Trek episode, "Arena".
 
At one point, Scotty refers to the Gorn as "greenies".
 
At one point during the Gorn takeover of the Enterprise, Dr. McCoy exclaims, "Damn it, this is a hospital, not a shooting range!" as an expansion on his own usual remarks of "I'm a doctor, not a..."
 
The Enterprise is badly damaged in the conflict with the Gorn, including Kirk remote piloting a shuttlecraft into the bridge in order to wipe out the Gorn command crew that had taken it over. It seems as if the Enterprise is taking much more serious damage in this new timeline under Kirk than it generally did in the original timeline stories. 

 

At the end of the game, Admiral Pike orders the Enterprise to Nibiru, where we find it at the beginning of Star Trek Into Darkness. But this order also occurs at the end of "Countdown to Darkness" Part 4! It might be possible to accept the order as it appears in "Countdown to Darkness" Part 4 and assume that the mission to Nibiru is delayed due to the reception of the distress signal from Helios Station at the beginning of this video game. Although the Enterprise is now so badly damaged, I don't know how Starfleet could legitimately order it on any mission until it spends a fairly lengthy amount of time in a repair facility.

 

Memorable Dialog

 

since when am I predictable?.wav

I never concede.wav

the more prudent choice.wav

always makes me nervous.wav

try to live long and prosper.wav

whose idea was this anyway?.wav

I'm glad I'm not a Vulcan.wav

there are few that you do not like, Captain.wav

are you sure that's within protocol?.wav

now there's two of you guys driving me nuts.wav

just some Vulcan problems.wav

they call themselves the Gorn.wav

the usual course.wav

I would assume she has disobeyed your request.wav

some of us have to earn our way.wav

Starfleet's rising stars.wav

kind of like Spock.wav

your keen sense of the obvious.wav

glass half full.wav

voodoo mind meld.wav

she canna take any more of this.wav

I'm a doctor, not a covert agent.wav

you can be a bit of a downer.wav

how did anyone ever get by without tricorders?.wav

how about a little optimism.wav

you didn't happen to sneak a photon torpedo into this place.wav

Sulu's fencing stories.wav

the lecture is not helping.wav

this is a hospital, not a shooting range.wav

I hate it when you say that.wav

usually your plans involve mindlessly running into danger.wav

way less Gorn.wav

 

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