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Timeline Change Imminent! This article contains information that no longer applies to the current version of Star Trek Online. It is provided only for historical purposes. |
Helna is a character created by Havraha for The Foundry. She originally appeared in the titular mission "To Helna and Back". Helna is a minor officer aboard every player's ship, and takes the role of the player's vessel's stellar cartographer.
With a bubbly personality, Helna is often friendly to a fault, and her personality can be grating to others not as cheerful. She's a devout follower of the Spirits, a belief many Rigelians share. She has been described as "a ditz", and the obvious occasionally eludes her when she is distracted. Although friendly, she is not a pacifist, and is willing to protect herself as well as organize uprisings against enemy groups. Despite being ditzy, Helna often appears incredibly sharp and capable when it comes to her profession, and has been known to converse colloquially and with "spunk" to her superior officers.
As a Rigelian, Helna is attracted to members of both sexes, as the five sexes of Rigelians often share both male and female characteristics. She has stated that stellar cartography is not as fascinating as quantum theory, although this may be reflective of how familiar she is with stellar cartography in her daily work.
In To Helna and Back, she is abducted while on shore leave to Risa, leading the player's vessel to investigate her disappearance and uncover a greater threat.
In Animations With Helna, she is used to create a holographic template of her abilities, which proceeds to run wild during a malfunction.
In Mudd's Weapons, she is one of four young officers who were acquainted with Hannibal Fredricks Mudd during his time at Starfleet Academy.
In Time the Ally on the Klingon Faction, Helna's mirror universe counterpart manipulates the player's character into allowing her permanent residence in the main universe, with a powerful species as a private army.
In Waiting for Wednesday, her fear of destroying the ship puts her at comical odds with her Captain. Later, the player must also guide Helna through a spiritual crisis.
In Slaves and Seductions by Kirkfat, her fortuitous temporary reassignment to xenobiology saves the player.
In Helna of Troy by Kirkfat, her assistance in locating an archaeological discovery results in her possession by the disembodied spirit of the demigod Helen of Troy, sparking a war between Hera and Zeus, ancient aliens of untold power, over Helen's fate.
In The Computer's Daughter by XR-377, her presence during a first contact meeting with the Kai results in uncomfortable references to Khan Noonien Singh that nearly derails the mission.
In Ghosts of War, Part IV by NCC-89471, during an away mission, the player discovers Helna's body among several others that have apparently been preserved in permafrost for tens of thousands of years. This is evidence of a temporal paradox in play, as Helna is in fact safe and sound aboard the player's ship (and remains so for the rest of the Ghosts of War mission series). Concerned that Helna might react badly to encountering her own corpse, the player orders the ship's chief medical officer not to reveal its discovery to her.
In Defense Mechanisms by NCC-89471, Helna is offered, and (with the player captain's approval) accepts, reassignment to Starbase Magellan, the headquarters of the Alliance Exploration Initiative. (This is not a permanent transfer; Helna remains officially attached to the player's ship, but is now stationed aboard Magellan to support the AEI's Astrometrics department while the ship is on missions that don't require her presence.)
Notes[]
- Helna studied astrometric sciences and graduated from Starfleet Academy in 2408.
- During her first year at the Academy, Helna was a frequent, unwitting victim of a series of practical jokes played upon her by a Cadet First Class who is now a Starfleet Intelligence agent code-named Black Snow. As a method of testing her exceptional psionic abilities, the future Black Snow made mental suggestions to Helna on several occasions, to take actions Helna would not otherwise have done of her own accord - in some cases, getting Helna into trouble. (Black Snow never admitted this to anyone until 2409, when she told the story to Romulan Republic officers on Nivay IV who were relying on her abilities to help carry out their mission.)
- Helna worked in the Xenobiology Lab at Starfleet Academy during her training, minoring in the subject.
- During the outage of The Foundry following the Season Four update in Star Trek Online, Helna became the symbol of the Foundry community's campaign for the developers to get the Foundry working again, through the use of the hash tag #freeHelna on Twitter.
- Helna is the first known player created Foundry character to be made into a Duty Officer within Star Trek Online, and as such is the first Foundry-based NPC whose popularity is acknowledged by Cryptic. It is rumored that she can be acquired by completing a sequence of Colonial chain missions that only take place in the Arucanis Arm. She is a rare quality Astrometrics Scientist.
- In August of 2012, the character creation screen of Star Trek Online was updated to include artwork of NPCs demonstrating each profession. Ensign Helna was added as the Rigelian on the left in the Science Officer image.
- Seeing that the Helna character had recently fallen into disuse by authors (not having made any appearances during the current in-game year 2410), author NCC-89471 used the Alliance Exploration Initiative (a then-newly established Foundry community anthology) as a vehicle to reintroduce Helna by semi-permanently transferring her to the AEI as a recurring secondary member of its crew, while also retaining the freedom for her to return to the player's ship for future missions.
Federation Foundry Mission Appearances[]
- “To Helna and Back” by Havraha
- “Animations With Helna” by Havraha
- [[Foundry:Rema Donna (No results)|“Rema Donna”]] by Havraha (cameo)
- [[Foundry:Waiting for Wednesday (No results)|“Waiting for Wednesday”]] by Havraha
- [[Foundry:Monolith (No results)|“Monolith”]] by Havraha
- [[Foundry:The Computer's Daughter (No results)|“The Computer's Daughter”]] by XR-377 (cameo)
- [[Foundry:Slaves and Seductions (No results)|“Slaves and Seductions”]] by Kirkfat (cameo)
- [[Foundry:Helna of Troy (No results)|“Helna of Troy”]] by Kirkfat
- [[Foundry:Fek'Ihri Invasion (No results)|“Fek'Ihri Invasion”]] by Napoleon BlownApart (cameo)
- [[Foundry:Staaaahl (No results)|“Staaaahl”]] by CerberusFilms (cameo)
- [[Foundry:Life is But a Dream (No results)|“Life is But a Dream”]] by willv (cameo)
- “Memory Lane” by Bazag (cameo)
- "Ghosts of War, Part IV" by NCC-89471 (cameo)
- "Defense Mechanisms" by NCC-89471 (cameo)
Klingon Foundry Mission Appearances[]
- [[Foundry:Time the Ally (No results)|“Time the Ally”]] by Havraha
- [[Foundry:Time the Traitor (No results)|“Time the Traitor”]] by Havraha
- “The Song of Circe's Demise” by Tucana (cameo)
Romulan Foundry Mission Appearances[]
- Helna does not appear in any Romulan Republic Foundry missions. However, she is mentioned in dialogue by Starfleet Intelligence agent Black Snow at one point during "Valley of the Shadow III" (for Federation-allied Romulans) and "[Rom] VotS3: Fear No Evil" (the KDF-allied version of the same mission).
- The aforementioned Federation mission "Defense Mechanisms" includes dialogue options for allied Romulan Republic players. No mention of Helna is made in Romulan dialogue until the mission's final map, in which the player briefly meets Helna after she has transferred (again, non-permanently) from a Starfleet vessel.
Appearances in other media[]
External links[]
Helna has her own profiles on various social networks.