War is coming, and recruits are needed for the fight. It’s time to sign up to protect the galaxy from the Iconians.

Starfleet, the Klingon Defense Force, and the Romulan Republic have all kicked up their recruiting efforts. New captains in any of these factions will be known as Delta Recruits, and they bring with them the knowledge and capability needed to see to the future of the galaxy.

There will never been a better time to start playing Star Trek Online than during the Delta Recruitment event, which runs from April 2nd to May 21st. Characters made during this time will be Delta Recruits, and they will earn a host of new benefits and rewards to aid them in their leveling experience.

Delta Recruits are specifically designed to rapidly close the gap that exists between new characters and characters that have been in Star Trek Online for years. It’s the most new-player friendly the game has been in almost two years, and the perfect time to join the community of Star Trek Online.

Delta Recruits have a secondary responsibility, and that is to prepare themselves, their crews, and their entire factions for the coming Iconian War. A mysterious benefactor, an experienced captain traveling back in time, will contact all Delta Recruits during their faction’s tutorial and inform them of the opportunities not to be missed during their career. Each faction’s own temporal agency can confirm that what this person said is true, and will guide them using the Delta Recruit window, a new UI element that appears near the Mission Tracker.

Delta Recruits will be playing a parallel story to that of their chosen faction. They have a list of goals that they can achieve at any time, and completing these goals will see them rewarded with equipment, Marks, and other rewards beneficial not just to the Delta Recruit, but to all characters on the same account. Completing the story arcs of your chosen faction will reward you with a unique Starship Trait for all characters on your account: Temporal Insight. This trait will proc a Damage Immunity when you use any Hull Heal on your starship.

Delta Recruits can only be created during the Delta Recruit event. These recruits can be recognized by the Delta Symbol (∆) next to their names. All Delta Recruits will have an inherent bonus trait during the Delta Recruit Event of generating Dilithium Ore upon defeating enemies, a bonus which extends to your entire group. This trait will only be available during this event and will be gone once the Delta Recruitment event ends, so gather your Dilithium Ore while you can!

Additional rewards are gained by leveling up, playing through story content up through the Breen story arc, and finding special Delta Recruit objectives on certain mission maps. Many of the same things that players do while levelling their characters will earn Delta Recruits improved rewards!

Finally, during the first six weeks of the seven-week Delta Recruit event, there will be server wide goals that only Delta Recruits can contribute to, but by accomplishing these goals, they unlock bonuses for the entire server for the whole of the next week of the event! For example, in the first week of the event, every Episode First Run that Delta Recruits complete will count towards the goal. How many First Runs they complete will determine the bonus of the week-long event running in Week 2. You will have either a 1.5x XP bonus, a 2x XP bonus, or possibly even a 2.5x XP bonus for the entire week!

There’s far too many bonuses and rewards available to list them all here, so get ready to make your Delta Recruit (all accounts are getting one extra free character slot), and keep watching between now and April 2nd for more information.