Perpetual Entertainment, developer of the upcoming massively multi-player online game Star Trek Online under license from Nickelodeon & Viacom Consumer Products, announced that Michael Okuda has joined the Star Trek Online development team as design consultant, at this past weekend's Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas.

Well known as the creator of the unique graphic user interface for the Star Trek computer system LCARS (Library Computer Access and Retrieval System), Okuda will be working with Perpetual to integrate the same look-and-feel into the game’s own interface, as well as to help visualize the future of the Star Trek universe. Taking place twenty years after the latest movie Star Trek: Nemesis, Star Trek Online will feature updated versions of the LCARS and new Starfleet uniforms. The first concept art, including an interface concept by Okuda, was unveiled at the Las Vegas show and is now available at the game's development site.

"It seems the natural progression to be working with Perpetual as a design consultant for Star Trek Online," said Okuda. "They are evolving the look of Star Trek into the future, and I am excited to be a part of it. I am confident Star Trek fans will be pleased with where Perpetual is going with the franchise."

Okuda served as a technical consultant to the writing staff of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, as well as Star Trek: Enterprise and is coauthor of the Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual. His other credits include seven Star Trek feature films, The Flash, The Flight of the Intruder, The West Wing, and the pilot episode of Threshold. His contributions to Star Trek: TNG were recognized with three Emmy nominations for Best Visual Effects. With his wife, Denise, he co-wrote The Star Trek Chronology and The Star Trek Encyclopedia. Okuda also designed a commemorative emblem for NASA, honoring the lost astronauts of Apollo 1, Challenger, and Columbia, which hangs on the wall in Mission Control, in Houston.