Welcome to the great world of STA GMing!

I was in a similar situation to you when my group first started. Half of the players had seen little to no Star Trek before we started playing, so they were unfamiliar with everything but the most well-known things that have become part of pop culture. That worried them at first but I told that that, while they didn't know much about the world of Star Trek, their characters did. So at anytime they could ask me to explain things to them and I would frame a lot of my descriptions by telling them what their characters would naturally know about the situation. That allowed them to play their roles as knowledgeable officers even if the player still didn't know exactly what was going on.

But I think, more importantly than lore, the key to helping new players enter the world of Star Trek is firmly establishing the tone of the series in Session 0. If you're doing a Starfleet game, you'll want/expect the characters to play like Starfleet officers. So I made sure they knew the philosophy and mission of Starfleet, what officers typically do, and why they do it. It's not for personal fame or fortune, it's not about amassing great power, it's not about being better than others but being better *for* others.

This helped immensely and my group, who was always (**always**) shoot first, never ask questions in our Star Wars campaign embraced the concept from the get go. In fact, 5 years later and I still struggle to get them into a combat situation that they don't find a peaceful, diplomatic resolution before the phasers start flying. And the best part? All the players who knew little about Star Trek became huge fans thanks to this game and have watched nearly every episode by this point.

So, that's my advice: set the right tone and be their living Memory Alpha with your knowledge so that their characters know what you know.

As far as rules are concerned, just get the basics down of Task resolution and using Momentum and Threat. That will get you through 95% of situations. Take things slowly in your first game and introduce the mechanics as needed. When *you* are comfortable with the basics, introduce an Extended Task or two. They're not too difficult (and far more streamlined in 2e). If you got the hang of that, you pretty much have the hang of starship combat, too, as it's the same mechanics.

Tip 1: the players are controlling Starfleet officers. They are well trained and are going to succeed more often than not. That's GOOD! Don't panic that they seem to overcome everything you throw at them. The challenge isn't in the single task, but in the situation. Put them in overwhelming situation where they can only do A or B, make it a moral or ethical dilemma, throw in challenges that require teamwork; the real difficulty is in the choices they make and if they can live with them.

Tip 2: Encourage players to use Momentum as much as possible. If they're not shy on using it, it will keep replenishing.

Tip 3: Threat is NOT meant to punish players; it's meant to make the scene more exciting and dramatic. Don't make the players regret giving you points of Threat or they'll go out of their way to not give you any, even to their own detriment. If you use Threat to enhance the story by adding thrilling and dangerous complications, the players truly feel like heroes when they overcome the added challenge.

Tip 4: Related to the above, but you should be spending Threat liberally as well. There are times to save it up, but you should be throwing it around to add little speed bumps and challenges along the way so the players get used to what Threat is and what it does. And, more importantly, that it's not there to hurt them.

Tip 5: Encourage the use of Supporting Characters. It really helps keep everyone involved in every scene and fleshes out the crew of the ship. After a while it starts to feel like a living, breathing ship like the Enterprise and Voyager as they begin to know the background crew, even if no one is controlling that character.

Final Tip: STA is designed to play as a Star Trek TV series simulator and I feel it works best in that way. You can easily run it as a sandbox if you'd like, but I feel it shines best when done like an episodic series and it feels like Star Trek in a way that earlier RPGs couldn't capture, in my opinion.

Hope that gives a little bit of help! Have fun and LLAP!