Star Trek Starfleet Academy Easter Egg - The Sun Creature "Family"

In order to view this particular easter egg, you must warp to the Thaxius system at the beginning of the Common Ground mission. This requires you to override the course that Corin has plotted for the mission by pressing "B" and "7" on your keyboard, typing "Thaxius", clicking "Plot Course" and finally clicking "Engage". Once you have completed your warp into Thaxius, start scanning for lifeforms. As you do this, several sun creatures will come within scanning range and, as you scan them, the names of key developers for the game will appear under each creature you target. Please be mindful that they will not attack you unless you provoke the attack yourself. This also includes touching a creature with your ship so DO be careful not to get too close (a hard thing to do since the creatures circle your ship within 500 units).

After observing this spectacle, you may plot a course for the "Asterea" system in order to resume the mission. Once back in Asterea, you will be told to go on a search and rescue mission for missing ships that were to arrive at the conference. When you warp to the first system "Hashspur" and scan for ships in the vicinity, you are told to warp to the next system to scout some more. However, instead of warping, simply hang out in the Hashpur system for a few minutes and, out of nowhere, an infant sun creature named "Maverick" will arrive in the system only for a brief moment. You must quickly tractor beam the creature before it warps again so that you can examine it up close.

As far as what the "Maverick" creature represents internally at Interplay, it isn't known for certain. All it could have been was just a fun addition to the game just for kicks. Getting back to the simulation, if you hang out in the system for an extra few minutes, a Romulan heavy cruiser will de-cloak and begin attacking you. That's all for this interesting easter egg.