Is STO playable for just the story without any meta-gaming/grinding?

Hey there,

so I already play one MMO that I love and with whose monetization model I really agree (FFXIV). I am not really in the market for splitting my attention between two time-intensive MMOs, so I do not want to play STO as an MMO.

Given that most (cool) ships seem to be behind a paywall or a 100+ days grindwall with the dilithium-to-zen pipeline, and that so much of the endgame is just centered around grinding and meta-gaming the best-in-slot choices for a starship loadout, I don't really care about getting too much into STO for gameplay reasons.

However, I am an absolute slut for expanded universe canon content and I have heard that the STO story ties up so many loose ends from the canon series and even some novels, and in general seems to be really good, up to the writing of golden era Trek. Is it possible to just play through the good story parts of each faction and then leaving the game, or are some story sections gated behind huge grind-walls, metagaming the best builds or a paywall?

Thank you! :)