Being a look back at cards from the Star Trek CCG, and what I thought of them back when they were fresh and new... in EPISODE order. Where Silence Has Lease gave us three cards, starting with...
PICTURE: What Red and Yellow Alert would have looked like had they ever actually appeared on a screen like this. The photography isn't very good, but I like the close-up that, much more than Red Alert, signals urgency. But wouldn't a shot of a ship exploding have been more exciting? Ah well... a 2.9.
LORE: Short, but to the point. It gives a good explanation of a simple concept. Can't fault it, but it's still no frills. A 3.2.
TREK SENSE: Well... let's look at the lore. The word "countdown" appears, but no such icon. (I know it didn't exist yet, but it doesn't matter.) That's no problem actually, since the countdown is usually so short that "at the end of your turn" is a large enough delay in game terms. Although you can play the card at the very end of your turn, in which case no countdown really occurs, but again, not too bad. The lore also mentions, rightly enough, that senior officers set it. Problem: you can play this on your empty ship. Of course, most ships (the large ones) are never really empty. They're full of faceless, nameless crewmen. But they can't set an auto-destruct, can they? Especially when your bridge crew personnel have beamed down to a planet, the auto-destruct can still be initiated, hmmm. Also, I'm a bit skeptical about shuttles' auto-destruct systems. Do they actually have them? A number of ships don't seem to have any, including Gomtuu who could only kill itself with a supernova. That you can only play it on a ship you control is sensical, since it requires your access codes. That the explosion can harm ships with low shielding is also good common sense, but I'm not sure an exploding Phoenix can really do that much damage to a starship. When the anti-matter hits the fan, you don't want to be close enough to smell it. So, some good, some not so good... all in all, a 2.5.
STOCKABILITY: Using this on your opponent's ship is the real use here. Just get control of one through Alien Parasites or Neural Servo Device and blow it to smithereens, all hands lost. It's even better if you can fly it to where the opponent's other ships are, so as to inflict even more damage. Not all dilemma combos are made up uniquely of dilemmas, you know. Slide a good interrupt in your deck and you can take advantage of a dilemma's effects. Playing it on yourself is viable as well. Used to be, you could maybe sacrifice a shuttle to damage a less-shielded ship. In a space battle, this works well by damaging it with WEAPONS first, then letting your auto-destruct take care of the rest. Still, it had to be a ship with SHIELDS less than 8, and you couldn't consider that a kill (no bonus points from Latinum Payoff or for Borg ships). With infiltrators and intruders making their way into the game, it became possible to get rid of them by emptying your ship on your turn, and leaving your opponent's personnel inside to face a lonely death at the end of your turn. It costs you a ship, but it costs your opponent anywhere from a Founder to a whole Away Team. So it's a pretty good fall-back card as well. A 4.
TOTAL: 12.6 (63%) A favorite of mine and often included in my decks, but I also can see its faults.
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