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's villain...
PICTURE: I actually like the Nagilum effect, that creepy distorted face. I don't especially like the purple clouds around him (but how that color comes off in Premiere has long been a beef of mine). Nothing else to say, so let's skip to the score of 3.1.
LORE: Brief and to the point, only half the space is used. There could have been more here. Eh... a 3.
TREK SENSE: My biggest beef with this card isn't the purple, it's the fact that Nagilum can't possibly be represented by a single dilemma. He did a lot more than threaten to kill half the crew: He sent ghost ships up against the Enterprise and kept the ship trapped in a pocket dimension of blackness. His cruelties aren't quite as diverse as, say, Chula's or The Clown's, but they are varied nonetheless. The card acknowledges that Nagilum is an episode/mission in and of itself by giving it a point box (though Study "Hole in Space" is actually the mission here - even if there's no mechanical connection). So let's take this dilemma as only one of the threats (the biggest, I suppose) represented by Nagilum. How does the effect stack up? Well, on the show, Nagilum does say he'll have to kill a third to half the crew. The dilemma says half the crew, rounded down. Sounds good. In the show, Nagilum let the Enterprise go when Picard set the auto-destruct. He just lost interest, you might say. Playing Auto-Destruct Sequence (without effect) to discard the dilemma would have been nice. What we get is an okay compromise. On the one hand, you can use lots of Diplomacy to make Nagilum understand you're not gonna cooperate with his torture schemes and that you WILL use the auto-destruct to cheat him out of his experiments. Diplomacy as communication skill works okay. Another way to prove your determination is with Strength... is that right? You can't actually physically fight back here. And while Strength might have been useful in enduring Nagilum's cruelties, this is the only place the attribute is equated to strong will. I do believe it should be Integrity here. Ends up at 2.7.
SEEDABILITY: A very strong dilemma, killing as much as half a ship's crew (at worst, one less than half). Really puts a dent in mega-crews, and on a ship, there's nowhere to hide. The entire crew attempts and is at risk. Obviously, you don't want that crew to pass the dilemma. First, it overcomes the effect, and then, your opponent scores 5 points. Ok, so what can we do? 3 Diplomacy is fairly easy for some affiliations to come up with (for the Feds, certainly), but less so for others. STRENGTH is where the Feds might fail, but not a lot of the more treacherous affiliations. For a strong effect, two preceding cards in a combo wouldn't be too much to ask for. Strict Dress Code could take care of the Diplomacy (or an opponent's choice killer or filter), but there aren't enough Diplomacy hosers in 1E. Time to break out your 2E cards and use A Pleasant Surprise, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?, Inside Collaborators or Tense Negotiations (they're backwards compatible). The STRENGTH requirement also has to be addressed, maybe with Rascals or Interphasic Plasma Creatures. None of it is foolproof, so there's a lot of risk of giving points away. But the effect is worth it. Hits 3.4.
TOTAL: 12.2 (61%) Could stand massive redesign.
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