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. "Elementary, Dear Data" gave us three cards, fairly late in the game (Holodeck Adventures), starting with...
PICTURE: There's something a little ridiculous about this pic, and it's not just Geordi's anachronistic VISOR. What we have here is a blind man reading a book (or writing in one). A cute touch, in the same vein as Roddenberry having La Forge drive the ship. The background is nice and rich. A fun 4 then.
LORE: Mentioning Sherlock Holmes is of interest to the 221B Baker Street card, and the Geordi La Forge persona has to be mentioned. Otherwise, a fair attempt at describing the doctor from the stories (of which there were apparently 60). A good enough 3.5.
TREK SENSE: Well... Like most holodeck "roles", there are a number of severe problems with this card. They unfortunately try to represent the role as if it were the real person, and at the same time, try to represent it as the personnel playing that role, really succeeding at neither. The "real" John Watson would be Non-Aligned, yes, coming from a pre-Federation time, but Geordi would never willingly work with the Cardassians, Ferengi, etc., would he? What's he doing playing holo-novels on enemy ships? In fact, a Holodeck need not even be present for him to adopt this role. What gives? The real Watson would, of course, be Medical, but where did Geordi pick it up? If the computer simulates this knowledge for the purposes of the Holmes scenarios, then why can he use it to heal real patients? And he's not just John Watson, as the Engineer and Physics attest. Those are Geordi's skills. The first is his regular classification, and the second is relevant to holographics. Seeing as he mistakenly "programmed" the sentient Moriarty hologram, maybe Computer Skill would have been more relevant, but then it's even more anachronistic than the skills given. Attributes are those of the real Geordi, though they can mostly apply to Watson, with a hero's Integrity, a detective's Cunning, and a former soldier's Strength. And the special skill? Quite mechanical, it's hard to match it to something real, in-game. A partnership with Sherlock Holmes is enforced, sure, but the hand discard is something musty. Best I can do: It's meant to represent a new story beginning (the new hand/story, courtesy of Holmes, representing the restarts from the episode). Really hard to go higher than 1.4.
STOCKABILITY: Thanks to a Sherlock Holmes mention in his lore, he can download to a ship with 221B Baker Street played on it. From there, he can, of course, be turned into another version of the Geordi La Forge persona, or he can join Holmes in the various manipulations that personnel and his Holoprogram allow. In the latter case, Holmes allows him to discard your entire hand, and that personnel's special skill allows you to draw a new one (equal to opponent's). Now, this isn't a bad trick to get a full hand after depleting your own. Discard the couple cards you have left (maybe after storing interesting stuff in a Storage Capsule) to draw a full 7 or however many your opponent has. Interesting, though seems like a lot of set-up to do this. Thankfully, Watson and Holmes have some good skills and attributes of their own, including Watson's two classifications (the best in the game, in fact). He's also "any Geordi" if you want to play the Ocular Implants on him. And because he IS a version of the Geordi La Forge persona, he can be switched for a number of cards. With Sherlock Holmes, he can become the combined Data and Geordi, and there are the skillful Premiere and FC versions. All these versions are Federation, but nothing's stopping other affiliations from using this NA model. His abilities are good, but not overwhelmingly so... a 3.4.
TOTAL: 12.3 (61.5%) Sorry, but Holodeck Adventures poorly managed Trek Sense in these cases.
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