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. The Mirror Universe sure likes its "chiefs"...
PICTURE: There's a lot of blue here, almost an over-saturation of the color. Not only is the background blue with a blue emblem, but McCoy's shirt and eyes are hyper-blue, practically electric. What's worse, McCoy is caught in the middle of a sentence and it shows. Of course it's not really Mirror McCoy, and that causes another problem, but we don't have any actual pics of him in the right uniform. Speaking of uniforms, this card continues the fairly common feature of not showing the chest pins very well, so that you can hardly tell there's a difference between the two opposites. There IS an Emblem of the Alliance in the background, which at least sets the stage. Only a 2.7.
LORE: Though "chief medical officer" is used in the lore, the real OS appellation "Chief Surgeon" is used in the title. The rest is more or less invented information to bring McCoy in line with the Mirror universe. I think they may have gone a bit far though, since Mirror Spock makes a comment during the episode that McCoy is emotional and sentimental in this universe as well, which might point to a compassionate side. No real matter, since "feared sickbays" is an interesting image. It's all in good fun. A 3.4.
TREK SENSE: Well, this was a rather obvious effort! He gets all the regular chief medical officer skills (2 Medical, Biology and Exobiology), and then they slap on Treachery for being from the Mirror universe. Too easy. What's more, the rather harmless special download of a Classic Medical Tricorder is both dull and a little inappropriate. Nothing to do with Interrogation or Torture? Aww. The attributes remain the same except for a drop to 5 in Integrity resulting from his being an evil doctor, but still a doctor. No problem with icons, though Command instead of Staff might have been defensible, but the same decision was taken for the regular Dr. McCoy. I'm far from impressed, though everything can be justified. An average 3 then.
STOCKABILITY: He's the big MEDICAL for the Terran Empire, and in fact, the only one from the OS time period. Even when adding "present" personnel, the Terrans only have two more, and they're far from as strong. That's why his special download is so important. It adds to his own skills, making him either MEDICAL x3, Exobiology x2 or Biology x2, which makes him a powerful dilemma solver, but also adds to OS SCIENCE personnel's skills. That's just Marlena Moreau and First Officer Spock, but OS Mirror decks are bound to be economical with personnel. When mixing with other Federation personnel (either OS or Alpha Quadrant), he's just another double-MEDICAL, but those are all excellent especially if you use that redundancy to build a spaceline of MEDICAL missions. His Treachery is uncommon on MEDICAL personnel, and that's worth something (like passing In the Pale Moonlight for your medical team). But basically, he's a mission solver in a micro-affiliation of more aggressive personnel. A 3.7 for those very necessary skills.
TOTAL: 12.8 (64%) Cheap design, in my opinion.
Comments