What a Card: V'ger

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. V'ger is another card I never reviewed originally, so have to do so now. It's also the last card from this movie we'll cover, the pic from the Director's Cut, towards the end there...

EXPANSION: The Motion Pictures

PICTURE: Very obviously from the Director's Cut, given that all we saw in the original version was a big fat cloud. I don't think I like the CG spaceship any better though. It makes for a fine card image, but look through your collection and you'll find others with a similar look and composition. Given the dilemma's requirements, I think a shot of the Voyager probe in the middle of the giant chamber would have been a better choice. Don't be dazzled by the new effects, this is a 3.2.

LORE: Tells the story and tells it well enough, avoiding the similarities between V'ger and Nomad by avoiding the idea of "merged" machines. 3.2 here too.

TREK SENSE: V'ger is found at a space location where it might destroy your ship unless you deal with it effectively (as happened to the Klingons). Of course, it really should be MOVING (like a Borg Ship dilemma), and we saw it destroy a space station too, so this is lower-powered than it should be. The Borg Ship is a good comparison, and that's worth 45 points if you overcome it. Only 5 for V'ger? It took a whole movie! But what about the requirements? Well, you can go the empathic route and connect with the A.I. that way. Spock couldn't do it with Mindmeld alone, and Ilia had only one instance of Empathy, so they went the Decker route: Diplomacy (talk to it), Anthropology (understand it), and Computer Skill (it's still a machine). It's a bit of a remix (Empathy probably should be in the mix, not an alternative), but it's fine. Limited, so I'll give it a limited score of 3.6.

SEEDABILITY: Destroying a ship and all aboard is a powerful effect, but look at those skill requirements. Any given telepath (Empathy x2) or generic Dip/Ant/Comp character (of which there are many, either way, in the Federation) will overcome it easily and score the 5 points. So this is one you seed on a mission you'll solve yourself to snatch the bonus points, and maybe, just maybe, it'll block a non-Fed trying to scoop your mission. Block with extreme prejudice. But I wouldn't count on that, so 3.5.

TOTAL: 13.5 (67.5%) If I were mean, I'd propose that like the movie, the card would slow the game down to a crawl.

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