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. Now we begin our look at cards pulled from Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, in scene order. And we begin with a bit of Klingon action (and also, a new review, since I didn't get to the letter V in my original Rolodex)...
PICTURE: Kruge's lady, though surrounded by netted crates - an image of... being trapped by her situation? - is well lit. Half her face falls to shadow, portending her death, but the gaze remains intense and the figure is sharp focus. It makes me want for her to have hopped aboard the bird-of-prey and joined Kruge on his adventure. I mean... her death was kind of pointless, wasn't it? A strong 4.
LORE: We get a sense of her mission, and of course, her romantic entanglement with Kruge, but the text is pretty coy about her willing death, Getting those documents would be any spy career's pinnacle, but in her case, it's possibly a dark joke about it being her last achievement before her beau blew her up for knowing too much. 3.4 here.
TREK SENSE: Valkris is a spy with no Security? Dubious. Instead, she's part of the Science classification, potentially because she had to have science contacts and expertise to get at the Project Genesis files. Physics and Computer Skill are part of that package. She then had to Smuggle herself and the files to a rendezvous point using a smuggler's ship, so that skill is also acceptable. But it's perhaps strange for her to be a member of Klingon Intelligence (again, without Security). If she really is, she's gone rogue and isn't reporting to the Klingon High Command, but rather her own romantic partner. That may be a problem with the skill itself because it implies two things: abilities and a certain membership. She surely has the former, but the latter is never confirmed. What I'm missing here, however, is Honor. Her accepting her own death as a necessary consequence of having done her duty would seem to relate to that skill, even if TOS and Movie era Klingons aren't quite as Honorable as TNG's cultural norms would have led us to believe. Even her Integrity seems low to me. Cunning and Strength too. Can't go beyond 2.5.
STOCKABILITY: Valkris was evidently built to cover gaps in the Klingon skill base - especially if one is going to stick to the Movie era theme - as she includes both Klingon Intelligence and Smuggling, which are latter-day skills introduced in the Deep Space Nine expansion. That makes her useful when one wants to cover all the bases, and the Science/Physics/Computer Skill combo is a good one for science missions and dilemmas as well (appearing on a handful of Klingon missions, but not together). Attributes are tepid at best, but Espionnage Mission and HQ: Defensive Measures require Klingon Intelligence (and the latter gives her Leadership), and Smuggling is probably the only way to get through Arms Deal for the Klingons. Valkris is a mid-range SCIENCE personnel - rare for Klingons - and would work pretty well in a contemporary-era deck as well, but becomes pretty necessary in a MOV deck. A 3.7.
TOTAL: 13.6 (68%) If only Decipher had developed the whole "romantically involved" mechanic.
Comments