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 last card pulled from Haven wasn't reviewed in the original Rolodex, so here we go...
PICTURE: TNG Season 1 really loved its transparent bubble effect, didn't it? Here, they put it smack dab in the middle of a space ship. But there's no ship like it anywhere else in Trek. The Plague Ship lacks scale - its details are too big and plasticky, and the front is a little blurry, but it's original. A 3.4.
LORE: Oof, that's some rough grammar. "A Tarellia war plague". "Infected from". Doesn't even really relate to the game text. I don't like it, and there was room to write better sentences. An awkward 1.5.
TREK SENSE: On the episode, none of the Tarellians ever came aboard the Enterprise, nor would it have been allowed. So how does the plague get aboard your own ship here? On the show, Troi's would-be husband Wyatt is a Medical sent to the Plague Ship to work on their problem (and solving Deanna's, ha!), which is simulated on the card, but the cause-effect relationship is nonsense. If Wyatt hadn't gone over, the ship might have tried to make port at a planet (the essential stakes), but the encountering ship would have been safe. This might have worked better if it had a powerful Diplomacy-related stopper that could only be fixed by sacrificing a doctor. As is, I don't believe it. The 5-point reward is fine, however, since overcoming the dilemma was more of a mission than Haven's A-plot. It's hyperbolic, so I'm bring it down to 2.7.
SEEDABILITY: The hyperbole that sank the Trek Sense gives Seedability a boost. At BEST, your opponent loses a (precious) MEDICAL personnel. At worst, their whole crew. Now, a MEDICAL personnel will normally be present, so a total party kill will be rare, but the player still won't be happy to lose a member of that profession. They might get away with sending off a generic OFFICER with a Medical Kit, but then also lose an Equipment card, not sure that's a great trade-off. Use other MEDICAL-related dilemmas to weed out some doctors and nurses and you MIGHT get the TPK you crave, especially against affiliations that don't do MEDICAL well (the Feds will usually be fine). Plague Planet is a mission your opponent might use against you if you abuse Plague Ships on the regular, since solving it will automatically overcome the dilemma everywhere it's encountered, but if YOU go and steal its point, your Plague Ships are safe AND void those 5 bonus points. Because yeah, that's the trade-off here. Normally, the player will lose a MEDICAL, but get a 5-point compensation. You can probably live with that, but I'd favor high-point missions or your own bonus-point strategy to keep up. I remember always stocking this one back in the day. A 4.5.
TOTAL: 12.1 (60.5%) It's not all about usefulness.
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