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. A bit of family business...
PICTURE: A good central composition, with the usual surreal Alternate Universe feel. Mrs. Picard is well-lit from the back as well, giving off an eerie, ghostly glow. A cool 3.7.
LORE: I don't know if I like this one for its almost poetic feel, or if I don't because it's somehow awkward. On the one hand, the "place where ideas and reality intermix" is a good explanation for where the Enterprise was stranded in "Where No One Has Gone Before", and Yvette's quote is nicely cryptic. On the other, Maman Picard isn't the best representation of this concept, nor is the "(Is this)" appreciated. Muddles the quote. I guess it hits near the center of the grading curve at 3.2.
TREK SENSE: Essentially turns the Traveler's little field trip into a dilemma. Maman Picard has very little to do with this (she's just another hallucination), though her quote has a conceptual relevance to the game text. The dilemma deserves to be AU, of course, but there's really no reason it should only affect Federation ships. Couldn't other affiliations meet up with a Traveler? (Like I said, Maman Picard really has NOTHING to do with the effect. It has to be a Traveler, or Traveler-like effect, that sends the ship away.) New Contact with the Traveler's people isn't even a Federation mission, and the Traveler himself is Non-Aligned. With foresight, this could have said any Federation ship OR if Traveler present. The only reason it's Fed ships-only is that Maman Picard was a Federation citizen herself. Also in the conceptual sphere, we find that your opponent can send your ship to either end of the spaceline (the end and the beginning?). Can't give it over a 2.
SEEDABILITY: Seeded near the center of the spaceline, this could prove a real nuisance to a player. To a FEDERATION player. And that's the whole problem. With may affiliations to chose from, you can hardly be sure your opponent will play with Feds. Care to waste a seed slot? Even the Feds make use of Non-Aligned ships now and then, so even there, you're not guaranteed a hit. And the dilemma, not having any requirements, has no staying power. It gets discarded after it has its effect (or doesn't, in many cases, even if the Federation remains pretty popular). And even if it worked on everyone, with the spacelines getting ever shorter (due to Quadrants), it's not as disastrous as all that. Cytherians will at least make you lose a few turns by not giving you a shortcut to the end of the spaceline, you know? Bleh: 1.2.
TOTAL: 10.1 (50.5%) Unless you and you're opponent have agreed to play specific affiliations beforehand, I doubt you would ever look at this one twice.
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