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 second card pulled from Lonely Among Us...
PICTURE: Some fairly poor electrical special effects from TNG's first season episode "Lonely Among Us". I always found it strange that some parts of the panel became gray when electrified in that one (upper left corner). The colors also do nothing for me. A boring 1.7.
LORE: N/A (score will be adjusted accordingly)
TREK SENSE: The Hidden Agenda icon suggests that the Panel Overload is caused by something your affiliation did to its opponent, or at least that some kind of conscious intelligence is behind it. I don't know about that. While the source episode for the script did have an alien intelligence roaming the panels and causing havoc, the effects don't require it. I guess it's a mechanical (in the sense of game mechanics) matter, and can be seen in the idea that you never expect it when your Panel Overloads. So what could happen? Well, while scanning a mission location for dilemmas, some energy picked up by sensors could make the panel blow, killing a Computer Skill personnel using it and/or causing Scanner Interference. Hey, not bad, and quite complex and detailed an effect. Other overloaded panels include the one that opens Spacedoors. This panel may be repaired by 4 Engineers, as it takes lots of manpower to open those massive doors. Or it could just be the Bynars Weapon Enhancements or Genetronic Replicator that explode, but in that case, the two cards' Event nature makes this unlikely. See, both of them represent an advance in technology that is carried on every ship or in every Away Team. They ALL blow? I don't think so. The only real black mark on an otherwise good bunch of effects, but it could be explained by saying one Overload takes the technology back to the drawing board for safety reasons. The Referee icon has no Trek Sense per se, but I like it to be on cards that actually do fight cheesy tactics. In this case, it tries to curb the overuse of Spacedoors to download armadas, Genetronic Replicator to run through killer dilemmas like a hot knife through butter, Bynars that create one-ship armadas (or simply smaller armadas with lots of firepower), and scanning to invalidate dilemma seeds. Yeah, ok. So totalling it all up, we get a straight 4.
STOCKABILITY: A Referee card that can be used against a number of abusive strategies, it'll also cause headaches for players simply using the stated cards without abusing them. Take the first effect, for example. Your poor adversary is playing by the rules of your already seeded Scanner Interference. He's got his 2 Computer Skill and is present at the location he scans. Bam! You kill one of those Computer Skill personnel! See, scanning is broken any which way you look at it, so no fate is bad enough for offenders. If Scanner Interference isn't in play already, you can download the card for the next scan attempt. It's too bad that the card doesn't suspend play while it does these things. That would probably keep the scan from having any beneficial effect at all. In any case, you may always discard Scanner Interference to seed a card under the scanned mission to reestablish its uncertainty factor. Of course, if Scanner Interference isn't in play, chances are there's no ship at the scanned location where your kill can occur, so it's more of an "or" than an "and". It may provide a good excuse for discarding one Scanner Interference to download an anti-beaming card, with a download of another Scanner Interference coming up. What's fun is that the card remains in play to kill and download again if need be, or to have another of its effects. Its second potential effect is to close Spacedoors at an outpost until 4 ENGINEER can nullify Panel Overload. They can't keep reporting ships every time the doorway opens, but then again, 4 ENGINEER won't be that hard to come up with, especially for the Feds. Speaking of Feds, they would be the most affected by the destruction of a Genetronic Replicator, since they have lots of super-MEDICAL personnel. It's just way too easy for them to keep their Away Teams alive with Meds. No more! Bynars Weapon Enhancements, which give a flat +2 bonus to all your WEAPONS in play (cumulative!), is also a bit too strong, especially in armadas. Both of these are events that can be Kevined or Quinned, but those silver bullets have their shortcomings (a Referee card targeting them, point fees). With Q the Referee, Panel Overload can be brought to bear or recycled away in the blink of an eye if any of the mentioned cards and strategies show up. As a Hidden Agenda, it can be seeded face down to surprise your opponent a bit in the same way, but Ref-Q remains the more flexible choice. A very good 4.5.
TOTAL: 13.6 (68%) Well, you can't pull your picture from the first season of TNG and come out unscathed.
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