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. Hey, hey, watch your language, Hide and Q...
EXPANSION: Q-Continuum
PICTURE: What I find impressive about this effect is that the chain links actually cast a shadow on the ground. Otherwise, the Q-effect is pretty banal, the pig-men have really bad make-up (good thing they're so far away) and the green sky seems taken from an old TOS soundstage. Not a whole lot going for it at 2.4.
LORE: Not a bad pun for the title, but I never know how to pronounce it. "Planet" is already a card. "Pleh-net"? "Play-net"? The Q-uote itself is not from Q, but rather from Riker when he had Q's powers ("RiQer"). It's what he said when he erected the force field. Potty mouth. Far from witty at 2.1.
TREK SENSE: Heavy on the game mechanics, it's not always easy to draw Trek Sense from it. It represents Q giving Q-power to one of your personnel temporarily. That personnel is then confronted with another dilemma (pig-men!) and may choose to use its Q-powers to eliminate it. This is cheating, so -5 points as the mission gets easier. Picard did tell Riker not to use the powers. If the initiate Q doesn't use the ability, and somebody gets bogged down in the dilemma, well, then, it's a real waste and you lose the points as further punishment. I can't really justify that last point loss as it has very little to do with a "mission objective" (completing one is the Trek representation of scoring points). Indeed, check out all the plot holes: If I'm right about the the way we're supposed to understand this, why can the new Q only use their powers in that specific fashion? Why would the affected affiliation necessarily forbid the character from using them (like Picard did)? Why can't you see the next seed card before nullifying it? It makes no sense that you would nullify something you didn't see. Why is a stop/disable/stasis result penalized when a kill would have been more disastrous to the personnel (I could have saved Deanna, snif snif, or indeed, the child from the episode)? The dilemma that gets nullified in the picture is Q's Vicious Animal Things. That's a killer, not a stopper. I can't reconcile most of the card though I understand the initial thinking behind it. A 2.3.
STOCKABILITY: As part of a Q-Flash, this card's not that powerful. It's better off as a seeded dilemma with Beware of Q. Either way, the strategies are the same, but you have more control on the situation when you don't have to wait to see if it'll pop up. It doesn't really affect the rest of the Q-Flash, only the following seed card, anyway. Basically, and this isn't bad, it can guarantee a 5 point loss to your opponent. Whether it's because he decided to nullify the seed card (so never front part of a combo here) or it stopped, disabled or put in stasis a personnel, it's -5 points. A few dilemmas do this reasonably well. Parallel Romance, in particular, automatically hits if the Away Team has personnel of both genders (and leading with Matriarchal Society will make sure of that). Plenty of filters will stop personnel while others go on. The ones that initiate battles, like Borg Ship, Sleeper Trap and Scout Encounter also stop a crew or Away Team. If your aim is to keep your opponent's points low, this card makes a good addition to your seed deck. If you know your opponent is on the confused side, seed it just after their self-seeded artifact to see if they'll nullify it, but I'm not suggesting it's anywhere near that useful. And if you're thinking of self-seeding this puppy in order to pay the toll and get out of a dilemma, don't forget there's Writ out there, which'll make you lose the game over it. Not worth it. A regular 3.4.
TOTAL: 10.2 (51%) Unimpressively designed.
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