What a Card: Dixon Hill

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. Here comes Holodeck Adventures' big ultra-rare...

EXPANSION: Holodeck Adventures

PICTURE: They've got a good film noir atmosphere going with those shadowy blinds, but the glint in Picard's right eye is a little creepy. A good effort at 3.6.

LORE: Oddly, it's written about the fictional character (which should be an AU, then), not about Picard who is mentioned without being linked to the role himself. A detailed enough literary history doesn't really compensate for the lack of Dixonese, long expected since the Business Card. Sadly, only 2.7.

TREK SENSE: On the usual problems associated with "holo-personae", I must say Dixon Hill does a little better than these usually do. See, it's always difficult to swallow that the Starfleet personnel would take on a fictional role in the holodeck, but keep that persona in real life too, on mission attempts, etc. Fortunately, Picard's worn this costume on the bridge ("The Long Goodbye"), even staying in character there ("Shhhtep on it"). He's also used the character during a mission to good effect, in First Contact! That said, Picard remains Picard, and I don't think he'd work with, say, the Romulans even as Dix. So the Non-Aligned nature of the card doesn't work. Dixon Hill was a Civilian, but Enterprise personnel would still obey him like an Officer with a Command icon if they saw him walking around the halls in a trenchcoat and fedora. Of course, a private eye might have gotten Security for a classification instead, no? As for the skills, it's all about what he used AS the character. Anything? Not really. He was a fish out of water most of the time (especially in this early shot), so Anthropology, which could have been a natural, is out. Diplomacy for dealing with Cyrus Redblock and Felix Leech? Still didn't keep one crewman from being shot. Really, there's nothing crucial missing except Security. The special download is fine on the surface in that the Business Card is something Dixon had on his person. Of course, its effects are so conceptual that they can't really be linked to the Card or to Dixon Hill. The download essentially makes Dixon Hill responsible for the effects, which can work in the case of the capture Interrupt, though Dix doesn't have to be there, so it really doesn't. And there's not even that amount of justification for the Event effect. The special skill which allows Dix to disregard requirements when solving a mission has little basis in fact. Picard never really completed a mission as Dix - the closest he's come to is greeting the Jarada in the costume, using Picard's, not Dixon's, linguistic training. The ability seems to be based on the fact that he's "solved dozens of cases". How many missions on a spaceline? Oh, a dozen. He can solve them all as long as he's allowed to attempt them. Quite conceptual, thank you. Attributes are those of Premiere Jean-Luc Picard, but with one less Integrity point. As Hill, he was a little less stuffy, working alongside the law, but not necessarily within its bounds. It's fine. What isn't fine is almost everything else. Can only give him a full 1, and only with difficulty.

STOCKABILITY: There's a reason this guy is ultra-rare - he's a powerful mission solver. No skills (CIVILIAN is hardly a skill, I'm sorry), but once the dilemmas have been passed, he can solve any mission's requirements as if they were nothing by himself. So long as you protect him through the dilemmas, it doesn't matter who else survives, you can solve it (which doesn't invalidate Lack of Preparation earlier on, mind you). He would be particularly useful at missions with either lots of requirements (like Pegasus Search) or very specific ones (like Investigate Time Continuum). Losing personnel at these can totally kill the mission attempt, but not with Dix as your back-up. Another way to use him, of course, is as a version of the Jean-Luc Picard persona. Other versions have plenty of skills, so they can guide your personnel through dilemmas, and only turn into Dixon Hill at the end if necessary. Dixon Hill also has a good special download. As an Interrupt, the Business Card can be called up just as a non-Borg redshirt is killed to capture another (great, because it keeps happening while you don't have the card in hand). As a free-play Event, you can more easily pick and choose when exactly your opponent must play a universal or hologram. Dixon Hill also interacts with other cards. If with Data's Carlos, you can draw your cards from your discard pile instead of draw deck. Great manipulation, and all you need to do to reverse the process is separate the two, or switch one back to another version. If Lily is present, you can cancel a personnel battle here, which may protect your Dix from being killed by marauding personnel. Some great stuff available to all non-Borg affiliations, but of course, you gotta get your hands on the card(s). Even the attributes are decent. Picard was never so good: a 5.

TOTAL: 12.3 (61.5%) Barely passes, even with a 5 in the mix! Too many sacrifices at other design stages.