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. "Contagion"'s big dilemma...
PICTURE: The actual subject of the card is in smaller letterbox format, but that's actually pretty neat. It's a computer virus, and we see it on a computer screen. The effect itself is a little muddled, but the computer stuff from the Yamato is fairly legible. Well balanced as far as composition goes, as well. Oh, a 3.3.
LORE: The probe is mentioned so that we understand how it hits a ship, but its effects are barely glossed over. Ooh, it's "destructive", ooh. And there was plenty of space for the designers to explain all that. A truly lackluster 2.4.
TREK SENSE: Well, if a card ever missed the mark, it was this one. As a computer virus, I admire its reboot idea, but it treats your hand as a computer database, which it's not in most cases. Yes, some cards could be represented as data or technologies contained in the computer. Personnel and, for example, shape-shifting cards surely cannot. And you don't have a hand for every ship in play, so it's not really relevant. In any case, since when is Science the important skill when dealing with a computer virus? Shouldn't Computer Skill be the requirement? And finally, the breadth of the dilemma's "destructiveness" is in no way rendered. On the show, it at best wiped your computer clean (if you even thought of rebooting it), and at worst, destroyed your ship and infected another ship within hailing distance. None of that is here, so I gotta pass on this dilemma. Only a 0.8 for the reboot stuff.
SEEDABILITY: While forcing a player to discard their hand and replenish it might force them to rethink their whole strategy, lose something important to the discard pile, or whatever, there's very little chance that SCIENCE would not be part of the attempting crew. Space missions are more rarely redshirted, and they usually contain a number of SCIENCE-based dilemmas and mission requirements (including ones that require skills that SCIENCE personnel frequently have). There's a chance you could weed some out with Unscientific Method and the like, but no guarantee you could get them all. The card may be more interesting as a self-seed, actually. Keep it at a mission you don't really want to solve, right on top (so at the very bottom of the pile), and attempt it yourself without SCIENCE to cycle an unappealing hand. When you're using a recycling method, you'll have the opportunity to get your discards back anyway. That's worth something, but it won't be very destructive to your opponent. Unfortunately, it's something that can be achieved much more cheaply with Masaka Transformations, Scorched Hand et al. The card's been further supplanted by the Combo Dilemma that shares its name. Downgraded to a 1.
TOTAL: 7.5 (37.5%) One of those Premiere snafus.
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