Siskoid's Rolodex Extra......
First Contact Overview


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First Contact expansion, 130 card expansion (40 common, 40 uncommon, 50 rare) sold in 9-card booster packs (5 common, 3 uncommon, 1 rare)
Average Picture Score: 3.42 (5: Don't Call Me Ahab!, Espionage Mission)
Average Lore Score: 3.7
Average Trek Sense Score: 3.51 (5: Disengage Safety Protocols, Retask)
Average Stockability Score: 3.76 (5: Adapt: Negate Obstruction, Establish Gateway, Nine of Eleven)

PRODUCT CONCEPT: Taking all cards and concepts from the same movie isn't a new idea at Decipher, who were pretty much doing this with their early Star Wars expansions, an experiment that did show it was possible to cull a large set from a single feature film, though it was more of a problem to represent certain needed effects with the pool of onscreen images. First Contact certainly had one thing going for it: the Borg. This was a still-undone affiliation (the first new one since Premiere) that featured a lot of "personnel" in the one movie. The expansion thus becomes a Feds vs. Borg expansion with lots of cards spent on detailing the Collective and what it could do, and then some material to do with Cochrane's first contact with the Vulcans. Admitedly, there were few missions to be extrapolated from the movie, and certainly no noun cards for the Klingons or Romulans, but Decipher still did a good job making verb cards that would be useful to the two affiliations (in addition to NA cards). There was another, more practical, point to making this expansion, and it was to revitalize a game that hadn't seen an expansion for a loooooong time. Part of that refit was to change a number of rules and make the game more playable. It was a good way to go about it since 1) the Borg were going to necessitate a large number of new rules, and 2) they were piggybacking on a hit film, so new players should have been attracted to the game (and old ones tempted into returning). The concept is surer from a marketing standpoint, and a little obvious as far as expansion concepts go, but if you're going to do the Borg, what better place to start from? A 3.7. Don't think this could be done with any other Trek film.

PACKAGING/LOOK: This is the first expansion to make boxes and booster packs with pictures, a vast improvement over the dull blue pack with small icon in the center. God, those were terrible in comparison. The Borg Queen takes center stage on the pack, with a pretty alcove shape going up into the logo. The palette is a simple, but pretty, and at the same time creepy, green and black combination. The booster box is even better with its pop-up jettisoned Sphere. Again, the same colors pop out at you. On the sides of the box, rows of drones look a lot like paste-work, but are an interesting element nonetheless. Fun too that the box and booster don't share any elements except the basic colors. Each box had a large, fold-out Rules Supplement (and Card List), in full color. Necessary at this point, it fit right in with the rest of the gorgeous package. Oh, and it has that Borg vs. McEnroe joke, if you're looking for it, as well as the never-made card, Upgrade Starship. The cards themselves are overall of better quality than previous expansions'. The printing process has evolved and changed, and movie-quality images are generally better than those pulled from The Next Generation. Certainly, the design and effects of the feature film are better than those to be found on the television series, and that shows. Visual Easter Eggs are gone as of this expansion though. Not really missed, there were still fun to catch. An excellent, and for its time, eye-popping, 4.2.

DISTRIBUTION: With this expansion, Decipher changes to a 9-card booster pack format - 1 rare, 3 uncommons and 5 commons - from the previous 11-common versions. This was great because the three previous expansions had yielded boxes upon boxes of less-than-stellar commons. At the same time, usefulness and rarity were brought a little closer. Gone were the common missions (usually starting from uncommon from this point on) for one thing, and in First Contact, many common slots were taken up by the Borg drones you would need to build a large and flexible Collective. This is also the first expansion to have a larger number of rares in comparison with commons and uncommons. 10 more, in fact. More cards is good, more chasers isn't that good, but First Contact also had what could be considered a flaw in its sorting process. You see, the same order of rare pretty much ruled the boxes and so only rarely did a box yield two of the same rare. With any luck, you had a full collection with only 2 boxes! Enhanced First Contact would eventually force you to buy more First Contact boosters (though with a use AS boosters), and this often after your FC collection was complete, but that's not really the problem of the main expansion. FC was easy to complete and didn't yield an excess of useless cards. Bottom line: a 4.5.

NEW ICONS, CARD TYPES & MECHANICS: This was the first expansion to add an entirely new affiliation to the game, and it did so with style. The Borg don't work like any other affiliation, have their own icons and mechanics, even a new card type in service to them (the Objective)! The expansion also took the time to change a number of rules, changing things from the size of your deck to personnel battle, even the way you seed missions and win the game. Some of them would eventually be changed again, but these are the first changes to the basic rules. And there's more! Time locations, Countdowns, Hidden Agendas, regions, mission specialists, Quadrant icons and persona replacement... they all start here, and more! I won't discuss each change and clarification, but the major ones are below with all the totally new stuff. Special downloads and Nemesis icons were discussed in the Fajo Collection Extra. Skills on Espionage Mission and Primitive Culture, like FCA and Obsidian Order are considered to be broken links at this point, and will be discussed when they appear on personnel for the first time.

30/30 Rule
Trek Sense: Deck size has always been entirely mechanical, but it's a big universe, and I'd rather not see limited deck sizes. The 30/30 rules makes it more flexible, but also tells us that 1) there's a minimum amount of resources the characters can bring to bear (true: the Star Trek universe is one where the characters have a lot of tools at their beck and call), and that 2) there's a maximum amount of trouble they can get into (more or less true: episodic television, the format Star Trek usually fits in, can only throw so many dangers at the principals). Seedlings aren't just dilemmas, of course, and the rule is also meant to limit the number of resources in play at the start of a game. Still mechanical, but with its heart in the right place. A 2.5.
Usefulness: Makes a big difference, since some decks are better padded to the gills, and others as sleek as possible. The point is, now you get a choice in the matter. The minimums/maximums are reasonable and would later be made to exclude missions and up to 6 sites in the seed total to accomodate more. In a way, it gives life to "just-in-case" cards that used to be excluded when you didn't really have the margin to include them. For the deck-builder, I see this as a 4. [Average total: 3.25.]

Attacking and Retaliating
Trek Sense: Three real changes/additions at this point. One is the decision to allow the Feds to initiate battle against the Borg, but the Borg against no one. Indeed, it's clear that the Federation feels threatened by the Borg and could attack as a matter of course (though few ships would want to go up against a Cube). The Borg, on the other hand, are meant to be disinterested in fighting unless their current objective makes it a necessity. That seems to hold true especially in personnel battle where drones will simply ignore intruders until they actually break something - a case can be made for the rule. The second point worth mentioning is that attacked ships no longer need a leader to return fire. Leaders are still needed to initiate a battle, but they are meant to supply authorization, not battle ability. As such, any crew should be trained enough to defend a staffed ship or their Away Team. A fine decision. The third point is that an attack is now worth two reactions. The first, as always, is returning fire. This mechanic used to be called retaliation. In Trek Sense, it simply means that initiating an attack leads to a battle, and in a battle, there's a chance the attacking ship will also suffer damage. Now, the next step in retaliation is on the defender's next turn, a chance to also initiate an attack (really, a counter-attack) regardless of affiliation restrictions. You just attacked my people, ship or facility, well, I can get revenge by doing the same thing -  to any of your cards at this location. That's how the world works folks, and Star Trek works the same way. Has more depth than the Premiere rules, and mostly Sensical from where I'm standing. A 4.5 for the lot.
Usefulness: The Feds can battle without the need for extra cards now? Yes, if only a single affiliation. Cool, since they have some of the best ships (except the Borg have even better ones, though the smaller vessels make fine phaser fodder). For the Borg, it complicates things a little more (now they know how the Feds felt all those years). Battles are made riskier by all the new rulings, of course, throwing such strategies for a loop. Used to be that attacking an Away Team without a leader cost them a personnel automatically, and a leaderless ship was automatically damaged/destroyed. No more, which is a good thing for the victims. So how do I rate something that kills some strategies, but allows you to breathe more easily if you would have been on the receiving end? Taking it from an overall point of view, it's better this way. Not going overboard with a 3.5. [Average total: 4.]

Borg affiliation
Graphics: (See below for Subcommand icons.) The Borg were meant to be different from other affiliations, and the first step was giving them a very different template. Gone is the classification box, and all the text is white on black, meshing well with the oxydized gray template. The gray works because of the metal aspect of the Borg's implants and ships, while the black is a direct link to their armors. Could there possibly be a link between the white on black of Q-cards and the Borg's? Remember, it was Q who introduced Picard to the Collective. As for the affiliation icon, it features the cybernetic "claw" first seen in "Descent". We don't have anything else, and it's a fine, dangerous icon, but at the time, it was associated with Lore's Rogue Borg. I think we've seen the icon in later Borg stories though, so ok. Not quite 2E-level, but at the time, this was quite dramatic. A 4.1.
Lore: An odd category to include, but I've got to give the Borg a high mark here. Again in order to set them apart, all drones, pictures of conformity, have the same form-lore: Identification, Task and Biological Distinctiveness. The last is pulled straight from their "attack speech", but since species is irrelevant to the Borg, it seems needlessly confusing to mention it. What really impresses me though is their titles. Whether you place the cards in alphabetical order of title (Two of Seventeen or whatever) or of Identification (in this case, Unity Drone), that order will be the same. As more personnel were added, this became increasingly impressive, and I also like how drones of the same group ("of Seventeen") are usually from the same scene or (later) episode. Great stuff, even if I've never been able to remember drones by their numbered names... A high 4.8.
Trek Sense: We've got a lot to cover here. To the Borg, a lot of things are "irrelevant". They don't attempt missions, for example. I think they could've had their own missions (as they do in 2E), perhaps supplemented by Objectives. Well, they still go after planets and locations, but in a different way. Bonus points are irrelevant because those are mini-missions, again off their radar. The same can be said of mini-failures (negative bonus points). Gender and species are irrelevant because drones have lost their former identities. Yes, ok, but isn't the Queen obviously a female? Wasn't she part of a Romance or Love Interest dilemma? Doesn't jibe, but she IS an enigma, isn't she? The Borg are in general pretty asexual. Cooperation is irrelevant and it's true that except for that one time when Voyager forced their hand, they don't mix with non-assimilated personnel.
-The Borg Outpost: At this point, there was no Delta Quadrant to speak of. The solution to the DQ-based Borg was to make the Borg Outpost an odd, unatainable conceptual location in the DQ. No problem since no one had visited the DQ yet, and certainly, the locations of the Borg homeworld and outposts were unknown. Borg ships always came out of nowhere. With this scheme, they still do. The mechanics governing this were sound. Where other outposts could be built where a matching affiliation icon was present (ridiculous when the world clearly belonged to another power), the Borg Outpost can be built on an assimilated planet. Now, that makes sense.
-Borg ships: As seen on TNG, Borg ships' shields do not stop transporter beams, so why not allow intruders to just beam over? (This ruling was eventually reversed.) The point boxes on the ships are a clever way to say that the Borg are actually a challenge to other affiliations. Defeating them counts as a mission of sorts. Staffing is insured with subcommand icons, not the regular staffing icons (see below).
-The current Objective: It's ridiculous to think that such a large Collective could only do one thing at a time, only have one Objective. See, this isn't limited to a Hive, it's a limit on the entire Collective. You could argue the unrevealed Hidden Agendas are Objectives kept in mind, but in reality, switching requires a card! It's true that the Borg are very single-minded, and I can't really fault the mechanic when looking at First Contact, since all actions were really done in order to Stop First Contact.
-Scouting: (Probing is handled below.) Scouting is the way Borg eliminate resistance at a location in order to complete their Objective. It makes sense that the Borg would encounter the same dilemmas (minus a few of the irrelevant ones) at these locations. The El-Adrel Creature isn't going anywhere, after all! The single scout stuff for planet missions (since reversed) is a little odd. It fits the "scout" theme, of course. A scout is someone you send ahead to check things out, and we've seen this kind of thing from the Borg when, for example, they boarded the Enterprise to take a peek at its computers (matches the description of scouting ships). Nothing on a planet though. And while I understand that a drone is irrelevant fodder to the Collective, it still seems foolish to beam down drones one at a time after the initial scout gives either the "ok" or the "danger" signal. Scouting space locations is more normal.
-Abductions: The Borg have a type of capture called "abduction" that works fairly well. They grab someone (as per a card that allows them to do so) and may beam away with them (see "The Best of Both World"). The abductee is then "escorted" and can be moved around like equipment, to an Assimilation Table, for example. They are considered disabled as the Borg seem to put them under some kind of trance (a pacifying implant, maybe?), and cannot be rescued in the same way as captured personnel. These are flimsy distinctions, but they hold up when you watch the shows and film.
-Assimilating personnel: An important part of the Borg experience is assimilating people and technology, so it's gotta be well done. Obviously, an assimilated personnel becomes Borg (add icon, forget about its gender, species, name, lore, former affiliation, misc. icons, and restriction box). Borg don't have classifications, so the classification becomes a skill instead. Fine, though I wonder what Civilian means to a Borg drone. The new drones are assigned to a subcommand (gaining the appropriate icon) in accordance to their general abilities. Command personnel were good at giving orders, and there's Communication in that. Staff help a ship function and fly, and Navigation is strongly linked to ships. The rest get tossed into the cannon fodder as Defense drones. The maturation chamber'll make even the smallest child dangerous. We've never seen an assimilated Animal, so they are off-limits, as as holograms, on which flesh cannot be grafted. (Mechanical beings like Data get biological implants, apparently.) Should changelings be excluded from assimilation? Some say yes, but we have no evidence either way. The review for Assimilate Counterpart covers personnel assimilation with that Objective in mind.
-Assimilating ships: Changes made are similar to personnel assimilation, though in this case, we must reexamine the icons. Command icons on a ship mean that the vessel is bigger or has more complex technology aboard. When Borg, that ship needs better Communications to coordinate its proper staffing. Staff icons are the generic ship staffing icon, and Navigation is very directly ship-related. Other icons becoming Defense icons is a default position, and not really Sensible. I can understand an Alliance or Terran icon getting Defense's teeth, but why the Starship Enterprise? Note that carried ships are equally assimilated, which isn't a problem since shuttle systems are usually interfaced with its mother ship's (whereas most personnel are not).
-Assimilating planets: A few rules affect an assimilated world. Among these is the fact that the Borg aren't interested in Artifacts and will leave those lying around (until they get to it with the appropriate drone). Sure, ok, things are irrelevant until they're not. The other effect of note is that everything on the planet is equally assimilated. People, ships, facilities, equipment, everything. Well, you're not just assimilating the rocks and trees, are you? Assimilated equipment can be more readily called impounded since most items won't help the Borg at all, so it's a bit of a bummer they don't really assimilate and use the technology.
-Overall: Pluses include very good assimilation rules, a way to score points that isn't too divorced from other affiliations', but still has its own cache, and a clever solution to the Outpost problem. Minuses? The since-changed planetary scouting and the hovering question about why the Borg had to be so different from the others. I think 2E's proving that you can make the Borg work within the rules rather than with completely new ones. I also want to mention the Collective/Hive distinction, which is interesting and gives the cards some added flavor. That all amounts to a score here of 3.8 for the affiliation as a whole.
Usefulness: You know, this became the affiliation for skillful players who wanted a challenge and a change from the same old affiliations that were in the game since Premiere 3 years earlier. In unskilled hands, the Borg can be very difficult to win with, even though many new cards and rules changes in The Borg expansion have made them much easier to play. In skilled hands, watch out. They can report through massive downloads, hide their "missions" from their opponents, have access to massive ships and can take away opposing cards and use them rather than have them discarded. On the other hand, their objectives tend to have points lower than missions', their personnel have lame attributes and not all skills, they leave behind low-point missions to be stolen, and initially, they were slow and vulnerable to scout planets. Note that the problems all have counters or fixes now, but when First Contact came out, you had to make do and be sure your Interlink drone and Adapt cards were on hand. They rely perhaps too heavily on the Queen. Victory often relies on loading your deck with good probe cards, so big decks are the norm, and few non-Borg cards get stocked. Still a niche interest, the Borg are nonetheless a powerful bunch. There are Borg players, and then there're the rest of us ;-). Hard to give a score to an entire affiliation, I'm going to have to go with a 4. [Average total: 4.18.]

Borg use only icon
Graphics: Just a small boxed-in Borg icon. Makes sense, and the square shape is easy to discern, but possibly confusing. A simple 2.4.
Trek Sense: Since the Borg have been made into a really different affiliation, and one that doesn't cooperate with others, it stands to reason some cards would have to be made that only worked with them. Even with Seven of Nine, the Feds aren't meant to Activate Subcommands or Adapt. Slapping an icon on those cards means "only the Borg do this", and it's true. Can't argue with it, but not too impressed by its logic either. A 4.
Usefulness: The icon comes into play in few instances. As a probe icon, certainly, it indicates "collatoral damage" on Eliminate Starship (damages another ship present), but that's it. Otherwise, it indicates what Events and Interrupts the TB Borg Queen can download, those cards that Fifth can return to hand, and what Equipment 1 of 11 can download. Generally, the icon allows the Borg to fiddle around with their special cards, and protects those cards from the havoc visited on less crucial cards of the same type. No real big deal, a functional 3.5. [Average total: 3.3.]

Captain's Orders
Trek Sense: "Captain's Orders" are a special subset of various verb cards that are meant to be used in conjunction with Ready Room Door and cards that implicate a matching commander. Just a little more juice to give captains, it's just what you would today call a keyword, and in general, they've been attributed to cards that sound like orders (Red Alert seems to have gone missing though). A simple 3 since it's unloaded.
Usefulness: The list of such cards: Divert Power, Blue Alert, Yellow Alert, Captain's Log, Lower Decks, Senior Staff Meeting,   Crew Reassignment, Defiant Dedication Plaque, Duj Saq, Establish Landing Protocols, Mission Debriefing, Tactical Console, and Deactivation. Now, what are they good for? Well, having the keyword means the card can be downloaded via Ready Room Door (sometimes jump-started by Make It So), and protected by that doorway too. A Command OFFICER can also download Captain's Orders to hand from the Commander's Office on a Nor. Oh, and let's not forget James T. Kirk's open-ended special download. Enough to recommend a score of 3.8. [Average total: 3.4.]

Countdown icon
Graphics: A number in a green box. I get that the number is necessary, but the icon itself is deadly dull. A 1.5.
Trek Sense: Some effects last longer than Interrupts, even longer than "until the end of your next turn", but aren't permanent. Other effects only happen at a time later than their being triggered. Language on cards had always been rough when it came to larger amounts of turns. The Countdown icon simply skips all of that and presents it more simply. No more, no less. A 3.
Usefulness: The icon per se has no real utility aside from it brings a card's effects. There are no ways to play around with a countdown's length or anything. Not through the icon anyway. A 1 for the simplicity it brings. [Average total: 1.83.]

Delta Quadrant icon
Graphics: That's the Greek letter Delta (capitalized) in blue over a black background. Other quadrants would follow this design and be assigned Greek letters as well. Simple, classic, it gets 3.2.
Trek Sense: The Alpha Quadrant doesn't have an icon, because the normal spaceline is actually a mix of Alpha and Beta, and we can't really tell which, but the DQ as seen in the show isn't spatially connected to the Alpha-Beta spaceline and deserves to be apart. The icon on a personnel, facility or ship means those cards are native to that quadrant, and must report to that spaceline unless allowed to do so elsewhere (like a ship) or some other way. Makes sense to me. The Voyager crew and other lost souls does present problems, but since that crew is considered to be stranded at the beginning of the game, that's where they should start. Personnel that were in the DQ less than a moment before being killed by the trip shouldn't have the icon, but they usually do. That's a problem with those cards. Here, we get a sensible 4.
Usefulness: More of a limit on what you can do (the Quadrant'll get its own review in due time), the icon does feature on a number of cards. The Nekrit Supply Depot can be built by a Non-Aligned DQ ENGINEER, DQ Klingons can be discarded for points at Establish Settlement, DQ personnel can be seeded at Prison Break, Caretaker's Array seeds a DQ ship and some of them can use Home Away From Home, and DQ facilities can harbor a War Council. That kind of thing. The best thing about the icon though is that you can Scission DQ personnel and ships to great advantage. That alone makes the icon worth a 4. [Average total: 3.73.]

Downloading
Trek Sense: Downloading is where one card or situation's possible consequence is another card, and you actually get to bring in that card without having to wait for it to come into hand and then play. It's the ultimate logic booster in the game. The mechanic itself takes its name from a computer operation, so it isn't alien to the world of Star Trek, using the draw deck (and sometimes hand) as the computer banks from which you draw information. A really good 4.9.
Usefulness: Where would 1E be without downloading? There are so many cards that download others, usually with little cost, that it's gotta be one of the game's most important mechanics. Why else would Computer Crash try to stop it? And Shape-Shift Inhibitor ask you to pay for downloaded personnel? Well, I've got some news for you. It's so important that few players will handicap themselves with those counters (that also affect them) for any great length of time. While it's still taken hits, getting what you need when you need it is just too good, and cards that cannot be downloaded sometimes get my thumbs down simply because of that. And let's not forget that after every download, you have to shuffle your deck. That can be a useful tool for rigging probes, etc. A 4.8. [Average total: 4.85.]

Enigma icon
Graphics: A 6-pronged star, it's meant to play off a similar black "wingding" that means "universal". No real relationship to any kind of enigma I know of, I guess it could be a black, radiating star, something of a paradox. Or it could be a symbol for "winking out", representing the Queen's seeming ability to be there but not there, in a way teleporting her essence across space. (Hey, I think Three-Dimensionally, so sue me.) Enough hints here to get us to 2.8.
Trek Sense: They say the Queen (and I guess the Unicomplex) is neither unique nor universal, but it seems like a convoluted idea for only a couple cards (the fantasy of Fontaine not withstanding). You can still only have one Queen, so she's basically unique, right? How is her survival after "The Best of Both Worlds" (if she was really there) any different than any personnel death followed by a re-reporting of that personnel's second copy? There is none, and it's all zen nonsense. A 1 for the concept.
Usefulness: Cards that affect unique or universal personnel specifically, don't affect the Queen. For example, she's immune to Framed for Murder or the Tantalus Field, but she can't use Lower Decks either. The icon does show up as a probe result on Harness Particle 010, I dare say a rare one, but not the only way to "achieve perfection". And well, that's it. An extra immunity to some cards (especially dilemmas) for the 2 personnel who have it, so that's worth 3.7. [Average total: 2.5.]

Enterprise-E icon
Graphics: It's the current Starfleet insignia. Always on blue templates, it lacks constrast and really isn't all that interesting. Maybe 2.7?
Trek Sense: It's pure hogwash. It's meant to represent the ability to staff the Enterprise-E, and only the -E. what's so different about that ship that you need a special icon, and one only given to high-ranking officers too. Special new technology? Not really on show. And what about ships that came out at the same basic time or even later than the -E? They don't require these icons, nor are their crews saddled with them. Even worse than this implausibility is the idea that it doesn't "contain" either a Staff or a Command icon. So E-E Picard can't possibly staff a Galaxy-class ship anymore. Ridiculous. All it really does is encourage the use of the right crew on the Enterprise-E. That's all there is to it. That storytelling tool only gets us to 0.5 because I can't really suppress my annoyance here.
Usefulness: Thankfully, the icon is for more than staffing the Enterprise-E. It'a good ship, don't get me wrong, but the trade-off of requiring an icon that can't possibly staff other ships was grating. Crew Reassignment does allow E-E personnel to replace Staff icon personnel, so there's a fix there. A better one may be using the TB version of Deanna Troi who has all E-E personnel add Command. Unfortunately, that would mean switching back and forth between that Deanna and the rather useful FC version! Another downside to the icon is any ship those personnel are on can be stymied by Abandon Mission. Oh, and it's a nasty probe result for My First Raygun, and targeted by Don't Call Me Ahab! Sheesh! The saving grace then is Make It So. It's a useful card, and in the hands of Picard (on the E-E or Stargazer) or Data (on the Sutherland), it never need discard after its effects. As you can see, it's mostly a disadvantage! A 2. [Average total: 1.73.]

Expansion icon
Graphics: The tiny Borg Cube is perfect for representing this affiliation, although it does look a little like a die (as in dice). I like the change to expansion icons that don't really do anything and am sorry to see them gone. A cute, but not really detailed 3.2.
Usefulness: Only very seldom have expansion icons shown up in game text. Captain Proton is one instance. For First Contact, there are none. Still, I now all-too-fondly remember expansion icons as a great tool for collectors. One look and you knew which expansion a card belonged to. Plus, they were a FUN part of collecting. The basic score for this is 1. [Average total: 2.1.]

Hidden Agenda icon
Graphics: The icon is basically a shot of the back of an STCCG card. Makes sense, since it allows you to play such cards face forward with that backing looking up at you. Disappointing in the sense that it's a mechanical feature with no relationship to the game WORLD. Still a functional 3.
Trek Sense: Works for me. There are some things you're planning on doing, the wheels are probably already in motion, perhaps everything is set, but your opponent doesn't know it! What a great feature for the inscrutable Borg, the conniving Cardassians or the secretive Romulans! It's a great idea, not only for the fun reveals, but for the paranoia downturned cards create ("They're up to something..."). An excellent 4.8.
Usefulness: A great feature, it allows you to suspend play to reveal Events, Objectives and Incidents that were in play all along, just not tipping their hands. In essence, it turns these cards into Interrupts, "suspend play" Interrupts! Effects range from the "Sorry, you can't do that!" to "Ah-HA! You fell right into my trap!" While downturned, the cards are immune to nullification, and there are very few ways to breach the secrecy of the Hidden Agendas. The icon also allows you to play/seed a number of alternative scenarios (like multiple Borg Objectives), creating more options as to which should be activated once play begins. And you can't discount the paranoia factor, the HA certainly enforcing the meta-game. I say another strong 4.8. [Average total: 4.2.]

Intruders
Trek Sense: Not just terminology for a personnel on an opposing ship or facility, these guys have an actual ability - they can erase unattended holograms (or they could, this rule has since been rescinded). This may be the kind of built-in thing that got 1E in trouble, but it's still a sensible assumption for the most part. The assumption works in cases where the holograms are trapped in a Holodeck or other single room, but let's say I'd feel better if Computer Skill was part of the equation. The other note about intruders is that Rogue Borg count as such. Agreed. Though they have some problems, intruders score a 3.5 here.
Usefulness: Having an intruder aboard a ship does have its uses. Aside from the unlikely possibility of erasing a shipful of holograms (though it's a fun trick to use an RBM for), The Walls Have Ears will score you points for them and Commandeer Ship can prevent ships with intruders from being taken to hand by Space-Time Portal. The dangers include hosing by Intruder Alert and attacks initiated by First (though non-Borg can just attack anyone they don't have a battle restriction against). Heck, sending an intruder to a ship and goading your opponent into attacking it is a great way to get a counter-attack against a ship at the same location. Boo-yaa! Getting intruders aboard opposing ships is the real trick, but there are plenty of tools available. A 3.8. [Average total: 3.65.]

Mission specialists
Trek Sense: You only have one skill, so that's your specialty. Makes sense. The only place that falls down is when that single skill is something like Youth. A Youth specialist? Obviously, trying to fit a concept over cards that were never designed to hold that concept has its problems. Still, it's not a crazy way to redress these personnel, and in most cases, it does work. A 3.8.
Usefulness: Turning single-skilled personnel into a special category was sheer genius when it came to making them useful for perhaps the first time in their cardboard lives. Assign Mission Specialists gave new life and one of the most enduring strategies in the game to these underachievers. AMS allows them to download to an Outpost at the start of the game, then any time you want to replay the card. From there, these mission specialists score 5 points each every time their lone skill is used to meet a mission's requirements. There are enough missions and specialists that you can get a 2-mission win without too much trouble. The non-TNG affiliations were pretty much barred from this, but for the original three, and to some extent, the Ferengi, it's great AND it's cheap for the beginner. A 4.5. [Average total: 4.15.]

Objectives
Graphics: The Objective was principally created to act as Borg missions that could be played like Events, so it's no surprise the icon is metallic-looking. Like other card-type icons, it's got a central and circular design, this one a sort of "O" stamp. "O" for "Objective"? Simple, and fits in with the rest, but not particularly pretty. The other move was to forgo the usual lore box to accomodate more complex game text. Looks fine, and indeed, there's less wasted space spent on borders and such. In all, a 3.4.
Trek Sense: The reason behind the Objective isn't to create a more complex Event card. That's what the Incident was. No, Objectives for the most part try to give you something to do other than attempt missions. Sometimes for points, sometimes for other goodies. That sets them apart, and makes them worth being a new card type. They play like Events, as slow as them, though they more often seed. Somewhat like missions, the seeding seems the better way to go, but if you wanted to implement an Objective mid-game, well, it WOULD take time to get all the preparations ready. Fair enough. The card type works fine and seems to have a place in the game world. A 4.2.
Usefulness: Well, the Borg NEED this card type to win the game, so to them, it is as important as the Mission. For others, Objectives have had mixed importance, from offering powerful effects (like Visit Cochrane Memorial and Process Ore) to more conservative round-the-corner point-gathering activities (like The Emperor's New Cloak and Revenge Is a Dish Best Served Cold). The larger space for game text means more complex and varied effects can be put on them, and there's really no way to nullify "any Objective". Latter-day affiliations often have their own Objectives to make them different and put them in step with older ones despite starting out of the gate a bit late. For example, the Kazon have Boarding Party, the Vidiians Organ Theft, the Bajorans HQ: Return Orbs to Bajor, Establish Trade Route for the Ferengi, etc. Certainly makes up for having fewer missions. Looking at the list of Objectives, there aren't too many stinkers in there. A strong 4.8. [Average total: 4.13.]

OCD icon
Graphics: Looks just like Cochrane's OCD (optical compact disk), not like anything else which might've led to confusion... A 3 should cover it.
Trek Sense: It's a staffing icon for the Phoenix, and to be found on Cochrane's personnel card. See, Cochrane couldn't take off without his music (on the OCD). Probably the first staffing icon to look exactly like what "staffs" the ship, it's all still a bit facetious. It's meant to represent that only Cochrane can staff the Phoenix, but while that's technically true for first contact to be pulled off without a hitch, it's not really true of the actual piloting of the thing, is it? Besides, if there's an OCD requirement on this ship, I want to see a Balok icon. NOW! And no link to the Magic Carpet Ride Artifact? Cute, but no more than a 1.5.
Usefulness: Matches Cochrane to the Phoenix for purposes of staffing, and so can be used in conjunction with Crew Reassignment to report him directly aboard, but that's about all he has on other matching commanders specifically required to staff their ships (like the aforementioned Balok). Too limited to be of any real worth, and so stuck at 1.5. [Average total: 2.]

Persona replacement
Graphics: Graphics? What graphics? Well, basically, the name of the root persona is in bold in the version's lore (if they don't already have the same card title). Fairly easy to see on the printed cards, if not always on their online facsimiles. Clarity is the best you can hope for, though it's not as clear as 2E's solution. A functional 3.
Trek Sense: I'm fine with personnel (and ships) existing as various versions. After all, Star Trek characters hopefully aren't static, and there's a marked difference between, for example, TNG 1st season Worf and the Worf from the last season of DS9. The persona rules allow for the possibility of creating cards for the various steps in characters' evolution. I'm all for that. Now, to simulate this change, there's persona replacement (new with FC, even if personae existed before). It doesn't always work well though. For some versions, especially the "undercover" ones like Romulan Data'n'Picard or Galen, or the play-acting identities used on a Holodeck, there isn't a problem. They are guises you can get into and out of (though a good surgeon would sometimes seem to be indicated). In other cases, when going from an early version to a later version, it makes sense. When going from later to earlier though, it's very troublesome. And that's not to mention time issues like how such evolutions can occur so quickly (i.e. for free), though at least they must be at the start of a turn. Basically, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but overall, it's a good idea. Stands at 3.6.
Usefulness: Some versions of a persona are too similar to be worth including both. Some aren't in the same affiliation, so there's no sense in using them together unless a Treaty is in play. Others offer one version that is incredibly weak compared to another. But sometimes, making a switch can be very useful. One example of this is for personae that have a support personnel or mission specialist version. Report or download that one easily, then later switch for the better (pricier) version. Personnel whose main attraction is special downloads can be switched once the downloads are spent to a now more useful version. Various tricks can be pulled by specific personnel too, perhaps in between matching commander duties or whatever else you have the main version doing. It really depends on the personnel (or ship), but could be said to be worth 3.4. [Average total: 3.33.]

Personnel battle
Trek Sense: With First Contact, you get a major change from how this used to be done since Premiere. Originally, "Away Team battle" was simply a comparison of Strength totals, with the losing total losing a random personnel. No real depth there. From FC on, we get something a little more interesting. Chief among these is that we now create "combat piles" of personnel for each side, and have the personnel first square off one-on-one in pairs from the top of the stack on down. Star Trek does offer fights that go this way, but it's more of a super-hero model ("You take care of Luthor, and I'll go after Solomon Grundy!"). Let's say it's not bad at emulating fist fights (or melee), but doesn't quite mimic firefights in which you might switch targets often within the same battle. Another key change is that after the two paired personnel compare their Strength, the loser might be stunned or mortally wounded. Stunned personnel are taken out of the fight, but not killed. Mortally wounded personnel are done for: they're out of the fight for now, and at the end of the battle, are expected to die. What exactly happens uses the basic hit/direct hit model of ship battles. If you're hugely stronger than your adversary, you can mortally wound him. If you're just stronger, perhaps by a simple margin, a stun effect results. A tie means a standoff, nobody gets hurt in any way. Note also that stuns and mortal wounds are by CHOICE. You do not HAVE to kill or even stun if you don't want to. This is very Star Trek, though few players exercise the option unless the personnel to be killed has a special skill hosing them for it. Personnel not paired off are considered unharmed in the battle. Perhaps they were supplying cover fire or something. The last step is basically what the old Away Team battles were: compare total Strength (now minus that of the personnel removed from the battle), winner kills one personnel from the other side not already mortally wounded. All that's left is for the mortally wounded to die, the stunned to recover and everyone to be, and rightly so, stopped. Not perfect and still fairly abstract, it's nonetheless a vast improvement over its ancestor. A 4.2.
Usefulness: By itself, it's a more powerful, but also more dangerous, strategy to initiate personnel battle. You can be pretty sure of winning a battle if you have the numbers on your side (more personnel), but a couple of bad pairings could lead to your own personnel getting killed, while your strongest personnel is stuck at the bottom of the combat pile, never to be used. It's not that big a risk when you plan your assault teams carefully. Use only very strong personnel, no doubt armed to the teeth with hand weapons, and they won't just kill one personnel at the end of the battle, they stand a good chance of killing more than that (all the mortally wounded). Throw in a number of fun cards that affect personnel battle by ordering the combat pile, etc., and you have an important tool for dealing with your opponent. Some affiliations, like the Vidiians, Kazon and Hirogen, actually thrive on these kinds of confrontations, pulling interesting tricks other than stun and mortal wound. About a 4 for the new mechanics.[Average total: 4.1.]

Probing
Trek Sense: Abstract and conceptual, yes, but intriguing nonetheless. When you need to, you send out a "probe", which "sees" into the "depths of space" (top of the discard pile) and oftentimes produces an effect as per the card that allows probing. Basically, you start asking questions which will lead you to a result on your current objective (though it's not just something for Objectives), and the "probe" represents the answers you're looking for in the shape of various icons found on the probe card, treating the icons as separate bits of information, distinct from the card they are on. This is very conceptual, but still worth a 1.5 for an idea that fits Star Trek pretty well.
Usefulness: Not that much of a chore because while probing can introduce uncertainty in a strategy, it's actually quite possible to "rig" probes with deck manipulation cards, so that you get the result you want most of the time. Furthermore, each probe is a free peek at the next card in your deck, should you wish to shuffle things up and send it down by simply downloading a card or again, using those deck manipulators. And some probes tell you to draw the card while you're at it. A free card draw! Probes are less of a hassle with all these perks. A 3.8. [Average total: 2.65.]

Regions of space
Trek Sense: Some missions should be grouped together because they ARE grouped together in "real space". Regions make this happen, though there is some confusion as to what size is appropriate for one. The Sol, Bajor and Cardassian systems are perfect regions, because they cover only one system. The DMZ and Neutral Zone however are huge places that shouldn't really be governed by the same rules. I'm not that disturbed by the grouping aspect, but by other things, such as the Bajoran Interceptor's high Range within a region. It's meant to show a slower ship doing well in-system, but the Romulan Neutral Zone isn't just one system. So while basically a good idea, it hasn't always been used in the right way. A 3.5.
Usefulness: The first utility is to put all of your missions side-by-side so that you need never pass by your opponent's locations. Saves time (RANGE) and possible confrontations. Those regions that contain universal missions are even better, because they allow you to place side-by-side copies of the same mission, all with the same requirements. Talk about saving time. The Badlands, Briar Patch, Romulan Neutral Zone and Nekrit Expanse are like this. And then there are fringe benefits: A  few ships are simply faster within regions, mostly belonging to Bajorans and Mirror affiliations; Reaction Control Thrusters may move a facility within a region; Multidimensional Transport Device has more leeway in a region; etc. A strong 4. [Average total: 3.75.]

Seeding missions
Trek Sense: The change made with First Contact was that you couldn't seed identical missions anymore, always a sore point because you suddenly had 2 planets called Romulus in play at the same time, but at different places on the spaceline. Completing one of the missions didn't mean anything to the other either. It was just a mess. The solution here is deft: The player who would have seeded the copy places the mission out-of-play and seeds a universal mission instead. Those CAN be duplicated, after all. You still lay claim to the discarded mission though and could "steal" it from your opponent. That means it's something of a race for who will solve it, and that once completed, it cannot be completed again. I loved this solution, but they had to change it again later. Ah well, I guess players didn't like bringing extra missions just in case. A 5 for this fix.
Usefulness: Not as useful as getting to seed the mission you intended to play WITHOUT the interference from your opponent. Though you could use this to your advantage by planning for universals that are all the same (easy requirements you'll have no trouble meeting) or even inserting universal Space in between the contested mission and what might your opponent's facility. Still, more of a disadvantage. A single 1. [Average total: 3.]

Subcommand icons
Graphics: These are truly beautiful. First, they really do match the regeneration alcove energy monitors (as I've decided to call them). Second, they match the colors of the three original affiliations, and even have some of their properties. The Feds are all about Communicating, while the Romulans have fast ships and covertly Navigate. And who better than the Klingons to represent Defense? Its the same scheme used for attribute colors, actually. Furthermore, there's a connection to standard staffing icons, and in particular to how such icons are assimilated. A Command icon will become a Communications icon, right? Well, there are 6 points to the lightning in the Com icon, just as there are 6 points on the Command star. Staff icon had 4 points? So does the Nav icon. The Defense icon is left with a straight bolt of energy running down it. Doesn't match anything (can't), but fits the design. An enthusiastic 5!
Trek Sense: It was a great idea to take a cue from "The Best of Both Worlds" where Data, almost in a throw-away line, gives us the 3 subcommands. This helps organize the drones into themed functions perfectly well, AND acts as a solid set of staffing icons. The Collective ISN'T a hierarchy, and it shows here. A strong 4.5.
Usefulness: The subcommands' greatest use is as probe results. The Borg can't win if they can't successfully probe, and the subcommands are the best and most frequent icons required for success. Turns out it's not that hard to pull a subcommand, since Borg personnel, ships AND verb cards (including Objectives) have them. It's more a matter of pulling the right one. The Borg also use the icon in their personnel downloads and to trigger various Equipment and verb cards, as well as Interlink functions. You need a good mix of all three, but Communications seems to get the most hits. Navigation icons are most common as ship staffing, and Defense Borg act as leaders in personnel battle, and also show up on dilemmas more than the rest. Now, former Borg have kept their subcommand icons, and these can be used in some cases. A commandeered Borg ship, in some instances, may need them to fulfill staffing requirements. Nav and Def Borg can use Divert Power, though each in a different way. Com Borg can use the Cortical Node Implant, Borg Data Node and Nanoprobe Resuscitation. Def Borg can protect personnel from Denevan Neural Parasites and pass Crisis and Invasive Procedures. These are the major example, but it's enough to give the subcommands a high 4.8. [Average total: 4.77.]

Time Locations
Graphics: No icon or anything, just a specific template, and an oddly confusing one at that. It uses the same icon(s) as Missions, and like Missions, doesn't have the card type written on it anywhere. Using a bleeding open frame like the Doorway, it gets to be prettier than most cards, but I have to wonder why the game text isn't in bold. This is the only card type that does this (aside from the Husnock Outpost, but that's an aberration), and I can't figure out why. Pretty, but not much else. A 2.8.
Trek Sense: Time Locations add the concept of time travel to the game, but in an abbreviated way. The entire era is represented by one card, a location that is generally attached to a present-day location. The Montana Missile Complex, for example, is Earth's past. They need not be seeded (Montana is the one TL that CAN'T be seeded), but you'd think history was in place just as the spaceline is. It's obvious that you'd have to time travel to get to these locations, and that once there, they act much as the planet does (ships in orbit, etc.). Each TL mentions some natives to that time, and originally, if the TL was in play, they HAD to report there. It was their home time, after all. This did lead to one problem, namely that if an AU Door was in play, and the TL wasn't, those natives could report anywhere. If the TL WAS in play, they suddenly couldn't. Why the difference? If these AUs can time travel, the fact their home time is on the table shouldn't be a hindrance to that (the opposite actually). This has since been changed, though the basic goodness has been kept: personnel and ships native of a TL can report there even without AU Door help. Now THAT makes sense. I might have nudged it a bit more by allowing an AU Door to report non-AU personnel to a TL, but we don't have to go there if you don't want to. One last note about why I called the mechanic "abbreviated" above: I just found it a shame that the OS and even CF eras weren't covered as spacelines (quadrants, if you will), but as a single card. Boooo! The card type gets 3.4 here - a good effort. (Timeline disruption is covered in the reviews of those cards that allow it, since each is different.)
Usefulness: There are few TLs in the game, and most are basically reporting centers for certain personnel (OS, Mirror OS, and CF). The others are attached to specific strategies that may or may not be your cup of tea. The card type does have other functions however. It's possible to hide at a TL, for example, especially while you build up your crew with report-to-ship functions. Opponents can't get to you unless they have a way of time-traveling there (and both the time and inclination - it's not usually worth the trouble). It's also possible to Wormhole someone to a TL, where they may remain trapped (it's Operate Wormhole Relays to the rescue!). And then there's The Guardian of Forever: "Walk" from a TL to the Guardian with an Anthropology or Archaeology personnel, and you can get massive card draws. Natives are especially good here if they have the right skill(s). They report at the TL, then step through the Doorway. (It goes out-of-play, so you better have more stocked if you're gonna repeat the action.) Enough tricks for a 3.6, but totally optional. [Average total: 3.27.]

Winning the game
Trek Sense: "Winning" is an all-too-mechanical thing in STCCG, with no real analogy in Trek Sense. You win battles, you succeed at completing missions, etc., but at the end of the day (what looks like 3-4 episodes), who's this judge that declares a winner? The change made as of First Contact is this: Used to be that if a player ran out of cards in his draw deck, the game ended. Check points, declare winner. From FC on, both players have to run out for the game to end with resource depletion. It's all very mechanical, but it makes sense the "game" could end when the resources run out. But as long as one "player" has resources, it should be allowed to continue. I agree with that, so a 2.
Usefulness: There are ways to expend your deck in the quickest possible way. Lots of card draws combined with a small draw deck, and there you have it, a way to end the game quickly after you've scored, but your opponent hasn't. Close down that one (unfair) strategy, and you allow many more others to blossom. The race should be to a 100 points, not to the bottom of your draw deck. While the new rule doesn't really have uses per se, it does contribute to a better playing environment. A 3.5. [Average total: 2.75.]

(Average score for new mechanics: 3.36.)

OVERALL USEFULNESS: I don't think there's any other expansion that has contributed to the game more, or changed it as much. Its overhaul paved the way for a lot of things to come, but by itself, how useful is it? Well, if you wanted to play the Borg, this is the one you absolutely needed. It's now possible to begin with The Borg instead, but none of the drones have the same special skills, so they should still be useful in today's environment. The Feds are less impressive, with most mains being good, but not all that better than their TNG selves. Other affiliations of the time were denied any noun cards, but the Romulans did get a couple of potentially lucrative missions, and the Klingons gained a lot from Assign Mission Specialists. It hurts this expansion's score that most of its important cards were reprinted in later sets, cards like AMS, the Borg objectives, verbs and ships, Balancing Act, Ready Room Door, Transwarp Network Gateway, and Mission Debriefing, for example. First Contact remains the only place you can get the Federation homeworld however (barring EFC and Reflections), as well as Disengage Safety Protocols for your hologram decks. Other cards still going strong after all these years include Scorched Hand, Ooby Dooby and Visit Cochrane Memorial. The expansion has its share of less useful cards however, mostly things that tie in too closely with other FC cards (Assimilate This, for example, and even Stop First Contact), but for the most part, it's a winner. Taking away some points for all the reprints that have made it less necessary, I still give it a 3.9.

TOTAL: 19.66 (78.64%) Way above any full expansion that came before it, and I bet ready to beat many of its followers too.

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