To see the cards themselves, check out this Card list for the Premiere set.
Some of the cards have been corrected in the Beta Set.

PICTURE: Hulk colors if I ever saw them, they find themselves here on a rather lackluster screen shot of that scan of caves in "Bloodlines", as they looked for Jason Vigo, Picard's "son". Looks like each dot has coordinates attached to compensate for the two-dimensional image. Hits 2.5.

LORE: Quite dull, and not particularly well written. The expression "a special form of sensor scan" is rather weak, and "form" should have been "type" or a similar word instead, especially considering that life-"forms" are mentioned later on (quite close graphically, just under it). Lucky to get a 2.

TREK SENSE: One of the major mistakes in Premiere, in my infrequently humble opinion, was to basically reverse the game text on Life-Form Scan and Long-Range Scan. I mean, come on. Wouldn't it make more sense to use a Long-Range Scan to probe someone's far-off resources (in hand), and a Life-Form Scan to peek at personnel aboard a ship? Even if that wasn't a problem, you'd have to wonder why you have to show your entire hand and not just personnel. A terrible 0.2.

STOCKABILITY: Knowing what's in your opponent's hand is actually pretty useful, and not just in your strategizing. When using Telepathic Alien Kidnappers, for example, you'd be hard-pressed to have a better intelligence tool to know what cards to ask for. Should you use Masaka Transformations on your opponent? Scorched Hand? If only for the peace of mind, a 3.1, but of course, a hand changes all the time so the intelligence is short-lived.

TOTAL: 7.8 (39%) Ranks right down there with the Incoming Messages.

PICTURE: A pretty girl, but that stiff hairdo isn't helping her look. she's in engineering doing her job, there's at least that, but otherwise what you'd expect from a universal's pic. A 3.

LORE: A statement of universality and nothing else. They could at least have made her the more exact rank of Lt. (j.g.), but there's not even that. Oh, no mistakes, but can't be worth more than a 1.5.

TREK SENSE: Ok, yes, a Youthful Starfleet (Fed) Engineer, and typical of many extras seen on the show. That's fine, but because we have the mission specialist concept, she must pass that particular test, and she doesn't. Youth isn't a mission specialty by any stretch of the imagination. Her Staff icon's ok, of course, and her Integrity is fine for a Starfleet personnel. Cunning's incredibly low, and I'm not sure this dumb an Engineer would be working on Laforge's staff like this. So she was outclassed by Barclay in "The Nth Degree", so what? He was growing a second brain at the time! No problems with the Strength. She gets a rather generous 1.8, but that's because I can't really say she deserved any more skills.

STOCKABILITY: Very slim. In the Federation, there are too many personnel cards to choose from to be anything but useful. The Feds have a lot of good ENGINEERs, and well, to put it mildly, Linda isn't really one of them. Youth isn't a very useful skill, and it's one of the worst for mission specialists. Too few missions can actually get point hikes from it. But she's a cheap one for Investigate Legend, where I'd also bring Calloway and Simon Tarses (or Giusti, I guess). Throw in Riva for Diplomacy and you're up to 60 points for the mission. A limited attraction to be sure. Ooby Dooby's another possibility, but it's gotten some hits in the recent past. Attributes are really lame besides, much like other Youth specialists. I guess I can get her 1.5 for her lone strategies.

TOTAL: 7.8 (39%) Didn't really expect better.

PICTURE: Oh my lord, no. I can tell you where the pic is from, but it's not going to help you like it. It's from "Descent, Part I", and well, has nothing to do with the game text (but I'll get to that later). It IS a Long-Range Scan, it says so right there at the top of the screen, but was there ever a more boring screen shot? I was actually happy to see the Enterprise bridge lights reflected in its upper portion. To be fair, there's actually a lot of small print that's readable here, which is fun for Star Trek fans, but it's hard to get past the plain graphics and irrelevancy of an "Energy Signature Analysis" in the context of this card. A 1.

LORE: The lore rolls on as if the game text was something entirely different, but it's describing the card title as well as it can. Sounds more like what the Scan card is for than what this one can do. A 2.1 here.

TREK SENSE: Only a few reviews ago, I was saying how Life-Form Scan and Long-Range Scan's game text had been reversed. After all, the card allows you to detect life-forms on ships, while Life-Form Scan's detection of cards in hand (not even in play) seems more like Long-Range probing. As an effect unto itself, I'm not that concerned with the lack of a ship being present to conduct the scanning, because spy probes and monitoring stations can do this kind of work. Of course, there is the matter of the lore talking about SHIP sensors. In any case, the mismatched titled makes it do rather poorly. Only 0.5.

STOCKABILITY: Got a memory? Use it. Stocking a card simply to check if a certain personnel is aboard a specific ship seems pretty wasteful. Plenty of dilemmas will allow you to see which personnel are part of a crew if you've lost track of who is where. Even worse, there are actually ships that are immune to this. Why it would be such an issue, I have no real idea. I understand not wanting to waste some card that depends on a personnel's presence, say not playing Isabella on a ship that has Youth, or checking on total STRENGTH before boarding the ship with an assault team, but then you're waiting for too many cards to come into your hand to enable your strategies and missing some opportunities along the way. I'm afraid I can't go over 0.7.

TOTAL: 4.3 (21.5%) We have a new low! Only the promotional, non-playable Door to the Fajo Collection scored worse.

PICTURE: Lore grining his head off, with a dark steel gray background. It emotes well, but isn't rich in story. I do like the attitude, even if the elements are rather thin. A 3.

LORE: Well, right away, there's a problem with this lore. It's personnel lore! The last sentence has something to do with the card's effect, but really, it reads like it was written for Lore, the personnel. Very disturbing in this case. Hey, I'd have loved to see this kind of information on his actual card, it's just strange here. The title is also a problem, since Lore Returns before he ever made an appearance. All the more frustrating is the fact Lore finally appeared only after 2 more expansions, a long hiatus, then another expansion, since First Contact managed to release before Fajo Collection. Taking all that into consideration, Lore's lore winds up at 1.6.

TREK SENSE: A true storytelling tool to make the Rogue Borg a little more like on the show. The RBMs are nothing if not disorganized without the Collective's influence, and Lore gave them the direction they needed. That direction allows them to take over a ship, pilot it, attack other ships and use its transporters to beam to planets to battle Away Teams. Now, it's my opinion that the RBMs as they are now are already suffering from Lore's influence since their purpose in life is to attack personnel aboard ships, alone or in groups. Why are they so aggressive if Lore isn't in the picture? Lore Returns is more of an extra strategy he lends the RBMs in this case, but I think he's already behind the scenes on the other card. I like that it gets them closer to personnel status, which is how they sort of function in the first place. According to the wording, Lore should be able to mix with them too (the text would require him actually), but sadly, the Glossary says this isn't so. Well, why not?!? Anyway, the commandeering attempt, cuz this is what it is, that works, but RBMs have inherent Trek Sense weaknesses derived from being Interrupts (like, where do they even come from?) and that leaks into this card. Does hit 3.4.

STOCKABILITY: So difficult to enable that it's hardly worth it. You need to get a large enough load of RBMs into your hand to destroy an entire opposing crew, and on your turn, have Lore Returns in hand and use your card play to plunk it on the table. If you did manage it, the ship would be commandeered and then be able to attack other ships, and even beam RBMs into personnel battles on planets. RBMs left over on a ship when its crew is dead would just remain there, I guess to battle any new personnel that would come aboard, but basically inert. This gives them a more permanent presence on the spaceline. And if Lore is in play, their STRENGTH is doubled to boot. But of course, RBMs have gotten a lot of hosing since they've come out, which makes them less than ideal to use in the first place. Hugh discards them from one location (Sense the Borg downloads him the minute they show up), Borg Neuroprocessor does the same to all RBMs in play, Reactor Overload destroys a shipful, Breen CRM114 destroys 5 of them at the start of a battle, and then there's Data Laughing that gives your opponent control of his ship again. Worst of all is Stratagema, which nullifies RBMs before they even hit the table. That's not to mention all the cards that help fight the RBMs on a smaller scale, or prevents pinging (Targ, Airlock, Antique Machine Gun, Android Headlock, Intruder Force Field, etc.). Many of these won't matter if you drop RBMs on your own ship, of course, so doing so to staff warships easily is an option. 2E ships require more staffing and can ask for as many as 5 staffing icons (the Scimitar), so RBMs may indeed be cheaper crew. But Startagema still kills that strategy. So while it's a fun couple of tricks, you need to dedicate too much of your deck to them, they can be shut down very easily, and their rewards are just not lucrative enough. A 1.8.

TOTAL: 9.8 (49%) See, Lore only got 61% himself, so he's not exactly on a hot streak.

PICTURE: I'm afraid pictures showing a lot of android skin just don't come off as very interesting, color-wise. That golden skin just has a way of registering as a kind of light beige to me. The dash of green isn't all that helpful here, and the action of lifting up the nail isn't even all that gruesome (as opposed to a recent finger injury incurred during some rather vigorous clam-digging on my part, so I know what I'm talking about). The extreme close-up makes it instantly recognizeable though. I can find it in my heart to give it a 1.5.

LORE: Ok, but uninspired. And there was room for more too. A 2.

TREK SENSE: Lore is once again off-stage (like in Lore Returns) and controlling things without being a personnel card. He can use the remote emotion chip to make Soong-Types feel emotions of his choice, which results in their becoming Non-Aligned. On the show, Data "turned" and joined his brother (Soong-Types should all be "related") who is Non-Aligned. Of course, without Lore in play, and with androids still in their respective crews, I suppose it could be said their negative emotions make them less able to follow orders or stay loyal to their affiliation. Why Lore could affect Exocomps is a mystery though. I also have to wonder at the range of the thing, since it affects all Soongs (naming Data here serves no purpose, an example of Premiere's inefficient use of language) and Exocomps in play, no matter where they are, including time locations, other quadrants, etc. The androids in question can't really be controlled by Lore's player, so manipulation isn't much of an issue. And what about special cases like Data and Picard? Picard is just as affected by the Fingernail as Data is. Same for Data and Geordi. The idea of the Fingernail makes sense, but little else does. A 1.3.

STOCKABILITY: I'd say the Non-Aligned versions of Data from Holodeck Adventures (Sherlock Holmes and Carlos) have taken a bite out of this card, but not a huge one. Most Soongs are still Federation, so if you wanted to use more than the universal type, you could play this card and then report Data, Lal and Juliana Tainer as Non-Aligned. And with the card, there's no reason for Exocomps to only repair Federation ships. It's not that crazy an idea considering how useful many of these personnel cards are, and with some of the dilemmas out there, having at least on android on hand isn't a bad idea. The big problem with the card though is that there's no way to seed it. If I can't report my personnel until I get Fingernail on the table first, how useful is it? Using your androids (and by this, I always mean Soong-Types, since other androids are unaffected) as NAs might be useful later in the game if you are using their usual affiliation, like to report Data even after Earth's been assimilated, but these situations are rare. How about using the card to make opposing androids Non-Aligned? Yes, it does that too, but since NAs can mix normally with affiliated personnel, it's not going to be a big change. It will prevent your opponent (as it would do you) from using the androids as "matching" personnel, so reporting on a Nor might prove a problem, or using Construct Starship with Data. Still, this affects so few personnel and situations that you'd be hard-pressed to predict they would be part of a game. Need a Non-Aligned android? Just play one. Need a Non-Aligned Data specifically, yes you can play one now. No need for this thing. Its problems far outweigh its bonuses. A 1.8.

TOTAL: 6.6 (33%) Bottom three events!

PICTURE: The Enterprise from that angle and with that background puts across some danger, but not a whole lot of it. I like it, but there's no real sense of motion. Still, I'm game for a 3.3, if only for the juxtaposition of ship and planet.

LORE: It isn't Shakespeare or anything, but it says what it means. A clear 3 with no bells or whistles.

TREK SENSE: There may be many reasons why a ship would get too close to a planet's atmosphere, from being led there by an opponent during battle, to human or technical error. So this works as an Interrupt. The ship must immediately try to extricate itself from the dive, so it "loses its turn". Such maneuvers are dangerous, so if your Shields can't take the heat, the ship could be destroyed. Sounds about right, n'est-ce pas? Well, not quite. The card also doesn't differentiate between bulky starships and aerodynamic shuttles, for example. I mean, what if you have landing cards in play? Seems like a Shields 2 shuttle has a better chance of making it out of there than a Shields 9 starship. It's not a huge point, seeing as the card makes it plain the ship in question is in trouble, so even a shuttle could be windswept into exploding, but maybe a starship should get damaged? Just an opinion of course, but it's an opinion that lowers the score to a still very good 3.8.

STOCKABILITY: A forgotten common from Premiere, Loss of Orbital Stability (LOOS) isn't as bad as all that. It's isn't great, of course, seeing as most players won't use SHIELDS<5 ships even as landers, going for the larger Runabout-style ships or putting a matching commander aboard the craft to boost its stats. Many affiliations have no ships with low enough SHIELDS to begin with. That said, sometimes you could destroy a Hidden Fighter after it takes off, depending on the ship. If you can get Tactics to damage a ship's SHIELDS enough, you could outright destroy it with a simple Interrupt while you fly off to greener pastures. Those SHIELDS -3 Tactics are great here. And at the very least, you keep a ship from moving for a full turn. It doesn't really stop the crew, but at a mission they just completed, there's nothing more to do. It's a delay tactic that doesn't get beaten with a hose as much as Rogue Borg pinging. And if you don't want to wait a full turn for the ship to be destroyed, there's always Samuel Clemens' Pocketwatch. Keeping a ship in the way of the Borg Ship dilemma, keeping Cytherians' points at bay... there's lots of little things you can do with it, and cards that "unstop" ships won't work because the ship technically isn't stopped. Still not an overwhelmingly powerful card, but perhaps better than widely thought. A 3.4.

TOTAL: 13.5 (67.5%) Surprisingly not a loss.

PICTURE: The Klingon sister that really scares me, there's a velvety feel to Lursa's pic thanks to the pinkish tones in both costume and background. The left side of the frame is a bit overlit, looking for all the world like we're in Dr. Noah's retreat, and that makes her expression harder to discern. Distracting background, but ok foreground that plays on severe horizontals in her face and armor, and a color palette not overshifted in the reds... How about 3.2?

LORE: Eeech. Bare bones, one of those dreaded mentions of the civil war complete with dates. Very boring and only a 1.5.

TREK SENSE: The Sisters of Duras may not be able to get a seat on the High Council, but they are still the heads of their family, so VIPs with Command icons it is. Able to rally half the Empire behind them, I'll agree with Lursa's Leadership (besides, she co-captains a ship). Working with the Romulans requires lots of character flaws for a Klingon, and we have them in spades here: Treachery, Greed (she became a sort of mercenary after the war) and very low Integrity. There's nothing she and her sister won't stoop to. And Geology? Trafficking in bilitrium explosives in "Past Prologue" and illegally mining magnesite ore in "Firstborn" requires the skill. She's Cunning like a fox, and a formidable-looking combatant. Everything here reads fine, but you know I would have liked something more to fill out one of the bigger villains of the TNG series. Hits a ceiling of 4.

STOCKABILITY: A 4-skill VIP for the Klingons isn't too great, and hasn't been for quite a while, but it's not bad either. Leadership is necessary to allow her to initiate battles, and since her ship, the Cha'Joh, can get double the matching commander bonuses if you bring B'Etor in, you'll want to use that (optimally) 11-11-11 ship in battle. Geology shows up on enough dilemmas and missions to make it worthwhile, yet it isn't on too many Klingons. Her combination of skills is actually perfect for Feldomite Rush, where she'll use 3 out of 4. Lursa would certainly figure in a Treachery Klingon deck, perhaps in Treaty with the Romulans (especially considering her dual-affiliation ship). There are a number of missions that would fit, and opponents would usually expect an Honor-driven strategy from the Klingons. Instead of the usual Death Yells and Honor Challenges, you have Subspace Transporter (to initiate personnel battle on opposing ships), The Emperor's New Cloak and War Council. There are more than enough Treacherous Klingons. She can also use a couple of Rules of Acquisition. The combined version of the two Duras sisters (Sisters of Duras) doesn't change them much, but does make them redoutable in personnel battle, so I would keep them apart for missions attempts and join them in fights. I don't think that much of her as a mission solver, but she brings other things to the table. A 3.7.

TOTAL: 12.4 (62%) Much lower than her pretty sister, but it's a different playing environment as well.

PICTURE: The original, nude personnel pic, it shows off Lwaxana's outrageous personality, but is nonetheless subdued. Maybe too subdued. The color palette squarely sits in TNG beige, there's a certain measure of fuzziness, and her disheveled look misses the elegance and color of the character. I'm of two minds, really, but it's interesting enough to give it a 3.4.

LORE: Obviously, her full title had to be on there, since she never left home without it. Her relationship to Deanna is also a natural. I won't penalize the Premiere card for spelling her name "Lwaxanna" with 2 "n"s because the Beta Set corrected the mistake. Missing, however, is the word ambassador, which would have helped with Office of the President. 3.2 here.

TREK SENSE: Lwaxana's in the royal family of Betazed or something, but more than that, she's an ambassador, so clearly a VIP. Being a full telepath, she gets Empathy x2, which is the same. She didn't have the most tact, but at the same time, wouldn't Diplomacy be part of her skills? She was most useful with her telepathy, but calling her a mission specialist in that "field" doesn't work as well as it would on, say, Tam Elbrun. The Federation calls her in for diplomatic missions, not as a specialty telepath. Not a big deal, since the show's writers obviously saw her more as a telepath than a diplomat (though her mission with the Cairn is one instance where telepathy was the reason she was chosen). Her Integrity makes her a good-hearted woman, but isn't so high because she acts self-centered much of the time. 7's fine. She's a sharp wit, but I think 8 is way too much for her. She has a history of ignoring health problems, being captured by Ferengi, not recognizing holograms for what they are, bringing kids to strip shows, and needing Odo to bail her out. She's no 8. As for Strength, a woman of her upbringing and age could well have a 3. It's not too frail for her. Not being tagged as an ambassador in the lore also comes to haunt her here. Very spartan design that doesn't really suit her, so 2.4.

STOCKABILITY: An Empathy mission specialist is certainly useful to make sure you have that rare skill (well, not that rare in the Federation) on hand as early as possible via Assign Mission Specialists. Grab her with Riva and you already have the team that makes First Contact a 40-point mission. There's potentially more at New Contact (the Feds can muster the 4 necessary mission specialists), but you'll need to use Espionage or a Treaty to attempt it. Not many missions to boost, but Empathy's usefulness against dilemmas can't be overlooked. Of course, in those cases, Tam Elbrun is the better personnel, with slightly better skills and the more reportable Support Personnel status. She'll still pass V'ger and the like for the Feds if present (oh yeah, and Wind Dancer, like, everyone uses that, right?). You might use AMS to get her, then get her with Deanna and switch them for The Trois for their downloads. Doable. Mrs. Troi is good, but only in a few situations. I'll give her 3.2.

TOTAL: 12.2 (61%) The Ferengi version was better on all fronts.

PICTURE: Hey, you won't see ME complaining about beautiful women on cards... except, of course, I have in the past, such as Leeta's card. But it's always been because they weren't as beautiful as they were on the show, which is not a problem here. Bimbette #2 here is just my type too. But objectively? It's a little hard to believe that the light is supplied by the sun, and the right side of the card is a little too dark. The girl's gorgeous, but generic since she wasn't anyone's "Love Interest" on the show. That's fine actually, since she's got to appeal to more than just Bashir, Riker or Paris. Fair composition and an attractive subject matter brings this card to 3.6.

LORE: It's jarring when lore actually points to the picture this way. Not only does the phrase want to be a sentence with that kind of length, and just doesn't make it, it also takes away from the card's genericity. It's like all Males' Love Interests are from Risa, which they aren't. And in this case, did you notice she's not actually a Risan? Look at the forehead. It's also a little shallow, isn't it? A 2.

TREK SENSE: We've dealt with this kind of card before (the Female's Love Interest), so I kinda know what to say by now. While this is the kind of dilemma that could occur anywhere and in multiples, its effect is unlike the romances on the show. Running off with a personnel to the ends of the spaceline? Stopping them, certainly. Almost making them resign, perhaps. Making them miserable until the reboot button is pushed, sure. A sudden trip to the last planet on the edge of space, not really. Also, why no Love Interests in space? We've seen plenty of them. The game text has lore-like flavor, but these things still rank at 2.3.

SEEDABILITY: Love Interests are good because they are sure to hit as long as the target gender is present, and who doesn't use males? The Borg are exempt, of course. The randomly selected male isn't just filtered out of the Away Team, he's wisked off to the farthest planet on the spaceline, so try to put one at the very end instead of a space mission, if you can. This was harsher before multiple quadrants made their appearance, where you could be sure of extreme spans, but seeding the dilemma close to one end of the spaceline still guarantees delays in getting the personnel back to its ship. Even if close-by, the personnel is still removed from the mission attempt. And once alone on a planet, Thine Own Self can trap him further, your own Away Team can go capture or kill him, etc. Qualor II on the end of the spaceline will place him in stasis, where he may find himself Dead in Bed, or at least unable to leave (expcet if Non-Aligned). It's not as powerful as the Female's Love Interest because you don't have the usual access to female-requiring combos, but you probably won't be denied a male target, like you could a female. The value of the card did drop when the Combo Dilemma came out, giving it a space/planet icon and partnering it with Plague Ship. It still stands at 3.5, being way cheaper than the Combo.

TOTAL: 11.4 (57%) An old classic showing its age.

PICTURE: A pic of Masaka, if not actually of any obvious transformation, the prop looks good, and the golden spotlight makes for a dramatic effect. A classic, it gets 3.5.

LORE: The syntax is a little dirty, and there's a profound lack of context as to who Masaka is. It seems to give credit to Masaka for what the D'Arsay Archive actually did. 1.9 from me.

TREK SENSE: Highly conceptual, it plays with the idea of transforming one thing into another. On the show, the ship was transformed into a temple, Data into various characters from D'Arsay myth, etc. In the game, a hand is transformed into another hand of equal number (matter). On the show, they managed to return everything to normal, and in the game, the cards aren't lost, simply sent to the bottom of the draw deck. Trek Sense pretty much stops there. Unless Obelisk of Masaka and maybe The Mask of Korgano are part of the new hand, the transformed cards aren't D'Arsay-related. And in any case, nothing changes on the spaceline, i.e. the real world. Only gets to 1 on the concept.

STOCKABILITY: An old favorite, it may be used to draw a new hand when your current one isn't what's needed at the moment. The old hand isn't lost, just sent to the bottom of the draw deck, so it's not a big sacrifice, and maybe that new hand has the ship you desperately need, or whatever it is. It can also be used on your opponent, especially after you've gotten a peek at his or her hand somehow and found a powerful strategy about to be sprung on you. Or maybe your opponent has a terrible poker face and you know he or she got something good. Burying even one powerful card can set your opponent back a lot. Doing this blind is risky, since the new hand might be better than the old one. Yes, it's a slow-playing Event, but your Obelisk of Masaka can be discarded to download it, and that incident can itself be either seeded or downloaded via Ref-Q. Especially nasty against someone who just called "Devidian Door". Mirror Image works on Masaka, but that's not much of a problem if you plan on using it on yourself. At the very least, you unbalance your opponent at the same time. Might even be worth playing Mirror Image yourself to get these double-whammies. The Borg, with all their "download in place of a card draw" abilities could conceivably use a bunch of them at the same time, though it would deplete their hand somewhat. The original card manipulation card, it's got its problems, but it still works fine. How about a 4?

TOTAL: 10.4 (52%) Like I said, it may be a classic, but it's got its problems

PICTURE: Though few characters are in the frame (I just noticed a second woman behind Mistress Beata), an example of both a male and a female showcases the Matriarchal aspect of this Society. Beata is bigger in the shot, and confident-looking in her "power color" outfit (without looking masculine). The man at the back looks effeminate and is showing all the cleavage she isn't, among other things. The flora on the other side of the window is pleasant dressing to an already good card. Going for a 3.8.

LORE: Written ok, and certainly describing Angel One's society, but missing a phrase that would have made it more universal a dilemma. Only 2.5, I'm afraid.

TREK SENSE: If all Matriarchal Societies are like Angel One, then yes, this is totally sensical. These aren't just women in charge, they're chauvinist women who don't really respect men. Another example is the Skreeans from the DS9 episode "Sanctuary". In these two episodes, you needed female personnel around to deal with these people because they didn't trust men or respect their authority/competence. Now, you could argue that a woman from Angel One would recognize a big bad Klingon male's authority, or that a male with loads of Diplomacy could theoretically convince the matriarchs of their competence. The card covers none of these possibilities. One problem is that 2 females are needed. That's fine for a large Away Team where you don't want to make it seem like that woman is just a token female, but what if she's all alone to beam down? What's even more problematic though, is that the dilemma can be seeded under planets we know not to be Matriarchal Societies. Federation worlds are forbidden to discriminate by gender, and on Qo'noS, women can't serve on the High Council. Must I mention the Ferengi's views on females? The dilemma can be taken like this though: The Away Team encounters the matriarchal ATTITUDE of that episode's guest star(s). Not a Society, but still, a group of women connected to the mission give your guys some trouble. With that in mind, the score levels up at 3.5.

SEEDABILITY: One of my favorite walls because 1) females are generally rarer than males, and 2) they can be excised from an Away Team through the use of other gender-related dilemmas. Exploring the truth of that first point, you'll discover that the some affiliations are much more vulnerable to Matriarchal Society. The 3 DQ affiliations, for example, would do well to include Non-Aligned females to their Away Teams. Klingons, Ferengi, Cardassians... they're rather low on female personnel too. The Federation, Romulans and Bajorans do better, and the Borg are totally immune to gender-related dilemmas. You can either lead with female-targeting dilemmas to make sure the wall sticks around, or you can put them after Matriarchal Society to make sure THEY hit. One of the best of these is Female's Love Interest because it relocates the female so that she's not just filtered, she's not available on later turns unless she's rescued from the end of the spaceline first. The real killer though is Talosian Cage, which has heavy requirements and can discard 2 females. It's great either before or after Matriarchal Society. Kidnappers could be good if you have SECURITY in the area. The Romance dilemmas aren't bad filters because of their countdown. Strange Bedfellows could lead to a discard, but is usually a simple filter. Anaphasic Organism is too easy to counter, and Distraction isn't a safe bet. This dilemma still has kick, and so: a straight 4.

TOTAL: 13.8 (69%) Just a guy's opinion, of course.

PICTURE: One of many perfectly attractive young women who drove the ship after Wesley gave up the post to go to Starfleet Academy. Leaning forward eyes wide, she gives an air of youthful eagerness and awe at what a fantastic universe we live in. Well done as far as these things go, "these things" being rather dull Enterprise helm shots. Hey, a 3.

LORE: Her universality is acknowledged, and not using the usual wording, so that's good. The rest is an inside joke/easter egg, a hommage to one of the original designers' designer friend (not himself). I don't know who it is (indeed, "famous" may be pushing it), but I don't think his last name's McKnight. Could it be "Winslow" as per the actress' name? I think so, yes. A little frustrating, and to be frank, it sticks out like a sore thumb. An annoying 1.6.

TREK SENSE: McKnight may have appeared in more than one episode, but she didn't much more than the many extras that filled the position. Working the helm gets you Officer, Navigation and the Staff icon, and Youth is pretty much a given for a an ensign in her twenties. Many crewmembers on the Enterprise took up some kind of musical instrument, and many recitals were seen to be held throughout the series. I don't remember McKnight actually showing up in one of those recitals, but it's not that much of a stretch. As a typical (universal) crewmember, I think Music fits in rather easily. The attributes are a little low though. Cunning's fine for a Youth (but on the flagship's bridge?), however I can't support the low Integrity, not on a youthful, optismistic and apparently artistic personnel. She would have to be more cowardly than shown to drop to a 5. As for Strength, a healthy body and Starfleet training should have kept her at 4, but maybe she's too petite for that. I'll buy some it, but not all of it. Keeps her at 2.8.

STOCKABILITY: McKnight is a Federation personnel that fits in well with what I'd call "dilettante decks". You know, those that use cards like Ooby Dooby, Ressikan Flute and Risa Shore Leave. A deck CAN be built around the "skills" eliminated in 2E, and besides, Navigation is always good, but you'd probably do better with more easily reported personnel like Mission Specialists and Support Personnel. Three skills is at once too many and too few for McKnight to be useful, especially since most of them are fairly useless against dilemmas (what, scared of the Wind Dancer?). Oh, and those attributes are simply atrocious (pack Lower Decks, please). With Ooby Dooby, she's one of few personnel that has both Music and Youth, giving you the most card manipulation power. That might make her 1.7.

TOTAL: 9.1 (45.5%) Is it me, or do "anniversary issues" tend to get low scores? Mmf.

PICTURE: A simple prop shot supplied by Paramount, the Kit could be seen a little closer-up, but its lines are clear and well-defined. It's a good-looking prop, which I'm just noticing now is cracked open. The background is another matter though. The colors of the table are terrible, the big blobs of light in the back harken to the interior of Dr. Who's TARDIS (I'm a big Whovian, but they're out of place here), and the gray wall doesn't contrast with the Kit very well at all. And I have a nagging feeling that Medical Kit is digitally super-imposed on that background. Am I right? It just looks odd there, teetering on the edge of a table. A 2.4.

LORE: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Not unlike other classification-giving equipment, it reads just like them. Dull, dull, dull. Here, a lame 2.

TREK SENSE: Medical Kits have two functions in Star Trek. First, they act as the doctor's bag of medical tools, and second, they're used in emergencies for first aid. The equipment card reads more like the latter. An Officer on the bridge might take the Kit from under his or her seat, and have just enough equipment to act as a Medical personnel. But why couldn't a Science personnel use it? Or anyone else? See, that's what's strange about this breed of equipment. Officers use Kits, Engineers PADDs, and Science personnel have Tricorders... That's pretty arbitrary. And it's really silly to think an actual Medical personnel can do nothing with a Medical Kit, when they're the ones shown using them most often. There's also no relationship to the Medical Tricorder, which we know to usually be part of the Kit, or the Hypospray for that matter. And I'm not even going in the "how many Kits are there" stuff (though a Kit's many pieces makes sharing more sensible than with a PADD or Tricorder). Sorry, but for what works, just a 2.2.

STOCKABILITY: Seeing as MEDICAL is one of the most important classifications/skills in the game, the Medical Kit (or Medi-Kit as it is to this day erroneously called on Decipher's card list) thus becomes one of the better skill-giving Equipment cards in the game. Oh, maybe the Feds are already high on MEDICAL, but that can't be said of every affiliation. Indeed, many are in great need of MEDICAL personnel (the Hirogen have only 3, the Kazon only 4, but they have plenty of OFFICERs!). I wouldn't call the Romulans or Ferengi rich in MEDICALs either. And yet, this skill comes up again and again on both missions and dilemmas, and it allows you to use Genetronic Replicator to save personnel from death on planets. There's more, but the point is that it's an important skill that you cannot do without no matter who you are. The Feds don't really need it, but heavy MEDICAL decks can use FC's Alyssa Ogawa to download a Kit and turn all those OFFICERs into MEDICAL personnel too. A Delta Quadrant Non-Aligned solution is the Equinox Doctor, who also downloads a Kit. One very dangerous dilemma is Theta-Radiation Poisoning, but Medical Kit prevents personnel from dying where it's been played while you wait for the whopping 6 ENGINEER required for the cure (maybe an Engineering Kit would do the trick?). With the preponderance of OFFICERs in most affiliations, the Medical Kit is sure to get some use. A 3.9.

TOTAL: 10.5 (52.5%) Not uncommon for an Equipment card to get a low rating.

PICTURE: Never seen onscreen, this green ball nonetheless looks good. I mean, as a Premiere mission, I'm pretty jaded by now, but objectively, it's not a bad generic planet. The green playing off the red Klingon icons is particularly striking. A 3.1.

LORE: The lore is a little vague and really reads like the emergency isn't all it's cracked up to be, like it's a false report. The word "reported" has that connotation. A very brief and uninteresting 2.

TREK SENSE: On the show, Beta Lankal was a location used by Gowron's forces to regroup during the civil war. If they brought wounded there, it could be the source of this mission, but it doesn't quite mesh. So it's just a generic Medical Relief mission for Klingons. What?!? Yeah, doesn't seem like the foremost thing on their minds, does it? At 35 points, its importance is even more disproportionate. The requirements don't spell "emergency" either: just one instance of each "medical"-related skill. This is where my earlier mention of a "reported" emergency comes in, because the requirements read like a simple medical scouting party, not a full-on relief effort. Then again, we're talking about Klingons here. For never really gelling, I'm giving it a 2.3.

SEEDABILITY: You won't find an easier mission for a Klingon/Federation Treaty deck or Fed Espionage on Klingon. The number of Federation MEDICAL personnel with both Biology and Exobiology makes this a very easy 35 points. But for straight Klingons? Not as easy, sure, though a mission specialist solution using, say, Zetal and Loreva, does yield 45 points. Premiere also had a fascination with Klingon MEDICAL missions, so some skill redundancy can be had by also including Fever Emergency, Investigate Disturbance and/or Investigate Anomaly. Might make an interesting theme other than Honor. Finds its way up to 3.

TOTAL: 10.4 (52%) No relief: Bottom 10 it is.

PICTURE: Pulled from "The Chase", at least it's not a static prop shot. But details aren't very sharp, the composition is unbalanced on the left side, and running it over a wall face is less appropriate than doing so over a humanoid body (even if the pic does show a Science/Medical cross-mission). A 1.8.

LORE: The techno-jargon is pretty standard, and that last phrase is used on most equipment from Premiere. The usual 2 - no mistakes, but absolutely nothing interesting.

TREK SENSE: Here we go again. The main problems associated with classification-lending equipment remain. First, how many pieces of equipment are represented by the one Equipment card? All Science personnel are using the one? Or if there are more, why can't it be split up à la Tribble cards? All Science personnel could share the information from one Tricorder, of course, all hunching over the tiny screen, but we rarely see that kind of behavior on the show, and the idea breaks down eventually if you put too many Science personnel together in a room. The second thing is that it doesn't help Medical personnel at all, and yet, they're the ones that would be carrying it. This is inexcusable. Sure, Science personnel are a stone's throw from the Medical field (at least, the ones that have Biology and Exxobiology), but there's no reason this Tricorder shouldn't help the personnel it was actually made for. And would you really let a Scientist operate on you because he's got his trusty Tricorder? See the Classic model for a better take on the concept. Just 0.6 here.

STOCKABILITY: MEDICAL has always been an important skill, and SCIENCE really came into its own after a few expansions, so using Equipment to make a personnel act as both can definitely be useful. The Feds already have tons of MEDICAL, so I wouldn't necessarily waste my time there, even if the FC-version of Beverly Crusher can download a copy. The Bajorans are low on both, but still might benefit, and the same might be said of the Cardassians and Ferengi. The Dominion has a single SCIENCE-classification personnel, so forget it, and no Delta Quadrant affiliation really stands to gain from this thing, since they have so few personnel. The Klingons have lots of MEDICAL, but more SCIENCE, so it's good for them. But the clear winner would be the Romulans. They only have few MEDICAL personnel and a ton of SCIENCE. Note that this'll also work with Borg Neuroprocessor, Quest for the Sword, Ferengi Bug, etc., since it is a Tricorder, but you can have your pick when it comes to that. About the same as the Engineering Tricorder, so 3.4.

TOTAL: 7.8 (39%) Eeech, that's a PADD-level score.

PICTURE: A stiff pic of Mendak from a viewscreen shot. The Romulan logo is behind him, and his skin has the right greenish tinct, but otherwise a merely competent bust shot. Competence gets you a 3.

LORE: Matching commander status notwithstanding, there's a glaring omission in the lore - Mendak is supposed to be an Admiral. I wouldn't say anything, except that Admiral is a "keyword" listed on Office of the Proconsul and Going to the Top, which means this omission has a game effect. What's there tells his part of the story from "Data's Day", but in no special terms. A drop to a 1.9.

TREK SENSE: Mentioned the Admiral thing already, haven't I? Then let's move on. Ok, first off, I'd like to express my objections to making a commander/admiral a support personnel. Having just two skills makes him one, even if that wasn't an issue when he came out. Now, his skills do make sense: Officer for being a commander, Treachery for duping the Enterprise (and it's just a nice Romulan trait), and Exobiology, more iffy, but no doubt based on the idea that he or his people had to fake Selok's death, making it look like her remains were Vulcan and not Romulan. Dodgy, I know. Still, I would certainly have accepted Transporter Skill had he been made today. Diplomacy might also have been an ingredient, and a 2E version might well have Intelligence, though he wasn't in the Tal Shiar. Integrity showcases loyalty to the state, but with a will to do most anything unpleasant to the opposition. He was found out, so Cunning's probably best at this level, while Strength is perfect for a Romulan militarist of his age and position. Overall, it's more about what's missing than what's there, and so only a 2.

STOCKABILITY: No special reporting through the Office of the Proconsul, unfortunately, but you can always download him via Ready Room Door (to the Devoras) or Assign Support Personnel (to any sufficiently large ship). The Devoras, with his help, can be Plaqued and Logged to 11-11-11, a very good distribution on one of the better Romulan warbirds. Skillwise, he definitely pales in comparison to Koval, though he can at least help pass Maglock. A Romulan Mission that could benefit fully from both skills would be Investigate Sighting (I or II), but his Treachery is universally useful on Romulan missions, while Exobiology, which makes a number of appearances on missions, is better against dilemmas. Nothing too special, though matching commander decks can obviously benefit. A 3.2.

TOTAL: 10.1 (50.5%) YOU... SHALL NOT... PASS!!! (Sorry, been watching The Two Towers way too often lately.)

PICTURE: A science console's eye view of the Benzite showcases his breather and an interesting expression, but is otherwise an off-to-the-side bust shot. It's even a little dark, with his blue uniform coming out purple. (At least it matches his skin tones.) Not bad, but not great at 3.

LORE: Shouldn't that be "specialists", plural? After that error, the second phrase is a dull date, and it's not until the third and last that we get something fun. It has to do with Wesley mistaking Mendon for Mordock in "A Matter of Honor", mostly due to the fact that both characters were played by the same actor, though the onscreen explanation is that all Benzites from the same continent look alike. Even more fun is that Mordock has the same phrase in his lore. Almost manages to save the lore, which gets 2.6 here.

TREK SENSE: Making Mendon a universal is controversial in that he was an exchange officer, and so there wouldn't be a number of Benzites in Starfleet at this point. The lore's contention that he's representative of science specialists in Starfleet, though it's an early nod to what Assign Mission Specialists woul make him, avoids the fact that all such specialists have to be Benzite according to this. Fortunately, Benzites were starting to join Starfleet for real from Mordock on, so that defuses a lot of the trouble here (remember Hoya). I do have trouble with the specialty they gave him: Physics. On the show, he was studying the Microbiotic Colony, and that's not really a Physics question. Stresses on the bird-of-prey's hull, etc., yes, but he went further than that, and might better be rated as a Biology or Exobiology specialist. Attributes aren't well distributed either. Integrity's ok, though the guy didn't really know how to work within Starfleet's command structure, he was trying to do the right thing. But his Cunning is too low. Sure, there were things he didn't understand, but he did catch something the others didn't, and was very thorough in his investigation. And what about that 2 in Strength? 2 is for old ladies! That leaves the Staff icon, which I have no trouble with. Can't go higher than 1.6.

STOCKABILITY: Premiere gave us 4 Physics mission specialists, what are we going to do with them all? Well, Toby Russell is a MEDICAL, so she retains her use. Sir Isaac Newton is a hologram, so not really as efficient as Mendon. And Hannah Bates is unique, not universal, even if her CUNNING is way better. It all really hinges on the number of Federation missions that require multiple Physics, since there you need different specialists to squeeze all the points from AMS. The DQ has a lot of Physics missions that might make Mendon and his gang profit from downloading to the Nekrit Supply Depot, but only 2 require more than one Physics: Restore Victims (3) and Aftermath (2). And that's it as far as Physics is concerned - there are no other missions that require multiples. For the many missions that require only one instance of Physics, well, Mendon's a possibility, but Russell is better across the board, if a little easier for dilemmas to target. For what it's worth, a 1.9.

TOTAL: 9.1 (45.5%) Not really Starfleet. ;-)

PICTURE: The Promellian ship was never the best model, and here's it's not very well integrated into the asteroid field. Something to do with the luminosity of those rocks, I believe. The absence of any visible aceton witchamajigets is also a flaw. That said, it's an ok pic, and maybe a lot of what I'm saying is due to Premiere fatigue (having gotten tons of them since the game originally came out). Then again, where's the danger? A 2.3 should cover it.

LORE: The lore does a good job of describing in very brief (read: efficient) terms what the Booby Trap is. There are so many elements to it, I congratulate its brevity. Worth 3.2.

TREK SENSE: The first things those aceton assimilators do is immobilize your ship, draining its power so that impulse engines are useless. Too bad the immobilization doesn't take into account such things as Weapons and Shields that should both also be affected by a power drain (not to mention the special equipment). Then come the high levels of radiation that will kill a crew member unless a Medical personnel is on hand to medicate the crew accordingly. Just once? There seemed to be a certain threshold of tolerance to radiation, and if the ship is trapped for too long, I think deaths should proceed apace. To get out of the jam requires a couple Engineers that figure out how to disable the aceton assimilators and/or free the ship even at low power. Seeing as this was the crux of an entire episode, and required both Geordi AND (faux) Leah Brahms, the requirements are too low. What should've been a major dilemma has truly been gutted. The basics are there, but the details are unworthy of more than a 1.7.

SEEDABILITY: With MEDICAL and ENGINEER personnel the most requested in the game, there's bound to be everything needed to kill this dilemma aboard most ships. If not, then they'll be easy to bring onboard. And while you can weed out the two personnel types with the likes of Make Us Go and Tarellian Plague Ship, you'll rarely weed them all out. If you do manage to catch a ship without a MEDICAL, then you stop the crew and kill a personnel. Not bad. Either way, the ship cannot move until 2 ENGINEERs remove the dilemma. Again not bad. The fact that all these requirements are ultra-common means this dilemma won't really be effective outside of sealed deck play. It's really too bad, but I can't go above 2.

TOTAL: 9.2 (46%) The ol' Premiere blues strike again.

PICTURE: Though the same model as the Miradorn Raider, I like this underside shot better. You get to see much more clearly the insect-like shape, and the impulse engine that's the same color as the Non-Aligned template. Interesting even if the colors are pretty bland. A menacing 3.6.

LORE: Universality is only hinted at in the final phrase, the one where the ship usefully gets a matching commander. The rest is pretty much dedicated to describing the Long-Range Scan Shielding, which is ok. Title's pretty bland, and much too vague. As if all Mercenary Ships were like this "little-known" one, all stolen(?) from the Miradorn apparently. No sparks, but some usefulness, spells a 3.

TREK SENSE: You know, I really don't think the Mercenary Ship should be universal because the Miradorn Raider is too. Ok, you'll tell me Merc Ship came first, but Trek Sense is blind to that. The Miradorn Raider makes it clear that this is a species' usual ship class (and so probably not "Unknown"), while this one seems to be an anomaly. All Merc Ships are NOT like this (the rarity is even hinted at in the lore) or we would have seen them more often. It's more likely that Baran's ship was unique (2E calls it the Fortune, in fact). As a universal, it's got different stats than the also universal Miradorn Raider, which is anomalous. As a unique, we might better understand how this one ship had been modified by the mercenaries. In fact, the ship isn't as fast as the Raider, no doubt because the mercs don't know how to staff is as well. The staffing speaks to that too, working more with a skeleton crew than the Raider. Then again, a Command icon here would have worked too because Baran was a Command-level personnel, and as soon as he was pushed aside, the crew looked for another leader. What does that tell you? The Scan Shielding's fine and mentioned on both ships. The real problem was in making a second copy of the same ship, but making it different for no real reason. Too many problems to get more than a 2.

STOCKABILITY: In many ways, the Miradorn Raider made this ship obsolete. It's the same basic universal ship, but faster and with matching commanders that supply the entire required staffing. Baran, on the other hand, only gets you half-way. You might still want to grab him specifically with Ready Room Door, and if he's aboard, he can Plaque and Log the ship to 9-10-10 levels. He, himself, is an ok personnel, but with an odd choice of skills. Even with an Engineering Kit though, he can't use Construct Starship to call up this card because it's universal. As for the Long-Range Scan Shielding, it's only useful if your opponent decides to use Long-Range Scan, and that hardly ever happens. Even if it does, it's not a very powerful effect (in fact, it doesn't do anything a good memory couldn't), so who cares? All it really does is limit the ship by not allowing such things as Tractor Beam with its extra-long name. The Darmok-class ships generally give you better stats and special equipment for similar staffing (2 personnel, that is), so I'd pass on this one. Its few advantages still give it a 2.5.

TOTAL: 11.1 (55.5%) Passed the Raider, but couldn't go that high here.

PICTURE: No "shield effect", but a small shuttle flying into a star should put the point across adequately. Old hat by now, it's nonetheless a fun pic, with an uncommon color scheme. A 3.5.

LORE: Lots of wasted space, which is always unfortunate, especially when the last phrase is in shorthand (how about an article and some punctuation in there?). The technobabble explanation isn't bad though. A 2.5 here.

TREK SENSE: Now that Reyga has done the preliminary research, everyone may gain access to similar technology. Once you have the secret of Metaphasic Shielding, I have no doubt all your ships can be configured so. I have thus no problem with this being a broad event. Nor is the idea that a Science personnel is required to make the most of this technology since it is based on subspace mechanics, no doubt requiring constant adjustments. Where it all goes wrong is with the cumulativity issues. How can EACH Science boost the Shields cumulatively? There should be an upward limit. Even worse is that you can have multiple Metaphasic Shields out, each adding on the next. It gets ridiculous real fast. And we were doing so well. Drops to 2.

STOCKABILITY: If you have lots of ENGINEERs, use Nutational Shields. If you have lots more SCIENCE, use Metaphasic Shields. Or use both! In any case, this card can be huge in boosting your ship's SHIELDS. I'm thinking of the Think Tank, for example, who could easily stave off an attack by a Borg Cube with a single copy of this card. Add more and their ship becomes indestructable. This is an extreme example, of course (in it, any ship with each of the 4 members of the Tank would be +14 per copy, a total of 32 if this was The Think Tank's Ship), so your mileage may vary. SCIENCE personnel, especially double-SCIENCE personnel (worth +4 to SHIELDS), are a little less common than similar ENGINEERs, but you can add to your SHIELDS with simple SCIENCE-related Equipment cards. And this card is such a broad boost (not unlike Bynars Weapon Enhancement), it deserves a high 4.4.

TOTAL: 12.4 (62%) It's a dangerous universe out there...

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