Q-Continuum
expansion, 120 card expansion (40 common, 40 uncommon, 40 rare)
sold in 15-card booster packs (11 common, 3 uncommon, 1 rare)
Average Picture Score: 3.13 (5: Brainwash)
Average Lore Score: 3.09 (5: Space)
Average Trek Sense Score: 2.94
Average Stockability Score: 3.04 (5: Q's Tent)
PRODUCT CONCEPT: Since Q has not only been a popular character in all three 24th-century shows, but also book-ended TNG, the idea of making a expansion in his honor makes a lot of sense. The main challenge was in how to represent his shennanigans in a way that was different from other cards. They succeeded, though the usefulness of some of the cards and mechanics is up for debate. The expansion does a relatively good job of producing enough Q-related cards to warrant the expansion being named after them (especially with the new mechanics being centered on Q). There aren't only the various Q-cards that go into the Q-Continuum side-deck, but a few others like Immortal Again, Calamarain, Q's Vicious Animal Things, I Am Not a Merry Man!, K'chiQ and the like. Q's humor is also prevalent throughout, especially in various puns used for card titles. The secondary focus of the set is androids, with the universal NA Soong-Type joining the fun, along with quite a few android-targeting dilemmas (and other cards) and the Cybernetics skill making an appearance. Putting the Q-Type Android in this set might have connected the two. Ah well. The concept is sound, tough the result lacked sheer power (then again, Q was often just a pest rather than a real danger). A 4.
PACKAGING/LOOK: Remember those blue booster packs? QC followed in AU's footsteps, adding a simple Q-icon in the center of what was basically the blue Premiere booster. Boooooring! For nostaligia's sake, I've heard some people cry out for a similar design for Holodeck Adventures. I doubt this will happen, and hope it won't. It was ugly. The boxes had the simple image of Q as a judge, from the Subparagraph card. The look of the cards themselves tended toward the boring or dreadful, with plenty of beige bridge backgrounds, 1st and 2nd season fx disasters and prop shots, despite always fun Easter Eggs. A really lackluster set at 1.7.
DISTRIBUTION: Back then, booster packs had 15 cards, so you collected a LOT of commons. And boxes had 60 boosters so they were kind of cost-prohibitive. That's why I never bought boxes until First Contact. The set was evenly distriibuted between 40 of each rarity type, making it easier to collect all the rares, which isn't done anymore. So there's both good and bad here. The set also introduced the notion of cards that had a different rarity than their rarity slot indicated. A couple cards had 2/3 the indicated rarity or 4/3 in Q's Tent case. It wasn't the whole R+ system of today, wasn't just done with rares, and didn't affect collectability much at all. This was a relatively easy 120-card set to complete, but it gave you a lot of trash (and I don't just mean the commons). A 4, I think.
NEW ICONS, CARD TYPES & MECHANICS: Q-Continuum introduced no new card types per se, but plenty of ways to interpret old ones - putting familiar icons on missions, for example, or the tranformation of Events, Interrupts and Dilemmas into Q-cards. Two new types of mission, 3 new skills, a new type of facility and a couple of mechanical do-dads, including one full blown new mechanic (side-decks). Of course, that's not very much compared to later expansions.
Cybernetics (skill)
Trek Sense: Because most Engineers don't build androids on their
spare time, it makes sense that this would be a separate skill, but tying
it is so closely with androids may have been a mistake in the first place.
Cybernetics actually represents the melding of technology to flesh - the
Borg are cyborgs - but since the skill has been linked to purely technological
beings (androids), you won't see it where it should be, on Medical personnel.
Robotics would have been a better name for it, or if the android brain
is the crucial element, Positronics. Regardless of its name, the skill
has a built-in ability, that of allowing one android to report for free
where present (still at a legal reporting location) each turn (per Cyberneticist).
Presumbaly, androids are being built at those locations, sometimes at unbelievable
speeds. Those androids are not necessarily young though, since older androids
like Data, Lore and Mrs. Soong can all be reported this way. If they were
just built, wouldn't it invalidate some of their skills? Also allows people
other than Dr. Soong to build Soong-type androids, which is possible (Data
did it), but for the most part unlikely. A very iffy 2.1.
Usefulness: Reporting androids for free is a fine ability, since
this personnel type is generally excellent. They have high attributes (especially
CUNNING and STRENGTH) and sometimes programmable skills, classifications
and even genders. It'll also keep those androids working in case of Reactor
Overload. It can only overcome one dilemma though (Borg Servo), but does
find its way on another card, Extraordinary Measures, where it has an alternative
anyway. Most of its punch relies on your desire to use androids or not,
but does afford some speed in those cases, if little mission solving power
(it isn't on any missions at all). A 3.6. [Average total: 2.85.] [Since
I wrote this article, Decipher has rescinded the built-in functions of
the skill.]
Dual-icon Missions
Trek Sense: A few Premiere missions (like Restore Errant Moon)
really suffered from being tied to either planet or space, when in reality,
some missions require both personnel on the ground and others in orbit.
Worse still, some missions only take place in orbit, but since orbits require
planets, these have been unjustly grouped with the planet missions. So
this idea is a natural fix to those situations (though not retroactive,
sorry Premiere). It allows for dilemmas to be encountered by both Away
Team and crew, just like in the show (or films, just look at First Contact),
and for both groups to work toward the same goal. This is much closer to
the way Star Trek generally works. The main beef is that most planet missions
are probably like this and don't show it. To factor that in, I'll only
give 4.5.
Usefulness: Well, for most affiliations, none really. Using
a dual-icon mission means splitting up your personnel, and facing dilemmas
in two places. It does mean your personnel aren't all going to hell in
a handbasket together if something goes wrong. For the Borg however, they
offer more flexibility. A dual-icon mission can be used either for Assimilate
Planet OR Establish Gateway, and for the Collective at least, don't require
the Hive to be split up (even if that were a big issue for them). They
used to be even better, before Decipher repealed the rule that the Borg
could scout the location once for each icon (once as a planet, once as
space). Ah well. Currently, the concept stands at 3. [Average total: 3.75.]
Guramba (skill)
Trek Sense: Guramba is a species-specific skill that, as detailed
under Zon's Trek Sense, isn't well titled. According to Nausicaan dialogue
in "Tapestry", Picard didn't have the guramba to fight them. Ok, so it
sounds like guramba can be translated as "guts", courage or sang-froid.
If that's the case then the fact that a Nausicaan would have "guts" would
have no effect on OPPOSING personnel. The skill might be more rightly described
as Intimidation, forcing a group to have more than one leader to attack
really intimidating opponents, perhaps talking each other into doing it.
But titling it that way would open it up for other intimidating creatures...
Despite that flaw, the mechanic works all right, so a 3.8.
Usefulness: A novelty, but nothing great. Its special ability
is barely useful in this OFFICER/Leadership saturated environment, since
there'll usually be more than one leader in any given group, and in any
case, if you're using a Nausicaan (the only species with the skill), why
are you so afraid of being attacked? And what kind of attacker uses so
few leaders? Otherwise, the skill does appear on a couple cards, including
Tulaberry Wine Negotiations and None Shall Pass, but in both cases, more
than one alternative is offered. Bah, a cutesy 1.3. [Average total: 2.55.]
Q-cards
Graphics: The Q-icon (iQon?) is actually pretty nice. It's the
letter Q which is a simple enough graphical element, but it also looks
like an object's path through a circle, with the trail acting as the Q's
leg. The colors seem a little disconnected with anything Q-like however,
and an argument could be made that the Q-Flash would have made a more appropriate
icon. Perhaps, but I'm not sure it would have looked distinctive enough
when used in smaller form inside game text. Same with the distinctive Q
chain links. As is, we still get a representation, possibly, of Q flying
out of the Continuum. The card also has a different graphical look which
I should mention, with white letters on black to represent the nothingness
from which all things Q spring from and return to, and with a quote (yes
a Q-uote) instead of more standard lore to celebrate Q's many witticisms.
Practically, it just looks like they wanted to give the Q-Continuum cards
a distinctive "don't put in your draw deck" look, but more thought went
into it than that. A successful 4.5.
Trek Sense: Sometimes Q Interrupts what you're doing, sometimes
he makes an Event of it, and still others, he places your personnel in
a read Dilemma. So making various Q-card types that count as more standard
card types was a great idea (I don't really buy the Q-Artifact, but I'm
still waiting on Q-Personnel, Incidents and Objectives). Because of the
irreality of such "events", etc. however, it also makes sense for them
to be something "other" as well. For a discussion of the whole Q-Flash
mechanic (how these cards are usually encountered), check out that card's
review. The card type itself deserves a 4.1.
Usefulness: You know it started off weak when a number of cards
have to come out to rehabilitate it somehow. Actually, the rehabilitators
were pretty smooth in that they were principally designed to allow at least
some Q-cards to be seeded without the need for a Q-Continuum side-deck
(Hide and Seek allowed itself to be stocked or seeded, and Beware of Q
came along for Q-Dilemmas only). So Q-Dilemmas are the more useful of the
lot, generally more powerful, and with the ability to be inserted into
a combo. One the whole, however, Q-cards are a little too random as to
when they come out, and sometimes downright flighty in their effects. As
a card type, their over-reliance on a side-deck hurts them, and the ones
that can seed are little different than regular dilemmas. As a whole, only
2.1. [Average total: 3.53.]
Restriction box
Graphics: Basically just an extra box above the game text, but
it's separated enough that you won't mistake it for anything else, AND
it doesn't noticeably cut into into the picture frame (though it IS smaller
on those cards). What buys it though, is the lore, sometimes to the card's
detriment. An adequate 3 should cover it.
Trek Sense: What if you wanted to include a mechanic on personnel
or ship card, but it couldn't be considered a skill? Enter restrictions.
These really add a bunch of new options to customizing a personnel or ship
to feel more like they did on the show. Some ships just don't have transporters,
some people refuse to work with certain personnel (or those personnel refuse
to work with them)... It's a great Trek Sense aid and well worth the 5
I'm giving it.
Usefulness: Though restrictions are a testament to Decipher's
commitment to Trek Sense and balance, they are quite the opposite of useful.
They're meant to be disadvantages after all. They either limit which personnel
will work in your deck, what your ship can do, or how many personnel can
fit inside. Some of the ones I can think of that could be useful is Commander
Data's "not a Soong-type android" thing, which makes him immune to a couple
cards that specifically target those, but still at a cost of the ones it
can use, and Mirasta Yale's seedable nature (at a cost of her playing normally).
The potential is there... but still only a 0.4. [Average total: 2.8.]
Side-decks
Trek Sense: None per se, since the draw deck, discard pile and
side-decks are mechanical elements of the game, but if the draw deck is
meant to be a hodgepodge of resources accessible to an affiliation in some
way (some have to be built, others reported or thought up), then side-decks
have the potential to be a much better version, since they contain not
a hodgepodge, but a more tightly focused group of resources that come out
of whatever doorway creates it. Q's Tent is the least focused to date,
more of a hodgepodge, but where the cards may be dissimilar in content,
they are similar in intent (just-in-case cards, and make-sure-I-get-it
cards). Q-cards come from the Q-Continuum, Tactics from the Battle Bridge
mind-set, Tribbles from the Storage Container... More sensical than the
basic draw deck at a 4.2.
Usefulness: Different side-decks have different values from
the must-use Q's Tent to the fluffy Tribble side-deck. What they have in
common though is that they all require you seed a Doorway in exchange for
access to a bunch of other cards you need not stock in your deck, or have
pollute your hand. That complicates deck design, but opens up more strategies
to players without forcing them to necessarily use them. Side-decks are
sometimes in danger of being closed, and even utility-wise, can be a gamble,
but for the price of a couple cards, you get to include a lot more. Without
going into specific side-decks, I will say that the concept itself is an
important one for STCCG, quite capable of spawning winners like the Tent
and Battle Bridge. A positive 4.2. [Average total: 4.2.]
Stations
Graphics: N/A (the same as any facility, see Outpost in the
Premiere review)
Trek Sense: Really, Decipher should have called the Outpost/Station/HQ
group Facilities from the outset (with those words perhaps as a kind of
Class), rather than creating different-but-the-same card types which were
all grouped later anyway, or else never group them at all. Stations differ
from Outposts in that personnel cannot report to them without the use of
other cards (like Sites), and so their creation was necessary to open up
that Trek Sense possibility. Indeed, the more variety possible in each
card type, the greater the potential for Trek Sense. That the rest mimicks
the Outpost exactly, well, they're all facilities and would all need Shields
and the ability to "contain" people. Still, nothing revolutionary, at 3.3.
Usefulness: Though less useful as a card type than Outposts
because of the reporting ban, these cards make up for it with varying game
text and special effects. And think of it this way - without a Station
card archetype, Nors as we know them (that is: pretty darn useful) could
not exist. Of course, it all depends on the specific facility. Since they
aren't Outposts, they cannot take their place when dealing with certain
cards like Go back Whence Thou Camest or Incoming Messages, but they ARE
covered by Plasmadyne Relay by name (but by The Sheliak too), and by any
card that uses the broader term "facility". I think a 3 would be fine.
[Average total: 3.15.]
Transporter Skill (skill)
Trek Sense: Why wasn't this here in the first 2 expansions?!?
It's a staple of the show and seems to have its specialists (Scotty, O'Brien
and every dink that thinks nothing of standing there waiting for Picard
to decide to take a breath of fresh air). It's good to finally see it,
and it's part of the dehomogenization of the Engineer classification, along
with Cybernetics. Transporter Skill also started out with a built-in ability,
that of allowing one more personnel to be beamed through anti-beaming cards,
which gives something for the specialists to do given that beaming is otherwise
instantaneous and fuss-free. This is no longer part of the skill, but it
made a certain measure of sense. (When you think about it, many more skills
should have, Sensically speaking, built-in abilities.) In any case, its
presence is wholly warranted for a simple 5.
Usefulness: Quite. The rarer a skill sometimes, the more prized
it is. Transporter Skill is found on just enough dilemmas and missions
to make it a good one. Furthermore, the skill allows personnel to beam
through SHIELDS with a number of cards (Invasive Beam-In, Dropping In,
Target These Coordinates) which is a powerful tool for assault teams, keep
a ship cloaked while beaming (more or less) with Scan Cycle Check, nullify
Anti-Matter Pods (as a side-bonus), and add transporters to those closed
off Delta Quadrant ships with the Transporter Module. There were enough
tricks pulled with this on the show that you can expect to see it on more
cards in the future. A 4.4. [Average total: 4.7.]
Universal Missions
Trek Sense: Decipher pulled something interesting with these,
especially since the originals couldn't even be attempted, but represented
simple outer space and common stellar phenomena. The idea is that some
missions are so common, or on-going, or possible at multiple locations,
or generic enough to warrant universality. I applaud the thought, even
if I don't agree with every mission chosen to be "universal". What works
less for me is that they remain quadrant-specific unless there's no point
box attached. Ok, so the other quadrants have Space an Nebulae, but they
don't have asteroids where you can conduct a Mineral Survey? No generic
Planets? The Kazon never Test Propulsion Systems? Of course, we also have
universal missions that are part of regions, or that are tied to specific
Alpha Quadrant activities (like Bat'leth Tournament). There's no easy answer.
And I'll go on record here and say I liked the mechanic of replacing duplicate
missions with universal missions, and am sorry to see it gone in favor
of a shorter spaceline. Trek Sense-wise, it was more than a mechanical
trapping, but like saying "Oh, someone's already Averted Danger at Moab
IV? Any generic Pulsar in the area we might want to Study?" That lost,
the concept currently stands at an even 3 - a good and sensible idea, with
sometimes disappointing execution.
Usefulness: Well, they used to be a cool backup for duplicate
missions. Now, you'd have to chose to use them in the first place. They
typically have a smaller point box, but skill redundancy usually makes
up for it, especially if you can use mission specialists to boost those
points. A number of the same universal mission will make it easy for you
to solve all your missions with a minimum of personnel, and some can even
be seeded together as a region (in the Neutral Zone, DMZ, Badlands, Nekrit
Expanse). In fact, the concept makes it easy for you to create a Neutral
Zone to Patrol, or Badlands where Plasma Storms might hit opposing ships.
They can create expanses of Space as well, as a buffer between your missions
and your opponent's. They're not all like this, but the concept deserves
a 3.9. [Average total: 3.45.]
Variable and undefined attributes
Trek Sense: By this I don't mean attributes that can go up and
down since they all can through equipment etc., but attributes that ARE
variables. Mortal Q was the first of these, but there have been others
(like Quark). I think they work when you can give them a value, especially
when they can be worth more than one possible number. After all, some characters
have low Integrity, but sometimes honorable streaks where they deserve
higher. A character might be real booksmart, but turn out to be a bumbling
idiot in social situations, etc. For these situations, I advocate variable
atributes. Those that are truly undefined, however, may cause problems.
Case in point, Mortal Q's "Q" Cunning. Since it can't be associated with
a value (Q is only worth something on The Higher... the Q-er), it's basically
a 0. Well, even if Q's god-like knowledge can't be applied to mortal situations,
he was still able to reason, speak, etc. That's hardly a 0. Such attributes
are a lot more difficult to swallow, and the whole affair deserves at best
a 3.3.
Usefulness: Attributes that are basically un-boostable zeros
are worth almost exactly that. Undefined attributes can't be lowered, granted,
but they can't be boosted from their nothingness either. Where they can
become useful is in protecting personnel from cards that target highest/lowest
attributes. Without said attribute, such personnel cannot be selected.
True variable attributes have a similar utility in that, when facing certain
dilemmas, it may be useful for an attribute to potentially hold more than
one value. Chula dilemmas, for example, often play around with attribute
numbers, and require lower, higher or "equal to another" attributes. Variable
attributes give your Away Team an added flexibility in these cases. All
in all, a 3.5 in Usefulness. [Average total: 3.4.]
(Average score for new mechanics: 3.44.)
OVERALL USEFULNESS: Must-haves? Q's Tent and that's about it. I mean, if you can help it, you never play without a Q's Tent. Well, actually, you can now with download-heavy decks. But it was the standard for the longest time. Does one card warrant buying packs from an expansion when you could instead just trade for it? To be fair, the set has other useful cards, including Brainwash, Galen, Soong-Type Android, Q's Planet, Sirol and The Sheliak. It's also mandatory for players wanting to build a Q-Continuum side-deck. For collectors, it was the only place to find a Pulaski or Keiko (nah, they were never popular). But there's a lot of garbage like Canar, Timicin, Barber Pole, Terraforming Station and many of the aforementioned Q-cards. Other cards have varying usefulness depending on your strategy, or might require a little more creativity to bring to bear (including Arbiter of Succession, Plasmadyne Relay, Space, Wrong Door and Samaritan Snare). The set finally gave some more powerful mission solvers to the Klingons and Romulans, but nothing too great for the Feds in the personnel/ship area. The two new side-decks were at opposed ends of the spectrum, either quasi-useless annoyance or must-have flexibility. Disappointing rares throughout though. Overall, I'd have to say this was a 2.3, and only thanks to the big cards.
TOTAL: 15.44 (61.76%) And I never hear anyone say this is their favorite expansion. Gee, it almost heralded the demise of the game as we waited in vain for Holodeck Adventures, then interminably for First Contact.