To see the cards themselves, check out this Card list for the Voyager expansion set.

PICTURE: Wondering why they chose to use the Bothan Vessel, part 1. Is this the clearest pic available for this? A grungy and small underside pic and what's worse, that bright spot under it is a residual phaser effect from Voyager shooting it! So it's just been damaged, or at least hit. A not-at-all confident 0.8.

LORE: Wondering why they chose to use the Bothan Vessel, part 2. Unknown classes are so boring... The Bothan are well described, but the second part takes things for granted. It was never made clear whether the ship was invisible, or if it was only an illusion, or if its invisibility was an illusion. More on that under Trek Sense, for now, I'll admit to it being well written and give it a 2.5.

TREK SENSE: Wondering why they chose to use the Bothan Vessel, part 3. I'm not even convinced this was an actual ship. The Bothan may have been powerful enough to project his mind across the void of space, make people believe they saw a ship (well, three of them), or that it disappeared off their sensors. So IF there was a ship (and I'm lobbying for it to at least have an AU icon), its Cloaking Device is in question. Even the lore isn't very specific about this. IF it was a ship, then it seems big enough to have a Tractor Beam. We only ever saw one Bothan, so IF it was a ship, he might have been its commander, and thus the Command icon. Attributes seem appropriate for what we saw onscreen, more or less (IF it was an actual ship). And even if it was a real ship, the Bothan are so xenophobic, I don't see how their ships would get into other people's hands. In re-watching Voyager's early seasons recently, I saw plenty of more appropriate ship designs... why not one of those? A doubtful 1.2 here.

STOCKABILITY: Ah, so that's why they chose to use the Bothan Vessel - the Cloaking Device. If you want cloaking ability in the Delta Quadrant without importing a ship from elsewhere, you have to go to the Bothan Vessel... that is, until the Voq'leng. Still, the Bothan is Non-Aligned and easier to use by anyone. Hiding is a potent defense in the DQ, what with Borg drones, Hirogen hunters, Kazon raiders and Vidiian harvesters lurking behind every asteroid, not to mention the high WEAPONS on many DQ ships. A cloaked ship cannot be boarded or attacked, thankfully. The rest of the ship is pretty standard, a bit low on WEAPONS, but universality means it can be Spacedoored for early access. I'd put its usefulness at 3.5.

TOTAL: 8 (40%) The cloak just doesn't justify its design elements.

PICTURE: How to show the Captain's Log when it's so often used only as a voiceover... that's the problem. Well, Voyager had the right idea, but I'm not sure it's the right pic. Is that Ransom's log as a text playback, or is it his personnel file. Legend at the top and general layout would seem to indicate the latter. At least he's a captain... So it's basically a prop shot for a Starfleet desktop monitor, and not representing the card title. A 1.5 from me.

LORE: The same definition found on the original card is here again, verbatim. Then, it's more in line with the picture source as they try to make us believe we're looking at Ransom's actual logs. Still, that sentence is well written, tells us something about Ransom, and allows for non-Feds to have their own versions (kind of like the original did with Dathon). It's a 3.2.

TREK SENSE: Don't look at it as an actual log's effects, but as a way to put matching commanders up as a game concept. When you see it that way, it makes sense. A ship's true commander would know their ship intimately, know everything about their capabilities and those of its crew. That translates as a boost in fighting ability (Weapons and Shields). The Log, in a sense, represents the captain's memories and knowledge of the ship. Works well, though that's always debatable with SOME commander/ship match-ups, but that's really those cards' problem. No change from the previous version at 3.9.

STOCKABILITY: Currently, all affiliations can use Captain's Log to some effect, though it may work better with some more than others. All affiliations stand to gain in that Decipher is putting out stronger and stronger ships, or ship boosters. To remain competitive, ships have to use every possible resource. One of these is matching commanders. Not only can they report aboard a ship directly via Ready Room Door, but that same card can be used to download Captain's Log and to protect it from nullification. (Commander's Office can also download it for Nor users, and Captain Kirk on your Starship Enterprise.) +3/+3 to WEAPONS and SHIELDS is a massive boost too, one which can be doubled by Guinan on any Enterprise, or added to by +1 by Velal on D'deridexes. +4/+4 or +6/+6? Can't say no to that. Matching commanders are cropping up everywhere, even in the previously bereft Dominion, and in Voyager, there are often various commanders for the same universal ship, which means you can have a number of them in play, each one with a matching commander. This is still a high 4.8, oh yeah.

TOTAL: 13.4 (67%) The original won me over a little more thanks to its originality.

PICTURE: The entire things fits in the frame, and though it's spindly and small at this range, you get a lot of detail out of it. A simple, but well done 3.4.

LORE: N/A (score will be adjusted accordingly)

TREK SENSE: There is the contention that the Array is actually a facility, one that can be boarded and which has, among other things, a Holodeck and some kind of energy transmitter. And while, as you'll see, the Incident's effects are really well done, maybe the card should have played on a Facility-type Array. After all, the Incident cannot be destroyed by Weapons, but the real Array could and was. (I would have given these effects to a card simply titled "Caretaker".) But the relocation effects are really well done. There is only one such Array, of course, and it exists at the Ocampa planet, exactly as on the show. The game may start mid-pilot with a transported ship (a DQ Fed ship for example), or with the Kazon hanging around (or other DQ affiliation, though if the Borg weren't really in that part of space, is it just for the Hirogen to be allowed access to the Array?). And with both players being able to use this effect, it really created the arrival conditions in "Caretaker". The Array may also snag Alpha Quadrant ships from the Badlands and bring them to the Delta as on the show, though of course, the Caretaker probably went looking elsewhere as well before hitting on the Badlands. That the Mirror Quadrant also has a Badlands region creates an anomaly of sorts. While the Caretaker's species seems to have access to other dimensions (Suspira does anyway), I doubt he would have brought a ship from the Mirror Quadrant when it has all the same species. While seeding a ship here is possible, you can also start the game pre-pilot and have DQ ships appear here either from the Kazon forces patrolling the area (as an example of native ships) or by bringing a ship to the DQ from somewhere previously outside the perview of the game. Such ships are already staffed, and this is a bit more sensical than the "empty" seedable ship. The limit on personnel is for balance, and not especially useful for Trek Sense. The last effect is a little more specific to the Voyager pilot, in which ships seemed to be caught in a Plasma Storm only to be transported to the DQ. This is interesting in that lost ships might first be believed to have been destroyed in a Plasma Storm, but is otherwise splitting hairs as to the relocation process. Still, it does allow the Array to actually send someone back to where they came from (your hand) rather than always leaving ships in the DQ. This is an interrupt effect in any case, and so is treated as such. Good at reproducing the Array's function in the show, but forces me to ask a number of questions, so just a 3.8.

SEEDABILITY: I don't think I'd play a non-Borg DQ deck without this card. While there are other ways to report cards to that quadrant (native Outposts, for example), this one's a reporting juggernaut. If you plan on exclusively using the Delta Quadrant, it allows you to seed a ship early at Liberation (an easy Kazon/Federation/Non-Aligned mission). This is a great way to get Voyager into play (the DQ Federation has powerful, hugely skilled personnel), with Home Away From Home providing the main reporting mechanism for the crew.  Seeding a ship or no, you can report your ships directly there (as an "outpost", it cannot be destroyed) with up to 3 personnel aboard, every turn no less. 4 cards a turn (3 of them, more or less for free) builds you an armada very easily, so long as you have the cards in hand, of course. Even multiple Headquarters won't net you as many card plays, so a DQ deck is quite viable this way. And you'll note that though the limit on staffing icons doesn't allow Borg Cubes to report this way, the Borg CAN use this function to get Scouts, Spheres and Queen's Ship into play. Your opponent can also report ships there, though, so be careful about that, and perhaps protect your interests at the location. This is no doubt the biggest disadvantage the card has. Of course, opportunity and building your deck around something are two different things. But say you want to use a combination of Quadrants, well, Caretaker's Array can be used as a kind of one-way Bajoran Wormhole (use Barzan Wormhole to return if you need to), by including one or more Badlands region. One of these is found in the Mirror Quadrant, so your Alliance and Terrans can join in the fun too. A number of missions might fit your strategy but be on the wrong side of the galaxy. Easy access! The card can also be kept in hand in case you fall prey to Navigate Plasma Storms to relocate your ship in a pinch, or send it back to hand unharmed, but you'd have to be the one using the strategy when something goes wrong, or else why include the Array in your deck? It's not like it's that popular a strategy. You COULD badly probe BY DESIGN to get yourself to the DQ with no Caretaker's Array in play at Liberation, but... That sounds like the backup of a backup in case something else fails. I'd say DQ decks need the speed, and there is no better way to play the Federation in Delta space, so a 4.7.

TOTAL: 16.13 (80.67%) A strong Voyager deck enabler.

PICTURE: That purple stuff is what makes up the Nekrit Expanse. By now, you know I don't like the colors very much, but Decipher can't go against the show (which, judging from Delta Quadrant missions, used a LOT of these similarly-colored clouds). The composition has an odd centrality to it with a dark middle and grayish circle around it, like we're flying through a kind of nebulous tunnel. It's fine, as far as these abstract smears go, and makes lining up the universal missions pretty seemless (as with Assist Cooperative), so a 3.1.

LORE: First of all, the lore is clear about making this part of a region, but I don't especially like the location being called a "Plasma storm". Or are these things permanently fixed at one spot? Doubtful. The rest of the lore reads fine, but does not focus at all on any plasma storm, but all kinds of Expanse phenomena. Can't go above 2.4 on what we have here.

TREK SENSE: The Nekrit Expanse is above all, an Expanse. Not only should that be reflected in the Span, but there should be a way to actually make it extend for a number of "episodes". That's what makes it a universal mission. And what could you do at ANY generic Expanse location? How about charting its space, dust clouds, storms, etc. in case you have to backtrack through the region, or to help you understand what's ahead. Fine pursuit, and fair game for any crew. This is basically a Science project, bringing to bear skills such as Stellar Cartography (charting) and Astrophysics (studying phenomena), with Computer Skill helping create a database. That last one is a little iffy, in my opinion, and Navigation might have been sharper. No biggie, of course. Points are a bit high for a universal mission, but the goal seems important enough for ships operating in the area. Without being very original, the mission nonetheless garners a good 3.6.

SEEDABILITY: If you want to play around with regions in the Delta Quadrant, you'll need this universal mission. It would allow you to play all your missions close together, and attempt them with the same skills over and over again. You'll also want to include Assist Cooperative as a planet mission (and one from outside the region) to avoid the likes of Balancing Act. It also has a Computer Skill/SCIENCE requirements to go with your theme. Their all being at 30 points, you might want to include some mission specialists to up the points a bit, and win the game with 3 missions, not 4. You can send those specialists to an Outpost right in the region, since the Nekrit Supply Depot must seed or be built here. In fact, that's another reason for using the region: in order to use a Non-Aligned outpost in the Delta Quadrant. The requirements aren't all that hard to find either, often being found on the same personnel (do watch out for mission theft). Seems like it's perfect for a Temporal Micro-Wormhole-delivered Dr. Telek R'Mor. A good enough 3.5.

TOTAL: 12.6 (63%) Another gas cloud, another review.

PICTURE: Here he is in the pilot, looking doubtfully at Paris (who's been CGIed out of the foreground). A good expression for him (not that there must have been a lot of pulls to choose from), but as long as they were doing a little CGI, they might have removed the blurry stars behind him which manage to just look like after-images of dice pips - too big, too close and not looking like stars at all, more like dirt on the lense. A 3 should do it.

LORE: I wonder why Janeway's first officer was only a Lt. Commander... maybe because he's on a "smaller ship"? Well, at least there's an explanation offered for it. Anyway, Cavit's been made a universal XO, and that's corroborated in the lore ("typical"). His scorn is well described too. I give this one a good 3.5.

TREK SENSE: As a "typical" (read: universal) first officer on smaller ships, we can forgive some of the liberties taken as to his skills. In any case, it's not like he was around long enough for us to see what he was good at. Needless to say, Officer and Leadership would be tools common to all first officers. As for the other two, they could just as well have been picked at random. Anthropology seems like a good skill to help his captain with diplomacy, but his attitude towards the Maquis' differing politics makes him less than tactful or understanding. Transporter Skill, well... if you like. Making him a Delta Quadrant native doesn't work however. For one thing, he was dead by the time Voyager reached the DQ. For another, there are no "typical Federation first officers" in the Delta Quadrant. Either he's you typical XO and can report to the Alpha Quadrant where the Federation is in control, or he's not typical/universal at all. I find that the attributes are well-evaluated though. His closed-minded  attitude would drive his INTEGRITY down a bit, and doesn't make him a very smart personnel manager. His physique might warrant the 7 in STRENGTH, so I'll buy it. Wrongful nativity certainly hurts him, and invented skills don't really help... Just a 2 here.

STOCKABILITY: Cavit's niche is as a universal Command icon OFFICER you can use in the Delta Quadrant. His 6-6-7 attributes can be boosted to 8-8-9 with Lower Decks, and he has as many as 3 skills to add to your crew or Away Team. Of course, given that DQ mains have packed skill boxes, and that 3 skills does not a support personnel (or mission specialist) make, doesn't make him too essential. But he is a common with 3 good skills and STRENGTH enough to help pass Maglocks. Transporter Skill is still rather rare and always useful. Anthropology/Leadership can be used against Aggressive Behavior and Primitive Humanoids among other things. He makes a fine back-up for all those skills, since they're not as common as you'd like them to be in the DQ. I'd say around 3.4.

TOTAL: 11.9 (59.5%) Almost made it to 60%, like he almost made it to the DQ.

PICTURE: There's nothing strictly wrong with the image - Chakotay's in his usual chair, in an oft-seen pose. The picture is crisp, sharply colored, and his expression is earnest. But my beef is that it doesn't even really come from a Chakotay episode (they are admittedly few and far between). It's from, of all places, "Lifesigns", where his role amounts to playing the fool to Paris and Janeway's trickery. Weren't there any pulls available from "Tatoo", "Initiations", "Maneuvers" or even an ensemble effort. Of the two borders, the Federation one looks better thanks to more natural contrast between red and blue. A dull choice overall, so just a 3.1.

LORE: We're real used to telegraph-style lore on mains, so I was surprised to find something a little more prosaic here. His position (in two crews) is given a full sentence (with verb), and the last part is taken liberally from his a-koo-chee-moya prayer. Very nice, and its appearance is heralded by the flavor text "deeply spiritual". A very well done 3.9.

TREK SENSE: It's not the skills that hurt Chakotay. He's an Officer, that much is obvious, and so is his Leadership, getting respect from both Maquis and Starfleet personnel alike. He's definitely got Navigation, or else Janeway wouldn't have him take the helm any time Paris is off the ship (those poor, poor ensigns he has to relieve...). Diplomacy and Honor are both character traits this spiritual pacifist posesses, and they no doubt help him get that aforementioned respect from the Starfleet guys. Diplomacy possibly allows him to keep the two crews working together as well. Anthropology is more than a hobby with him. Not only is he deeply interested in other cultures, but he's got a real handle on his own as well, using all his knowledge to understand anything new he might come across. So I don't find the x2 excessive. Archaeology is in the same vein: deciphering of the Rubber People symbols, claiming that's he would do if stuck in 1996, and events in "One Small Step". I'm a little disappointed that more cultural flavor wasn't injected into his skill box though, which a simple download of Ancestral Vision or Meditation would have done. Attributes check out, with the high Strength slightly related to boxing and more to pounding sense into beligerent Maquis, and the others walking hand-in-hand with his skills. As for the icons, he's a Command personnel, yes, no doubt has connections to the Maquis having been a leader in that organization, and spent the series in the Delta Quadrant (though not, strictly speaking, a native of that quadrant, there is no "present" Chakotay in Starfleet in the AQ). It's the Non-Aligned icon I have some problems with, just as with B'Elanna Torres. He's now Starfleet, and a return to Maquis loyalties (NA) makes him work with nigh anyone on the block, including the Kazon, Cardassians, etc? On the upside, he has jumped ship to work with the Krenim, among others, so there is a certain basis for the dual-alignment. I'm just less convinced than with most elements of the card. Stands at a fairly complete 4 in the final analysis.

STOCKABILITY: Like other Voyager mains, Chakotay is a veritable treasure trove of skills, and indeed, whether you use him with similar DQ Feds or with more Non-Aligned personnel of the same type (B'Elanna, Seska, etc.), you'll find plenty of DQ missions that he can solve with just another personnel present. Alone, he can tame Establish Settlement and Salvage Operation, but the DQ is so full of ENGINEER/scientific missions, that he can't usually work single. All his skills will find a use in busting dilemmas (goodbye Aggressive Behavior), even Honor which is getting mentioned a little bit more these days. His attributes are all very good too (Sisko-level), and he can be used by any non-Borg affiliation. As a Delta Quadrant personnel, you can even Spatial Scission him to get twice his skills for all your mission solving needs. Chakotay has a couple tricks up his sleeve too. For one, he can switch with another version of his persona, the totally Maquis Captain Chakotay, and if you're using a lot of Maquis personnel, keeping both in your deck can help you boost the right personnel at the right time. Better though, is his ability to double Ancestral Vision. If present on the target planet, you draw 2 extra cards each turn, a very powerful drawing engine which alone may be worth playing ol' Chuckles. Indeed, you could Scission him to leave him on a planet and still get to use him. A good skill horse for any DQ deck (except Borg, of course), and a 4.2 here.

TOTAL: 15.8 (79%) In the company of other mains like a Data, a Uhura and um... a Leah Brahms (well, they all have multiple "selves"). :-)

PICTURE: The most up-to-date picture of Chell we have, it's nonethess a bit odd that the image wasn't pulled from hie best known episode, i.e. "Learning Curve". Being from "Repression" didn't stop him from getting an appropriately unhappy expression though. Fairly straightforward otherwise. As for the dual borders, the blue Federation version works best since the blue is better balanced, than the yellow-next-to-yellow palette of the other version. A rather simple 3.3.

LORE: Now, I ask you, are not all Bolians talkative? This is just like putting Mindmeld on every Vulcan card ;-). Seriously folks, both his starring episodes get a mention, the last, from "Repression" giving us further qualifiers for his personality as well as a "what happened between his two episodes" info. A likeable 3.9.

TREK SENSE: I've mentioned my qualms about the dual-aligned former Maquis, but they are less of a factor here. For at least his first year aboard Voyager, Chell could still pretty much be called Non-Aligned. He was one of the belligerents who did not accept Starfleet rule easily. He was stated to be an Engineer, and Computer Skill no doubt would fit in with that classification. Anthropology, I believe, was derived from his superstitious use of a Kazleti pendant. He obviously would have to know and understand the Kazleti culture to put stock in such a thing. Navigation comes from the Voyager bridge simulation where he took the conn position. The other skill is not as clear, but Biology could very well have to do with the engineering systems being biologically based (the gel packs that were explored in "Learning Curve"). Missing is his cooking skill (a lore mention), since he'd taken over for Neelix after the Talaxian's departure. His unwillingness to follow Starfleet rules drops his Integrity some, but it doesn't ignore the fact that he was still a relatively good guy. Undisciplined, supertitious and kinda off base, perhaps the low Cunning works here, though it might be a bit harsh considering his many and varied skills. A plump, out-of-shape man, the Strength seems about right. More focused than questionable, I think Chell deserves a 3.6 here.

STOCKABILITY: By virtue of his Non-Aligned nature, Chell provides of good source of 5 skills and nutrients for any Delta Quadrant affiliation. DQ missions are very high on ENGINEER (as are the Voyager-environment dilemmas), so he'll fit in well in most any crew or Away Team. He's got a real variety of skills associated with various classifications, not just ENGINEER, but also MEDICAL, SCIENCE and OFFICER. All are liberally found on other cards, and none are really that rare in and of themselves, but you gotta remember that in the DQ, affiliations don't have a huge amount of personnel to choose from. The Maquis icon will no doubt get more functions tied to it later, but for now, it's still a useful comodity for use with the Liberty and her crew. His attributes stand as his greatest weakness, of course, so attribute boosts by such Maquis luminaries as Captain Chakotay would be in order. A big 3.5.

TOTAL: 14.3 (71.5%) As much as Eddington himself!

PICTURE: Star Trek as a show has rarely been able to gather enough of a crowd of extras to make any kind of riot scene work (well, Deep Space 9 sometimes did), so this little demonstration is laughable. To make things worse, the candy colors they wear can't be taken seriously. That's mostly on the show's end, but Decipher could have used a tighter focus so as to get rid of all the empty space. There is some movement on the card, but it's pretty directionless. Bah, a rather unlikeable, if colorful, 2.6.

LORE: Well, "disobedience" makes a fine alternative to "unrest" in the lore, and the dilemma and its game text are well explained. That said, there seems to be the little matter of giving a context to Paris and Janeway's adventure. That's missing so the score goes no higher than 3.

TREK SENSE: Mimics with a certain exactitude the events from "Time and Again" for Paris and Janeway. Here as there, 2 personnel are swept up in the riot (small scale, so not the entire Away Team would be affected), and unless they can convince the police that they have nothing to do with the demonstrators (through Diplomacy), well, they can't get out of it and waste some time (they are "stopped"). Works elegantly enough, though its specificity can be disturbing. These kinds of situations are so chaotic, you couldn't possibly ask them to behave so consistently or even benignly. Still a good 4.

SEEDABILITY: A filter which will hit only some of the time unless you've already filtered out the Diplomacy with, say, Blended. But just how many filters are you gonna seed before you're happy with your combo? Seems inefficient. That said, Civil Unrest isn't bad in sealed deck format, and will even hit sometimes in regular play. The problem is that Diplomacy is a fairly common skill, and its usefulness means it'll usually be present in any given Away Team. You up your chances of hitting (2 personnel filtered out, even randomly selected, isn't bad) if they're packing Rifles, but you'll usually have to rely on your selection not carrying the skill. Very possible, especially in the more compact affiliations. A fair filter, probably better in the Voyager environment, especially where the Feds are NOT concerned. Bottom line: 3.2.

TOTAL: 12.8 (64%) A well thought-out design, but deserving of being common.

PICTURE: Beautiful! That big Jovian is incredibly detailed, and the small moon isn't without its textures either. It's not without its weaker elements, such as the Jovian's less interesting south pole, but it's way better than the vast majority of planet missions. A cool 4.

LORE: When the mission is simply to "survive", you know you're dealing with Kazon ;-). No problems here, as ownership by the appropriate sect is even mentioned. 3.2 from me.

TREK SENSE: Combat Training suffers from the way the Kazon are represented in the game because it clearly belongs to the Kazon-Ogla, but may be attempted by other sects. I know forbidding sects from cooperating would have made the affiliation near impossible to play, but there you have it. At least there's a bonus for actually having Ogla present. The requirements themselves have Strength as a must, since this IS a survival mission, and it's the attribute most prized by the Kazon. The presence of a Maje is not as self-explanatory. I imagine Combat Training is always done with a leader. But ANY Maje? Well, that's an invitation to non-Ogla sects! Maybe for other Kazon, "Training" includes raiding another sect's base. An attack would again require Strength, and make much better use of a Maje (takes a strong leader to lead troops into such a siege). Another possibility is that at times of relative peace, the Ogla might invite other sects to train here, requiring a Maje just to keep that precarious peace. Unfortunate that the mission has no built-in dangers, since it was supposed to be booby-trapped, but that's pretty standard for missions. Span's short because it was easily gotten to by Chakotay's crashing shuttle, but I suppose it's also because the base is close to major spacelanes as a strategic rallying point (but would it be that close to other sects?). Points are low because this is just training, but while I appreciate the encouragement of Ogla by the point boost, I also don't think their Combat Training should be worth as much as 45 points! In fact, if we believe the justification above, other sects should be getting the bonus, since it's a harder, and more meaningful, mission for them. Too many things are questionable with this one for more than a 2.

SEEDABILITY: 25 points at a substantial STRENGTH cost? Well, if playing with enough Kazon-Ogla, it could be a 45 point value for very few requirements. There are currently 5 Kazon-Ogla in the game, two of which are Majes that could take care of the second requirement, and most of which having large skill selections for going through dilemmas. With a couple Disruptors, or better, Rifles, STRENGTH 51+ can be attained much more quickly, and then it's on to the next mission. The points do drastically go down if you can't come up with the necessary Ogla, or lose them in a mass attack/killer dilemma. You could always keep back-ups with Spatial Scission, I suppose, and can at least not have to worry about the planet being assimilated because of its conservative point box, or from theft because of its single attemptability icon - nice precautions in the Delta Quadrant. Hits a good 3.5.

TOTAL: 12.7 (63.5%) The Kazon answer to Bat'leth Tournament would have worked better as a more generic universal, so is dragged down by Trek Sense.

PICTURE: The wideshot is unremarkable, what with blurry stuff in the foreground, no real commandeering effort actually in progress, and no real sharp focus. The Kazon aboard Voyager is incongruous, sure, and it's a hoot to see Seska's baby in there, but the card definitely could have been tightened up. Average at 3.

LORE: N/A (score will be adjusted accordingly)

TREK SENSE: No change since the Blaze of Glory version, I don't think. Accessing a ship's computer systems to take it over still seems too easy, especially since it allows someone supposedly less familiar than your own personnel to staff your ship entirely, if it has no more than 3 icons (still big!). Borg Cubes are thankfully excluded, but that still leaves plenty of behemoths. The card doesn't cover every possible situation, just that of commandeering an empty ship, but that's pretty much what usually happens. Even in "Rascals" or "The Killing Game", the personnel present are captives and thus don't count as crew. The second function creates a situation where a commandeering attempt is in progress by virtue of your infiltrator or simple intruder is aboard. It prevents the ship from being taken back into hand (decommissioned?), but I'm at a loss to explain why exactly, nor does this "attempt" ever end in commandeering. If, for example, the intruder could have stopped the crew, as they react to its presence, we might have something here. As it is, it protects your cards from STP-type stuff, but has no real place under this title. All the holes previously made me give it a 1.5, and I see no reason to revise that.

STOCKABILITY: That second function does have its uses, all defensive, protecting your infiltrator from an early STP before it can cause problems for the infiltrated crew, or else protecting your team of intruders from that same fate as they attempt to use a second Commandeer Ship to take over the vessel. Delta Quadrant affiliations are pretty good at boarding ships, so this could be important protection for the Kazon and Vidiians. And while their big ships could hold their own in battle, commandeering a ship rather than destroying it has its advantages. For one thing, your opponent still loses a ship, but you GAIN one, a ship which is easy to staff no matter what. (Some ships are immune by virtue of their special staffing: you can commandeer them, but not pilot them unless you happen to have appropriate personnel.) That ship won't go to the discard pile where your opponent would normally recycle it somehow either. And it's easy! Computer Skill practically grows on trees, so all you really have to do is empty a ship before dropping your Computer Skill personnel on the ship (to do so, you'll need a means to board the ship, of course). It's all about being stronger in personnel battle than you are in ship battle, since clearing a ship can have everything to do with killing or capturing the offending crew. It's an easy download for the Kazon who can grab it with Boarding Party, but it's also a popular special download, appearing on Kudak'Etan (Dominion), Kavok (Klingon), Bractor (Ferengi), Rekar (Romulan) and Admiral Kirk (Federation). In the DQ, it actually gains some power, though new Borg rules about their SHIELDS makes their commandeering a little harder than before (still, that Borg Queen's Ship's a juicy target). A 4.

TOTAL: 11.33 (56.65%) That darn Trek Sense.

PICTURE: For one thing, though the lore tries to save it, this guy is far from being a "common" thief. Sure, he took some equipment, but also the main processor! Secondly, the pic's a bit busy, showing us not only Tau, but also Janeway and a lot background equipment. I do like the gimme-gimme pose, and that background equipment is all stolen goods. Kind of on the fence on this one, but I tend to like it more than I dislike it. A 3.5 even.

LORE: Where the original had a fun title, seeing as the card was itself common, this one doesn't work as well because the card is NOT actually common, but a premium (or Starter-only, if you prefer). The lore itself pushes hard to make Tau into a "common thief", but only manages to make this Janeway's opinion. See, where DS9's Common Thief was an incidental character (without even a name), Tau was the villain of an entire episode. Strains credulity, so only a plain 2.

TREK SENSE: Not much headway has been made since the original. While I agree that a Thief should try to steal equipment, making him/her/it into a killer as well is not as probable. For one thing, I doubt that thieves are all this sanguinary. Secondly, why would they kill people IF they found no equipment to steal? If the mechanism allowed for the Thief to be surprised as he was stealing something, and then kill the Security (for example) who did. But no, it's an either/or situation. Maybe the Thief tried to steal some out-of-play item like Data's violin or Dukat's family album, and was surprised in this fashion, but it's all very arbitrary in deciding if the Thief pulls out a gun or not. Also strange is that the Thief steals equipment at random, but decides who he shoots. The random/opponent's selections seem reversed for some reason. The victim is either weak physically or kinda stupid, or below average in both attributes, but again, while I understand that such personnel would have more trouble dealing with a surprised Thief, they just don't strike me as the ones who would try to make the collar in the first place. The space/planet aspect is one I criticized in the original's review, but will retract here. There are enough instances of thieves on ships (wolves in sheep's clothing) to account for this being more than a planetary danger. Rasmussen was one early example. That last observation takes the card up a notch to 2.

SEEDABILITY: Dilemmas that almost always hit are great. Either your opponent loses one Equipment card present, or they lose a personnel with low enough stats (hey, anything short of 8/7 or 7/8 will do the trick). Stealing equipment is a great effect to seed at missions that require equipment (in particular hand weapons) or before dilemmas that do. It can also turn out to be great beyond the mission attempt: losing hand weapons makes Away Teams more vulnerable to personnel battle, and you might end up taking away Ablative Armor, a Vinculum, Latimum or a Classic Communicator (to name but a few worthy targets). If there is no equipment present, then an opponent's choice kill is excellent as well. Your only limit is on the target's combined STRENGTH and CUNNING, which won't allow you to take out most Jem'Hadar and Hirogen, but there are plenty of targets available in other affiliations (even in those). With a little more control to that effect, it may even be worth it getting rid of the Equipment beforehand with Disruptor Overload or something. As good as ever at 4.4.

TOTAL: 11.9 (59.5%) Killed by the lore.

PICTURE: Did you notice this was a visual palindrome? If you flip the rather pretty marble, you'll see it looks the same upside-down (lighting aside). All they did was flip one half of the planet to create the other. While that's fun to discover, I doubt it could happen in the real universe and is about as likely as the upside-down Earth in "Miri". Let's just say I'm resistant to the idea, but the planet looks so nice, I'm inclined to go for a high 3.

LORE: Do we ever free prisoners? That doesn't seem to be the mission exactly, does it? More on that later, but for now, no real problems and another 3.

TREK SENSE: Who are these prisoners? They go unrepresented in the game, and for Alpha Quadrant affiliations to have to come here to rescue some of their own is unlikely at best. Once rescued, they don't make an appearance either. Are they even rescued? The mission only talks about contacting the local resistance movement IN ORDER TO later attempt a rescue. Yet, the first set of requirements uses Strength as if there really was a rescue entailed. Security could also be used in this endeavor, as could Leadership. The second set of requirements is more geared toward the Contact mission since Cunning is the controlling attribute. Resistance is meant to be a network of contacts in the Bajoran underground, but I suppose it's also a set of attitudes and techniques that could be used to track down an alien resistance cell and convince it to help. Contacting the Resistance using the first set of requirements uses Security to track down, Leadership to convince and perhaps Strength too. Or you could say the Cunning in the second is used to plan the jailbreak. The square pegs indeed can be pushed into the round holes on this one. Points and span check out, but what about the affiliations? Well, we know the Feds attempted it, and the Bajorans might well be interested in working with another Resistance group. The Klingons don't seem like the prison rescue type, seeing as capture is a dishonorable end. NAs, well, who's to say, that's almost anybody (though the stranded Maquis are a lot like the Bajorans in this scenario). All in all, it's got its ups and downs, but mostly downs for a total of 2.9.

SEEDABILITY: Eminently thievable, when the NAs can attempt it, there's no telling who could go after it. But if protected, it's not too difficult a mission for either Feds, Klingons or Bajorans. There's not a lot of Resistance in the Delta Quadrant, but Tabor can work with two of the mentioned affiliations. Without him, DQers will have to stick to SECURITY/Leadership which is a little harder, but not much. Many personnel have that skill combo, so it's just a matter of driving down the number of personnel needed by including enough hand weapons. In fact, it may be easier to do it that way than using Cunning, which is far less boostable. Plus, if you lose your Resistance personnel, you'd have to switch back. Of course, you might be traveling to the DQ with Alphans who have plenty of Resistance, I'm not taking that away from you. Basically a lesser mission for players with limited DQ resources who want to attempt a Voyager-only deck. Not hard, but not particularly lucrative. A 3.

TOTAL: 11.9 (59.5%) Almost average.

PICTURE: As Deanna Troi would say upon kissing a bearded Riker - Yuck! We've seen plenty of Containment Fields throughout the years, and I must say this is one of the least clear images of such technology. I understand the idea of showing the characters blocked off (kind of taking its cue from the game text), but the whole thing turns busy and gray. 0.8 only.

LORE: N/A (score will be adjusted accordingly)

TREK SENSE: Literally, a Containment Field might block access to certain things, depending on where it would be deployed. This incident kind of does this, but the card extra on the website may be right when it says it "contains" abusive strategies (a conceptual conceit). Here's what happens: A personnel wants to make use of something they generally have on them as represented by a special download, but you throw up a Containment Field which limits access, whether it be to the personnel's Bat'leth or to the targets of his Bribery attempt. The same is true of personnel trying to join your crew via Going to the Top, or those attempting to gain access to a Hidden Fighter. Containment Fields in Star Trek are generally eventually dealt with, so personnel can go through the Field, but at a cost of some resources and time. This is pretty mechanical, but does a fair job: Some resource (card) is granted (stacked) for this task - now, since the card is from hand, it can conceptually be anything, though it could be fun to imagine how the specific card could be applied - and if you tried to go through too many Fields on a single turn (3 or more), some resources might not return to hand before yet another turn. Appropriately, you'd skip that turn. Thematically, and independently of the justifications given here, all stacked cards are "trapped" behind the Containment Field. Some of this works, but only to a certain point. After all, there's no real relationship between the downloaded card(s) and the stacked card or skipped turn. If the Field keeps you from your download, and stacking a card somehow grants you access, then why later lose a turn? Is this a kind of Indiana Jones trap where grabbing the item erects a Field? Could be, and helps explain the Hidden Agenda icon too. The card probably would have worked better if the downloaded card was the one to be stacked, only to come into play later than expected. The second function nullifies a few cards, one of which is Telepathic Alien Kidnappers, I guess in the same way as Intruder Force Field. Why the duplication? The Static Warp Bubble is a card that has its own Trek Sense problems, but here I imagine a Field could keep personnel from being pulled into it. Finally, you could erect a Field to protect a mission location from a Garbage Scow's radiation, though the point loss doesn't really make sense, not if the radiation is contained. Or is it deflected against the owner's properties? The card's much too mechanical for a high score here, and besides, you'd have to believe both players are projecting Containment Fields everywhere in play for the entire game, and how would that be possible? No real problems with the Referee icon, which is always conceptual, but good on cards that actually do limit cheesy strategies. Even if you don't think massive downloads are abusive, I'm pretty sure you'll agree that Destroy Radiactive Garbage Scow on the Combo Dilemma version of the Scow is entirely too nasty. A difficult, though not completely defective 2.4.

STOCKABILITY: Referee icon cards are usually useful only in relation to what cheese your opponent is selling, but it's cool when the designers plug in effects that could be used more actively. Defensively, of course, Containment Field will protect your strategy from one using massive downloads, card attrition and/or DRaGS. Let's look at these from end first. When Enhanced Premiere came out, the new Radioactive Garbage Scow combo dilemma introduced a broken strategy. Basically, since it stopped you no matter what, but was now encounterable at a planet mission, a quick zap with Destroy Radioactive Garbage Scow would kill of the entire, exposed Away Team (where before, it could only be encountered at a space mission where crews were always protected by their ships). Not only does Containment Field prevent this, but it adds injury to insult by giving the -10 point loss to the player of the card, not to the mission's point box. The interrupt is now very dangerous to play, especially with face-down Hidden Agendas on the table. We already have lots of  non-Kevin limiters on Static Warp Bubble and Telepathic Alien Kidnappers (for the former, there's Spacedoor, The Traveller: Transcendence, Deactivation, Persistence of Memory and Writ; the latter has Intruder Force Field and Countermanda) so I'm not sure we needed yet another, but there you have it. Those 2 cards can be a real drain on your hand so it's always good to kill them. Finally, Containment Field limits massive downloading from 3 sources: special downloads, Going to the Top and Hidden Fighter. The last two are Interrupts so can essentially be used multiple times in the same turn to get large amounts of personnel or ships. Special downloads are more dependent on situation, but work just as quickly (faster even!), and when combined with the two other cards, may indeed help report an entire deck within only a few turns. The idea here is to make players "pay" for these downloads by making them stack "mortgage" cards at the Field. Players get these back just before their turn, no problem, as long as they didn't go overboard with the downloading. Anything above 2 downloaded cards, and they'll have to skip their next turn. Basically, it slows down a deck built for speed. Of course, it doesn't cover all types of download (or else the Borg would be in trouble), so its usefulness is limited in that sense. Also note that is works on both players, so don't play the card if you're planning to make use of massive downloads yourself, or else make them BEFORE flipping the Hidden Agenda. One way to use the stacking to your advantage is as a kind of built-in Zalkonian Storage Pod, secreting away cards there just before you Masaka your hand, that kind of thing. A fun cycling side-effect. Speaking of cycling, let's not forget the Referee icon on there which makes the incident downloadable, discardable and returnable to the draw deck. And just as a Containment Field discards or returns to the bottom of the draw deck, so do any cards stacked there. Yes, that means a player can lose his escrow card(s)! This is a good card that's not just defensive and does help the meta-game by killing at least one cheesy hoser (DRGS) and less severely limiting a couple of less powerful abuses. A strong 4.6.

TOTAL: 10.4 (52%) Can't be all about usefulness.

PICTURE: Though the background is lame-to-terrible, the aggressive posture with rifle in hand works well for a security personnel. What doesn't work so well is that embarassing powder blue outfit. Yechh! Lighting's kinda harsh too. A 3 and no more.

LORE: Universality's there, no problem. Kazon are "aligned" with a sect, not members of one? An odd turn of phrase, but ok. An important keyword here is "bodyguard", which has to be worth some points. Finally, there's his episode backstory. A good 3.3.

TREK SENSE: An essentially nameless Pommar, Corez guards captive Trabe in some caved-out structure. Does that justify his two skills? Only tangentially. He's with the bad guys, but really just doing a job. Maybe he mistreated them too? Working in a forced-labor camp could mean some basic knowledge of Geology, but it's not that clear either. The special download is shown to be in his hands on the card's image, so that works out well. Often, a personnel carrying a hand weapon in its pic will be awarded slightly higher Strength, but it's much better to do it this way. His Integrity is fine, but infirms the Treachery a little. At 5, he doesn't sound so bad. Kazon don't strike me as particularly Cunning to begin with, and guard duty could well be relegated to the least swift of the bunch. Maybe his job as Minnis' bodyguard (an invention) didn't work out because of a bonehead mistake and he was demoted to "Trabe duty". Nothing outrageous, but nothing that solid either. 3.4 here.

STOCKABILITY: Reporting for free if Minnis is in play (and in any number, since he's universal), you can then download a Disruptor Rifle to up all your guys' STRENGTH. You can also wait to boost your STRENGTH mid-mission attempt, or just as a personnel battle starts, so as to keep that rather rare Kazon Diplomacy intact until the last possible minute. Corez is also a bodyguard, which means he can exclude VIPs and CIVILIANs during battle. Now, the Kazon have few CIVILIANs and no VIPs, but they are likely to import these classifications from other sources, whether Non-Aligned or allied to the Collective. There are some good DQ personnel in those branches that they might want to use (and not lose). The label also allows him (or any of his look-alikes) to protect better personnel from A Fast Ship. The attributes are really nothing to write home about, but the skills are useful enough. Treachery and Geology are found on a number of dilemmas, but not many missions attemptable by the Kazon (the Collective's addition of NA missions actually helps). There is Mine Gallicite that requires both skills, so that's good. In the Alpha Quadrant, Feldomite Rush could interest him. So it's a good thing he has a special download and a bodyguard tag, because he's not that great a mission solver. The package is worth 3.4.

TOTAL: 13.1 (65.5%) The first Kazon reviewed is predictably average.

PICTURE: Where the original FC picture could not show an interaction with the ship, this card does, which makes it more appropriate. Seven looks kind of strange, as if cleaned-up with computer software or something, and the terrain map on the screen isn't all that interesting, but it gets the point across better than its predecessor from The Dominion expansion. A 3.4.

LORE: I thought the original did a good job of explaining the "Crisis" (a very, very vague term indeed), but this card does a better job of defining what's going on aboard the required ship. It's all about coordinating an effort, something the original Crisis couldn't take into account because communication between ship and Away Team had been cut off in First Contact. It might even help Trek Sense along (or maybe not). A 3.7 here.

TREK SENSE: In Star Trek, you rarely have all cast members in the same Away Team because that would just be too difficult to script. Those characters still need lines, so they usually have something to do on the ship in the meantime. It's actually a little unfortunate that the game doesn't always work this way. The original Crisis used the A-plot/B-plot concept for this, with some personnel handling a problem on the planet, while others had to deal with something else aboard ship. This version of the dilemma includes the more frequent idea of coordination by shipboard colleagues. That removes the ambiguity inherent in the original by giving the crew something clear to do, something which has as much to do with the mission as what the Away Team's doing. For non-Borg, the game text makes as much sense with this point of view as it did with the previous card's concept: In a time of crisis, you need good leaders in both spots. A Leadership personnel can lead the Away Team, but an Officer is generally better left in command of the ship (eeech, for the number of times Spock did this, they should have dropped the "classification" part which makes him inelligible to pass the dilemma, while someone like Gibson is). Coordination is done through the leaders. For the Borg, there's an overabundance of Defense Borg mentioned, especially in the ship's crew. For coordination, more Communication Borg should have been included. Still, the idea of Crisis and Defense are linked, so it still works ok. I'll give it 3.2.

SEEDABILITY: There's nothing I dislike more than mega-Away Teams swooping down on a planet and running through my dilemmas at breakneck speed, solving the mission on that turn even if it loses personnel. Crisis will stop any such Away Team if an OFFICER hasn't been left aboard ship. They'll have to try again without the personnel present on the next turn. The requirements on either end are nothing difficult since OFFICERs and Leadership personnel are quite common, but for the Borg, it requires a bit more. Unless they Interlink Leadership through the Queen or a Counterpart, they'll have to have at least 2 personnel on the planet (no problem) and in any case, have to keep 2 aboard ship. Since you never risk your Queen, she'll count as one at least. So it's all pretty easy. It's how you fit it in a combo that makes it useful. Since it basically takes away an OFFICER, add Punishment Box for another OFFICER, or Shot in the Back (either an android OFFICER goes, or you can select someone to die, make it an OFFICER) and later No Loose Ends which requires it, to kill off all MEDICAL and ENGINEER personnel present. Surprise Assault is another deadly dilemma that requires OFFICERs. About the same as it's always been at 3.5.

TOTAL: 13.8 (69%) 0.2 higher than its former self. Voyager just beat First Contact?!?

PICTURE: Lighted from his tabletop, Culluh looks like he has a pretty round nose in this shot which shows a lot of costuming detail. The background's a bit haphazard, but the disgruntled expression suits him (though it was probably easy to find). A competent 3.2.

LORE: His rank as first maje of the Kazon-Nistrim isn't only true, it's useful in the game, as is his matching commander status for a Kazon Raider. The rest is fairly evident story material, not badly written, though not surprising either. The bells and whistles make this a 3.4.

TREK SENSE: A maje who commands a fleet of ships would be an Officer with a Command icon, yes, but I don't think his Leadership should be as high as x2. Though he commanded a lot of men and even rallied other sects behind his, he was countered by Seska at every turn. He's just too much of a fool to have Leadership x2. The rallying of other sects, I would have simply included in his Diplomacy, which is there for that very reason anyway. He wants Voyager's technology (Greed), so he must understand its importance (Engineer). As the main villain in Voyager's 2nd season, he certainly deserves the Treachery. Archaeology though? I don't see how that applies. Boarding Party as a download, that I can see however. It was part of his most successful strategy against Voyager. A very bad man indeed, Integrity would be low, but though not a bad strategist, he got a lot of out Seska who did play him for a fool, so I would have accepted Cunning as low as 6. Leader of a brutish military power, his high Strength looks good, if a little inflated - I never got the sense that Kazon had superhuman Strength. Suffering a little from Voyager inflation, he gets a 2.5.

STOCKABILITY: At 5 skills and a special download, Culluh is sure to have something for most every Kazon deck. Leadership x2 is an impressive amount of a useful skill, he combines a high-STRENGTH OFFICER with the very useful ENGINEER (oooh, especially in the Delta Quadrant), and has the redundant Treachery with the rarer Greed and Archaeology. Good stuff, including everything you'd need to complete Salvage Operation if there weren't any ORs on there ;-). Seriously though, the Kazon have relatively few personnel with some of those skills. Greed can be cool with Gold-Pressed Latinum strategies, Archaeology turns up on a few missions, and even ENGINEER is in relatively short supply. He's a maje, so he'll help solve Combat Training, add points to Kazon Conference and allow 8 Kazon (some of them universal) to report to his location for free thanks to The Kazon Collective. He won't even need so many personnel to staff his personal Kazon Raider, a ship he commands (as do a couple of other Kazon, but hey, it's a universal ship). With Plaque and Log, that's a 11-10-10 ship for a single staffing icon, and not only does it allow Kazon Fighters to report aboard, but Culluh can be downloaded to it via Ready Room Door. The ship can be put into play real early thanks to Spacedoor too, and be unstopped with Make It So. With all that firepower in space, Culluh's doesn't stop there. He can download Boarding Party, which is an excellent way to get your personnel aboard an opponent's vessel to commandeer it, fight its crew or steal its equipment. Fun stuff, and easily used with Culluh around. I'd say he's the seminal Kazon at 4.2.

TOTAL: 13.3 (66.5%) Not great, but we ARE talking about a species deemed irrelevant by the Borg ;-).

PICTURE: Is it me, or does this planet look like a face? A sad, mole-like face. That gives the planet character, certainly, but also hurts the special effect's illusion. Is that face supposed to be the incarnation of the Virus? After asking that question, I'm really hoping the face is accidental. Nice details though. A 3.4.

LORE: There's one element missing from the virus' description, and that's the fact that it only affects people who have left the planet. There's talk of dormancy, etc., but it doesn't quite say what it wants to say. Cute planet "name" though (sounds a lot less idyllic that way doesn't it?). A 2.9 for its inaccuracies

TREK SENSE: The planet belongs to no one, but it's also doubtful that anyone would go out of their way to attempt the mission. After all, you only need to cure the virus if you've got people quarantined on it. Maybe the Away Team is meant to be there for another reason until it gets infected and starts working on the cure. Maybe. But while Danara Pel was able to provide the key to solving this medical conundrum (and thus, belongs as a requirement), she didn't do it from the planet's surface (nor even from orbit!). If they could have made this one a planet/space mission, it might have worked a little better, methinks. If you don't have Danara, then you better well have a great deal of Exobiology and Biology (specialties in your Away Team's systems, as well as its interaction with an alien organism). Requirements pass the test even if the way to attempt does not. The 45 points seem to mirror the importance of Janeway and Chakotay, lost on that planet, since the ship deviated from its orders to complete the mission. But the top 2 members of a crew aren't going to fall victim to the virus in most other cases (indeed, it's far-fetched that the two would ghave beamed down together on that occasion), and 45 points for curing an out-of-the-way virus is pretty inflated. The special game text is excellent though, quarantining personnel on the planet just like on the show. Of course, the mission might have allowed personnel to beam off, but doom their crews to death, which would have been more logical. Ah well. As is, the mission is a tough sell: a 3.

SEEDABILITY: The Vidiians would have no trouble nabbing 45 points at this mission even if they didn't have Danara Pel. Bio and Exo are their stock and trade! Of course, the Feds are also adept at medical matters, so you'll be able to attempt and complete this with a variety of personnel (The Doctor is particularly good here). The quarantine effect isn't even really a problem for these über-solvers. However, if your opponent puts a powerful wall here, your personnel would be stuck and unable to beam off! That's why Cure Deadly Virus makes a handy trap for opposing personnel. Any relocating card can be used to send personnel off to quarantine, like some kind of Delta Quadrant Qualor II. You don't have to wait for someone to hit a Duonetic Field Generator to get this type of effect. Hippocratic Oath could be a dangerous way to send personnel there, since MEDICAL personnel are often equipped with the necessary skills. But remember that wall you were afraid could be here? Why not seed it yourself to make the mission unattemptable. Later in the game, go to the planet with the wall-solver and hightail it out of there with some captives or whatever. Some fun ideas come with this one. A cool 3.9.

TOTAL: 13.2 (66%) Voyager tended not to use the more complex concepts of the game (like planet/space missions), to low-scoring effect.

PICTURE: :-( The Vidiians' one chance for an attractive personnel card is ruined by the technicality of the beautiful Danara being a hologram. Not the worst-looking Vidiian still, she's still pretty ewgly (what are those? cabbage leaves?). The background is Sandrine's, which would have been better with a pretty Danara pic (idyllic hologram in idyllic holoprogram) and is a little dissonant here. Ok, but not particularly good, so a 3.

LORE: Pretty much just the facts. There isn't much to comment on here, except that we knew her much more personally than the text would lead a layman to believe. Oh, and there's that odd capital "T" for T/the Doctor. I know that's the personnel card's title, but this makes it look like "The" is his first name. Can't go higher than 2.7.

TREK SENSE: Danara Pel appears twice in Voyager, and each time, there's no question she's an excellent doctor (as are many of her kind). That makes her certainly Medical, and the Biology x2 is warranted. Computer simulations were up her alley as well (Computer Skill necessary), and she was a good person, going against the Vidiian "type" encountered up to that point (that's the high Integrity and Honor - heck, she abandoned her love to help her people). She piloted her own Scout Vessel, so Navigation and a Staff icon are fair. Stellar Cartography is equally credible along that model. She was the Doctor's intellectual equal (same Cunning), but was weak with the Phage (low Strength). A good design, though the holographic version would have been fun too. A 4.1.

STOCKABILITY: The Vidiians are about as lean an affiliation as any, with only 15 personnel to call their own, so every personnel counts. But Danara Pel would have been good above and beyond that. She's got a good number of skills, including a doubled Biology (a skill very much in demand) combined with some rather un-MEDICAL skills like Navigation and Stellar Cartography (again, very much in demand). Computer Skill has always been a necessary skill, and Honor, while perhaps less so, is still good for such things as Ancestral Vision (she's one of only 2 Honorable Vidiians). No Vidiian missions really scream out "Danara!", she's better for dilemmas, but the DQ does offer Cure Deadly Virus, which requires her specifically (for 45 points!). There's Heal Life-Form if working with the Feds, but mostly, she brings only one or two skills to bear on any particular mission. As a MEDICAL, she reports for free thanks to The Vidiian Sodality. And there's the Vidiian Scout Vessel that she commands and which she can staff alone and boost to 10-10-10 with Plaque and Log. I like that's it's a Scout Vessel, because that gives it a couple more options, including Launch Portal and Scout Encouter (and from there, Ready Room Door for Danara, or if she's already aboard, for Dereth). The low STRENGTH needs help from multiple Harvesters, but otherwise, she's got good attributes, especially the rare INTEGRITY. Vidiians are pretty much beggars, and so can't be choosers, but Danara's better than your run-of-the-mill Vidiian. A good 4.

TOTAL: 13.8 (69%) Now that the Phage has been cured, the Doc must be kicking himself in the photons.

PICTURE: I think it's a pretty good shot of the Flyer, since the speeding stars really do make it fly. The danger for an action shot like this is that the ship would be blurred a little, and it is, but really not badly enough to lower its score. Hey, you can almost read the name of the ship in brush script on its side. A cool 3.7.

LORE: The Flyer was always supposed to be this feat of Starfleet/Borg engineering, and the lore bears this out by listing all the cool options it has. I don't understand much of it (classic Voyager technobabble), but it's appropriate. Let's also mention the matching commander listing for Tom Paris, which has to be worth a few points. A 3.6 here.

TREK SENSE: Well, I guess the big thing is the bloated attributes. Voyager itself is a 9-8-8 ship. The Flyer is only 1 point shy of each of those attributes and is supposed to be a shuttle! Yeah, bloated. If it weren't for it being blown up by a Tactical Cube when Voyager survived the assault, I would have accepted the stats more easily. After all, like Voyager, the Delta Flyer seems charmed. Essentially, it's not the CCG that bloated Voyager, but the show's writers. It's a big specialized shuttle, closer to a Runabout in function, so maybe it's the class that makes us think this way, because the attributes seem about right from what we saw on tv. Some staffing requirement would be indicated given that there are a number of "stations" onboard though, and again, that might allow us to swallow our pill more easily. There's no real problem with the Flyer reporting aboard Voyager since it was built there, but that's exactly it: it had to be built! So maybe "for free" is a bit tougher to believe. Again, I'll point to the Tac Cube incident where the Flyer was just rebuilt the very next episode as impeachment for my reservations. In any case, we can always say that the game's "episode" takes place at a time after the Flyer's already been built (it's just "reporting" after all). The special download's ok, I suppose, since small craft are inherently good at Evasive Maneuvers, but really, there's nothing in Voyager that makes me scream "Yes! Of course!" Sorry. Also, we know that the Flyer had a Tractor Beam, but in this game, that would've meant it would be able to carry other ships without the appropriate restriction box, I guess. I just can't accept enough of the design to give it more than a 2.7.

STOCKABILITY: As a companion to USS Voyager in the Delta Quadrant, it works great. It reports aboard for free, and the ship can make it launchable and landable by downloading Blue Alert. A quick Ready Room Door and you can grab Tom Paris who's a great tri-classification personnel (or don't wait for the Flyer by using Construct Starship and Tom's ENGINEER to expedite matters). Having Tom aboard lays the groundwork for boosting the shuttlecraft with Plaque and Log, and hey, Bio-Neural Gel Packs work on it, so throw those in too. The Flyer can easily be brought to all 13s this way, before any other enhancements. How easily? Well, the Gel Packs report for free on Voyager and can be transferred to the Flyer from there. Attribute-wise, there's just no better shuttlecraft. I mean, for exactly zero staffing, you get those huge attributes (that far surpass anything else in the class) and a special download. It's not a bad Tactic to be able to pull either, since the Flyer's group can benefit from a DEFENSE +6 bonus with it, and you just don't want to keep many of these in your Battle Bridge on account of there lack of aggresiveness. It can also be downloaded, yes, to any quadrant using Hidden Fighter. See, the Flyer is just as good in the Alpha Quad where ships aren't usually as powerful as in the Delta. It'll kick Alpha heiny! Now, THIS is a tough little ship. How 'bout a 4.4?

TOTAL: 14.4 (72%) Tom would be proud.

PICTURE: The only other possibility for this phenomenon would have been the meeting of the Janeways, but it's not like the same actor meeting him- or herself has always been because of a Spatial Scission. What they've chosen is fairly distinctive despite being as simple as Voyager special effects get. A 3.1.

LORE: N/A (score will be adjusted accordingly)

TREK SENSE: According to the Encyclopedia, a Spatial Scission is "a divergence of subspace fields [that causes] a small region of space, and any matter in it, to be duplicated." I don't think there's anything in that definition that excludes it happening elsewhere than in the Delta Quadrant. That limitation is totally arbitrary, in my opinion. Likewise, on the show, the two Voyagers co-existed in the same space, either of them being "in phase" with the universe at any given time, so that Vidiians could fire on one, but the other could receive the damage. Doesn't make sense to me either, but that's Voyager's science-fantasy bias for ya. This incident doesn't do that. It's like a big quantum cloning machine, which allows your quantum clones to go anywhere they want after the split. After the split? I don't even know when that split happened, because the personnel are not duplicated at any one spot or any one time, they may report anywhere they can at different times. You can do the same with ships. Is the entire Delta Quadrant a Spatial Scission zone? The episode also states that transferring personnel from one Voyager to another would unbalance the space/time continuum, but that's no problem here (though the card does unbalance the game). And what about anti-matter not being duplicated? Wouldn't that make duplicate ships dead in the water? As for the second effect, it's closer to "Deadlock"'s events. It makes your hand the "other ship" and allows you to sacrifice "it" (or a personnel that would be aboard) to boost its counterpart. On the show, this could be seen as Janeway helping Janeway, or more clearly, as one Voyager letting go of the other, enabling it to escape the Vidiians. The +2 to attributes is a bit misleading however, since it was more a question of removing a minus than anything else. The bonus card plays or draws are better here, since they represent resources better than any attribute boost, even if they are kind of vague. Note that using the incident both ways at the same time is possible. I don't know that a Scission can go three ways in the "real" universe though. The first part is junk, the second makes at least some amount of sense. May I offer 2.2?

STOCKABILITY: I know a lot of people see this card as a sales gimmick, forcing you to buy more Voyager cards to get more than one of each unique personnel and ship card. Depends how you look at it, really, or what your trading habits are. If you buy a great deal of cards, you may get stuck with duplicate rares that you can't (or simply don't) trade away. If Scission were something I could do with Premiere cards, I would, y'know what I mean? Pure collectors don't need the extra personnel anyway, and would trade them away, no problem. For players, there's a variety of reasons why being able to use duplicate uniques would be useful. Some players stock multiple copies of personnel anyway to make sure they will draw them in due time. Here's a way to use them instead of waiting for the original to die or be destroyed to be useful. The Delta Quadrant offers some interesting possibilities in its own right, such as having an armada composed of 2 Voyagers and 2 Delta Flyers, or uber-staffing a couple of Borg Cubes with 2 Sevens of Nine. Some affiliations can actually benefit from duplicating unique cards, like the Klingons who have only one ship and relatively few personnel. With 2 Voq'lengs and at least 2 of each personnel (more for universals), you get a more complete affiliation. The same could be said of the smaller Vidiian and Hirogen affiliations (even the Kazon), though they have few unique ships (the Olarra is about it). Rarer skills like Empathy can be more easily backed up by 2 Nitiras or Keses. Strategies based around Alpha-Hirogen or Majes are also easier to implement. And with DQ personnel and ships having such inflated stats (skills and attributes), you can really build up those Away Teams. And you can use a third copy of any card (or the second, if you don't care to have it in play) to temporarily boost the attributes of one of its copies in play. It's not just a +2 to attributes either (which is good, but not excessively so), it's the bonus card draws or card plays this offers. Up to 2 cards can be drawn to refill your hand, or 2 may be played, in effect tripling your standard card plays for the turn. Nice stuff. I will mention that you only ever need one copy of this card in play for any of its effects, so its common rarity leaves something to be desired, maybe the second effect should have discarded it? That it doesn't, speaks to the great power of the card. Hey, if you have a good way to report DQ ships and personnel to the Alpha Quadrant, you might even use this outside of the strictly Voyager environment. A powerful (sometimes too powerful) 5.

TOTAL: 13.73 (68.65%) Would you really play without it if using the DQ? Maybe, but rarely.

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