Design Log: Stardate 06.13.2003

A Card By Any Other Name Would Still Leave a Broken Link

As I indicated in my last Design Log, there's more than one kind of "broken link" being fixed in All Good Things. But the classic, most clear-cut kind of broken link – the one that most people think of instantly – is a card whose game text refers by name to a specific card (or what appears to be a specific card) that doesn't yet exist. Clone Machine, first mentioned on Doppelganger in QC, was such a card, not to be resolved until Holodeck Adventures (and simultaneously creating another broken link!). Even the final First Edition expansion – The Motion Pictures – spawned another one of these, when Saavik got a special download for the Kobayashi Maru Scenario, now happily available in All Good Things.

We Don't Have Time to Talk About Time

The most long-standing "named card" broken link is the dusty old Timepod Ring. This card, long expected to be an artifact like the Time Travel Pod, made its "named" appearance in Alternate Universe, as one way to cancel the stasis imposed by the Quantum Singularity Lifeforms dilemma. With two other perfectly good ways to cure the dilemma, there wasn't much urgency about creating a Timepod Ring card, but it's here at last, and as a – surprise! – event card. If you've got this card in play on the table when you trip a QSL, it'll cure it immediately. If not, once you play the event later, that will cure it as well.

Of course, that's not all it does. It's also a scaled-down Orb of Prophecy and Change, letting you peek at the top card of your deck once each turn (but not move it elsewhere in your deck), plus you can sacrifice the Ring and the top card of your deck (which you previously peeked at to make sure you want to discard it, right?) to nullify any old [AU] dilemma. Why wasn't it an artifact? Well, artifacts in general tend to be either overpowered "killer" cards, or else not worth the trouble of solving a mission for what they do. Since many artifacts, once you get them, play on the table like an event, this just takes out the "solve-a-mission" step for a non-artifact level of power.

Going Berserk

Berserk Changeling, a dilemma from The Dominion set, was somewhat, err... unique among dilemmas. Not only was it literally a killer with stiff requirements, it was a wall dilemma that would go back under the mission until you came up with two hand weapons, or three SECURITY, or one specific named personnel (Mora Pol), or an obscure artifact (Interphase Generator) – or one of two non-existent cards, Changeling Sweep or Shape-Shift Inhibitor. Yep, two broken links were generated by this one card (not to mention a typo in its lore, but that's another story). And not until All Good Things did either of these breaks get mended. Shape-Shift Inhibitor is a plays-on-table event card which works pretty much the same as that Timepod Ring (if you have it in play, it will overcome Berserk Changeling), while Changeling Sweep is an interrupt which you would simply play for the express purpose of overcoming the dilemma.

OK, so Berserk Changeling does say "if...present" – and neither card is exactly present. That's a little problem inherent in broken links; often the designers know that a card with a particular concept is the logical thing to nullify, overcome, or cure the card they're making now – but they haven't worked out all the details of how to implement the concept. For example, Shape-Shift Inhibitor might have originally been conceived as an equipment card which could be present in the Away Team, but when it came down to actually making the card, the designers decided that an event that plays on table, with a more global effect, would be better for gameplay. So we have to stretch the "present" concept a bit, to mean that your event card on table is "present in the game." (Both cards also have additional game text-based uses, of course.)

Separated at Birth? Part 1

A number of named card broken links have been generated over the years when a mission had normal skill/attribute requirements for solving but also could be solved by one specific named personnel – who hadn't been made yet. The very first of these was Investigate Time Continuum's requirement for Guinan in Premiere, a link that wasn't mended until the Fajo Collection over three years later. Among the more recent examples were Seal Rift (Holodeck Adventures), solvable by Admiral Janeway, and Establish Settlement (The Borg), which can be solved by Miral Paris. Miral is even conveniently dual-affiliation, making her available without a treaty to both affiliations which can attempt the mission – Federation and Klingon.

Separated at Birth? Part 2

A final "named card" is a little bit different due to its card type. Planet missions are normally referred to in game text by the name of the planet rather than the mission card title, because typically a card will play on the planet itself. Such was the case with Clone Machine, which can play on one of several targets, including the planets Boreth or Mariposa. So the resolution to the Mariposa broken link isn't a card titled Mariposa, but rather a mission named Aid Clone Colony, whose lore identifies its location as the planet Mariposa. If it looks familiar, it's because the ST2E Energize expansion has a similar mission by the same name and with the same picture, but not 1E compatible. Maybe it should have been called Aid Cloned Colony.

Now, what about that cryptic mention in my first paragraph about a reference to "what appears to be a specific card"? Ah, that's the subject of my next Design Log.

Kathy McCracken (Major Rakal)
Star Trek CCG Intelligence Officer

June 13, 2003

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