Design Log: Stardate 08.06.2003

Lies, "Darned" Lies, and Statistics

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. – Benjamin Disraeli

The results of last week's contest may hold a few surprises. For those who missed the fact that the "correct" answer for each question was the "fake" answer – the "lie", if you will – they'll be particularly surprising. But in any case, I almost always attempted to make those "lies" more plausible than at least one of the truthful-but-wrong answers for each question (Vin'Egar was, I suppose, an exception – but even there, only about 350 out of 600 guessed this sour character was the lie).

So much for lies. What about "darned" lies? Well, the Event question might fall into that category. Was Sokath, His Eyes Uncovered a real card title or was it a lie? It was a lie, but only in the context of events – the card by that title is truly a dilemma in Call to Arms. (You'll see it Friday, in fact.)

Which brings us to statistics. I couldn't include very many "set statistics" in that final question, but again, I tried to come up with a truthful one that might seem out of line and a "lie" that seemed plausible. About half the entries took the thought of two Ferengi in stride, but around one third of you didn't expect eight new keywords, so you didn't expect the "lying" statistic to be three equipment cards. (And yes, I know this isn't exactly the kind of "statistics" that Disraeli so cynically decried.)

How many equipment cards are there? Well, let's lay out the major card type stats:

Dilemmas – 31
Equipment – 1
Events – 36
Interrupts – 12
Missions – 30
Personnel – Borg – 23
Personnel – Dominion – 24
Personnel – Other – 40
Ships – 11 (of 7 different affiliations)

If I haven't lost my touch for math entirely, that should add up to 208. Speculative list-makers may now have a field day.

One last point to muse on: as you can see from the new cards that went up with the contest results, Quark (one of the two new Ferengi) is actually Ferengi affiliation. That wasn't necessarily the case – the question didn't say it was referring to affiliation, and the Second Edition base set included a [Baj] Rom and a [Fed] Nog, so Ferengi does not automatically equal [Fer]. I leave it to you to ponder the affiliation of that other Ferengi. Does the true statistic of two Ferengi plus the true fact of Quark being [Fer] equal a truth of two [Fer] personnel in the set – or is that a darned lie?

I hope you enjoy today's contest with its lies of a different kind, and not a statistic in sight.

Kathy McCracken
Major Rakal
Star Trek Intelligence Officer

August 6, 2003

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