For a Few Datas More

by Chris Heard (uzo@startrekmail.com)

Everyone's favorite android – no, I don't mean Pralor Unit 3947 – is back in a big way in Holodeck Adventures. We've already got premiere Data, Data's Body, Commander Data, First Contact Data, Data and Geordi, and Data and Picard. How many more Datas could we want? Well, here comes Holodeck Adventures, with two new Datas, two Data look-alikes, and a fistful of Data-related cards.

Data Plays Dress-Up

Two new non-aligned versions of the Data persona are sure to spice things up a bit. First, we have Data in the role of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's brilliant detective, Sherlock Holmes. Holmes' regular skills may be somewhat common (what do you expect from a nineteenth-century figure in a twenty-fourth century world?), but his special skill is quite intriguing. At the start of your turn, you may draw cards until you have as many cards in hand as your opponent does (although you can't convert any of those card draws into downloads). If your opponent's card-drawing engine is faster than their card-playing engine, you can ride on their coattails to fill your hand with cards to power your own deck.

By giving you this power, Sherlock radically changes the dynamics of hand control. Cards that your opponent might use to try to make you discard cards from hand (such as the much despised Static Warp Bubble) now become, in a certain way, weapons in your card-drawing arsenal. Players may now begin seeking ways to actually shrink their own hands rather than their opponents', precisely to avoid giving their opponents' Holmes something to work with. This of course has all sorts of implications for the availability of counters and other interrupts to your opponent during your turn. Only time will tell just how powerful an effect the deerstalker-wearing detective will have on gameplay styles, but expect plenty of experimentation in the near future.

Strategy Tip: Save some of your special downloads until your Sherlock Holmes is in play (perhaps downloaded using Holoprogram: 221B Baker Street), then coordinate your use of special downloads so as to maximize your card-drawing opportunities. At the beginning of your turn, if you have cards in your hand that you don't need right away, suspend play to pull down some special downloads and stack one or more cards from your hand under your Containment Field. When your turn resumes after being suspended by the special downloads, your hand will be smaller, and Sherlock will give you a larger number of card draws. Of course, your cards under the Containment Field will be inaccessible to you until just before your next turn begins, so choose wisely.

Data also got involved in Jean-Luc Picard's Dixon Hill holonovels in the supporting role of the well-dressed, nicely-tanned South American Carlos. Carlos' special skill gives you amazingly flexible access to your cards. Whenever Carlos is present with Dixon Hill, your card draws come from your discard pile instead of your draw deck. While the extent to which the Carlos/Dix shuffle will replace Palor Toff, Regenerate, and Nanoprobe Resuscitation as mechanisms for retrieving cards from your discard pile remains to be seen, it does open up some very intriguing possibilities. Carlos potentially makes cards discarded to fuel Mutation, Tantalus Field, and – appropriately – All Threes and Data, Keep Dealing much less costly.

Strategy Tip: Be careful about the way you use the Carlos/Dixon Hill combo, remembering that drawing from your discard pile is mandatory, not optional, if the two personnel are together. If you bring Carlos and Dix together to get your end-of-turn card draw(s) out of your discard pile, you won't be able to use a card-drawing card as your regular card play next turn to get cards from your draw deck (they'll come from your discard pile instead). If you want to switch back and forth frequently between drawing from your draw deck and drawing from your discard pile, don't rely on your regular card play to generate card draws. Instead, generate them with recycling engines (Prepare the Prisoner, Q the Referee), doorways (Guardian of Forever), or mechanisms that let you play and/or draw cards after beginning to execute orders (Delta Quadrant Spatial Scission, Crell Moset, Mutation, and the Data-related drawing cards, to name a few).

Dressing Up as Data

When Alexander Rozhenko's Deadwood holoprogram went dreadfully awry, the holodeck depicted the "bad guys" in the scenario – Frank and Eli Hollander – as Data look-alikes. The Hollanders are not versions of the Data persona, but they sure resemble him in other significant ways, enough so that they do both count as "any Data." Neither of them is as CUNNING as Data, but having a couple of STRENGTH 12 holograms around could prove plenty useful when the Kazon or Borg come calling aboard your ship.

Like so many of the other holoprogram characters, Eli and Frank Hollander have intriguing special skills. Eli has a way of confounding law enforcement officials – hence his reputation as the meanest gunslinger in the west – as represented by his ability to essentially wipe out your opponent's SECURITY skill wherever Eli is present. Your opponent will have a more difficult time with dilemmas requiring SECURITY in multiples – dilemmas like Berserk Changeling, Hanonian Land Eel, and so on – if they must rely on SECURITY classifications to meet those requirements.

Clearly, since Eli's special skill requires Eli to be present with your opponent's personnel, he'll cause your opponent the most grief on planets (giving you a good reason to stock Holo-projectors). Eli's pa, Frank Hollander, has no such limitation. His skills and special download are helpful enough by themselves, but the ability to suspend Holoprogram: Deadwood at his location could be tremendously helpful. If your opponent's Deadwood is putting a nasty damper on your armada deck because of its requirement that you have more SECURITY than opponent at a location to initiate battle, just bring old Frank Hollander along and you'll be gunning them down in no time flat. And if your dilemma strategy is heavy on SECURITY requirements but your opponent has Holoprogram: Deadwood and Sheriff Worf on the same ship, getting your Frank Hollander to the same spaceline location (strategy tip: get him on a ship with Kes, and save her special download of The Gift for just the right moment) will prevent that gruff lawman from nullifying your dilemmas that require SECURITY. And since Eli himself has SECURITY skill, you can retrieve him easily with Defend Homeworld.

We've Got Data in Spades

Two new interrupts feature Data's card-shuffling skills, as depicted in the Next Generation episode "Cause and Effect" – not to mention the number of rank pips on William T. Riker's neck.

The ultimate effect of All Threes bears a certain resemblance to that of Kivas Fajo – Collector, but Data's version has more flexibility and more attendant risks. As an interrupt, All Threes doesn't take up your card play – and can even play on your opponent's turn. Instead of drawing three cards, you place two sets of three cards face-up on the table. What happens next depends on Data. If you have any Data in play (and you can download Sherlock Holmes or Frank Hollander with seedable cards), you pick one of those sets of three, take it into your hand, and discard the other set. If you have no Data in play, your opponent picks for you. Either way, you get to know what the next six cards atop your draw deck were, and you get three of them in your hand. Of course your opponent gets the same knowledge, but not the cards – not even with Mirror Image.

Data, Keep Dealing obviously provides you with a powerful mechanism for retrieving cards – three at a time, no less – from your discard pile. You may essentially trade three cards off the top of your draw deck for any three cards from your discard pile. You don't even need any Data in play to do it. Since Data, Keep Dealing is an interrupt, you can use it to set up card-drawing mechanisms that use your regular card play or a card play provided by Delta Quadrant Spatial Scission, Holoprogram: The Office of Dixon Hill, and the like. In combination with Data, Keep Dealing, cards like Kivas Fajo – Collector and War Council triple the power of the popular Palor Toff.

Strategy Tip: It's a bit card-intensive, but you can achieve an interesting effect using the Carlos + Dixon Hill combo in tandem with All Threes, Data, Keep Dealing, and a card-drawing tool like Kivas Fajo – Collector, War Council, or The Guardian of Forever. Before your regular card play, play All Threes to reveal two sets of three cards from your draw deck. Since you are "revealing" these cards rather than "drawing" them Carlos's special skill has no effect at this stage. Pick whichever set you'd rather have and discard the other three. Then play Data, Keep Dealing to discard the top three cards of your draw deck. Take whichever three of the top six cards of your discard pile you need least and put them on top of your draw deck. Then play your card-drawing card to draw three (or, if using The Guardian of Forever, four) cards from your discard pile. It requires some setup, and just the right cards in your hand, but for two interrupts and a card play you get your choice of six of the top nine cards of your draw deck.

A cantankerous old doctor once asked Data, "Are you sure you aren't a Vulcan?". The Vulcan "IDIC" motto – infinite diversity from infinite combinations – certainly applies more to Data, and cards featuring Data, than ever before in the Star Trek CCG universe.

January 18, 2002