The Trouble With Tribbles | openCards

You are here

The Trouble With Tribbles

    (2) Infestation

    Dual Dual Dilemma
    Your opponent may have more than three copies of this card in his or her dilemma pile. Your personnel can face more than one copy of this dilemma during each mission attempt. Choose a personnel to be stopped.

    "This is my chicken sandwich and coffee."

    Characteristics: "your choice stopper" dilemma.
    Requires: "Infestation"-related cards.

    Card logging info: Logged by openCards team at Jan 1st, 2008.
     

    Infestation

    This Card-Review article was written by Nathan Miracle and was published first on "The Continuing Committee (trekcc.org)" at Sep 7th, 2016.

    “One million seven hundred seventy one thousand five hundred sixty one.  That’s assuming one tribble, multiplying with an average litter of ten, producing a new generation every twelve hours over a period of three days.”
    -Spock, The Trouble With Tribbles

    Tribbles. Voles. Nanites. Klingon festival attendees. Infestations come in all shapes and sizes, and once you have one you cannot seem to get rid of them. As such, Infestation breaks the rules of dilemmas in Second Edition. Your personnel can spend an entire attempt facing Infestation after Infestation, mission attempt after mission attempt.

    With such rules-breaking power, Infestation could define an entire dilemma pile strategy. But it only stops one personnel, likely the least useful personnel in the mission attempt. You might stop a mission attempt with enough copies of Infestation, but such a strategy will not hold out long against a canny opponent.

    When the focus of Hard Time turned to creating new dilemma pile archetypes, my thoughts turned to Infestation, and how it falls just short of creating its own dilemma pile. A simple boost could at least make Infestation playable, but that boost would need to stick around for the entire game. Since missions start the game in play and never leave play, I decided to pitch a mission which gave a direct boost to Infestation. To my surprise, the rest of the team loved the idea so much we expanded that one mission into three separate missions which all boost Infestation in different ways.

    “That’s not so good. I thought Chief O’Brien trapped the last vole on the station months ago.” “Well, obviously he missed a couple. A married couple. They breed like tribbles.”
    -Quark and Dax, Ferengi Love Songs

    Iota Geminorum IV, Relocate Polygeminus Grex keeps your opponent from preventing Infestation. Krim, Thoughtful Tacticianimage may still be an exterminator-extrodinaire, but you no longer have to worry about cards like James T. Kirk, Original Thinkerimage. If you want to reduce the cost of Infestation, Maranga IV, Ecological Crisis allows you to stack Infestation at a cost of 1 each. I often find myself in the situation of needing to attempt a mission with just one more personnel than there are dilemmas beneath the mission. With Maranga IV, top-decking an Infestation can stop such an attempt. But in my opinion, the best of these mission is Kavis Alpha, Research Binary Star. It effectively doubles the stopping power of each copy of Infestation. Now you can stop mission attempts with half as many dilemmas! Or better yet, set up an opponent for a crushing dilemma like Where No One Has Gone Beforeimage.

    “Captain’s log, supplemental. Doctor Stubbs has used his influence to have planet Kavis Alpha Four designated the new home of the nanite civilisation.”
    -Captain’s Log, Evolution

    If you have taken a look at these missions, you have probably noticed something interesting about them beyond the Infestation-related gametext. Each of these three missions requires “any attribute.” Any affiliation might have to deal with infestations, but not every affiliation focuses on the same attributes. In order to open up the Infestation missions to more affiliations, you can use any attribute to complete them. Klingons? Use your Strength to kill those pesky Tribbles! Romulans? Outsmart those nanites with Cunning! Next Generation? Talk those voles into leaving with Integrity! All your personnel have to use the same attribute, but you get to pick the one which works best for you.

    by Nathan Miracle, Designer