There is a New Power Rising!

There are scenes that stick with every Star Trek fan, scenes that come to define pivotal moments in character arcs or the stories that we love. Deep Space Nine was filled with so many of those now iconic moments. Garek and Tain shaking hands at the apparent beginning of a renewed and ominous relationship. The Deep Space Niners. Kor's last stand. Vedek Yasim shouting, "Evil must be opposed!" before martyring herself. Bother Bennie breaking down in simultaneous defiance, pride, anger, and heartbreak. Sisko erasing that entire personal log. Old Jake sacrificing himself to save his father, and the boy that died inside so many decades before. But, one my favorites has always been Dukat, Damar, Weyoun, and a contingent of Jem’Hadar walking onto the promenade of the newly “liberated” Terok Nor. It’s a powerful image and one of the most important events depicted in the entire Dominion War story arc - but also one that showed the Deep Space Nine viewer that this really wasn't the Trek of TNG anymore while setting the tone for the entire first third of the next season, if not the rest of the series as a whole. It was spectacular. Now, players have a tool at their disposal that may help them achieve similarly spectacular victories. I won’t lie – I’m thrilled to introduce: New Power Rising.

There was perhaps no affiliation or faction that benefited more from Phase II than Terok Nor. The dilemma mill strategy hinted at by Tenuous Alliance (a good idea before its time) gave a unique and powerful weapon that also fit in nicely with their story. Dilemma mill, and supporting cards like Undermined Defenses; Untapped Influence; and Nasin, Following Orders, helped players overcome the relative skill-poverty of their personnel and their extreme vulnerability to dilemmas like An Issue of Trust or Personal Duty. And, dilemma mill also solved a meta problem: players favoring super-thin All-Consuming Evil – Tragic Turn piles or Tillman piles (Quantum Filament) would need to think twice now that a build existed that could rob them of ten or more dilemmas and make their opponent’s personnel immune from random selection. But, without an engine to help navigate the necessarily larger draw-deck, the build still felt a bit clunky. New Power Rising was designed to address that reality by giving the faction a thematic way to turn those removed dilemmas into counters, and help jump-start the point scoring. It also fit the theme of pushing limits as it will be the first draw/counter engine to key off dilemmas removed from the game as opposed to points or cards in play.

The deck included here is designed to take full advantage of that new tool. Every verb in the deck is included to help feed off or into the dilemma mill strategy in order to maximize the benefit. The deck foregoes the inclusion of the near-auto-include Ruling Council in favor of Untapped Influence, with the hopes that this will be sufficient to power the crew or away-team through attempts in a meta that increasingly favors bouncing dilemmas or skill-tracking. The old Peak Performance trio of Dukat, Cardassian Representative , Weyoun, Dominion Representative , and Odo, Bajoran Representative are still here though, in part because of their download abilities and in part because Dukat and Weyoun still provide for some defensive control, as does Inevitable Triumph. There’s some fun with the new Keevan and the Universal Translator too, to help defend against Gomtuu Shock Wave or those kill-piles if the conditions for Undermined Defenses haven’t yet been met. The dilemma pile is a standard attrition pile built to withstand the effects of Tenuous Alliance, and with a couple of Back to Basics thrown in to help recycle your draw deck and help increase the odds that you won’t run out of cards for Undermined Defenses or Nasin, Following Orders.

Whether you use this deck or not, if you play Terok Nor, or where ever inclined to do so, I hope you'll see the usefulness of this card, and enjoy playing it as much as we designers enjoyed creating it.

by Michael Shea, Prefect