Peace and Long Life

by Charlie Plaine, Lead Designer

11th August 2017

"Logic is the cement of our civilization, with which we ascend from chaos, using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-Hath, Matron of Vulcan Philosophy

It is only logical that The Continuing Committee announces Live Long and Prosper, a First Edition expansion, and the second expansion of the 22nd-Century block. This sixty-two (62) card expansion will release for free on Friday, September 1st, 2017 and will be legal in all constructed formats one week later. As always, this virtual expansions will be available for download here at trekcc.org.

Meet the Team

There are a significant number of volunteers that worked incredibly hard to bring you Live Long and Prosper. I want to take a moment to mention the hard work of the volunteers that work on First Edition. Please take the time to thank all of our play testers, rules experts, creative team members, artists, and proofreaders. All of our volunteers work tirelessly, and all deserve significant recognition for making this game thrive. However, as is customary, I will introduce you to the design team for this expansion:

Charlie Plaine [MidnightLich], Lead Designer
Designer Profile: Charlie Plaine
Live Long and Prosper represents the fifteenth time I've worked on a First Edition expansion, and my eleventh as lead. I wanted the responsibility of introducing the first new affiliation to the game in the virtual era. As lead, I worked as hard as I could to deliver on the promise of the Vulcans, and to lay groundwork for any future such endeavors.

James Monsebroten [Orbin], Assistant Designer
Designer Profile: James Monsebroten
James returns to First Edition design with this project, having last worked on Crossover. As a Make it So champion, he's delivered on the potential he showed then and has become a staple designer. Even with only two expansions under his belt, he's doing high quality work.

Matthew Zinno [commdecker], Assistant Designer
Designer Profile: Matthew Zinno
This expansion has been Matt's first outing as a designer. I knew that introducing a new affiliation might have significant rules-related pitfalls, so I brought Matt aboard on Jon Carter's [pfti] recommendation. Matt provided quite a few cards you'll see over the next weeks, and made sure that we kept the cards consistent with the rules. But more than just a rules policeman, Matt showed talent as a designer in his own right.

Cristoffer Wiker [Smiley], Assistant Designer
Designer Profile: Cristoffer Wiker
Cristoffer joined the Live Long and Prosper team for one simple reason: he asked. At the time, he was the First Edition Brand Manager and was very interested in the process of adding a new affiliation. As it turns out, he's got quite a talent for designing cards. More than anything, Cristoffer made sure we always kept the new and returning player perspective in mind, and challenged us to reduce rules complexity without sacrificing strategic complexity. I'm very happy to have had him on the team.

Definitions

It was almost eighteen (18) months ago when we first sat down to define the Vulcan affiliation. We all agreed on two critical goals: Vulcans had to have their own mechanical and flavorful identity; and, they had to be playable right out of the gate. Nothing would doom a new affiliation more than it not being fun and competitive, so we knew we had to nail them. Our first decision then became how to define the Vulcan affiliation. Over the years, there has been a lot of discussion about what a Vulcan affiliation would mean. Would it encompass all Vulcans of all time? Just the pre-Federation Vulcans? What about later Vulcans that had rejected the Federation?

Doing all Vulcans across all of time and space seemed to be a poor choice. Not only would it require us to account for quite a few non- Vulcans, but it wouldn’t really make story sense. We kept the option on the table, because we knew there were people that were fans. As we continued discussion the options, our choice became clear. I’ll get into the reason why, but let me first define the Vulcan affiliation for you:

A card of the Vulcan affiliation is based on the era prior to the founding of the Federation, i.e. up to and including the 22nd-century.

This is our default rule, which means that any Vulcans from after the founding of the Federation won’t be Vulcan. However, First Edition is a game that thrives on breaking its rules, so there is always a chance this one can be broken. But we don’t want you to have false expectations, so don’t expect to see a Spock, Sarek, or Talara any time soon. One side note: we wanted to make sure we could support people that wanted to see “all Vulcans all the time,” which is why we made Kohlinar. We set a rule, and then made sure we made a card or two to support the people on the other side of the ruling.

Characteristics

Why did we decide on pre-Federation as the rule? Aside from this being the 22nd-century block, we had a good reason: it was the best choice to give the Vulcans a strong, flavorful identity. We spent several of our design team meetings just brainstorming characteristic of Enterprise-era Vulcans, and settled on three we wanted to represent.

1. Arrogant. 22nd-century Vulcans are arrogant, to a fault. They believe they know better than all the other races of their era, and they will loudly proclaim it to anyone and everyone. Vulcans are so arrogant that their way is “correct,” they’ll resort to interfering in other cultures to share their “wisdom.” Vulcans put such a premium on their knowledge, even their ships have skills.

2. Slow to Act. Enterprise-era Vulcans are methodical, logical, and slow to act. They study and analyze scientific data, often invoking repeated studies before arriving at their final, incontrovertible conclusion. A good example of this, from the show, is their declaration that time travel is impossible. T’Pol, even having time traveled herself, refuses to accept the truth. This is represented in game with the Vulcans having slower, but higher impact, resources. Additionally, Vulcans are skilled at slowing others down to their pace. Strange New Worlds is a great example of this aspect; according to Vulcans, there is a proper way to do things.

3. Nosy. Finally, and in large part due to the above two traits, the Vulcan affiliation is very interested in knowing what others are doing. Sometimes this comes in the form of espionage, as in when Vulcans spy on an adversarial neighbor. Other times, their nosiness frequently just comes in “hanging around” while things happen. Vulcans observe, and often put that knowledge to good use. If you take a look on our Facebook page, you can see a spoiler of a personnel that captures this aspect of Vulcans.

What To Expect

With these three characteristics in mind, we set out to build a new affiliation. Over the next three weeks, you’ll see cards that represent Vulcan arrogance, unwillingness to act, and nosiness. On our site, there will be at least one spoiler every day. In addition, stay tuned to our social media and some of our community podcasts and streams for even more spoilers.

Each of the next three weeks will focus on one of the new decks you can explore with Live Long and Prosper. Next week, you’ll see the High Command and explore the options available with the new “Scheme” icon. You saw it earlier on Strange New Worlds; take a closer look here:

The week after that, you’ll search for and study the writings of Surak and explore the Syrranite deck options in this expansion. You’ll be able to command dissident leaders like Minister T'Pau, search for the ancient Kir’shara, and restore Vulcan to its rightful place in the galaxy with peace and logic. Finally, in the week leading up to the release date of September 1st, you’ll work in secret with the V’Shar, the Vulcan Intelligence agency. Using covert tactics and skilled espionage agents, you’ll be able to build a deck to track - and control - your opponents.

Starting with Live Long and Prosper, each expansion will be released with articles based on decks built by the expansion’s designers. These decks will give you a starting point for using the new cards, and options for how to develop the deck on your own. Hopefully, we’ll also be able to give you some insight and behind-the-scenes scoop on the design process for some of the cards in these decks as well.

We hope you’re excited for the release of Live Long and Prosper, and the introduction of a new affiliation to First Edition. It’s been a lot of work making this expansion, and we are confident we’ve delivered something special for you. Please stay tuned to the website, the forums, and our social media for articles, spoilers, and discussion. Live Long and Prosper will be releasing on Friday, September 1st, 2017. We can’t wait!

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