Allegiance: Anything to Get Home

by Charlie Plaine, Chairman

27th November 2009

"It's easy to cling to principles when you're standing on a vessel with its bulkheads intact, manned by a crew that's not starving." - Captain Rudolph Ransom

We've shown you how the crew of the Equinox can convert alien life (in the form of Nucleogenic cards) into an alternative resource to fuel their abilities, and we've shown how a little bit of how they can get access to and recycle the limited amount of Nucleogenic cards they get.

Let me now put all the pieces together, and present to you a deck that will show you just how efficient the crew of "evil Voyager" can be. First, let's take a look at all of the other members of the Equinox crew, starting with a perverted version of our favorite hologram:

3 •Equinox Doctor (Unethical Medical Hologram)
Hologram
•Biology •2 Exobiology •Medical •2 Treachery
Infiltrator. When you are about to lose command of your Treachery personnel present, you may lose 5 points to prevent that.
[Integrity 2] [Cunning 7] [Strength 5]

The Equinox Doctor is automatically useful for his Cunning 7, but his ability to save any of his crewmates from being killed or knocked out of play is huge. The "evil" Doctor can save someone's life (and prevent a Tragic Turn kill), or get you an extra person versus a Secret Identity. The only things he can't help you with are preventing someone from being stopped or captured. As we showed you last week, Captain Ransom can stop himself to unstop two others, but the only female on the team can help you avoid being stopped in the first place:

3 •Marla Gilmore (Conflicted Engineer)
Human
•Astrometrics •Engineer •Physics •Programming •Transporters •Treachery
While this personnel is facing a dilemma that requires Treachery, you may lose 5 points to exclude her and each Treachery personnel present from being randomly selected by that dilemma.
[Integrity 4] [Cunning 6] [Strength 5]

If you need a little extra skill help, you can use Spacial Fissures, or you can call on Mr. Lessing:

3 •Noah Lessing (Driven Officer)
Human
•Biology •Geology •Programming •Science •Treachery
While this personnel is facing a dilemma, you may lose 5 points to have him gain a skill required by that dilemma until the end of that dilemma. You may do this only once each turn.
[Integrity 4] [Cunning 6] [Strength 6]

And lastly, there's another non-unique personnel available, who is a skill-beast and can even play for free:

3 Thompson
Human
•Anthropology •Archaeology •Astrometrics •Medical •Physics •Treachery
When you play this personnel, you may lose 5 points to make him cost -3.
[Integrity 4] [Cunning 6] [Strength 5]

While they are good, they do need a little help from some Non-Aligned friends - especially in terms of gaining attributes. In this case, they've recruited some Rogue Borg Mercenaries to join them on their quest to get home.

First, let's take a look at the mission selection. Caretaker's Array is obviously required. I've decided to follow in the footsteps of the traditional Voyager deck and run four additional planet missions: Investigate Alleged Murder, Obtain Advanced Technology, Reestablish Neural Cooperative, and Acquire Sky Spirits. This mission selection gives you two 40-point missions and a lot of flexibility.

I'm not going to include the dilemma pile today (in case some uppity member of the writing team decides to challenge me to a duel), but I think it makes sense to focus on some of the 40-point discount dilemmas, and to take advantage of the high total mission points (160). That just leaves the draw deck.

The Rogue Borg like events, so there's a handful of events that go along with the Nucleogenic interrupts and the copies of Forcing Our Way. The only ships in the deck are the Equinox and the Delta Flyer, since ships can be retrieved almost at will with Finding Our Way. A splash of Orion Slave Girl to get a little more use out of your events, and voila: a fairly well put together Equinox deck.

Missions
Caretaker's Array
Obtain Advanced Technology
Reestablish Neural Cooperative
Acquire Sky Spirits
Investigate Alleged Murder

Equipment (3)
3 Emergency Transport Unit

Events (19)
2 At What Cost?
3 Energize
1 Finding Our Way
2 Indebtedness
2 Optimism
2 Party Atmosphere
3 Starting Over
2 U.S.S. Enterprise-J
2 Unexpected Difficulties

Interrupts (9)
3 Attack the Crew
3 Spatial Fissures
3 Forcing Our Way

Personnel - Federation (13)
3 Angelo Tassoni
1 B'Elanna Torres (Straightforward Engineer)
1 Joe Carey (Next In Line)
1 Marla Gilmore (Conflicted Engineer)
1 Marquetry
2 Maxwell Burke (Arrogant First Officer)
1 Noah Lessing (Driven Officer)
1 Rudolph Ransom (Determined Captain)
2 Thompson

Personnel - Non-Aligned (9)
1 Crosis (Fanatical Lieutenant)
1 D'Nesh (Manipulative Gift)
1 Goval (Follower of the One)
1 Harrad-Sar (Slave of the Situation)
2 Morik
2 Maras
1 Naras (Experienced Gift)

Ships (4)
2 U.S.S. Equinox
2 Baxial (Salvage Ship)

We'll have the deck list up in the deck builder once the cards are all available. In the meantime, enjoy thinking about your own permutations of the crew of the Equinox!

-djl-

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