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Lwaxana Troi

by Charlie Plaine, Chairman

21st November 2014

When we started designing cards inspired by Decipher-era First Edition expansions, I didn't expect Deep Space 9 to be one of the harder cards to nail down. And there's no way this side of the Great Barrier that I ever would have expected our final choice to be a new version of the Lwaxana Troi persona. But though we didn't start with her, the finished product is an interesting and useful card.

When we were starting design, one of the first things looked at was possible conversions, and there was one that stood out: the U.S.S. Bellerophon, Conference Host from Second Edition's Raise the Stakes. Converting this should would allow us to end a repeatable download loop where players could play the ship, download a personnel, then return the ship to hand. It seemed like it was a natural and obvious choice... except that it came from a story in Season 7 of Deep Space Nine.

Let me back up a minute. As I explained in the announcement article, we were not limiting ourselves to the design technology of the time when we made the cards in The 20th Anniversary Collection. However, we did decide to limit ourselves to the same source material used in the original expansions. For example, we would only use cards from The Next Generation for Premiere, Alternate Universe, and Q Continuum. This also meant that, since Deep Space Nine was released in the summer of 1998, all the material from most of Seasons 6 and 7 was "off the table" for our card, and we'd have to leave the Bellerophon for another day.

Would it have been the end of the world if we'd bent the rule and made a proper First Edition Bellerophon? Probably not. But, as designers, it's important to stick to your rules and guidelines. Limitations such as this can end up pushing us into more creative spaces. And while it's not a good idea to blindly follow rules, it's important to follow the ones you thought were important enough to impose. So the Bellerophon was out, and we were looking for another card to represent Deep Space Nine.

For various reasons (mostly expansion balance), we were looking for a personnel to fill this slot in The 20th Anniversary Collection. As it turns out, most of the major characters from the first five seasons of the show already appeared in the game. Now, one of my favorite episodes from the first five seasons is "In the Cards." If you're not familiar with the episode, it involves Jake and Nog going through a series of deals and favors to try and get a rare baseball card as a gift for Captain Sisko. In the midst of this episode, there is a peculiar character I wanted to create: Dr. Elias Giger.

Lwaxana Troi

Dr. Giger is a unqiue individual. He's smart and skilled, but paranoid of the "soulless minions of orthodoxy" and is dedicating himself to research on immortality via his "cellular regeneration and entertainment chamber." All-in-all, I thought this character would be a great, interesting, and fun personnel. Unfortunately, nobody else on the design team had the same love for the character I did, and that together with the fact that we couldn't quite get a design for him we liked meant that Dr. Giger would have to wait for another day.

The answer would come as I was perusing the skill matrices for the various [DS9] affiliations, looking for inspiration. I discovered there were only two (2) personnel with both a DS9 property logo and Empathy - was there any DS9 empaths we could add? Given that there are seventeen (17) dilemmas that ask for it, it seemed like a worthy skill gap to patch. And with the light bulb that clicked on, finally we arrived at the illustrious Mrs. Troi. Not only is she a very well known character (appearing nine times across two series), she was played by Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, the "First Lady of Trek" - her appearance in this expansion would be a fitting tribute.

Lwaxana Troi, in her [DS9] incarnation, retains her Empathy x2 from her previous versions, but gains Diplomacy and Honor. To show that she's matured from her days aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise. She's suffered a slight drop in STRENGTH but gained a boost in INTEGRITY to go with her Honor. Clearly, Mrs. Troi has outgrown her devious ways (but she's no less clever). The new version of her persona is now an ambassador, allowing her to report for free to Office of the President. In addition, since she mentions DS9 in her lore, she reports for free to Deep Space 9 via Here By Invitation (as long as you have Guest Quarters).

Finally, she has the ability to "rescue" the latest object of her infatuation - Odo. Even if Odo has found himself trouble and in need of regeneration (i.e. he's in the discard pile), Lwaxana can find him and bring him to her side. I'm not sure Odo will feel too great about this, but it's useful for DS9 players! Of course, being romantically involved with Odo has other benefits... but you'll find out about those a little later.

If you've been itching to try the [Baj] / [Fed] [DS9] deck lately, why not try out the one below and give Mrs. Troi a whirl? Feel free to edit or customize the deck to your liking or to your area, and let me know if you find anything that works better for you. In the mean time, enjoy the new adventures of the new Lwaxana Troi!


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Decklist

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This deck is legal in the following Card Pools:

This deck is legal in the following Rules Sets:

This deck is currently eligible for the following family or families of achievements:

Mission (6)
Mission
3 V1x Access Relay Station
29 V1x Alter Records
23 V1x Characterize Neutrino Emissions
9 V1x Destroy Iconian Gateway
31 V1x Establish Interquadrant Communications
S1x Relocate Settlers
Seed Deck (30)
Dilemma
8 V1x "God"
45 VP1x A Fast Ship Would Be Nice
5 V1x Dead End
6 C1x Dejaren
U1x Ferengi Ingenuity
U1x Firestorm
7 V1x Friendly Fire
8 V1x Gomtuu Shock Wave
70 VP1x Hanonian Land Eel
P1x Hippocratic Oath
U1x In the Pale Moonlight
15 C1x Kazon Bomb
C1x Lack of Preparation
6 V1x Medical Crisis
19 VP1x Personal Duty
C1x Scientific Method
8 R1x The Clown: My Festival
U1x The Higher... The Fewer
Doorway
9 V1x Alternate Universe Door
1 V1x Battle Bridge Door
93 VP1x Q's Tent: Civil War
15 V1x The First Stable Wormhole
Facility
Bajoran
18 V1x Deep Space 9
Incident
23 V1x Call for Reinforcements
18 V1x Q the Referee
108 VP1x Reshape the Quadrant
2 VP1x Tribunal of Q
64 P1x Trust the Prophets
65 P1x We Need You Here
Objective
26 V1x Assign Support Personnel
Site (6)
Site
3 V1x Commander's Office
5 V1x Docking Ports
8 V1x ❖ Guest Quarters
11 V1x Ops
13 V1x Ore Processing Unit
18 V1x Security Office
Draw Deck (37)
Event
8 V2x Regenerate
10 V2x Surprise Party
16 V1x Treaty: Federation/Bajoran
Incident
25 V1x Here by Invitation
Objective
30 V1x HQ: Secure Homeworld
Personnel
Bajoran
33 V1x ❖ Anara
37 V1x ❖ Anneli
42 V1x ❖ Dohlem
36 V1x General Krim
U1x ❖ Jabara
R1x Li Nalas
R1x Odo
Bajoran/Ferengi
41 V1x Deputy Quark
R1x Leeta
4 V1x Rom
Federation
R1x Admiral Ross
61 V1x Arjin
62 V1x Benjamin Sisko (Emissary)
68 R+1x Ezri Dax
C1x ❖ Graham Davis
63 V1x ❖ Hoya
64 V1x Jadzia Dax (Emissary)
65 V1x Jake Sisko (Emissary)
66 V1x Julian Bashir (Emissary)
C1x ❖ Karen Loews
10 V1x Lwaxana Troi (20th Anniversary)
67 V1x Melora Pazlar
60 V1x Michael Eddington
68 V1x Miles O'Brien (Emissary)
69 V1x ❖ Paulson
C1x ❖ Taylor Moore
Non-Aligned/Ferengi
R1x Aluura
Ship
Bajoran
U1x ❖ Bajoran Scout Vessel
Federation
78 V1x U.S.S. Orinoco
Time Location
81 V1x ✶ The Celestial Temple
Q-Tent Side Deck (13)
Equipment
U1x Medical PADD
Event
14 V1x Renewal Scroll
Incident
C1x Dabo
Objective
27 V1x Explore Gamma Quadrant
Personnel
Bajoran
C1x ❖ Kallis Ven
R1x Kira Nerys
Non-Aligned
66 VP1x Morn
Ship
Federation
79 V1x ❖ U.S.S. Danube
80 V1x U.S.S. Defiant
Site
2 V1x ❖ Cargo Bay
10 V1x Infirmary
15 V1x Quark's Bar
16 V1x Science Lab
Battle-Bridge Side Deck (12)
Tactic
13 V12x Evasive Maneuvers
"Outside the Game" and/or Seed-Phase Downloads (2)
Doorway
12 V2x Bajoran Wormhole



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