The Starfleet affiliation has always had a very special place in my heart. I have been an avid player of the Star Trek: Customizable Card Game since I was in sixth grade. In 2003, Decipher announced that it would not be producing any further expansion sets for the First Edition of the game. This announcement came just as I was graduating from high school and beginning college. It felt like a beloved part of my childhood was coming to an end. To my great surprise, however, two years later, almost out of nowhere, Decipher released the Enterprise Collection. I had never thought that it would be possible to have Jonathan Archer and the crew of the NX-01 join my other favorite characters in the First Edition universe. Now, as The Continuing Committee continues releasing virtual expansions, I am overjoyed to be able to contribute to Straight and Steady, the new set revisiting the Starfleet Affiliation.
In 2005, Decipher was preparing to release the Starfleet affiliation into Star Trek CCG Second Edition and wanted to provide a way for backwards-compatible Second Edition Starfleet cards to be played in First Edition. Decipher turned to a First Edition player group, led by legendary First Edition guru, Jeremy Commandeur. This group was largely responsible for creating the Enterprise Collection. They accomplished an incredible feat, creating a robust and competitive self-contained affiliation in only 18 cards.
Starfleet has gone on to become one of the most popular affiliations in First Edition. It is unique because it is the only affiliation in Star Trek First Edition with every affiliated card (except for one) originating in a time period other than the 24th Century, in this case, the 22nd Century. Yet, because of the constraints of the original Enterprise Collection, limited to only 18 cards, the affiliation has not yet been able to capitalize on that uniqueness. Throughout the years, lots of questions have been asked about Starfleet. Why is the historical Seat of Starfleet located on 24th Century Earth? Why didn’t Starfleet have its own time location like the Original Series and Motion Pictures-era cards do? Why didn’t cards from the 22nd Century have a unique era icon? Since The Continuing Committee is not restrained by logistics like printing costs the way a for-profit company is, we decided that it was time to give Starfleet their due: answer some of these nagging questions about the affiliation, flesh them out a bit more, and make them more consistent with the way other factions in the game work.
The Time Location/Revised Seat of Starfleet
When we revisited Starfleet in Straight and Steady, one of the first things that we knew that we wanted to do was give Starfleet a time location. TOS-era personnel and ships report to Sherman’s Peak. TMP-era cards report to Camp Khitomer. Yet, Starfleet cards report to a facility, the Seat of Starfleet, on Earth, a mission framed as being set in the 24th Century.
Straight and Steady changes this. Seat of Starfleet is now downloaded by a seedable time location, 22nd Century San Francisco, featuring a gorgeous view of the future skyline of the City by the Bay. Together, the two cards do everything that Seat of Starfleet did before. They allow a once-per-turn free report of a Starfleet card, and they allow you to attempt Federation missions. 22nd Century San Francisco also gives you something of a safe haven in the past. It prohibits cards from other eras from battling here. This is an important trade off, because Starfleet can no longer call Earth its homeworld. (For now...)
The erratum to Seat of Starfleet appears as follows:
Seat of Starfleet
The place that started it all. Changed the galaxy as we know it.
Seeds or plays on 2151 Earth. personnel may attempt missions. Once per turn, one personnel may play for free here. (Not duplicatable.)
Headquarters [SHIELDS 38]
Please note that, unlike most errata, this one will not take effect until Friday, October 29th when Straight and Steady becomes tournament legal. Until then, Seat of Starfleet plays as normal.
The Era Icon
You’ll notice that all Starfleet cards now have an era icon on them, based on the NX-01 mission patch. This icon means that the card featuring it originated in the 22nd Century. The icon has appeared on several cards already, going back to last year’s conversion of the Second Edition personnel, Slar. Up until now, players have been asking two big questions: what would the 22nd century icon do and would the Enterprise Collection Starfleet personnel get the icon? The answer to the second question is easy: Yes! 22nd Century Earth gives all Starfleet personnel that have the [preview/promo] icon the too. This is an elegant way of saying Starfleet cards from the Enterprise Collection all have the 22nd Century era icon without requiring players to look the ruling up in the Current Rulings Document, or issuing errata for over a dozen cards.
Stay tuned for more information on Starfleet all this week! And don't miss the second part of this article on Wednesday!
-djl-