So, You're New to Earth?

by Maggie Geppert, Vice Chairman

10th July 2018

The first duty of every Starfleet officer is to the truth, whether it's scientific truth or historical truth or personal truth! It is the guiding principle on which Starfleet is based. And if you can't find it within yourself to stand up and tell the truth about what happened, you don't deserve to wear that uniform!

                                                                                    - Jean-Luc Picard from “The First Duty”

The genesis of this deck was a search for what I thought may be a hidden achievement.  “What are achievements?” I’m glad you asked.  Or website has a wide variety of achievements available for building different types of decks and playing with them in tournaments (among other things).  There are many achievements with many different levels.  Some achievements are hidden, only being revealed after you play a deck which qualifies for them in a tournament.  Back before [DS9-E] had its own Paranoia theme, I guessed that the hidden achievement for Earth, Home of Starfleet Command may be a deck containing all personnel.  This did not turn out to be the case, and personnel have a distinct lack of Medical, so I threw in some personnel to fill in the gaps.

Missions

This version of the Earth headquarters is a great way for personnel to mix with other personnel who would not be native to Deep Space Nine.  The main mission to attempt first is Practice Orbital Maneuvers.  This is the Cadet mission, allowing your Cadets to complete this mission as if they were facing a dilemma (more on this later).   The rest of the missions were chosen for their game text.  Assess Contamination has a great prevent and overcome text (just watch out for The Oracle’s Punishment).  I’m a fan of Rigel X, Locate Mysterious Contact, both for its outstanding skill set and the cost/benefit of its text.  And of course, Alpha 5 Approach is here.  This mission has a nice synergy with Rigel X.

Draw Deck

As I mentioned before, the main focus of this deck is Cadets.  These groups of personnel (Red Squadron came out in Necessary Evil and Nova Squadron arrived later in To Boldly Go) all have very similar abilities.  For the most part, they gain skills and have an attribute boost when they face dilemmas.  One exception to this rule is Wesley Crusher, Nova Squadron Pilot, who has skills all the time, but loses Honor and gains Navigation and Treachery while present with another Cadet.  Other personnel can also boost Cadets.  Nicolas Locarno, Nova Squadron Leader makes all Cadets present attributes +1, as does Boothby, both while facing a dilemma.  I’ve got plenty of brass along to help out the Cadets.  Leyton, Chief of Starfleet Operations is here to help get out a ship.  Andrea Brand, Academy Superintendent is a great source of 2Leadership to use with Bridge Officer’s Test.  There’s not much going on in this deck besides playing personnel and ships and going out to do missions.

Dilemma Pile

This is one of my favorite dilemma piles, and I discussed a version of it in my Deep Space Nine article in this series.  The basic idea is using Tragic Turn with the Do or Die dilemmas like Kolaran Raiders to maximize stops and minimize the effect of Consuming 2 dilemmas to play TT. This version doesn’t need Skeleton Crew, since A5A is here.  It’s a little on the old side, so could use some upgrading.  These days, I would probably take out Discommendation and add in Weight of Command.  Adopted Authority and Indecent Proposal can also work with Tragic Turn, especially if they don’t end up bouncing back to your dilemma pile.

Final Thoughts

Cadets are a flexible and powerful Earth-based strategy.  You can bring a Cadet deck to a tournament and be able to play a fast, straightforward game.

Discuss this article in this thread.

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

• Deep Space 9/Earth Player
• Unbroken I

Decklist

Hide Deck Stats

Dilemma Deck Total Dilemmas 28 Space 6 (21%) Cost 1 5 Cost 2 1 Planet 6 (21%) Cost 1 5 Cost 2 1 Dual 16 (57%) Cost 0 2 Cost 2 9 Cost 3 4 Cost 4 1 Total Dilemma Deck cost 48

Draw Deck Total Draw Deck 51 Equipment 3 (6%) Cost 2 3 Event 9 (18%) Cost 0 5 Cost 1 2 Cost 2 2 Interrupt 3 (6%) Personnel 30 (59%) Cost 0 2 Cost 1 14 Cost 2 5 Cost 3 7 Cost 4 1 Cost 6 1 Ship 6 (12%) Cost 4 3 Cost 7 3 Total Draw Deck cost 100

Skills Count Skill # Missions # Personnel 1x 2x 3x Total Acquisition 0 1 1 Anthropology 2 7 7 Archaeology 0 2 2 Astrometrics 1 1 1 Biology 0 3 3 Diplomacy 1 5 5 Engineer 0 1 1 Exobiology 0 3 3 Geology 0 2 2 Honor 0 4 4 Intelligence 0 1 1 2 Law 1 5 5 Leadership 2 7 1 8 Medical 0 5 5 Navigation 1 3 3 Officer 0 8 8 Physics 0 3 3 Programming 0 2 2 Science 0 3 3 Security 2 4 1 5 Telepathy 0 0 Transporters 0 2 2 Treachery 0 2 1 3 Icons Count Icon # Personnel % Personnel Staffing Icons Command Star 16 53.33 % Staff Star 8 26.67 % Faction Icons Earth 27 90.00 % Temporal Icons Alternate Universe 2 6.67 % Keyword Count Keyword # Cards Admiral 7 Cadet 14 Commander: U.S.S. Valiant 2 Consume: 2 3 Decay: 5 2 Genetically Enhanced 1 Persistent 4 Region: Sector 001 2 Ritual 1 Thief 1