[Faithful Reader]

As you've surmised, the new flip mechanic has associated rules. I want to commend the Rules team for working to get this to work. It seems pretty simple, but they really worked hard to get this done. There's an article coming about how awesome it is, but in the meantime, here are the rules:

Building a Deck

Double-sided missions count as one of your 5 different missions. If the mission had different titles on each side, both sides must be different from your other missions. If either side of the mission is a headquarters mission, that mission does not count towards your minimum of 2 non-headquarters mission.

Other Important Rules
Double-Sided Missions

Some missions have two sides: a front side and a reverse side. The reverse side of a mission shares collector info with the front side of the mission, with the addition of an asterisk (*).
Double-sided missions begin play front-side up, and may flip over during the course of the game. Only the face-up side is considered to be in play. When a mission flips over, all cards on, at, or beneath that mission remain unless the mission states otherwise.
You may not flip a mission if doing so results in commanding a mission you could not otherwise command. For example, you cannot flip a mission from a non-headquarters side to a headquarters side if you command Unicomplex, Root of the Hive Mind, which states that you may not command another headquarters mission.

[bhosp]

This is much more rules than I expected we’d need, because it really is pretty intuitive.

That said, I’m happy with how these turned out.

[Nerdopolis Prime]

Nice and clean rule. I´m curious if it can be flipped back somehow.

[Faithful Reader]

Nice and clean rule. I´m curious if it can be flipped back somehow.

A future card might flip back and forth several times throughout the game (Think how easy Explore Extradimensional World would be to track!) but this is a nice and easy one time thing.

[Naetor]

I don't get it. Why wouldn't I just start with Mars face up?

[GooeyChewie]

I don't get it. Why wouldn't I just start with Mars face up?

Because the rules state that the mission begins the game with the front side face up and Mars is on the reverse side, not the front side.

[BCSWowbagger]

I don't get it. Why wouldn't I just start with Mars face up?

Because the rules state that the mission begins the game with the front side face up and Mars is on the reverse side, not the front side.

And the way you can tell that it's the reverse side is the asterisk in the collector's info?

[GooeyChewie]

And the way you can tell that it's the reverse side is the asterisk in the collector's info?

[Naetor]

Ok. Seems like a dumb ability to create entirely new rules around -- blow up someone's ship because they are playing a couple HQs you don't like.

[Neelix]

Ok. Seems like a dumb ability to create entirely new rules around -- blow up someone's ship because they are playing a couple HQs you don't like.

While this particular ability might seem dumb to you, just think of the cool abilities we COULD see now that this mechanic exists!

[bhosp]

I don't get it. Why wouldn't I just start with Mars face up?

Because the rules state that the mission begins the game with the front side face up and Mars is on the reverse side, not the front side.

And the way you can tell that it's the reverse side is the asterisk in the collector's info?

We should probably have done something more visible. I had a bunch of extra words on the card that everyone ended up hating, so that wasn’t the answer.

I forget if this idea was proposed and rejected, or if I’m having it now for the first time, but now that 1E doesn’t care about the 1EBC bar, we could maybe have used that as the front/back indicator.

This isn’t going to happen a lot. This was 100% story-driven: Terra Prime’s HQ physically moved from Luna to Mars, and also symbolically made a complete break from one activity space (occasionally violent political agitation) to another (active terrorism). We get that changing the card title was a creative way to reflect this in-game.

[bhosp]

Ok. Seems like a dumb ability to create entirely new rules around -- blow up someone's ship because they are playing a couple HQs you don't like.

We promise it isn’t “HQ’s we don’t like”. For one thing, we like Terra Prime, and there’s nothing preventing a lot of Terra Prime on Terra Prime violence once Luna flips. If anything, it’s “HQs that Terra Prime doesn’t like”; they hate everything the Federation stands for. (You might say, why does Terra Prime hate Terra Prime then? My answer is: “shut up, that’s why.”)

But you’re right, it was dumb of us to make a bunch of cards that punish your opponent for being in Sector 001 because obviously your opponent can just stay out of Sector 001 if they aren’t playing or with zero consequences. John is a bad design director and should be fired for this dumb mistake. Thank goodness you’re here to correct us.

(If there’s an HQ that John and I hate as designers, it’s no-HQ decks that make us have to remember that they exist and can’t assume every deck has a Headquarters or a second ship or whatever. Thankfully we have playtesters who specifically like Voyager to remind us when we screw up and forget they exist.)

[StateofSTCCG]

Ok. Seems like a dumb ability to create entirely new rules around -- blow up someone's ship because they are playing a couple HQs you don't like.

(If there’s an HQ that John and I hate as designers, it’s no-HQ decks that make us have to remember that they exist and can’t assume every deck has a Headquarters or a second ship or whatever. Thankfully we have playtesters who specifically like Voyager to remind us when we screw up and forget they exist.)

Since you guys hate no-HQ decks so much why not make something to make them have a "HQ". You guys will design 2-sided cards, it's time these no-HQ decks "have one".

[Marquetry]

(If there’s an HQ that John and I hate as designers, it’s no-HQ decks that make us have to remember that they exist and can’t assume every deck has a Headquarters or a second ship or whatever. Thankfully we have playtesters who specifically like Voyager to remind us when we screw up and forget they exist.)

#VoyagerisBestSeries

Guess who's going to be playing with Miral soon...

[durgforaday]

That makes 2 of us ! Have a spot already saved for her in my Relativity deck