[tlmirkes]

What is the interaction (if any) between Bluegill Infestation Personnel and persona swapping? If I call out Worf as a Bluegill, is he still a Bluegill if I swap him out for Captain Worf? Is the Bluegill considered to apply to the persona, or the specific card under the Incident?

[SudenKapala]

My own answer would be, that the key word is "copy". Which would not include other persona versions. But as always, I'm curious to hear from more seasoned players.

[Takket]

My own answer would be, that the key word is "copy". Which would not include other persona versions. But as always, I'm curious to hear from more seasoned players.

copy

A copy (or duplicate) of a card is defined by its card title and, for personnel and ships, its game text. Different images, copyright dates, lore, expansion icons, affiliation border colors, or property logos do not affect whether cards are copies.
Personnel and ships:
Two Personnel or Ship cards are copies of each other if their card titles and game text are the same (taking into account revised titles and game text of reprinted cards). Examples of copies:

Alyssa Ogawa (First Contact) is a copy of Alyssa Ogawa (Trouble With Tribbles starter deck reprint). Alyssa Ogawa (Premiere) is not a copy of this card because her game text is different (they are two versions of the same persona).
Quark Son of Keldar (First Anthology preview) is a copy of Quark Son of Keldar (Blaze of Glory reprint) despite a minor rewording of his game text and the Blaze of Glory expansion icon.
Tasha Yar - Alternate (Alternate Universe) is a copy of Tasha Yar - Alternate (Reflections foil). Her special skill was changed by errata.
Lwaxanna Troi (Premiere alpha printing) is a copy of Lwaxana Troi (Premiere beta printing).
B'Elanna Torres (blue Federation border) is a copy of B'Elanna Torres (gold Non-Aligned border). See multi-affiliation cards.

[tlmirkes]

That makes game sense. The Trek sense seems to be lacking, but *shrug* wouldn't be the first time in 1E

As long as I've got this thread about the ol' alien parasites, if I were to build an entire deck around the 7 people who I identify as Bluegills, it's possible that I could end up with 7 queens (assuming each of them dies once and is reported again). Is there any practical effect to having a) a Bluegill queen, or b) more than one Bluegill queen? I know there are a few cards that require "a Queen" (presumably expecting a Borg Queen), but I assume the Bluegill queen is one of those loose ends that never got closed up...

In said deck, I could also turn on or off the Bluegill trait by persona swapping. Not sure to what practical effect, but just making sure I understand how it works (or doesn't).

[BCSWowbagger]

Alas, Poor Queen

Bluegill Infestation was in AGT as an attempt to close that link, I believe. It had to get pretty ridiculous to do it in one card.

[Takket]

as far as i know the only cards for which a personnel being a Bluegill Queen matter are......

Executive Authorization
Temptations of the Flesh
Alas, Poor Queen

although now I have my own questions...........

Let's say Worf dies, and gets selected from the Bluegill incident and is now considered to be the Bluegill Queen.

If I play another copy of Worf, does he retain the "Queen" status?

Can all 7 of my personnel on the incident be Queens if all selected at some point during the game?

What happens if all 7 of my Bluegills in play all dies at the same time (say their ship blows up)? Do I have to do 7 random selections from the incident, one for each person that died?

[tlmirkes]

Let's say Worf dies, and gets selected from the Bluegill incident and is now considered to be the Bluegill Queen. If I play another copy of Worf, does he retain the "Queen" status?

I would assume yes, based on the fact that it's conferred by the Incident. So in the same way that the persona swap invalidates the Bluegill status because of the Incident's language, I would think as long as you're using the right persona, the Bluegill and Bluegill Queen designations would outlast the icy grip of death for whenever Worf rises from his grave.

I suspect that the intent was to have the personnel removed from beneath the Infestation when they died, and have the whole lot of them explode into gooey chunks when the Queen was killed, but Decipher ran out of space on the card for that much rules text. So now, you just end up with honey badger Bluegills who die and just report for duty a few days later.

Can all 7 of my personnel on the incident be Queens if all selected at some point during the game?

I initially thought yes, but after working through some logic below, I changed my mind. I don't think it works that way (see below).

What happens if all 7 of my Bluegills in play all dies at the same time (say their ship blows up)? Do I have to do 7 random selections from the incident, one for each person that died?

The wording on the Infestation is weird. It says:

Also, when one of your Bluegills is killed, you must randomly select a personnel from here; if it matches one who was killed, that personnel was considered to be the Bluegill Queen.

I would have thought that yes, you draw once for each, but the "if it matches one who was killed" seems to imply that it's once per group, not once per individual, as you're looking to see if the queen was among them.

Otherwise it means every time a Bluegill dies, select from the incident. If your draw was within that group of one, it was the queen. I think this makes the most sense to me, and would be how I'd think to play it. Partially informed by Trek sense, partially by text parsing.

Also, the definite article ahead of "Bluegill Queen" suggests there's only one, and that the title shifts around instead of duplicating, now I think on it more. So potentially, if you draw for each individual in a group of seven of them dying, they could get really indecisive about who's the queen before the last one dies.

"Yay, I'm the queen!" *bleaaah*
"Woohoo! Queen time!" *bleaaah*
"My turn? Sweet!..."

tl;dr It sounds like the crown passes between Bluegills, not duplicating across them, and it could potentially move any time one of them dies. A persona swap does not retain the Bluegill status if the resulting version in play is not the same as under the Incident.

Does that sound right?