[Takket]

Topological Anomoly 4747

[Professor Scott]

Topological Anomaly 4747

Just the personnel. All 4 references are personnel, Borg is used instead of to include non- Borg, but it still only applies to personnel.

[Takket]

So I guess this card kind of sucks against the Borg then because if the ship doesn’t go into stasis all they have to do is download or play a science right to the cubs using the cube’s built in reporting and they are free.

[Professor Scott]

I think arriving means coming from another location as opposed to reporting. but I am not certain. If I am right, then this locks down until countdown expires, and full would need a 2nd ship to bring the Science.

The only reference to arriving in either the rulebook or Glossary is from the Capture Rules in the Rulebook:

Capture 7.7

...If you don't have any teams at the location, the card that caused the capture remains on the table as a trap card. Place the captured personnel under it; she is now held. Once your crew or Away Team arrives, they may assume custody by either being present with the prisoner or beaming her from the trap card to their ship. The trap card is now discarded.

This to me means that arrive (arriving) has to come from somewhere else, and I don't think reporting is the same as arriving.

@BCSWowbagger any help here?

[winterflames]

The other "until new ... Arriving" quantum singularity Lifeformhas a DRG entry

[BCSWowbagger]

@BCSWowbagger any help here?

I don't have a lot to do at work this morning, so let's do my occasional Much Too Deep A Dive into this question:

TLDR: Official rules documents aren't clear, but I think precedent and logic compel us to rule that reporting is a form of "arriving."

Much as I want this to work against They Will Be Coming Borg, I don't think it does.

First, we look for official rulings.

Topological Anomaly is based partly on Quantum Singularity Lifeforms ("cure with... new ENGINEER arriving"). QSL's Glossary entry sheds no light on this question. We could stop right there. Since the Glossary doesn't define "arriving" as a term, nor does it explain whether "arriving" includes reporting in its entries for Topological or QSL, there is no official ruling on this.

Second, we turn finally to ordinary English, which is the true controlling authority when official rules documents don't specify. If the Compendium doesn't say anything about a word, go to a dictionary.

It does seem to fit with the ordinary English language to say that a card reporting for duty is "arriving" at a location. The only dictionary worth reading, the Oxford English Dictionary (sorry Merriam-Webster, but you deserved that), defines "arrive" very simply: "To come or be brought to a place." A card reporting for duty starts out in one zone (your hand; not a location) and comes to a new place (the reporting destination, which is a location). It's hard for me to see how reporting a card at a location would not count as "arriving."

Indeed, that seems to be the story behind our card "New Arrivals," which has "arrive" right there in the title.

So it does seem as though, under ordinary English, QSL and Topological Anomaly should be cured by reporting the cure requirement to the location. This seems pretty clear and does not rely on any complicated grammatical arguments or chains of logical inferences. It seems pretty cut-and-dried to me. If the official rules don't define something, and the English language unambiguously does, the English language generally binds.

However, in many cases, there is at least some doubt about how to construct the English language. So, third and last, we look for unofficial rulings and precedents. Ordinary players should not generally feel bound to do this, but (like in any court system) it's essential to Rules work to make sure we understand and respect our predecessors and their contributions before we offer our own judgment.

And QSL does have a ruling in the useful-but-not-authoritative DRG:

If any condition met (either player plays Emergency Transporter Armbands OR Timepod Ring anywhere in play OR either player moves or reports a new ENGINEER to the location), discard cured dilemma.

The DRG is explicitly a "play aid, not an authoritative rules document." It isn't approved by the Rules Committee. It is occasionally (sometimes even notoriously) wrong. T.D.'s can override it if they think it's wrong. This isn't even the same card -- and Topological Anomaly's DRG entry is silent on the arrival question.

On the other hand, the good people who write the DRG (lately, @Takket, praise be unto him) do put some real thought into how to interpret each card outside the context of trying to get an edge on Borg or whatever, often ask me my opinion about ambiguities, and are worth taking seriously. The Rules Committee always checks for informal precedents and rarely wants to overturn them. This particular interpretation was decided by Major Rakal, who was Rules Master at the time, as we can see when we look at the 2002ish DRG (ha, "Timepod Ring cure mechanism is still unknown"). This interpretation was consistent going back to the first DRG I have, from 1999.

So the Decipher Rules Committee clearly thought that a newly-reported ENGINEER was "arriving" at the location, and repeatedly ruled that way, even though they never made it "officially official" by putting it in the Glossary. There's nothing in the official rules documents to say that they're right, but there's also nothing to say they're wrong. If this disagreed with ordinary English, I'd be inclined to side with English, but rarely does an informal ruling directly disagree with the English language -- they're almost always fairly reasonable interpretations of the language. In this case, the ruling matches up perfectly with what I said above from the dictionary.

So if I'm a T.D., my ruling is that reporting a Borg with SCIENCE to the location is "new SCIENCE arriving". But I think that it would be good and meet for the Rules Committee to officially put a definition of "arriving" into the rules to confirm the ordinary English meaning. (And @Takket, I think it would be advisable to update the Topological DRG entry to use some of the language from the Quantum Singularity Lifeforms DRG entry.)

Note that the Borg arriving must actually have SCIENCE; skill-sharing does not work here because the Borg are not stopped but in stasis, and thus treated as blank. The stasis also blanks most Borg downloading mechanisms. Borg Queen is in stasis. Four of Nine is offline. Activate Subcommands will work, but only if you still have one of each in the deck. Redirected Effort shuts down, assuming all your Borgs are together. Distribution Node could work, but you'll need to play two drones: one to gain the skill and one to discard (the Borg in stasis can't be sacrificed to the Node while in stasis). Maturation Chamber might be the best answer.

[Professor Scott]

So then unlike with QSL, Finest Crew reporting of a Science still works, since the ship itself if not in stasis, which is why it also works for .

[Takket]

I would point out too that if you are facing , even if the ship is not in stasis, this still hurts because The Ultimate User does not allow you to download drones, so you would have to get a SCIENCE into your hand to play it.

Some other subtle differences between Topo and QSL: QSL is cured by either player bringing an Engineer, at any time. Topo is only cured by the person who encountered it bringing a SCIENCE, and only "on your next turn". So if you bring the science on the same turn, it does nothing. If you bring the science on your NEXT TURN, it is cured, if not, you are stuck until the countdown expires.

[Professor Scott]

I would point out too that if you are facing , even if the ship is not in stasis, this still hurts because The Ultimate User does not allow you to download drones, so you would have to get a SCIENCE into your hand to play it.

But with The Ultimate User banned, I can download drones.

[Takket]

chalk that up to "i forgot this card was banned" lol

That deck has 7 science in it so pretty safe to say you should be able to get one out on the next turn.