It was thought of. So let me try to explain, as best I can, why Rules went with the rule change instead of the errata in 2017.
First and most basically: this was a time period where there were very high barriers to errata (for various organizational reasons). When Rules urgently requested errata to
Taris in 2014, hoping that her fix would go live within a couple weeks, it took nine months, well into 2015. Coincidentally, this Mirror issue started in 2015, when Design first proposed Mirror Earth, while we were still waiting on Taris. And this Mirror thing wasn't one erratum-- it would have to be three. (Stop First Contact, and I can't remember the other two... probably Population Nine Billion was one of them.) There was a real practical concern that we would request errata, errata simply would not happen, and then things would break. (That's basically what happened in 2015-2018 with the Enterprise Collection cards and
icon.) Fortunately, I am pleased to say, rules no longer has to struggle with any of those issues. We have an established production pipeline now and good lines of communication with balance, Art, and Design, which allows us to be much more proactive about clarifying errata.
There was also a much stronger sense on Rules back in 2015/16/17 that giving errata to Decipher cards -- even minor or clarifying errata-- was disrespectful or devaluing to Decipher's work. In the years just after OTF, Rules was extremely averse to making changes that might lead to accusations that the game's past was being erased, or that the game was being transformed into a different edition. So errata of Decipher cards just made us very gunshy. The rule change seemed lower-impact, and more easily reversible.
Also, there was a member of the Rules Committee who thought the planet ruling violated TrekSense more often than not: Fal-tor-Pan allowing Vulcans to show up at Mirror Vulcan instead of Alpha, Admiral Leyton reporting to Mirror Earth, Romulan "Reunification" hitting Mirror Vulcan... he had a point.
I think the clincher argument was that, in the vast majority of cases, we only mean Alpha Quadrant, and it is better to make the rule "Alpha Quadrant by default; add
or any if you mean
or any " than to make the rule "Both quadrants by default, add Alpha Quadrant if you mean that." (Partly because "Alpha Quadrant" is so much longer than "
"!)
Rules debated the solution off and on for two years (2015 to 2017) and tried to gently discourage Design from releasing Mirror Earth, which would force a decision. In the end, Design DID release Mirror Earth, and this was the consensus solution.
I'll be honest: I was in the minority on this one (I favored errata instead of the rule change, and actually I wanted to make SFC *work* against Mirror Humans using Mirror Earth), but I have since come to think that the rule change was probably the best of two not-great options -- even though it broke the Mirror B'Hala deck I had played at Regionals that year!
I just wish we'd solved the region thing at the same time!
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