Michael and I both seeded just one facility: the Husnock Outpost, and we both did so at his Establish Relations. His spaceline had been problematic for me, in terms of dilemmas, as he had 5 space and just one planet. Instead, most of my planet Ds went to protecting my own missions.

We both spent a lot of turns building up, but fairly early on Mike played a Q-Net on one side of Establish Relations and, given that my deck has no Diplomacy and can get a maximum of one off of Reflection Therapy, that side of the spaceline was dead to me. He then started in on my missions on the other side. I still hadn't drawn enough skills to steal a mission and he then played a second Q-Net on the other side of Establish Relations. This left me just two options: do nothing OR try to solve Establish Relations.

Mike completed one of my Space missions and then moved to steal the Establish Relations that I cleared out (but had no chance to solve since both my Leaders had died in the attempt. On his last turn, before we both had drawn out (I did so first) he made a go to fly back to his Establish Relations and I threw Rogue Borg to shut him out. But he then played Distortion of Space/Time Continuum and was able to solve that second mission.

Would have been nice to get a True Tie here.

Jeremy had a Federation/Klingon Treaty which meant that we could both steal missions, but he would likely have a better crew of people. I seeded my Klingon/Romulan Treaty but of course their are neither of those affiliations in my deck.

The game started out pretty well, I thought. I drew all of the skills that I needed to run through the dilemmas and solve Jeremy's nearest space mission, except Physics. I started to think I didn't have any in the deck, so I needed to draw Suna or Reflection Therapy and that didn't happen. I also didn't draw either of my two copies of Scan, and that left me just sitting at home for ever.

We both has a Husnock Outpost at Jeremy's Establish Relations, but Jeremy also had a Federation Outpost. He seeded it at the very far end of the spaceline, at a mision of mine with only the Fed icon, and started in on that once he was ready. This worked well for him as the mission was much too far away for me to stop him and he solved and got a seeded Iconian Gateway.

I decided to spend a few turn's range flying to one of Jeremy's missions that I could run through and solve and then return to the two I was eyeing originally when I drew the right cards. Jeremy only had a ship from Spacedoor, so he decided to fly most of his people between his two outposts. After two turn's range he was almost there, but I put an Incoming Message: Federation on him so he had to do two turns back. Still, he had played Iconian Gateway by then, so he just walked through instead, and started in on Establish Relations. This was one that I couldn't steal, as my deck has no Diplomacy or VIP.

I solved the one mission and then finaly drew the Reflection Therapy so I moved a ship from the outpost to the intended stolen mission and my original ship back to that mission. This I solved two turns after the first (after flying there) and also netted 5 extra points off my self seeded Null Space, putting me on 65. By this time, Jeremy had already solved his Establish Relations, so we were both on 65. He sent one ship to my closest space mission, but I tossed a Rogue Borg Ambush to prevent the theft. He then went to Impose Order and cleared it but left it open to steal. Because of where my ships were, I could move over and steal it - but it also has Diplomacy as a Requirement...

So I decided to throw down on my own space mission (Study Plasma Streamer). The first dilemma, Hide and Seek, only stopped two. But one of those was one of my only two Navigation, so the Null Space hit. Jeremy then solved his Impose Order and then sent everyone he had to clear the last two dilemmas at my SPS. They were pretty weak Ds, and that was a full win for him.

When I sat down across from Ted, I was initially relieved that he had seeded the Triple Treaty, but then concerned that he might be playing battle - since I only had the one outpost. I decided that, if he was playing a dedicated battle deck, I had already lost. So, I just built up to try to out run him.

Ted had 5 space missions and just one planet, which was Establish Relations for the Husnock Outpost seed. This messed with my dilemmas hard, but I opted to put strong three card combos at the closest missions to his Establish Relations (where I would put my outpost) and then four card sets farther away, where at least one of those was a planet dilemma. I put the planet dilemma first, just in case he lost a mission solver, so I could swoop in and steal. But the plan was to steal one or both of his two closest space missions and then use my two Scans to get through two of my space missions. Because he had the triple treaty, I wasn't worried about protecting my own missions, and I threw one of every planet dilemma I owned at his Establish Relations. He put no dilemmas under his missions and put 4 under each of mine.

Ted's opening hand was atrocious, he played one card on his first turn: a Spacedock, and then used his second turn card play for a Masaka to get rid of it. My hand was a bit better. It had Scotty and Sito Jaxa, which would supply the Navigation, Engineer x 2, and Astrophysics that I would need to run through and solve his two missions. It also had Reflection Therapy, which I would need to use to gain Physics, as there was none in my deck and one of his space missions requested that.

I started with the Spacedoor download, to thin my deck a bit, and on a later turn I reopened it by discarding an Incoming Message to grab another ship. The message was worthless since Ted also only had a Husnock outpost. I drew into a couple Fareks and an Eric Pressman fairly early, playing the Reflection Therapy as a full card play to help my set-up. But the final key was attained when I drew into Vekor as she had the second Navigation for Null Space and the Science to help solve Ted's Explore Interstellar Matter, I just needed one more turn and I could actually solve both of his space missions in one go!

The plan: put my people on a ship, fly one mission to the left to Ted's Test Propulsion Systems and attempt. The first D was Edo Probe, which I would go through, the second was Null Space (+5 points), which Sito and Vekor could walk, and the last was Abandon Ship!The mission could be solved with Scotty, the reflected Farek, and Sito Jaxa. Return to the outpost and use the second ship's range to fly out to Ted's second space and attempt. I had a Hail in hand, so I wasn't too worried about being stuck outside for a battle. This one had a Hippocratic Oath, to take a Farek, and then a Plague Ship, to take the other Farek (+5 points) and finally a Menthar Booby Trap, which could be cured by Vekor and Scotty. Then Vekor and Scotty use their skills to solve. Two 25 point missions plus 10 bonus points for 60.

Unfortunately, this is the turn when Ted decided to attempt a mission. He put everyone on his Qu'Vat and went to Explore Interstellar Matter. Unfortunately for him, he had no Medical personnel. Unfortunately for me, he did have a Medical Tricorder to give his multiple Science personnel the Medical. Unfortunately for him, his scientist took it with him when he got relocated by the Hippocratic Oath and that made everyone else die by the Plague Ship.

On my next turn, I went with the plan, but attempting the missions in reverse order, and got to 55 points, since I was robbed of my Plague Ship points.

So now, I'm ahead in the points and Ted has nobody in play (except that Romulan Scientist pretending to be a Doctor). I have my run of the board and also drew into a Scan. But I had to choose what mission to throw it at. I chose my closest Space mission, but it had a crazy good stack of dilemmas. I think it was Frame of Mind, (Something), Conundrum, and (Something else). I didn't have 40 Integrity in play and didn't think they'd make it as far as the Conundrum anyway. So I spent something like 3 turns to fly out to then next closest space mission that was mine (my ships have horrible range) and attempted that. It had a Make Us Go, that picked off Scotty, and then three more including a Menthar Booby Trap (which I had the Med for but not the two Engineer) and a Microbiotic Colony (barely solved by Vekor and Eric Pressman) and finally an Abandon Ship! Ted was disappointed to find that the Menthar on my ship would not trigger the Abandon Ship! but I still needed to wait to get Scotty back in order to solve the mission and cure the Booby Trap. So we wait.

Ted continued to build and even started flying his ship out to retrieve equipment from the Qu'Vat. He considered playing a Thine Own Self on Scotty, which I think would have been a very good play, and ended up putting a Gaps in Normal Space between my outpost and the next mission (range 5). This meant that, in order to restock my ship, I would have to stop at the gap and someone would die, meaning that, although I had more Engineer and Astrophysics, I might not keep them. But eventually, I got Scotty back and solve the mission. I was on 85 points and needed one more mission and was considering waiting for a Scan before attempting, but opted to go for it. We found a Hide and Seek, which picked off nobody as it was randomly selected first, and then a Mamman Picard. That hopped my ship to the other end of the spaceline, but it wasn't stopped and still had a little range left, so I started flying back toward the middle and my outpost.

This hop may have actually helped me. There were just two dilemmas left at that far space mission, but I wanted to find my second Scan before flying way out there. First thing's first, I had to get my ship with the majority of my personnel aboard safely home. Ted had his Qu'Vat halfway down that end of the spaceline and so he flew his other ship to it and then used it's impressive 9 Range to get to my poor little Miranda. I tossed a hail to prevent any funny business. On my next turn, I could fly two missions closer, and because of where I had left my Darmok, I could meet it there with a second ship for some protection. But I kind of liked Ted wasting his time dicking with me. So I didn't add any protection to the Miranda and on his next turn threw my second and final copy of Hail. That prevented the Qu'vat from fighting, but he still brought in his Nebula, so I had to waste a Rogue Borg Mercenaries.

I was planning things well in advance at this point and I used my ship to maneuver everyone safely to the outpost and then brought a 4 man red shirt crew out to Mineral Survey, my closest planet. This included the two Romulans in my deck, which I included to help with mission theft, but could now use with Non-aligneds to clear Ds. They did quite well. Poor Suna was relocated by a Male's Love Interest but then a Female's Love Interest and a Parallel Romance both failed for lack of ladies. Then they stopped hard at a Matriarchal Society.

I was out of range for that turn, but could plan well for the solve on the next. I had been sitting out Vekor specifically because she had the skills for the mission, but I had to leave two of my ships in orbit of Mineral Survey. Ted decided to bring both his ships down on my two empty ones, and I STP'd the Darmok so I would still have the better two in play. He then blew up the Runabout. On my next turn, I replayed the Darmok and built two crews to travel over to the mission. I was quite afraid of a Rogue Borg Mercenaries or some other janky shit that only losers would play, but Ted had none. I beamed all Feds to the Miranda and then beamed the Romulans up to the Darmok so I could send the Fed ladies with Vekor to solve the fourth and final mission.