Hail to the Dictator

So, we know that we’re getting a new affiliation in 2017. We won’t have flying cars, we won’t have intergalactic empire and we won’t have more hours of Star Wars than Star Trek, but we will have the first new affiliation added to the game in the Continuing Committee era. (Editors Note: actually, I don't think that was revealed yet. But alright.)

Technically that statement is true, we haven't seen an actual new color pallet on a personnel in the CC era. But from another frame of mind, the first real new faction is here now with The Terran Empire. Yes, they are the same Starfleet blue that we’ve had for just over a decade, but those have no cards in the mirror universe and are explicitly forbidden from reporting to the HQ. There is one guy, er Gorn, there, but he’s non-aligned. They have their day in the sun, they’ll probably never get another big piece of the pie and they should probably get a pretty good weapon in the arsenal to make up for everything. Let’s face it, not only are they hundreds of years in the past, necessitating time travel, but their ships are, well, hundreds of years old with attributes to match.

And they do have a nice tool to play with. The Jedi Tests, sorry Emperor Tests (Editor's Note: The Emperor's Tests, as Rossman calls them, are a series of Objectives, discussed in tomorrow's article; only one of which is revealed as of today), are a definite highlight of the expansion. Once complete, you have forty points, not a bad chunk of change. In addition, they supply you with have a good draw engine. The requirements are pretty much what you’re going to do anyway. Move your ship, solve a mission, win a battle, kill a captain… Okay, maybe not exactly what you’re intending, but certainly not outside the realm of possibilities. You could probably add them into your deck without too much trouble.

So the question comes down to which mission(s) you’ll solve. How about Earth? Which one? Why not both? Look at HQ: Secure Homeworld. It looks for a matching homeworld, not a matching quadrant. Declare New Sovereign has similar wording, meaning that you can solve both and sit at a good sixty. When you count the forty from the Emperor Exams (sorry, not going to mention the Emperor Tests), you’ve got a hundred points and that’s exactly what you need to win the game. Not just that, but by solving a mission in the Alpha Quadrant you’ve protected from You Are a Monument and, if you get your exams in order, you are fearless of Dead End.

So who do you choose as your Emperor?  Well, my first thought was the aforementioned Gorn because he has a built in tricorder/phaser, but by being a Gorn, he has no matching homeworld, meaning you can get far, but not all the way to the end. With that in mind, I have to throw my support behind Travis Mayweather. As a mission specialist, you can get him right from the get go. You’re not hoping for them to come into your hand halfway through the game, you are all ready to start claiming your throne from the very beginning

If you are wondering how you solve our Earth with HQ: Secure Homeworld since Sgt. Mayweather’s Quadrant Icon makes him match the other Earth, your other download with Assign Mission Specialists will make that inherently obvious.

So there you have your deck. Yes, it is bare bones, especially since there are only two missions (and neither is space), but you can easily add to it. Especially the newly released Kahn! That is an interrupt, so you can get around it. You might get hit by Dead End on your first mission, but you can always pre-emptively Genesis Effect around that. Your opponent has a vested interest in you not winning. Take a bit of speed out and work towards preventing them from doing that.

All Hail Emperor Mayweather!

by Ross Fertel, Tyrannical Writer