Wesley's STCCG card of the day #52

Hi, folks,

this will be the last Dilemma for some time:

CRYSTALLINE ENTITY

Dilemma, Either, rare.
5 points.
Space mission: kills all life on ship unless SHIELDS>6 OR Music aboard.
Planet mission: kills entire Away Team unless SCIENCE and MEDICAL present. Discard Dilemma.
"Spaceborne life-form strips biological energy from planets and ships. Sensi- tive to modulation much like crystal can shatter from a high pitch note."

This is one of the more flexible Dilemmas. And nice in the aspect that it is different for planet and space locations.

The effect is simple: Kills everybody, regardless where it's placed. However, the prerequisites for overcoming are vastly different.

In space, this is trivial, Most space missions are attempted by large ships anyway (or directly from the outpost) and in both cases, SHIELDS will be more than 6. The Music solution is more suitable for those cases where you have scanned a location and want to go in with a small crew in a shuttle (say it's the only dilemma there).

On planets, this acts as a somewhat downgraded Barclay's Protomorphosis disease. It actually is the same thing, just without the SECURITY requirement. Of course, this combines well with the women-killers (Female's Love Interest etc.) and the opponent's choice Dilemmas.

However there is a third use for this card: Seed it under a space mission and solve it yourself, almost on the fly-by. 5 easy points without losing a turn, makes it an improved Sarjenka.

Favorite combo(s):

Crystalline Entity + Female's love interest + Anaphasic Organism: You know why.

Ratings for : CRYSTALLINE ENTITY

Wesley's rating:                7.5
Allen Castaban's rating:        6.0
Data's rating:                  7.9
Habib's rating:                 7.0
Bryan's rating:                 5.0
Jeff's rating:                  6.75
Holt Kernodle's rating:         4.0
Jack's rating:                  4.9
Jason's rating:                 6.5
----------------------
AVERAGE RATING:                 7.9

PS: Now I want to see what you all have learned. Half of the STCCG fun is trying to find out the ways how the cards interact. So the first one to answer this question will recieve a VERY honorable mention in Card of the Day:

What is the advantage of Wesley Crusher's ENGINEERING skill over Data's or Eric Pressman's ENGINEERING skill?

Hint: There is another card involved. But I won't tell you which one...

Try to figure this out yourself. It beautifully fits the events in the epi- sode the mentioned "another card" refers to, and I really loved finding it. (Almost an easter egg.)

Please direct all email concerning card of the day to: blohmer@pips11.informatik.uni-mannheim.de

LLAP,

Wesley Crusher, the new STCCG Lord

"A couple of lightyears can't keep good friends apart"