Card Extra

Cytherians from Kathy McCracken (03/10/2000)

This dilemma on its own won't kill any crew or damage the ship, but if you just want to stall your opponent while you get out a few more personnel and complete another mission, Cytherians will usually do the trick. Better than an Incoming Message, because it works on all affiliations, it works best seeded as near as possible to one end of the spaceline, preferably in a single-quadrant game (because the spaceline is longer). Unless your opponent has Lakanta, Wormholes or some similar method of shortening his trip, the ship and crew are out of commission for several turns. The 15 points at the end of the trip are small consolation for the time when they could have been solving a mission worth much more. (And a Borg opponent doesn't even get that.)

But Cytherians really shines in combination with dilemmas that take advantage of the inability to remove people from the ship - ones that kill or disable each turn or that progressively cripple the ship. They may never make it to the end of the spaceline to collect their 15 points.

Combos:

• If there's no Medical Kit aboard (and less than 6 ENGINEERs), the ship will soon stall for lack of staffing.
• Birth of "Junior" + Cytherians: With the RANGE reduced by 1 each turn, progress will be slower and slower until the ship is unable to move and finally destroyed.