Mot's Useless Card Review #54: Temporal Causality Loop

This is not a particularly difficult dilemma (hence why it's not used all too frequently), although a red-shirter won't be able to deal with it. As such, it might be a good card to seed first (to be encountered last) after a string of self-seeded point dilemmas.

Example: I plan on completing Study Lonka Pulsar (40 points) and Investigate "Shattered Space" (45 points) from my outposts for an easy 85 points. This of course leaves me 15 points shy of victory, and so I seed Barclay’s Protomorphosis Disease (10 points), and Crystalline Entity (5 points) underneath one of the missions. (Perhaps I seed another dilemma there like Nagilum just to allow for losing a few points along the way.)

Now, smart players can recognize in advance when a player is using point dilemmas to boost their score (or a Q dilemma to bypass their opponent's dilemmas). The most effective counter to this strategy is to rush people over and attempt the mission first, overcoming or discarding the point dilemmas.

Most times, people do this with a very small crew. Too small a crew to overcome Temporal Causality Loop. Which means they will have to undo the mission attempt, replacing all your point dilemmas back under the mission, giving you next turn to attempt and protect your stategy.

Of course this isn't going to work all the time, since they have to survive to get to the Loop first. However, this strategy that Aaron McCullough used at the Worlds certainly will work.

Some actions simply can't be undone. There's no way to undo having looked at the dilemmas underneath a mission with a Full Planet Scan or Scan. You will, however, get the Scan card back into your hand if you encounter a Temporal Causality Loop immediately after you play it.

The plan was simple (and clever). Play a Scan card at some mission on the line, and reveal the dilemmas there. Then, immediately attempt a mission where a Temporal Causality Loop is seeded, failing to have SCIENCE and CUNNING > 35. You first undo the action of the mission attempt, and then the action of the Scan card. So the Scan goes back into your hand, to use again next turn on a different mission. Short of Fire Sculptor, it's like a Palor Toff that cannot be interfered with!

Although this was the tactic employed at Worlds, one could also do the same type of thing with a Jaglom Shrek - Information Broker (how do you undo having seen what's in your opponent's deck?), a Juggler (how does your opponent put their deck back the way it was before you shuffled it?), or a Long-Range Scan (if people ever used those, which I suppose is the subject for another review someday... ;-) ).

One more point worth mentioning, Temporal Causality Loop is not a bad anti-redshirt card. The player who fails to overcome it not only must undo the missions attempt, but must immediately end their turn, taking no further action. This will of course only delay them one turn, but they will have tipped their hand to you, so to speak, revealing their plans. You then have your turn to swoop in and thwart them somehow, perhaps by stealing their mission or attacking their ship.

Maybe that's why it took Morgan Bateson over 80 years to find his way out of the Temporal Causality Loop. He knew when he had a good thing... ;-)