Sunday, December 09, 2012

Good Card, Bad Card #82

It hasn't been intentional, but I've been crapping on the v-set Raise the Stakes a lot lately. I just kept running into bads card and they keep having the #17 set number on them. But now, once again by accident, I've discovered another reason to hate Raise the Stakes: It's Racist! Let me explain....

The 2E Nagata (the gentleman pictured about from the DS9 episode Trials and Tribble-ations) has strength 6. You say, 'John, what's the big deal about that?' Nothing on the surface, but follow me down the 'Road of Racism'....

In 2E strength 5 is a person of average strength in an 'average' species. Humans, basically. Strength 6 is a 'fit' person of an 'average' species. Nagata is a strapping young man, what's wrong with that? He's an engineer, that's what. Not a security officer. Did he do something in that episode to demonstrate his fitness? No, he just told some people where to go. Let's take a look at other human male engineers. Wesley Crusher (grown up), 5 strength. A young season one Geordi LaForge, 5 strength. Joe Carey, 5 strength. Kelby, 5 strength. Let's look at engineers from his TOS era: Robert Tomlinson, 5 strength. Even Scotty himself, the 3rd in command of the Enterprise, has strength 5. Engineers are 5 strength, that's just how it is.

So why is he different? Because he's Asian. They saw he was Asian, and all Asian people know Kung-Fu.

1E wasn't racist, the Lt. Nagata there has 7-7-5 attributes. 5 is low by 1E standards. Somehow when it was time to bring him to 2E Brad and Charlie assumed he was Bruce Lee. But I guess all Asians aren't 'good at math' because somehow he got dumber in 2E and has cunning 5.

Ok, I'm not saying Brad and Charlie are racist. I'm saying that subconsciously, in their hearts, they believe in Asian stereotypes. Just having some fun with you guys, Merry Christmas.

Kidding aside, let's do some cards. I saw the cardlists on the CC site has a 'random card' link. Click on it and boom, random card. I said what the hell, can't find a better way to pick two cards.

Good Card: Katherine Pulaski, Chief Medical Officer

Why: This was the first card that popped up, and we had winner. I'm sentimental about this card. This card gave my daughter her first win at the Virginia regional earlier this year. Somebody went old school and played DNA Analysis (I give Charlie Barhite props for being the only guy to use this dilemma). Constance luckily had Katherine and her 2 Medical out and she didn't have to stop anyone. There's alot of bad in What You Leave Behind, I've said that plenty, but Pulaski is a clean card. Costed right, good skills, good attributes. Most importantly it was effective Tragic Turn hate. The cards they designed on purpose to tone Tragic Turn down rarely worked. Goes to show, the simplest solutions are always the best.

Bad Card: Liam Bilby, Family Man

Why: The random link showed me I'm a 2E pessimist. It took 15 clicks before I got to a bad card. But it didn't disappoint. We got a bad card that downloads a bad card! Holy shitbox Batman, how haven't I noticed this before? It's not even 'discard a card' to download (it's place a card on top of your deck), so I can't even use to defend Caretaker's Guest. He's cheap, but that doesn't even matter since his attributes are garbage. I have to get off Pickpocket just to make him a functional person. His three random crap skills don't impress me either. Even his name sucks: Liam. Nobody likes a Liam. Liam is a smug British dude who steals your drugs and has sex with your girlfriend. Wait, that would actually make him a pretty cool dude....

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