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Should EV Spock have Diplomat trait?
eXo | das411
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in The Bridge
First of all - thank you WR/TP for finally adding EV Spock!! He looks tremendous and all of these traits absolutely fit the character well:
BUT I respectfully argue that this Spock deserves the Diplomat trait too! When we see him in that scene, he has realized the Enterprise crew can't make contact with V'Ger, so he wants to mindmeld to learn more and find if there is another way to make contact:
isn't that essentially what diplomacy is? The novelization makes it even more clear:
that EV Spock and his mindmeld are when the crew learn that V'Ger is not a ship but is actually a living machine, searching for the Creator, V'Ger realizes the same, and...well no spoilers here if you haven't seen it yet
The only other Spock who has Diplomat is Ambassador from TNG, but I'd argue contacting an unknown species that is a direct threat to Earth is much more diplomatic than pointing a phase at some Romulans! And the only mega Diplomat we've had was Cornwell, which was well before that collection was expanded - so wouldn't Spocktober be a great time to add another?
What do we think?
BUT I respectfully argue that this Spock deserves the Diplomat trait too! When we see him in that scene, he has realized the Enterprise crew can't make contact with V'Ger, so he wants to mindmeld to learn more and find if there is another way to make contact:
"These messages will detail my attempt to contact the alien"...
"Who, or what, are we dealing with?" ...
"I am now quite convinced...that we are inside a living machine..."
"I must try to mindmeld with it..."
isn't that essentially what diplomacy is? The novelization makes it even more clear:
that EV Spock and his mindmeld are when the crew learn that V'Ger is not a ship but is actually a living machine, searching for the Creator, V'Ger realizes the same, and...well no spoilers here if you haven't seen it yet
The only other Spock who has Diplomat is Ambassador from TNG, but I'd argue contacting an unknown species that is a direct threat to Earth is much more diplomatic than pointing a phase at some Romulans! And the only mega Diplomat we've had was Cornwell, which was well before that collection was expanded - so wouldn't Spocktober be a great time to add another?
What do we think?
5
Comments
I think his investigations into the nature of V'Ger are scientific and exploratory in nature, covered by Explorer and Exobiologist.
(That said, if TP wants to toss us another trait, by all means, go for it!)
Starport
Rather than diplomat, you might want to make a case for Communicator. He functions less to negotiate and more to facilitate. But I'm not entirely sure it would be warranted in this case either. I just think there is a better argument for Communicator than Diplomat.
The OP doesn't really care about the details of Diplomat vs Communicator. Diplomat is a hard collection to complete, and we're getting a 4/5 card. So any card that is potentially close to a Diplomat that we can easily FF people will argue the card should be a Diplomat so they get one card closer to the collection.
I'd rather see people argue about Burnhams being Vulcan. Between being raised on Vulcan(Miranda Jones) and having Sarek's katra(Katra McCoy), there is a lot more precedent for Burnham to have the Vulcan trait than a random Spock being a Diplomat.
Meta game concerns aside, I agree completely - Communicator fits the scene far better than Diplomat. I’d present it as Communicator being indicative of trying to make meaningful contact with V’Ger, whereas a Diplomat has already established contact and is engaging or could be engaged in formal negotiations of some kind. Even if we somehow were ever to get Merging Captain Decker, I wouldn’t call him a Diplomat...he might be doing a diplomatic thing by fusing his being to that of V’Ger and the Ilia Probe but it’s not exactly formal talks at a giant table over Bularian Canapés.
AviTrek does point out the other side of this discussion: the meta need for easily-completed crew to finish the Diplomat collection. It’s not like we haven’t had other crew with ill-fitting (or missing) traits, and plenty of them according to the Trait Audit Thread, due to game balance concerns taking precedence over absolute adherence to the source material. The way I see it, we got a bone thrown at us by way of the new Sarek - he’s a Diplomat that is even easier to immortalize than EV Suit Spock will be. I doubt Spock will get the same treatment, especially if we’re to receive any more Diplomats throughout the rest of the mega event.
-- Dr. Zefram Cochrane, around 2073
On a side note- if we ever get a "Communicator" collection, may I suggest "Hailing Frequencies Open" for a name.
I love the name idea. But I also doubt we’ll get a Communicator collection - I just looked and we have a whopping 93 crew with that trait. If Hailing Frequencies Open were introduced today, it would be the largest collection by 5 crew over the Rare Crew collection and by 20 over the nearest trait-based collection, for Diplomats. I’m not saying it’s impossible, just that by the time we would get one we might need a new reward tier structure for collections.
If TP wanted to try out a new reward structure for giant collections, they can start with Klingons.
Mirror and EV Suit collections and faction based like Klingon and Bajoran ("A Good Day to Die" and "The Will of the Prophets" as my name picks) are popular wants and they would be huge starting out and there are still more to add to them.
Mirror- 48 and plenty of room to grow
EV Suit- 11 and there is no Paris or Torres from "Day of Honor", Garak from his trip to Empok Nor, or the rest of the Enterprise crew- I think they all had the suit on at some point, Kirk, First Contact Worf and Picard, etc.
Klingon- 83- and a bunch to go.
Bajoran- 52- Pah Wraith Keiko isn't even on the list. Several ministers are missing and they would be diplomats too. The judge from " Dax", Li Nalas, Resistance fighters, etc. Kira's family.
They will have to expand that far eventually and they have added new things, like citations, to the tiers. Equipment crates, Voyage and Shuttle tokens, even slots or shuttle bays could work. A shuttle bay as a high level reward for the EV Suits would be hilarious!