Star Trek: Captain's Chair – Second Contact Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
  • Freeman
  • Pike
  • Riker
  • Solo Components
  • Standard Cards
• The Captains and Their Crew Cards
  • Pike (Starfleet)
  • Riker (Starfleet)
  • Freeman (Starfleet)
• Setup
  • General Setup
• New Rules
  • Underdecks and the ASSIST Operation
  • Crossover and the Reward Pile
  • Example: ASSIST
  • Placing Resources
  • From … Onto / Into
  • Spending Resources
  • Act As If It Had (Trait)

Components

Component list as printed on the rulebook's components page.

Freeman

• 25 Crew cards
• 1 Captain board
• 4 ship stands: U.S.S. Carlsbad, U.S.S. Cerritos, Type-6A Shuttle, 30 California-class ships

Pike

• 26 Crew cards
• 1 Captain board
• 1 ship stand: U.S.S. Enterprise

Riker

• 25 Crew cards
• 1 Captain board
• 2 ship stands: U.S.S. Titan, U.S.S. Zheng He

Solo Components

• 6 Computer Program cards

The Computer Program cards are for Pike's Five-Year Mission upgrades. Their printed layout is:

PIKE — FIVE-YEAR MISSION UPGRADES

VICTORY

• A: REINFORCEMENT: Allowed standard card types: Time Travel / Doctor
• B: Alternative bonuses (choose 1):
  • BOOST: When you draw your starting hand, first take 1 Incident to recruit 1 Development.
  • BOOST: Gain 1 glory, 1 latinum and 1 [red icon].

DEFEAT

• A: REINFORCEMENT: Allowed standard card types: Ship
• B: Alternative bonuses (choose 1):
  • REINFORCEMENT: 1 card with a blue, yellow or red specialty symbol from your AVAILABLE cards or your Reserve.
  • BOOST: After drawing your starting hand, play 1 non-Time Travel card free of action cost — then recall it.

Standard Cards

• 3 Ally
• 3 Cargo
• 5 Person
• 2 Ship
• 2 Location
• REWARDS: 8 Person
• 2 ship stands
• 1 overview of the standard cards (a printed chart; not transcribed here)

The Captains and Their Crew Cards

Introduction to the captains and their crew cards, as printed.

Pike (Starfleet)

Complexity: 5 of 10

Only a few embody the ideals of Starfleet as strongly as Captain Pike and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise. Their improbable, unstoppable and sensational crew uses its skills like no other. True, Captain Pike has no traditional way to climb the specialty tracks, but simply playing a competent card lets him raise his specialties. A further challenge Pike must face is his knowledge of a dreadful fate that, after a TIME TRAVEL, follows him like a shadow. With the time crystal you can look into your own future and reach your Developments earlier.

PIKE'S AWAY TEAMS

In addition to the 4 away teams on your CAPTAIN card, place 1 away team on your controlled Location Starbase 1 (printed as the away-team icon with "4+"). After that away team has been removed from there, it returns to your Captain from then on.

Episode references (Strange New Worlds, except where noted): Fremde neue Welten; Geister von Illyria; Nicht jeder Verirrte verliert sich; Ad Astra Per Aspera; Morgen und morgen und morgen; Unter den Lotusessern; Scharaden; Der Schlächter von J'Gal;

Subraum-Rhapsodie; Hegemonie; Der Käfig (TOS / The Original Series); Gedächtniskraft (Discovery); Tal der Schatten (Discovery)

Riker (Starfleet)

Complexity: 6 of 10

Sometimes hard problems need hard solutions. His only flaw is that he is so good at it that he is always just in time. It is also annoying that using [blue icon] to solve scientific puzzles (in the true spirit of Starfleet) costs extra effort. Whether you ask Deanna for advice on an INCIDENT, sip a bottle of (admittedly dreadful) Chateau Picard, or watch a historical re-enactment of the NX-01 crew on the holodeck — Riker lets you enjoy it all. With two versions of Boimler hanging on your every word, you are prepared for anything.

Episode references (Lower Decks, except where noted): Keine kleinen Rollen; Seltsame Energien; Kayshon, seine Augen offen; Nepenthe (Picard); Et in Arcadia Ego (Picard)

RIKER'S STATUS

Riker has a status card named Gluonic Distortion, marked Development. During setup, add it to the Development pile instead of bringing it into play.

Freeman (Starfleet)

Complexity: 7 of 10

Captain Freeman and the bridge crew of the U.S.S. Cerritos sometimes do not feel like the stars of their own story — which is certainly true of the talented staff of UNDERDECKS. Life aboard a California-class ship can feel rather hectic, especially on days with anomaly consolidation duty or when a Doppler is on board — sometimes it is worth it to tackle problems of your own making. As Freeman longs to follow in the footsteps of legends like Picard, her deck has many parallels with Picard's techniques, but with unexpected twists, because every ALLY on her path is due for a second contact. To play this deck, you must have mastered the ASSIST operation.

Episode references (Lower Decks): Der Zweite Kontakt; Mondtrümmer und Liebesleid; Viel Lärm um Boimler; Seltsame Energien; Kayshon, seine Augen offen; Die Doppler-Verwirrung; Der große, braune Spion; wej Duj; Das Psycho-Gestein; Die Sterne in der Nacht

30 CALIFORNIA-CLASS SHIPS

Note the SPECIAL operation on this card, which counts it as 2 ships when it comes to securing a Location in the Neutral Zone. As a reminder, the ship stand has two feet! This effect also applies to the computer.

Setup

General Setup

Set up as described in the base game rules, with the following changes:

1. Shuffle the 13 new Market cards and all Locations into their matching piles.
2. Add to the end of step 6 of the general setup: "Draw the top card of each Market pile, and discard it to the Junk pile." (Repeat this for each further expansion or base game you are playing at the same time.)
3. Set aside all cards marked REWARD at the bottom centre (and add them to any other REWARD cards you own). All such cards have the CROSSOVER trait.

New Rules

This expansion contains 2 new traits: UNDERDECKS and CROSSOVER.

Underdecks and the ASSIST Operation

Every card with the UNDERDECKS trait has an ASSIST operation — a new way to place it into your Briefing Room. ASSIST operations have a triggering condition (like a REACTION operation): you may place an UNDERDECKS card from your hand into your Briefing Room when its condition is met during your Action Step. When you do, carry out the effect of the ASSIST operation in full (but not the card's PLAY operations). The card then stays in your Briefing Room, unless an effect says otherwise (as with PLAY operations).

You may play and use ASSIST operations only from your hand.

Crossover and the Reward Pile

Cards that belong to the Reward pile are marked REWARD at the bottom centre of the card.

The example card on the printed page is a Person (Spock) marked REWARD at the bottom centre.

The Reward pile is an open pile. You may look at all the cards in it at any time.

Example: ASSIST

You play K'ranch to use its PLAY operation: PLAY: Gain 1 [red icon]. Draw 1 card. You may log the drawn card to gain 2 glory. If you do, you may promote this card to bridge officer.

Thereby you may trigger Boimler's ASSIST operation: copy K'ranch's PLAY operation. You promote Boimler to bridge officer, since "promote this card" now refers to the copying card.

Boimler's ASSIST: After you promote 1 PERSON to bridge officer, copy 1 of its PLAY operations.

Promoting Bradward triggers D'Vana Tendi's ASSIST operation: you promote Tendi. Her PASSIVE operation allows you to have her and Boimler as bridge officers at the same time.

Tendi's ASSIST: After you promote 1 UNDERDECKS card to bridge officer, gain 2 glory / latinum / dilithium and you may promote this card to bridge officer.

Caution: Krulmuth-B, the one new Location in this expansion, gives access to the Reward pile. Its printed instruction is to shuffle this pile and draw from it face down. This is a special effect of that Location.

Cards from the Reward pile are never part of the Market and cannot be scanned, junked, etc.

Make sure you do not shuffle these cards in with the Market cards, and sort them out before or after each game. (Future expansions may add more cards to the Reward pile and more ways to interact with it.)

Placing Resources

When an effect asks you to place resources on a particular card (in the Market or in play), take the stated amount of resources from the supply — or for glory, from the current Stardate card if possible — and place them on that card (see "From … onto / into"). Resources still on your cards at the end of the game do not count toward final scoring, unless explicitly stated.

From … Onto / Into

When an effect asks you to move a number of resources of one kind from one place (e.g. your supply or a card) onto or into another place (e.g. onto a card or into your supply), take that number of resources of that kind from the specified place and place them on or in the other place. If you move resources out of your supply in doing so, you do not spend them in the process. (So glory cannot be used as dilithium or latinum.)

Spending Resources

The base game rules for spending resources remain unchanged. When an effect asks you to spend [resources] from [a particular card], remove the resource markers from that card only, and not from your supply.

Important: You can never spend resources on cards, unless you are explicitly told to.

Act As If It Had (Trait)

When an effect asks you to act as if a card had a certain trait, that card has this trait for as long as the relevant operation is active. "Act as if [certain cards] had [trait]" means that all of these cards keep their printed traits and also gain the named trait. For cards that already have the named trait, the operation has no effect.

Some cards allow you to act as if the specialty symbols of one colour were another colour. When it matters whether the original colour still applies, this is explicitly stated on the card.

PASSIVE: If you have 1+ Weapon in play, act as if all red specialty symbols on your cards are wildcard specialty symbols.

PASSIVE: Act as if all your red specialty symbols are blue specialty symbols instead. (They can no longer be used as red specialty symbols; a wildcard specialty symbol may still count as both.)