Star Trek Chrono-Trek

Star Trek Chrono-Trek Rulebook

Table of Contents

How to Win

Each player has a unique set of victory conditions, which are encoded onto the bottom of their assigned Identity card. Some will indicate that specific cards should be visible on the Timeline, for others you will need to have a particular set of Artifacts in play, and many will require something from each of these categories.

Note that you can only win during your own turn.

Difficulty Levels

Each character card has a code which indicates the difficulty level of the character. Look for a set of one to four small dots, or "pips," directly under the character's name.

There are eight characters in each difficulty level. We recommend only using the single-pip characters for your first game, using the two-pip characters for your second game, and so on. Only shuffle all the IDs together after trying the difficulty levels individually.

Mixing Difficulties: If you are playing with a mixture of characters of different difficulties, each player must reveal the number of pips on their card. Players must then adjust the number of cards they start with to match their pip count. Players with one- or two-pip characters must discard their choice of the extra cards, while those with four pips will draw an extra.

Who Goes First?

If one player has a character with more pips than any other, that player begins. Otherwise, the player who has most recently watched an episode of Star Trek goes first.

Setup

The game uses three different decks: the Timeline, the ID Deck, and the Main Deck.

To set up the Timeline, arrange its 36 cards, in order, as a 4x9 grid, with the blue and purple sides face up.

To help get the Timeline cards in position, notice that each card has a "time index" in the lower left hand corner with values ranging from A1 to D9.

After setting up the Timeline, shuffle the ID cards and deal one of those to each player.

Lastly, shuffle the Main Deck and deal three cards to each player. Place the Main Deck where all players can easily draw from it.

Players should prevent others from looking at their cards, especially their IDs.

About the Timeline

History is filled with important events that a time traveler can reshape, called "linchpins," along with other events that "ripple" when earlier events are changed. Each Linchpin is identified by a unique icon. Notice that these icons appear in two colors: black and red. The black icon stands for the original version of the event, while red means altered.

When you play a card that lets you change history, you must start by flipping over a Linchpin. You will then adjust all Ripplepoints that change as a result. Every Linchpin will flip at least one Ripplepoint, and may flip several; take note of how these other events are listed on the Linchpin cards.

(Diagram: a Linchpin card showing its "Time Index" and the Ripplepoints potentially flipped by this Linchpin.)

In some cases, Ripplepoints are affected by more than one Linchpin. Sometimes these events will change only when both of the dependent events are changed, and sometimes they are more fragile events that will ripple if just one of the vital Linchpin events are reversed. Pay close attention to the words AND and OR that appear on timeline cards.

Hatch Marks: Notice that the year labels and Linchpin icons include a hatch mark (') when flipped to the alternate side. Fracture cards are marked with a double hatch mark (").

How to Play

On your turn, you will draw a card, add it to your hand, then play a card.

2nd Draw Option

If you don't want to play any of your cards during your turn, you may choose to draw an extra card instead.

Card Functions

There are 7 types of cards:

Artifacts (objects to collect)

Place the card face up on the table in front of you. You must have an Artifact in play in order to use it for Assignment cards, Actions that call for Artifacts, or if your character requires one for victory.

Note that each artifact has a classification: Relic, Tech, Lifeform, or Beverage. This may or may not be of importance when using it.

Inverters (change the timeline)

Each Inverter showcases a different way of traveling through time, but they all do the same thing, which is to flip over a Linchpin card. Whenever you flip a Linchpin, you also flip all Ripplepoints they control. Note that some Ripplepoints are controlled by more than one Linchpin and therefore may (or may not) be changed, depending on other Timeline events.

Actions (single-use event cards)

To play this type of card, do whatever it says, then place it on the discard pile.

Power Actions (extra powerful actions)

These cards are just like Actions except that they're extra powerful and subject to extra restrictions.

Events (mandatory plays)

These cards cannot be held and must be played immediately. Whenever you draw an Event, you must carry out the actions thereon before drawing another card to take your actual turn.

Pre-Game Events: Event cards received in the initial deal don't count, and are simply discarded and replaced without effect.

Assignments (tasks to perform)

These cards provide a big reward if you can collect the two Artifacts listed before you play the Assignment, but you can also simply discard the Assignment and draw two cards.

Fractures (damage the timeline)

These cards override specific Ripplepoint events with more severe alternate realities. Each has a specific spot on the Timeline where it can be played, by placing it on top of the corresponding Ripplepoint. Fractures can only be placed on their spots if the conditions listed at the bottom are correct. Otherwise a Fracture is simply discarded if played. Fractures are also discarded from play as soon as other cards are played that invalidate them.

Fracture Reward: Anytime you successfully place a Fracture onto the Timeline, immediately draw 1 extra card (in addition to anything else that happens when you place a Fracture).

Fractures Prevent Victory: If a Fracture is in play which occurs prior to any events listed on your ID card, you cannot win (unless you need that Fracture).

Fracture Key: Included with this game are 4 reference cards called Fracture Keys. These are mainly needed when playing Romulans (they're the only ones who require Fractures).

Timeline Examples

To help understand how time travel works, let's look at a series of example turns.

First, someone playing Thelin uses an Inverter card to flip the linchpin at B6, causing Spock to die as a child and thus never take Thelin's place as first officer of the Enterprise. Unfortunately, without Spock there to play his pivotal role in the destruction of the Doomsday Machine, the Ripplepoint at B8 is also turned over, so the alternate reality "Doomsday Machine Destroys Rigel."

Suppose the next player just happens to be Mr. Spock (regular or evil). Such a player's existence depends on resetting this event, so they use an inverter to reverse B6. This immediately causes B8 to flip back to its original side.

The third player uses an Inverter to get Kirk expelled from Starfleet Academy for cheating on the Kobayashi Maru test. (Let's face it, that's what should have happened.) Flipping B7' also causes B8 to get flipped, since without Kirk commanding the Enterprise, the Doomsday Machine would also have gone on to destroy Rigel. (In this case, the C2 Ripplepoint with the Khitomer Accords also wouldn't have happened without Kirk.)

The first player, Thelin, again flips B6, returning to the reality where Spock dies as a child. Since B8 is already flipped, nothing else would change. Assuming he previously played the Guardian of Forever, Thelin would then only need to get B7' flipped back in order to win. (Thelin needs for Kirk to be his commander even though, without Spock, they were unable to stop the Doomsday machine from destroying Rigel.)

But the third player just happens to be The Romulans, and one of their keys to victory is a Fracture card called "Doomsday Machine Destroys Earth." As shown on both the Fracture Key and the Fracture itself, this card can only be added to the Timeline if BOTH the Spock and Kirk events have been flipped to their alternate sides. And if this player already had Romulan Ale in play and just happened to have that particular Fracture in their hand, they could play it right now and win!

(The sample Thelin Identity card shows: 2267' Doomsday Machine Destroys Rigel; 2293 Khitomer Accords Signed; Guardian of Forever. The accompanying illustrations show the timeline at each stage: how it begins; after Thelin has flipped B6; after B6 has been restored and B7 has been flipped; and after B6 and B7 are both flipped and 2267 has been fractured.)

Devron Anomaly

Most of the cards on the Timeline are either Linchpin events or the Ripplepoint events they control. But there's a special set of five cards slicing across the timeline which are of a third type, called Anchorpoints.

Anchorpoints are only changed by the growth of a temporal anomaly that begins in the Devron system in the year 2395 and grows larger as it extends further backwards in time.

As this "anti-time" anomaly grows bigger, it extends further backwards in time, and it reaches Earth when it gets to 3.5 BYA (Billion Years Ago) at which point it interferes with the initial appearance of life on Earth and causes the game to end without a winner except Q. (All of this is depicted in the final episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, entitled "All Good Things.")

Pause for Victory

You can only win during your turn. If things are already correct for you when your turn begins, you can immediately declare victory. However, if you take an action that sets you up for victory, you must then take a moment to let that action sink in before announcing your win.

This pause is to give anyone with a Memo From Your Future Self card a chance to undo your game-winning action before you tell them it was the game-winning action. It is incumbent upon them to decide to stop you before it's too late and you've escaped with the victory. Similarly, if you fail to provide an appropriate pause, someone with a Memo may rightly demand that they be allowed to play it before you can win.

Identity Mulligan

If the character you get is someone you've just played, or someone you've gotten too many times, or you just don't care for, you can try again. But no whining the second time!

Common Questions

Q: How do you turn over a Ripplepoint?

A: It can only be done indirectly. Ripplepoints are flipped as a result of flipping a Linchpin.

Q: What happens if the draw pile runs out of cards?

A: Shuffle the discard pile and continue playing. But don't shuffle early! The discard pile should be maintained until someone needs to draw a card and finds no cards available in the draw deck.

Q: Once a Fracture has been placed on the Timeline, how do you get rid of it?

A: With the exception of the Whaleship Fracture, which is only discarded if Whales are in play, you must flip a Linchpin the Fracture depends upon in order to cause its removal.

Q: Is there a hand limit?

A: No.

Q: Is there a list of all the movies and episodes referenced in this game?

A: Andy posted such a list here: LooneyLabs.com/Trek201

This game contains the following cards:

36 Timeline cards
32 Character cards
4 Fracture Key cards
100 Game cards:
- 16 Artifacts
- 10 Assignments
- 12 Inverters
- 7 Events
- 11 Fractures
- 30 Actions
- 14 Power Actions