2/6/96
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OFFICIAL FAQ FROM DECIPHER INC.
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STAR TREK: CUSTOMIZABLE CARD GAME

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                              FLASH!

                    FINAL  EASTER  EGG  FOUND!
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by Tom Braunlich
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The information in this document is copyrighted by Decipher Inc. 
1996, however, it can be freely disseminated online or by 
traditional publishing means as long as it is not altered and this 
copyright notice is attached.

TM, (C) & (R) 1996 Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved. STAR 
TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION is a registered trademark of and all 
characters and related marks are trademarks of Paramount Pictures. 
Decipher Inc. Authorized User.
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The search is over!

Congratulations to John Teti, Jr. (johnteti@kear.tdsnet.com) of 
New Hampshire, who found the last remaining Easter Egg in the 
Alternate Universe set on January 28, at 10:43 pm.

John will receive the traditional prize for this unofficial 
contest: a box of chocolate Easter eggs plus a box of black-border 
Alternate Universe cards. Thanks for all who participated -- I 
hope you all had fun. This FAQ contains the solution plus several 
other fun facts. (Spoilers below).

So what is the answer?

I will let John tell you the story in his own words. Then, I will 
give some interesting follow-up information and humorous or 
intriguing other guesses that people made (including "The Great 
Deka-incidence").

Here is how John described the story of finding the last egg...

"As unbelievable as it might seem, this story is true! Thanks for 
letting me write this little story. My family and friends are sick 
of listening to it (minus the very end), and I have to tell 
SOMEONE!  :)

The first Easter egg that I found was the "DANSWERMAN@DECIPHER 
.COM" egg on Interphasic Plasma Creatures. I hadn't known that 
there were eggs in the Alternate Universe set until I spotted 
this, but I knew who to send my guesses to: DAnswerMan. 

Soon enough, I received a FAQ which told me that five Easter eggs 
had been found, and there was only one left. Knowing the 
recognition (and the chocolate ;) that the person who had found 
the Red Alert egg had gotten, I thought it would be fun to find 
the last one. First, I gave the popular "there's something in the 
Hidden Entrance rocks" guess. (I saw a dog, in the lower-right). I 
was later told that things had been found in that wall that would 
"unnerve a psychoanalyst," all of them wrong. My next guess was 
that the registry number of the shuttle on Engage Shuttle 
Operations was an egg, which was also wrong.  

I had gone through the AU set many times and had spent about three 
hours searching for the egg. While I enjoyed the search, I was 
getting frustrated and was almost ready to give up. That evening, 
I turned the TV to the Sci-Fi Channel and saw that "Max Headroom" 
was on. The show created a chain reaction in my brain that 
eventually led to my finding the final egg. While I was watching 
the show, it occured to me that Matt Frewer, the star of the show, 
had guest starred on ST:TNG once. I also realized that the 
character he played on TNG had a card in the Alternate Universe 
expansion set. Then, I remembered a clue that DAnswerMan had given 
me. He had said that the egg would only make sense to those who 
understood the reference. [This "clue" was provided on a general 
posting that DAnswerMan sent out to people who submitted a wrong 
guess. -- TB]  It struck me that if Decipher made reference to 
"Max Headroom" on the Berlingoff Rasmussen card, many sci-fi (and 
therefore TNG) fans would "get it."  

So I got out the Berlingoff Rasmussen card and took a good look at 
it. Yet I didn't see the egg! (This goes to show how very subtle 
the egg was. I had the right card and had a basic idea of what I 
was looking for, but I didn't see it!) After about one more hour 
of going through each card in the set individually, I came back to 
the Rasmussen card. Suddenly, I noticed the "A" on his shirt. 
Right away, the "M" and the "X" popped out at me. It spelled MAX!  

Decipher *had* made a reference to "Max Headroom" after all! And 
just like DAnswerMan had said, the egg was very, very, subtle and 
could only be understood if you knew the reference. I rushed to my 
computer, sent my guess in right away, and crossed my fingers for 
five days until I got an e-mail from DAnswerMan telling me that I 
had found the final Egg."

      -- John Teti Jr.      johnteti@kear.tdsnet.com

For the record, here is the text of the submission which John 
made:

"This time, I'm sure I've found the last easter egg. It is on the 
Berlingoff Rasmussen card. Rasmussen was played by Matt Frewer, 
who starred in "Max Headroom" in the eighties. This explains the 
fact that "MAX" is spelled out in the blocks on Rasmussen's shirt. 
Please reply ASAP. Thanks."

FACTOIDS ABOUT BERLINGOFF

Here are some other interesting "factoids" on this subject.

When we were thinking of Easter Egg ideas, I suggested we do one 
for Matt "Max Headroom" Frewer by putting in the background a 
small parking garage sign (with yellow and black stripes, etc.) 
that says Max Headroom. (Fans of that show know that Max got his 
name after "banging his head" during a crash on such a sign in an 
underground London parking garage.) DecipherÕs art department 
found a much more subtle way of placing the Easter Egg on the 
card, as you can see for yourself. They did not tell me what they 
were going to do, and when I first saw the changed image it took 
me a long time to find the reference!

In the previous Easter Egg FAQ I mentioned that one sharp-eyed 
person had come close to solving this Egg back in mid-December. 
They had sent in an email with about 10 guesses on it, one of 
which was "Berlingoff RasmussenÕs shirt has an E an A and an X on 
it." That was it. He saw the letters, but read the "M" as an "E" 
turned sideways. We decided we couldnÕt give credit for that 
guess, as it was an incorrect stab in the dark, and didnÕt make 
the necessary mental connections. Sorry!  :-)


OTHER GUESSES & "THE GREAT DEKA-INCIDENCE"

Almost as entertaining as the Easter Eggs themselves are the 
intriguing things that people find in the cards which are 
coincidence. Here is a list of several of these guesses, compiled 
by DAnswerMan, which you might enjoy. After this follows a 
discussion of my favorite guess -- a "Deka-incidence" (10 
coincidences in one) as DAnswerMan calls it.

Guess #1
>The Alternate Universe Door. Picard seems to fall out, but
>what's that small line seemingly attatched to his back? What
>is he doing, BUNGEE Jumping, or something?
DAnswerManÕs response:
I believe it is the dividing line between the wall and ceiling -- 
but it *does* sort of look like a bungee cord, doesn't it?  ;-)  
(ItÕs the new fad of the 24th century -- full-vacuum bungee 
jumping! The snap-back at full warp must be a doozy! :-p)

Guess #2
>After the clues you gave I have the idea that the final Easter
>egg is the Star Trek communicator on Empathic Echo is on
>the wrong side (even if it is a reflection). All of the Star Trek
>communicator pins are on the left side above the heart, his is
>on the right side.
DAnswerManÕs Response:
This image is direct from the episode. It is from the episode "Eye 
of the Beholder", and shows a "vision" that Deanna is having 
through another personÕs eyes of a past murder. The image in the 
show also has the communicator in the same position. This might be 
called a mistake by someone at Paramount, but I prefer to think 
the creators of the show might have reversed the image 
intentionally, in order to create a subtle psychological feeling 
that something is wrong (the image also "stretches" for the few 
seconds it is on screen).

Guess #3
>I believe i have found an Easter Egg.If you look at the
>Governor Worf card you will notice that he has human
>hands, not Klingon.
DAnswerManÕs Response:
This is, again, from the episode, but you are correct -- his hands 
do look human. (Which begs the question, "what do Klingon hands 
look like?")  ;-)

Guess #4
>Here it is Answerman, the last egg is on the card "Lower
>Decks" it took awhile to submit this one because it was
>difficult to tell exactly what was on the table, but I have it
>now. On the table is a black bordered edition of Sito Jaxa's
>personell card. The card is placed on the table so as to be
>readable by Sito herself. Kind of ironic that a preservation of
>her image is given to her shortly before she dies.
DAnswerManÕs Response:
I received several messages along these lines. There is no STCCG 
card on the table, but a lot of people sure were hunting for one 
there!

Guess #5
>I think the Last Easter Egg is on Howard Heriloom Candle.
>If you look at the bottom center circle it looks like an Eye!
DAnswerManÕs Response:
Wow, you're right, it does look like an eye.  8-)  But it is a 
coincidence. Again, we pulled this image directly from the show.

Guess #6
>In MAMAN PICARD it looks like there is a phone number
>on her tea cup:  732-6834.
DAnswerManÕs Response:
This is another case where we received multiple guesses along 
these lines all claiming to see different numbers! Actually I 
believe that the teacup has just some fancy scrollwork, although 
it does tend to resemble numbers a bit.

Guess #7
>I know that a number of the easter eggs have been found, but
>is one of them the Iconian Gateway card. It looks like an
>office block in the doorway, and I was wondering whether
>that was actually Decipher's headquaters?
DAnswerManÕs Response:
This was another frequent guess. Paramount apparently used a 
"real" office building in that shot. According to some of the e-
mail I have received from players, Paramount apparently used an 
image of Toronto city hall!


THE GREAT "DEKA-INCIDENCE"

My favorite guess of all is actually an amazing coincidence -- a 
"deka-incidence" as DAnswerMan calls it, because it involves 10 
elements (well, 4 good ones and 6 weasely ones). 

Several people pointed out that:

1) Samuel ClemensÕ Pocketwatch indicates a time of 9:39

2) The cards shown in Royale Casino: Blackjack are 9-3-9

That is the "coincidence". Here is the "tri-incidence" pointed out 
by Sandy Wible (Decipher netrep on Genie):

3) The last three digits of DecipherÕs 800 number are: 939 !

Here is the "quad-incidence", also pointed out by Sandy:

4) The two cards Samuel ClemenÕs Pocketwatch and Royal Casino: 
Blackjack are listed adjacent to each other when the AU cards are 
sorted in alphabetical order!

This amazing "quadincidence" got me to thinking how wonderful 
numerology is! I thought, "I bet I could find more 9-3-9s in 
Alternate Universe." And sure enough, once you begin looking, 939s 
crawl out of the bulkheads in droves! Considering that in the 
episode "Cause and Effect" the dilemma of repeating time was 
solved by sending back in time the number "3" for Data to pick up, 
I canÕt help but wondier if cosmic forces or perhaps future time 
travelers are not at work here! For example:

5) Punishment Zone -- the garden greenhouse shows 9-3-9: there are 
9 side panels facing you, 3 groups of panels overall, and 9 panels 
on top!

6) Governor WorfÕs head -- there are 9 braids of hair on the left 
side, disected by 3 triangular Klingon head ridges, and then 9 
more braids of hair on the right side! 9-3-9! (You might only 
count 8 braids of hair on each side, but donÕt forget Worf always 
wore a pony-tail in back, which runs down the middle and thus I 
claim as the number 9 braid on each side -- you got a problem with 
that?). ;-)

7) Scotty -- He has 3 blue panels behind him with thin or thick 
lines that go halfway or all the way across the panel. If you 
count only the "short" lines (thin or thick), there are 9 showing 
on the left-hand panel, 3 in the middle, and 9 on the right! 
(Okay, well sort of.)

8) Howard Heirloom Candle -- It has 9 holes in the front, 3 rows 
of holes overall, and 9 holes visible in the back! 9-3-9!

9) Interrogation -- the wall in back has 4 dark panels + 5 blue 
panels in it for a total of 9. The symmetrical image is disected 
by the Cardassian, who has a prominent 3-pointed collar (exactly 
in the middle of the image). And finally there are 4 lights shown, 
but Gul Madred insisted that Picard must see 5 lights, thus 4+5=9! 
So, it is 9-3-9! ;-)

10) We live in a solar system with 9 planets, Star Trek was 
created on Earth -- the third planet, and this joke has gone on 
about 9 times longer than it should!  :-D


(By the way, if you like Trek numerology, watch for the number 
Ō47Õ in the episodes. It comes up regularly!)


Thanks again to everyone who participated in this hunt. WeÕll try 
to do it again in the Q-Continuum set!

END