Siskoid's Rolodex #119 ... Siskoid ... [3/14/99 08:38]

[Siskoid's Rolodex offers spot reviews of all the cards judging them by their less tangible qualities, searching for the elusive perfect card: their picture/graphics, lore, Trek sense and stockability. Each on 5 points (so on a total of 20). Mondays, I do Premiere. Tuesdays, AU. Wednesdays, Q-Continuum. Thursdays, First Contact. Fridays, DS9. And Saturdays, Premium cards. Sundays, I back-end the Premiere set from the Zs. It's so darn big, I do it twice! (At this rate, I should be done sometime in the next 4 years.) Comments always welcome.]

Two back end Premieres today to catch up on the time I used to take Sundays off. Finally, the Rolodex is caught up and if you divide 119 by 7, you get a round number. Now it's true that the number of the Rolodex is equal to the number of days I've been doing it. I started this series 119 days ago, or, if you prefer, 17 weeks ago. Next week, litle change: Saturdays, I start doing the Dominion as Premium cards move to Sundays. See you there (and every intervening day)!

#119-Varel, Personnel, Romulan, universal
"Representative of female Romulans trained in the field of science. Assigned to assist with interphase generator project."
-SCIENCE, Physics, Computer Skill, Youth, Staff icon
-INTEGRITY: 4, CUNNING: 7, STRENGTH: 5

PICTURE: A good, if slightly dark head shot with apparent commotion in the background. This last element gives a more dynamic feel to the card, which avoids, incidently, showing off too much green. A good 3.3.

LORE: Varel's universality is paid homage to and her part in the interphase generator project too. Pretty boring aside from that. Why couldn't the "no-name" Romulans get the same funky lore as their Klingon cousins? A 2.

TREK SENSE: Working on a Romulan Science Vessel on a scientific project of course qualifies her to be SCIENCE. Her other skills go well with the project itself. Computer Skill to work the machinery, Physics to understand how it works. Youth is based on her youthful appearance, though that is sometimes hard to ascertain when dealing with long-lived species. The universal icon makes it into the lore - she's "representative" of her species/sex/classification combo. Can't argue with the staffing icon, nor the attributes (regular low Romulan Integrity, regular high SCIENCE Cunning, regular low SCIENCE Strength). Nothing surprising, either good or bad. A 3.

STOCKABILITY: One of only 6 SCIENCE-classification Romulan personnel, Varel can solve Study Cometary Cloud will little backup. Three skills is better than two, and they are fairly useful skills either rare on Rommies (like Physics) or named on a number of other cards (Youth and Computer Skill). Unfortunately, her particular mix of skills isn't that useful for solving missions. She's great for a couple of them, less so for a number of others. Let's call her average: 3.

TOTAL: 11.3 (56.5%) Suffers from Premierosis, but not a bad personnel all in all.

COMPARISON CHART

Adapt: Negate Obstruction - 18.4 (92%)
[...]
Anara - 11.6 (58%)
Arbiter of Succession - 11.6 (58%)
Barber Pole - 11.5 (57.5%)
Ensign Tuvok - 11.5 (57.5%)
Assimilate Starship - 11.33 (55.67%)
Varel - 11.3 (56.5%)
Warp Core Breach - 11.3 (56.5%)
Anti-Time Anomaly - 11.1 (55.5%)
Brute Force - 11.1 (55.5%)
Yridian Shuttle - 11.1 (55.5%)
Activate Tractor Beam - 11 (55%)
Alien Parasites - 11 (55%)
Vash - 11 (55%)
[...]
Zibalian Transport - 7.1 (35.5%)

Siskoid (cuaght up with himself)