Card of the Week: The Sun

The proverbial “light at the end of the tunnel” is sunshine, bright and welcome after a long trip through the dark.  Emergence into full daylight can be dazzling until our eyes adjust to the new light.

The Sun is the source of all light, warmth and life.  This card symbolizes success at the highest levels.  Sunlight can permeate dark cracks and shadows, illuminating and bringing new light to previously hidden situations and details.  Whether permanent or fleeting, this is a time to bask in the warmth of its glow, or share its brilliance to brighten the lives of others.

Inverted, this card still represents benefit but in a more mild fashion.  Enjoy the small pleasures you find, but be careful to keep an eye out for perks with strings attached.

In “Cloud Minders”, a Federation planet is threatened by a botanical plague that can only be halted by the rare mineral zenite.  The Enterprise must secure a shipment of zenite from its only source, the planet Ardana.  Its floating cloud city of Stratos is the finest example of sustained antigravity elevation in the Federation.  The metropolis is renowned for its totally intellectual society, its high art culture, and its elimination of all violence.  However, the planet below is wracked by a violent Defender faction of the Troglyte zenite miners.  Kirk finds himself pulled into a struggle between the Ardana High Advisor Plasus and a Defender leader Vanna, compounded by the adverse mental effects of a previously unknown zenite gas in the mines.  The Enterprise creates masks to filter the gas, as a first step toward continued negotiation.