Bajoran Shrine (#114, U)
Site
Icons: Trouble with Tribbles
Prylars, Vedeks, and Kais may report here.  Once each turn, any
player who has a Prylar, Vedek, or Kai unopposed here with any
other Bajoran may "conduct services:" discard one card from hand,
place bottom card of discard pile beneath draw deck or out-of-play,
then draw one card (or two if any Orb artifact is present).  Unless
station is under [Baj] or [Fed] control, Shrine is suspended and may be
destroyed by any personnel using a disruptor at an adjacent site.
Deep Space 9 | Promenade

Ore Processing for Bajorans.  Interesting, especially after they've nearly driven traditional Processing into the ground with Reactor Overload, a ruling against downloading into the hand, and then Q the Referee to grab the Overload.  So, there's got to be something that inherently limits this card, which provides much of the same deck manipulation advantage ore processing did.  And there are, but I'll try to point out the advantages and disadvantages of each before declaring one superior.

Advantages of Bajoran Shrine over Process Ore: The most obvious advantage: there are currently no external counters to Bajoran Shrine.  No Q the Referee download for a Reactor Overload to stop this from working.  Once you get an Orb here, you can essentially conduct services for two every turn without any fear of [Ref] cards.  This by itself is a pretty large advantage, as the Bajorans can easily get an Orb with HQ: Return Orb to Bajor, which even plays for free at the Chamber of Ministers.  Which Orbs are the best to use in this manner?  You've only got three choices: Orb of Prophecy and Change, Orb Fragment, and Orb of Wisdom.  Let's compare and contrast these: Orb of Prophecy and Change gives you an even greater ability to manipulate your deck.  Combine regular service conducting with Orb of Prophecy and Change and a Guest Quarters, and you've got immense control over what you draw.  This can give you a huge advantage, as not only are you drawing three cards a turn, but you also have a lot of choice in those draws too... it's kind of like having both quantity and quality.  Orb Fragment?  I wouldn't recommend it.  While it's a good defense against Dal'rok trippers (sure to be more common with the advent of Defend Homeworld), it's too defensive of a use to equal the benefits the other Orbs will have against all types of decks.  The Orb of Wisdom allows you to play cards for free here (since Bareil Antos and Kai Opaka, both very strong cards in a Bajoran Shrine deck, both have [O] icons), but unfortunately you're limited to more Prylars, Vedeks, and Kais, the latter two of which already report for free at the Chamber of Ministers.  There's not a whole lot of these, either, so you won't get much benefit from this... unless you get The Emissary at this location, (but that'd also come at a pretty big cost, described in the Disadvantages paragraph) in which case you have a tremendous advantage of drawing lots of cards, choosing what you draw, and playing cards for free.  The INTEGRITY boost provided by Orb and the across-the-board attribute increase from The Emissary also help defend against Dal'Roks tripped at DS9.  Another advantage over Process Ore: this can be done at any time during your turn.  You can move these personnel to solve a mission, then come right back next turn without missing a single service.  Conduct a service before departing for the mission; next turn, move back to the Shrine and conduct another.  You don't have to replace the personnel on the same turn, as you did with Ore Processing.  You can also use hidden agenda text before conducting services, allowing you to use cards like Quark's Isolinear Rods to get a semi-Examine Singularity-ish effect, but this can only be used once per game.  Still, it's not a bad use, especially since you might be able to get the personnel into play the next turn if you want if he's placed below your draw deck and can be downloaded by Quark's Bar, Cargo Bay, etc.  Yet another advantage: You don't have to be at a planet or at Mining Survey to conduct services.  This is probably the best way to avoid Sheliaks and Dal'Roks: seed Ultimatum to download Bajoran Wormhole, then seed Deep Space 9 there.  No worry about any dilemmas being tripped there.  Of course, you are more vulnerable to Dominion smackdown decks coming through the Wormhole, but if you were in the Bajor region you'd have been struck within a turn or two anyway.  You can also seed it at Characterize Neutrino Emissions, so you can earn multiple Orbs, just for general use and as backups in case one is destroyed or needs to be moved somewhere else.  One final advantage: If it comes down to a Bajoran player wanting to seed DS9 and a Cardie player wanting to seed Terok Nor, the Bajoran player always wins out because DS9 seeds a phase earlier than Terok Nor.  You're guaranteed to start out with a Bajoran station, whereas if you were trying to process ore at Terok Nor (hey, that rhymes!) you run the risk of playing against Bajorans and having to commandeer the station first.

So, there's all these great advantages to this card.  Has Process Ore been reprinted in a more powerful form?  Well, there's also a good number of drawbacks as well.  First is the usefulness of the site away from deck manipulation.  The Ore Processing Unit was included in most Nor decks anyway not just for ore processing but also for the ability to Ops-download an ENGINEER.  In terms of mission- and dilemma-solving, ENGINEERS are much more useful than Prylars, Vedeks, or Kais.  And this problem only gets worse if you also seed Guest Quarters to grab The Emissary early on.  You're essentially duplicating the same classifications available for download, which may offset your additional advantage in manipulation.  Of course, this is no different than the situation in double Guest Quarters decks, which can work well for other affiliations (have one V.I.P. choose a card for the Process Ore draw; during the turn, move him to the other Guest Quarters and choose a card at the end of the turn; next turn, he starts out at that GQ to manipulate the Process Ore, then moves back to the original one for the end of the turn), but with the Bajorans virtually cripples your downloading ability, as half of your sites can essentially only download one classification: V.I.P., probably the least useful for missions and dilemmas.  (OK, OK, not counting ANIMAL.)  Another drawback: the personnel needed to conduct services is a Prylar, Vedek, or Kai; the personnel needed to Process Ore is either ENGINEER or SECURITY.  An additional requirement to do either of these is that the site be unopposed.  As a whole, ENGINEER and especially SECURITY have much higher STRENGTH than Prylars, Vedeks, or Kais, so it's much easier to keep the site unopposed.  If you're Ore Processing with Dakol, it'll probably take two personnel to take him out.  If you're conducting services, it'll be very easy for your opponent to kill your service conductor with almost any non-aligned (or other compatible affiliation) leader.  This is even worse with the advent of Defend Homeworld, which can download Roga Danar onto a Nor turn one, who can begin wreaking havoc with all station functions by opposing sites and killing personnel.  To defend against this requires multiple personnel at the Bajoran Shrine, but the Emissary/Orb of Wisdom combo might help amass personnel who might hide out in Ops (protected by Intruder Alert!) until no longer vulnerable to these attacks.  So, you've got a good number of personnel there at the Shrine... what's so bad about that?  Read that last italicized sentence.  Unlike ore processing, which is merely suspended when the station is under the wrong affiliation's control, the shrine carries the risk of being destroyed, discarding all cards present there.  It'll be very risky if your opponent can dock a ship, walk one personnel with a disruptor to an adjacent site, walk everybody else to Ops, commandeer the station, and then destroy the Shrine (along with all your personnel there) in one fell swoop, all on his turn with little way to stop it.  So, you'll also need to protect Ops as well.  This requires you to devote a good number of resources to protecting two sites (although Security Office might help here: stick many personnel at the office, and move to either location if a battle starts; but after the battle you'll have one site that's virtually undefended), so it's costlier to defend than Ore Processing.  Also, the Bajorans already have a powerful card drawing method that the Cardassians either do not have: Renewal Scroll.  Although Renewal Scroll isn't as versatile as service conducting and costs a card play, it provides more raw power in sheer number of cards drawn.  Nevertheless, they already have cards that assist in card drawing, whereas the Cardassians have nothing like that except for ore processing.  So, the advantage to the Bajorans isn't nearly as great as it was to the Cardassians in terms of greater card drawing, because they already had a strong card-drawing card.

// Editor's note: the fact that you conduct services during the turn can also be a drawback, since you can't do an Ops download and then conduct services.  For maximum protection, seed DS9 at Bajor (just watch out for the Sheliak) and use Defend Homeworld to discourage your opponent from trying to kill your personnel in Ops //

The final verdict:  The increased difficulty in defending it makes the verdict really dependent on the deck.  This goes well in Colony decks, for instance, because you'll be including the Bajoran cards that help keep your Colony unopposed: Shakaar Edon, Kira, Orta, and Keeve Falor. Assisted with the Emissary/HQ:ROTB/Wisdom combo, it might be possible to get this thing set up in a couple of turns, with enough personnel to defend both Ops and the Shrine in another turn or two.  Not nearly as fast as Ore Processing, but that's exactly what Decipher intended.

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Steve "Sergei Rachmaninoff" Boyles