A Noble Cause
Veterans Program offers A corporation an opportunity to soften it's image, selflessly giving of it's resources to help the people that society owes so much to... Still some skeptics might say that generating public good-will to cover up other activities behind closed doors is jut the kind of long-game such corporations might want to play. Veterans Program represents a bad publicity removal agenda 2 times as efficient as Clone Retirement which though requiring more resources it isn't quite as painful if unsuccessful.
Combos
Clear up bad publicity from ice: Checkpoint, Fenris, Grim, Muckraker, Shinobi, Swarm, all are powerful ice which unfortunately are semi-self defeating in that they confer bad-publicity which the runner in turn can use to better navigate ice for the remainder of the game unless cleared off in some way.
Clear up bad publicity from agendas: Geothermal Fracking, Hostile Takeover, Posted Bounty, Profiteering, Project Ares, Vulcan Coverup all have the negative side effect of inducing bad publicity, Veterans Program could be decent compliment to any of these.
Bad publicity from assets: Reality Threedee is an example of an asset that unfortunately confers a bad publicity when rezzed.
Clear up bad publicity from operations: Hellion Alpha Test and Invasion of Privacy both add bad publicity, perhaps with bad publicity removal options like Veterans Program these operations could be even more viable in decks which otherwise can't handle so much bad publicity
Clear up bad publicity from ID: bad publicity from GRNDL: Power Unleashed may be mitigated by bad publicity removal options such as Veterans Program
Easier to score: Stacking up bad publicity makes NAPD Contract harder to score clearing them out of the way with Veterans Program might be advisable before putting NAPD Contract down to score
Completely flush resources : With the prevalence of Data Leak Reversal for example Veterans Program can be used to clear off bad publicity ahead of using The All-Seeing I to completly wipe the board of all the runners resources, which unless the runner had 3+ bad publicity on the corp this would be unpreventable.
(Did I miss an obvious combo, I'd appreciate any comments that can help improve this review)
Pro
Efficient Double Duty: Clearing 2 bad publicity in addition to scoring an agenda point is what this card is all about
Counter Runner Mischief: There are several cards Runners can use to induce bad publicity such as Valencia Estevez: The Angel of Cayambe who's ability can be completely countered once Veterans Program is scored, Activist Support, Investigative Journalism, Leverage, Tallie Perrault. Futhermore the following runner cards provide a distinct incentive for the corp to remove bad publicity: Blackmail, Investigative Journalism, Itinerant Protesters, Tallie Perrault
Con
Riskier than bad publicity removal operations like Witness Tampering or assets like Elizabeth Mills etc.
Summary
Veterans Program is pretty straightforward but mostly defensive compared to many other 1 point agendas available for each corp. Still as a neutral agenda it's waiting to help any corp repair it's reputation if only deck slots weren't so tight.
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