Paul Zhou in another original character to Star Trek Fleet Command. He was added in November of 2019, made available in the event store of the Mirror universe crossover event. And for a while, that was the only way you could have gotten him.
Zhou was also made available in the Gold Trophy recruiting packs for Crucible of War. Now, you can get recruiting shards for him in Premium Recruiting packs.
Paul Zhou’s a recent recruit to Section 31, brought in for his clever tactical thinking. He’s on the forefront of several developing operations for the organization.
Captain’s Maneuver
Fresh Perspectives – Paul Zhou increases the Defense of all Officers on the bridge of the ship by 15%
As captain’s maneuvers go, this one isn’t great. It’s a little bump to the defense stats of your bridge crew.
The rub for Zhou is that using him as captain, at least for the moment, renders his officer ability moot, as the only officer that can activate Morale without being captain is Kirk, and his Captain’s Maneuver gives you a 40% boost (with Morale) to all stats on all officers on your ship, rather than just 15% to defense on your bridge crew.
Officer Ability of Paul Zhou
Upper Hand – As long as the ship has morale, Paul Zhou increases the Shield deflection, Armor, and Dodge of the ship by (30% 40% 80% 160% 300%) of the crew’s Defense.
He’s a great officer to team with Kirk and Spock, as part of a mixed Morale Crew. He’s also good with Admiral Marcus, who can activate Morale once your hull goes under 80%. You need someone to activate morale, or this ability won’t work.
He’s certainly an officer that you’re going to want to max out. And since he’s just an uncommon officer, you’re only going to need one command badge total to max him out. The trick for most players will be getting the officer shards.
So using Paul Zhou like this, in the picture below, is worthless.
There’s no officer to activate him. So this is like having an empty officer slot on your bridge. (By the way, if you’re looking to beat an Enterprise with an Augur, this is probably the best crew for it.)
In order for this to work best, you’re also going to want to max out the below decks defensive stats of your ship – and the nice thing is that if you’re pairing him with either Admiral Marcus or Spock (or both) is that their officer abilities are also dependent on the defensive stats of your crew.
So a crew of Marcus as captain, and Zhou and Spock as bridge crew, with below decks loaded up for defense is going to be a tough one to beat.
Trivia
Since there’s no Paul Zhou anywhere in Trek, I thought I’d give you some of my favorite Pauls:
The Great Paul Winfield
Paul Bunyan
Baseball Hall of Famer Paul Molitor
Paul from Cheers
Billy Paul
And lastly, obviously, Mrs. Paul.