Here's Looking At You Kid...

[Master Q]

It’s interesting that you came to that conclusion. Rubble and Dust was created before Shipwreck was printed. It’s just been waiting on our list of cards to print some day.

Color me surprised!

I would have thought Shipwreck to have been long before R&D's conception, given how simple SW is and how people have clamored for a Fortress/Site counterpart to DoN years prior. And how R&D is basically SW with conditions.

[sepjazzwarrior]

Maybe R&D was conceived after Thaddeus was a problem...

I agree with Master Q, and would also like to add that I was looking forward to temple shenanigans but now fear R&D and don't think its worth it to put all that work/card space into making a temple work just to have it killed easily even when you dedicate a Dom spot to protecting it

[The Guardian]

The earliest Fortresses that were used (Storehouse, Goshen, Kingdoms, Temples) were all targets for Rubble and Dust so I think that's where the original idea stemmed from. Then we started seeing Sites and Fortresses that were having huge impacts on the game without being targetable by something like R&D (TGT, Caesarea Philippi, etc). However, we didn't really want to print a dominant in the tin sets so we had to wait until we were able to do a full sized set, which ended up being The Early Church. Since R&D was O.T. (and we knew Persecuted Church would be next), it made the most sense to go ahead and print a Fortress/Site counter, and Shipwreck was a logical choice for that.

[Minister Polarius]

If you're feeling a little cocky, there's a really easy way to get this a legal target consistently at the cost of a slot for a turn.