OK, so I understand that if a player chooses their own colour from the destiny deck, and they have a home planet without a colony, then they may automatically re-establish a colony.

Can the Parasite use his/her power here to also automatically gain a foreign colony?

I believe that when you attempt to regain control over an empty home planet, you skip all the normal steps of the encounter. The rulebook doesn't say this explicitly, but does say that sending ships in this way is "automatic" and "counts as a successful encounter," implying that it is not an encounter in the normal sense.

Since the Allies phase is skipped completely, I don't think the Parasite has any chance to use his power and latch on.

That's a good question, and I don't know how it's been played out in previous editions --- but my understanding of the rules is that if a player chooses to re-establish a colony on one of his home planets, if there are no ships on it, he "automatically" wins. It doesn't seem that he would go through all of the phases and therefore the Parasite's power would not trigger (as there would be no Alliance Phase).

Excellent, many thanks for your help!

Good question. I have the Mayfair edition so haven't played this version yet (I hope to at GenCon) and my memory is a little hazy so take all this with a giant grain of salt.

Is the Parasite's power the ability to automatically ally itself with either the attacker or defender in a conflict?

Here's how I think it plays out (again, Mayfair edition...):

1. Flip Destiny card.

2. Get Own color. Decide to keep it and attack an empty home planet (colony?).

3. Place cone to attack the planet.

4. Place one or more attackers.

5. Alliance phase - Defender calls for allies. No defender so no defensive allies. Attacker calls for allies but decides not to ask for any allies.

6. Parasite uses its power to ally itself with the attacker (assumption: this is the Parasite's power).

7. No cards are played since there is no defender.

8. Attacker wins and moves his pieces to the planet.

9. Allies claim victories. Attacker allies get a base. The Parasite slides down to join the Attacker.

I think but it has been a few years since I last played...

That's how the battles are supposed to play out, and like I said, I'm not sure if it was any different in past editions --- specifically in reference to attacking one's own planet that has no ships on it.

It just seems that the rules for the FFG version make a point of saying the the win is automatic once you point the gate at the planet, that there is no battle, and therefore it never progresses to the Alliance Phase. Then again, this is my first edition, so maybe others could be more enlightening.

I would agree: The rules say that the base is established automatically, and thus no Alliance phase occurs, so the Parasite can not join.

The Vidiot said:

I'd agree as well. There's no reason to give Parasite any more power than he already has (and that is to totally throw the game on its ear when he is 1 colony away from victory).