I was trying to find out if purging virus counters took them off Virus Breeding Ground as well (it seems they do) as everything else, when I came across an interesting question:

Suppose you have Hivemind with 1 counter and incubator with 3. If, for some reason, you took a bunch of sanity loss in a recent Arkham Horror run, and decided to use incubator and put those counters on, say, a Darwin, which of the following would happen?

a) 3 counters go to Darwin (all from incubator).

b) 4 counters go to Darwin (3 from incubator and the 1 from hivemind).

c) either 3 or 4 depending on whether you want that counter to "be spent as if on" Incubator.

I hear you asking..."Why not just put the counters on Hivemind like anyone with brains?"

To which I would reply, "That's not the point of the question, and clearly you didn't see the disclaimer about recent loss of sanity above."

This was asked a while back on BGG, and we didn't get an answer then. There was quite a bit of discussion. Myself and jakdodrako of ANCUR.com believe that the tokens remain on Hivemind, but we don't know for sure without an official answer.

I can't see why Darwin would not wind up with all 4 counters.

Rationale: "Virus counters on Hivemind are considered to be hosted on all other virus programs for the purposes of card effects." So Incubator has 4 counters on it, no ifs, ands, or buts.

I'm not sure what the counterargument would be. The second clause on Hivemind about "may" doesn't apply here: it simply enables them to be spent for Imps and Crypsis etc. Absent the second clause, Hivemind would be good for Chakana and Darwin but useless for Imp. But Incubator doesn't spend tokens, its ability is all-encompassing and not discretionary.

I think I'll pass on reading up on BGG. I like my Sanity where it is, thankyewveddymuch.

Grim, a piece of ICE protecting a satellite protocol is considered to have an advancement counter, but you can't trick of light it. That way lies madness.

So while incubator might indeed be considered to have four virus counters on it, it only physically has three that can be moved. The question then is whether or not the one on Hivemind is also dragged across. Which I now realise is probably what you meant in the first place. Blarg.

But anyway. If trick of light doesn't work with tokens which are 'considered' to be on a piece of ice, then that's where the counter argument comes from.

That's a tricky counterexample--I won't go through the thought process but suffice it to say you made my head spin for a good three or four minutes. But in the end, I don't think it applies.

Satellite Grid in so many words says "pretend this ice has a counter." Hivemind isn't pretending--it basically says "for all intents and purposes, this existent virus token is on every virus in play."

If SG picked up an advancement token when rezzed and said "Advancement tokens on Satellite grid are considered to be on each piece of ice protecting this server," and you had a 1-advanced Wormhole, then you could Trick of Light off of it. (Which not to put too fine a point on it could be future design space. Hmm.....)

But you've satisfied my curiosity how someone could muddy the waters by bringing in other cards that are worded differently.

I'm not sure if it was there before (I don't recall seeing it, but then I wasn't really looking for it), but I was looking over the FAQ today and it actually has this entry.

As was stated, for the reasons stated, the answer is "b"... so don't be stupid and just use incubator on hivemind .