Freaking Retreating.

Okay so a situation came up where I wanted to retreat to a specific system and think I couldn't

I was attacking an Imperial system. Except for one system, all the neighboring systems were either unoccupied, neutral or had Imperial units. One neighboring system was Imperial loyal, and contained both my and Imperial troops. I read the RR and came to the conclusion that I could not retreat to that system and needed to choose an unoccupied system.

Here are the rules in question (RR 5)

"A player must choose to retreat to a system that contains his units or one of his loyalty markers, if able." (There was only one system that met this criteria)

"He cannot retreat to a system that contains his opponent’s units." (both this and the above statement were true about this target system)

"If there are no adjacent systems containing his units or loyalty markers, he can retreat to any adjacent system that does not contain units." (ugh, there were a few of these)

then I look at the golden rules and there is no help there, the closest it comes is:

"If a card ability uses the word “cannot,” it is absolute and cannot be overridden by other abilities."

I reasoned that a lot of the other rules are set up so you can't initiate another combat by retreating, so I figured that system was off limits and one of the unoccupied, neutral systems were fair game.

So whats everyone's take? I do not think this can be resolved by reading the rules (but would be happy to be wrong), so interpretations are just as welcome.

It seems pretty cut and dry to me.

Must retreat to loyal system or system with allied troops (makes sense, you would normally retreat to friendly territory).

You cannot retreat to a system that contains opponents units. This overrules the previous rule. You must retreat to this location, but can't because it has enemy units. (makes sense as you wouldn't retreat to a hostile area)

Thus the third option becomes valid. You can retreat to any adjacent system that does not contain units.

I know the wording of the third step makes you question the previous two, but that's just rules lawyering in my opinion. The intent is pretty clear.

The retreat rules are in place so you can't initiate a second combat with them, or do some crazy planet hopping adventure where you bounce past several systems. It's also in place so that you can't retreat your way to reinforcing other systems.

I agree 100% with Kmanweiss. The rulebook may not talk about blockaded systems specifically, but it's clear what they mean.

1) If there's any unblockaded adjacent systems loyal to you or with your units, choose one of these systems.

2) If there are none that meet those parameters, choose any adjacent system that has no enemy units.