We had a bit of an interesting situation arise last night at the end of the session, I wanted to make a quick GM ruling but there were too many variables and conflicting thoughts that I ended the session with the view that I would send in a Dev question, however in the meantime (and until I can get home to look at my books for specific wording) I wanted to see what thoughts the collective might have on this situation:

So, the players have ended up having Elaiza from Jewel of Yavin join two of the party, whilst waiting for the player that actually stole the Gem to arrive at the current location (the group has two ships which always makes planning interesting). Anyway, they all got invited to attend a meeting with a Hutt to discuss the possible sale of the jewel, hear the story of how the jewel was stolen and to talk over a potential job offer. Elaiza was invited along and the party all came together at the relevant time.

The Rodian thief quickly hustled past Elaiza, who was aware that he had the Jewel. Elaiza rolled to see if she could keep the 'jewel lust' hidden but failed her cool role, the Rodian saw her change of demeanour, she saw him see this and in a bad choice reached for where her lightsabre normally hung on her hip. I called initiative and the Rodian went first; he drew both his pistols and opened fire (he has lots of the dual fighting gunslinger talents) scoring a solid hit with lots of advantage and a triumph. At this point the Wookiee Marauder who has come to like Elaiza activated his Unmatched Protection signature ability to protect his ally and stepped in to take the hit (I know that according to RAW and a previous Dev answer that this shouldn't be activated as an 'out of turn' incidental but lets ignore that for now!).

The problem arose with regards to how many hits can this ability protect the ally from? The wording of the ally protection bit of the sig ability references a single attack, so the Wookiee argued that this was a single attack. The Rodian has a talent that would allow hits to be allocated to multiple targets, lending credence to the argument that the Wookiee would take the first hit but the hit from the second gun could bypass the Wookiee and still hit Elaiza.

And thinking about it, the Rodian could choose not activate the second hit which leads me to believe that the second hit in theory does count as a second attack.

My immediate ruling was to say that the Wookiee took the first hit (at half damage) but that the Rodian could spend his triumph to have the additional hit to still strike Elaiza. This was then questioned by another player asking if it meant the Triumph was the same value as the two destiny points that were spent to activate the sig ability. It was late, I was tired, and it was at that point I decided to leave it unresolved as I ran out of energy.

Has this come up in anyone else's game or does anyone have any thoughts on how to interpret all of this?

The Wording is: "when an Ally is hit by an attack, (the user) may be hit instead."

So it refers to the full attack not to a single hit of an attack.

While the gunslinger had announced to hit on Elaiza with every hit of his attack, then the wookie announced to use his (GM approved OOTI) unmatchedprotection to get hit by the attack instead, so he covers the original victim.

The wookie will be hit by both attacks (depending on his upgrades both or only one reduced by half)!

If the Gunslinger had announced to hit different targets before like: I shot at Elazia and at the Guard, then the wookie would have only be able toi save one of them.

Talents that allow to hit multiple targets (this includes autofire, spitfire, Move-power with magnitude, sarlacc sweep) always have to announced before the check and it is always important to declare all possible targets before rolling the check, since you always will have to roll against the strongest defender (who also will always be the first to be hit)

You have to watch out for Talent priority order, some talents have to be activated before the check other after the check.
Then it is always in this order: First the attacker declares all his talents that will have impact on the dice pool (Aim, True aim, guns blazing, ebb/flow power) or have another impact on his next check (like martial grace or Falling avalanche) than he declares if he wants to use a Destiny point to upgrade his pool.

After that the defender declares his Talents that will alter the pool (like Dodge, Nemesis (for NPC)) and if he wants to use a DP to upgrade the difficulty of the check.

Now the check is made.

Next up talents taht alter the outcome of the check. Again the Attacker goes first to use his talents to alter the dice (with unmatched fortune, or the enchanced, Flow (changing pips to sucess and advatages )) then adding not thrown symbols (via Seek-power adding triumph, or flow adding add vantages/ sucesses from former checks)

after this the check is resolved

now the attacker may use incidential talents to ramp up the damage (like Anatomy Lesson if no DP was used to upgrade the check or to activate a signature)
afterwards the defender(s) may use interupting incidentials (Parry, Reflect, Unmatched Protection) to reduce or redirect the damage.

So in your case you Gunslinger tried to go around the orders by seeing his attack didn't hit his initial target thanks to the last interupting effect of a defender and tried to activated something he needs to declare in front of the attack, at a time where he is no more able to activate anything.

The order of announcements is really important - first attack than the defender.

So NO :"Hit - 12 Damage!" "Ahh I use my reflect! that will reduce 6 damage before soak... oh with my soak of 6 that is no damage" "Dam m I want to crit ... Oh I have anatomy lesson I flip the DP - then I can crit!" ether the attacker has to make the decision to aim for the heart (anatomy lesson) before the enemy reflects or he won't be able to add it up.

Normally I would agree but Spitfire can allocate hits after the check:

SPITFIRE
Activation: Passive Ranked: No Trees: Gunslinger
After the character makes a successful combined check with two Ranged (Light) weapons, each additional hit generated as part of the attack can be allocated to any other target within range of the weapon.

Which is where part of the problem comes from. My initial thought was the Wookiee stepped in and took the first hit, the Rodian could then declare that the next hit struck a different target as i would presume the Wookiee took the place of the initial target? But this would over-ride the signature ability, hence why i impose a cost of a truimph, which was then questioned.....

That would implie that a character could forgo any difficulty to hit a NEMESIS at medium by targeting a Minion in short first, which would be wrong (attacking the BBEG with only one purple at the cost of one advantage [blaszing guns and "paired" guns assumed). Not in a million years!

RAI is that it works the same as autofire and thus needs to declare the possible targets first to define the final difficulty!

The Gunslinger could declare more targets like: "the minion tropers in short, the rival brawler in short, the Nemesis in medium, and the minion tropers in medium" the GM has to look at the worst difficulty (mostlikly the Nemesis at medium) [this is also covered in the rules section of two weapon fighting - create always the worst pool for the user] then he may hit the target and if enough advantages are in there he may hit another of the declared targets.

But even if he could use this technique to change the target without difficulty, your example wouldn't work, because of the order of announcements.

The Gunslinger throws his check. -> He declares "one success and two advantages" NOW he has to tell you what he will do with the advantages: "Since I do 7 damage I use the advantages to hit that girl a second time!" Attack resolves as two hits with 7 damage each: NOW the Wookie jumps in using unmatched Protection to take the hits of this attack.

the gunslinger already used his advantages he can#t redirect the attack afterwards. his Target was the girl all the time, the wookiee used his ability to force a target change after the gunslingers talents, the gunslinger doesn't get a second time to change the target (also he couldn't change the target since he always targeted the girl.)

the wookie reacts to the gunslinger, not the gunslinger to the wookiee

For the player to visualize it, you can compare it like this:

"you shot 2 times in a blink, you know both will be killerblows right on the mark! but then in the last second before the impact a furry wall of wrath appears right in front of your target getting hit by your precisly aimed shots."

"But i want to redirect the second shot!"

"That one that is already flying to your target... how? are you Kylo Ren that you can stop the blasterbolt midair and let it fly in a curve around the pissed wookiee? No don't think so!

you can't use your attack talent to negate the defense talent of another character"

BTW, it is the same with the Lightsaber crystal that allows to forbid parry on an attack for a triumph.

The player hast to attack, if he rolls a triumph he hast to declare rightaway that he uses this to forbid the parry, he can't wait if the other would use parry or not!

This whole insistence on order of declaration is completely out of place in a narrative focused game. Also, yes spitfire IS meant to be superior to autofire. It costs experience to get. So you definitely can hit the nemesis without increases in difficulty, because your trickshots bypass it.

For OPs situation: I'd let the wookiee block both. He jumped right into the line of gunfire. But if the rodian wants to allocate to any target that's not the one protected, that would be fine.