Played last weekend. Had players advising me that as Jol-Nar, my starting tech advances do not count towards having one tech advance of every color for purposes of the public objective.
Truth or BS?
Do starting tech advances count for the public objective "have one tech advance of every color"
Yes, starting technology advances count as technology advances.
See the first paragraph on page 24 of the TI rule book.
It definitely counts. Your friends were just being anuses.