Action Card: "Send Proxy"

"You may vote in this Council even though your Repr. was killed. Play: After 1 of your Repr. is killed."

Can this AC be used by the Nekro, to circumvent their inability to vote?
For example: The Nekro use their Councillor to destroy most of the council. The Councillor effectively killing itself in the process.
Then the AC would be eligible to be used.

The negative Racial Ability of the Nekro forbids them to vote, but does not speak of other effects overriding that rule.
In contrast, the positive Racial Ability of Creuss allows them to "always use Wormholes, regardless of other game effects or restrictions" such as ACs and PCs.

I'd say yes, because it makes sense thematically there are plenty of action cards that are stronger, so it's not a balance issue.

I'd allow it due to the basic rule that when an AC is in conflict with another rule the AC takes precedense.

I would say no because the Nekro Virus can't send representatives and therefore they can't be killed

The Nekro Virus do have Representatives they send to the council.

A Bodyguard, allowing them to gain TradeGoods, if the targeted player votes "yes"

A Spy, allowing them to make a target player between deciding what Nekro assumes and give them a technology for that, or decide the other way

And a real Councillor who… effectively blows up the whole fun. Either shifting the balance of the council all the way around, or even making the council discard the whole Political Card they're debating on (works wonderful with moving speech).

The Nekro do not cast votes under regular terms, but they can affect and manipulate other Players and the Council as a whole, and so still can have tremendous effects on political outcomes.

So far, many thanks for all your responses

Like Aeonim said but in a different way: Yes the Nekrovirus sends representatives. They just don't vote. You are confusing the sending of representatives with the actual voting. In effect, the Nekrovirus abstains all their votes.

I don't think Action Cards or Political Cards have the power to override Racial Abilities unless they say specifically that they do. The Nekro Virus has the Racial Ability "You may not vote. . ." and that cannot be overridden by any means except through the Cultural Crisis AC.

Interresting point. I guess sending in a rules query is the only way to get a definitive answer.

I agree that Multiculturalism would definitely enable Nekro to vote.

Yet I am not convinced by Paladin Guy's point of view, since we have the case of Creuss, released in the same expansion.

Assuming wording is always consistent, other races Racial Abilities could always be manipulated by other game effects, including Action- and Political Cards.

Except for the Creuss's Ability to use Wormholes.

As I read it, Creuss could of course still use wormholes if it was forbidden by, for example, a LAW. If Multiculturalism would then be used on them to force them not to use Wormholes for sure, the Action Card would simply be void, since that specific Racial Ability of Creuss persists through any game effects and can't be manipulated away.

Inference: Nekro Virus "you do not vote" can be manipulated by any game effects that were not in effect from game-setup, stating that you can "now".

Aeonim said:

In my opinion Multiculturalism does not enable the Nekro to vote because it says: "Choose one racial special ability possessed by one of your opponents. You gain that special ability this round."

It only allows you to choose a "special ability" but no race has the special ability: "You are allowed to vote on politcal cards." So you cannot copy this fundamental rule which allows every race to vote, because it is not a "special ability". You have to look at it this way: The Nekro have the special ability "You may not vote on Political or Agenda cards.", you could copy this one with another race using Multiculturalism, but it would not help you very much.

Aeonim said:

The special ability of the Creuss says: "You may always use Wormholes, regardless of other game effects or restrictions." This means that no Law, no action card and nothing can prevent the Creuss from using wormholes. How should the Multiculturalism card force them not to use wormholes? You can only gain an additional special ability for a round, but no race has the special ability saying: "You are not allowed to use wormholes." A law can only forbid all the races except the Creuss to use a wormhole, but that is not a special ability, so you cannot force the Creuss to not use wormholes by using Multiculturalism.

Aeonim said:

It is true that it would be possible for the Nekro to vote if the action or political card you use says: "You may vote even though you would not be allowed to."

However, the action card Send proxy says: "You may vote in this Council even though your Representative was killed."

This does not mean that the Nekro are allowed to vote because they are not even allowed if their representatives are not killed.

It allows players which lost a representative to vote even though he is dead, but it does not give you the fundamental right to vote if you did not even have it in the first place.

mulder said:

Dang ><

I meant "Cultural Crisis" of course. I am sorry for this stupid mistake

Cultural Crisis let's a chosen player (including yourself) lose all racial special abilities for a round.

-----

You brought up a considerable point in the question of "Send Proxy".

I'm still waiting for an official answer on this.

At least it would be sufficient to spin tales of epic Space Operas

Well you are right with the Cultural Crisis, even though I do not understand how it can fit into the lore, I mean a virus can't have a cultural crisis, but of course it would be unfair to exclude a single race from an action card.

About the official answer you are waiting for: Are the developers answering in this forum?

Maybe the virus can have corrupt files as their version of a Cultural Crisis? And it's rectified after a self diagnostics test. But since they're such an immense network, it takes a whole game round to send out the latest patch to every single cpu…

The corrupt files sound very good, I didn't think of something like that, I imagined it more like a slow process which than escalates into a short crisis, more of a change in the society or something, but the virus is extremely good, because you could expand that idea to other races, I mean not exactly the same but if you think of the Arborec, they could be infected with a disease that changes their way of behaving and be cured after a round. Thanks, that made the card much more believable to me.

The Nekro are still an intelligent society, if a very logic one. The Geth of Mass Effect are a good example for them (or even more so the Reapers *coughcough*). Sticking to Geth, (spoiler alert) we already see a divided society, because of different interpretations, assumptions, ideas, prognostics, beliefs, calculations.

In a way, the same could be applied already to the L1Z1X "Mindnet" after all.

Personally, I see the Nekro Virus in the Galactic Council, seen by the other races, as "a major player", "an obvious threat", "still sending Representatives to speak for them and communicate". So they can't be that evil and against everything, right?. But dangerous they are, that's an obvious fact for everyone.

Why don't they vote though?

Are they seen as too "young" and/or "dangerous" yet to consider them the right to cast votes? Listen to their opinions on subjects, yes. Throwing their influence into the fray already, no.

Is it their personal agenda to stay neutral on everything and just pull strings behind the scenes?

Both probable cases.

Their representatives indicate the first possibility though. They have to resort to much more menacing and psychological warfare in the council.

Players always have to chose if they vote the way the want and in return benefit the Nekro. Or risk losing a potential agenda to not benefit the Nekro - which in turn might be positive for the Nekro as well, or at least not negative. The Nekro try to create win/win situations. Calculating at it's best.

They always take advantage of other players fears. Constant harassment, constant growth by these, a threatening mothership, wherever it goes, and their representatives are falling right into that schematic.

Their one Councilor fits well into all of this. The Nekro will only use it in safe and important situations, having the other players lured into a standard pattern for example. Or where it can wreak the most havoc (but if that's sensible is another question).

In the case of it's use, the tale could have been something like this:

For the first time, the Nekro Virus's representatives ask for permission to speak. Many political analysts agree that it was the Flaming Speech the previous Councilor held, that has ignited this spark of urgency seldom seen in a political member of the Nekro Emissaries. The arguments against the current agenda where all precise and logical, and many yet indecisive representatives, delegates and important members of the great and minor races where nodding in thought as they listened.

But there the records suddenly turned into the white snow and noise of lost signals and a rumble was heard and felt all through the center hills of Mecatol City. Sapphire security glass and dust rained down the perimeter around the Galactic Council. Only a few citizens where wounded. The tall building housing the council was mostly intact as well, almost no rubble fell. But the council itself? All dead, except for a few of the sturdiest, yet traumatized and without memory. It took a whole week for Dirzuga Ohao to regrow enough to be able to communicate on verbal terms again. He too could not remember what actually happened.

Gantan Twain, chief-investigator, found the case puzzling. All relevant technology misfunctioned mere moments before the explosion, according to the few extracted logs of personal devices present in the councilors' hall. Yet the building's recording devices in the relevant stories fell out minutes before, during the Nekro's speech. So noone really knows what happened. All that is known is that the Councils Electory System shows that a majority of the Council voted for the last agenda - against the Nekro's proposal. So it must be someone else responsible for this burning wound in galactic democracy and struggle for diplomatic peace.

Noone found the remnants of the tiny Proxy-Scout that infiltrated the mainframe, undetected, thanks to reverse-engineered Naalu physical cloaking technologies. On stand-by for two and a half years it waited between condensators, cables and pipes, listening. Them, when it received command, it struck! Disabled, deleted, manipulated records, tweaked the casted votes the way it should, shrouded it's tracks and then left. Seeking an abandoned ventilation shaft to heat itself up to melt and vaporize itself.

The authorities would need too much time to find any sensible leads, if at all, to be connected to the Nekro. In the end rendering a likely, current faction of anti-galactic guerillas as terrorists and responsible for the event. After all, the populace can't be left with the image of incapable police, secret service and military.

Months later Twain resigned for personal reasons. Deep down he could not bear the giant political lie that hit not just the opposionists, but their settler's world. Twain new it was an excuse to not let the governing parties look the fool. He knew the culprit wasn't found. It all stunk like a huge cover up. It all stunk too much that, in the end, it had to be the Nekro after all. The perfect alibi. The most hated be victim when they were finally, for the first time, with the council. But what would they have gained the most benefit from? The current coalition of Races did not want to hear his theories. They did not want to ignite new strife from the Nekro, as their worlds were - currently - safe from them.

Gantan Twain sighed as he leaned back in his chair, a solemn wind at the curtains. He smelled at his whiskey. It had lost it's fragrance. It tasted metallic.

That's an impressive story you wrote there, was easy to imagine the whole thing going down and it fits perfectly.

There is a thought that just came into my mind, it is allowed to make oral agreements. So would it be allowed for an alliance to threaten another race into not voting at all? Like, forever? And if they did they would be attacked? Like being excluded from the galactic council and if they show up anyways they will have to deal with severe consequences?

I just keep thinking about the posibilities of oral agreements, especially since the Nekro can't vote and it seems to me that they are the perfect race to threaten other ones. (We always use text messages to write each other secret messages and form alliances or speak about our next actions to have a bigger strategic plan).

Ruleswise it is allowed but personally I'd recommend not to do such a thing since it would probably be a very boring game for the threatened player. And because I have a strong dislike for bullies in general.

I was not thinking about a single bully who threatens all the other players, more of a situation in which one player became too powerful and is now threatening a players homesystem or last system and all the other players know that they will be next. So they could threaten the bully that if he proceeds to be aggressive, he will be excluded from the council. The other way I around a protectorate would be much better, like the bully stops to attack the player but he always has to vote in favor of the bully and some other things.