7.1 KiB
Emperor Nexus Secret Ally revival and bank-auction purchase
Updated 14 October 2026. Prototyped, with Partial rules coverage. Revival now uses the independent extra source through original native pending continuations and supported Nexus module envelopes. Bank-auction purchase keeps its distinct classic-only boundary. Public starts and publication remain gated.
Rules and connected behavior
The printed Emperor Nexus has an alternative Secret Ally grant during Revival: three additional forces return free, beyond ordinary revival limits. Emperor must be absent and the holder unallied. The grant does not revive leaders, spend spice, or consume ordinary force/free-revival allowances. It can precede or follow ordinary returns while Revival remains open. Submitting the interface's ready action does not itself end that phase or invent a new card deadline. Printed cards, source audit
The Advanced one-per-turn Fedaykin cap remains; native Ix Cyborgs use their separate physical count cap. Select actual normal/elite groups totaling exactly three. Fewer than three remains unavailable, not an implicit up-to grant. Recruits changes the ordinary rate/limit, not this fixed extra count. Independent-source interpretation and changed-path proof.
The card is consumed at declaration, before original pending revival. Version-two receipts track requested (no forces yet), returned or denied. Native Tleilaxu Allow/Prevent, actual typed reserves, once-only free income, Axlotl activity and original Homeworld handling settle the same physical group. Prevention remains a visibly provisional composition; ordinary LaLaLa/free rates do not reprice this independent extra source. No ordinary force/free or native Emperor allied-extra usage grows, and no leader/payer/refund is invented. Denial retains both spent cards and returns no forces/income/Tech. Original Southern Hemisphere can place the actual returned Fedaykin; Tleilax's ordinary Free Revival deployment is not extended to an independently free producer. Strict old completed physical receipts stay readable without replay. Historical snapshots do not require later pools/wallets to remain unchanged.
All four AI profiles use the same projected legal choices. The UI supplies a physical elite selector only when it offers a real choice, shows unavailability reasons, and disables submission while busy. The existing Nexus inspector retains all three printed panels. This is legal functional support, not calibrated strategy.
Bank-auction purchase alternative
The printed purchase option preserves the actual buyer's spice after proving the final price is held. An unallied holder, with Emperor absent, can spend the physical Nexus at the winner-payment decision of an ordinary bank auction. The winner must have the full positive bid in their own spendable spice and cannot use ally contribution. One actual Treachery lot enters their hand, their spice remains unchanged, and normal auction/card follow-ups continue. The public log announces the price/proof/use without revealing excess spice or the Treachery card face. A private signed receipt records the lot, price and unchanged balance; independent use markers and physical custody survive JSON and in-memory SQLite CAS/restart. Rival seat views omit the offer and receipt.
Timing is a provisional privacy choice, not a user or publisher ruling. Every winner in this bounded public auction context receives the same payment confirmation, including a player with only spice and no Nexus card. Otherwise the holder-only pause would disclose hidden ownership. The existing ordinary spice/Karama payment choices stay available; bots use a legal purchase when owned and otherwise use the ordinary decision. The previously asked confirmation-versus-gate question remains pending; this prototype does not settle it for release.
Seller-paid Richese/CHOAM transactions, allied split, expansions and other Secret Ally purchase sources remain gated. The separate normal-auction forced Emperor-payment Betrayal now has a connected provisional full-price funding path. The Secret Ally source contract retains its distinct seller-payment boundary.
Prototype entry and evidence
A fresh ready local lobby can use the existing reusable writer:
node --import tsx tools/start-prototype.ts --profile nexus \
--db PATH_TO_LOCAL_D1_SQLITE --room EIGHT_CHARACTER_CODE \
--version CURRENT_LOBBY_VERSION --out /private/new-prototype-checkpoint
It enables the real twelve-card Nexus setup, backs up saved games, compares the original room/version atomically, preserves seats and other rooms, and rejects redealing a started game. The Nexus is drawn through the ordinary closing-phase opportunity; the writer does not deal a chosen card directly to a player.
Focused tests exercise ordinary-first and Nexus-first returns, zero-spice use, Fedaykin caps, later Ghola, native/Betrayal exclusion, private controls and bots, JSON recovery, corruption, SQLite restart, lost-response replay and competing normal/elite choices. The fixture executes the real setup, alliance and Nexus draw actions but controls starting hands, deck order and the later loss topology. It is a targeted scenario, not an untouched complete game.
Independent source/privacy review and 17 focused effect tests pass; four prototype writer tests also pass. Two genuine-start samples with all four AI profiles finish: Basic 715 actions/19 periodic JSON restores and Advanced 263/7, both with zero rejected candidates and no Emperor use. Two explicitly staged continuations finish in 18 Basic and 17 Advanced actions, with one normal-force Nexus return each and no rejections. All samples preserve exact Treachery, force, elite and Nexus custody; all 14 final seat views also survive restoration. These are bounded continuation checks, not natural full-game acceptance of the Emperor effect or AI calibration.
A separate staged Advanced Fremen browser game spends the Nexus on three forces, including one Fedaykin, then revives three ordinary normal forces. Reserves rise from three to nine, Tanks fall from seven to one, spice remains three and the ordinary free allowance is used only by the second return. One Fedaykin remains in Tanks under the shared elite cap; the card is discarded exactly once. The full inspector is readable, the action notice appears, and pending/resolved states restore through refresh. Private projections and unchanged physical totals pass.
After the power outage, all 733 opening rooms and original seat/recovery records match the private backup; database integrity and foreign keys pass. The healthy server is reused without restart. A separate pre-verification snapshot protects all 734 rooms, including the new QA game. Required broad results, final preservation totals, source fingerprint and push confirmation are recorded in the checkpoint commit and private report.