Dune/docs/NEXUS_HARKONNEN_RULES.md

# Harkonnen Nexus: source and implementation contract

Source audit, 10 September 2026. This is a rules contract, not a runtime completion claim. The [common Nexus lifecycle](NEXUS_CARD_RULES.md) and existing expansion release gates still apply. The pending reaction-privacy question remains unresolved; this audit does not authorize a Betrayal reaction policy.

## Earned phase cards and original replacement — 18 October 2026

Fresh classic core now retains Tech3+ and Advanced Strongholds2+ with
selected33/36, optionally14. Actual all14 base33 Carthag controls reveal the
native matching call, spend the genuinely drawn Nexus, preserve physical
Shield poison survival, finish original card/retention/capture/inspection
priority and draw one private actual replacement at Mentat. The separate
held module card is never added to the Treachery census or transferred early.
Harass return and native winner token transfer create no free-Revival income.
[Exact bounded proof](NEXUS_CARD_RULES.md#classic-nexus-original-phase-modules--18-october-2026).

## Original base33 core without card dependency — 18 October 2026

Fresh classic2–6 Basic/Advanced Nexus now initializes the original native
call protocol with base33 or selected independent36, optionally all14. The
independent three-card variant is not required. A genuine base33 all14 call
can be canceled and reaches one actual private Mentat replacement; without
Harass, its ordinary losing board counter still goes to Tanks. Public
selection preserves the original base33 census/three-element history grammar.
Original counter/acknowledgement policy and other module envelopes remain.
[Shared current core proof](NEXUS_CARD_RULES.md#classic-nexus-core-and-funded-card-shipments--18-october-2026).

## Classic independent-card native reactions — 18 October 2026

**Prototyped / Partial.** Fresh normal classic2–6 Basic/Advanced
independent36/Nexus12, optionally all14 Skills, now initializes the existing
Harkonnen effect state when Harkonnen is actually seated. Ixian replacement
initializes alongside it. These are native fresh capability stamps, not
another selected module or a played-save retrofit. Native selected families,
Worlds, phase modules, Discovery/Semuta and other reaction envelopes remain
separate. Original standalone base33 admission is unchanged.

The original printed effect below and independent-variant authority compose
through the same declared-Traitor protocol. Under standing choose-recommended
authority, inherit the existing visibly provisional native-counter-first /
public-possible-holder acknowledgement convention for this bounded entry.
This is not a new publisher ruling or an answer to the universal policy
outside it. Personal calls gain no new native counter; allied calls retain
their actual printed Karama allowance first.

The current physical census uses the public independent-card selection, never
a held face or inferred deck length. Its historical inventory adds a true
selection marker only for independent36; original three-element inventories
and signatures retain their grammar. Card identities/names/effects and the
actual classic Traitor universe remain exact. Starting training and the real
closing Nexus draw precede the battle; no force, hand, death or clock is staged.

Actual personal Use preserves Harass's one undialed return and the living
target, returns only the declared Traitor, then draws the real private reserve
top once at Mentat. All14 Pass retains the actual call: leader death, one
physical Tank loss and canceled Harass. A real allied printed counter prevents
the call before any Nexus cost; allowing it opens the same acknowledgement
with Guild as actual combatant beneficiary. Native skilled-disc shield choices
are made through their original controls.

Six combined consumer regressions pass in
`tests/classic-independent-nexus-reactions.test.ts`, backed by its original
action producer. The actual390px allied scene passes native allowance→owned
Nexus Use→Harass→original winner inspection→Collection→private Mentat draw,
including the new actual Traitor inspector. Four legal policies reach Mentat
with one replacement each. Broader source, assurance and deployed gates remain.
[Combined current evidence](NEXUS_CARD_RULES.md#classic-selected-card-reactions--18-october-2026).

## Permanent markers and legal replacement return — 15 October 2026

Shared Harkonnen exchange snapshots now include Moritani's derived permanent
`removed` zone in the canonical census. It is not reserve or hand custody and
cannot fund a draw/return. New source records bind it; old absent-zone tuple
grammar remains unchanged, and older completed history does not adopt later
live markers. A historical Moritani replacement can legally return and be
drawn again; only its actual public victim marker remains permanently out.

This is distinct from Betrayal returning the declared Traitor to reserve,
which may legitimately be redrawn. Its whole serialized source preserves
existing permanent markers and cannot use one for replacement. The bounded
classic-only Betrayal roster is unchanged; no native Moritani/Betrayal
composition is certified by the pure source/replacement regressions.
Actual native Secret Ally controls return Hasimir6, keep Esmar3, restore Mori
placement and preserve historical receipts through a later same-card redraw.
[Canonical source/role, native evidence and remaining gates](MORITANI_ASSASSINATE_LEADERS.md#physical-replacement-roles-and-retired-card-zone--15-october-2026).

**1 October bounded local follow-up, verified 2 October:** `harkonnen-betrayal`
connects a separate fresh classic/base-deck/Nexus-only Basic/Advanced preview.
Native allied Harkonnen counters precede a uniform acknowledgement by public
possible unallied held-Nexus owners before the original battle outcome.
This is an explicitly provisional local ordering/privacy convention, not an
answer to the previously asked universal reaction policy or a publisher ruling.
The old audit's pending questions remain open outside this profile. No public
start, old-game retrofit or combined-module gate is opened. Verification is
**Partial**, with development stage **Verified** for the bounded evidence below.

## Bounded Betrayal preview contract — 1 October 2026

The profile requires native Harkonnen and unique 2..6 classic seats,
the physical base33 Treachery Deck and twelve Nexus cards alone. Ix/CHOAM/Ecaz
decks and factions, Homeworlds, Leader Skills, Discoveries, Semuta and other
overlays are excluded. Natural alliance-qualified closing Nexus rights still
apply; no initial deal is added. An effect needs at least three actual seats;
two simultaneous unallied receivers need four. Two-seat ordinary continuation
is valid without a fabricated card or alliance.

Admit only an actual legally matching native personal or allied traitor call
with canonical original battle/event, revealed plans, provider, combatant
beneficiary, target and physical identity. Original allied Karama/BG counter
allowance comes first; native cancellation opens no Nexus gate or cost.
Personal calls gain no new native counter. Invalid, false, protected,
non-Harkonnen, finished or changed sources reject rather than offering a retry.

After genuine native allowance, the actual matched traitor is publicly declared
before its outcome. Every publicly possible unallied non-Harkonnen held-Nexus
owner acknowledges uniformly, independently of private face; only own eligibility
exposes Use or a blocked reason. Public roles and that actual identity grant no
other Harkonnen traitor, rival Nexus, reserve order, source or receipt entitlement.
Other unsubmitted traitor choices stay private. Own Nexus inspection uses only
the existing actual-card entitlement.

Pass retains both cards; all required passes preserve the original call once.
Use spends one physical Harkonnen Nexus, removes only the declared Harkonnen
Traitor Card, shuffles it into the actual reserve immediately, prevents that call
and resumes the surviving original battle once. Preserve a consistent historical
declaration without implying current Harkonnen ownership after return. No battle
rewind, automatic refund, other traitor cancellation, Treachery slot, spice,
force or leader cost is added.

One exact successful-Use obligation survives to actual current Mentat opening.
The native transition draws the actual reserve top privately once before optional
Mentat work/victory acceptance in this bounded profile, records drawn provenance
and retires the due marker. It can legitimately redraw the retired identity
after its shuffle. There is no extra click or selector and no artificial saved
half-phase draw state: final Collection readiness and Mentat opening are atomic.
Refresh/recovery cannot reshuffle, redraw or repeat the battle/phase suffix.
Nonrecursive history binds each Use obligation rather than whichever later
all-pass receipt is last; closed history does not freeze retired-card ownership.

Both actions submit the offered event only. Pending gates retain native
response/decision/Truthtrance priority and independent own-seat autopilot, while
blocking ordinary votes and competing custody mutation. All four difficulties
use canonical private minimal Use/Pass choices, not strategic calibration.
Current-source corruption and foreign/stale/extra payloads reject immutably.

Parent verification is **Partial development verified**: types/lint and
**6,401/6,401** offline tests pass; the affected eight-file union passed
**138/138**. Ten actual native personal/allied Basic/Advanced Use/all-pass/
partial-refresh cases reach the real Mentat transition; printed and Advanced
BG Worthless preemption retain original cards and spend native fuel once.
Four privately backed-up original-setup CLI/390px rooms exercise human Use,
wrong-face Pass, both public/own inspectors, partial refresh and actual native
HTTP battle/Collection/Mentat continuation. Read-only proof retains all33
Treachery/all12 Nexus/Traitor stock, identity/circles, exact retired identity,
one private actual reserve-top replacement and nineteen earlier QA rooms.
Administrator progress matches the sole public unfinished acknowledgement.
Both final scoped native and privacy reviews have no finding.
The printed face, separate universal reaction question, competing-module/
Traitor-Deck priority and deployment remain distinct. This is not complete
Harkonnen/Nexus play or a deployed claim.

## Primary authority

- [The original printed Nexus components](https://boardgamegeek.com/image/7767032/dune-ecaz-and-moritani): the Harkonnen face was freshly inspected in the previously acquired 3024×4032 photograph, `/tmp/dune-nexus-cards.jpg`. Its three panels establish the effects below. The photographed publisher text is the authority, not the uploader's commentary.
- [GF9 Ecaz & Moritani, pp.11 and 16](https://www.gf9games.com/dune/wp-content/uploads/EcazMoritani-Rulebook-LOWRES.pdf#page=11): common modes, card disposal and the explicit Tleilaxu/Harkonnen Secret Ally FAQ. Fresh official indexed text and the previously acquired publisher-authored PDF mirror were inspected; direct official retrieval returned 403. Acquisition details are in the common contract.
- [GF9 base rules, pp.11 and 17](https://www.gf9games.com/dunegame/wp-content/uploads/Dune-Rulebook.pdf#page=11): traitor revelation and battle consequences, Harkonnen's four starting traitors and allied use. [GF9 quick-start, p.4](https://www.gf9games.com/dune/wp-content/uploads/Quick-start-Guide.pdf#page=4) establishes the participating-faction deck and return of unselected setup cards.
- [GF9 Ixians & Tleilaxu, pp.4, 6–7 and Karama table](https://www.gf9games.com/dunegame/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/IxianAndTleilaxuRulebook.pdf#page=6): shared Traitor Deck, three Face Dancers, reveal/replacement cycle and ordinary Mentat replacement. [GF9 CHOAM & Richese, p.12](https://www.gf9games.com/dune/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/CHOAM-Rulebook-low-res.pdf#page=12) supplies the related Rihani Decipherer ruling.
- [GF9 November 2020 FAQ, pp.3, 7–8](https://www.gf9games.com/dune/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Dune-FAQ-Nov-2020.pdf#page=3): retained traitor identities after revival, Karama boundaries, unused-card privacy and Truthtrance. Fresh publisher-indexed text was retrieved. The earlier April FAQ was encountered but is not used to override November's cancellation rules.

## Printed effects

| Mode | Eligibility and timing | Physical operation |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Cunning | Harkonnen holds its own Nexus card; at any time. | Draw one Traitor Card into the hand, then secretly select any one held Traitor Card and shuffle it into the Traitor Deck. |
| Secret Ally | Harkonnen is absent; during Mentat Pause. | Draw two Traitor Cards into the hand, then select two held Traitor Cards and shuffle them into the Traitor Deck. |
| Betrayal | Another player controls Harkonnen; a Harkonnen traitor has been revealed. | Cancel that traitor, shuffle its card into the Traitor Deck, and give Harkonnen a replacement draw during Mentat Pause. |

These are mandatory draw/return counts once played. Newly drawn identities are in the hand before selection, so they may be returned. Neither exchange permanently increases hand size. The card does not restrict returns to newly drawn cards or currently living leaders. Betrayal's replacement is delayed, whereas returning its canceled identity is immediate. [Printed Harkonnen face](https://boardgamegeek.com/image/7767032/dune-ecaz-and-moritani)

The common rules make these modes mutually exclusive and consume the Nexus card on play. Secret Ally does not create a formal alliance. The E3 FAQ expressly classifies Tleilaxu's retained card as a Face Dancer. It does not describe return eligibility for already revealed dancers. [E3, pp.11,16](https://www.gf9games.com/dune/wp-content/uploads/EcazMoritani-Rulebook-LOWRES.pdf#page=16)

## Supported composition and implementation requirements

**Exchange transaction.** Keep one immutable draw receipt containing the original owner, mode, turn/phase and physical draw group. Suspend the original continuation while the owner chooses exactly the required number of distinct currently held identities. Bind the return to that event; complete custody transfer, shuffle and resume once. Reconnects and retries must not redraw. There is a real choice after the draw, so this pending choice is necessary; no additional acknowledgement is needed afterward. This is implementation composition of the printed sequence.

**Private custody.** Project drawn cards and return options only to the holder. Other seats may see the publicly played Nexus mode and a pending exchange, but not the drawn, returned or remaining identities, deck order, or whether a drawn card matched a combatant. Do not treat a previously exposed ordinary traitor as discarded: the November FAQ says that identity remains a traitor after its leader dies and revives. It also prohibits retaining unused Traitor Cards as reference material. An old private inspection receipt is a historical observation, not proof of current custody. [November FAQ, pp.3,8](https://www.gf9games.com/dune/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Dune-FAQ-Nov-2020.pdf#page=3)

**Battle cancellation.** Bind Betrayal to the actual revealed identity and Harkonnen caller before committing the traitor outcome. Base rules give a called traitor victory and specific casualty/spice consequences; a double call has a different outcome. Cancellation must therefore remove the targeted call and resolve the surviving situation once, not refund an already resolved battle. Harkonnen can call on an ally's behalf, so an implementation must retain caller and beneficiary separately. [Base rules, pp.11,17](https://www.gf9games.com/dunegame/wp-content/uploads/Dune-Rulebook.pdf#page=17)

**Deck inventory.** Draw from the existing physical reserve, not from current leader discs: capture, gholas and death do not manufacture Traitor Cards. Setup removes absent factions and returns unselected identities; Tleilaxu draws its three from that shared deck afterward. [Quick-start p.4](https://www.gf9games.com/dune/wp-content/uploads/Quick-start-Guide.pdf#page=4), [E1 pp.4,6](https://www.gf9games.com/dunegame/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/IxianAndTleilaxuRulebook.pdf#page=6)

**Setup order follow-up.** Fresh inspection of base p.6 confirms that unchosen setup cards return face down to the **bottom** of the Traitor Deck. Quick-start p.4 agrees. E1 p.6 adds a shuffle after those returns specifically before Tleilaxu draws its initial three. Neither E3's common Nexus rules nor the Harkonnen face orders an additional setup shuffle or a shuffle before its initial exchange draw. Preserve the existing non-Tleilaxu reserve order in fresh and legacy rooms; append actual unchosen cards at setup, then draw from that saved reserve. There is no source basis for a corrective reshuffle migration. The physical order of simultaneous players' setup returns is not separately specified; serialized return order does not justify adding a shuffle. [Base p.6](https://www.gf9games.com/dunegame/wp-content/uploads/Dune-Rulebook.pdf#page=6), [Quick-start p.4](https://www.gf9games.com/dune/wp-content/uploads/Quick-start-Guide.pdf#page=4), [E1 p.6](https://www.gf9games.com/dunegame/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/IxianAndTleilaxuRulebook.pdf#page=6)

No retrieved rule supplies an empty-Traitor-Deck fallback. For the ordinary supported setup this is not an expected shortage: with `n >= 3` five-leader factions, held cards total `n + 3H + 2T`, where `H` and `T` indicate Harkonnen and Tleilaxu. The smallest resulting reserve is seven. These exchanges have zero net growth; Betrayal temporarily increases reserve size. This arithmetic is a bounded inventory argument, not a rule for other variants. Reject undersized/inconsistent custody before spending the Nexus card; never recycle another player's held cards or silently draw fewer.

## Tleilaxu and shared-deck boundaries

E1 distinguishes two operations: after all three dancers reveal, return all three, shuffle and draw three; during Mentat, optionally return one **unrevealed** dancer, shuffle and draw one. Revealed dancers ordinarily stay until the full cycle completes. Its Karama table permits stopping ordinary Mentat replacement but excludes other Face Dancer effects. Harkonnen traitor revelation itself is not an ordinary Karama target. These specific entries do not establish blanket Nexus immunity. [E1 p.7 and Karama table](https://www.gf9games.com/dunegame/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/IxianAndTleilaxuRulebook.pdf#page=7)

The Rihani Decipherer FAQ classifies its acquired identity as a Face Dancer and explicitly restricts replacement to an unrevealed dancer. This is relevant evidence for preserving revealed custody, but is a ruling for that skill. The Harkonnen Nexus FAQ states only the resulting card type. Compose it with E1's existing restriction: return options include newly drawn cards and existing unrevealed dancers; preserve prior revealed dancers. The two new cards guarantee at least two valid return choices, so this supports the full exchange rather than blocking Tleilaxu from playing it. No inspected passage explicitly classifies revealed dancers as being outside a player's hand; the justification is their protected revealed status. [E2 p.12](https://www.gf9games.com/dune/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/CHOAM-Rulebook-low-res.pdf#page=12), [E3 p.16](https://www.gf9games.com/dune/wp-content/uploads/EcazMoritani-Rulebook-LOWRES.pdf#page=16)

## Timing composition

Cunning's anytime permission supports play off turn and after battle plans reveal. Before a traitor declaration, the resulting held identities determine whether Harkonnen can call. After a declaration, preserve the committed call and its original physical identity independently of subsequent hand changes. An exchange changes custody; it does not contain Betrayal's explicit cancellation instruction. A declared identity returned through Cunning therefore must not retract the call or make its original declaration fail retroactive validation. This is composition of the printed effects with an immutable digital declaration, not a separate publisher FAQ about sealed requests.

During Mentat, Tleilaxu can select the order of its own ordinary cycling and Secret Ally exchange. Complete each operation before another deck action begins; do not interleave another draw between Secret Ally's two-card draw and return. No inspected source imposes a priority between these two optional actions. This player-controlled sequencing avoids silently fixing a priority in the phase serializer. It does not resolve competing mandatory draws belonging to different players.

## Material unresolved timing

- No retrieved primary ruling orders Betrayal's Mentat replacement against Tleilaxu's ordinary cycling or other Traitor Deck consumers. Those shuffles can change the next identity drawn. Do not describe a chosen serializer as publisher-mandated priority. Secret Ally and Betrayal themselves cannot compete: they require opposite faction-presence states and use the same unique Nexus card.
- Likewise, the sources do not establish arbitrary interruption of another player's owned decision or reversal of a completed battle. A full anytime implementation must specify continuation ownership and interaction with existing Truthtrance promises without releasing those promises merely to make an exchange legal.
- The existing unanswered reaction-privacy question still blocks choosing a Betrayal window policy. Do not repeat that question or infer an answer from this audit. Ordinary victory/end-turn advancement must not silently erase a pending Mentat exchange or an earned replacement obligation.

Focused verification should cover draw-before-return (including returning new cards), zero net hand growth, actual Tleilaxu custody, every-seat privacy, exact restoration of suspended decisions, immutable rejection, and once-only saved shuffle/replacement receipts. These checks do not certify all Nexus effects or expansion combinations.