Dune/docs/NEXUS_EMPEROR_RULES.md

Emperor Nexus: battle strength, purchase and revival

Primary-source audit, 10 September 2026, with a bounded purchase-runtime note added 27 September. The source contract does not certify the full mode. The common Nexus rules and current release gates remain in force; no new user ruling is assumed.

Authority

• Photograph of the original twelve GF9 Nexus cards, freshly reinspected at /tmp/dune-nexus-cards.jpg.
• GF9 base rulebook, pp.13 and 19, freshly retrieved publisher-indexed text: Advanced support, casualty allocation, Sardaukar and Emperor payments.
• GF9 November FAQ, pp.2–3 and 7, freshly retrieved publisher-indexed text: special-force revival cap, ally payments, losses and Karama.
• GF9 E3 rulebook, pp.9–11 and 16, publisher-indexed text and the previously acquired publisher-authored mirror: modes, Homeworlds, Recruits and FAQ.
• GF9 E1, p.7 and E2, p.7: free-revival income and La La La. The Salusa high face was visually reinspected in the component image at /tmp/dune-card-economy-homeworlds.jpg; provenance is retained in the Homeworld component audit.

No Emperor-specific Nexus FAQ or authenticated designer clarification resolving the combinations below was retrieved. Tournament compilations and older Avalon Hill rules are not substituted for GF9 authority.

The three printed panels

Mode	Condition	Printed operation, paraphrased
Cunning	Native Emperor holder	Before formulating its Battle Plan, count five of its forces as Sardaukar if it has no Sardaukar in that battle.
Secret Ally: purchase	Emperor absent	When buying a Treachery Card, keep the buyer's spice, after showing possession of the amount otherwise payable.
Secret Ally: revival	Emperor absent	During Revival, revive three additional forces free beyond revival limits. This is an alternative to the purchase effect.
Betrayal: purchase	Emperor controlled by another player	During Bidding, force Emperor to pay for its ally's Treachery Card, covering at least the necessary amount.
Betrayal: battle	Emperor controlled by another player	While Battle Plans are being made, prevent Emperor's Sardaukar advantage. This is an alternative to the purchase reaction.

One card use buys one selected effect. The Cunning panel names five, without an up-to qualifier; its duration is this battle, unlike Ixian Cunning's express turn-wide duration. Printed Emperor card

Cunning: effective roles over conserved physical forces

Native Sardaukar are an Advanced advantage. They have full strength two, except against Fremen where it is one. Ordinary Advanced support costs one spice per participating counter; unsupported counters contribute half their full strength. The winner may choose any losses consistent with dial and support. Base, pp.13,19

Supported composition:

1. Require an owned native card, an owned current battle, no actual Sardaukar in its eligible battle army, and an unsubmitted plan. A Sardaukar whose advantage was canceled is still physically Sardaukar; cancellation does not satisfy the absence condition.
2. Treat five existing ordinary counters as effective Sardaukar for that battle. Do not create forces, transfer starred pieces, alter elite reserves/Tanks or mark these counters as starred on the board. Clear their temporary role after the battle.
3. Keep two accounting layers: effective normal/temporary-Sardaukar strength for plans and losses, and actual normal/starred custody for removal. Losing three temporary Sardaukar sends three ordinary counters to Tanks. Losing the battle or an explosion removes actual counters through the ordinary physical path.
4. Against non-Fremen, a temporary Sardaukar contributes two supported or one unsupported. Against Fremen it contributes one supported or one-half unsupported. Do not import Fremen's free support. Basic has no useful Sardaukar enhancement; enabling doubled Basic strength would invent an Advanced advantage. E3 explicitly acknowledges Advanced-only Cunning effects.
5. Bind the battle/event, original eligible normal pool and temporary count. Do not enlarge a Homeworld's eligible defense army, count unrelated reserves or confer the benefit on allied forces. Preserve prior Truthtrance/Prescience commitments; include an owned future activation in legal-completion searches without actually spending the card.

Karama can suppress Emperor's Sardaukar advantage before plan revelation. Cunning enhances that native advantage, so suppression applies to its temporary Sardaukar too; it does not destroy or move counters. The card supplies no general Karama immunity. November FAQ, p.7

The selected implementation composition treats a Cunning declaration as the new advantage use: allowing it grants the temporary role; canceling it prevents that role entirely. Those ordinary counters consequently gain neither doubled strength nor Salusa's support exemption. This differs from canceling the strength of actual starred Sardaukar, whose physical identity survives that cancellation. Keep the new use and its response separate from the earlier native starred-force response; one Karama must not consume two independently declared uses.

Salusa high names Sardaukar, without limiting support relief to starred tokens. Applying that relief to counters currently counted as Sardaukar is supported composition. Salusa population still uses its physical native starred pool; Cunning cannot raise its threshold. Preserve the existing mid-battle Salusa threshold guard. Occupation effects remain subject to their unresolved lifecycle. Homeworld components

Secret Ally: retain the actual purchase price

Use the final ordinary purchase price and verify the holder's spendable spice before accepting this effect. The card expressly requires possession; it cannot support bidding beyond one's means like Karama. The holder is unallied and Emperor is absent, so there is no formal ally contribution or Emperor income in this purchase. Retain the holder's balance rather than subtracting and later refunding it. Ordinary card custody, hand limit and purchased-card follow-ups still need a real completed sale.

For an ordinary bank-paid auction, the practical result is one purchased card, unchanged buyer spice and a spent Nexus card. No bank-funded replacement payment is printed. The public proof need establish only that the price is held, not disclose excess private spice. These are implementation consequences of the component, not an extra auction rule.

Special seller payments require a separate ruling: if Richese or another faction would receive that price, is the seller unpaid or paid by the bank? The text only tells the buyer to keep spice. Likewise, it does not expressly decide purchases outside Bidding, such as a card acquisition from an Ambassador. Do not silently route income or broaden a generic purchase hook to those sources.

Bounded bank-auction purchase prototype (27 September 2026)

In Basic/Advanced classic-faction Nexus-only games with Emperor absent, the unallied holder can spend the physical card at a normal Bidding winner-payment window. The full positive final bid must be affordable from the buyer's own spice without ally contribution. The bank receives no spice; the winner keeps that balance, receives the one purchased physical Treachery Card and continues through normal auction follow-ups. One private signed receipt records the original lot, final price and unchanged buyer balance across JSON/SQLite recovery. No Richese/CHOAM seller payment, allied split, expansion, special purchase or generic card-acquisition hook is inferred from this path.

Every winner in this bounded public auction context receives the same payment confirmation, even without the card or Karama. Otherwise a pause only for the concealed holder would disclose Nexus ownership. This is a provisional privacy-preserving product choice, not a printed timing rule or a user ruling; the previously asked confirmation-versus-gate question remains open. The normal spice and Karama payment choices remain available where legal.

Secret Ally: three additional free revivals

The express additional/beyond-limits wording supplies a separate force allowance rather than spending the holder's ordinary three-force quota. It revives forces, not a leader or Cheap Hero. Recruits doubles free rates and changes the normal limit; it does not double a fixed three-counter card grant. Printed card, E3, p.11

The FAQ retains the one-per-turn Sardaukar/Fedaykin revival cap even through Ghola, Emperor alliance extras and Tleilaxu. Applying that distinction here preserves the special-type cap while extending total quantity. Emperor is absent, so an eligible native holder cannot actually be reviving Emperor Sardaukar. Free Cyborgs trigger no paid-Cyborg Ix bonus. Southern Hemisphere deployment still applies to eligible returned Fedaykin through the existing deployment contract. November FAQ, p.2

E1 pays Tleilaxu for factions using free revival or Ghola; E2's La La La prevents Free Revival during Revival. Their texts do not expressly distinguish this new Nexus return from the ordinary free-revival event. Preserve the already-pending income accounting boundary rather than minting another payment or assuming immunity. No source gives this card a special exception to Tleilaxu's revival prohibition. E1, p.7, E2, p.7

Fresh supported classic Nexus may additionally preserve original Tech and/or Advanced Stronghold Cards. This actual free batch invokes the original Axlotl hook, independently of its extra-versus-ordinary allowance distinction, and collects only at the native Revival phase end. Subsequent ordinary free return does not accrue twice. Strongholds add no revival bonus. The same supported profile preserves the existing bank-auction purchase and its original buyer wallet/card delivery; that purchase is not an industry trigger. Native Emperor absence, exact-three/elite caps and quiet source restrictions remain. See scope and authority; this does not admit native Tleilaxu income, Homeworlds, Skills or seller-paid and forced-Emperor producers, and leaves their pending questions unchanged.

The separate fresh classic leader-skills --nexus-cards composition additionally admits the original extra-three return and normal bank purchase with all14 Skills but no Tech/Strongholds or other overlays. Exact-three/elite caps, independent ordinary ledger and physical skill custody remain. Bank purchase creates no actual bank payment or Banker award. Actual Cunning with normal or selected trained Suk retains the original typed casualty receipt while rescue is pending, completing only after physical settlement; its temporary Sardaukar stay ordinary counters and original support is paid once. Bounded scope and evidence does not answer the separate native income, seller-paid or forced-payer rulings.

Betrayal and remaining decisions

Normal Emperor-funded auction help goes to the ally and is paid back to Emperor, according to November's FAQ. Therefore forcing its contribution cannot automatically be implemented as transferring its spice to the bank. Bind the actual allied purchase and its original price/contributions. November FAQ, p.2

Implemented battle alternative (bounded)

In an Advanced battle against a non-Fremen faction with actual Emperor Sardaukar, the existing eliteStrength response now remains open for every seat when Nexus cards are enabled, even if no player holds a canceling card. This prevents the response's presence or duration from identifying a hidden Emperor Nexus holder. An unallied non-Emperor holder may spend the card during that response, before plans are submitted, to suppress the Emperor's Sardaukar strength for this battle. The normal combat response quote rechecks legal plans and preserves physical starred counters and their casualty custody. Seats without a card explicitly pass; bots do so too. Truthtrance temporarily hides and blocks the card reaction until its priority and question resolve. The spent card, battle receipt, suppression and seat-private offer survive JSON and room restart; replay cannot spend it twice. Karama remains an independent alternative in the same window.

This does not implement the forced-purchase Betrayal alternative. The bounded Secret Ally bank-auction purchase is connected above; Emperor Cunning still has its own earlier declaration and response. One unique Emperor Nexus card cannot be both Cunning and Betrayal at once. The wider Nexus module remains gated.

The following material cases remain unresolved; no new question was sent:

• Short groups: may Cunning operate with fewer than five eligible ordinary counters, or Secret Ally revive fewer than three when Tanks/typed limits cannot supply three? Neither panel says up to. Do not disguise the question as a silently truncated count.
• Forced payment: who chooses Emperor's compulsory contribution, what is the minimum when its ally already holds the full price, and what occurs if Emperor cannot cover the requested amount? The panel's necessary-amount wording does not settle the complete digital transaction.
• Special purchases and revival suppression/income: resolve the concrete boundaries above before connecting broad existing payment/free-revival adapters.

The existing private reaction-policy question still covers other hidden Betrayal timing. This battle path uses a uniform native response rather than an identity-dependent private pause. A native holder and a Betrayal holder cannot possess the same unique Emperor card simultaneously, so do not manufacture Betrayal-versus-Cunning tests with duplicate physical copies.

Suggested first package: one-battle Cunning with five available normal counters, genuine no-Sardaukar eligibility, native cancellation, physical casualty mapping, current Salusa support and prior commitments. Verify ordinary victories, traitors, explosions, Fremen, later battles, JSON response recovery, corruption, all-seat privacy and all bot profiles before claiming that bounded package. No runtime or tests were changed by this audit.