12 KiB
Richese Nexus source contract
Audited 10 September 2026. This separates the ordinary Secret Ally shipment from native Cunning's two-marker operation. It does not certify either implementation or open the Nexus release gate. See common Nexus rules, No-Field custody, and allied No-Field distinctions.
Printed effects and source status
The Richese panel was freshly read from the original photographed GF9 cards, cached at /tmp/dune-nexus-cards.jpg. Secret Ally replaces a normal shipment: choose up to five actual reserve forces and ship them at the price of one. It creates no hidden marker and grants none of Richese's auctions or other advantages. Cunning uses two No-Field tokens for a single shipment, still priced as one force; one token is immediately revealed and placed faceup in front of the shield.
Common eligibility requires Richese absent, not Guild absent, for Secret Ally. A native Guild player may hold it. A holder cannot retain a Nexus card when entering an alliance, and play consumes the card. E3 contains no Richese-specific Nexus FAQ. GF9 E3 p.11 and p.16
Official indexed excerpts, the original component photograph, and cached E3 publisher-authored text were inspected. Direct retrieval of the official base/November FAQ PDFs returned 403. The older local base/E2 cache paths named by historical documents are no longer present in this workspace; those historical claims were checked against fresh publisher excerpts where used below.
Secret Ally: ordinary shipment composition
Preserve the user's unused normal shipment opportunity, source custody, legal destination/sector, storm rules, occupancy, arrival stance and subsequent movement. Replace only the number used for pricing with one; transport the actual selected number. This is direct composition of the card with ordinary shipment rules, not a new cross-shipment permission. GF9 base rules, pp.9 and 19
| Ordinary Arrakis route | Charged price for the whole selected group |
|---|---|
| Non-Guild, stronghold | 1 spice |
| Non-Guild, desert/rock/Polar Sink | 2 spice |
| Native Guild, either destination type | 1 spice after normal half-price rounding |
| Active ordinary Karama shipment rate | Price the one charged force at Guild rates; route payment to the bank |
| Fremen retaining native shipment geography | 0 spice; see below |
Guild half-price rounding is upward, not fractional. Ordinary Karama can purchase Guild-rate shipment paid to the bank. These existing price modifiers can apply to the card's charged one; no inspected source fixes a contradictory Richese Secret Ally fee. GF9 November 2020 FAQ, pp.5 and 7
Do not import the unresolved fixed-price wording for allied native No-Field into this different effect. That E2 FAQ concerns a real Richese supplier and an immediate-reveal marker for an ally. Secret Ally has no supplier or marker. Likewise, do not invent an allied Guild discount or new allied funding: the Nexus holder must be unallied. Keep any separately legal existing Karama benefit distinct.
Use a positive physical group of 1–5, bounded by current typed reserves. Starred counters are physical forces, not two shipping units merely because battle strength can double. With the Homeworld module, preserve the exact selected native source pools and the existing ordinary/special subset constraints. The amount used for Terror entry, casualties, board presence and reserve subtraction is the actual amount, not the charged one. A five-force shipment is not a hidden one-force marker. This distinction follows the card's actual-forces wording; it is also the necessary custody boundary in the current model.
Fremen. The native player sheet permits any/all reserves free within the Great Flat range; it has no ordinary three-force shipping cap. Three free revivals and three physical Fedaykin are different rules. Publisher-authored faction sheets, Fremen
The card says reserves, not off-planet reserves. Keeping Fremen's free price, native destination range and source classification while limiting the chosen card shipment to five is a defensible, nonexpansive composition. It adds no teleportation permission. It may be strategically unnecessary because ordinary Fremen already transport their reserves freely; that does not justify inventing a price or a new destination. The E2 allied No-Field exclusion for Fremen rests on that ability's explicit off-planet source and must not automatically exclude this card. No inspected FAQ separately rules on Richese Secret Ally with Fremen, so describe this as retained-native-rules composition, not an explicit named FAQ answer.
Payment, prevention and entry
An ordinary non-Guild off-planet shipment pays Guild when seated, otherwise the bank. Guild's own shipment does not earn itself income. The reduced total is the actual transaction: do not credit Guild for five forces while debiting the buyer for one. GF9 base rules, p.19
With Richese absent, ordinary Karama cancellation cannot target a fictitious native Richese advantage owner. This follows the same ability-owner distinction used for other absent-faction Nexus effects; it is not a claim that Nexus cards erase independent responses. Advanced Guild special prevention can still stop a qualifying off-planet shipment. Retain the existing stopped-shipment usage policy and spend the already played Nexus card independently. The Fremen's retained on-planet reinforcement is outside the off-planet trigger. Ordinary Karama does not stop native Fremen reinforcement. GF9 base special Karama, p.14, November FAQ p.7
Retain actual shipment classification for Bene Gesserit companion/intrusion and Heighliner. Heighliner keys off qualifying off-planet shipment, with its Guild exception; reducing the price neither creates a second shipment nor changes an on-planet source to off-planet. GF9 E1, p.5
Retain the native Ixian permission to ship directly into the present Hidden Mobile Stronghold. Its faction rule bars direct shipment by other factions, and the FAQ explicitly discusses an Ixian direct shipment with Bene Gesserit accompaniment. The Richese card changes the shipment quantity and price; it does not remove this native destination or grant it to another holder. Select the actual mobile stronghold location from the live board rather than only the printed territory catalog. Cyborgs and Suboids both ship normally and count as physical counters toward the five-force limit. GF9 E1, pp.9–10
Preflight the complete typed arrival and currently representable reactions before spending. Persist the declared actual group and its price basis, then recheck custody/funding at settlement. A stopped declaration leaves the forces and unspent shipping money where they were. Accepted CAS/replay protection must cover the Nexus spend, shipment allowance and existing Guild decision together.
Homeworld sources and destinations
Native reserves remain eligible source pools even when represented by Homeworld custody. Occupation does not turn a foreign garrison into the user's native reserves. Preserve Emperor's allowed combined Kaitain/Salusa source selection, counting all selected physical counters toward five. The card does not create permission to replenish a non-Guild player's own Homeworld or to enter an ally's Homeworld. Homeworld-to-Homeworld shipment already has its own legal routes and one-spice-per-force tariff, with Guild half price. GF9 E3 p.10
A shipment from native reserves to a legal foreign Homeworld can defensibly compose that tariff with the charged-one rule, giving one spice for the whole group. This is not a retrieved Richese-specific FAQ. It needs the separate Homeworld transport adapter, source receipt, occupied-payment routing and arrival rules; merely extending the ordinary Arrakis territory selector is incorrect. A foreign occupied Homeworld source is not covered by the card's reserve wording. Returning from Arrakis or cross-shipping between board territories is also outside its stated source. These distinctions do not require blocking ordinary native-reserve-to-Arrakis use when Homeworlds are enabled.
Native Cunning: separate physical operation
The E2 model has three distinct 0/3/5 components, one concealed deployed marker, shared own/allied nonconsecutive-use history, reserve-capped reveal, and a faceup used component. No-Field movement/reveal and allied immediate reveal are different transitions. GF9 E2 p.6
Cunning explicitly authorizes the two-component shipment exception. It does not authorize retaining two concealed board markers, duplicating a denomination, paying twice, or treating both groups as new free reserves. One selected component reveals immediately; the other remains concealed. The later reveal draws from then-available reserves, not a second already materialized copy of the immediate group. Preserve the private unrevealed identity/value and the public revealed denomination.
A reveal is not another arrival; E3 explicitly distinguishes No-Field entry from later revelation for Terror. GF9 E3 p.14 For this new same-shipment immediate reveal, do not assume the low-Grumman original entry count from the discounted price alone. It needs an explicit timing/count composition of the two components and the immediate physical group.
Concrete Cunning boundaries requiring design or a selected interpretation are: how two same-shipment uses update the shared last-used history; whether an already deployed marker must reveal before the pair; how the immediate faceup component and the still-concealed one affect the next prohibited denomination; and composition with native high-Richese extra ordinary forces or an allied shipment. The present RicheseNoField shape has only lastShipped and one deployed record, so it cannot simply represent an atomic pair by calling single-deploy twice. These are Cunning custody issues, not reasons to withhold Secret Ally's ordinary actual-force shipment.
Existing integration points and verification
game/shipment-price.ts already separates ordinary reserve prices, Guild cross-shipment prices and contributor-filtered Guild income. The ordinary engine chain is validatePhysicalShipment → offerShipment → commitShipment; its checks use native reserve withdrawal, typed counters, arrival stance, actual geography and shipment promises. Introduce a validated charged-count basis without replacing the physical amount. Keep current low-Junction income and occupied-payment routing after the reduced gross is computed.
game/homeworld-shipment.ts and the Guild Homeworld adapter own non-Arrakis routes; they should not be bypassed with a forged static board destination. game/richese-no-field.ts owns physical markers and should not be initialized for absent-faction Secret Ally.
Required focused evidence: 1/5 actual-force shipments with unchanged price; normal/elite mixtures; Guild present/absent/native-holder and active bank-rate payment; Fremen retained geography/free price; native Homeworld source custody; occupancy/storm rejection before costs; Guild allowance/prevention; real BG/Terror/Ambassador continuations using actual counts; all-seat projections; and persisted pending/complete/stopped histories with concurrent and rejected-action immutability. Complete Cunning and broader module acceptance remain separate work.