Dune/docs/SEMUTA_SOURCE_UPDATE_20260907.md

Semuta Drug source update and implementation boundary

7 September 2026. Read docs/SEMUTA_DRUG_ENGINE_AUDIT.md in full, inspected the physical card again, checked current capacity/recovery code, and freshly searched publisher sources. No project runtime edits.

What is actually confirmed

The readable publisher card face at /tmp/dune-rules/choam-semuta-reading.png says to take a Treachery Card immediately after another player discards it, add it to hand, choose one when multiple cards are discarded together, and discard Semuta after use. Canonical card: richese-semuta-drug, Special. The photographed component and provenance limits are recorded in docs/RICHESE_COMPONENTS.md; this is visible publisher-authored text on an externally hosted photograph, not a newly located official FAQ or verified printing history.

Fresh official search retrieved CHOAM/Richese p4: discard contents are private, and inspection requires permission from an effect. Local publisher-authored mirror text agrees. Fresh official search also retrieved base p8: ordinary maximum four cards applies at any time, while hand counts are public during Bidding. Harkonnen's faction limit still applies normally to that faction; Semuta does not itself print a new limit.

Direct official CHOAM PDF and November 2020 FAQ opens returned HTTP 403. Indexed publisher search furnished the two passages above. Searches for Semuta, Semuta Drug, full-hand, discard and relevant FAQ terms found no Semuta-specific publisher answer. Some broad searches returned other GF9 games, including the separate movie Dune game; these were excluded. Local Ecaz/Ix text searches found no Semuta reference. I could not freshly retrieve the historical audit's Harkonnen-exchange FAQ passage, and do not promote that earlier citation into independently reverified Semuta evidence.

No newly found primary source resolves full-hand take-before-discard. The original audit's material capacity limitation remains. This is distinct from Sapho: Sapho is discarded before its holder later buys an auction card, whereas Semuta's face places acquisition before its disposal instruction.

Target and effect contract

• Claim exactly one physical Treachery card from the fresh discard event. Ordinary, expansion, Worthless, Cheap Hero, used weapons, Karama and a newly discarded Box have no printed categorical exclusion. Leader discs, forces, tokens, Traitor/Face Dancer/Spice/Nexus cards are not Treachery cards.
• The discarded card must come from another player. For a forced discard, assigning discardedBy to the victim/former card controller rather than the HTTP actor is the natural composition of the rules; no new forced-discard-specific FAQ was found. Effect escrow such as an already played Ornithopter should retain its user's ownership metadata.
• For simultaneous multiple discards, choose one from that event, excluding the claimant's own contributions. Sequential discards do not become one batch merely because one server request produced them. Conversely iterating a simultaneous selected list does not create several independent claims.
• Taking the card does not undo the original effect: no refund of CHOAM sale earnings, reversal of battle losses, replay of a movement, un-cancellation of a power, or second purchase bonus. Keep original rewards and costs exactly once.
• Semuta is optional. Once legally used, transfer the selected exact discarded card to the holder, then discard Semuta. Keep other physical cards and their relative discard order. One singleton Semuta does not need a multiple-Semuta priority system.
• There is no printed phase limitation, alliance or consent requirement, spice cost, poison attack, or battle-only restriction. An unsupported producer is implementation coverage to finish, not a new prohibition on an entire phase.

These points follow the face and ordinary physical-card mechanics; they should not be labeled additional official FAQ answers.

Timing and continuation requirements

Emit each semantic batch where the discard actually happens and before any subsequent draw/refill/removal can make it unavailable. Preserve exact card IDs, original owner IDs, permitted face visibility, event identity and a discriminated continuation. A discard-array diff at request completion is too late for discard-then-draw producers and misclassifies simultaneous versus successive events.

Battle cleanup must wait until retention decisions establish which cards were actually discarded. Winner-selected discards and later Moritani retention disposal can be separate fresh events; previously retained cards are not targets. A cached battle summary or old discard inspection is not a new opportunity. Used cards remaining physically reserved for another continuation are not yet freely claimable merely because a pointer also appears in discard.

The original effect's post-discard work must resume once after Semuta resolves or is declined, including empty-deck refills, paid Box completion, bonus draws, response cancellation and terminal phase transitions. A closure or full old Game snapshot is unsafe to replay because it can overwrite the newly claimed card or duplicate original rewards. An immutable event snapshot is evidence, not another physical copy. Refresh/retry/CAS must never reroll forced discard, re-pay, re-discard Semuta or award two targets.

“Immediately” requires a genuine opportunity before the continuation takes the card elsewhere. A nonblocking toast while the engine already draws/shuffles does not implement that timing. Conversely Semuta does not authorize suspending a transaction at an unrelated earlier stage or searching the entire pile.

Privacy and automatic no-choice behavior

Before activation, show a neutral fresh-discard opportunity with only information already public about that event. The Semuta button and capacity explanation belong to its actual holder. Do not reveal hidden discarded faces, old discard contents, skipped player IDs, hand sizes outside existing rules, or a public label naming a secret holder. A holder must not receive repeated free previews of unknown fresh faces and then decline without using Semuta; commit first, then authorize only that batch's eligible faces. This is a privacy-preserving implementation of limited selection permission, not a claimed explicit FAQ about preview timing.

Once the card has been publicly committed, exactly one eligible candidate means automatic selection and completion. Multiple candidates are a real owner-only choice. An empty candidate set or stale/foreign card must reject before spending/inspection; corruption discovered after a persisted commitment must fail safely, not fabricate an alternative top-deck draw or silently erase the event.

Pre-activation automatic absence is different. If two otherwise identical public states differ only in who secretly holds Semuta or whether that hidden holder has space, making one pause and the other automatically advance discloses that hidden condition. Omitting a claimant name from the window does not fix this timing leak. Current viewGame exposes foreign hand count only in phase3; privately knowing the server's actual count does not authorize broadcasting eligibility by continuation timing.

Therefore:

1. Auto-close immediately only when impossibility is established by information public to all affected observers, or by explicit already-public activation/decline. Examples can include a module configuration where Semuta cannot exist or a verified public card-custody state establishing it is not in any hand; do not assume hidden cache/deck ownership is public.
2. Otherwise use the same neutral reaction-boundary lifecycle in paired hidden states, including automatic workers. Any timeout/continuation protocol must be driven by public event conditions and give a real opportunity to intervene. It must not wait only for a discovered holder or end early because that holder is ineligible.
3. Do not add a manual “confirm the only card” step after commitment. Do not claim an unrestricted hidden-hand-based auto-normalizer is privacy-neutral just because current Karama responses have existing automatic checks.

There is a genuine product/architecture tradeoff between guaranteeing an immediate reaction, having no public hand-dependent timing, and never presenting neutral waits when no hidden player can act. It cannot be solved by renaming a holder-dependent modal. This requires one consistent reaction protocol, not a rules question for every discard producer or a fabricated printed time limit.

Useful acceptance test: hold public state and clock/event progression fixed; replace the hidden Semuta with another hidden card, move it between hidden hands, and vary private free capacity. Until a real use is declared, unauthorized views and public auto-advance behavior must match. Test separately that a committed sole target finishes through normalizer/recovery with no owner acknowledgement.

Smallest unresolved ruling set

One Semuta-specific question remains: may a holder already at their faction hand limit use Semuta as an exchange, or must a free slot exist before taking the card because Semuta is discarded afterward? Apply the eventual answer to normal and Harkonnen limits and separately retain capacity reserved for compulsory incoming exchanges. A temporary free-slot guard is defensible as an explicitly unfinished boundary; it must not be presented as wording printed on Semuta.

The existing unresolved Guild-stopped shipping-Karama refund also constrains claiming that exact provisionally refundable card. Do not ask it again as a new Semuta question. Fence its competing custody or resolve the existing underlying ruling; this does not prohibit every shipment-phase Semuta event. Current Box guard in game/engine.ts near :1209 already identifies this composition.

Do not ask again about normal targets, forced-discard owner bookkeeping, simultaneous selection, zero fee, automatic singleton selection or semantic batch implementation. Do not repeat the three pending Sapho questions. No new authoritative capacity/priority ruling was obtained by this review.

30 September 2026 — bounded clean-discard runtime

The explicit semuta development profile starts a fresh Richese roster with CHOAM & Richese and optionally the physical Ix deck, without opening public expansion starts. It interrupts clean public ordinary-card, paid Box, retired Ornithopter, used Distrans, final Truthtrance, four bounded Sapho scopes, pre-leader Residual Poison, printed Karama canceling clean CHOAM Charity, Inflation or Bene Gesserit Charity or settling a clean normal-auction lot, a completed CHOAM sale or clean Kulon/proactive La La La/Baliset/ordinary Trip to Gamont Worthless discard, battle and Ix-deck Thumper/Amal discards, plus a clean private normal-auction Ixian ally replacement discard before its draw. Other than the one explicitly suspended charity/Inflation response, the parent transaction has no competing response. Every seat sees the same neutral fresh-discard opportunity regardless of hidden Semuta custody.

The Ixian ally discard belongs to the original buyer, not the Ixians. Every seat sees the neutral offer without its face or a named claimant; only a committed eligible holder takes the exact fresh card. A claim removes it before the saved single replacement draw and subsequent normal-auction settlement. Richese cache and Black Market replacement discards, competing parents and other private producers remain separate.

A clean CHOAM card sale commits its one named public discard and the quoted two- or three-spice bank payment before the neutral offer. Canceled or invalid sales leave the card in hand and have no fresh batch. The saved receipt binds the exact sold card, optional duplicate witness, earned spice and still-open market; claim or decline resumes the market once without paying or discarding again. Nested card responses and other sale families retain their previous paths.

A clean accepted Kulon Worthless response now places its named public card in discard before the neutral offer. No movement bonus accrues until claim or decline retires that event; the saved receipt binds the original active mover, prior turn bonus, card and hand custody. The same one-range effect then applies exactly once. Fixed-range Ornithopter combinations, reactive movement parents and other Worthless powers retain their original automatic paths.

A clean proactive La La La response also pauses after its named public Worthless card cost but before blocking the selected target's remaining free force revival. The saved receipt binds the target and old Revival rules; claim or decline installs the block once without replaying the response. Paid revival remains legal. A reactive free-revival request, Nexus conversion and other Worthless effects retain their earlier automatic paths.

A clean proactive Baliset response pauses after its public Worthless card cost but before restricting the selected player from moving into the CHOAM-occupied territory. The saved receipt binds that target, territory, current CHOAM occupancy and existing restrictions. Claim or decline installs one restriction without replaying the response. Shipment remains legal. Reactive declared movement, Nexus conversion and competing arrivals retain their original automatic paths.

A clean proactive ordinary Trip to Gamont response pauses after its named public card cost but before moving one selected force from a player's board sector to reserves. The saved receipt binds the target, location and pre-return force custody; a claim or decline returns that one force and reconciles occupation once. Elite, concealed No-Field, closing Mentat, Nexus and competing parents retain their prior automatic paths.

An early-ended Ornithopter advances the saved queue; a completed flight resumes one committed arrival only without BG, Ecaz or Moritani entry reactions. Distrans's gift remains private with its recipient; Truthtrance answer/history and Sapho first/last order are already bound. A clean Once Around Sapho discard commits its public finite bidder order, retains prior bids/funding and frees the holder's hand slot before the offer; the saved lot resumes without another reorder. If Semuta itself is reserved as an offered Black Market card, its owner cannot Commit, while every seat still sees the neutral offer. A clean between-battles Sapho discard commits its finite chooser priority after a resolved battle; claim or decline restores the same unselected battle board without repeating that order change. A clean pre-plan Sapho aggressor choice commits its ordinary tie priority and physical card before the Semuta offer; the unsealed battle's shared readiness then resumes without another aggressor change. A clean uninspected Residual Poison death with neither combatant ready has already chosen one random physical victim and discarded the used card before the offer. Claim or decline resumes the same pre-leader preparation once; an inspected or partly ready battle retains the automatic death path without this preview interruption.

For clean printed Karama cancellation of CHOAM Charity, Inflation or Bene Gesserit Charity, the spent public card reaches the pile before its accepted cancellation runs. The sole suspended response is bound to the saved receipt; claim or decline resumes the same cancellation once. CHOAM income or BG's extra allowance is withheld, while Inflation retains its spent placement attempt without a token. Worthless conversion, other cancellations, shipping and nested Karama responses retain their separate automatic paths.

A clean printed Karama purchase of an unresolved normal auction lot or free payment of an already won bid pauses after its public card cost. The lot, bidder, bid, Richese round, deck and seating order remain bound while every seat sees the neutral offer. Claim or decline settles that same free transaction once; no second bid, spice payment or draw precedes the offer. Richese lots and other Karama forms remain unchanged.

For a genuine Ix-deck Thumper, its played physical card reaches the discard before an injected worm or actual spice-card draw. Semuta claim or all-seat decline resumes the one saved Spice Blow; it neither injects a second worm nor replays any earlier effect. Thumper without the Ix deck is not a physical card in this profile.

An Ix-deck Amal is already publicly discarded after halving every personal spice amount and resetting previous phase-opening passes. Semuta claim or all-seat decline restores that exact opening; no auction pool, phase income or other opening work runs ahead or twice.

The first battle mandatory batch may contain public cards belonging to both combatants. Its accepted result and card custody precede the neutral offer; casualty allocation and winner cleanup still follow it once. Mandatory winning-card cleanup, if present, is a separate later batch; optional winner-selected disposal is later again. No Semuta claim replays combat or combines these events.

Each seat can Continue; only the canonical holder with a free hand slot and a card discarded by another player can commit. A sole eligible fresh card transfers automatically in that same action. Multiple eligible public battle cards open a committed, owner-only inspection and exact one-card selection; the other cards remain in the pile and Semuta is discarded once. The saved ordinary effect or Box parent resumes once. No undisclosed face is projected before commitment. Other simultaneous discard producers remain unfinished.

This neutral all-seat acknowledgement is a conservative application policy, not a newly discovered publisher timing rule. The explicit free-slot requirement is a provisional safety guard, not the printed resolution of full-hand take-before-discard. Normal auction/CHOAM market, pending gifts, competing responses, completed Ornithopter arrivals with BG intrusion, Ecaz Ambassador or Moritani Terror, queued or promise-bound Truthtrance, pending battle rewards and other typed producers retain their automatic continuation; Semuta cannot claim those events yet. The completed Box's selected search card stays private and its paid shuffle is not repeated when another seat takes the used Box. No source ruling is inferred from this omission. The separate reaction privacy audit explains why auto-closing only when nobody secretly holds the card would leak possession. The main game and public expansion gates remain closed.