4. Card Types

4.1 Homeworld#

A unique card representing the faction's planetary capital. Begins the game in play and is set aside rather than included in the main deck. Generates the player's primary Currency income each turn and contributes Votes.

Most Homeworlds have a flip or Contested face. Losing a Homeworld does not end the game. Earlier revisions made its destruction or successful Liberation an immediate game loss; that rule is retired. A Homeworld is destroyed, captured or broken like any other permanent, and the cost is what it was already providing — its Income, its Votes, and the 1 Story Point in §15.1 for holding it on its Prime face.

Specific Homeworlds flip rather than being destroyed outright (e.g. Kam Miinus flips to the IHN Astris Star Spacecraft on first destruction). Once a Homeworld has flipped to its alternate face, it cannot flip back — so the Story Point for a Prime Homeworld, once lost, is lost for the rest of the game.

This overrides Restore. An ordinary Contested face is recoverable (§18.49, §11.7), but a Homeworld's is not: no effect of any kind returns a Homeworld to its Prime face. A Homeworld whose Contested face is a Capital Ship flips across card types as well as faces — see §18.47.

4.2 Locations#

Permanent territory cards. Locations include Planetary Locations and Surface Locations (planetary sites) and may be subtyped further (industrial center, ethos center, political center, etc.). Planetary Locations represent the most powerful locations that a faction can control and have a "Capacity" value. This value indicates how many Surface Locations may be deployed to that Planetary Location. Surface Locations may not be deployed without an associated Planetary Location. Most Locations have a flip icon and a Contested back face whose type line is labeled 'Contested.'

Locations do not move Galactic Factors as a general property of being played. A Location moves a Galactic Factor only if it prints the Agenda keyword, which names the axis and the number of steps on the card itself. See §18.60.

4.3 Characters#

Cards representing named individuals from the universe. Characters carry two Drives, one Morality, a starting CP value, Rank, Attack, Defense, and a printed Penalties block specifying CP penalties for actions of mismatched Morality. Characters are the primary executors of player actions: they perform combat, contribute to Liberations, execute Character Action Maneuvers, and bind to Storylines.

Per-Character Penalty calibration is intentional — different Characters with the same Morality may have different Penalty profiles based on their personal history.

Characters when played are deployed to Planetary Locations or Spacecraft. A Planetary Location or Spacecraft may have an unlimited number of Characters deployed to it unless the card otherwise specifies.

4.4 Ground Units#

Non-character military and civilian forces similar to Characters but lack the personal arc machinery of Characters. They contribute to combat and liberation through Attack, Defense, and Rank. Ground Units can both have a Reverse face or not — those that do not go to the Depleted pile when destroyed. Ground Units are deployed to a Planetary Location or a Capital Ship the controller controls (§10.5), and may be moved from there to Surface Locations and other permanents under §14. Any number of Ground Units may occupy the same permanent unless otherwise specified.

4.5 Spacecraft#

Vehicles that operate in space rather than on a Location's surface. Similar to Ground Units, Spacecraft can have a Reverse face or not.

Spacecraft divide into two categories, distinguished by the subtype printed on the type line. Every Spacecraft prints either Capital Ship or a non-capital subtype.

Capital Ships are the large vessels of a faction's fleet. They deploy only to the Space Band, occupy no card, and never move. They are always Shielded (§11.2). They transport Characters, Ground Units, and Non-Capital Spacecraft, and fight with whatever attacks they print — typically High Power Space attacks against other Capital Ships, and Long attacks against the Surface Band below. See §18.55.

Non-Capital Spacecraft are small craft; Fighter is the first such subtype. They are always Unshielded. They may be moved between Bands like Characters and Ground Units, and like every card their combat is determined by the Band they are in: in the Space Band they are reachable only from the Space Band (§11.3), and landed on a Location they are exposed to the ground war. See §18.56.

4.6 Devices#

Technology cards — weapons, upgrades, special-purpose equipment. Some Devices have flip faces and may be labeled Fallen on the back face.

A Device is deployed like a Ground Unit (§10.5) and occupies a Position. The last words of its type line name its mount — KIT, SHIP TECH, SURFACE TECH or PLANETARY TECH — and so what it may be attached to (§18.28). A KIT is carried by a Character or Ground Unit and goes wherever it goes. A Device is controlled by the controller of the card it is attached to; an unattached Device has no controller, and any player who can attach it may take it. Devices are not units: they cannot be attacked or Liberated.

4.7 Maneuvers#

Action cards played for an immediate effect, then placed in the Depleted pile. Maneuvers are categorized along two axes: timing (Fast or Slow) and executor (Character Action, of which a Convocate Motion is one kind).

Timing types:

Fast Maneuver: Playable during the Admin, Draw, or Action phases of any player's turn (the controller's turn or another player's turn). Not playable during the Ready Phase or the End Phase.
Slow Maneuver: Playable only during the controller's own Action Phase. May be played at any sub-phase within the Action Phase (Deployment, Movement, Combat, or Liberation).

Executor subtypes:

Character Action: Requires activating a Character to execute the Maneuver. The Maneuver carries a Morality. If the executing Character's Morality differs from the Maneuver's Morality, the Character takes the CP penalty listed in their Penalties block (see §7).
Convocate Motion: A Character Action moved by a Convocant — a Character with at least 1 Vote — from a position the rules allow, and paid for in Morality alone, with no Currency cost. Type line `SLOW MANEUVER - CONVOCATE MOTION` or `FAST MANEUVER - CONVOCATE MOTION`. See §6.8.

Political Action is retired. Earlier revisions had a second executor, the Political Action, played by the controller as the government with no Character and paid partly in Vote. Every Political Action card is replaced by a Convocate Motion or a Convocate Statute (§6.7). The government's own instrument is now the Statute, which is a permanent, not a Maneuver.

Policy Restriction (optional):

A Maneuver with a Policy Restriction lists a Galactic Factor and a target zone or zones (e.g., 'RLGN at -3 or -4'). If the listed Galactic Factor is currently within the target zone, the Maneuver plays at base cost. If not, the listed penalty cost is paid in addition to the base cost. See §18.8.

Binding (optional):

A Maneuver whose executor line includes the Binding keyword (e.g., "Slow Maneuver - Binding Character Action") becomes a permanent when it resolves rather than going to the Depleted pile. It remains in play (typically attached to a target) and applies its effect continuously until it is removed by its printed destroy clause or another effect. Binding is distinct from Bind (the Storyline–Character attachment in §8.10); a Binding Maneuver does not create a Storyline bond. See §18.42.

Some Maneuvers have flavor-only Archive back faces with no gameplay impact.

4.8 Storylines#

Narrative arc cards, and the game's engine (§8). A Storyline binds to one of its controller's Prime Characters (§8.10) and has two faces: a front of three Chapters, and a Reversal reached when the Bound Falls (§8.11).

Completing either face ends the Act, awards the Story Points that face prints to the player it names, and Burns the card (§8.9). One face rewards the Storyline's controller and the other rewards an opponent (§8.11). A card may print a back face of another type in place of a Reversal, as an explicit exception (§8.9).

Storylines may be played in the Acts printed on the card (§8.7). Once played, a Storyline cannot be voluntarily discarded (§8.8). If the Bound is destroyed, the Storyline is destroyed (§8.11), and if a Storyline leaves play, its Bound Character Falls (§8.8).

4.9 Convocate Statutes#

A law of the Ten Twelve Convocate, declared from a Convocate Seat by a player with political control and kept on the Map as a permanent. Type line `CONVOCATE STATUTE`; titled by number, e.g. Statute 3498C. A Statute prints numbered Sections, of which its controller selects one to be in force. Statutes are Narrative permanents (§18.12). See §6.7.