6. Voting and Political System

6.1 Vote Sources#

Locations, Characters, Ground Units and other cards contribute Vote equal to their printed Vote value. Vote counts are per-card; there is no global rule tying Vote count to Drives or other Character properties.

Printed values (ruled 2026-10-15):

• Each of the Ten (§6.5) prints Vote 2, on its Fallen face as well as its Prime face.
• Every other Character that prints Vote prints 1. A Character that prints 0 keeps 0: the rule lifts nobody off zero.
• Each Homeworld prints Vote 1.
• Other cards keep their printed values.

No card prints Vote 3. A sovereign who does not hold one of the Ten — High King Corovan III among them — carries the same single Vote as any other Convocant; only a seat is worth two.

Convocate Seats add Vote while active and occupied (§6.6).

6.2 Vote Costs#

The cost in committed Votes to push a Galactic Factor by one step depends on the position's distance from neutral:

• Move to ±1 (neutral position): 5 Votes
• Move to ±2: 6 Votes
• Move to ±3: 7 Votes
• Move to ±4: 8 Votes

These are per-step costs. Pushing a GF from neutral to ±4 requires 6 + 7 + 8 = 21 Votes total across as many actions as needed. Pushing back toward neutral applies the same cost structure in reverse. Players may move more than 1 Galactic Factor during their turn, but each vote cost to move each GF must be paid individually.

These are committed Votes (§3.2): a player activates cards to add their Vote to the Resource Pool and spends it from there. A card activated to commit Votes leaves its controller's standing Vote until it readies (§6.3).

6.3 Standing Vote and Political Control#

A player's standing Vote is the total Vote of the cards they control that count. It is read off the board. It is not spent, does not enter the Resource Pool, and does not empty at the end of a phase.

What counts:

• Characters and Ground Units count only while readied. An activated Character or Ground Unit contributes nothing to standing Vote until it readies.
• Locations, Homeworlds and other permanents count while they are on the Map and their Vote is not suppressed (§14.10).
• An active Convocate Seat adds 1 while a readied Character you control occupies it (§6.6).
• Temporary effects ("+1 Vote until end of turn") count while they last.

A player has political control while their standing Vote is greater than every other player's. Plurality, not absolute majority — at five players nobody would ever hold a true majority. If two or more players are tied for the most, nobody has political control.

Fight or govern. Characters activated during your turn stay activated until your next Ready Phase, so a player who sends their Convocants into combat, or commits their Votes to the Factors, is politically exposed for the whole of the opponents' turns that follow. A Vote-printing Character killed is representation lost; a Vote-printing Location captured is representation transferred.

6.4 Resource Pool#

The Resource Pool is the single, turn-bounded container for every non-persistent Resource a player generates — principally Votes and Exploration Vector (EV). The Resource Pool empties at the end of each Phase. Effects that "add Votes to your Resource Pool" or "add EV to your Resource Pool" inject those Resources into the pool for use during the current Phase; any not spent are lost when the Phase ends. Persistent Resources (Currency in the Treasury, CP on cards, and Story Points) are NOT held in the Resource Pool and do not empty. (R7: replaces the former separately-named "Resource Pool.")

Standing Vote (§6.3) is not held in the Resource Pool either. Only committed Votes are.

6.5 The Ten#

The upper house of the Convocate has ten seats, two per sovereignty. The Emberates hold none. The seat-holders are Pallarchs and print Vote 2:

A Pallarch is marked on the card. Membership of the Ten is not a second stat: a seat is a Vote, so Vote stays the only number, and the mark exists for the rules that care — chiefly that a Pallarch may move a Motion from anywhere even without a Convocate Seat (§6.8).

A Convocant is any Character with at least 1 Vote, Pallarchs included. Every other Character that prints Vote sits on one of the Twelve.

Formal names, for card text and lore: the Ten are the Pallarch Quorate, the Twelve are the Juris Ordinant. Rules prose uses the short forms.

6.6 Convocate Seats#

Twelve Locations carry the keyword Convocate Seat (§18.93): the Political Centers of the five seated sovereignties. They are the Convocate's chambers in each sovereignty — you need a connection to the Convocate. The Emberates hold none; their one Political Center, Wayfarer's Reach, is no longer one.

Active and inactive. Each Seat prints the GOVT values at which it is active and those at which it is inactive:

At GOVT 0 every Seat is active. The split is the one the sovereignties' preferred GOVT already makes (§2.1): the Union and the Republic govern toward +4, the Kingdom, the Hegemony and HLM toward −4.

An inactive Seat does nothing. It gives no Vote and no access. A captured Seat works by its own printed range, not by its new controller's preferences.

Directive overrides GOVT on a Seat. A Convocate Seat that prints Directive (§18.66) is active, whatever the GOVT value, while its controller's current Directive is GOVT. A government that has made GOVT its business keeps its chamber open when the Factor swings against it. Directive has no other effect on a Seat, and it works only on a face that prints it: the Tribunate of the People prints it on its Prime face only, so on its Contested face it follows its range like every other Seat. (Ruled 2026-10-17; this replaces the old "Directive X+1/X−1" modifier, which is retired from every card.)

What an active Seat does:

1. Vote. While a readied Character you control occupies it, it adds 1 to your standing Vote (§6.3). It counts once per Seat, however many Characters occupy it. It adds to your standing Vote, not to any Character's Vote, so it never makes a Convocant and never lifts a Character above Vote 2. 2. Statutes. A Statute is declared only from an active Seat you control (§6.7). 3. Motions from anywhere. While you control an active Seat, your Convocants may move and second Motions from anywhere (§6.8).

The GOVT lockout. Without an active Seat, a player has two routes to the floor: a Convocant on their own Homeworld, or a Pallarch anywhere (§6.8). Both are closed while GOVT is on the opposite side of 0 from your Homeworld's preferred GOVT (§2.1). So when GOVT swings against a bloc, its own Seats go inactive and its no-Seat routes close together: it can neither move nor second a Motion — the Motion of Repeal included — nor declare a Statute. The lockout applies to Pallarchs too. The one way back in is to hold a Seat of the other bloc, which a captured Seat's own range keeps active.

Moving the Factor is now the political war. GOVT decides which half of the chamber can act, so pushing it with committed Votes (§6.2), with Agenda, or with card text is a move against the other bloc's access, not only toward one's own preferences.

Earlier revisions let a Political Center grant +1 Vote to whoever held it, and let any Convocant move a Motion from any Political Center, including an opponent's, which gave the infiltration keywords a political use. Both are retired (ruled 2026-10-17).

6.7 Statutes#

A Statute is a law of the Convocate and a buff for whoever controls it.

Majority Rule. During your Action Phase, if you have political control and a readied Character you control occupies an active Convocate Seat you control (§6.6), you may activate that Character to declare a Statute from your hand, paying its printed cost. You control it, and you select a Section.

A Statute is never declared from a Homeworld.

During your Admin Phase, you may select a different Section of a Statute you control, or destroy it.

"You" on a Statute means its controller. The owner is the player whose deck it came from, and whose Depleted Pile it goes to. The controller is the player who declared it.

A Statute's controller never changes. Political control is checked only when a Statute is declared. Losing the lead afterwards costs the controller nothing; the Statute stays in force until its controller destroys it or an opponent repeals it (§6.9). There is no way to take another player's Statute, only to strike it down.

Sections. A Statute prints numbered Sections, and exactly one is in force at a time. The Statute stays on the books in full; its controller decides which Section governs — "Section 2 of Statute 3498C is in force" is what a clerk would say, and it is what a player says. Because the Section may change every Admin Phase, Sections are written as things a player uses — permissions, protections, costs, legality — rather than as states a card holds.

One-time Sections. Most Sections state a rule that holds while they are in force ("Units you do not control cannot occupy…") or a trigger that fires while they are in force ("At the beginning of your Action Phase…"). A Section may instead print a one-time effect — an instruction that happens and is done, such as "Destroy target Surface Location."

A one-time Section resolves when it comes into force: when the Statute enters the Map and that Section is selected, and each time its controller changes to that Section in their Admin Phase.

It does not resolve again merely for staying in force, and keeping the same Section in an Admin Phase is not a change. A controller who alternates between two one-time Sections resolves one of them every Admin Phase; the Section's printed cost, if any ("Pay equal to its Rank +1"), is paid each time.

A Statute is a Narrative permanent (§18.12), so effects that destroy or remove non-Narrative permanents cannot strike it down.

Displacement. A Section that makes a card's Position illegal displaces it (§14.12).

6.8 Motions#

A Motion is an individual's political act: a Convocant brings it to the floor. It is the smaller counterpart of a Statute — it needs no political control, only a Convocant in the right place.

Moving a Motion. To play a Motion, activate a Character you control that has at least 1 Vote (a Convocant), from a place the access rules allow:

• If you control an active Convocate Seat, your Convocants may move Motions from anywhere.
• Otherwise, a Convocant may move a Motion only while occupying your Homeworld — or from anywhere if it is a Pallarch.
• These two routes are closed while GOVT is on the opposite side of 0 from your Homeworld's preferred GOVT (§6.6).

• A Character with 0 Vote can never move or second a Motion, wherever it stands.
• A Motion is a Character Action (§4.7). It carries a Morality, and a Convocant whose Morality differs pays the Penalty from their Penalties block (§7.4). A Penalty never stops the Motion; it is applied after the Motion resolves.
• A Motion costs only Morality. It has no Currency cost. Its cost is the activation of each Convocant involved and each one's Penalty, if any. Character Actions that are not Motions keep their printed costs.
• One Motion per Convocant per turn, since moving one activates them.
• The mover selects every target of the Motion, including the targets of its Seconded text.
• Nothing stops a Motion. There is no objection, vote or contest; a Motion resolves. The Motion of Repeal (§6.9) is the one Motion that counts Vote, because counting is what it does.
• A Motion may be restricted to particular Characters by its own text (e.g. "This Motion may only be moved by Kista").

Moved and Seconded. A Motion prints two boxes:

Moved: the Motion itself — always applies.

Seconded: applies only if the Motion is seconded — in addition to the Moved text, or instead of it where the Seconded text says "Instead".

Seconding. After a Motion is moved, each player in turn order, starting with its mover, may activate one Convocant they control to second it. The seconder follows the same rules as the mover: at least 1 Vote, and the access rules above, applied to the seconder's own Seats and Homeworld. A Motion may be seconded once. If it is, apply its Seconded text in addition to its Moved text — unless the Seconded text begins "Instead", in which case it replaces the Moved text. The mover and the seconder each pay their own Penalty for the Motion's Morality.

• Adds, or replaces with "Instead". By default Seconded is an additional effect. A Seconded box that begins "Instead" is the upgraded version of the Motion: the Moved text does not resolve at all, and the Seconded text resolves in its place. Seconded never alters the Moved text in any other way. A Motion with no Seconded box cannot be seconded.
• Any player may second, including an opponent. The offer goes round the table starting with the mover, so the mover may always second with a second Convocant of their own before anyone else is asked. Because the mover chooses every target, an opponent seconds only for a reason of their own: seconding is alliance made visible.
• A seconder who Falls from their Penalty caused that Fall (§8.12): seconding is a choice its controller makes.

Order of play: activate the mover and choose the Moved targets → offer the second → if seconded, the mover chooses the Seconded targets → resolve Moved, then Seconded (or, for an "Instead" Seconded, resolve Seconded only; the Moved targets are released) → apply each Convocant's Penalty.

6.9 Motion of Repeal#

Every player has one Motion that needs no card.

Motion of Repeal. During your Action Phase, you may move a Motion of Repeal against a Statute you do not control, under the rules for moving a Motion (§6.8). Count standing Vote: if your standing Vote is greater than the Statute's controller's, destroy the Statute. Ties go to the controller.

• It has no card, so it carries no Morality and costs only the activation. It has no Seconded text and cannot be seconded.
• The GOVT lockout applies (§6.6): a player who cannot move a Motion cannot move a Motion of Repeal either.
• Standing Vote is counted after the mover is activated (§6.3), so the mover's own Vote does not count toward the repeal.
• Only the mover and the Statute's controller are counted. In a game of three or more players, other players' Vote does not matter, and the mover need not hold political control. A player too weak to declare a Statute may still be strong enough to repeal one.
• A failed repeal still activates the mover.
• A Statute's controller may destroy it in their own Admin Phase instead — to make way for another, or to drop one that has begun to hurt them.