Extermination of Robots

andstrauss · Post by **andstrauss** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 7:20 pm

Howdy!

A player of mine want to use the Extermination rules (6.4.3) on it's own Empire. Is it legal? He's saying that as part of a Meritocracy, he can chase down certain population type and exterminate them. But it's an empire with the Robotic (pg 12 Menagerie) trait, so he want to abuse a rule to get 100 from a planet with 10 Census and then rebuild that census at 40.

Btw, the Robotic trait says that the only government type it can have is Collective, but the Ze'U'Lok Empire listed on the book has the same trait and it's a Meritocracy. What should I consider the correct?

What would you guys do?

Cheers,

Bandit · Post by **Bandit** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 7:50 pm

Get a 100 what? EPs?

andstrauss · Post by **andstrauss** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 11:08 pm

Yeap. 100 EPs
I just check the rules again. It's clear now:

These rules govern the cruel acts that an empire can perform on rival empires

Cheers,

nimrodd · Post by **nimrodd** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 4:48 am

I would allow him to "exterminate" his population. As soon as it happens, the planet that this happened to would go into immediate rebellion (0 Morale) against the government, and all of his other systems would immediately lose at least a point of morale, with a roll to lose another point.

Oh, and also tell him that since the census is a purchased unit, it is called "Scrapping", not "Exterminating" and he only gets 20 EP.

Tyrel Lohr · Post by **Tyrel Lohr** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 7:06 pm

Good catch! That is something that I didn't plan for. I would say in your circumstance that the player shouldn't be able to do it, and the rule quote that you found serves as ample justification for that position.

Exterminating your own Census is both cruel and unusual. His own justification is an interesting one, however, and I have to say that I got a chuckle out of it.

Garland has had some problems with Robotic Census abuse in his campaigns, too, and I am thinking we are going to have to adjust the cost of them upwards in order to balance the issue a bit. When it comes to removing the Census, though, I think nimrodd has the right response: for Robotic species that would be "scrapping" instead, and would return a much smaller amount of gain.

As for the Collective government mistake, that slipped past us! I will have to take a look at it. Does anyone have any good examples of Robotic civilizations in popular science fiction that don't effectively operate as a Collective?

nimrodd · Post by **nimrodd** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 8:32 pm

Tyrel Lohr wrote:As for the Collective government mistake, that slipped past us! I will have to take a look at it. Does anyone have any good examples of Robotic civilizations in popular science fiction that don't effectively operate as a Collective?

The only thing I could think of was Futurama, and it is more of an integrated population under 1 government.

Tyrel Lohr · Post by **Tyrel Lohr** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 9:20 pm

nimrodd wrote:The only thing I could think of was Futurama, and it is more of an integrated population under 1 government.

The robots in Futurama tend to trend towards Anarchy (or is that just Bender?)

I could see eliminating the government limitation on Robotic, and then Robotic empires could either select Collective of their own volition or else take Hivemind and be similarly compelled to choose Collective.