[BCSWowbagger]

I've generally seen Emergent Life-Form played like this (and played it this way myself): now and start of turn, I can move your ship until its RANGE is exhausted, pushing it back and forth between missions. In one memorable experience at Andoria Regionals, my Borg Cube was shuffled repeatedly between a mission with Span 3 and another mission with Span 1 until it had used up all its RANGE, which Kevin hoped would get it Black Holed. (Fortunately, I had an escape -- that's another story.)

But that's not actually how ELF works, is it? I was rereading it closely the other day for the first time in ages. The card says, "opponent may move ship to another location (using its RANGE)." That's all singular.

So you get one move action (including any locations you "fly by" in that single move). You can move the ship to another location, but then you're done. Opponent gets control back before you can fly the ship back and forth in a RANGE-exhausting manner.

Am I right? Have we been playing it wrong? Has anyone else been doing the same?

[AllenGould]

I read it as singular - you're limited by RANGE in terms of how far you can push it, but you only get one move action.

[LORE]

I believe this is correct. Notably, if you are playing Borg you can then fetch Temporal Conduit and just move your ship right back.

[Hoss-Drone]

You only get one move action, but anytime to you fly to a new location, its still part of that one move action. IE - If you fly from mission A to mission b then back to A - that was just one movement action. Interestingly enough - undocking your ship to start the movement is also still just part of that one movement action too.

You "flyby"/"Warp past" any mission that you dont declare that you are stopping at while still having the available range to keep moving.


[quote=Glossary page 48]A ship does not have to move all of its RANGE on a turn. A ship can stop at each location as it moves, or it can “warp past” locations without stopping there (but still using RANGE).[/quote]

[Mogor]

I think thats a bit of a stretch to say you could move between A and B and A until range is exhausted and count that as moving to another location. Reading the card, it doesn't care about a move action it cares about moving to another location. So if you have a space line that adds up to 10 split up as whatever locations you could move from A to D as that is "another location" or A to B or A to C but you couldn't move to A to B to C to B

[commdecker]

Agreed, turning around can't be in the same movement action.

[MidnightLich]

Related question:

My opponent has a ship with my ELF on it. He's also got Where No One Has Gone Before in play. Can I move his ship around the end of the spaceline?

What if I have WNOHGB in play?

-crp

[AllenGould]

Related question:

My opponent has a ship with my ELF on it. He's also got Where No One Has Gone Before in play. Can I move his ship around the end of the spaceline?

What if I have WNOHGB in play?

-crp

The second is a "no", because ELF'ed ship isn't yours.

The first scenario feels like it should be a "no" (since you shouldn't be able to benefit from opponent's events, and it's not on the ship itself), but I'd be more confident if the text said "you may move your ships". (And looking at it, it probably *should* say that.)

[BCSWowbagger]

Related question:

My opponent has a ship with my ELF on it. He's also got Where No One Has Gone Before in play. Can I move his ship around the end of the spaceline?

What if I have WNOHGB in play?

The second is a "no", because ELF'ed ship isn't yours.

Agreed.

The first scenario feels like it should be a "no" (since you shouldn't be able to benefit from opponent's events, and it's not on the ship itself), but I'd be more confident if the text said "you may move your ships". (And looking at it, it probably *should* say that.)

I disagree. First, the wording (as you note) says, "allows your ships to leave one end of spaceline and enter the other end." And the ship is still your opponent's ship, therefore still benefiting from your opponent's WNOHGB.

Second, I think it actually should say that; it would be weird for the ship to suddenly lose the ability to move in its normal way simply because an Emergent Life-Form in the circuitry is doing the steering instead of Ensign Gibson.

So I would rule, yes, you can move an ELF'd ship to the other end of spaceline if the ship's controller has WNOHGB in play.