A few notes:
* I believe Rhetorical Question discards for lack of target only because it is a dilemma, per dilemma resolution >> targets:
...if a dilemma targets cards with specific features (e.g., a personnel with Empathy, a male, a non-Cardassian), and there are no cards present with those features, discard the dilemma immediately without effect, as when a trigger is not present... Also discard the dilemma if there is no ship or facility to place the dilemma on, or no destination for a relocation (e.g., "furthest planet" when there is no other planet on the spaceline).
Even that's a bit vague about this specific situation. (It feels like there should be a clarifying "etc." at the end of that block.)
And if this card weren't a dilemma, I'm not sure it would discard for lack of target at all. The
target rule does correctly talk about what happens if a target leaves play after being targeted, but that's not QUITE the same as what happens if there's no valid target in the first place.
That's a bit odd. Ensign Q seems to have a point that this rule isn't as clear as it would like to be. All the more reason to continue working on our full rewrite of the action rules.
I had it ruled in a tournament last year that you didn't need to dock, you just had to be at the same location.
You do have to dock if it's a space facility:
Glossary: docking wrote:Any card or rule that requires a ship to "return to" a space facility implies that it must dock at that facility. For example, a ship must dock at an outpost to be repaired by a Spacedock there or to cure REM Fatigue Hallucinations. (Cross-reference: return to a facility)
Since you had an HQ in your case, it sounds like that was the correct ruling. But this ruling would not generalize to space facilities.
Since Takket edits the DRG (thank you as always!), I'll give some explicit answers to his questions here instead of dancing around them:
But what if I have a ship and a facility in play, and they are not compatible?
If you select a planet facility as the target, it appears to be sufficient to return to its location. That feels weird to me, but I can't see a rule that demands anything more.
If you select a space facility as the target (or if your only possible target is a space facility), you need to dock at it to remove RQ. If you are unable to dock at that facility due to incompatibility, it appears to me that you will have no choice but to return to the facility and sit there until you rectify the situation (for example, with Memory Wipe).
What if the facility is a Nor with no docking sites? Or docking sites that can't accommodate the ship?
Then I would strongly advise against targeting that Nor as the facility to return to! If you select your Nor as your target, you will have to dock at it. If you can't dock at it, you will have to wait until you can (for example, by drawing into and card-playing Docking Pylons).
Note that REM Fatigue Hallucinations was errataed to say "board your outpost" to remove any ambiguity about what your personnel had to do when they got to the location of your outpost.
Yes. Rules does not like this unclear "return to facility" wording and is removing it where we get the chance. But, for now, it's still in there, alas.
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