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Q: What if I want to deliberately target the Expendable Crewman with my Laser Pistol / Phaser?

A: First, note that Ensign Smith is the Star Trek: Original Series Fluxx, version of the Expendable Crewman, and Tasha Yar is the Star Trek: TNG Fluxx equivalent. They all work the same in terms of having the “power” of impulsive self-detrimental tendencies.

Also note that Star Fluxx has the Laser Pistol, while the Star Trek Fluxxen have the Phaser, and that they work ever so slightly differently. The Laser Pistol can only target a Keeper if afflicted by an Attaching Creeper, and the Phaser can only target a Creeper, so you can only target the Expendable Crewman (or analogue) directly if they have a Creeper attached to them.

However… since the Expendable Crewman is known to jump in the way of a laser beam endangering any other Keeper, you could pursue an insidious plan whereby you target some Creeper-attached-to-a-different-Keeper belonging to the player who has the Expendable Crewman. The Expendable Crewman will then leap into the fray to protect the other Keeper which has a Creeper attached, unwittingly becoming the victim themselves.

While the Phaser can target Creepers that don’t attach, note that no Expendable Crewman worth their salt would take action to protect a stand-alone Creeper, so you’ll still be limited to attacking Keeper-Creeper combos if you’re trying to dispose of an Expendable Crewman or analogue.

So, while you can’t necessarily target the Expendable Crewman (or analogues) outright, it’s absolutely still possible to do it on purpose within these parameters.

Q: Can the Laser Sword (or Laser Pistol) destroy itself if it is Evil?

In Star Fluxx the Evil Creeper can be attached to any Keeper, including the Laser Sword, right? And the Evil Creeper doesn’t impair the Keeper it’s attached to… so if I have an Evil Laser Sword in front of me on the table can I use it to destroy itself?

The card says “You can discard any Keeper in front of you if it has a Creeper attached to it” which technically doesn’t exclude this case – but it doesn’t really make sense. How to resolve that?

A: Wow, you’re right. The wording doesn’t specifically exclude the Laser Sword being able to destroy itself, and yet that’s pretty illogical. It looks like we should have worded it:

“You can discard any other Keeper in front of you that has a Creeper attached to it.”
(emphasis added)
Or for the Laser Pistol “You can discard any Keeper in front of any player that has a Creeper attached to it (except the Pistol itself).”

We’ll probably want to tweak that wording on future print runs. For now, please go ahead and use the the logical interpretation that it can’t destroy itself. The Laser Pistol should be similarly limited to specify that it cannot destroy itself.

Q: Attaching Creepers say “both cards stay together until discarded.” Are there exceptions to this rule?

A: While one of the most obvious ways to get rid of a Creeper attached to one of your Keepers is to destroy them both (or move them both), there ARE ways that you can destroy the Creeper while still retaining the Keeper. The key things here are 1) explicit wording, and 2) thematic appropriateness.

In Star Fluxx*, the exceptions are the Doctor, who can cure Brain Parasites, and the Engineer*, who can fix a Malfunction. In both cases they detach the Creeper, and the Keeper is left, good as new. Creeper Reassignment also specifically states that you detach the Creeper to move it. In Cthulhu Fluxx, the Dreamer states that he can detach Nightmares and discard it. Meanwhile the Sanitarium logically can cure an afflicted Keeper of Nightmares or Insanity. In Anatomy Fluxx, special actions allow you to “cure” yourself.

Some examples where the Creepers DO stay attached would be, in Star Fluxx, the weapons Laser Sword and Laser Pistol, which, again, quite logically, destroy the Keeper in order to destroy the attached Creeper. And while the Phaser in Star Trek or TNG Fluxx targets just the Creeper, it doesn’t say anything about detaching the Keeper either, so if you use it to get rid of an attached Creeper, the Keeper it’s attached to will also be destroyed. The Teleporter will move a Keeper… and its attached Creeper. If a Keeper or Creeper goes into the trash, then it’s attached card goes along.

In Cthulhu Fluxx, The Feds are pretty much the equivalent, though they also destroy themselves in the process. The Necronomicon lets you move any Creeper… and says nothing about detaching it, so you’d have to move any attendant Keeper (and extra Creepers if more than one is attached).

Trash Something is the generic Action version of what the weapons allow you to do. You could trash a Keeper, and it’s Creeper will go along, or you could trash a Creeper, and it’s attached Keeper would go along. There’s no logical reason or explicit wording that lets you detach connected Creeper-Keeper combos for this Action.

*In various Star Trek Fluxxen, there are specific Engineer analogues: Scotty, Geordi, O’Brien that work the same way with respect to Malfunction.

Q: If I’m using my Laser Pistol to shoot another player’s Keeper-with-Creeper, and they have the Expendable Crewman, what happens?

Does this negate the Laser Pistol power (as the Expendable Crewman has no Creeper attached)
-or-
Do we discard the Creeper (attached to a different Keeper) and the Expendable Crewman?
-or-
Do we discard the Expendable Crewman only?

See this question in a video!
Our Friend The Expendable Crewman, Part 1
Our Friend The Expendable Crewman, Part 2

A: The Expendable Crewman’s powers take precedence over the Laser Pistol’s. So even though you aimed and shot the Laser Pistol at the Keeper/Creeper combo, the Expendable Crewman leapt (tripped?) into the line of fire, and was offed instead, leaving the Keeper/Creeper combo still there to be dealt with some other way. Note that in Star Trek Fluxx, Ensign Smith functions as the Expendable Crewman, and in TNG Fluxx, Tasha Yar has that power.

So, knowing this, you might choose not to even point the Laser Pistol in that direction, knowing that annoying Expendable Crewman is hanging around – but that’s up to you.

(Keep in mind that if you’re the one with the Expendable Crewman, AND the Laser Pistol or Sword, you’re free to target your own Keeper-with-Creeper, without accidentally hitting your own Expendable Crewman. If the shot is coming from within his own ship, he will dutifully follow directions, and stand aside, letting the attack go through. It’s only when outside forces threaten that he gets flustered or over-brave.)

Q: When I trash, destroy, discard, exchange, or recycle one half of a Keeper/Creeper attached combo do they stay together?

A: You may notice that Attaching Creepers are usually something which modifies the qualities of the Keeper itself. The idea is that they become as inseparable as one object. You don’t have a Doctor and a Brain Parasite, you have a Sick Doctor; you don’t have a Poet and Insanity and Metamorphosis, you have an Insane Mutated Poet; you don’t have a Holodeck and a Malfunction, you have a Malfunctioning Holodeck; you don’t have a Bacteria and Liver and Heart and Thyroid, you have one giant Liver-Heart-Thyroid Infection (yipes!); you don’t have Spock and the Mirror Universe, you have Mirror Universe Spock, and so on, and so on…

That’s the whole point of the “stays together until discarded” wording. Anything that you could do to the Keeper will also happen to the Creeper which is attached to it, and vice versa. In Star Fluxx, when you use the Laser Sword or Laser Pistol to attack a Keeper with a Creeper attached, you are attacking the afflicted Keeper, and the whole point is that it’s a way to get rid of the Creeper.

In the Star Trek Fluxxes, the Phaser is similar, but the language states that you are targeting the Creeper (because the Trek Fluxxes include non-attaching Creepers as well, it makes the Phaser more useful against ALL Creepers, not just attaching ones). When you destroy the Creeper, then if it is attached to a Keeper, the Keeper will be destroyed too (it’s not possible to shoot just the Mirror Universe aspect of Mirror Universe Spock, you have to shoot the dude as a whole…)

You can Trash a Keeper, Exchange Keepers, or discard it because of a Keeper Limit. All totally valid ways to rid yourself of annoying attached Creepers! (If you Trash Something to discard the Creeper, the Keeper it’s attached to will also be trashed, of course.)

You can even Recycle it (bonus!) and the attached Creeper will go into the discard pile with the Keeper. “Oh, this thing is messed up and useless to me now. In fact, it’s a hindrance!… I don’t want it anymore. But hey! At least I can recycle it!”

In fact, if you’re trying to acquire a certain Creeper to meet a Goal, you can Steal a Keeper (or Steal Something), and you’ll get the whole Keeper/Creeper combo. see: If a Goal requires a Keeper and Attaching Creeper…

Your Hologram or Holodeck is not duplicating just a Robot, it’s duplicating an Evil Robot… for better or for worse, as the case may be! see: If the Holographic Projector/Holodeck is used to imitate a Keeper with a Creeper attached…

There are some exceptions, and they’re usually very explicitly worded to let you know they are exceptions. see: …Are there exceptions to this rule?

Or they follow directly from qualities of the Creeper (i.e. things which would take the Keeper up into someone’s hand, but it has a Creeper attached, will result in the Creeper being “spat out” in front of the person who took the combo up into their hand.
see: If someone plays Beam Us Up, and one player had a being/crew member with a Creeper attached…
see: What happens if I use Zap a Card on a Creeper/Keeper combo?

Q: Can I use the Shotgun to kill someone else’s Zombie Quartet before I draw, so that I can draw it?

Suppose my opponent has the Zombie Quartet, I have the Shotgun and a Single, Duo, and Trio Zombie, and the goal is “4,3,2,1.” I have not drawn yet. May I shoot the Zombie Quartet with the Shotgun before I draw, so that I can take it myself?

A: Yes. You can use the optional Shotgun action at any point during your turn, including as the very first thing you do before drawing cards.

(You could use the Laser Pistol in Star Fluxx to shoot the Cute Fuzzy Alien if it had a Creeper attached, to put it on top of the draw pile, too)