An illegal procedure can be insulated by a legal action of another player. For instance, a player selects an illegal variation, such as 0 wild when no 0’s were rolled. Before anyone objects, the next player selects a valid variation. In this case, the illegal variation is insulated and no penalty can be applied retroactively.
Suppose a player makes an illegal challenge. How does the Insulation Principle apply?
Example
With one cube remaining in Resources, a player challenges Now. The Third Party immediately sides with the “Challenger.” The Mover may still object to the challenge, in which case it is set aside and the wrongful challenger penalized a point. (No penalty for the TP.)
The Third Party taking a side on the challenge (thereby accepted the challenge as legal) does NOT insulate the illegal challenge. The Mover may still object to the challenge. (We don’t want the Challenger and TP to “gang up” on the Mover to force her to lose the shake on an illegal challenge.)
However, if the Mover does not object to the challenge and the Third Party siding then begins the time limit for writing Equations or, without ever starting the time, accepts an Equation for checking, the Mover is tacitly accepting the illegal challenge, which is said to be “insulated.” The challenge is worked out and scored in the usual fashion.
