Character Knowledge in a minis game?

[chronoplasm]

Okay, so one idea I'm pondering for a minis game is the idea of knowledge chips which can be placed on the bottoms of the figure's bases and switched around.

The Alien Invader army would have the ability to share their knowledge with others telepathically.
The Zombies start out with no knowledge, but they can gain knowledge by eating people's brains. 
I'm not sure at this point how Super-Heroes, Super-Villains, Sewer Mutants, or The Resistance will use their knowledge.

This is just a vague idea I had. I haven't figured out the system yet.

If you guys could help me brainstorm, that would be great.

[Seth M. Drebitko]

  This idea actualy seems very interesting (from what I think it is getting at) are you representing knowledge as essentialy powers? If you could give a little better of an idea on the system your thinking of and the setting I am sure it would be much easier to help.
Regards, Seth

[chronoplasm]

This is all I have so far:

Two or more players select a faction, create a fortress, and then fill their fortress with combatants and noncombatant units.
The noncombatants provide a point pool which is spent to build your army of combatants, upgrade their powers, activate powers, etc. Noncombatants can also be activated as combatants at a cost.
For most factions, the goal of the game is to liberate the other faction's noncombatants or have the most noncombatants remaining at the end of the game. Each faction is a bit different in its win condition however. Super-villains want to rule the world no matter how many noncombatants must die and zombies win the game when everything is dead.

I haven't figured out resolution or anything like that yet though.

[chance.thirteen]

I now have this horrid image of knowledge chits spreading, and when two knowledge chits meet in one figure, and they conflict, one becomes dominant, the other resistant, and now I see a dual layer othello game representing memes.

Meanwhile, on yoru topic would you intend for the chip to be something handed off, where it becomes essentially a document or a magic item with some bonus, or something that can be copied and spread? One simple use would be knowledge of various secrets, like who is in the secret cabal, or where the secret rebel base is. You could also make chips be parts of the whole secret, needing blue chip A B and C to figure out what the secret really is. However, this runs the risk of being like information based game of  battleship, where you randomly poke and prod targets to see who has the Thing.

What sort of benefits or play would you liek to see result from this idea?

(Side story - in my first fantasy RPG setting, Elven chess oieces had a little bracket to hold tokens representing the support of other units, such as the elite guards being stronger near Royalty, and Mages giving pieces around them special movement abilities. Your ide reaminded me of this.)

[chronoplasm]

I now have this horrid image of knowledge chits spreading, and when two knowledge chits meet in one figure, and they conflict, one becomes dominant, the other resistant, and now I see a dual layer othello game representing memes.

Heh. Yeah, that could be a problem. I'm not sure how to resolve that yet.
Hmmm... It would be cool though to make a Alien Hivelord unit with a larger base that can hold multiple chits.

Meanwhile, on yoru topic would you intend for the chip to be something handed off, where it becomes essentially a document or a magic item with some bonus, or something that can be copied and spread? One simple use would be knowledge of various secrets, like who is in the secret cabal, or where the secret rebel base is. You could also make chips be parts of the whole secret, needing blue chip A B and C to figure out what the secret really is. However, this runs the risk of being like information based game of  battleship, where you randomly poke and prod targets to see who has the Thing.

Perhaps both, with the use of keyword mechanics or something. Figures with the Replicate keyword can teach their knowledge to other units, allowing you to give an identical chit to another unit. Perhaps to convey the alien telepathy, all chits gain the Replicate keyword.
Other chits however may have the Secret keyword, which can only be placed in one unit at a time, but they can be passed from one unit to another.

What sort of benefits or play would you liek to see result from this idea?

(Side story - in my first fantasy RPG setting, Elven chess oieces had a little bracket to hold tokens representing the support of other units, such as the elite guards being stronger near Royalty, and Mages giving pieces around them special movement abilities. Your ide reaminded me of this.)

[chronoplasm]

To add the that last post (I forgot that I couldn't edit)

I came up with this idea because I needed some way to convey the knowledge related abilities of some of the factions. Aliens have telepathy, so how do I convey this in game terms? Zombies start out mindless, but become smarter when they eat brains, so how do I convey that? What about the Super-Villains where they are trying to locate the secret information they need in order to construct their death ray? What about the resistance spies who are trying to discover the enemy's plans?
I just need some way to convey all this, so that's where I got the idea for the knowledge chits.