Why does BSG's “Assign Vice President” card not affect succession?

Question

In the Battlestar Galactica game, the quorum card "Assign Vice President" can be given to a player, and causes that player to be the only viable target for the "Administration" location that picks a new President.

Clearly, from the card, this is the only effect the card has, and it does not affect who becomes President if the current President is revealed to be a Cylon (or executed). It seems cooler thematically, however, for the Vice President to take the next spot in the succession.

Does anyone know why this wouldn't work? Is there something I'm missing where game balance would be affected by this rules tweak? It just kind of bugged me that the VP wouldn't take the Presidency.

(I realize this is slightly subjective in that we don't know Fantasy Flight's reasoning here, but I'm hoping some folks will have some insights I'm missing)

Answer 1

The only mechanical effect I can see to this tweak is that a Cylon president could control who gets the presidency after they reveal, say if they know who the other unrevealed Cylon is.

If you need thematic justification for the original rule, I seem to remember an episode of the show where Zarek (when he was VP) told Roslin that he didn't want to be president.

Answer 2

The Vice President title wasn't well thought out, IMO. The way it officially works is that the title is permanent, even if that person becomes President. So, someone could be President and Vice President at the same time. It's not a big deal, it just seems a little silly.

I don't think it would unbalance the game if you adopted a house-rule that the Vice President title also makes the holder the next in line of succession for the Presidency. It would probably make sense for them to then assign the title to someone else.