Board Game Arena

The wording on this suggests that the player will
1. Get a lockbox turned into a population
2. Then be able to take a level 1/2 tech.

In this case, taking the tech reduced me to zero population. I was unable to take the second benefit as a result, or reset the turn to choose the other tech. I don't understand why the wording would be "then" if it's not sequential. The population then showed up for the income phase. Any thoughts?

Assuming https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=192667335 is the game you are referring to:

At the time you took Transdimensional AI, there were no revealed level 1 or 2 technologies that you didn't already have.

Thank you for the reply! I'm not sure which game it was in reference to, as I do recall talking it over with the other player and we both thought it was off, but to be clear:
Step 1 (getting 1 population from lockbox) *will* definitely happen during the turn, so that if you need that one population to do the second step, it will be available? I'm entirely willing to admit that every time I came across this, it was just my player error that made me ineligible for step 2, but it was mainly not having the pop available that made me wonder. If there is an option for step 2, and it is available then, then that's great.

I play the card very often, you get the pop and can use it immediately for the tech 1/2 research. The whole purpose of this pop is: to make sure you can research something.

It's only not working when you are out of recource dice or already researched every DISCOVERED(!) tech 1/2, than you just get the pop.

Note: Your overview on the side is updated AFTER full card resolvement. So you will not see the pop while still handling the card.

Ah, thank you. Apologies for the confusion.