How does the tactician psionic class's Collective ability work?

Question

The tactician's Collective ability (Advanced Psionics Guide, p. 53) states, in part:

A tactician can manifest certain powers through his collective. If a tactician power specifies one or more willing targets (or is harmless) and has a range greater than personal, he can manifest this power on a member of his collective regardless of the range of the actual power. All other non-range restrictions still apply. He may manifest any power with the Network descriptor this way, regardless of their actual ranges or targets. If he is capable of manifesting powers or casting spells from a different class (as is the case for a multiclass tactician), any compatible spell or power with a range greater than touch can also be used through the collective.

Say we have the psionic power Strike as One (Advanced Psionics Guide, p. 180-181). The power targets "you and one willing creature", but the Collective ability says that since the power has the "Network" descriptor, the tactician can ignore the actual ranges and targets.

If a Tactician does this, can they use this power on two other allies? Or must one of his targets always must be himself?

Answer 1

Two allies within his collective, one of which could be, but does not necessarily need to be, himself.

You could argue, really strictly, that the collective feature always targets “a member of his collective,” even if the power originally “specifies [...] more willing targets,” but that isn’t the intent of the ability—the intent is that the ability targets as many members of the collective as the original targeting could have, just ignoring range.

Source: I have worked for Dreamscarred Press, and though I was well after the tactician was written, one of my classes, the empath, also has the collective ability.