You could in fact ward a ship's cabin against vermin, you would simply have to use target (part) as the cabin is part of the ship.
Yes, under the new proposal. Though keep in mind that this would affect only warding circles, as I stressed. Circles that just hold images would not be affected, because the effect would move with the circle.
Does this mean that wards no longer need to penetrate the might of the creature they are keeping out? Since the target is the interior of the ward...
That wards the ... cabin, as is in the floor and walls etc.
It does not prevent lice from colonizing my cabin's berth, or rats who do find a way in through a small hole from devouring my cookies... and more crucially, my precious Summae!
No, not at all. For the same reason that the blade is the target of Edge of the Razor and yet the spell must still penetrate the struck being to do damage.
No, they would still have to penetrate, just as a MuCo spell that turns a grog into a giant must penetrate the MR of real giant that your grog then attempts to punch in the face.
So if you magically create a stone wall I can walk through it if it does not penetrate my parma?
No. First of all Parma is not quite a Ward.
Perhaps more importantly, and @Corteia was making this point in the Immobile Wards thread, it's one thing if you try to walk through the wall (MR does not protect you), it's another if the wall tries to walk through you (MR does protect you). See the magical bridge example in the MR section of the corebook.
My point is that if wards need to penetrate in order to stop you from doing something when you are not their target then would the same logic not apply to magically created walls? The target may be the wall instead of the ward the same way the target of Edge of the Razor is the sword, not the victim, but if both ward and edge need to penetrate, and a ward only prevents me from walking through it, then why would the same not be true of a wall?
So to be clear- we have a magically produced wall, a magically produced sword, and a magically produced ward.
You have to penetrate for the sword to move through you, but you do not need to penetrate for the wall to prevent you from moving through it, but you do need to penetrate for the ward to prevent you from moving through it.
These results are not consistent.
While I definitely see the line of logic you've drawn there, I don't necessarily agree with it. Creature wards, a protective repellant mystical field, is not really equivalent to an actual solid wall of stone that is magically sustained.
The wall is physically there to block you. The ward has to magically control you to stop you. That's the gist of it.
The sword can also block your path without penetrating, just not cut you.
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Then it needs to be defined how they are different and why the penetration is needed. The idea that they are a persistent magical effect targeting creatures which try to enter is such an explanation which provides consistency
because the constant patches on top of patches of errata trying to fix errata needs to end somewhere in a consistent explanation that covers everything without the hand waving
But a ward which is a type 1 effect which affects the space inside as if it were a type 2 effect but cannot move is just asking for trouble and confusion
It would be far simpler to define a ward as a type 2 effect and simply disallow boundary targets from moving, and if someone wants to fill a waterproof backpack with water then it can be warded as an individual.
Meaning that you can't target movable boundaries? In that case, you'd be left with very few eligible Boundary targets, as mentioned above.
Or meaning that every effect targeting a boundary creates that abnormal "force field fixed in absolute space"? I'd much rather have that confined to Wards alone, that have their own "weirdness" anyways, rather than to all other boundary effects.
For values of movable most are not, or at least are not relatively mobile. I would simply say that for a type 2 spell either the movement of the boundary disrupts the spell or the boundary effect remains fixed if the boundary is moved or disrupted, whichever works out best for the game. Probably the second since boundary doesn't have a ring style duration, though the first option might fit faerie magic better.
But that creates a strange discrepancy with T:Structure and T:Room, that are often very mobile. How would you treat Wards on those? Because your problem seems to be with Wards on containers (not all spells, only on Boundaries) so any solution you propose should probably deal with all container targets (of wards) equally.
If you ward a ship then it travels with the ship.
But it keeps the aegis as non mobile, since it is target:boundary by definition, and requires a breakthrough to change.