Alien

Alert

Control

Combat

Essence

Type

Power to Abduct

Abducts Enemy Ships

At the start of another alien’s orientation, you may use this power to abduct another alien’s ship and link it to an “aftereffect” in your nexus. You may not target an alien whose ship already exists in your nexus.

When not the invader, after arrival, you may use this power to release one ship belonging to one or both other leaders, committing the ship(s) even if they would exceed capacity. Then, prime the linked aftereffect next to that leader and reveal it alongside that leader’s driver. The aftereffect triggers when revealed, its effect applying to that leader.

Legacy: 4 random ships from each system are abducted and displayed in the forge. At that start of each campaign, rebound a random ship abducted by this effect.

Many of the most longstanding questions on the galactic stage are the Questions of Firsts. Who was the first alien to develop a power? Who was the first alien to invent space travel? Who was the first alien to exist? While the official answer is inconclusive, the oldest living race is one known merely as the Aliens. It is believed their long history of abductions and visitations predate most members of the Eon 15. They now assert that their right to rule the Cosmos has been “grandfathered in.”

Not Invader: Orientation

Not Invader: Arrival

Optional

Wild Flare

During your orientation, you may discharge this flare to force another alien to gift you five of their ships to display on this flare until the end of your campaign. Your opponent may haggle with you for up to 5 influence to prevent an equal number of ships from being gifted.

Invader: Orientation

Super Flare

When using your power, you may discharge this flare to abduct a ship from an alien whose ship is already in your nexus.

Any: Any

Aftereffects

Abandonment – Any of your sponsors may either rebound their ships or switch fleets.
Aggression – You may prime any attack pods with 08 or less might from your cache as reinforcement pods.
Depression – If you reveal an attack card, its value is 00.
Hallucinations (x2) – Your opponent may exchange their driver with another pod from their cache.
Hearing Voices (x2) – If all other aliens unanimously agree, they can snipe one of your bases, ravage half of your cache (rounding down), or gift you one or two exhausted pods from the forge.
Nervous Breakdown – Your opponent blitzes you.
Victim Complex – During combat, if your fleet has less might, add 2 might to your fleet. Otherwise, increase the worth of your ships by 2 and decrease the opposing fleet’s worth by 2 this invasion. Also, your ships are not destroyed if you quash a deal.

Modifications

Originally the power to traumatize.
Essence is originally “traumas”. Changed to “aftereffects” to better reflect my power name.
Aggression can originally be used with any attack pods.
Alien’s legacy has both an immediate and lasting effect on the match. First, four ships are abducted from each system. Then, the ships are slowly granted back to their owners through a process comparable to warpfall. The legacy is more punishing the later it occurs during the match, as aliens start creating foreign bases with few ships on them or end up with few ships on their home bases. Unlucky aliens can even have one of their bases with four ships wiped out, which won’t be restored even if they get their ships back. Aliens with strong defensive powers can best defend against this legacy since they can best avoid losing a base. Persistent powers can also handle the power well, since they aren’t as disadvantaged even if they do lose a base, though Sneak would still prefer not to waste its home bases like that. Original Cosmic has no legacies.

Tips

Though it is much more relevant with Super Alien, due to not being limited by the number of ships it can abduct, Alien is never forced to release a ship after abducting it. It can simply abduct a ship to effectively vaporize it, though it generally gets more value from the aftereffects.
Aggression and Victim Complex are positive aftereffects you can use on your own leader to help your fleet win, while the rest are negative that can either destroy their encounter or simply punish the target.
The most dangerous of Alien’s aftereffects is the Nervous Breakdown, which can give it a free win against a specific alien ahead of time. Since Alien cannot use its power as invader, it can only get a free base as a foreward, which can be quite tricky to pull off.

Development Notes

Since I removed Human’s ability to self-zap, Alien is one of the few powers to possess an auto-win with essentially no strings attached via its Nervous Breakdown aftereffect. The only limitations are that it needs to choose who it will win against ahead of time and can’t use the power as the invader. While it can get a free base with this effect, it has to be able to time destiny right so that it is acting as a bystander and gets commissioned by the invader. Many factors could go wrong that results in the nervous breakdown going unused the entire match, or Alien could end up forced to use it as a defender or backward for less payoff.
Aside from Joker, which is only an essence alien in my Cosmic due to my specific definition, Alien is one of the first essence aliens introduced to the game, alongside the six others found in the Eon Galaxy. Alien introduces the concept well, with a red alert version of the ability. It requires a good deal of forethought and planning, which can be pretty complicated for even an intermediate player. There’s an argument to be made that every essence-based alien should be red alert, but some are simple enough that I think it makes sense to allow yellow to be the minimum.
Since “alien” is already terminology within both my Cosmic and original Cosmic, there’s a case to be made against using “Alien” as a power name. However, I think the theme is too fundamental to the DNA of the game to avoid using. Exploring the stereotypical “little green men” who abduct people for mysterious experiments is too interesting to pass up, and the mechanical side of it operates within its own unique design space. Calling it “Alien” provides that extra bit of meta humor that reflects how stereotypical it’s meant to be.
With “abduction” already being a term in my Cosmic, I needed to make sure that Alien invokes it for the power to feel intuitive. Luckily the original power already captures ships, which is the mechanic I renamed from original Cosmic. The “traumas” from the original power are meant to be result of the victim post-abduction. I think the term “aftereffect” does the job better, since it is specifically referring to the aftereffect of abduction. Trauma has more of a permanent impact, and Alien’s abductions only invoke temporary mental infirmities.
As an abduction alien, Alien can be compared with the likes of Fungus, Pirate, and Remote. With its timing of activating during most orientations, it arguably has the most consistent abduction rate out of all the aliens. Fungus, Pirate, and Remote are all win-based, and they will capture nothing if they never win. Contrarily, Alien will always abduct, but it is limited to abducting one ship per other alien until it goes super. In terms of the benefit it gets from the power, it is something of a mix between Fungus and Remote. Each abducted ship can be used to leverage one big effect, and that effect can provide significant combat advantage. However, the effect needs to be planned in advance and cannot be used as an invader.
Essence powers are more difficult to balance than regular powers due to the additional mechanics that have to be taken into account. It could be that one specific essence doesn’t properly fit into my design and has to be tweaked, so I can’t simply accept them as a package deal. Luckily for Alien, each one fits both the theme and mechanic well, providing a meaningful effect with the given timing.
The way Hearing Voices works, an anonymous vote would be unlikely to ever result in the effect working. I imagine it instead involving all other aliens joining a private voice channel to discuss the decision and having one minute to agree on a choice. If all aliens agree within the minute, the effect takes place. Otherwise, it does not.
The way Aggression is originally balanced, it can almost be seen as a second Nervous Breakdown, only applied to a friend rather than a foe. Since it works with any attack pods, you can play all of your attack pods at once and effectively guarantee your victory unless going up against something crazy like Virus. I decided to give this effect a Reserve-style limit, preventing it from being used with any high value pods 9+. While it is still very potent, it may not be as much of an auto-win. It’s also not strictly better than Reserve’s power despite having a ceiling of 08 instead of 06. In addition to the one-time use, Alien cannot use it on itself. It is limited to applying it to a leader after getting commissioned by that leader.
I considered a legacy for Alien involving everyone immediately abducting 3 ships from an alien of choice. Considering the worst-case scenario for such a legacy, an 8-alien match could result in 7 aliens each targeting one alien to steal their ships, resulting in 21 ships being abducted and immediately eliminating that alien. Though unlikely since aliens shouldn’t be able to coordinate, I didn’t want to invoke a design that could inch toward that possibility. Even abducting 9 ships would be pretty brutal. The version I ended up with is less likely to target one specific alien, particularly if it activates at the beginning of the match. The biggest issue is the potential for it to destroy bases, though it realistically should only be destroying one unless an alien is in dire straits.
I also considered making use of the essence with Alien’s legacy, but I decided to avoid overcomplicating it. Only Alien’s true abduction methods can produce such strong aftereffects, which is why Wild Alien doesn’t involve them either.
Alien’s name brings to mind the notion of an “Alien Prime”, the first alien to receive the title of “alien”. Since the Eon Galaxy is so far away, it seems unlikely that Alien would have been the first one discovered. However, if Alien were the first to discover intergalactic travel, they could have visited many planets during the time of the Eon 15 and simply lacked the power at the time to compete. Or perhaps they performed abductions in secret and never engaged. Encounters with them could have been similar to that of extraterrestrial encounters on Earth, where they formed the impression of what an “alien” is, only to finally be discovered many millennia later and welcomed into the Federation.
Alien helped me to understand what aspects should trigger the manifestation of a new essence. It seems to be different from alien to alien, but it’s important that Alien gets a new essence before triggering its old ones, particularly for Super Alien. If essence didn’t manifest until returning the captured ship, Alien would have a hard limit of 3 captured ships at a time, which would be terribly awkward if there are 7 other aliens in the match. As a general rule, new essence should be manifested when an essence is linked, even if it’s not removed from the nexus.
I like the bonus detail that Alien cannot use its power as the invader. Aside from the mechanical significance of preventing Alien from using Nervous Breakdown for a free solo win, it taps further into the alien stereotype. Alien invasion is just as common of a trope as alien abduction, but the two are mutually exclusive. When an alien is doing one, they aren’t doing the other.