Heart
Alert
Diplomacy
Combat
Type
Power of Emotion
Discourages Combat
As an actor, after launch, you may use this power to gift all leaders your mark as a “heart”, including yourself. While a leader has a heart, their opponents’ ships have double worth. If a leader has a heart and their driver is an attack pod with 10 or less might, transform their fleet into an envoy. Hearts are vaporized during upkeep.
Special Offer: X Influence – Gain X influence (max 4).
Legacy: If a leader discharges an attack driver with 06 or less might, their fleet transforms into an envoy.
On the Cosmic battleground, there is little time to think, much less to feel. Many aliens have cast aside their emotions long ago as needless evolutionary baggage. When they hear the ominous rhythm of the beating Heart, many aren’t sure how to handle it when those emotions come rushing back.
Actor: Launch
Optional
Wild Flare
As an actor, after launch, you may discharge this flare to cause an “emotional outburst”. Any drivers discharged this encounter morph into N pods.
Actor: Launch
Super Flare
After a negotiation, if your opponent quashes a deal, you may discharge this flare to ravage one of their bases.
Leader: Negotiation
Modifications
- Originally Bleeding Heart. Changed to Heart due to Edict 10.
- Original power simply shouts “Let there be peace!” instead of gifting marks as hearts. The change I made is mostly superficial, as it is meant to reflect the idea of “giving an alien a heart”, which makes them feel emotions.
- Originally the power of “rapport.” Changed to the power of “emotion” to better match the mechanical side of the power.
- Original Super Bleeding Heart forces opponent to lose double ships. Since my version destroys all committed ships, I added the clause to ravage a base. It is punishing enough that no alien should ever want to quash a deal against Super Heart, unless they don’t care about they’re like Masochist and want to destroy their ships.
- Added a special offer to allow Heart to gain influence in exchange for giving the opponent the same amount of influence. It fits with Heart’s themes of compassion and sharing emotions.
- Heart’s legacy invokes a less potent version of its power in every encounter. Any attack pod with 06 or less might effectively becomes an N pod. Diplomacy aliens and aliens with special offers can take advantage of this power to Original Cosmic has no legacies.
Tips
- Heart’s power can make it much easier to engage in negotiation, which can be very tempting if you are invading or have a special offer. Heart’s special offer can even increase your influence by up to 4 as a trade-off of giving them equal influence. If you’re willing to cooperate, you could both walk away much richer than when you entered.
- Priming an attack pod higher than 10 might can be risky against Heart. Not only will you pay double compensation in the event of a massacre, but your opponent will also be using an attack pod higher than 10 if a clash occurs. If you only have one strong attack pod, it could be an effective means of wiping your cache.
- As Heart, using your power as the defender can protect your bases, allowing you to preserve your influence. As the invader, it allows you to spend your influence to gain a free base.
- Bear in mind that Heart’s power to force negotiations is not unbreakable like Diplomat or Empath. All it requires is an attack pod of 11 or higher, though it may come at the cost of paying double compensation.
- With free resupplies limited, double compensation is even more dangerous in my Cosmic.
Development Notes
- Heart is another alien that taps into the themes of love, joy, compassion, and friendship. Empath and Love are the two powers that can be most easily confused with this one, as their themes are very similar. Mechanically, all of these powers are very different, but I wanted to make sure they each capture the specific nuances so their themes feel different as well. Empath feels the pain of others and can make others feel its own pain, allowing it to change its mind when winning or make others change their mind when losing. Love is more of a supernatural force that wants everyone to get along with each other, helping other aliens to get sponsored. Heart is more of a biological oddity capable of instilling emotions into other aliens. The combination of fear, love, joy, sadness, anger, anxiety, etc. compels them to avoid committing to an attack unless their attack pod is strong enough.
- I was somewhat iffy on Heart being an optional power, as a heart is an involuntary organ within a body. However, I think it makes enough sense that Heart can control itself, as it is the heart rather than the body. It reflects how Mind’s power is optional despite also being involuntary. The body parts control themselves independently, without the body’s involvement.
- The heart is most commonly associated with feelings of love, with many idioms related to love referring to the heart. However, the heart is also heavily associated with emotion as a whole, acting as a counterpart to the brain. In that sense, Mind could be considered Heart’s main rival, competing for the title most important body part. The Mind is an information power, focused on logic and intelligence. The Heart is an emotional power, dealing with feelings and urges. The power is derived from the old artifact pod called Emotion Control, which forces both aliens to deploy an envoy. I removed this artifact in favor of my Therapist distress pod, which only turns your own fleet into an envoy. I based my version of Heart around emotion as something of a nod to the artifact’s legacy.
- In-universe, I imagine Heart’s power has the ability to instill others with emotions by pumping itself. The effect is likely temporary, but the ability to work during any phase means its range is quite high. The specific emotions are likely random and explosive, making it more difficult to make decisions or think straight. Since the emotions also affect Heart, they might be shared between both leaders. Perhaps they are restricted to targeting two beings at a time who are focused on one another, which is why it only affects the leader.
- Heart, mind, and body are a common triad of elements. Alternatively, heart, mind, and soul is another one. Soul would make more sense as an alien power than Body in my mind, since the use of the term “body” often refers to a corpse. I do have an alien called Soulborne, which could act as the third member of this triad. It is a resource power dealing with pods and scripts, so it does effectively give each alien its own distinct typing.
- Heart’s legacy makes Pacifist incredibly dangerous, effectively increasing the number of N pods in the game. Unlike Heart’s main power, which can be toggled off against Pacifist, Heart’s legacy is always on. The best chance enemies have against it is to play their own N pods, which is simple enough since Ns are easier to come by. However, Pacifist still has all the power since it can still effectively get free wins by playing an 08 or higher at the right time. Given the rarity of legacy-power combinations and the fact that Pacifist is still beatable, I think this dynamic is acceptable.