Anarchist

Alert

AnarchistBorderless

Essence

Resource

Invasion

Type

Power to Disrupt

Subverts Invasion Protocol

As a leader, after losing an encounter, use this power to reveal a “disruption” essence in your nexus. While revealed in your nexus, you may trigger your disruption with appropriate timing.

At any time, you may move a revealed disruption to another alien’s nexus, allowing both of you to trigger it. When a disruption is triggered by another alien, display it in the forge, allowing anyone to trigger it.

At the start of your orientation, gain one boon for each revealed disruption in the forge. If all of your disruptions are in the forge, establish a base in any system.

Legacy: Each warpfall, manifest a random disruption in the forge that all aliens can trigger, swapping out any existing disruption.

After joining the Federation to subvert it from within, the Anarchists began their campaign to create a world devoid of rules. Rather than vying for Cosmic conquest themselves, they hope to bring about a Cosmos ruled by no one.

Leader: Encounter

Mandatory

Wild Flare

With the appropriate timing, you may discharge this flare to activate one of the following effects: scramble destiny, make your committed ships impervious this invasion, or destroy all committed foreward ships after an invader wins an encounter. Burnout.

Any: Any

Super Flare

As a sponsor, if your fleet loses an encounter or starts a negotiation, you may discharge this flare to reveal a disruption in your nexus.

Any: Any

Disruptions

  • Warp Disruption – During warpfall, the invader may revive all ships.
  • Success Disruption – If your flagship is destroyed during your first invasion, you may repair it and manifest one fuel.
  • Cache Disruption – When you have no encounter pods, you may request a free resupply in any system.
  • Gate Disruption – You may have infinite capacity in the gate.
  • Compensation Disruption- You may convert any compensation into backer boons or vice versa.
  • Alliance Disruption – You may sponsor an alien without being commissioned, but if you do, any casualties you suffer are doubled.

Modifications

  • Originally the power of chaos. Changed to match the essence name.
  • Original Anarchist automatically wins the match if all of its disruptions are in effect. I nerfed this effect to remove the alt-win effect and make other aliens less hesitant to accept Anarchist’s disruptions. Original Anarchist doesn’t gain boons or bases during its own orientation.
  • Original essence names don’t include the word “disruption”.
  • Cache Disruption is originally called Hand Disruption. 
  • FFG Anarchist also has two additional disruptions. Rewards Disruption lets you reveal pod(s) another alien receives as boons. Destiny Disruption lets the user choose destiny. Since I nerfed Anarchist’s ability to auto-win from its power, I made the invasion aspect easier to attain to compensate. I removed the two I consider the least impactful and most troublesome, respectively.
  • Anarchist’s legacy creates a rotating disruption that everyone has access to each invasion, adding a little sprinkle of chaos to each invasion.  Original Cosmic has no legacies.

Tips

  • As Anarchist, you can lose as a leader on purpose to generate disruptions. This is more advisable as a defender than an invader since defenders don’t get anything for winning. If available, Success Disruption is great to choose after losing your first invasion, allowing you to make another attempt for a base or disruption.
  • Anarchist can still only afford to lose three bases as a defender before losing its power. Once Anarchist loses its power, all of its disruptions are also deactivated for everyone. It can possibly leverage this factor to dissuade other aliens from deactivating it.
  • Anarchist has to lose six invasions as a leader in order to earn a free base. This also means giving every other alien access to all of its disruptions, which can be a double-edged sword.
  • Anarchist is another alien that prefers long matches, since it gives Anarchist more time to gain disruptions, bases, and boons.
  • If Anarchist so chooses, it can keep all of its disruptions in its own nexus, preventing anyone else from using them. While it won’t get rewards or free bases this way, the disruptions can act as a power in their own right.
  • If Anarchist is forced to negotiate, it has to weigh the benefit of gaining a disruption against whatever it can get from the deal.

Development Notes

  • The base and boon gaining aspects of Anarchist’s power simply provide incentive for Anarchist to let other aliens use its disruptions. Thematically, I imagine Anarchist is taking advantage of the chaos to take what it wants. It’s fitting to the theme for an anarchist to flourish as the typical state of order starts falling apart.
  • Anarchist highlights the necessity of only granting access to three essence at a time. Success Disruption is debatably the objectively correct choice when losing as the invader, as it lets Anarchist get a second disruption for free. However, Anarchist might not have access to it when losing as an invader. It can force Anarchist to think more deeply about which disruption it should pick
  • Anarchist is different from typical essence aliens in that it doesn’t cycle through its essence. Once the essence is triggered, it goes into the forge and remains there until the end of the match unless Anarchist is eliminated. Since it is not vaporized, it never refreshes the pool, meaning Anarchist eventually just runs out of essence.
  • Every alien power is designed to break at least one rule of Cosmic. It’s why I think it was such a good idea to make Anarchist a power that can share its power with others, looking to cause as much destruction and chaos as possible. It has the option to keep the power to itself, but it can gain much more by spreading the anarchism around to others.
  • I considered a legacy that puts all of Anarchist’s disruptions into play at once, but I concluded that this would almost certainly override other legacies entirely, making them redundant if both are in play at once. It highlights the danger of making any one legacy too impactful or do too much at once.
  • Comparing Anarchist to Sneak, the strength of gaining bases from loss is laughably disparate. Sneak gains a base from a single loss as a defender, while Anarchist has to lose six encounters as a leader just to get the chance at a free base. This difference is intentional, as Anarchist gains a lot more advantage from its disruptions than the base gaining.
  • Once Success Disruption hits the forge, every alien will likely be taking two invasions when possible. This disruption would be highly valuable for Lightning, who can leverage the power to facilitate its own. However, since disruptions have to be manually triggered for the power to function properly, it doesn’t actually help Lightning, since other aliens have no reason to use it. Machine can make decent use of it, since it gives it a free invasion after a loss without having to use its power. It’s likely most valuable to Anarchist, who can use it following a loss to gain up to two disruptions in one campaign.
  • I chose Destiny Disruption as one of the two to remove from the pool due to its overlap with Dictator. While it would be resolved via the timing rule, I wasn’t satisfied with Dictator’s value when placed in the same match as this disruption. When the disruption is first revealed, Anarchist and Dictator would effectively take turns choosing destiny based on the timing rule, and it would only get worse after the disruption hits the forge. It also doesn’t work too well with Coordinator, though my version of that power at least still has the utility of determining the invader. I think it also makes sense that Anarchist leaves destiny alone due to it already being chaotic enough. Dictator and Anarchist shouldn’t have the same power. If I were to instantiate a Destiny Disruption, it would be more along the lines of adding infinite charges of every destiny color, only it would need some sort of manual trigger.
  • I consider the Warp Disruption a reasonable means of making ships less precious of a resource. It doesn’t quite make everyone Zombie since they still have to wait for their campaign to free their ships, and it makes bases much more valuable as a resource. It means aliens can be more liberal with their ships but not completely disregard their value. This disruption drastically nerfs Warpish, but not to the point of making it useless.  Warpish can still easily pass the Human Test in most cases, especially if Gate Disruption is in effect.
  • Cache Disruption is notably more meaningful in my Cosmic than the original, since it grants everyone infinite free resupplies.  Since my Cosmic limits everyone to 2 free resupplies, it has a major impact on powers like Porcupine and Benefactor. It means that Anarchist has to factor in how easily other aliens can prune their caches when deciding whether to share the essence.
  • Gate Disruption gives everyone the ability to play as Amoeba, only without the ability to change their mind at the last second. It naturally provides high risk and high reward, which can be especially tempting if Warp Disruption is also in effect.
  • Compensation Disruption is perhaps the least impactful of Anarchist’s essence. When an alien loses with an envoy, they can draft pods from the forge or dark forge, or they can revive the ships they just lost. Anarchist can use this power to avoid suffering casualties since it is loss-based, though it will still lose its bases as a defender. Gaining compensation as a backward is comparably less useful, since the opponent is likely to run out of pods if everyone opts for it. It does make compensation more tempting, so sponsoring a defender may become riskier.
  • As is the case with many essence aliens, Anarchist is a “skilled at much, master of none” type of alien. Any one thing that Anarchist does is done better by other aliens. Warp Disruption is worse Zombie, Gate Disruption is worse Amoeba, Compensation Disruption is unique but generally worse than Hacker or Lawyer, Cache Disruption is basically worse Invader,  and Alliance Disruption is basically worse Parasite. The combination of all these abilities can give Anarchist an advantage over any one of these aliens, though it’s the ability to share it with other aliens that allows the design space to stand out as more than just a grab bag of other powers. Anarchist has to weigh the risk of gaining more boons and potentially a free base in exchange for giving everyone else the freedom to use its essence.
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