Angel

Alert

AngelBorderless

Essence

Support

Type

Power of Faith

Guides Another Alien to Victory

Setup: Privately manifest a random ship belonging to another alien and shroud it in your nexus. The original owner of the manifested ship is an “ordained” alien.

At any time, you may use this power to trigger a “blessing” in your nexus with appropriate timing. After using this power, you may speak in a private voice channel with one other alien of your choice. Other blessings in your nexus are sealed until upkeep.

If the ordained alien wins the match without you, you also win as part of a shared victory. If the ordained alien won the match alone, the match is scored as if you both won a solo victory. 

Legacy: Manifest destiny. The owner of that system’s destiny may establish a foreign base in any system. If it is rainbow destiny, every alien may establish a foreign base in their system of choice.

Beings of a divine calling who have come down from the heavens, the Angels are dutybound to carry out their lord’s will to make sure the rightful ruler of the Cosmos ultimately comes to power. Though their motives seem altruistic and noble, one has to wonder why they still need to use spaceships and lasers. Their lord works in mysterious ways indeed.

Any: Any

Optional

Wild Flare

At any time, if another alien has less dominion than every other alien, you may discharge this flare to allow that alien to establish a base in any system. Burnout.

Any: Any

Super Flare

At any time, you may discharge this flare to zap another discharged pod and ravage three of your ships.

Any: Any

Blessings

  • Patience – At the start of any campaign, you may target another alien to ambush an alien of their choice.
  • Chastity – As a sponsor, after approach, you may remove your ships from the fleet. Force another sponsor in either fleet to also remove their ships from their fleet.
  • Charity – Gift another alien a feint pod from your cache.
  • Temperance – When you would gain boon(s), you may choose another alien to gain them instead.
  • Diligence – Probe another alien’s cache and abduct one pod. Gift that pod to another alien.
  • Humility – When another alien uses their power, zap that alien’s power.
  • Kindness – Gift this blessing to another alien until upkeep. While this blessing is in their nexus, that alien’s power cannot be zapped, and your power is zapped.

Modifications

  • Originally Zilch. Changed to give the power a more coherent theme.
  • Originally the power of “zilch”. Changed to match my theme of Angel.
  • Zilch’s original essence is called “fate” instead of “blessings”, and all of them have different names with “!” endings.
    • Chastity is called “Psych!”. 
    • Charity is called “Donate!”. 
    • Temperance is called “Reward!”.
    • Diligence is a combination of “Steal!” and “Peek!” Original Steal! snatches one pod and gifts it, while Peek! lets Zilch look at the next 5 objects from any pool/forge or any other private aspect.
    • Humility is called “Zap!”.
    • Kindness is called “Shield!”.
  • My Patience is an original blessing I came up with since Diligence combined two of them into one. I made it to allow another alien to gain an extra campaign in place of Angel getting one. I think it’s a better fit for the patience theme and lines up with the rest of Angel’s toolkit. It does pose the risk of clogging up Angel’s essence due to the limited timing, especially if Angel chooses not to use it, but I think it can be managed since there aren’t too many blessings in the essence.
  • Original Zilch chooses who the ordained alien is. I changed it to be random to make it feel more like an angel carrying out the will of God, rather than pursuing their own goals.
  • Original Zilch manifests destiny instead of a ship, allowing destiny to clue others into who the ordained alien is. Any alien whose color doesn’t appear three times before the pool resets is the ordained alien, meaning the truth will come out as long as the match doesn’t end  before then.
  • Original Zilch will win the match with a solo win if the ordained alien wins alone. Changed to better match Angel’s theme and compensate for replacing destiny with a ship.
  • Original Zilch only gets to privately or publicly speak with someone after using Peek!. I opted to make it part of Angel’s base power and have it specifically involve the voice channel to allow more obfuscation. It should be more valuable since destiny no longer singles out the ordained alien.
  • I added the clause related to the scoring system to replace the clause that has Zilch win alone. With this clause in place, ordained aliens won’t be punished for helping aliens win. I think it is a reasonable clause since solo victories are more difficult to achieve, especially for one targeted alien.
  • Oligarch’s legacy alters the universal win condition for the match, as a reference to its original Victory Possession privilege. Instead of needing 5 dominion, aliens need a combined dominion and authority total of 10. This legacy means that only aliens who retain all of their home bases will be able to win with 5 foreign bases. Aliens that lose all but one base will need 9 foreign bases to win. This legacy can make shared victories more difficult, as few aliens have the exact same number of home and foreign bases. It also makes home bases just as valuable as foreign ones, meaning that every encounter as a leader is incredibly important, unless the invader targets a planet without a base. This legacy favors aliens that are skilled at winning encounters, as well as aliens like Warrior and Tick-Tock that like stalling out the match. This legacy can also be difficult to enable by eliminating Oligarch, due to its Absolute Authority privilege. Original Cosmic has no legacies.

Tips

  • No matter who the ordained alien is, Angel will not win alongside them if its power is deactivated. If you can’t figure out who the chosen alien is, you can opt for that option as a backup plan.
  • The ordained alien is Angel’s biggest secret, though it doesn’t have to keep it one. Since no one loses anything if the ordained alien wins, they can simply ignore it and let Angel win along with them.
  • If you suspect you are the ordained alien, the only way for you to win without Angel is to deactivate its power. If the match is scored, it could be more important to make this happen.
  • Angel is one of the only aliens in Cosmic that can create a genuine long-term alliance which will last the entire match. As long as the ordained alien is succeeding, Angel doesn’t need to gain a single foreign base.
  • Due to the private voice channels, Angel could secretly tell each alien that they are the ordained alien, fooling them into allying with Angel for the match.
  • Chastity can be used strategically to prevent another alien from winning alongside your ordained alien, to reduce the number of aliens that win for scoring purposes.
  • If Angel’s power is zapped during the turn its ordained alien wins, Angel will not participate in the win. This factor can make using a blessing on the final invasion risky if another alien sees the truth.

Development Notes

  • The specific choice for the original Zilch to use destiny as the determinant of an ordained alien was intentionally done to make it possible for aliens to know for sure who the ordained alien is. Since it removes a destiny from the pool, other aliens will know that an alien is not ordained if three of their destiny color manifests. I don’t like the mechanic of aliens being able to deduce which alien is ordained just by looking at the destiny, as it removes the potential for long-term mind games. However, it is important to the original design since Zilch can outright steal a match if they don’t figure it out. I decided to soften the impact of the power to only grant shared victories, rather than letting Angel usurp the ordained alien’s win. I’ve never really been a fan of powers that superficially steal victory from someone else, since it tends to be unsatisfying as a result, so I was already on the fence about keeping that aspect. But I don’t think it fits Angel’s theme at all. I think the change I made to have the power affect the scoring of the match works much better.
  • Angels are commonly depicted in media as winged servants of God, beings of goodness and light. Guardian angels are are the primary source of inspiration for this theme, as those are angels who single out one individual to help guide and protect. In It’s a Wonderful Life, a guardian angel must successfully prevent a man from committing suicide in order to earn its wings. In the same vein, an Angel in my Cosmic must help another alien win a match to win itself. Though unlike that movie, the Angel can simply win without the ordained alien, since it is ultimately still an alien itself.
  • To “ordain” is to officially decree, but it can also be used to refer to the act of making someone a priest. If something has been ordained, it has been chosen by God to be true, such as a future that will necessarily come to pass. Original Zilch also uses the term “ordained”, but it is more used in the context of fate and destiny. Its name comes from the older Eon version of the power that has the power to “kibitz”. Zilch is another word for “zero”, but I’m not entirely sure what that has to do with fate. I much prefer my Angel theme for the power.
  • Angel could be considered a type of alt-win alien, since its design allows it to win without gaining the necessary amount of dominion. One of my edicts dictates that no alt-win aliens are allowed in my Cosmic, but I think it’s alt-win in the same sense of my Ticktock being alt-win. Trying to help another alien get 5 dominion is still trying to get 5 dominion. The only issue is that Angel has the ability to win by doing nothing, which was one of my main issues with Ticktock. I don’t think it’s quite the same issue, however, since Ticktock would win on its own by doing nothing if the match happened to stall long enough. Angel will simply get a shared win if the random ordained alien happens to participate in the win, which would be a complete dice roll if Angel doesn’t participate.
  • I like that Angel can still win without the ordained alien even though the inverse is only possible when Angel’s power is deactivated. It highlights the cognitive dissonance between the Angel being a Cosmic alien participating in the fight for global conquest and also being a servant of some benevolent deity. It rides the line between science fiction and supernatural, as well as good and evil.
  • While many aliens have powers that only hurt other aliens without benefitting itself, Angel is one of the only aliens with a power that almost exclusively helps other aliens without benefitting itself. The most you could say is that commissioning and sponsoring Angel could get it on your good side to have it use its blessings on you, but that is inherent to the game rather than the alien.
  • Wild Angel is possibly the most altruistic effect in the game, acting as a single-use power that gives another alien a free base in exchange for nothing. The effect can be used strategically to curry favor with a losing alien and get them to sponsor or commission you. When two aliens have the same number of bases, it becomes much easier to ally with them.
  • Noticing that there are 7 objects in Zilch’s essence, my immediate thought was to base them on the 7 Heavenly Virtues, the polar opposite of the more popular 7 Deadly Sins. I thought it would be more difficult to make them match the original ideas, but most of them actually line up pretty well to the original essence effects. The only one I had to invent was Patience, since I combined two of the originals to make Diligence.
  • Patience refers to one’s ability to wait for a desired outcome or resource instead of demanding instant gratification. My original idea was to allow Angel to skip its campaign and give it to another alien of choice, but the timing of this power would mean it could get stuck with only having two usable blessings for a whole cycle.  Instead, I changed the timing to give another alien a free ambush at the start of any campaign, with the idea being that the actual invader is made to be patient and wait their turn.
  • Chastity refers to the rejection of lust, but also the resistance of temptation. By resisting the temptation to join the fleet and gain resources, Angel prevents another alien from doing the same. 
  • Charity is the act of voluntary giving to help those in need, which perfectly lines up with the free gift of a feint pod.
  • Temperance is the avoidance of overindulging. It’s a good match for Angel refraining from boons and giving them to someone else instead.
  • Diligence refers to one with a strong work ethic, with a focus on perseverance and thoroughness. I combined two of Zilch’s original essence idea to make one where Angel carefully sorts through a cache of choice and finds one to gift to another alien. It can either use this to see and prune the ordained alien’s cache or find a strong pod to give to the ordained alien. Since it could do either, it becomes difficult for any alien to know which you are doing, unless they see which pod you abduct/gift. Even then, you could gift someone who isn’t your ordained alien a strong pod to throw other aliens off.
  • Humility is the rejection of pride that keeps one grounded in reality. This essence is highly appropriate since zapping an alien does an effective job at humbling them. It’s worth considering if these virtues are being experienced by Angel or if Angel is passing the virtues onto its targets. I think it’s the latter, since it is blessing the aliens based on these virtues.
  • Kindness refers to any number of behaviors that show concern for others without expecting anything in return. The ability to protect another alien from being zapped is a kind gesture on its own, but I added the self-zap clause to make it seem truly selfless. It also offers a small opportunity for the ordained alien to win without Angel, though Angel would realistically never use this essence when the ordained alien is about to win, unless Angel is already allied with them or truly being selfless and kind. I appreciate the roleplay value of the effect too much to change it for the strategic advantage.
  • Even though Angel uses “blessings” based on virtues, I opted for the power name of “faith” to match the other religious connotations. Angel’s power comes from its faith that the ordained alien will succeed, as well as the faith in the God that chose that alien to win. It can also refer to the faith the ordained alien must have in the Angel to grant them the right blessings to win.
  • The degree of honesty behind Angel is possibly the most interesting aspect of the power. An alien can choose to be completely honest about who the ordained alien is to everyone, they could only reveal the truth to the ordained alien itself, they could tell everyone the ordained alien is one alien with it actually being someone else, or they could privately tell every alien that they are the ordained alien while working to secretly earn their own solo win. 
  • One potential issue that strikes me about Angel’s design is that it wins too easily. In a standard match, 2 out of 5 aliens that could potentially win result in Angel winning as well, and the only way it doesn’t win is for neither of these aliens to win. With 4 aliens, it becomes a 50/50 chance of winning. This isn’t an issue specific to my version of the power, as Zilch only has the additional aspect that lets it steal a win. It’s also somewhat awkward that Angel is tethered to one specific alien and cannot change it, but it matches the theme too well for the ordained alien to be consistent. Naturally, the more aliens participate in the match, the harder of a time Angel will have, but the powers should be balanced regardless of the number of aliens. What ultimately sells me on the power idea is that it is specifically hindered somewhat in a tournament setting when scoring comes into play. It can win more easily, but shared wins are worth less than solo wins due to getting fewer bonus points.
  • I am very glad that both Zilch and Angel do not have a use clause at the time of declaring victory. It would be very lame for Angel’s win condition to boil down to a question of whether someone has a Cosmic Zap or not. Angel can be zapped when using its power during the same invasion that the ordained alien wins, but Angel has more control over that situation since it can choose not to use a blessing. 
  • Angel is one of the few aliens capable of allowing everyone to win, with possibly one of the easiest methods. If a shared victory occurs without Angel, Angel is guaranteed to participate.
  • Angel is a difficult power to use that definitely justifies being red alert. An alien that exclusively helps another alien and uses mind games to potentially throw off who that alien even is can definitely be complex for an experienced Cosmic player.
  • Angels are considered the polar opposite of devils and demons, so it is fitting how they clash with Demon. Demon attempts to steal the victories of other aliens through deception, while Angel tries to help another alien win the match through purely altruistic means.
  • Certain information aspects like AI’s power can obliterate Angel’s secret from the first invasion. While Angel doesn’t need to keep its choice a secret, the secret is one of Angel’s biggest advantages. 
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