Coordinator

Alert

Control

Type

Power to Schedule

Controls the Order of Play

At any time, if no alien has any of your marks in their nexus, gift every alien, including yourself, three of your marks as “tickets”, placing them in each alien’s nexus.

At the start of any orientation, use this power to scrap one of your tickets from any nexus. That alien becomes the invader for the current campaign. Then, you may scrap a lucre from your cache to probe the next three destiny charges and rearrange them in any order.

When the timing rule is invoked, you decide the timing order instead.

Legacy: After a campaign ends, the previous defender becomes the new invader instead of following the normal rotation.

A former servile race of the Dictators, the punctilious Coordinators always took great pains to ensure everything ran on time. All the pods had to be properly organized, and the warp had to be regularly scrubbed on the scheduled hour. After witnessing the chaos of the Cosmos escalating out of control, they struck out on an unscheduled intergalactic takeover to get things back on track.

Any: Orientation

Mandatory

Wild Flare

During any warpfall, you may discharge this flare to probe the next three aur in the forge.

Any: Warpfall

Super Flare

After destiny manifests and you are chosen as the defender, you may discharge this flare to make yourself the invader and the previous invader the defender.

Any: Destiny

Modifications

Original Coordinator only has the ability to rearrange the top three destiny charges instead of drawing destiny.
Original Coordinator has an optional power.
Original Wild Coordinator allows the user to redraw destiny.
Coordinator’s legacy offers a unique means of mixing up the play order, by granting the next campaign to the previous defender instead of going in play order. It makes the act of defending more important on the first encounter, since it could make the difference in getting another campaign or not. Invader-only aliens can struggle greatly with this legacy, since it makes it harder to start their next invasion, and they are handicapped when it comes to meeting the condition. Original Cosmic has no legacies.

Tips

Coordinator has limited control over who will be chosen as the defender. It can pay lucre at the start of orientation to rearrange destiny as it so wishes. Since it also controls the turn order, it can effectively set the matchups to a limited degree.
Coordinator may be best off saving its destiny control for its own encounters since it is limited by its starting lucre. It can gain more from other aliens through compensation if needed.
Coordinator can make any alien into a makeshift Machine, granting it three consecutive campaigns. However, after these ships are exhausted, that alien can have no further campaigns until everyone else has had three.
Coordinator can set the upcoming or current invader as the next destiny charge to skip it, sending it to the bottom of the stack and postponing it for later.

Development Notes

Original Coordinator is considered another candidate for one of the worst aliens in Cosmic, practically a non-power by many. It attempts to occupy a middle ground between Will and Dictator, accomplishing less than either of them without doing anything unique from them to stand out. While it does have limited control over its own destiny and others’, it lacks Will’s ability to target anyone anywhere, being limited to the destiny clouds it probes. It has some ability to control others’ destiny, but it is mostly limited to the next invader, since it can only control the next three. The power is invader-only, meaning it doesn’t even get to use such an ineffectual power that often, but expanding the power to every destiny would just make it a stronger Dictator (unless opposing Dictator).
Bill Martinson proposed a fix for Coordinator that allows viewing the top three components of any aspect, including the forge, dark forge, destiny, tech, etc. Since the base game refers to these aspects as “decks”, it’s much easier to specify how such a power works. I opted for a power that works better with my systems.
The biggest issue with creating a power designed around play order is making it strong enough without making it too strong. I think using lucre as a limitation to destiny control makes a good use of the mechanic to allow Coordinator to freely control destiny but not do so thoughtlessly. With two uses per resupply sans restocking, it has to plan out its estimation of who will win the next two encounters to determine the destiny. Since my Cosmic cannot roll one’s own destiny color, the color will be skipped if Coordinator sets it, moving it to the bottom of the stack. My Coordinator has a limited means of determining entire matchups, choosing both invader and defender if it so wishes. I opted to let it give someone up to three campaigns in a row, to grant it more flexibility and feel more impactful as a power. When an alien is close to winning, it can intentionally prevent that alien from acting as an invader until it is forced to do so, allowing itself and others to catch up.
Play order does still continue normally while Coordinator is using its power, so if the power is zapped, the normal invader will regain control over the campaign.
There’s something thematically appropriate about the mechanical similarity between Dictator and Coordinator. A common expression associated with authoritarian regimes is that the trains run on time, so it brings to mind the image of Coordinators working as servants of the Dictators for such a purpose.
Original Coordinator is one of the few aliens with an invalid matchup in the base game. It is unable to be used in the same match as Dictator, since both powers exclusively control destiny, and Dictator overrides Coordinator due to the timing. My version allows the two powers to work together without one gaining total authority over the other. Coordinator has control of play order in addition to destiny, meaning it doesn’t end up powerless when Dictator manipulates destiny. Coordinator can save its destiny control for Dictator’s turn, or it can simply spend its lucre on boons and vouchers like other aliens.