Cosmos

Alert

Essence

Control

Type

Power of Reality

Alters the Rules of Reality

During any payoff, after another invader wins in combat, use this power to trigger a “rule” in your essence as a reward (if possible). Triggered rules are displayed beside your nexus and remain active until you vaporize them with your power. At any time, you may permanently vaporize one of your triggered rules.

Triggered rules must be followed by all other aliens, as if they were legacies. If your power is zapped, permanently vaporize the rule you just triggered.

Special Offer: 3 influence – Permanently vaporize one of your rules.

Legacy: All rules that have not been permanently vaporized are displayed near the forge, becoming permanently triggered for the rest of the match.

As emissaries of the universe that shares their namesake, the Cosmos are purported to wield a fragment of the power that forged the universe itself. Scholars and politicians are intensely divided as to whether this power is genuine, or whether it grants them a divine right to rule that same universe. However, not one alien in the Federation chose to bow out of the running in response.

Not Invader: Payoff

Mandatory

Wild Flare

During another alien’s orientation, you may haggle equal to your influence. If the haggle is not successful, that alien’s power is zapped until the end of their campaign. Burnout.

Invader: Orientation

Super Flare

During your warpfall, you may discharge this flare to manifest a pod of your choice.

Any: Warpfall

Rules

Orientation – Invaders gain no fuel from their orientation. Invaders may ravage up to two of their ships to gain an equal amount of fuel.
Warpfall – After reviving a ship during warpfall, the invader must vaporize one of their ships in the warp.
Destiny – Two “clear” destiny clouds are added to the destiny pool. If clear destiny manifest, aliens must target a planet or base in their own system. Cosmos cannot manifest clear destiny.
Launch – If an invader does not commit as many ships as possible, the defender chooses the target planet in their system. This rule still applies if Cosmos is the defender.
Rally – Aliens may only sponsor a leader if they commit more ships than the leader.
Approach – After approach, reveal all drivers, including Cosmos’s. Scrap the highest driver(s) and manifest 00 attack pod(s) to replace them, except for ones belonging to Cosmos.
Encounter – During an encounter, if a leader discharges a feint pod, their driver will transform into a random encounter pod.
Payoff – During payoff, the winning leader(s) must either ravage a ship or scrap a pod as a penalty.
Upkeep – During upkeep, if an alien has at least three pods in their exhaust, that alien is zapped until the end of next upkeep.

Modifications

Originally the power of “rules” to match the essence name. Changed to the power of “reality” after I changed Schizoid to use a different power name.
Original power is optional. Changed to better fit my theme.
Original power is yellow alert. Changed since mine is similar to Oligarch, another red alert alien.
Changed the timing of the power to be when the invader wins via combat, creating additional incentive for negotiation.
Original Cosmos has completely different rules that aliens can optionally use in exchange for Cosmos gaining a boon. I changed them to be mandatory to make them feel more like rules than options. All of my rules invoke negative conditions instead of providing positive options.
Original Cosmos can look through its essence to choose the one it wants. Mine is limited to the typical essence rules of choosing from three at a time.
Original Orientation is called “Start Turn”. It allows the invader to draft a pod or revive a ship.
Original Warpfall is called “Regroup”. It allows the invader to redistribute their bases during warpfall.
Original Launch allows the defender to re-aim the gate at one of their planets where the invader doesn’t have a base.
Original Rally is called “Alliance”. It allows anyone to sponsor anyone if they commit more ships than the leader.
Original Approach is called “Planning”. It allows a leader to force all negotiate drivers to be revealed after approach and allows them to switch out their pod if the opponent’s pod is not revealed.
Original Encounter is called “Reveal”. It allows leaders to ravage a ship to scrap their driver and replace it with another if they deployed an envoy.
Original Payoff doesn’t exist. FFG Cosmic combines payoff and upkeep into one phase.
Original Upkeep is called “Resolution”. If a leader wins an encounter, they may gain one boon as a reward.
Original Cosmos also has rules based on each of the phases in Cosmic, named after the original phase names. Since my Cosmic has Payoff as an additional phase, I gave the original Upkeep to the Payoff rule and invented my own Upkeep rule.
Original Destiny rule lets a destiny be used as rainbow if the invader manifests their own destiny. My Cosmic doesn’t allow manifesting your own destiny, so I had to change the effect to a different one.
Original Super Cosmos gets a boon when it uses one of its own rules. Since my Cosmos doesn’t use rules, I changed it to be able to manifest a pod of its choice during its own warpfalls, encapsulating the idea of a being with a degree of control over reality.
Cosmos’s legacy is essentially 9 legacies in one. It immediately enables all 9 of Cosmos’s rules, regardless of where they are. Since Cosmos is no longer participating, all aliens are subject to the 9 rules equally. Original Cosmic has no legacies.

Tips

Cosmos is practically guaranteed to manifest some rules over the course of the match since it is dependent on any other aliens gaining dominion as an invader. Cosmos can throw an encounter as a defender to guarantee it can generate a rule, at the cost of one of its valuable home bases.
Each of Cosmos’s rules have synergy with other ones, making them more effective together. This also means that removing one of Cosmos’s rules via its special offer can make it much less threatening if successful.
With Approach in effect, encounters become a game of chicken. If you use a stronger pod, it will become a 00. If you undercut the opponent with a weak pod, you will give yourself an advantage, but the higher the pod you reveal, the more of an advantage you get. If Encounter is in effect, you can potentially play a feint pod afterwards to transform your 00 attack into something more useful.
With Approach in effect, combat powers and sponsors become more useful. With Rally in effect, sponsors become harder to obtain. With Launch in effect, it becomes even harder for leaders to obtain sponsor.
The specific combination of rules that Cosmos implements can shape how aliens need to handle it. Warpfall and Orientation could make ships more valuable, while Upkeep and Approach add more value to pods.
Encounter can be a double-edged sword to all aliens that use it. Each time the leader discharges a feint pod, their pod will transform into a random pod. Sponsors can freely discharge feint pods, but sponsors can be more difficult to obtain with the Rally rule in effect.
Cosmos is naturally at its most powerful when all 9 rules are in effect. If you can end the match before all the rules are activated, you can make the effort much easier. Alternatively, if you deactivate Cosmos’s power, all rules will be deactivated as well.
Destiny is arguably the best rule for Cosmos to activate first, since it adds two destiny charges to the pool that will potentially increase the number of invader victories without increasing the amount of dominion.

Development Notes

The word “Cosmos” is quite possibly the most common word included in the lore section of my alien bios. While I generally use it to refer to the universe of Cosmic Encounter, matching the FFG version of the game, it is interesting to consider a power named Cosmos. A being that serves as an avatar for the Cosmos itself would naturally have the same drive to seize control over the Cosmos as every other alien. However, would that mean they have a more legitimate claim to the throne, or has the power produced by the Cosmos exceeded the universe itself?
Cosmos naturally possesses reality-warping powers, giving it limited control over how Cosmic Encounters function. It’s funny that such a notably named power turned out like my concept of legacies. If designing the power myself, I might have had Cosmos change the rules in more mandatory ways. A “rule” would be like the laws of physics that people have to follow, rather than something you can choose to use or not. It makes the power feel more like Anarchist, an alien who notably rejects rules. However, since original Cosmos gains boons every time someone uses one of its rules, there would need to be some kind of lever to prevent Cosmos from just getting a bunch of boons for free.
I decided to rework Cosmos to focus on the value from not having to follow its own rules, similar to Oligarch. Since Oligarch is also based on other aliens gaining dominion, I wanted to make sure the two powers are not too similar. Cosmos has almost twice as many rules as Oligarch has privileges, and it gains a new rule every time another invader wins an encounter. Oligarch only gains one when a new highest dominion is reached, even if that is itself. My idea between the two is that each of Oligarch’s privileges is more impactful than Cosmos’s rules, but Cosmos gets more rules. The main difference is that Oligarch’s privileges benefits itself, while Cosmos simply has immunity to its rules that punish other aliens. With the power being similar to Oligarch, it feels appropriate to make the power red alert instead of yellow. A power name as significant as Cosmos feels like it should be red alert anyhow.
In a standard 5-alien match, it generally takes about 2-3 cycles to win a match, which can translate to more than 9 invader wins. At minimum, a match can be won in 5 invader wins, which would translate to 4 rules. I think Cosmos is likely to trigger all of its rules, especially with more than 5 aliens. However, the amount of time it gets to spend with all of its rules in play is also important. The primary advantage Cosmos has is the immunity to its own rules, which becomes less impactful the less time it gets that immunity. Since the rules are activated automatically and easily, I also wanted to make sure that Cosmos doesn’t become too oppressive even with all the rules active. Making the rules permanently zappable like Oligarch’s privileges is a good first step.
I designed the Cosmos rules to have synergy with one another, making them more effective once all of them are in effect. Orientation gets an alien to scrap two ships so that Warpfall is guaranteed to vaporize one. Launch incentivizes aliens to commit maximum ships, while Rally prevents aliens from gaining allies if they gain maximum ships. Approach forces the alien that primes the higher driver to scrap their pod, while Encounter adds a risk/reward mechanic to using feint pods. Payoff adds an extra penalty in the form of scrapping a ship or pod, which becomes more significant with either Warpfall or Upkeep in play. Upkeep synergizes with all of the pod-scrapping effects, as well as Encounter providing an incentive to play feint pods. Destiny can be considered the odd one out, but it adds “null invasions” to the match, which help it to potentially create more rules without aliens gaining dominion.
I originally had the idea for clear destiny to end an alien’s campaign entirely. However, with Orientation and Warpfall rules also in effect, it would be very unfun to lose a ship, vaporize a ship, and then get nothing out of it. I also toned down the number of clear destiny charges from 3 to 2, to make it the same as wild destiny. I didn’t want any one rule to be too powerful, and getting two potential free rules for one seems more reasonable than three.
Thematically, the closest to Cosmos’s power is original Schizoid, the power designed to warp reality. Since that one is based more on warping reality through perception, I decided to tweak the power name to fit. Cosmos is actually changing the rules of reality, acting as an avatar of the Cosmos. While I could have named it Avatar or Emissary, I think giving it the same name as the Cosmos itself is too good to pass up.
My custom alien King is also similar to Cosmos. However, King starts out strong and loses its power over time, while Cosmos starts without a power and gains it over the match. I imagine a match featuring Cosmos, King, and Oligarch to be an absolute Nightmare for the other aliens, but it would be interesting to watch.
If the gate capacity is increased for whatever reason, aliens will need to still fill the gate to max capacity to avoid having it retargeted. The original version of this rule requires the defender to target a planet the invader doesn’t already occupy, but I removed this requirement since mine gives the invader an option to avoid it.
Due to how it is phrased, Parasite can take a big hit from the Rally rule due to having commit more ships. On the other hand, aliens can prevent Parasite from sponsoring them by committing 4 ships.
I decided to make Cosmos gain power through combat victories. This means that an alien won’t give Cosmos a free rule if they use a clear destiny to establish a new base on a home planet, or if they win via negotiation. Thematically, I think it makes sense that the nature of the Cosmos is to gain power from eternal struggle. It provides a small hint that negotiation is actually the key to solving the ongoing cosmic conflict, which is what originally led to the Federation. If only the aliens could agree to negotiate their way through the rest of the conflict.
I made sure that a 00 attack is manifested by Approach instead of making it a stooge, since it would make it virtually impossible for compensation to occur without the random chance of Encounter, which would be too harsh of a nerf to compensation powers like Hacker and Lawyer. Cosmos being immune to the Approach rule means that it will never have to play the game of chicken to keep its attack pod. This also means that nothing will happen if Cosmos plays the stronger attack pod, which can be a valuable combat power in itself. Sponsors and combat powers are still the best defense against this rule, since undercutting with a low attack pod won’t result in much of a combat difference. It results in an effect similar to Graviton.
I considered having Approach or Encounter involve swapping pods, but I didn’t want to add a rule that felt like too much of an upside since Cosmos is immune to them. I also didn’t want to give Cosmos an ability that is essentially Oracle, since it runs the risk of making Cosmos an Oracle+. Oracle has an interesting interaction with Approach due to the timing of its power, allowing it to play the highest pod possible that will give its opponent a 00, but it is still somewhat helpless against the Encounter rule. Cosmos can keep these factors in mind when deciding which rules to implement.
I designed the Encounter rule to transform a pod each time a feint is used during an encounter. This means that even though the transformed pod is random, aliens can “fish” for the pod they need if they have multiple feint pods. However, if Upkeep is in effect, aliens will end up zapped by playing multiple feint pods.
Cosmos is quite possibly the strongest alien in the universe given its nature, though it’s difficult to say just how much of the Cosmos’s power it can access as merely an avatar. It could have been the first alien to ever exist, or perhaps the Cosmos chose it to act as an avatar later on. Since it exists in the Venture Galaxy, the Federation didn’t discover it until obtaining Booster’s FTFTL, making it difficult to gauge its age compared to the oldest races of the previously known galaxies. Its existence does raise questions as to whether the Cosmos itself is a sentient or divine being, since no one has ever seen or communicated with it.
Cosmos having immunity to its rules prevents it from all of the ship and pod destruction of its rules. However, it does still get to choose the target planet if the invader doesn’t commit