Gale
Alert
Control
Destroy
Type
Power to Blow
Blows Destiny Around
After destiny, if you do not have a destiny in your nexus, you may use this power to “blow” destiny to either the left or right. If you do, the defender’s neighbor in the direction you choose becomes the new defender, and display the destiny in your nexus. This power may not target the invader to be the defender.
After arrival, if you are the defender, ravage a pod in the invader’s cache.
At the end of any campaign, scrap any destiny in your nexus.
Legacy: After hazardous destiny, the invader must either have a pod in their cache ravaged or re-draw destiny.
The Gales’ tumultuous scientific theories baffle the minds of most scholars. After assembling an armada of wind-powered spaceships, the Cosmos dismissed them as a collection of hot air. They now single-mindedly work to prove to everyone that wind does, in fact, exist in space.
Any: Destiny
Optional
Wild Flare
After destiny, if you are the defender, you may discharge this flare. Your left neighbor becomes the new defender. Then, gift this flare to that alien.
Defender: Destiny
Super Flare
After destiny, you may discharge this flare to either blow destiny twice when you have no destiny in your nexus or blow destiny once when you have a destiny in your nexus.
Any: Destiny
Modifications
- Gale is my alien design and did not exist in original Cosmic.
- Gale’s legacy requires everyone to either scrap a random pod or re-draw destiny. Aliens that don’t care as much who they oppose don’t have to worry as much about this one. It provides a small amount of choice to would-be invaders who do not like the destiny they were given while also functioning alongside Coordinator, Dictator, and Will’s legacies. It also lets aliens burn through the destiny cloud faster. Original Cosmic has no legacies.
Tips
- When having access to its power, Gale has three choices as to who the defender could be, unless one of the three is the invader.
- Gale has to decide whether to use its power during the first invasion or save it for the second. If the invader loses, there will not be a second invasion, so using it during the first invasion is generally the safest bet. The potential loss of control may be worth saving it if Gale doesn’t mind the current matchup.
- Gale may wish to target itself as the defender if the opponent’s cache looks weak. Ravaging one of their pods gives it some extra insurance.
- Gale’s power can be more intense during the endgame, when aliens looking to cooperate for a shared win become unable to sponsor each other thanks to Gale’s power turning them against each other.
- The flexibility of Gale’s power has more potential for bullying than Dictator. If the group is looking to de-power a specific alien, Gale can generally make it the defender in 3 out of 5 cases.
Development Notes
- I designed Gale as an attempt to make another “destiny controller” that would still function with the other two in the same game, as opposed to the questionably designed Coordinator that came out during the Storm era. After Dictator or Will make their selection, Gale has the option to blow their choice to the left or right. This means Dictator and Will are mostly deciding who doesn’t get picked as the defender, while Gale makes the choice.
- I knew that Gale being able to affect every encounter would be too oppressive, as it would give us the issue of CEO’s Dictator, where certain aliens could be fully prevented from acting as the defender. This kind of situation would be terrible for aliens like Fan, Artist, and Siren, who want aliens to come to their systems. On the other hand, if Gale doesn’t get to choose when it can activate its power, its power becomes underwhelming due to having too little control. I considered giving Gale a finite number of uses in a cycle through some kind of consumable, but this doesn’t solve the core issue of potential abuse. If Gale doesn’t want Fan to ever get chosen as defender, it can save its consumables specifically for when Fan is chosen.
- Though it potentially violates my rule of remembering past information, making the power “once per campaign” seems to be the simplest solution for limiting Gale’s power in an interesting way. Gale can decide to use it during the first invasion or save its gale in case there happens to be a second. Gale can act as an anti-Lightning in this manner, gunning for aliens to only have one invasion instead of two. I elected to place the destiny in the nexus until the end of the campaign to resolve the past information issue.
- There’s no reason for Gale to choose whether to ravage a pod in the invader’s cache, as the invader cannot receive a resupply in Gale’s system. If we conclude that Gale’s system is just naturally windy, it makes enough sense that this aspect of the power cannot be zapped.