Greenhorn

Alert

Info

Resource

Type

Power of Ignorance

New to Cosmic

During any warpfall, use this power to relay a pod in your cache to another alien.

You may request resupplies when you have no attack pods in your cache, you may jump ships between your bases during any warpfall, distress pods may be primed for either fleet as a bystander, you may broadcast freely in the text channel, and you may discharge artifacts during any phase.

Legacy: Non-green alert aliens scramble their power and manifest a random green alert power to replace it.

The novice Greenhorns are famous for making rookie mistakes. Since they’re new to the game and still learning, the Federation is willing to allow them small exemptions in the rules. The creatures have such a genuine innocence to them, no one seems to mind they have been new to the game for millennia.

Any: Warpfall

Mandatory

Wild Flare

At any time, in any system, if your cache has no attack pods, you may discharge this flare to request a free resupply. Burnout.

Any: Any

Super Flare

As the invader, after destiny, you may discharge this flare. This invasion, you may target any planet the defender inhabits, targeting that base.

Invader: Destiny

Modifications

While the power is mostly unchanged, I simplified the second aspect of the power to have fewer exceptions. Original Greenhorn can reestablish its own bases every warpfall, which is much more powerful in my Cosmic. It also allows kickers to be discharged during combat, rifts to be utilized any phase. Kickers and rifts are exclusive to the dark forge, which doesn’t feel suited to a green alert power. I also expanded the reinforcement power to allow playing all distress pods to be primed to either fleet as a bystander. Original Cosmic only has reinforcement pods as distress pods.
Original Greenhorn asks a question about the pod it relays when using its power. Since the original game is designed for this question to be heard by everyone, I added the clause to freely broadcast in the text channel instead.
Original Wild Greenhorn can also discharge the flare if out of negotiation pods, and it is not burnout. I made the effect more restrictive since my Cosmic puts a hard limit on free resupplies.
Greenhorn’s legacy effectively shifts the current match into the green dimension, permanently changing the powers of non-green aliens. This power can be potentially devastating to non-green aliens like Sting and Sycophant that build up their power over time if it happens in the middle of a match. Green alert powers can potentially take advantage of this legacy by eliminating Greenhorn to deal with powerhouses like Virus and Crystal, if the latter prove too tough to defeat directly. Original Cosmic has no legacies.

Tips

Greenhorn’s use clause forces it to secretly relay one of its pods to another alien. It can combine this aspect by posting misleading information about the relayed pod in the text channel, with the other alien going along with it to fool everyone.
Greenhorn’s laundry list of small aspects can be leveraged to maintain ships and surprise opponents in unexpected ways. Priming an escape or therapy pod for the opponent when acting as a bystander can turn a win into a loss, and discharging a plague pod after contact to destroy a potential reinforcement pod can completely disrupt a strategy.
If Greenhorn wants to keep the pods in its cache hidden, it can exclusively show the same pod to one alien to minimize information leakage. It can also show weak pods to aliens to make it seem like Greenhorn’s cache isn’t worth taking via compensation, hiding some of its valuable pods until later.

Development Notes

Greenhorn is perhaps the most complex green alert alien in Cosmic history in terms of the quantity of aspects. However, the power itself lends itself well to a new player, since it lets them break a bunch of subtle rules that newbies often don’t understand at first. It’s also thematically appropriate to the power, as if Greenhorn is fooling even the Federation into thinking they innocent and nonthreatening. Even Squee doesn’t have that kind of power.
Greenhorn’s power offers me an excellent use case of my text channel mechanic, as substitute for original Greenhorn being able to ask a question about its relayed pod that everyone hears. Greenhorn can relay an 08 pod to someone and text “I showed my 40 pod btw.” The receiving alien can text “It’s true. Greenhorn has the 40 pod.” Meanwhile, the alien that is holding the 40 pod could keep quiet about it, letting the others ponder whether it’s actually true. Deeper subterfuge and mind games can be performed by one alien pretending to betray Greenhorn and reveal what they showed, only for it to be untrue.
A “greenhorn” is an innocent or naïve individual lacking in experience. The power of such a concept comes from others often going easy on them to help them get the swing of things. Others are also much more willing to forgive a greenhorn than a veteran, since they’re still learning how the game works. Thematically, it’s easy to imagine a creature who has such status in perpetuity, always being perceived as the newbie no matter how much time passes. There’s room for ambiguity with such a concept, since the alien might be hiding its perfect understanding of the game, or it might simply have an inability to learn the rules properly. The roleplay angle works in either direction, with the option of leaving it ambiguous being just as interesting.
My Cosmic doesn’t allow aliens to prime distress pods for the enemy fleet, since it would allow free wins by priming therapy or escape pods. With Greenhorn, I determined that it would be okay for Greenhorn to do so as a bystander, since it wouldn’t benefit itself from the free win. It is similar to my Judge in that regard, giving the aspect more potency than original Greenhorn.
Wild Greenhorn is one of the few effects in the game that allows unlimited free resupplies, though it is limited by the user’s ability to empty their cache. It is potentially very powerful in the hands of powers like Porcupine and Philanthropist, since they can quickly get rid of those pods and get a new cache. The original version has no need to make this effect burnout, since free resupplies are infinite for everyone. I decided to give mine a burnout effect, to prevent certain powers from being able to spam free resupplies.