Mimic
Alert
Resource
Destroy
Type
Power to Imitate
Mimics Opponent’s Cache
As a leader, after arrival, you may use this power to imitate your opponent’s cache. Draft or scrap pods until you have the same number of pods in your cache as your opponent.
Legacy: After arrival, the invader must either scrap or draft pods until they have the same number of pods as their opponent.
The Mimics have spent so long changing form that they’ve forgotten what they originally looked like. With no strong sense of identity, they must adapt to their surroundings to remain a competitive opposing force.
Leader: Arrival
Optional
Wild Flare
After another alien discharges an artifact or flare, you may discharge this flare. This flare has the same effect as that artifact or flare. Burnout.
Any: Any
Super Flare
When using your power, you may discharge this flare to dump your cache and replace it with a duplicate of the opponent’s cache.
Leader: Arrival
Modifications
- Original Super Mimic can prune or bulk up its cache until it has 8. I thought this was too similar to Mutant, so I worked in the idea of true duplication, allowing Mimic to perfect its art of copying the enemy’s cache.
- Mimic’s legacy results in the invader matching the defender in terms of number of pods, affecting only the invader’s cache. This grants both pod draw and pruning potential to every alien. Aliens that can draw a lot like Healer and Masochist don’t favor this one too much, while aliens like Deuce and Reserve that get rid of their pods faster can benefit. It can be highly useful in a dimension with more Poison pods. Original Cosmic has no legacies.
Tips
- As Mimic, you can use the scrapping ability to prune your hand of unwanted pods. If attacking an opponent with one pod, you can remove all but the pod you wish to prime and get a free resupply afterward.
- Mimic’s drafting power can be utilized to turn a nothing cache into a something cache. With this power, Mimic can go from 1 pod to 16+ pods in an instant. Because of this, Mimic isn’t as concerned with aliens that draft a lot of pods, unless they’re drafting from one of the special pools. Only Super Mimic can copy those.
- When opposing Mimic, be careful about drafting too many pods at once. Since the same number of pods are drafted by both parties, it becomes a matter of luck whether Mimic’s pods will be better than yours. Drafting more pods from the dark forge can help alleviate this issue.
Development Notes
- The big question surrounding Mimic is whether its power should be mandatory or optional. On the mandatory side, it makes it an interesting challenge that Mimic has to adapt to its situation by constantly fluctuating its cache. It allows the power to be both a boon and burden while still giving Mimic some choice in the matter. On the other hand, a creature that can Mimic wouldn’t necessarily be forced to do so, and the destiny system means that Mimic can end up being sent against someone with no pods and screwed over with no recourse, especially with something like Monk in play. I decided to keep it optional, to avoid the worst case scenario. It makes Mimic more like a Mutant variant, moreso since my Mutant has its own pool.
- As with many of these “biological” powers like Mutant, Reincarnator, Masochist, etc., I have to wonder why Mimic can gain or scrap pods in-universe and why that extends to an external element like a cache. Does it get permission from the Federation to draft more pods? Or can it draft them from nothing like Mutant and Masochist do? Ships and pods are often framed as a physical extension of the alien, like another body part or a soul. In most cases, the ships represent a form of life, while the pods represent weaponry. I can extrapolate on Mimic’s power as with Clone to say it can cause things to mimic other things, more than its own body. But in that case, would the pods come from nowhere instead of the forge, as with Mutant? It makes me wonder if the forge should be an invisible entity that manifests pods from nowhere, instead of a visible deck that aliens pull pods from.
- Mimic’s interaction with Mite puts Mite at more of a disadvantage, but not a total one. Mimic would still scrap all but 3 of its pods before drawing as many as Mite has, making it a gamble on Mimic’s part. If Mimic has strong pods like the 30 or 40, it may still want to surrender to Mite to keep them.
- I considered having the base power be for Mimic to duplicate the enemy cache outright, scrapping its previous cache and making it an information-based power in addition to a resource/destroy power. It’s interesting in that it creates an alien that steals pods without stealing them, creating a “mirror match” of sorts. While it does give the user the ability of Mind to know what its opponent has, it also informs the opponent of what they have. It also lacks Trader’s ability to dump its bad cache onto its opponent, instead sending the pods back to the forge. And it still has the potential to backfire if the opponent has a worse cache than Mimic had originally. I think the power idea can work, but it bugs me that there is some kind of “omniscience” involved. Mimic is able to perfectly replicate the opponent’s cache despite the player not knowing what they have. They gain the information after using the power that lets them get that information, as if the power knows more than the alien does. It also means the player can duplicate lucre and dark pods perfectly too, which is definitely more of a super power. It could also make a nice Mimic variant if we wanted to take that route.