Pessimist

Alert

Resource

Control

Type

Power of Negativity

Kills the Mood

Setup: For each other alien in the match, manifest two of your marks in your nexus as “negativity”.

As an actor, after arrival, use this power to target one other alien and doubt they will win the match. That alien may either haggle equal to their authority or abandon one of their foreign bases. If you accept their offer or they abandon the foreign base, this power is canceled. Otherwise, gift one negativity to that alien from your nexus.

After any encounter that has both a winner and loser, the winner gifts half of its negativity to the loser (rounded down).

Negativity prevents an alien from establishing a base if it would win them the match, if they are one of the aliens with the most negativity in the match. The ships are rebounded instead. If you are the loser, they may only gift one negativity. Negativity is a permanent aspect.

Special Offer: X influence – Claim X negativity from your opponent’s nexus.

Legacy: Each alien manifests negativity in their nexus equal to their influence. After arrival, each leader may assert they will win in the text channel. If they do and win, they vaporize half of their negativity (rounding up). If they do and lose, they manifest negativity equal to their dominion.

The Pessimists gave up on their ambitions to rule the Cosmos long ago, after becoming fed up with the eternal conflict for power. Their new goal is to show everyone just how pointless all this fighting really is, through force if necessary.

Actor: Arrival

Mandatory

Wild Flare

During any destiny, you may discharge this flare to declare your system “hopeless”. No other alien may target planets or ships in your system until the end of upkeep. Scramble destiny if necessary. Burnout.

Any: Destiny

Super Flare

After using your power, you may discharge this flare to use your power again. You may not target the same alien again.

Actor: Arrival

Modifications

Originally Hypochondriac. Changed to Pessimist to evoke the power of negativity.
Originally the power of “anxiety”, using anxiety as its marks instead of negativity. Changed to match my new theme.
Original Hypochondriac is not forced to give half its anxiety when winning. Mine does it automatically to reflect it being a negative emotion building up.
Original Hypochondriac lets other aliens gift half of their anxiety rounding up. My version rounds down to prevent a match result from being decided by whether an alien has an even or odd number of negativity.
Original Wild Hypochondriac pretends to “not be home”, resulting in destiny being scrambled. My version is the same but changes the theme to deter aliens with the power of sheer negativity. The original wild flare works during any phase and specifically prevents the gate from being aimed in its system. My version prevents all targeting of Pessimist’s system, including powers like Shadow and Disease.
Original Hypochondriac’s power has no permanent aspects of its power. My version has the negativity persist,, even after Pessimist is eliminated.
Pessimist’s legacy gives everyone some negativity and changes the conditions of losing it. To remove negativity, aliens have to win encounters, either as leader or sponsor. Every invasion becomes a double-edged sword, since it can remove negativity on a win but also add it on a loss. Aliens that have more dominion and authority at the time this legacy activates will have to put in more work to clear out their nexus of negativity, especially since it becomes much more difficult to get rid of with Pessimist gone. Original Cosmic has no legacies.

Tips

In order to win the match, you need to make sure you don’t have the most negativity. Since Pessimist is the hardest one to give the negativity to, winning as a leader against other aliens is your best bet.
When targeted by Pessimist’s power, consider how valuable it is to avoid gaining negativity. Negativity only affects the final foreign base you earn, giving you plenty of time to dump them onto someone else. Each encounter you win as a leader will let you dump half of them onto someone else, so long as you aren’t matched against Pessimist.
With Pessimist in play, be wary of throwing encounters for compensation. You can easily end up with the most negativity.
When giving another alien half of your negativity, they will end up with more than you if they have at least one negativity. This means that if they have a nonzero amount of negativity and you are the invader, you will not be stopped from winning. Having zero negativity can make a world of difference in such a scenario, since it can determine the difference between the match ending now or later.

Development Notes

Originally I was interested in utilizing the Hypochondriac theme for this power, but I changed my mind after scrutinizing it further. A hypochondriac is one whose anxiety causes them to think they have issues that they don’t have. The original Hypochondriac gives its anxiety to other aliens, turning them into hypochondriacs in exchange for lessening its own anxiety. When the alien with the most anxiety tries to win the match, they either fail or are unable to do so. I couldn’t rationalize how having the most anxiety prevents you from winning if you’re still willing to gain foreign bases normally. It seems odd that the anxiety gives aliens a fear of winning.
This power feels more like a cursed alien slowly getting rid of its curse by passing it onto other aliens, like an alien themed around bad luck. I considered something like Jinx or Voodoo for this power to capture the idea. However, the concept of bad luck didn’t quite match with the power’s ability to control if it’s passed to the other alien via haggling. Witch is already a power that deals with curses, so I didn’t want to step on the toes of that power either.
Ultimately I decided to use the power of negativity, borrowing a bit from the Skeptic theme I replaced with Braggart. Pessimist originally doubts its own chances of victory, but over time it infects other aliens with that doubt as well. It isn’t as though Pessimist loses its negative outlook when it loses all of its negativity. Its pessimism is instead being redirected toward other aliens, making them doubt their own ability to win. Even when they are presented with the opportunity to land the winning planet, their negative thoughts tell them it will either likely fail or not be worth the effort. To me it makes more sense that negativity would stop someone from accepting a win than anxiety, even though anxiety can be considered a form of negativity.
With both Pessimist and Hypochondriac, it is very fitting that it starts with all the marks in its own nexus, making it incapable of winning from the beginning. By the time aliens are put in a position where they can win a match, the marks will almost certainly have dispersed to other aliens.
When an alien wins an encounter, they receive positive encouragement, helping to assuage the doubt and negativity that Pessimist gave them. The more doubt is cast on them, the more the loser experiences when they lose to them. I would compare it to the #1 ranked team losing to the #16 ranked team vs. the other way around. If you’re expecting to lose, the impact won’t be as crushing. If you’re expecting to win, the negative feelings will be naturally intense.
Gifting half of your negativity means you will end up with the target having as much negativity as you have, plus whatever they had before. This means that if they have any negativity at all, they will have more than you afterwards, preventing negativity from affecting you after you win. If the negativity rounded up like in the original Hypochondriac, the outcome of such a situation would be based on whether the amount of negativity you have is odd or even. I didn’t like such a determining factor, so I changed it to round down. While it would still have an impact if the alien has exactly one negativity, I consider this situation less meaningful than having none. I would rather negativity be more impactful than less since it applies to everyone equally. This change does mean that aliens cannot completely remove all of their negativity once they receive it, but I like that as an extra thematic flair. While Pessimist is around, a nagging little voice of doubt will always remain once the see is planted.
Negativity operates on its own independently of Pessimist, which is fitting for the power’s theme. A ‘pessimist’ is simply one who sees the glass “half empty”. They see the negativity in everything and tend to expect the worst outcomes. The pessimists wield the power of negativity but it is ultimately an emotion. The power exists independently of the Pessimists providing it. Even if Pessimist is outright eliminated, the doubt remains. It is one of the only powers to have a permanent aspect like Sting, with only its use clause being removed after it is eliminated, along with any negativity remaining with Pessimist.
I tried several different ideas for Pessimist’s legacy, as I wanted it to both work in matches where Pessimist wasn’t a participant and also the permanent aspect of Pessimist’s negativity already being given to everyone. I came up with the idea to change the conditions of removing the negativity, allowing optimism to slowly build as aliens secure wins. If activated at the start of a match, every alien will receive 4/5 negativity. This means the power would have no effect from match start if negativity is removed from winning encounters, since aliens have to win 4/5 encounters in order to gain 4/5 dominion. I also wanted to make it easier to remove negativity once Pessimist is gone, since that would be the natural consequence of a Pessimist not being around. I decided to implement an effect that vaporizes negativity, which cannot be done with Pessimist around. The effect is similar to original Skeptic, only with different rewards and penalties. Aliens have to “call their shot” to remove negativity. With this legacy, I wanted to make sure an alien isn’t locked out of winning when they have the most negativity in the match. By vaporizing half of the negativity at once, aliens can quickly cut down how much they have. By basing the amount gained on dominion, aliens closer to victory will be more vulnerable to the negativity. I had the legacy round up in order to allow an alien to remove all of their negativity and avoid having to engage with it again. When starting at 5 negativity, aliens would need to call 3 shots successfully with no incorrect guesses to remove all of it.
I had the legacy use influence as the basis for generating negativity since it translates to what that alien has to lose. More bases equals more stress equals more negativity.
I also find it fitting to the theme that successful negotiations don’t increase or decrease the negativity, since it’s a cordial experience. In my Cosmic, only one alien will be the loser in a quashed deal, which will result in negativity shifting.
Since Tanuki’s power also protects its nexus, it can use its power to redirect Pessimist’s negativity.