Surgeon

Alert

Resource

Destory

Type

Power to Transplant

Changes Other Aliens’ DNA

Setup: Manifest three random powers. Shroud those powers in your nexus as “DNA”.

When not a leader, after destiny, you may use this power to target any other alien as your “patient”. Relay one DNA from your nexus to your patient. That alien may haggle for that DNA equal to their authority. If you accept their offer, “transplant” the DNA to your patient, displaying it in that patient’s nexus. That DNA becomes a “genetic mutation”, acting as that alien’s sub-power. Then, manifest a new DNA in your nexus. Otherwise, either keep the offered DNA in your nexus or vaporize it.

All genetic mutations are considered optional powers. Each time a genetic mutation is used, place one of your marks in their nexus as a “deformity”. Aliens must ravage one ship per deformity to use a genetic mutation. If a genetic mutation is zapped, no ships are ravaged, and the genetic mutation is vaporized. These aspects are permanent.

Legacy: Each alien manifests one random DNA in their nexus.

After studying the biology of every alien in the Federation, the Surgeons have become overly acquainted with the shortcomings of living organisms. In their quest to perfect life, they will take the best traits of every race and create a being that can rightfully rule the Cosmos in their name.

Not Leader: Destiny

Optional

Wild Flare

At any time, you may discharge this flare to invite all other aliens to haggle for an alien power in exchange for a foreign base in their system. If you agree to an alien’s offer, that alien chooses an alien power and manifests it as a permanent sub-power. If you accept the offer, this flare gains burnout.

Any: Any

Super Flare

As a leader, after destiny, you may discharge this flare to use your power on yourself, targeting yourself as a patient.

Leader: Destiny

Modifications

Original Surgeon has the power of “surgery”. Changed to be less redundant.
Original Surgeon uses “facelifts” instead of DNA. It behaves as more of a plastic surgeon.
Original Surgeon has three uses clauses. One is the same as mine, one is to specifically vaporize a facelift instead of offering it, and one is to allow the patient to use their facelift. I instead gave Surgeon the choice to vaporize a facelift if it is rejected, and my sub-power mechanic makes specifying that aliens can use their power redundant.
Original Surgeon’s facelifts are vaporized after being used, but I wanted to increase the viability of as many powers as possible. I added the clause to genetic mutations to be usable any number of times, but each time one is used, the user will have to destroy an additional ship. This mechanic acts as a different sort of limiter that makes every type of DNA useful in some regard, since all aliens maintain passive effects of their powers, even if they lose their main power.
Original Wild Surgeon offers a one-time use of a sub-power in exchange for haggling any amount. Since it is a burnout effect, I increased the stakes of the haggle on both sides, offering a permanent sub-power in exchange for a free foreign base. The value of each side changes as the game progresses, making the timing of using it highly important.
Original Surgeon’s facelifts are also lost if zapped, but in my Cosmic they are the only way to vaporize the genetic mutations.
Original Super Surgeon can use its power during its own orientation. I expanded the timing to work during destiny as a leader, allowing Super Surgeon to use its power effectively every invasion.
Surgeon’s legacy gives every alien random DNA, granting them a one-time use of a sub-power, even if they lost their original power. As with Surgeon’s main power, the DNA will continue to apply passive effects even after the power is used, so powers like Warrior and Scholar will continue to apply might through wisdom and experience even though more cannot be gained. Original Cosmic has no legacies.

Tips

Invasion-only aliens can be very valuable for Surgeon to manifest, since they are often designed around being powerful effects that don’t activate often. You can usually ask for more when offering them to the invader or an upcoming invader.
Surgeon has to be very careful about performing surgery on aliens that are skilled at ship revival like Zombie. Zombie would need to stack up a great number of deformities for it to matter. Surgeon also has to be careful about transplanting Zombie DNA, since it will give them much more freedom in using their mutations.
Given how valuable Surgeon’s transplants can be, don’t be afraid to offer valuable resources for them, especially in the early game. Surgeon can’t take them away once you receive them, so the only limitation will be your ship management.
Surgeon can focus on destroying enemy ships if the hope is to limit use of an enemy power.
With Surgeon in play, Cosmic Zaps become even more valuable than usual. Think carefully when using them, especially if there are other zap magnets in play like Oligarch or Virus.
Due to the interaction with Cosmic Zaps, Surgeon can perform a sinister trick of haggling a lot of resources for a great power and then zapping it, removing it from the match.

Development Notes

When I first started analyzing Surgeon, I was somewhat put off by its theme of specifically being a plastic surgeon, since it’s not mentioned anywhere in the power. However, I was willing to go with it since the mechanic of one-use power fit well with the theme of facelifts. However, after thinking about it more, the idea of surgically altering the DNA of an alien for a one-use power feels more appropriate for the Surgeon label, and it matches my idea to have the surgeries persist after the power is used.
After thinking about it further and analyzing how the alien powers work as one-time effects, I decided to come up with a different limitation for the use of the DNA. Instead of limiting each one to one use and them letting aliens keep the passive aspects of the power, the mutations are now permanent but using them destroys an increasing number of the user’s ships. The idea is that the powers can offer great utility, but the user cannot rely too much on them. The more they use these mutations, the more it destroys their bodies. Even better, Surgeon now has an interesting dynamic with Doctor and Quack, who can heal the ships that are destroyed by using powers to gain resources themselves. Aliens still have to worry about stacking too many deformities, since they will become dependent on Doctor healing them to use the power.
My version of Surgeon genetically modifies an alien’s DNA in order to give them use of another alien’s power. Since the DNA isn’t compatible with the alien’s body, the power causes damage each time it is used. But the DNA modification process allows the alien to keep the passive benefits of the power long-term. I find this idea to thematically work much better for an alien Surgeon, operating almost like a mad scientist.
My primary motivation for the main functional change of Surgeon’s power is to make more one-use powers useful. Certain aliens like Warrior and Scholar are completely worthless as facelifts if Surgeon happens to manifest them, since they give you wisdom or experience from your one use and then the experience is immediately vaporized with the power. My version lets you get a small combat bonus that will permanently persist, even if you lose the power. By gaining enough might to pass the Human Test, gaining Warrior or Scholar’s DNA can be very useful.
One main reason that the powers work well as one-time use instead of permanent sub-powers is that it helps aliens better gauge how much they need to haggle. Getting a one-time use out of Virus will naturally be less valuable than being able to use it multiple times, even if it costs more ships each time to do so. Even so, I think it can still work to have higher-value haggles, and it’s another reason Surgeon should be red alert.
As a meta power, Surgeon is most similar to my Mask. Mask specifically deals with stealing the face of other aliens to gain one-time effects, which is another reason I’m glad I changed Surgeon to be about DNA with limited multi-use. Even without those changes, there is a core difference in Mask using powers that are already in the match, while Surgeon exclusively manifests aliens from the outer realm. Mask also uses the powers itself, instead of giving powers to other aliens. There actually aren’t aliens that give powers to other aliens, aside from things like Changeling that swap powers.
I worked through the list of existing aliens to see how different powers interact with my previous version Surgeon to note a few interesting standouts. Citadel DNA can create any number of citadels each invasion to prune its cache, but it can only activate them a single time. Macron DNA permanently makes your ships 4 size and 4 might, letting you establish one permanent base with them (inadvisable if Shadow is in the match). Fury can gain as much rage as it wants and then unleash it in one decisive encounter. Miser DNA gives you a 4-pod hoard with limited access to it. Ticktock can only use its power once, but the special setup can limit pods received from resupplies for every other alien. (It can only eliminate an alien if they have only one home base when it gains the DNA.) Cryo’s DNA can only use its power to essentially vaporize a pod and replace it with another. Fungus’s DNA can capture ships and hold them captive until losing the ships, but it cannot use them for additional combat power. Merchant’s DNA gives you one lucre each warpfall. Changeling’s DNA can permanently swap your power with another alien’s power after losing to them. Saboteur will maintain its power until detonating one bomb, but it can choose when to use its power, unlike original Saboteur. (Decoys will be automatically removed). Bandit can make one alien take a spin and then gain basically all the pods in the pot if it doesn’t pay out. Villain and Chrysalis are mostly useless due to their powers needing to activate more than once to see use. These two powers convinced me to switch to the “deformity” version of the power.
One aspect I really like about my change to Surgeon is how it slowly morphs other aliens into chimeric abominations over the course of a match. Similar to Pentaform, Surgeon turns “pure” aliens into random hodgepodges of different alien traits. Since the DNA isn’t vaporized like facelifts, every individual trait will remain visible next to an alien’s nexus. Worth noting that my scoring system only considers the main power for counting victories, aside from special cases like Reincarnator.
Surgeon is another alien that brings back the Reincarnator interaction. If an alien gets Reincarnator’s DNA, they effectively get one re-roll of their main power after a loss.
A “surgeon” is simply a doctor who performs surgery on patients. There are many different types of surgeons in fiction, generally focused on saving or improving the lives of their patients. Surgery often involves cutting open a patient to perform delicate and complex work that requires exceptional motor skills. The specific type of surgery my Surgeon does is based on gene therapy, which modifies the genetic material of a living creature to change its DNA. While gene therapy is not a surgery in real life, the form of it Surgeon does is more like the procedure performed by Shou Tucker from Fullmetal Alchemist or Bondrewd from Made in Abyss.
While Doctor and Quack can also be considered doctors, neither of them do anything as invasive as what Surgeon does, and Surgeon gets paid more for the privilege as a result.
Given how easily this power can make an opponent too powerful if misused, along requiring all other aliens to properly haggle and manage their ships, this power easily warrants a red alert.
Zombie is the alien that would likely come closest to breaking this alien in terms of having both in a match, but I think it is fairly reasonable. Since both Zombie and Surgeon have to agree to a haggle, Surgeon has the choice to simply never offer Zombie a power that is too strong. Also, while Zombie does effectively get seemingly infinite utility out of its power, it does have a limit of 12/16 uses, since it will lose its power if it runs out of ships. This number gets lower once you factor in the dominion Zombie needs to earn. Even if Surgeon tries to throw a match to help Zombie win, I don’t think it’s too overpowered.
I like how Super Surgeon gains the ability to perform surgery on itself, especially with the changes I made to the power. It reminds me of a mad scientist who takes his best results and uses them on himself after seeing the flaws in his failed test subjects.
The power name is a reference to the Yu-Gi-Oh card DNA Transplant, which changes the attribute of all enemy monsters. DNA Surgery is a similar card that changes the type of all enemy monsters. The two cards depict the same surgery scene taking place from different angles.