Toll

Alert

Resource

Type

Power to Tax

Taxes the Gate

Whenever one or more other aliens commit more than one ship to the gate, use this power to “tax” those aliens. Snatch one pod from those aliens’ caches and shroud them in your nexus.

During any upkeep, if you have eight or more taxed pods in your nexus, add one to your cache and scrap the rest.

Whenever another alien would draft pods, you may gift that alien a taxed pod from your nexus as a “refund”, replacing one pod they would draft.

Legacy: Whenever an alien commits more than one ship to the gate, that alien must scrap the leftmost pod in their cache.

The hyperspace gate is no cheap piece of technology. A considerable amount of the Federation’s finances went into reaching its current iteration. Outside of Cosmic Encounters, the Federation contract the Tolls to recoup some of those losses by charging a reasonable fee for hyperspace travel. Within Cosmic Encounters, they’re still on the clock.

Any: Any

Mandatory

Wild Flare

As the defender, after launch, you may discharge this flare to snatch pods from the invader’s cache, up to the number of their committed ships. You may claim or scrap any or all of those pods.

Defender: Destiny

Super Flare

Whenever you use your power, you may discharge this flare to resolve the effect twice. When you would gift a refund, you may discharge this flare to replace two pods instead of one.

Any: Any

Modifications

Original alien is named Assessor. Changed to give the alien a stronger central theme based around the idea of a toll booth.
Original Wild Assessor can, after destiny as a defender, snatch pods from each alien with a base in its system. I considered this wild flare more fitting for Pickpocket, and I thought original Wild Pickpocket was a better fit for this alien. I swapped the two flares.
Original Wild Pickpocket only activates when the target planet is one of your planets. I simplified this to be the defender, so that it can also activate if Will targets your foreign base in another system. The idea is that you pay the toll to pass through the gate.
Toll’s legacy invokes a tax on every alien that commits more than one ship into the encounter. However, unlike Toll’s main power, aliens will know in advance which pod will be scrapped if they commit more than one ship. Depending on the pod on the chopping block, aliens can either use the legacy to prune their cache or commit only one ship to avoid losing something important. Since pods will always be added to the rightmost side of the cache, the leftmost pod will only change if it is removed from the cache in some way. Original Cosmic has no legacies.

Tips

Toll will automatically tax any alien committing more than one ship to the gate. It is important to weight the resource cost vs. the combat cost when deciding how many ships to commit.
Committing only one ship to dodge Toll’s fee can be beneficial, but you will also end up earning much fewer resources from compensation and backer boons. You will also be at a potential combat disadvantage as an invader since the defender will generally have 3-4 ships on a defending planet.
The more pods you have in your cache, the less likely Toll will take one you want to keep.
If you only commit one ship as a backward, Toll can determine what pod you receive via its refund clause. This synergy with its primary power can force backwards to commit multiple ships if they want something useful.
If everyone commits only one ship to dodge Toll’s fees, Toll can take advantage of its combat potential of being the only alien committing four ships, making it more valuable as an ally.
Even if Toll only gets one or two pods over the course of a match from its power, depriving other aliens of the snatched pods and limiting their ship count can be beneficial on its own.

Development Notes

My idea for Toll’s legacy wouldn’t function properly in FFG Cosmic because aliens can freely rearrange the pods in their cache any time they want. My digital version of Cosmic locks the pods in place, allowing me to invoke effects that target the leftmost or rightmost pod as game mechanics. The leftmost pod won’t change unless it is either removed from the cache or an aspect shuffles your cache. The latter is quite rare, so most of the time it will be the former. Using the leftmost pod acts as a form of standardization, which is fitting for taxation. However, I don’t think it works for the main power since it gives other aliens too much control over what Toll receives. Having it as Toll’s legacy helps distinguish it from Butler’s legacy.
Toll’s power can be compared with other pod snatching powers like Outlaw and Pickpocket, with a different activation condition. Like Pickpocket, Toll doesn’t have to participate in an invasion to use its power, and it can even use its power from the first invasion. However, it is somewhat at the mercy of the choices of its opponents, since it will never use its power if other aliens exclusively commit one ship. Of these three aliens, Toll could end up snatching more pods or fewer pods than any other. Given the timing of its power, it is likely to gain the fewest resources directly, since the pods don’t go right into its cache. This also means Toll can avoid filling its cache with junk. It will almost always get a good pods from its power since it can choose one of eight.
Toll’s power reminds me most of Cryo, an alien that can freeze one of its pods in its cache and store it for later. Both powers activate when eight pods are stored in the cache, but the speed at which they can obtain those pods can vary. Cryo needs to participate, while Toll needs aliens to commit multiple ships to the gate. Cryo has more of a fixed rate that varies depending on how much it can get commissioned. Toll is dependent on how often other aliens commit multiple ships. Toll also only gets to keep one pod from the snatched ones, while Cryo is simply gaining back the pods it froze as an effective resupply.
Another power similar to Toll is Mouth, an alien that gobbles every pod that is discharged. Both aliens passively gain pods from their power. Mouth needs 10 pods to be exhausted to gain one pod of choice, while Toll needs 8 aliens to commit more than one ship. While Mouth will generally get to 10 faster than Toll will get to 8, Toll has the additional benefit of junking another alien’s cache with undesirable pods. In that regard, Toll can be compared to Philanthropist, but it requires other aliens to draft pods to use that aspect of its power.
An “assessor” refers to one who estimates the cost or value of something, so that it can be determined how much tax can be paid on it. Though the word lacks impact for an alien name, I can understand why it was chosen. There aren’t many solid words that refer to someone who collect taxes. The best I could come up with is “taxman”, and I intentionally want to avoid using any words containing “man” to distinguish Human as its own alien. I found “Toll” to be an effective compromise in reference to toll booths, which charge money to pass through a particular area or use a toll road. The primary difference between a toll and a tax is that a tax is collected from everyone regardless of the reason, while a toll is collected only from those who use the service. It makes Toll a more fitting name for the alien power, but the power itself still benefits from the tax theming to address the “tax refund” clause.
A tax refund is a reimbursement granted due to someone paying more taxes than necessary. In the case of Cosmic, Toll is acting on behalf of the Federation by providing a pod they would otherwise receive from the forge. Toll can use the power either cynically to give out junk or strategically to give them something that might be useful for both of them.
Even though tolls are not taxes, tolls can be collected by a government as a means of obtaining taxes.
In the past, I also had an idea for an alien that charges a fee to use the gate. I believe my design simply charged a pod to an alien who committed ships as an actor. I like the FFG version more since it provides more choice to both parties, and the refund mechanic is a nice thematic bit of synergy.
Thematically, there aren’t many aliens who deal with charging other aliens to pass through. Aliens like Merchant and Scammer deal with finances. Aliens like Pickpocket and Bandit involve direct theft. However, specifically involving taxes carries a sense of power of its own. It harkens back to the famous Benjamin Franklin quote: “In this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” Specifically charging a fee to use the gate is a novel concept that occupies its own design space.
Wild Toll’s effect is quite similar to Pickpocket, which is fitting since the two have similar themes. Wild Pickpocket steals directly from the invader equal to their committed ships, while Wild Toll snatches a pod from each alien with a base in their system.
What I like most about Toll’s mechanics is that its power is understated. Much like taxes themselves, it gains strength through “nickel-and-diming” its adversaries, as opposed to receiving huge resource swings like Remora, Doctor, or Outlaw. Taxes deal damage slowly over time, adding up to huge value the more time passes.
Toll’s power made me realize potential phrasing issues with alien bios and double powers. If another alien added pods to Toll’s cache, it could consider those as “pods in its nexus” for the eight it needs regarding its power. I needed to specify it needs 8 taxed pods to remove this ambiguity. I also think it is important that each power and sub-power use their own individual nexus for storing objects to avoid potential issues like this.