Tortoise

Alert

Resource

Invasion

Type

Power to Dawdle

Waits Until the End to Invade

At the start of your orientation, use this power to gain four boons. Then skip your campaign.

Each time you would draft pods from boons, you may add any or all of those pods to your “shell”. Pods in your shell are shrouded in your nexus.

When one or more aliens would win the match, “turtle up” by adding all pods in your shell to your cache. After turtling up, you may not use your power or add pods to your shell. You immediately begin one final campaign that you cannot skip. During this campaign, no other alien can become the invader, and your flagship cannot be destroyed. Your campaign lasts until you either win the match or do not have enough fuel to win the match. After this campaign ends, every alien that meets the victory conditions has a shared victory.

If you would win the match with a shared victory, you may either accept the shared victory or have one final invasion to attempt a solo victory. During this invasion, other aliens that were part of the shared victory cannot sponsor you. If you win the invasion, you win the match solo. Otherwise, the other aliens that would have won win without you.

Legacy: When an invader ends their campaign with remaining fuel, they may draft up to 8 pods from any forge.

The Tortoises can take eons to reach their destination. However, there are few forces in the Cosmos powerful enough to stop them from reaching it.

Invader: Orientation

Mandatory

Wild Flare

Whenever your flagship is destroyed, you may discharge this flare to draft four pods. If it was your first invasion, draft two additional pods.

Invader: Any

Super Flare

As the defender, after destiny manifests, you may discharge this flare to scramble destiny. This flare may be discharged any number of times per invasion.

Defender: Destiny

Modifications

Original Tortoise doesn’t specify anything about fuel, since that mechanic is exclusive to my Cosmic. Original Tortoise can continue until it either loses its power or runs out of encounter pods. Mine is not limited by encounter pods but it will end if it loses its power.
Original Wild Tortoise can take a third invasion if it completes a successful second invasion. I considered this effect too situational for an invasion-only flare that would realistically only activate once. Instead, I modified it to be a “lose less” effect instead of a “win more” one. This way the flare will always have utility unless you win both invasions as the invader, which is also a positive result.
Original Super Tortoise can refuse to be the defender, forcing destiny to be manifested again. Mine is effectively the same, with the flare being usable multiple times per invasion. Since Tortoise can only use the flare as a defender, it will only be able to use it if it gets chosen as the defender from rainbow destiny or its color manifests.
Tortoise’s legacy allows every alien to skip their campaign to draft 8 pods, including pods from the dark forge. Similar to Tortoise itself, aliens can hold off on their campaign to boost up their resources first. I specified that aliens cannot have more than 7 pods to use the legacy to prevent an infinite loop of every alien just drafting pods forever, though every alien could potentially use it once each to effectively have a full cycle of everyone gaining pods.

Tips

Tortoise likes to play defensively. The more campaigns it gets, the more invasions it will have after turtling up. The more dominion it can earn before the final campaign, the more easily it will be able to meet its win condition.
Tortoise can be a very dangerous ally, since even getting a shared victory with it can allow it to backstab you. Be wary about commissioning Tortoise, especially as a foreward.
If you can deactivate Tortoise’s power before winning, you can prevent Tortoise from turtling up. Note that Tortoise takes its defensive encounters very seriously since it wants to protect its home bases and doesn’t need to save as many pods for invasions.
If you have already lost the match, you can use Tortoise’s final campaign to join in on the shared win.

Development Notes

Tortoise is another complex power that takes quite a few words to explain. It is a unique twist on the “get more invasions” alien that takes all of its invasions at the end of the match, making use of the more obscure campaign skipping mechanic. The FFG version is limited by its cache size, which it can grow during the match by skipping its own campaigns and adding pods to its shell. With three full rotations, Tortoise can end up with 12+ pods, resulting in a situation similar to Machine, dragging out a match in such a way that either guarantees their victory or not many find enjoyable.
My version utilizes my fuel system to set more of a hard limit to Tortoise’s final campaign. Each time it gets a campaign, it effectively gets two invasions for its final campaign. Whether it wins or loses those invasions, the number it receives won’t increase or decrease.
I made sure to specify that Tortoise’s final campaign will end if it doesn’t have enough fuel to win the match. There would be no point playing out the match the next three matches when Tortoise still needs four dominion. The original FFG Tortoise can theoretically keep the match going indefinitely using the same compensation tactics that Machine uses, so there’s no need for it to specify a premature ending clause.
Machine is mechanically the closest alien to Tortoise, with it having a similar “perma-invasion” ability that prevents the destruction of its flagship. Flavorwise, Machine is mass-producing these flagships such that it has a new one ready after the old is destroyed, while Tortoise’s tough shell makes the flagship effectively indestructible. They are also quite different in terms of the immediacy of their powers. Machine can go 5-0 and win an invasion in one campaign, while Tortoise has to wait until someone else wins first. There’s also a considerable difference in what allows the two aliens to continue their campaign. Machine is limited by its cache size, since it costs one pod to manifest more fuel and one to repair its flagship after a loss, in addition to one to use as a driver. Tortoise has no such limitation and is instead limited by a finite amount of fuel. Once it runs out of fuel, its campaign will end no matter how many pods it has left, and the match will end with it. I like how the two powers have similar mechanics yet feel vastly different, which gives them a nice nature vs. technology rivalry.
Thematically, Tortoise is another animal-themed power. Tortoises are known for the tough shell on their backs and their slow speed, and the alien power captures both quite well. The power is evocative of the classic fable The Tortoise and the Hare, where a tortoise is able to defeat a much faster creature in a race through slow yet consistent effort.
I considered changing the power name, but there really isn’t a better term for “move slowly and steadily” than “dawdle”. It’s the power to “be slow”, which fits Tortoise well.
Tortoise is one of the few alien powers that make it theoretically possible for every alien to participate in a shared victory, like with original FFG Tick-Tock. For instance, if every other alien but Tortoise wins the match and then Tortoise uses its power to get enough dominion, then everyone will win if Tortoise accepts the shared victory.
Original Tortoise has some thematic crossover with original Sloth, since the latter has the power of laziness. With my change of Sloth to the power of sleep, there’s a much bigger gap in the thematic meaning. Tortoise is characterized more by slow physical movement than laziness, and Tortoise would be the last to fall asleep on the job. In the aforementioned fable, the tortoise wins because the hare falls asleep during the race, due to grossly underestimating the tortoise.
Machine’s power does synergize with Tortoise’s legacy, since it can use its power to gain fuel and then end its campaign at the end of upkeep with that remaining fuel. Machine would gain 8 pods in exchange for ending its invasion, same as any other alien.