Tyrant

Alert

Resource

Control

Destroy

Type

Power of Tribute

Makes Invaders Give Tribute

Each time any number of other aliens’ ship(s) move into your system, use this power to demand “tribute” from any or all of those aliens. Each of those aliens must seal one pod from their cache in your nexus and place one of their ships on top of it as an ID.

During any upkeep, if you have at least three different tributes in your nexus from at least two different aliens, you may probe your tributes and add any pods you consider worthy to your cache. Return unworthy tribute to its original owner and ravage one of that alien’s ships. Rebound ID ships from worthy tributes and destroy the rest.

Legacy: After arrival, each actor in the invading fleet must gift a pod from their cache to the defender. The defender may scrap any or all of the gifted pods to ravage one of the giver’s committed ships.

Don’t bother trying to reason with the Tyrants. They see the whole of the Cosmos as their own personal territory, even when another alien race is actively conquering it. When dealing with them, the most you can hope for is to temporarily appease them with a thoughtful gift. Just hope their leader is in a good mood.

Any: Any

Mandatory

Wild Flare

As a sponsor, after an encounter, you may discharge this flare to snatch one pod from each alien in the losing fleet.

Leader: Encounter

Super Flare

When using your power, you may discharge this flare to define a pod for each alien. Each alien must gift you a pod matching the description you give them, if possible. Otherwise, this flare has no effect.

Any: Any

Modifications

Original Tyrant from the Storm Galaxy has the power to “subjugate”. My Tyrant is from the Eon Galaxy and borrows the power from original FFG Emperor.
Original FFG Tyrant’s power of subjugation is a win-based leader-only power that captures one ship from each enemy alien. Then, when its system is targeted, it can ravage a pod of subjugated aliens for each subjugated ship. The subjugated ships also add to Tyrant’s might in combat with the subjugated alien(s). It can also choose to destroy subjugated ships instead of its own, freeing them from subjugation. Tyrant’s original power is considered a weak win-based power, almost strictly worse than similarly designed aliens Remote and Fungus. The power is also rather slapdash, combining a bunch of different mechanics that don’t really mesh.
Original Emperor’s power is optional, giving the user the choice to use the power for each alien when the timing is right. Mine allows targeting any or all aliens each time it activates, making the power pointlessly optional.
Original Emperor’s use clause timing is whenever ships enter Emperor’s system or ships land on its planet. However, opponents may refuse if they have already given a tribute that encounter. Normally, moving ships into a system and establishing a new base in the same invasion only occurs when participating in the invading fleet. I decided to simplify the power to simply activate whenever foreign ships move into its system.
Original Wild Emperor can relay a pod from its cache to another alien after they refuse to commission the user. The target alien can choose to either invite the user or the user will determine which of the two aliens will receive the pod. Thus, the flare can be used to either offer a strong pod in exchange for an invitation or threaten junk in exchange for an invitation. I decided to use original Wild Tyrant as the basis for the wild flare due to finding it more fitting to the power.
My Wild Tyrant is based on the FFG Wild Tyrant. That one is slightly different in that it snatches pods from any alien whose ships are destroyed that invasion. My version only targets the losing fleet, to avoid remembering past information. My version is also leader-only, instead of sponsor-only.
Original Tyrant can only return one unworthy pod and destroy three ships. Also, all ID ships are rebounded regardless of worthiness. My version reduces the destruction to two ships but allows it to judge each pod it receives. Original Tyrant can take as many worthy pods as it wants from the tributes.
Tyrant’s legacy forces each alien to gift a pod to their opponent. However, while the legacy can be useful to prune the invading fleet’s cache, it cannot be used to junk the defender’s cache. The defender can freely scrap the pods if it doesn’t like them and ravage a committed ship of the one who gave it the pod. This combination means that aliens have to choose between potentially giving the defender something useful or losing a ship. Certain aliens like Scientist or Porcupine who just want many pods can take advantage of this legacy without needing to punish the enemies. Aliens good at reviving their ships like Zombie and Horde can prune their cache without concern, unless the combat penalty is really that severe. The legacy gives defenders quite an advantage, so aliens that like stalling or have defensive powers really enjoy this one. Original Cosmic has no legacies.

Tips

Tyrant’s power goes in two different dimensions that result in it getting ahead. Gifting Tyrant a weak pod will result in your ships being destroyed, but gifting Tyrant a strong pod will simply give them a strong pod. Either it will end up with the pod advantage or the ship advantage, though the decision of which is generally up to the other aliens.
Tyrant is capable of finding your ships unworthy even if it likes them, just to destroy your ships. However, it does have to return your pod to you in exchange to save face.
Sponsoring Tyrant or its opponent can require you to pay tribute. Try to limit the time you spend in Tyrant’s system to avoid its wrath as much as possible. As Tyrant, your advantage can often be fewer enemies.
It is generally not worth using Tyrant’s power to prune your cache, since it can simply return the pod to you later. However, if you are low on pods, you may be able to use it to gain a resupply before it can return the pod to you.

Development Notes

A “tyrant” is a generally a derogatory term, used to refer to a ruler who treats its subjects poorly. Thematically, it is most like Dictator, but the latter simply refers to the ruler of a dictatorship, where one person has absolute control. A tyrant is a description of a ruler rather than a specific type, and one definition indicates that they didn’t even seize power legally. Regardless, Tyrant stands out as the most overtly hostile of all the ruler aliens, even more than Usurper. I think the original power of Emperor does a good job of capturing that idea.
I’m fond of how this power puts a new twist on the idea of freely gifting pods to other aliens. Philanthropist is the poster child for this effect, and its go-to strategy is to prune its cache of weak pods. However, with my version in particular of Tyrant, any junk you give Tyrant will end up coming back to you and destroy two of your ships in addition. No other alien makes aliens think about giving away good pods in the same way Tyrant does. At most, you would gift your current ally a good pod to help them win the current encounter. Tyrant tasks you to gift it a good pod for your own sake, with the quality level being completely determined by Tyrant’s whims. It feels wonderfully on-point and fitting for the power. Everyone’s fearing the guillotine that awaits making the Tyrant upset.
I do appreciate how the original design of Tyrant allows an alien to fly “under the radar” with the pod they give as tribute, since only the worst tribute gets penalized. However, I like the idea of Tyrant having enough control to judge each one individually. Only those who appease the Tyrant are spared its wrath. Destroying three ships per unworthy pod is a little on the steep side, so I reduced it to two.
I considered trying to rework the original Tyrant power, but the assortment of different powers from a win-based leader-only trigger wasn’t coming together. Tyrant gets more ships on average than Remote and fewer than Fungus, with the benefit of its effect somewhere in between. It doesn’t capture enough ships on average to get much value out of sacrificing them to save its own ships, and it takes 4 wins against a specific alien just to pass the Human Test against them. The hand ravaging can potentially be effective, especially with my limited resupply mechanic, but it means that the most useful aspect of the power is one that possibly punishes opponents without assisting itself. It really feels like an issue of being a master of none by trying to be a little good at many different things, which reminds me of my issue with Poison’s design. I’m much more fond of Emperor’s design for Tyrant, despite it effectively being defense-only.
“Tribute” in this context refers to payment made to a ruling body as a sign of dependence or loyalty. They are similar in concept to taxes, but they are more about power than money. In the past, people would offer human sacrifices as tribute to deities, since the goal was often to appease them. If they did not appease their masters, disaster was sure to follow. The ruler of the Tyrants must surely view itself as a deity as well.
I also appreciate how both sides of the tribute put resource gain in conflict with personal interest. Tyrant doesn’t have to be honest about whether someone gave it a “good pod”, but it does have to commit to its definition of worthy. Someone can gift Tyrant the 40 pod, counting on it being deemed worthy. Tyrant can choose to reject it as unworthy, but they have to give back the 40 pod to do so. It reminds me of a tyrannical ruler having their personal chef make them a cake and spitting it out and telling them to make it again despite it being delicious. It’s not about how strong the pod is. Sometimes it’s just about keeping your subjects in line.
Defensive powers in Cosmic are always difficult, since gaining power exclusively as a defender can make a power less effective when it really matters, in addition to having the invader-only issue of restricted timing. Aliens generally have more turns as a defender than invader, so they get a little more use from the power than an invader-only power, but the primary advantage is that defensive powers help sustain authority to keep the power active. Tyrant is the sort where aliens actively don’t want to fight Tyrant, meaning Tyrant can expect few sponsors. Tyrant can even demand tribute from aliens it commissions, though it will likely need to avoid doing that if it wants consistent allies. It’s remarkably fitting to the theme that even helping Tyrant can have you face abuse at the hands of Tyrant. Normally that only happens when your leader tries to negotiate.
The concept of Emperor in FFG’s Cosmic was based on a potential rework of Tyrant by Bill Martinson. I think it’s fitting that I ended up repurposing it as well to tie it back to Tyrant. In a meta sense, Tyrant is seizing power from the Emperor.
Tyrant continues the trend I appreciate about all the “ruling” aliens. That being all of them feel like they are ruling over each other. Even with Tyrant making other rulers pay tribute to it when they enter its territory, Dictator still controls destiny to make others avoid Tyrant’s land, Emperor still sends its champions to fight its battles against Tyrant’s champions, King still makes everyone its pawns, Oligarch still restricts everyone’s resources, and Usurper still kicks Tyrant off its throne and seizes its resources.
I don’t often go out of my way to mix and match powers and flares. Generally I keep an alien’s powers and flares together unless I have an issue with a flare or think it clashes with the theme. When I think about an alien suddenly gaining the power of Tyrant for a split-second, using the power to beg to join another alien’s fleet doesn’t seem quite right. The “insult to injury” power of snatching pods from losing aliens feels much more fitting to the theme. The ally-only aspect feels a little random though, so I made it leader-only to better match the power, since actor-only could be too oppressive for a wild flare. I don’t think it’s fitting for any aspect of Tyrant’s power to be dependent on the “little people”. Everything about Tyrant could be done solo, even if inadvisable.
I really appreciate powers that can introduce subjective analysis into the mechanics for both the roleplay and intrigue. The player acting as Tyrant could approve or reject a pod for any reason. They could say a Cosmic Zap smells funny or that gifting the -07 pod is such a funny joke that Tyrant lets it slide. Tyrant can’t ever be wrong about its judgement of a tribute, which fits with the nature of an oppressive ruler that cannot be challenged, only dethroned.
I looked through history to find rulers that are known for being paid tribute, wondering if something like Pharaoh or Baron might work better. Emperor is actually a great pick given historical context, but I really like my repurposing of the power of Champions and making use of the imagery with the Roman Emperor holding his thumb sideways and linking the Emperor to the Colosseum. The beauty of using Tyrant is that I can link it to any type of ruler, since a Tyrant is basically just any evil ruler.