Yinyang

Alert

Support

Destroy

Type

Power of Balance

Sponsors Both Leaders

As a bystander, after commission, if you were commissioned by both leaders, you may use this power to sponsor both leaders. After an encounter where you used your power, losing leaders gain a reward based on their role. Losing invaders gain one boon for each of your committed ships in the defending fleet. Losing defenders gain one impervious committed ship for each of your committed ships in the invading fleet.

As a bystander, after commission, if only one leader does not commission you, you may use this power to gift them one of your marks until upkeep. Any alien with your mark in their nexus must ravage ships equal to their opponent’s casualties.

Legacy: Aliens may sponsor both leaders if commissioned by both leaders.

Weak and strong. Cruel and kind. Leader and sponsor. In a Cosmos filled with duality, the Yinyang seek to ensure some degree of cosmic balance between any and all opposing forces, to ensure one side of the scale never tilts too far. When all power is truly balanced, the most powerful being will be the one holding the scales.

Bystander: Commission
Bystander: Commission

Optional

Wild Flare

As an actor, after approach, you may discharge this flare to target one other alien. This invasion, if you claim pod(s) or your ship(s) are destroyed, the target alien drafts the same number of pods and ravages the same number of ships.

Actor: Approach

Super Flare

After using your power, during payoff, you may discharge this flare to rebound any of your ships in a losing fleet.

Sponsor: Payoff

Modifications

Original alien is Yin-Yang. Changed to Yinyang to fit with my “one word” rule.
Original Yin-Yang only grants one impervious ship as the invader. I modified it to make Yin-Yang’s committed ships matter for both aliens. It feels more “balanced” that way.
Original Wild Yin-Yang targets one other alien after your ship(s) are destroyed to ravage the same number of ships. Changed to a different idea to distinguish the power from Vacuum, as the flare is essentially Vacuum’s power.
Original Yin-Yang can gift its mark if neither alien sponsors it. Modified it to only use this effect if one alien does not commission it. It only gifts its mark if the balance is thrown off.
Original Yin-Yang’s aspect that gifts its mark does not have a use clause. Made this aspect zappable to act as the “yang” to the first clause’s “yin”.
Yinyang’s legacy allows everyone to potentially side with both aliens if sponsored by both aliens. It greatly benefits support-type aliens that are more likely to be commissioned, though it can also be punishing if they spread their ships too thin. Aliens that specialize in being attractive to sponsor can be punished by this legacy, since it is no longer necessarily a binary choice whether a potential sponsor will side with one side or the other. An alien can join Animal or Grudge with one ship to bypass the downside while investing most of their resources into the opposing side to aim for the win. Original Cosmic has no legacies.

Tips

Sponsoring both leaders can ensure you get a reward from the encounter. It’s more valuable to commit more ships to a defending fleet since a base only requires one ship. However, avoid committing too many ships to the defender if you suspect the invader will win.
Using your power will trigger your rewards to activate in order to balance the scales. If you are confident in one side over the other, consider not using your power to save resources and avoid rewarding the opponent for losing.
Since Yinyang is not forced to give its mark, it can leverage that power to get certain aliens on its side.

Development Notes

Yinyang serves as the logical follow-up to Lunatic, a power capable of siding with both sides from the sponsor perspective. It can spread its resources between the two sides to effectively guarantee itself some reward. On the flip side, it also guarantees that it will lose ships, which can slowly drain it of resources if it uses its power too liberally. Yinyang is also limited by its ability to be commissioned, though its ability to punish leaders help it to avoid never being commissioned. My version can still be left out in the cold if never commissioned at all, but the prisoner’s dilemma is meant to put psychological pressure on aliens to avoid such a thing.
Originally, I was willing to make an exception to my one word rule and let Yinyang remain as Yin-Yang. However, looking up the term, Yinyang is just as valid as a means of writing it. It also convinced me to change Ticktock and Antimatter to make them no longer an exception either.
Yinyang’s power is rather wordy, but the mechanic behind it is about as simple as Grudge’s. The extra complexity justifies it being a yellow alert, but I think it is spared from being a red alert by it being more of a rewarding power than a punishing one. The only downsides to always inviting Yinyang is rewarding the opponent when you win and making Yinyang into Parasite.
I really like how the power incorporates the concept of Yin and yang into its effect. It has two use clauses in its power, one which rewards aliens for commissioning it and one that punishes aliens for not. Unlike Grudge and Animal, it only punishes the winners, since they have “tipped the balance” by winning without inviting Yinyang.
Yinyang is themed around the classic principle of yin and yang of Chinese origin. It refers to two opposing forces which are constantly in balance. The symbol that depicts the concept features a black shape with a small white dot and an opposing white shape with a small black dot. It refers to the balance and interconnectivity between the two sides, that one has a little of the other within it. In Cosmic, Yinyang ensures balance by rewarding any side that invites it and punishing any side that wins without them.
Yinyang is comparable to both Animal and Grudge, punishing aliens who don’t commission it. Animal directly ravages one ship from any alien that does not commission it, while Yinyang only punishes the winning alien if they didn’t commission Yinyang . Since the losing alien has an inherent punishment, it means both aliens will always receive punishment from Yinyang unless a deal is made or something like a cataclysm occurs.
I decided to invoke the Prisoner’s Dilemma with Yinyang to reflect the idea of balance a little more. If Yinyang’s goal is balance, it would only invoke punishment when that balance is thrown off. Getting commissioned by both aliens is ideal for it, but getting commissioned by neither would still be “balanced”. If both leaders decide together to not commission Yin-Yang, they can dodge the penalty. If either alien does, they can ensure they won’t be punished by Yinyang and their opponent might be punished from winning instead. If both aliens commission Yinyang , it gives Yinyang the option to sponsor both sides, guaranteeing its win at the cost of providing balanced rewards to both leaders.
Suppose a defender has one committed ship and gets Yinyang’s mark. If their opponent has four ships, they will actually lose more ships from winning the match than losing due to Yinyang. Defender will still protect its base by winning, so there is still a decision to be made, but any alien looking to commit few ships has a greater incentive to commission Yinyang, to avoid a Morton’s Fork type of situation.
Yinyang has contributed to there being at least one alien associated with every letter of the alphabet. However, since I changed Xenophile to Fan, this is not the case in my Cosmic.