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Star Trek Borg

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Revision as of 19:32, 1 May 2017 by imported>Thedemonapostle (typo)
Locutus of Borg

Name: Borg
Important Note: The Following Adjustments are a modification of the Base Species.
Dice: (Based on Original Species)
Dexterity: +0D / +0D+1
Knowledge: +0D / +0D
Mechanical: +0D+1 / +0D+1
Perception: +0D / +0D
Strength: +1D+1 / 0D+2
Technical: +0D+2 / +0D+1

Move: (Based on Original Species)
Size: (Based on Original Species)
Weight: (Based on Original Species)

Remove all non-biological Special Abilities from the base species and add the following:

  • Eidetic Memory: Borg remember everything they see and hear. This does not apply to general skill use. Just because you've seen someone perform mok'bara does not mean you can do it, too. The specific bonus this ability provides is up to the GM's discretion.
  • Excellent Metabolism: Borg are designed to be very fit, and receive an additional die when rolling to resist the effects of disease or poison.
  • Enhanced Vision: Borg can see in wave lengths not normally visible to humans.
  • Excellent Sight: Borg have an acute sense of sight and are able to notice things others might miss. Borg receive a +1D when making sight-based search tests
  • Medical Remedy: Borg Modifications: Every species has its own flaws. The Borg use cybernetic modifications to remove these flaws and in many cases enhance the base species abilities. GM's are required to add modification to the character that enhance them in some specific way.
  • Multitasking: Borg are able to keep multiple diverse thoughts in their minds without confusing them. This allows them to perform multiple Knowledge, Mechanical, Perception or Technical based actions per round without incurring a Multiple Action Penalty. The exact number of actions a Borg is able to perform without incurring a Multiple Action Penalty is based on the number of dice the Borg has in Knowledge. Actions above and beyond the number of free multitask actions incur the normal Multiple Action Penalties for each additional task.
  • Toughness: Borg are extremely hardy and resilient. For purposes of withstanding damage, Borg are considered to have a +1D to their Strength rolls. (This is in addition to any additional armor worn by the Borg)
  • Physically Impaired: Borg Modifications: Due to the many Borg modifications throughout their bodies, the Borg is dependent upon many of them to survive. Removal is not an option as many key functions have been replaced with Borg Modifications.
  • Hive Mind: The Borg are not individuals while connected to the Hive. All individuality is suppressed by the trillions of voices of the Hive. While connected to the Hive, a Borg receives a +4D to all Knowledge and Technical Skill rolls. Also, all Technical Skill difficulties are reduced by 2 levels. This is to reflect upon the vastness of the knowledge that makes up the trillions of assimilated individuals into the Hive Mind.
  • GM's may wish to increase or provide additional benefits as they see fit.

Description: "The Borg is the ultimate user. They're unlike any threat your Federation has ever faced."
– Q, 2365 ("Q Who")
"We are the Borg. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile."
– Borg Collective, 2373 ("Scorpion")

The Borg were a pseudo-species of cybernetic beings, or cyborgs, from the Delta Quadrant. No single individual truly existed within the Borg Collective (with the possible sole exception of the Borg Queen), as all Borg were linked into a hive mind. Their ultimate goal was the attainment of 'perfection' through the forcible assimilation of diverse sentient species, technologies, and knowledge. As a result, the Borg were among the most powerful and feared entities in the galaxy, without really being a true species at all.

Physiology

The physiology of each Borg drone varied according to the species from which it was assimilated. (Star Trek: First Contact) Drones were typically humanoid, although the Collective demonstrated a willingness to assimilate non-humanoid lifeforms. (VOY: "Scorpion")

Upon assimilation, a drone ceased to grow body hair and developed an ashen, grayish skin coloration, ignoring original skin pigmentation. Cybernetic implants were either surgically attached to the body or grown internally by nanoprobes injected into the bloodstream; in certain cases these implants could cause severe skin irritation. (TNG: "The Best of Both Worlds"; Star Trek: First Contact) The nature of these implants varied from drone to drone, depending on its intended function, but basic nodes of interlink for communications with the Collective and myo-neural cortical array to control movements, were implemented in every drone. In most cases an eye would be replaced with an eyepiece that improved vision and an arm would be amputated altogether to make room for a functional prosthetic; in tactical drones a weapon would be included, and some drones had medical tools built in. (VOY: "The Gift", "Dark Frontier") The implants of a fully assimilated drone allowed it to function for extended periods without shelter, food, water, or even air. It could even survive in the vacuum of space. A drone's only requirement was a supply of energy to maintain the implants that in turn maintained its biological functions. This energy was supplied during regeneration cycles within a Borg alcove. Upon receiving damage, a drone would return to the alcove for assessment of the damage. Severely damaged drones were disassembled and scavenged for reusable parts. (TNG: "Q Who", "I Borg")

Borg infants were not accepted to the collective until they matured to a certain age. Until reaching this age, assimilated infants and youths were placed inside maturation chambers. (TNG: "Q Who")

Borg drones were equipped with myriad technologies integrated into their bodies which enabled them to perform their duties within the Collective, several of which were universal to all drones. A neural transceiver kept them connected to the hive mind. (VOY: "Scorpion, Part II") A personal force field protected each drone from most energy-based attacks. (TNG: "Q Who") A drone was able to communicate with their ship with signals across a subspace domain, the basis of their hive mind, which Data likened to a transporter beam. (TNG: "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II") Each drone possessed a pair of assimilation tubules embedded in one hand for the purpose of instantly injecting individuals with Borg nanoprobes. (Star Trek: First Contact) A cortical processor allowed a drone to rapidly assimilate visual information. Borg drones were also equipped with a neural processor, which kept a record of every instruction that particular Borg receives from the collective hive mind. Captain Picard used this processor to discover that the Borg were attempting to use the deflector dish of the USS Enterprise as an interplexing beacon to contact the Borg in 2063. (Star Trek: First Contact)

Drones also contained fail-safes designed to deactivate and even vaporize their own bodies, thereby allowing the Collective to eliminate damaged or dead drones without leaving remains to be exploited by outsiders. (TNG: "Q Who") The captured drone Third of Five also made comments indicating that this vaporization may have been a form of resource re-absorption. (TNG: "I Borg") One of these fail-safes was intended to automatically deactivate drones experiencing strong emotional states, which the Borg interpreted as a sign of disconnection from the hive mind. (VOY: "Human Error")

History

The precise origins of the Borg are unclear. As of 1484, they were reported as controlling only a handful of systems in the Delta Quadrant, but by 2373, they had assimilated thousands of worlds. In addition to this stronghold in the Delta Quadrant, the Borg also dispatched vessels throughout the galaxy via transwarp conduits. (VOY: "Dragon's Teeth", "Scorpion", "Endgame")

A Borg vessel traveled back in time from 2373 in an unsuccessful attack on Earth in 2063. (Star Trek: First Contact) Drones which survived this defeat were discovered and reactivated by Human scientists in 2153, and transmitted a subspace message to Borg space before being destroyed by Enterprise NX-01. (ENT: "Regeneration")

In 2293, the Federation offered aid to El Aurian refugees fleeing the Borg. (Star Trek Generations) However, each of these incidents contributed almost nothing to the Alpha Quadrant's awareness or understanding of the Borg Collective.

By the 2350s, rumors of an alien race called "The Borg" had reached the Alpha Quadrant, inspiring exobiologists Magnus and Erin Hansen to set out in search of them. Their research took them all the way to the Delta Quadrant before they and their daughter Annika were assimilated in 2356. (VOY: "The Gift", "The Raven", "Dark Frontier") Borg activity in the Alpha Quadrant, including the assimilation of the USS Tombaugh in 2362 and assimilation of outposts along the Romulan Neutral Zone in 2364, were complete mysteries to Starfleet. (VOY: "Infinite Regress"; TNG: "The Neutral Zone") The Collective's true nature was finally revealed to the Federation in 2365 when Q took the USS Enterprise-D to meet a Borg cube near the J-25 system. (TNG: "Q Who")

In late 2366, a Borg cube invaded Federation space and assimilated Jean-Luc Picard, whose tactical information contributed, along with the Borg's own vastly superior power, to Starfleet's disastrously one-sided engagement with the cube, the Battle of Wolf 359. A fleet of forty starships assembled to combat the cube. All but one of these ships were destroyed, while the cube remained intact, damaged but healing rapidly. The Enterprise-D recovered Picard and used his connection to the hive-mind to disable the cube before it could attack Earth. (TNG: "The Best of Both Worlds", "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II")

During the 2370s, the Borg were beset by several major setbacks in the Delta Quadrant, all witnessed by the crew of the USS Voyager.

The Borg-Species 8472 War decimated the Collective from 2373-2374. Voyager's liberation of Seven of Nine allowed Unimatrix Zero to create an active resistance movement in 2377.

In 2378, a crippling blow was delivered to the Borg when Voyager discovered one of their transwarp hubs and destroyed it, killing the Borg Queen (again) and devastating the Unicomplex in the process. During this battle, the Borg were infected with a neurolytic pathogen, which was carried by an alternate future version of Admiral Janeway and designed to disrupt the hive mind, to bring chaos to order. It was this pathogen that killed the Borg Queen, and allowed Voyager to destroy the transwarp hub. (VOY: "Scorpion", "Unimatrix Zero", "Endgame")

Parallel universes

In one alternate quantum reality, Captain Jean-Luc Picard was lost in the Battle of Wolf 359 and William T. Riker succeeded him as the captain of the Enterprise-D with Worf as his first officer.

In another alternate quantum reality, the Borg emerged victorious from Wolf 359 and successfully conquered the Federation. A battered Enterprise-D which was likewise under Riker's command was one of the few remaining Starfleet ships by 2370. That reality's Riker was desperate not to return to his universe once all of the Enterprises began spilling into a single universe from a quantum fissure. After attempting to get the attention of the present reality's Enterprise by firing lightly upon them, the ship was accidentally destroyed, when its shields collapsed, presumably due to damage accumulated from fighting the Borg. (TNG: "Parallels")

Culture

The Borg Collective was made up of at the very least trillions of humanoids referred to as drones. (VOY: "Dark Frontier") Through the use of their cybernetic implants, the Borg interacted by sharing one another's thoughts in a hive mind. Upon assimilation, these trillions of "voices" would overwhelm the drone, stifling individual thought and resistance to the Collective's will. (TNG: "Family") To some drones these voices could eventually become a source of comfort, and their absence a source of pain. (TNG: "I Borg"; VOY: "The Gift")

Borg philosophy was governed by a primary directive to add the biological and technological distinctiveness of other species to that of the Borg. In this manner the Collective sought to achieve its definition of perfection; all other pursuits were deemed irrelevant. Accordingly, Borg drones did not engage in any activities except their duties and regeneration. (TNG: "Q Who", "The Best of Both Worlds"; VOY: "Scorpion, Part II") Individual drones have demonstrated puzzlement at other species' unwillingness to be assimilated, the drones believing in the superiority of their way of life.

Having no regard for individuality, Borg drones were identified with designations rather than names. A drone's designation typically described its position within a group, e.g. "Third of Five." To more specifically identify a drone, its function could be appended to this designation, for example "Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix 01." In the same manner, the Borg refer to alien species by number rather than by name. (TNG: "I Borg"; VOY: "Scorpion")

If a drone was sufficiently injured or otherwise in distress, other drones would offer assistance. (TNG: "I Borg"; VOY: "Dark Frontier") However, if a drone was deemed irreparable by the hive-mind, the Borg would deactivate it and redistribute any salvageable components throughout the Collective. (TNG: "Q Who")

The Borg did not procreate; they added to the Collective's population only by assimilation. (VOY: "Drone") Assimilated infants and juveniles would be placed in maturation chambers until adulthood. (TNG: "Q Who"; VOY: "Collective")

The Borg typically operated in an atmosphere with a constant temperature of 39.1 °C (102.38 °F), 92% relative humidity, an atmospheric pressure of approximately 102 kPa, and trace amounts of tetryon particles. (Star Trek: First Contact) These conditions were presumably conducive to the operation of their cybernetics.

Borg drones ignore alien species until they demonstrate the potential to be a threat or a suitable candidate for assimilation. When addressing a small number of individuals, drones would simply attempt to assimilate them without comment. Before assimilating a larger population, such as a starship or an entire culture, the Borg would collectively transmit a standard announcement of their purpose and the futility of resistance. (TNG: "Q Who"; VOY: "Dark Frontier"; Star Trek: First Contact) Species the Borg found unremarkable would be deemed unworthy of assimilation. As of 2374 the Borg considered the Kazon beneath their notice, and by 2376 they only took interest in the Brunali if they detected sufficiently relevant technology. (VOY: "Mortal Coil", "Child's Play")

On the rare occasions that the Borg were willing to open a dialogue with individuals, they chose a single drone to speak for the Collective. Jean-Luc Picard was assimilated and given the name Locutus in the misguided assumption that such a representative would lower the Federation's resistance to assimilation. (TNG: "The Best of Both Worlds") When Kathryn Janeway successfully negotiated a truce with the Borg and refused to discuss the terms via a neural transceiver, the Collective agreed to communicate via Seven of Nine. (VOY: "Scorpion, Part II")

The Borg Queen also spoke for the Collective, acting not as a mere liaison but as a physical manifestation of the hive mind. The exact nature of her role is unclear. (Star Trek: First Contact)

The Borg possessed a near-reverence for particle 010 which they considered to be an expression of perfection. The Collective's fascination with assimilating this molecule has been compared to a religion. (VOY: "The Omega Directive")

Technology

Borg technology was a combination of technologies assimilated from other cultures and technology developed within the Collective in order to overcome obstacles to its goals. When confronted by a problem it could not solve with its existing resources, the entire Collective would work in concert to consider all possible solutions and implement the one determined to be the most efficient. By applying the unique skills of each drone to a task, the hive mind could engineer new technologies at a pace that would astound an individual. (TNG: "Q Who", "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II")

Their speed was so quick when adapting that they could modulate their shields and weapons to be effective against most ships and energy weapons in seconds.

Spacecraft

Borg vessels were highly decentralized, with no distinct bridge, living quarters, or engineering section. Each ship was collectively operated by its complement of drones, under the general direction of the hive mind. Owing to the Collective's disregard for aesthetic considerations, the architecture of Borg ships took the form of basic shapes such as cubes and spheres and they were made from tritanium alloy. Borg ships were capable of regenerating from damage. (TNG: "Q Who"; VOY: "Endgame")

Each Borg spacecraft was equipped with a vinculum to interconnect its crew, which was in turn connected to a central plexus that linked the ship to the Collective. (VOY: "Infinite Regress", "Unimatrix Zero") In addition to warp drive, vessels were fitted with transwarp coils that could achieve even greater speed by opening transwarp conduits. (TNG: "Descent"; VOY: "Dark Frontier") When critically damaged or otherwise compromised, a Borg ship would self-destruct to prevent outsiders from studying Borg technology. (TNG: "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II") In other situations, only the valuable technology would self-destruct, such as the case of the crew of Voyager's first attempt to steal a transwarp coil. USS Voyager encountered several damaged Borg vessels, notably including the cube carrying Icheb, Mezoti, Azan, and Rebi, and a sphere carrying a transwarp coil, which Voyager stole. (VOY: "Collective", "Dark Frontier")

Infrastructure

Borg structures were located in deep space, in planetary systems, or on planets themselves. Each planet the Borg modified showed a typical climate and assimilated infrastructure adapted from the previous inhabitants. (Star Trek: First Contact; VOY: "Dark Frontier", "Dragon's Teeth")

Buildings were simple shapes, similar to the geometrical ships, and rather than being single structures they were annexed together and added to when needed. By joining new structures to existing ones, they would form a uniformed complex. These buildings were gargantuan in size, with structures that could house Borg spheres docked inside. (VOY: "Dark Frontier")

The Borg also constructed structures that had special functions, like the transwarp hub. There were six known hub locations in the galaxy that allowed Borg vessels to deploy rapidly to almost everywhere in the galaxy. These transwarp hubs had many portal opening structures on them, and inside their corridors were interspatial manifolds which supported the transwarp conduits. Several of these manifolds that led to the Alpha quadrant were destroyed by Voyager via transphasic torpedos and collapse of the conduit itself on the vessel's return to the Alpha Quadrant. (VOY: "Endgame")

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