Halloween Borg Adventure

I've begun thinking a little about doing my first Halloween adventure since my old H.G. Wells game had one.

Here's the beginnings of it - the setup. Still working on how to develop it fully.

The basic idea is that centuries ago a Borg vessel got lost in a wormhole and crashed on a primitve planet in the Alpha Quadrant. These primitive Borg lack the magic nano-probes seen in post-First Contact Borg.

So these Borg went into stasis in the arctic regions of this primitive workd.

Fast-forward a few centuries. The world now has a technology like that of early-Industrial Revolution Earth. A scienctist has found the Borg and brought them back to his lab-or-a-tor-y. The Borg finally awoke and have been working with the mad scientist to make more Borg. Though lacking their advanced technology, their ability to assimilate others is like something out of Frankenstein - patching together corpses and injecting them with a "spark of life" - i.e. the old elevator going up the tower to catch a lightning bolt... The Borg are also using this steam-based technology as best they can in the hopes of building a subspace beacon to get in touch with the modern Borg.

I don't see corpses as a viable source of biological components for Borg drones... I'd suggest that they would probably be snatching people from dark alleys and such. This is not to say that the good Doctor (or the ubiquitous hunch-backed servant) isn't still robbing graves, just to keep up appearances for the PCs.

Early industrial age technology would perhaps just barely be able to sustain the Borg - they'd probably be constructing prostheses which look a lot like early Republic serials robot components: lots of rivets and exposed wiring.

As for the tower, that could well be where they have the damaged and jury-rigged vinculum - newly assimilated drones are't really being directly exposed to lightning bolts, but rather are hoisted up to interface with the vinculum which itself needs the lightning for a charge.

Remember to have lots of jury-rigged Borg stuff about - so jury-rigged that it's no longer recognisable: alcoves powered by banks of Leyden jars, Jacob's ladders, et cetera.

Oh, yeah, and don't forget the peasants with torches...

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Originally posted by Owen E Oulton
Oh, yeah, and don't forget the peasants with torches...

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And pitch forks...he he watch this...poke...snap...flee in terror...

Remember, the Borg told Picard; "Death is Irrelevant", so maybe...:)

I will say you're right about the 'tech of the time', but hey if 'Marty and the Doc' could figure out a way to jumpstart that Delorean...same way, different equipment:D.

I could also see this game barrowing from video games like Resident Evil and Silent Hill...remember: Player get reeeeally freaked when the mutated/mutalated dogs (and other animals) attack, so remember that (plus, with the planet being so primative they'd have to experiment with animals first...hey, I said the planet was primative didn't I...hmmm, a army of Borged squirrels...)

Hmmm, maybe then the Borg use body parts to "enhance" their constructs, sometimes damaged during borgification.

Peasants with pitchforks? Of course!

If they are using body parts, it would have to be those of the very freshly dead - less than a day. Decomposition sets in fairly quickly.

Here's a twist that might work - if the society believes (for whatever reason) that a dead body must be buried before sundown, many would still be viable. The grave-robbing could then lead to a breakdown in that part of the belief structure, when people begin to hold all-night wakes to make sure the bodies are dead. This in turn makes the mad doctor and the Borg desparate...

Ooh, now I'm getting some good ideas here...

I like the idea that rather than digging up dead bodies they are instead digging up live ones that look dead.

But how do they look dead? Because the primitive Borg have already begun the assimilation process. Lacking nanoprobes they instead inject a concoction which "preps" the body for Borgification. It also puts the victim in a coma-like trance. Causing many to be buried alive.

When the concoction is done with the prep work the victim "awakens" - often in a grave. The Borg try to dig the body up, but often they can't. But with the start of Borgification the new Borg are strong and can often get out on their own - some nice graveyard images coming to mind, inspired by Zombie movies and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Now to be fully brought into the collective they need that exposure to the Vendiculum.

All these people dropping into comas gives me the idea of it looking like a plague - indeed, some of the effects can be very disease-like - think of what the Enterprise crewmembers looked like in "First Contact" when they were being Borgified.

And of course the Borg attachments are damn primitve - I like the idea of parts from old science fiction movies.

Thanks for catching me on the science - it's giving me some neat ideas for how the adventure can progress! :D

"But how do they look dead? Because the primitive Borg have already begun the assimilation process. Lacking nanoprobes they instead inject a concoction which "preps" the body for Borgification. It also puts the victim in a coma-like trance. Causing many to be buried alive. "

Indeed, if these are primitive Borg (i.e. before they assimilated a race with nanotechnology), this drug may be a normal part of their assimilation process. Sort of a chemical lobotomy, as it were, which switches off the victim's cognitive processes and maybe monkeys with neurochemical processes as well - playing around with serotonin and so on...

Hmmmm... dose the society have a zombie superstition? Borg are a natural for this. Throw in the concept that the low technology means that the Borg drones thus created are low-grade moron Borg, shambling and drooling a lot. Think George Romero.

Are the PCs the Borg being hunted or the mad Doctor dudes and assistants? Or they the fearful townfolks? Which angle are you going for? Or are they space goers and they scanned a planet with Borg tech?

*On a side note, Owen are you a teacher or something? You're very well spoken and thought out in your posts, just wondering.*

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I've been assuming that the PCs are Starfleet officers attempting to prevent a contamination of the culture, personally.

(I'm a modelmaker and graphic artist who used to edit Architectural specifications as part of a former job. Belive me, there's nothing like editing technical documents to put a formal edge on your writing style...)

The crew are a bunchof Starfleet and Klingon explorers (Starfleet ship with a few Klingon exchange officers).

I'm working out the exact plotline - consider this a work in progress. :D

Given the characters are explorers, I am beginning to lean towards the main plot hook being the Borgification disease - having the characters studying the illness which doesn't seem quite right (it helps that the CMO is a former Rapid Response Team Member who spent the Dominion War on a Klingon Bird of Prey - she's something of a doer, making it easy to get her involved).

I'm thinking one thing will lead to another which will lead to the discovery of the Borg. In true Star Trek tradition, the mad scientist working with the Borg will be introduced early on - quite likely he'll be a minister of science or other similar role. With a nice family estate in the country... :)

Something like this
Teaser/Act I - Introduce the planet, the disease, initial investigation.

Act II -Revelation of the Borg - starting with witnessing some zombies rising up and progressing to Borg "grave robbers"

Act III - Confrontation in the castle as the Borg try to complete a subspace transceiver to "phone home" and bring in their more advanced counterparts.

As Owen indicated, avoiding cultural contamination is the main motivation - the Prime Directive forbids the characters from interfering with the natural progression of the culture, but the Borg are doing just that, giving the characters the right, if not obligation, to put a stop to that.

What if in the end, the 'Mad Scientist' becomes partially or even fully Borged (well, more closer to a 'Locutus' I guess)?

And further more, what if he and the initial Borg (the first one he reactivates) escape the planet at the end. Hey, in Mary Shelley's 'Frakenstein' (or was it 'The Monster'...I can't remember), in the novel's first runs The Monster escapes.

Hollywood never did that...though they did bring him back for 'The Bride of...' and later 'Abbot and Costello meet...', but that was pretty much it:).

Anyway, this does set the group up for a sequel (another horror tradition:D)

Oh, one more thing: culture-wise, I could see the planet's people becoming paranoid, and even go to 'mob mentality' with strangers...like the away team. See, it isn't just grave robbing that should be going on, living people should be abducted too (sooner or later the scientist will say "Hey, let's see if it works on/is easier with a 'live one'.")...and sets up more of a 'Jack the Ripper'-type fear, where strangers are feared to the point of being painted-by-the-same-brush as the Mad Scientist and Borg.

(A still say bring in some Borged animals. Not quite 'The Island of Dr. Moreau' level, but something to change the pace...)

This who All Hallow's Eve idea has got me thinking:

What other settings could you throw into a Star Trek game?

Cthulu Trek anyone.
Trek of Darkness (with Vampires, Lycanthropes, Mages etc).

Why I'm tempted to let my players fall through a wormhole and appear in the World of Progress from SLA Industries (Starfleet would kack it's pants when they discovered the planet Mort, the Ebb, biogenetic Stormer warriors and a society of urban horror and television violence - and that would be before their ship was captured and the entire crew interviewed->tortured->disected by Mr Slayer's Necanthropes of Stigmartyr....)

I mean there was that novel where the crew of the Enterprise-E visits a world populated by X-Men. Not read but I'm sure the author missed a real good opportunity for a joke at Professor X meeting Picard.

I know this thread was started as light hearted kind of idea but at least it's grounded in precedence considering the Star Trek/Shakespeare crossovers there are. That and Conan Doyle. Why not throw in Byron, Shelley et all.

For more on SLA Industries - Best RPG Setting Ever (tm)

Nightfall Games

Well, in the episodes themselves there have been several 'Haloween' episodes and horror based episodes to choose from...


Kirk and Co faced evil Wizardy Insects... Diabolic superpowered beings... Sociopathic Psychic children... And Psycopathic non-corporeal entities... :D

In TNG there were the Conspiracy Aliens and the Sub-Space beings from Night Terrors (Which I am assuming their cabbage-like visages literally and making them plant based, and toying with the idea of adding a sequel based on 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers')... And of course family ghosts...

In DS9, anytime you want an evil spirit, make it a Pah Wraith. and so a Bajor Based ghost story should be fairly easy...

Um, not so sure with Voyager.

I was once in a game that used a parasite that effectively turned people into Vampires, requiring nutrients found in Blood supplies... And enjoying the endless night of Deep Space... Only destroyed by direct sunlight (involving flying close to suns and fighting near portals), and transporting infected onto planets... Please dont ask about the science of starlight. :D We did work it out, but it was long and convoluted...

We never did find a cure in game...

One of the first adventures i ran for my current campaign setting (In Bridgetown, but not the same as Dan's) was based arround people going missing and some people coming back and beginning to turn pale.. then dying.. then.. in the clasic horror vein, coming back to life as animated zombies! :D

To add to the sense of the piece, the star, for some reason, was undergoing strong solar flare activity, which was getting stronger and stronger, cutting them off from the outside (Bridgetown is a remote location as it is)

As it turned out someone had uncovered something very deep in a disused mine, kilometers bellow the ground. It had a defence mechanism to keep people away. It injected them with nanites, which spurred on the process. These nanites had an electrostatic field arround them, and got their power from a central source, meaning the closer you got to the source, the more powerful the electrostatic field! Back at the base it impeded their analysis of them (they couldn't even find them at first as it blinded their sensors). The deper they got, the more powerful the fields became - the zombie creatures glowed eerily at first, and deflected light phaser blasts, then they develloped very heavy forcefield like abilities, and began shooting out lighting from their hands.

The amusing twist I had at the end was that the protection was in the form of a honey pot - when they reached the bottom of the mines, against one wall was a doorway, appearing like a vertical pool, made of pure latinum (Worth trillions of credits) Of course there was no latinum for them in the end - the latinum was just the storage vessel for the nanites :D

"I'll just go and get some of that "Hang on, why are your eyes glowing.." :D

Sure you don't mean a "honey trap?" A honey pot is an old slang term for a chamber pot.

Well maybe I meant Honey pot, none of them fell for it :D

As a reminder to all GM's - the players never look at any of your clues and wander round in the dark without a clue what's going on - and always think of an (obvious) solution you never thought of.

Still, 2 of them still stuck their hand in it all the same :D

Isn't Halloween suppose to scary you some? What do you have in mind for the PCs to scary them? Dim lights, spook sounds playing? Oh how about this, when a Borg drone gets shot they start laughing? That would creep me out (I can't do a good evil/mad scientist mu-hahaha laugh very well)! Or is it more the traditional story with Halloween themed elements? Just wondering if you're look for effect or a good story with flavor.

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Just an idea I had to make things a bit creepier : the Borg and mad scientist could eventually come up with something a bit "nanite-esque" (ie that can assimilate people they are injected into), only the process is much more slow and random (it could also be a sort of advanced drug - drawing people to the assimilation chamber...). Our Borg proceed to inject as many people as possible (contaminating the water maybe ?), and the people then randomly become affected and rush to the service of the Mad Scientist and the Borg.
This could lead to interesting possession scenes, with people suddenly stopping dead in their sentences and rushing with superhuman strength and zombie-like speed (both come suprisingly often together ;)) to the Mad Scientist's lair, muttering "must... join... collective..."

:D

" rushing with . . . zombie-like speed"

Huh? Stagger, shamble, shamble, stagger. That's hardly rushing. Zombies are not noted for being fast.

Sorry, this was my attempt at being oxymoronic ;)

C5, I think most of us understood exactly what you meant by zombie speed. If Owen didn't get the joke... Well, we all know he commuted to Starfleet Academy on the short shuttle. :)

Hey Dan,
I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to steal a chunk of your idea for my Halloween game. I was thinking of doing Ravenloft or World of Darkness, but your idea sparked my creative juices. How does this sound: Borg sphere enters Federation space during the Dominion War and gets pounced on by a small fleet (that was assembled to defend against a Dominion attack that never comes: bad luck for the Borg). The sphere is destroyed while the ship the PCs are on has its shields down.
The Borg attempt to beam on board, but need the ship's own transporters to finish the transport. The PCs realize what is happening and lock the Borg out of the transporter which (unbeknownst to the PCs) dumps the Borg patterns into the holodeck instead (ala Our Man Bashir). One of the PCs uses the Captain Proton program and viola', you have a black and white horror show! The PCs then have to clear them out before they expand out of the holodeck and assimilate the ship.

Steal away! Wouldn't be posting here if I minded people borrowing ideas. :)

In another week I'll be developing this adventure more fully. Right now I'm working on time-travelling neanderthal-like aliens visiting their descendents in the aftermath of a nuclear war... (It's amazing how your imagination comes back to life after a nine month hiatus from Trek games)