Anti-Borg unit

[Jonesy]

What type of starships, weapons and technology would you use for an Anti-Borg unit. Between the Elite Forces games and Voyager I know there is a lot of information. Also in the new Mirror book they have the Borg being faster, more proactively aggressive and have larger cubes.

[IKI]

Here is a list of system's (or edges) that would come in handy when fighting the Borg (+explication why):

- Pulse upgrade: Ignores the Feedback pulse. (see starships pg 26)
- Regenerative shield: If the Borg hit, they hit hard, so a little regeneration of the
shields can do no harm.
- Redundant Power Grid (see ESO pg 10): Many systems will take damage when
you fight the Borg, so every bit of extra power is welkom.
- Multi-Spectral Shields (see ESO pg 10): Makes recovering shields easyer when
you where the target by the Borg weapons.
- Equip your vessels with a lot of different weapons: They eventually will adapt to
all your weapons, but it wil just take them longer to achieve.

I Also created some new edges to fight the Borg, but I would be carreful to use them. I only let my players use them if they (or starfleet in the near future) have examined Borg recages and researched the subject for several months (or having an expert like 7of9). So feel free to use them, and let me know what you think of them (A little feedback never hurts someone).

-See for the High Frequentie Modulator Edge.
http://forum.trek-rpg.net/showthread.php?t=12312

-And here are some more

Anti-Draining Shield (Borg only):
Your shield have been upgraded to resist the Borg-Energy drain weapon.
Effect: The Borg -Energy weapon drains only 2 point of strenght when you are succesfully attack by it.
Upgrade: The Borg -Energy weapon drains only 1 point of strenght.

Anti- Blind Luck Transporter:
Your shield use some sort of fluctuating energy that blocks the use of Borg transporters. I can asure you that this helps a lot, because there is nothing nastier than having Borg drones on your Ship.
Effect: Your Starship cannot be the target of the Transporter's Blind Luck edge effect.

[Jonesy]

Has anyone done stats for the Tatryon Gatling Gun, I-MOD and Quantum Burst from Elite Forces 2. Also any stats for the Hazard Suits and team.

[Ergi]

It's your game. Make it up!

[Tobian]

Using energy weapons which the Borg have not encountered before will surprise them A LOT, it will take them much longer to do anything about them! Remember when the Enterprise D first hit a Borg cube with photon torpedoes it knocked huge great chunks out of it, spectactularly.. then the Borg analysed them and they did nothing!

Weapons do exist, in the Trekverse which can destroy Borg.. You have the multiphasic forpedoes Janeway brings back with her from the future, and theoretically are Canon, just no known statted torpedoes. I would stat them thusly: just make them regular torpedoes but install a 'Blind luck' edge to them.. the Borg will adapt, but they give you a few good hits before your blind luck runs out

You also of course have the Species 8472 bioweapon, which the Borg do not seem to be able to adapt too. This could be because they just have not 'yet', because it contains an exotic component which they cannot successfuly anayse without returning to Fluidic space (which they aren't likelly too!) and because the Species 8472 are unscanable using their current technology I.e. they cannot be assimilated, nor can any information from their technology. Sililarly the Breen energy drain weapon might work quite well, because the Borg haven't encountered it yet! (that and Starfleet doesn't know much about it, ergo the Borg cant have pinched that information from them!)

The Hirogen also seem to have much higher levels of technology in the series than their ships show in 'Starships' I think there was a Borg skull on their trophy wall Perhaps communication could be re-established with them.. their subspace comms network could be re-opened.

You could always introduce some new sort of superweapon or technigue.. most of the threat from the Borg is simply how fast they can flawlessly adapt to a weapon and come to ignore shields. Their ships do not have a godlike ability to resist damage, only to resist KNOWN damage. Don't forget the super beam from the deflector array of the Enterprise D would have worked quite well and possibly badly damaged if not destroyed their ship, had they not just beamed Pickard onboard and sucked all of that information ot of his head an hour earlier!

I tend to discount the I-Mod from Elite forces as it is a little... nonsensical given tekverse canon, and really is just a handy prop to make playing the game actually possible.. much like the pattern buffer units on the elite forces uniforms, which makes no sense, because a 'pattern buffer is a huge tokamak device several meters accross, not a 'bag of holding' from D&D

[Ergi]

What exactly would that anti-Borg unit do? Set course for the Delta Quadrant and try to destroy every Borg ship and planet they find on the way? If you ask me, that would be exactly what the Borg want. I don't mean the destruction of their ships and bases, of course, but being exposed to newest and most powerful technology their enemies can offer. Moreover, even a small fleet won't be a real threat to the Collective and its long-term interests. Sooner or later the Borg will either adapt on their own, or they will assimilate someone who knows enough about the technology to defeat it. Remember, a trip to Unimatrix Zero would take decades, and would be a suicide mission.
There is more to the Borg than "You will be assimilated." If a species is advanced enough to survive a single cube sent to assimilate their homeworld, the collective will probably benefit more from their existence than from their assimilation. The Borg don't develop technology, they assimilate the knowledge about it. So, instead of sending a whole fleet, which they could easily do, if they really wanted to assimilate a planet, they send one cube, which assimilates the newest technologies and shares the collected data with the collective. In the end, it doesn't really matter if the planet is assimilated this time or not. The collective wins either way.
Earth is too far away from Borg core territory to represent a threat. That may be another reason why it was selected twice.
So sending anything less than a fleet capable of eradicating the Collective their way, will make things even easier for the Borg, since they won't have to send a ship on their own, and just wait for the Starfleet ships to arrive, instead.

[Tobian]

It is quite an intimidating prospect but then you have to ask yourself the question.. Are the Borg sending in ships one at a time exactly because it is the best way to have us advance, and then assimilate the latest information? The Federation may not be the most advanced civilisation it has encountered (obviously not!) BUT it is one of the fastest accelerated developments we've seen in Trek.. Part of the advantage the Federation has is that it's not a monoculture and it has an explorative and inventive streak. It is also quite unique in the several surrounding cultures in that it is interested in history, and gathers information about long dead civilisations. Comparativelly, older, more advanced civilisations, like the Voth, or perhaps the Hirogen, have become complacent and or stuck in their ways.. Nothing can challenge them, so they haven't advanced into new fields in milenia, the Borg only really need to assimilate one or two ships and it has everything it needs to know about them!

If the Borg have countless tens of thousands of ships at their disposal, then why only send one at a time at Earth.. Because every time they do, we surrpise them with a new method of defeating them, something they never thought of before, we invent new technologies and we drag up the surrounding cultures with us.. If the Federation advances, the Klingons spendmore money on better bigger ships, the Romulans match us (either by theft or simply briliance) and on.. they then come again, reap the rewards, with very little effort or 'waste' (what are 10,000 drones to a Borg civilisation of countless billions!)

Even with Seven of Nine.. you have to ask yourself, how hard did they really try to capture her back? Either way they win.. They either get her back, or she escapes, her information is fed back into the Federation, they develop yet more innovative solutions and the Borg assimilate it on their next shopping spree to the Federation

So yes, sending a suicide hunting party to the Borg only really benefits THEM!

[BouncyCaitian]

Y'know, something people constantly ignore is the truely massive achllies heel that the Borg have, namely thier massive subspace communications system that they use to remain interconnected. Come up witha way to disrupt or jam that and the Borg are hosed for adapting and sending off information that would allow the rest of the collective to adapt.

My .02 credits

[Tobian]

It's very true, but I somehow suspect you couldn't jam all subspace frequencies over a large enough area! From what I remember of what we have seen of Borg communications they operate at a far deeper level of subspace than the Federation normally goes or is capable of transmitting in, but yes some sort of new technology could do well there.. But it all comes down to adaptation, because if there is a way round it, you can bet they will find it

[spshu]

Make the Borg do it to themselves. Atleast on a single ship. The Borg shielding is subspace based. Hit it with the right subspace frequence to disrupt the subspace communication. The Borg ship might self distruct or atleast that cube would be confused being cut off from the collective until the local node figures out to drop the shield making them some what more vulnerable.

Well also if you can get to a cube's subspace communication interface and send some sort of feedback loop or a overly strong pulse through it you might get all transmission to drop or atleast a whole region.

Metaphasic shields would be good to have and easy to impliment as it is just a program. It would be difficult for the Borg to adapt to it as it can stand up to the heat of the corona of a star from which as in the episode "Decent II" the Enterprise caused a plume of stellar matter to strike the Hugh Borg ship.

Also a member of Hugh's Borg or a Unimatrix Borg might make a good addition to the ship.

[Tricky]

I had a crazy idea on dealing with the Borg; it's so low tech that it might work (no, not Ewoks...although they can take out the entire Empiral Army with sticks and stones....nah).
They tossed around using a computer virus in NG. What if you got the borg to assimalate something, like an android lets say, with a storehouse of advanced tech in it's memory banks.
Included in this data is an encrpted virus, or more specificly, a trojan horse. It insinuates itself into the borg collective. Then, when you activate it...

....well that depends on what you set it up to do. Put them to sleep, disconnect them from the hive, forget your a threat. Obey your commands.....

I tossed that idea around for an idea I had where some advanced race seemed to be in league with the borg. Basicly, they were living on borrowed time, as they had to repeatedly udate the virus to keep thier borg servants from attacking them.

[The Tatterdemalion King]

I seem to recall a Voy episode which included disrupting the Vinculum with a virus.

Considering how viral the borg themselves are, having it be totally effective would be lame. As a small-scale weapon, it might work.

The borg are zombies: a chainsaw might work for a while, but it runs out of gas. A flamethrower might work for a while, but eventually a flaming zombie will come at you and take you out.

[C5]

Mind you, this is a very good idea.

Just imagine : the Federation manages to create such a virus. Not like the one in Hugh, but precisely like Tricky proposed : a trojan horse that could give an unlimited control to some part of the Collective (like a Cube). Of course, the benevolent Federation intends to employ this virus to put them all to sleep or order them to start de-assimilation or something like that.

... and then the Romulans/Cardassians/Breen/whatever manages to steal the virus...

[BouncyCaitian]

It's very true, but I somehow suspect you couldn't jam all subspace frequencies over a large enough area! From what I remember of what we have seen of Borg communications they operate at a far deeper level of subspace than the Federation normally goes or is capable of transmitting in, but yes some sort of new technology could do well there.. But it all comes down to adaptation, because if there is a way round it, you can bet they will find it

But if they can't Communicate to share information and adapt....sort of the chicken and the egg argument there

[Tobian]

This is true except for one tiny detail.. they are still quite capable of networking via their alcoves. Ok it's slower, and only a portion of the crew are available to do it, but 20% of 200,000 bio-computers + The Borg mainframe, is still a lot of processing power!