Infinity Modulator- Rules?

[selek]

Howdy!

I am currently working on a Borg adventure for my Seventh Fleet victims...uh....masocists...uh...players, and I've encountered a bit of an impasse.

The Activision Star Trek game Voyager: Elite Force introduced a weapon called the Infinity Modulator, which was essentially a heavy-duty phaser rifle to which the Borg could not adapt.

This was, of course, a cop-out designed to keep the game "winnable", since no video game created (then or now) could allow for the sheer scope of adaptability and inventiveness necessary for a Federation away team to survive in extended contact (let alone combat) with the Borg.

The problem is, of course, that such a weapon is a physical and scientific impossibility- even with a scrambler chip that adapts the weapon after every shot, there are only so many possible combinations. The weapon's molecular structure cannot be infinitely flexible, and there are only so many settings for a particle beam that will do damage.

Sooner or later, the weapon will exceed either its own tolerances or the bandwidths that will allow a particle weapon to do damage.

Simply put, a particle beam cannot be "infinitely" adaptable and

Like a gun that will fire any caliber of bullet, it's still firing a bullet. Eventually, the Borg will adapt to all of them.

The normal rules for Borg adaptation to weapons are that for every shot fired (after the first) both the attacker and the Borg player (or the GM) each roll two d6. If the numbers match, the weapon has been adapted to- even if remodulated. If the numbers are different, the weapons works according to expectations, but the Borg remember that number if it comes up again.

So how would you model the I-Mod (sounds like an Apple product, doesn't it?) such that it reflects the profound flexibility of such a weapon without it "breaking" the game?

[The Tatterdemalion King]

Okay, you know how people were like "Why aren't Starfleet mowing down drones with tommy guns?" after First Contact? Well, they didn't need to. After a few more get busted up, they may start refocusing their shields to deflect more kinetic energy, or start assembling thicker plating on the drones. A similar question is, why isn't every drone already adapted to every possible modulation?

So, while in time each drone may potentially be adapted to any specific modulation, not every adaption is necessary, nor may they all be desirable in each case. Some radiations may interfere with certain kinds or modes of adaptions, while other adaptions could be things that the individual drones may be incapable of powering for long periods away from a Cube's power grid, or some active adaptions might interfere with other normal or desired processes, require cascading other adaptions in order to actuate those adaptions. I mean, it's a big universe, and there's a lot of different possibilities to be adapted to.

So, an infinite modulator–which is probably a misnomer, anyway–might be pairing frequencies or beams that require theoretically incompatible modulation fields. So you shoot it once, the Borg adapts, but in doing so much choose a field modulation that would destabilize it for other frequencies. Imagine the treknobabble version of two tall kids tossing a third, short kid's bag between them–the kid runs to one catch the bag, but when he gets there the bag is just thrown to the other.

Of course, the Borg being the Borg, even this wouldn't last.

[selek]

Okay, you know how people were like "Why aren't Starfleet mowing down drones with tommy guns?" after First Contact? Well, they didn't need to. After a few more get busted up, they may start refocusing their shields to deflect more kinetic energy, or start assembling thicker plating on the drones. A similar question is, why isn't every drone already adapted to every possible modulation?

I quite agree that not every Borg drone will come adapted to every attack- otherwise they'd be Borg cubes not drones.

So, while in time each drone may potentially be adapted to any specific modulation, not every adaption is necessary, nor may they all be desirable in each case. Some radiations may interfere with certain kinds or modes of adaptions, while other adaptions could be things that the individual drones may be incapable of powering for long periods away from a Cube's power grid, or some active adaptions might interfere with other normal or desired processes, require cascading other adaptions in order to actuate those adaptions. I mean, it's a big universe, and there's a lot of different possibilities to be adapted to.

It is only logical that drones would be optimized for efficiency- anything less would be wasteful (which the Borg generally are not). In that regard, the Borg drones suffer the same limitation as the I-Mod: they cannot be infinitely adaptable to everything at the same time.

So, an infinite modulator–which is probably a misnomer, anyway–might be pairing frequencies or beams that require theoretically incompatible modulation fields. So you shoot it once, the Borg adapts, but in doing so much choose a field modulation that would destabilize it for other frequencies. Imagine the treknobabble version of two tall kids tossing a third, short kid's bag between them–the kid runs to one catch the bag, but when he gets there the bag is just thrown to the other.

Okay....you lose three points for bringing up bad child-hood memories.

To whom do I send the therapy bills?

Of course, the Borg being the Borg, even this wouldn't last.

You're right though. So how would you model this in the rules?

[The Tatterdemalion King]

Okay....you lose three points for bringing up bad child-hood memories.

The trick was to just keep running and knock down one of the guys throwing. You might not get your bag back, but you'll prove you're a poor sport : P

You're right though. So how would you model this in the rules?

I'm not sure I could give hard rules, as opposed to narrative guidelines, for it. First instinct is just to say that only one 'wave' of drones may be I-Modded with impunity before they start arranging a suitable adaption. Maybe the I-Mod gets to roll to 'refresh' the weapon after it's been adapted to (like the recharging powers in 4e).

I feel that ways of 'defeating' the Borg–i.e. achieving whatever goals the Crew has while remaining unassimilated–should be an exercise of player ingenuity and mystery-solving, rather than the result of access to brighter laser beams.

I see the Borg as ominous terrain, or the Trek equivalent of a zombie-held city. Dangerous, scary, but ultimately impersonal–both a source of fear, and perhaps the source of the player's advantages.