Borg "Awareness"

[Doug Taylor]

As we discussed over on a different thread (about Borg Adaptation), I've introduced the Borg in my campaign. They're great bad guys, and conjure up enough fear and dread that they should be a lot of fun.

At the end of our last session, the crew had traveled deep underground (for about an hour), noting a temperature increase the whole time (until it was unbearably hot). As we ended (in true cliffhanger fashion), I described the many Borg drones in cubicles lining the walls of the thin corridor they were traversing.

I'm now a bit unsure of how/when to have the Borg note their presence. We all know that the Borg tend to ignore those that they don't consider to be a threat. Of course some of the time they seemed to react more immediately, and other times a Starfleet crew could do all sorts of things among them without being bothered. I suppose mostly this is a matter of storytelling and suspense; the writers choose when the Borg decide to act (and attack) based on when it works best for the story.

And I'm cool with that. I can choose the moment when it is most appropriate during our session. Nonetheless, I think I'll be making rolls all the time, just to creep the players out a bit and to give them a sense of urgency.

Any ideas on - game specific-wise - when or how the Borg could "notice" others among them? Should I give them straight Perception rolls occasionally? Wait until the crew starts to mess with their plans (the reason they're in the Beta Quadrant to begin with)? Would they "come to life" right away if they're attacked or if some of their machinery starts to be damaged or tinkered with?

As always, comments are welcome!

[The Tatterdemalion King]

I imagine the Borg have a fairly amorphous sense of 'in/out' or 'relevance' in relation to humans. A single drone is an infinitesimal mote in the whole; a single cube merely a probing cilia. If the intruders don't interfere with normal operations on a Borg ship, there'd be no reason at all for the Borg to react with hostility unless they're in an area with a lot of interference. So if people are beaming onto Borg ships with hostile intent all over the sector, the Borg might react quicker to intrusion. If they just beam over and poke around, the Borg should just activate randomly. Try this:

Every minute or so of real time the players wander around, roll a d6.

1: A drone activates next to one of the characters, and tromps off to some unknowable task. If unimpeded, it takes no notice of them.
2: A drone within the eyeline of the characters activates and moves away into the bowels of the cube.
3: A drone approaches the character's location to access a conduit or node next to them. If unimpeded, it takes no notice of them.
4-5: Echoing sounds throughout the cube indicate Borg activity, but no movement is seen.
6: A Borg moves toward an empty alcove close to the characters and enters a regeneration cycle.

Attacking any part of the Borg matrix should provoke immediate aggressive response.

[trynda1701]

The random table above should probably not be used too much, unless of course the players fall into a false sense of security about all your dice rolls, then you can spring your actual detection on them!

Where they expecting to find the Borg, and did they carry any masking technology, ala the Hansen family on the "Raven" ?

[Doug Taylor]

I imagine the Borg have a fairly amorphous sense of 'in/out' or 'relevance' in relation to humans. A single drone is an infinitesimal mote in the whole; a single cube merely a probing cilia. If the intruders don't interfere with normal operations on a Borg ship, there'd be no reason at all for the Borg to react with hostility unless they're in an area with a lot of interference. So if people are beaming onto Borg ships with hostile intent all over the sector, the Borg might react quicker to intrusion. If they just beam over and poke around, the Borg should just activate randomly. Try this:

Every minute or so of real time the players wander around, roll a d6.

1: A drone activates next to one of the characters, and tromps off to some unknowable task. If unimpeded, it takes no notice of them.
2: A drone within the eyeline of the characters activates and moves away into the bowels of the cube.
3: A drone approaches the character's location to access a conduit or node next to them. If unimpeded, it takes no notice of them.
4-5: Echoing sounds throughout the cube indicate Borg activity, but no movement is seen.
6: A Borg moves toward an empty alcove close to the characters and enters a regeneration cycle.

Attacking any part of the Borg matrix should provoke immediate aggressive response.

Great stuff. I like this and plan on using it, TK. Thanks so much!

[Doug Taylor]

The random table above should probably not be used too much, unless of course the players fall into a false sense of security about all your dice rolls, then you can spring your actual detection on them!

Where they expecting to find the Borg, and did they carry any masking technology, ala the Hansen family on the "Raven" ?

They had no idea, and did not expect to find the Borg, nor do they have any kind of masking technology like the Hansens used.

You see, they're not actually aboard a Borg cube, but have stumbled upon a "nest" (for lack of a better term) deep underground.

The location of the planet is in the Neutral Zone, and it turns out that the Romulans had discovered (and were using) a newly discovered Iconian Gateway (also located in archaelogical ruins deep underground). The Romulans had used this gateway to travel all the way to the Delta Quadrant, where they discovered some alien technology (actually Borg) that they had brought back and used in the manufacture of subspace weapons. The Borg, meanwhile, followed the breadcrumbs (and Romulans) back to the Beta Quadrant, and have now set up a base of sorts on this planet (after wiping out all of the Romulans there). So the Crew - following a rumor of a newly discovered gateway - has just stumbled upon this, first the clues of dead Romulans on the surface and now the Borg "hive" or "nest" deep underground. The Borg likely view this as a beachhead of sorts, and I would imagine that any destruction to their base there, or the Gateway itself would trigger or activate their alertness.

[Aldaron]

I think that, in terms of "when would Borg attack?", you need to look at what their current purpose is.

If their current purpose is "go from A to B", then a few Starfleet personnel wandering around isn't impeding them, and thus they won't attack. Only by doing something to potentially stop the ship would they become a threat. Even interfering with sensors or communications would probably be dealt with by repairing the system, not attacking the cause.

If their current purpose is "reactivate a lost Sphere", then Starfleet personnel would only become a threat if they were going to stop the Borg ship, deactivate its communications, or otherwise impede the rescue.

If their current purpose is "assimilate Earth and every humanoid you encounter", then they'll attack as soon as the Crew set foot aboard the Cube.

Borg always seem to me to be extremely reactive, not pro-active.

[The Tatterdemalion King]

Great stuff. I like this and plan on using it, TK. Thanks so much!

Thanks!

The random table above should probably not be used too much, unless of course the players fall into a false sense of security about all your dice rolls, then you can spring your actual detection on them!

It's not about the detection, it's about whether they care. In the Alpha Quadrant, nobody's usually beaming on to Borg ships to mess with them. In the Delta Quadrant, you have guys like Species 6339 with their nexus-hacking and all sorts of other issues which likely mean that they're more aggressive when it comes to people wandering around their ships.

[trynda1701]

Interestingly, TTK, while that is what the Borg usually was shown like at the start of an episode, one wonders why they haven't by now adapted to the tactic of squashing Starfleet Away teams at first sight, because it usually ends in a local defeat for the Collective by the Heroes!

[Tricky]

Just throwing my two credits in, but if this base IS a beach head, and they are most likely gearing up for A) building a cube, sphere or trapaziod to begin Beta Quadrant assimilation, and B) collecting data to assist in said assimilation, wouldn't they be pretty much in a more aggressive footing?

When you're tooling around in a Borg ship, you can afford to ignore some SF away team running up and down your ship, but when you've lost your "Hive" (like in First Contact), the Collective steps up the aggression. I seem to remember they very aggresively going after NPC crewmen. Even the ones that were doing their tasks seemed ready to pounce on Picard's team when they first ventured into the Engineering 'Hive'.

But, for most stuff involving the Borg,what they do, how they do it and with what materials seems to be convienent to the story.

[Dan Gurden]

But, for most stuff involving the Borg,what they do, how they do it and with what materials seems to be convienent to the story.

Not forgetting that the members of the away team also qualify as potential materials for Drones. While I get the creep out factor of finding romulan bodies on the surface I suspect that under these conditions most of those bodies would have been turned into drones...

[Doug Taylor]

Good comments by all. In my story, the crew actually just found forensic evidence (small amounts of blood and tissue) left from Romulans, and it appeared that they had been drug away. Curiously, the Romulans appeared to have been all taken out, but their Reconnaissance told them that the attacking forces (which they now know was the Borg) didn't really ambush them in a sneaky way, but rather simply used the terrain and topogrophy to the best advantage to insure victory.

I'm thinking I'm going to use TK's original list, but will have there be a 1 in 6 chance that a drone will display curiosity towards one of the crew. Each time this happens, they will be more invasive and aggressive. That should ramp up the danger and worry and increase the creepiness factor as they explore. I was leaning towards doing that already, and Tricky's post about how they would likely be more aggressive makes a lot of sense (and matches much of the behavior I saw when rewatching First Contact a few weeks ago)!

Thanks again for all of the help with this!

[The Tatterdemalion King]

Interestingly, TTK, while that is what the Borg usually was shown like at the start of an episode, one wonders why they haven't by now adapted to the tactic of squashing Starfleet Away teams at first sight, because it usually ends in a local defeat for the Collective by the Heroes!

I try to avoid writing apologetics for Voyager...

Not forgetting that the members of the away team also qualify as potential materials for Drones. While I get the creep out factor of finding romulan bodies on the surface I suspect that under these conditions most of those bodies would have been turned into drones...

Which means that the leftovers should lead the crew to ask 'What happened to the bodies?'

Although, Romulans would likely try to kill themselves than be assimilated.

[Doug Taylor]

With much thanks to The Tatterdemalion King, here's my new chart for Borg encounters. It's basically his list with one addition, and a few minor changes (like changing cube to facility):

Borg Encounter Chart
1: A Borg drone activates next to one of the characters, and tromps off to some unknowable task. If unimpeded, it takes no notice of them.
2: A Borg drone within the eye-line of the characters activates and moves away into the bowels of the facility.
3: A Borg drone approaches a character's location to access a conduit or node next to them. If unimpeded, it takes no notice of them.
4: Echoing sounds throughout the facility indicate Borg activity, but no movement is seen.
5: A Borg drone moves toward an empty alcove close to the characters and enters a regeneration cycle.
6: A Borg drone moves to one of the characters and begins to take a serious interest in them, studying them intently.*

* Each time this result is rolled, the interest shown will be more aggressive and intentional, as the drone seeks to discover who or what this intruder is or what intentions they might have.

[Tricky]

Sounds good. Just a thought on bodies though: While the Borg might be attacking with methods to ensure whole, intact, viable host Romulans, things still happen in the heat of battle that might leave a few guys that are not "salvageable" by the Borg (blown up by a disrupter overload or photon grenade, crushed under a rock, self inflicted disrupter wound to the head...). I recommend using these for 'flavor' (especially the last one).

And, a random thought about Borg and their reaction to intruders: What if a Drone became interested in something you were carrying? Like a tricorder or perhaps an engineer's tools (3rd of 7 needs a hyperspanner to correct EPS fluctuations in main power relay. It will take 5 seconds to recalibrate is left forarm, or he could TAKE YOURS!!!!)? Just a horrible thought.

[Doug Taylor]

Sounds good. Just a thought on bodies though: While the Borg might be attacking with methods to ensure whole, intact, viable host Romulans, things still happen in the heat of battle that might leave a few guys that are not "salvageable" by the Borg (blown up by a disrupter overload or photon grenade, crushed under a rock, self inflicted disrupter wound to the head...). I recommend using these for 'flavor' (especially the last one).

And, a random thought about Borg and their reaction to intruders: What if a Drone became interested in something you were carrying? Like a tricorder or perhaps an engineer's tools (3rd of 7 needs a hyperspanner to correct EPS fluctuations in main power relay. It will take 5 seconds to recalibrate is left forarm, or he could TAKE YOURS!!!!)? Just a horrible thought.

I completely agree that this would have been kind of cool, but unfortunately I quickly did the scene (at the end of our last session a few weeks ago) to have them come across the Borg. We ended the night a bit sooner than I expected to (at the request of one of the players), so I was a bit rushed. I wanted to leave them with a cliffhanger, so I swiftly described that they came across familiar wiring, tubing, alcoves, etc. as they entered the really hot bowels of this underground facility.

So they really haven't had any interaction with the Borg at all (yet), other than seeing them (and knowing that they will be the nemesis of the next session!).

However, I think I will add something at the start of next session from your above list, just to add a bit of flavor (and to increase the 'creep out factor'. Thanks for the good ideas!