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Thread: A Story using Nanites

  1. #1
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    A Story using Nanites

    I've been a bit stuck as to my next adventure, but in reviewing some recent notes, I found that one of my players (our devious and clever Cardassian Ops Officer) has been studying the use of nanites, as a means of defense against the Borg (who we recently ran into). Here's what he wrote:

    Veroz is going to start working on a set of Anti-Borg Nanites. He will also look at other applications for Nanites.
    1. Ship communication and manipulation of systems away from a station
    2. Enhanced mental abilities
    3. Healing
    4. Weapon use locked to genetic pattern of owner
    5. Systems invasion, electronic lock picking, computer hacking, image manipulation of security systems
    6. Systems self repair
    7. Protection from other nanite invasion or invasion of microscopic entities
    8. Note this will be a ongoing side project not taking up all of his free time. He will start a computer search on existing information

    As the saying goes "sometimes this stuff just writes itself!"

    I think I'll do a story about these nanites getting out of control, which should give a serious challenge to the group.

    Feel free to pitch ideas and input on what kind of nastiness these nanites could inflict upon our ship and her crew!
    Doug Taylor
    Member of Decipher's Hall of Fame
    Currently running The One Ring RPG. I also occasionally run Villains & Vigilantes (our campaign is in year 25) and WEG d6 Star Wars (both games are mostly on hiatus) and an annual game based on The X-Files (using Conspiracy X).

  2. #2
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    Just remember that if it were easy to get nanites to do all that, everybody would be doing it. Presumably, the Federation's finest minds have been working with nanites for decades and nanites are not yet standard issue equipment, so it's highly unlikely that one Ops officer playing with them as a part time hobby will make them the do-everything cure-all he's looking for. IOW, things will go wrong. Which makes for better stories anyway.
    + &lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;<

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  3. #3
    The problem with Anti-Borg nanites is that to combat the collective they need to be able to outsmart the colllective and countter adapt to any adaptation.

    In shor its the moment when La Forge asks the Holodeck/Computer to create a character that can outsmart Lt. Commander Data.

    It may well be on the UFP' side of the battle, but the end result might not be what was wanted...
    DanG/Darth Gurden
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  4. #4
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    You guys are thinking the same way I am.

    I'm thinking that at first it will look like everything is going according to plan, but then the nanites will start to have a life of their own. Over time they could even take over ship's systems and turn the very ship against the characters!
    Doug Taylor
    Member of Decipher's Hall of Fame
    Currently running The One Ring RPG. I also occasionally run Villains & Vigilantes (our campaign is in year 25) and WEG d6 Star Wars (both games are mostly on hiatus) and an annual game based on The X-Files (using Conspiracy X).

  5. #5
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    Wasn't there an early TNG episode where nanites (an experimental project by Wesley, IIRC) did precisely this (achieving sentience and taking control of the ship) ? I think they managed to reach an agreement.
    It's been a while I saw this episode so my memories are a bit hazy, but it could be some good inspiration (maybe also your PC will stumble upon a report of this incident when devising his own nanites).
    "The main difference between Trekkies and Manchester United fans is that Trekkies never trashed a train carriage. So why are the Trekkies the social outcasts?"
    Terry Pratchett

  6. #6
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    You know, C5, you might be right. I remember the story with the Exocomps, but there might have been one dealing with nanites, too. I'm heading to Memory Alpha to go check now. Thanks for the idea!

    I love going right to the source for ideas and inspiration, and have done so in my campaign for such things as the Borg and Iconian Gateways before.
    Doug Taylor
    Member of Decipher's Hall of Fame
    Currently running The One Ring RPG. I also occasionally run Villains & Vigilantes (our campaign is in year 25) and WEG d6 Star Wars (both games are mostly on hiatus) and an annual game based on The X-Files (using Conspiracy X).

  7. #7
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    You were absolutely right! The episode is entitled "Evolution", TNG 3x01.
    Doug Taylor
    Member of Decipher's Hall of Fame
    Currently running The One Ring RPG. I also occasionally run Villains & Vigilantes (our campaign is in year 25) and WEG d6 Star Wars (both games are mostly on hiatus) and an annual game based on The X-Files (using Conspiracy X).

  8. #8
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    Glad to have been of help
    I'd have thought the episode was even more early than that, actually.
    "The main difference between Trekkies and Manchester United fans is that Trekkies never trashed a train carriage. So why are the Trekkies the social outcasts?"
    Terry Pratchett

  9. #9
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    Last night I watched "Evolution" again, and it really helped (so thanks!).

    Also, over on the CODA Trek Yahoo email list some fabulous people contributed a brilliant two-page document that details a nanite infestation aboard a starship. Some if it is system specific, but I would imagine any GM could easily turn it into something they can use.

    Check out the thread called "Nanites" in the CODA section if you'd like to take a look.
    Doug Taylor
    Member of Decipher's Hall of Fame
    Currently running The One Ring RPG. I also occasionally run Villains & Vigilantes (our campaign is in year 25) and WEG d6 Star Wars (both games are mostly on hiatus) and an annual game based on The X-Files (using Conspiracy X).

  10. #10
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    I think I mentioned this all ready. Years and years ago. A ship that was made entirely by nanites as though it were a living thing with each nanite acting as a biological cell.

    Ah yes, here it is.

    Click me

  11. #11
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    I would like to see the Variable Geometry Hull made into a ST CODA Trait.
    Hodor !

  12. #12
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    As I've mentioned before, one of my players unleashed nanites onto our PC's ship (inadvertently). He tried to do too much with them (in my opinion), and - after getting some great help from others on some ideas - we ended up with a ship with nanites running amok.

    So now the PCs are headed for the nearest Starbase, though they really haven't figured out the cause (the nanites); I know at least one of the players suspects, though his character does not.

    As I was thinking on things last night (couldn't sleep), I began to consider turning things into a mystery. One of the new PCs is a Sherlock Holmes type Security investigator, so I'm thinking it might be fun to add/compound on the problem with the nanites and turn it into something bigger. The PC who started experimenting with the nanites is a Cardassian (and recently promoted to First Officer, at least temporarily). I'm thinking perhaps a Bajoran or Maquis crewmember set him up, allowing his nanites to spread and framing him to implicate him in attempting to destroy/compromise the ship (to ruin the career of the Cardassian).

    Though I've got over 30 years experience as a GM, I haven't done much in the way of a mystery like this. I've had a PC framed before, but it's been awhile, and I'm wondering how challenging it will be to do in Trek.

    Any ideas and opinions would be greatly appreciated!
    Doug Taylor
    Member of Decipher's Hall of Fame
    Currently running The One Ring RPG. I also occasionally run Villains & Vigilantes (our campaign is in year 25) and WEG d6 Star Wars (both games are mostly on hiatus) and an annual game based on The X-Files (using Conspiracy X).

  13. #13
    ...What if he actually did do it? Is the era such that they might have an Obsidian Order-implanted alternate identity or subconscious control pattern? Were they or their parents (ostensibly) dissidents? They might be subconsciously laying the pattern that implicates the Bajoran or Maquis crewmember (a reverse-frame!).

    Or he did it, but the source of the impulse is an alien life-form which uses high-tech civilisations as part of its reproduction cycle: the matured form of the previous generation's form implants the ability to create the next generation as a subconscious 'seed' in one or more advanced sentient beings, who then act out the impulse later in life, giving rise to the next generation of these meta-creatures.
    Portfolio | Blog Currently Running: Call of Cthulhu, Star Trek GUMSHOE Currently Playing: DramaSystem, Swords & Wizardry

  14. #14
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    Those are some fascinating ideas, TK. I'm going to have to really contemplate those, as that's a really intriguing concept.

    The campaign is right now in 2381, and I suppose anything is possible. I've already begun creating the Bajoran Lt. who was going to frame him, but maybe he deviously did it himself and made it look like the Bajoran set him up!
    Doug Taylor
    Member of Decipher's Hall of Fame
    Currently running The One Ring RPG. I also occasionally run Villains & Vigilantes (our campaign is in year 25) and WEG d6 Star Wars (both games are mostly on hiatus) and an annual game based on The X-Files (using Conspiracy X).

  15. #15
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    Or you could actually have them "evolve" by absorbing some of the base programming of the Collective...such as the drive to achieve "perfection" by taking what is better...by adding the biological and technological distinctiveness of the Borg to their own...

    ...throw in a time-loop of some kind, throwing these nanites back a thousand years into the past...and into the Delta quadrant, and...well, you can see where this is going.
    When you are dead, you don't know that you are dead. It is difficult only for others.

    It's the same when you are stupid...

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