A Common Enemy

[ghosty]

I've been watching Stargate SG-1 over again...kwell show...anyway I'm fascinated by the Replicators which IMHO makes a much more dangerous enemy than the Borg. Fact is I think replicators could probably eat the Borg for lunch, literally.

Anyhow, I digress. This is based on those old Cold War era movies and the VOY two-parter Scorpion.

Lets say the replicators take out a Borg ship and that ship is brought into Federation space and replicators infect a number of starships. The PCs are ordered to investigate the missing ships and discovery a small Borg escape ship which carries a Queen type drone.

As the infested ships make a beeline to the high tech worlds of hte Federation for hte replicators to ingest, the PCs and the Borg have to find a common ground to fight the common enemy.

[AslanC]

Can you tell me more about the Replicators (since I assume theya re not the palce where you get, tea, earl gray, hot)

[Owen E Oulton]

Ahhh, the Replicators. Nasty little buggers - sort of the mechanical equivalent of a biological virus. Small machines which strip down just about anything (starships a speciality!) to creat more, and more, and MORE of their own kind. Individually relatively easy to destroy, like locusts...

Pity the poor Borg who tries to assimilate one of these - he'd wind up being the vector for introducing a Replicator infestation into his cube. The only thing which would limit them from stripping the entire Collective is the fact that the Borg cube would be broken down and turned into new replicators before it got to a Unimatrix. Once the Borg knew about the infestation, of course, they could simply destroy any known infested cubes, but any Borg which ran into a Replicator would reinfect the Collective.

[Phantom]

And as they devour more advanced materials and technology, they themseleves get tougher as they 'breed' newer versions made out of said materials and tech. If they got on to a Borg vessel they would be the biggest threat all 4 quadrants have ever seen.

[ghosty]

Originally posted by Owen E Oulton
Ahhh, the Replicators. Nasty little buggers - sort of the mechanical equivalent of a biological virus. Small machines which strip down just about anything (starships a speciality!) to creat more, and more, and MORE of their own kind. Individually relatively easy to destroy, like locusts...

Pity the poor Borg who tries to assimilate one of these - he'd wind up being the vector for introducing a Replicator infestation into his cube. The only thing which would limit them from stripping the entire Collective is the fact that the Borg cube would be broken down and turned into new replicators before it got to a Unimatrix. Once the Borg knew about the infestation, of course, they could simply destroy any known infested cubes, but any Borg which ran into a Replicator would reinfect the Collective.

That's why I'm thinking of using 'em as the new enemy. They have no inherent weakness, as long as one replicator survives, it can breed more and remember they're immune to energy weapons, which mean that phasers, disruptors etc won't work on 'em. Old fashion projectile type weapons do.

[ghosty]

Originally posted by Phantom
And as they devour more advanced materials and technology, they themseleves get tougher as they 'breed' newer versions made out of said materials and tech. If they got on to a Borg vessel they would be the biggest threat all 4 quadrants have ever seen.

That's why the Borg have to team up with the Federation to stop them. This time its a true common enemy and what if the replicators infet Unimatrix 1?

[qerlin]

Originally posted by Owen E Oulton
Ahhh, the Replicators. Nasty little buggers - sort of the mechanical equivalent of a biological virus. Small machines which strip down just about anything (starships a speciality!) to creat more, and more, and MORE of their own kind. Individually relatively easy to destroy, like locusts...

Damn! Sounds like my version of teh Kelinan -- based off of the nanotubule 'clouds' posited by some of the extropian types; these are nano-level machines made from carbon tubules that can act as data storage, processors, or as a physical machinery, depending on how they put themselves together. They range from a small cluster to a starship sized element.

Use 'em!

[Capt.Hunter]

And, if the Replicators have infested the Borg, you couldn't pull Carter's trick from SG-1 of using a more advanced ship as "bait" to lure them into a trap.

Just a suggestion, have them incorporate transport scramblers into their bodies. Otherwise some smart-alec PC is going to order the computer to "Lock onto all Replicators onboard and beam them 5000 kilometers off the port bow!".

[C5]

Either that, or they could develop the ability to infect transporter's circuits while being beamed...

Or being beamed makes them learn transportation technology and they now carry a micro-transporter with wich they can beam themselves where they want...

[ghosty]

Transporters...yes...must neutralise transporters as a first step.

From the evidence on Stargate, the replicators would usually take out the engine room first and cut control runs and power supply to non-essential systems to give themselves the power they need to breed...transporters would be knocked out first and who's to say the replicators won't use the transporters against the PCs? evil .

[Capt.Hunter]

Well, remember the Replicators on Stargate didn't interfere with the "transporter" aboard Thor's vessel (he used it to bring Jack aboard, Jack brought up the rest of SG-1 and the Stargate itself)...

[ghosty]

Originally posted by Capt.Hunter
Well, remember the Replicators on Stargate didn't interfere with the "transporter" aboard Thor's vessel (he used it to bring Jack aboard, Jack brought up the rest of SG-1 and the Stargate itself)...

True, but THor didn't use his transporters to beam the replicators into deep space. There had to be a reason...one idea, the replicators feed off energy and are immune to energy weapons, perhaps something in their design prevents them from the conversion from matter to energy required by the transporter process...

[Capt.Hunter]

Ah, but I figure Trek transporters are a tad more tricky. We don't really know the capabilities of Thor's transporter, but we do know that Trek transporters could be ordered to lock onto anything scanning as a Replicator and beam it elsewhere. I'm not saying Thor's couldn't, but since he was able to use it I'd assume that either they weren't controlling it or (as my suggestion intended), they were scrambling it somehow.

Also, don't forget it takes two hits from a projectile weapon to neutralize the little buggers. But yes, if there are Klingons in your campaign, a bat'leth would work just as well...

[ghosty]

But can they get every replicator off the ship even if the transporters are up to it? Replicators are small and made from parts scavanged from the ship itself, they can probably hide in sensor blind areas of the ships say in areas near the warp core which pump out radiation making sensor locks difficult if not impossible. And remember replicators are like tribbles, as long as there's one around, you can bet it will reproduce.

And ejecting htem out into space may not work, in fact, they may just latch onto the next passing ship and eat their way into the hull. AFIR replicators need shipboard power to reproduce, they won't need it to stay alive...I'm sure they're internal power cells can last long enough for them to infect another ship or even radically redsign themselves such that they can survive in deep space for a time and direct themselves to another ship and start all over.

[Capt.Hunter]

Good point. In fact, given the radical reworking the "Queen Bug" did in the followup ep with the Russian submarine, they might even be capable of joining hundreds of themselves together into a "starship". With only limited power, they wouldn't be warp-capable, but could certainly manage low impulse.

Since they form out of whatever metals they consume, you'd better hope they never infect a Planet-Killer: neutronium hull anyone?