[CODA] We are the Borg.

[Lt Cmdr Matt]

Please I know that Aliens will have the Borg but I need them beforehand. Here is the CODA profile I worked up. Does it sound alright to you guys? ANy changes you would make?

Name: Borg

Personality: A member of the borg does not have an individual personality. They are cryptic and united as a collective. Each acting the same.

Culture: The Borg culture ultimately seeks perfection. They assimilate other beings to reach perfection.

Names: Designation to go with their ship. I.E. 1-12, 1-3, 4-6, etc



Species Abilities:

Assimilation: Whenever a Borg injects Nanoprobes into a victim he/she begins the assimilation process. It takes the Nanoprobes approximately 5 minutes before they have completely turned the victim into a Borg, save the implants that need to be fittted manually by another drone.

Regeneration: Whenever a Borg goes into an alcove it can repair itself in a matter of hours. Regaining 9 wound points an hour.

Collective: Due to the fact that a drone knows everything that the collective knows. A drone has all skills with all specialties, rated at 4+Att Mod+Spec

Shield: Due to all of the machinery inside the body of a drone, they can produce a shield that can match the frequency of a particular beam weapon, in 5 or less shots. Narrators can roll on the following table to determine this in combat.

d6 Shots
1 2
2-4 3
5 4
6 5


Strength +4, Intellect +10, Vitality +5, Presence -10, Perception +8, Agility -2

Gain Flaw: Species Enmity(All)

[Lancer]

While I think I can see some of your reasons for giving them Intellect+10 and Perception+10 I don't entirely agrre with it. Have you thought about giving them some edges or special abilities instead, e.g. extraordinary senses (NG page 218) or eidetic memory? That way you could IMHO better represent some of the Borg's abilities in game terms, especially when it comes to all thing related to Perception.

Another thing is the Presence-10. That will most likely drive many drones below a 0 attribute, something not covered by the rules when it comes to "people" who are still up and running AFAIR.

Now for the "Collective" ability: I may be completely off target, but from what I remember about VOY, especially the flashbacks to the Hansons' work, at least some drones have a narrow set of tasks, even if their connection to the collective would allow them to fill any role aboard a cube, should the need arise.
As this all is completely off the top of my hat I have no immediate idea on how to put this into game mechanics, but if I can come up with anything I'll let you know.


One thing I found missing from your Borg template is their adaptive shielding. I think this could be a variant of the "Resistance (Energy Weapons)" ability form the NG (page 220). If you change the existing ability so that the TN for the Stamina test starts rather high, but drops for each round the Borg are attacked by the same weapon you should be able to get something close to what we have seen onscreen.

Edit: Now either I am blind or Matt edited his post to include the shields while I was writing my own post. I am willing to assume the former. So hey, don't tell me how stupid I am; I know it already.

[CorpBoy]

Some thoughts:

1. I don't think adding such massive stat bonuses would be appropriate at the drone level. At least with the "mental" stats like intellect. After all, what do you do if the borg is cut off from the collective? Reduce it's Intellect?

2. Regeneration - love it.

3. Collective - I also don't think the Borg should have all skills and specialties built in to it's species template. Again, if a drone is cut off from the resources of the collective, what then? What skills do you take away? Personally I think the Borg should start out as normal professions, then get some kind of bonus when interfaced with the collective. Then when the borg assimilate say, an engineer, they can assign that drone to engineering tasks, but if they need a defense drone they can download appropriate skills to the drone. It's complicated, but more realistic IMO.

4. Assimilation - I'd add that the victim becomes incapacitated after x number of rounds (like 5 if you think it takes half a minute). Also, I would never allow a freshly injected victim to adapt to weapons fire and the like until after they have been through an assimilation laboratory and fitted with their main implants.

5. Shield - like the concept, but I think it would be better if it were named Adaptability or some such thing.

[Lt Cmdr Matt]

Originally posted by Lancer
While I think I can see some of your reasons for giving them Intellect+10 and Perception+10 I don't entirely agrre with it. Have you thought about giving them some edges or special abilities instead, e.g. extraordinary senses (NG page 218) or eidetic memory? That way you could IMHO better represent some of the Borg's abilities in game terms, especially when it comes to all thing related to Perception.

Actually the reason that I did it the quick and dirty way of giving them these attributes is becuase as a Narrator I know that I will not need stats at all really. Mostly using them as a plot device and just until I can get Aliens. Maybe I will revise them though tonight after I see some more comments and ponder it a bit.

Another thing is the Presence-10. That will most likely drive many drones below a 0 attribute, something not covered by the rules when it comes to "people" who are still up and running AFAIR.

Okay now that does make sense. I think that I will base it on the pick method and will just go with -3 presence.

Now for the "Collective" ability: I may be completely off target, but from what I remember about VOY, especially the flashbacks to the Hansons' work, at least some drones have a narrow set of tasks, even if their connection to the collective would allow them to fill any role aboard a cube, should the need arise.
As this all is completely off the top of my hat I have no immediate idea on how to put this into game mechanics, but if I can come up with anything I'll let you know.

I was trying to simulate this by having all the Borg drones knowing all the skills and each individual drone could only use what skills it needs for its job or assignment.

One thing I found missing from your Borg template is their adaptive shielding. I think this could be a variant of the "Resistance (Energy Weapons)" ability form the NG (page 220). If you change the existing ability, so that the TN for the Stamina test starts rathzer high, but drops for each round the Borg are attacked by the same weapon you should be able to get something close to what we have seen onscreen.

You must have read it before I have posted the shield. It is there now.

[Lt Cmdr Matt]

Originally posted by CorpBoy
Some thoughts:

1. I don't think adding such massive stat bonuses would be appropriate at the drone level. At least with the "mental" stats like intellect. After all, what do you do if the borg is cut off from the collective? Reduce it's Intellect?

I am stumped on this one. Possibly They should gain a +5 bonus to Strength, +5 to Intellect. Once they are taken from the collective, maybe reduce this number to +2 Intellect since their memories will remain the same.

2. Regeneration - love it.

Thanks

3. Collective - I also don't think the Borg should have all skills and specialties built in to it's species template. Again, if a drone is cut off from the resources of the collective, what then? What skills do you take away? Personally I think the Borg should start out as normal professions, then get some kind of bonus when interfaced with the collective. Then when the borg assimilate say, an engineer, they can assign that drone to engineering tasks, but if they need a defense drone they can download appropriate skills to the drone. It's complicated, but more realistic IMO.

I am not sure how to even go about fixing this. I would say you start with a basic character. Then you add the skills. Maybe when you leave the collective you lose all the specialties, and skill points are reduced by half(Only the ones gained while in the collective)

4. Assimilation - I'd add that the victim becomes incapacitated after x number of rounds (like 5 if you think it takes half a minute). Also, I would never allow a freshly injected victim to adapt to weapons fire and the like until after they have been through an assimilation laboratory and fitted with their main implants.

Shoot, I had forgotten all about unconscious rules. I would say that (s)he would fall unconscious in 5 rounds. And no I would not let him assimilate others because he has no means in which to. His vascules are not installed yet...

5. Shield - like the concept, but I think it would be better if it were named Adaptability or some such thing.

True, how about Adaptive Shielding?

[CorpBoy]

Regarding the mental stat bonuses and skills - perhaps coming up with a generic "collective" template could be done. When interfaced with the collective, the drone would receive a +x to intellect and have access to all skills at rank 6 (it wouldn't decrease their own skills, so if Geordi of Borg has 12 ranks in System Engineering, being hooked into the collective wouldn't drop him any).

For skill specialties, let the Borg have access to a single specialty (of their choice) per round. The specialties can be swapped out as needed.

And Adaptive Shielding sounds good to me.

This thread has got me thinking - With the Borg being so complex, I almost wonder if the Aliens implementation could really do them justice. With so much material to cover (assimilation, implants, abilities of the collective), I almost think an entire soucebook could be dedicated to them.

[Lt Cmdr Matt]

I doubt it can. It does not have ot be so detailed though because they are really only a plot device. Now where you need some specifics is when your players decide to try and help one of them and break them from the collective.

[Lancer]

Originally posted by Lt Cmdr Matt
Now where you need some specifics is when your players decide to try and help one of them and break them from the collective.

If that's the case, I would say there is even more reason to base the Borg on an exisiting character and not handle them as a plot decive.

If you work out a kind of "Borg elite profession" you will have a much easier time going back to a basic (i.e. non-Borg) character if the character becomes detached from the collective.

[T'lara]

Matt this is cool and all reading this but are we not getting Borg when the Aliens Book comes out?

To be honest, interesting idea but should it not be more of an assimulation process that augments and changes various Species traits as well as in adding in the Borg Traits? I believe we have seen indications in some Voyager episodes?

For Example a Klingon is tougher than a Human but a Human is smarter. So when Assimulated would that not apply? The Klingon Borg would be tougher than the Human Borg but the Human Borg would be smarter?
Just imagine a Paklid Borg......

I just think in my Opinion the Borg should be some sort of Species Package like the rules for Assimulation for the ICON game that were in one of my gaming Magazines that LUG came out with.

[C5]

Just a quick idea as I'm burdened with work with not much time to elaborate : maybe all the traits and attributes ajustments due to the Collective could be replaced by a new attribute or skill.

Whenever a Borg needs to tap into the Collective's knowledge (to gain Intellect or a skill), he'd roll this new skill or attribute against a TN depending on the size of the Collective the Borg can tap into (TN5 if he's in Unimatrix, 10 on a Cube, 15 on a sphere, etc).
On success, the Borg can aquire the skill or Intellect increase he wanted at the level he wanted. Failure means he can try next round with a TN lowered by 5 (basically the Borg will always succeed, the question is just how long this will take him to do so). Some intereferences in the communications with the Collective could also increase the TN.

The adaptive shielding could also work like this, only this time the TN would depend on the number of Borgs hit by a weapon with a certain frequency : TN 25 if one Borg was hit, 20 if two were hit, and so on...

This skill's value would vary depending on the Borg's state of assimilation, reaching 12 for all fully assimilated drones.

Just my 0.02€

[Lt Cmdr Matt]

Originally posted by T'lara
Matt this is cool and all reading this but are we not getting Borg when the Aliens Book comes out?

I said that we are, and I know that we are getting them. Check the first post, top part.

I need them before the Aliens comes out. I am still going to get Aliens, but I need it now!

I may not be able to get it in time so I shall go with my next project at the same time.