We Will be Assimilated

[ghosty]

On the rare ocassion that I get socially concious, I try to make some form of social comment in the context of my Trek game.

I'm thinking of running a game commenting on religious cults and I have this "evil" idea that there is a group out there who believes that assimilation by the Borg is the road to nirvana (don't ask me why...cults do not come with rationale explanations). Anyhow, these cultists have hijacked an experimental transwarp capable ship and want to use her to reach the Delta Quadrant and be assimilated by the Borg. The PCs of course have to get the ship back and figure out how to deal with these cultists...does the Federation's guarantees of religious freedoms extend to them...do we let them commit suicide...or do we stop them...how do you do it without creating a constitutional fracas?

Comments?

[Aedh Rua]

Sounds like a pretty good episode, actually. Here you have a group of idiots determined to commit suicide, and you have to stop them without huting them or getting killed yourself. Not bad.

[John Raynor]

Originally posted by Aedh Rua
Sounds like a pretty good episode, actually. Here you have a group of idiots determined to commit suicide, and you have to stop them without huting them or getting killed yourself. Not bad.

But suppose they're not idiots?

Consider:
A small group of very powerful psionicists, already linked together
by prolonged telepathic contact. They're hungry for even more
power, and supremely confident of their abilities. Sure, they're
going to throw themselves at the Borg -- but only so they can
turn the entire Borg Collective into a mighty mental amplifier,
to boost their existing powers and do their bidding.

Why stop these people?
Because if they're not stopped, either (a) their plan will succeed,
and they will use the Borg to wield godlike powers, (b) their plan
will fail, and creating powerful psionic Borg, capable of initiating
the assimilation process without any direct physical contact,
via telepathy! Yikes!

So...
The scenario could begin as a case of "saving the idiots from
themselves," until the player characters figure out what is really
going on, and then full horror of the situation dawns upon them...

[Aedh Rua]

That is a pretty cool wrinkle, actually. Right, you go into it thinking that you are going to be dealing with a group of flakes, harmless to everyone but themselves, and discover the Psionic Cabal. Heck of a surprise.

[ghosty]

I can see it now...our telepathic Betazoid counselor gets sucked into the group mind and becomes part of the cult...WE WILL BE ASSIMILATED...eerie...

[John Raynor]

Originally posted by ghosty
I can see it now...our telepathic Betazoid counselor gets sucked into the group mind and becomes part of the cult...WE WILL BE ASSIMILATED...eerie...

Let's raise the stakes a little bit:
The psionicists haven't stolen an experimental starship with a
transwarp drive, they've hijacked a passenger liner, or perhaps a
colonization vessel. A big, slow, unarmed ship, with lots and lots
of innocent bystanders aboard. The Borg aren't, however, that
far away. There's a Borg outpost of some kind fairly nearby, or
the end of a transwarp conduit. Run the scenario as a mystery,
rather than as a chase. Since the player characters can intercept
the psionicists fairly easily (their ship is neither fast, nor stealthy),
the fun will be in figuring out who they are, what they want, and
how they intend to go about getting it.

A few plot-twists:
The psionicists are very powerful. Grabbing their ship with a
tractor beam, knocking down its puny shields, and beaming over
a boarding party just will irritate them (the unfortunate red-shirts
involved will end up being telepathically dominated or simply
hurled against the bulkheads with psychokinesis until they
resemble chunky salsa). At least some of the innocent bystanders
may be suffering from a telepathically-induced version of the
"Stockholm Syndrome," and will resist being "rescued." The
psionicists have, furthermore, no intention of allowing the Borg
to assimilate the innocent bystanders -- they're not that
evil, and (from a purely pragmatic point of view) once they have
taken control of the Borg Collective from within, a few hundred
more drones won't have a significant impact upon their power.
Of course, if the player characters see the psionicists as "deluded
cultists," they may not believe them, when they say that
they have no intention of harming the passengers...

[darkwing duck1]

There was an early Trek novel something along these lines...I think it might have been Triangle, but I'm not sure. It was about these cultists who were into a "group mind" thing and weren't above "assimilating" others into their cult.

[Robert Lai]

What if ...

... our 'cultists' only embarked upon their quest after the Borg assimilated a colony/ship/planet with one of their members aboard/resident. Although the assimilation process destroys much of the concept of identity, they found they could nonetheless access the collective and seemingly influence it.

But it's an illusion. The expanded sensory perceptions are only because the Borg allow that data to be filtered through to the 'cultists'. Selective targeting? Who cares - we are the Borg. You will be assimilated. If a telepath wants to volunteer a hapless colony, that's fine by the Borg.

So you could be faced with the cultists thinking they can direct the Borg, that they will attain great power - even planting some of their members on the selected targets to introduce them into the collective.

Everything seems to be going as planned ...

... and then the cultists discover they CAN'T direct the Collective, that their 'expanded perceptions' were a sham, that the members they've introduced into the Collective are truly and totally lost.

Do they come clean to the Captain? Do they try to fix it on their own? Do they hug their knees and kiss their backsides goodbye?



Bob

[ghosty]

Originally posted by Robert Lai
What if ...

... our 'cultists' only embarked upon their quest after the Borg assimilated a colony/ship/planet with one of their members aboard/resident. Although the assimilation process destroys much of the concept of identity, they found they could nonetheless access the collective and seemingly influence it.

But it's an illusion. The expanded sensory perceptions are only because the Borg allow that data to be filtered through to the 'cultists'. Selective targeting? Who cares - we are the Borg. You will be assimilated. If a telepath wants to volunteer a hapless colony, that's fine by the Borg.

So you could be faced with the cultists thinking they can direct the Borg, that they will attain great power - even planting some of their members on the selected targets to introduce them into the collective.

So is it a new Borg strategy for expansion? Instead of forcibly assimilating worlds, they influence the world so that they want to be assimilated. The extend the psionic powers of the psyhic "drone" and sets him loose to recruit others into his Borg cult with promises of great powers to come if they are assimilated. I like it...

Everything seems to be going as planned ...

... and then the cultists discover they CAN'T direct the Collective, that their 'expanded perceptions' were a sham, that the members they've introduced into the Collective are truly and totally lost.

Do they come clean to the Captain? Do they try to fix it on their own? Do they hug their knees and kiss their backsides goodbye?

Given that this is Star Trek, it'll probably be one of the technoweenies on the crew who figures it out, maybe even the telepathic counselor who had joined the Cult as an undercover operative. The climax is when the Captain has a tell all confrontation with the cult leader who finally realises his mistake and cuts off contact with the Borg except that the Borg aren't happy about this obviously and come to claim their prize...how's this for a Borg adventure...no more direct confrontations with the Federation which they seem to have a tendency to loose so why not try a more subtle for of assimilation. The Borg can appear to the an unstoppable force of nautre but you can hardly say that they do not lack subtlety on some level when it is called for. The Borg Queen shows amazing abilities to change tactics so why not this one. I think the PCs are in for an interesting time.

[Diamond]

Since we're discussing the sinister new Borg strategy of making droneism appealing, I highly reccomend this comic:
http://angryflower.com/borg27.gif

[Lt.Khrys Antos]

This is a rather good story idea, I may use it as an episode of my own. How about this; the cultists do succeed in getting to the Borg, however they reach the Borg rebels. Now some of the cult members are taken in by these insurgents while others refuse to go and actually join the real collective.

This way the PC's have an extra difficulty, some of the cultists actually do full-heartedly believe that they have taken the right choice. Maybe some decide to be "freedom fighters" for the Borg rebels.

One qc: How would this episode end ?; are the cultists exercising their political freedoms OR are they fruity and completely nuts?

[ghosty]

Originally posted by Lt.Khrys Antos
One qc: How would this episode end ?; are the cultists exercising their political freedoms OR are they fruity and completely nuts?

Isn't this where we came in?

The problem with the Federation is that if they believe in freedom and self determination as Picard declared in Best of Both Worlds, then if these fruitcakes want to be assimilated by the Borg that's their problem.

But obviously as Starfleet officers the PCs can't let Federation citizens commit suicide so they'll have to find some way to talk them out of giving themselves to the Borg...usually a proud and noble speech about the evil of the Borg and how in exercising hteir freedom they are giving it up to the collective...you know a Captain Picard moment...will probably do it. If not, all I can say is PHASERS ON DISINTERGRATE

[wolfe]

Hmm.
I had just finished watching first contact (for the uknownth time) awhile before reading this and there is something that people havent brought up yet.
These cultists want to freely give themselves to the borg, Isn't there a dialog between the queen and picard about giving yourself freely to the borg.

She wanted Picard to freely give himself to the borg so she could have a counter part, someone who could bridge the gap between humanity and the borg (If I'm remembering this right).

So if you give yourself freely do you really loose all your identity
or maybe just a little bit of it.

( OR is all this a bunch of hooey at 4:22 am)

[Robbert Raets]

There is no morality speech here:

"You give yourself to the Borg, you become a drone, in every sense of the word. You loose your individualtiy, and you become the enemy. Phasers!!"

[ghosty]

Originally posted by wolfe
Hmm.
I had just finished watching first contact (for the uknownth time) awhile before reading this and there is something that people havent brought up yet.
These cultists want to freely give themselves to the borg, Isn't there a dialog between the queen and picard about giving yourself freely to the borg.

She wanted Picard to freely give himself to the borg so she could have a counter part, someone who could bridge the gap between humanity and the borg (If I'm remembering this right).

So if you give yourself freely do you really loose all your identity
or maybe just a little bit of it.

( OR is all this a bunch of hooey at 4:22 am)

Yes it is a bunch of hooey at 4.22 am...sleep deprevation and exhaustion can do that to you.

IMHO the Borg Queen's offer to Picard in First Contact was a unique one-time offer. She wanted an equal, a mate so to speak to rule the Collective mind in which she is the only individual and the person (a Borg King for want of a better term) she chose was Picard (Locutus). I don't think a random group of screwballs will be accorded such preferential treatment.