Just like you are assuming that the characters we play would be able to tell the difference between a playable Borg faction and NPCs. However that entire concept is flawed because those terms are terms that we, the players, use to describe video games. So unless you are saying that the characters we play would be aware that they are just characters in a video game, then they would have no more awareness of the difference between NPC and playable Borg than they would that they respawn every time they die.
The closest Earth analogy to the Borg is an ant colony, the queen sets an imperative using pheromones and all of the other members of the colony are little more than biological robots mindlessly carrying out their assigned tasks until they drop dead.
That is the Borg, The Queen directs her will to the collective which carries out her commands, the collective has all of the accumulated knowledge and experience of every being assimilated, but it has no self direction, it is not a true hive mind, the collective is under absolute control of the Borg Queen, so much so that her destruction results in the destruction of every Borg under her direct control. When you are are in an incident with the Borg and you hear a group of voices informing you of the futility of the situation and demanding your surrender, that's not really the collective speaking, that's the queen voicing her wishes through the mouths of thousands of helpless slaves. Individual Borg are prisoners of their own bodies, they are often consciously aware of what they are doing but are helpless to do anything, if that doesn't sound like hell I don't know what does.
The only Borg with free will is the Queen, but there are few Queens, rarely more than one per quadrant. Like social insects, the Borg have provisions to elevate a suitable drone to Queen status, should the collective be without a queen for too long.
It is possible to be assimilated during ground missions against the Borg, try it and you will get a taste of how it would be to play as an Unliberated Borg.
So unless the game is going to blow historical canon completely out of the water, it's unlikely that an unliberated borg faction would be implemented.
To the pervious poster, laugh all you like. In the military, KDF, Starfleet, whatever you get your orders and you act on them, but you have free will, you interpret the needs of the mission the condition of the situation and execute accordingly. You would not find yourself in a position where you are a helpless spectator asking yourself why am I going this way, why did I shoot that guy, why can't I control my own body? That is the difference between a living thinking soldier and a mindless drone. If the borg were to be portrayed accurately in game, the player would not be able to do anything, just sit back and watch as his toon automatically plays through the game, doesn't sound like much fun to me.
But if they nerf the Borg, turn them into another faction, which I doubt CBS would allow, then it diminishes the threat and horror of the Borg.
The Collective isnt like an ant colony. The Collective is a single, intelligent, sentient, conscious being made up of individual drones, ships and the "hive" interface. The Collective is an amorphous animal. The drones are like cells of the organism, the large groupings of drones and ships are like the organs.
The Collective is the many taken as a whole. The queen isnt a queen as you think of it, not a commanding entity seperate from the masses. The Queen is a symbolic, embodiment that is a representation of the Collective's conscious individuality as a living being. The Queen isnt necessary for the Collective, but was only a symbolic means for interacting with humanity in a way that humans could understand. Just like most people here, humanity couldnt see the Forest(Singular identity of the Collective) because of the trees(all the drones making up the Collective being). Humanity was "lucky" enough to be allowed to interact with the Collective as a conscious being, we can assume most people who met the Borg were just procedurally absorbed.
Basically, the Collective being is curious about humanity and was willing to deal with them on a more intimate level(in more ways than one...Locutus was to be a concubine of the Collective...later settling for Data), not unlike the curisoity of Q.
Anyway, back to the organsim...like any organsim, not all functions require micro-managment by the central consciouness. There are certain directives/standing orders set forth to maintain the organisim...the various organs/sub-systems/ships/adjunxts operate autonomously within its area of operation or specialty as deemed fit and necessary to maintain the interests and well being of the larger organism. How often are you micxromanaging the organs in your body? Sometimes the interest of the Collective requires self-sacrifice, it can be commanded or done autonomously with direct order. Just like white-blood cells dying to fight off infection, or white blood cells destroying healthy tissue surrounding an infection. Just like skin cells, gastro-intestinal cells fluffing off after exhaustion or to protect.
The Borg, on the other hand, are consistent. This thread is suggesting a version of the Borg that is not consistent with what is in game let alone the rest of the IP.
My proposal for the Borg play is based on canon...as autonomous sub-systems/organs of a larger Collective organsim/consciousness.
you dont play a drone, because that would be contradictive to canon, but instead you play as a command and control structre that does process and make determinations, then acts on those determinations in a calculated manner that understands cause and affect.
Forget the trek-no-babble. When we play a video game, there is a suspension of disbelief. When your character dies then magically comes back to life, you dont throw a fit about how it doesnt make sense; you understand it is simply a mechanic of the game. The same is true of a hypothetical Borg faction. Within the story of the game world, they wouldnt have free will. But within the mechanics of the game, the player would control them just like any other character.
Yes, resources. But not credits. Not energy credits. That's money used exchange. I just couldn't see it happen, it would be too impractical. Except, of course, if you play as a conscious borg in a conscious sect. Then, exchange between factions could easily happen.
Why would you assume the exchange has to be between entities...natural law has exchanges to...its detail thoroughly in the laws of physics. It to works in currency. The Borg wouldnt be accessing a market as you see it...but there is still a cost for any activity, consumption, growth, change, etc.
The Borg wouldnt see exchange as a market, but as a manipulation of natural law. In order ot repair my ship it requires energy, matter, processing power and time. Niether of these is truly free, they all come at a cost of one another. Even when any of them are in abundance, it still a process of allocation, moving the resource from one accounting field to another. Even with time, you still have to weigh the time needed with the time available.
Once again, the limitation isnt in the Borg, its in how you percieve the means and relationships. The biggest obstacle is getting people to get out of their normal way of seeing things and stop think from the perspective of a meat-bag. When you do that, you realize how well the Borg parallels the other factions.
These costs can easily be reflect in the game interface, the only difference being the symbolic reference for use of this unique currency...but honestly, that only requires a new symbol...the relationships are the same. the translation and exchange to be handled on the back end within the game.
Why would you assume the exchange has to be between entities...natural law has exchanges to...its detail thoroughly in the laws of physics. It to works in currency. The Borg wouldnt be accessing a market as you see it...but there is still a cost for any activity, consumption, growth, change, etc.
The Borg wouldnt see exchange as a market, but as a manipulation of natural law. In order ot repair my ship it requires energy, matter, processing power and time. Niether of these is truly free, they all come at a cost of one another. Even when any of them are in abundance, it still a process of allocation, moving the resource from one accounting field to another. Even with time, you still have to weigh the time needed with the time available.
Once again, the limitation isnt in the Borg, its in how you percieve the means and relationships. The biggest obstacle is getting people to get out of their normal way of seeing things and stop think from the perspective of a meat-bag. When you do that, you realize how well the Borg parallels the other factions.
I get that, but credits are a man made currency. Nothing to do with physics there.
To me some races should NOT be playable due to their nature as being canon Bad guys for lack of a better way of putting it. Playing a Klingon doesn't ruin the canon factor. The races I'd exclude,
Breen (though more workable than the other's below)
Borg
Founder/Changeling
Undine
Iconion (sp?)
Q (who?) Sorry couldn't resist
Traveler
There's a few other's but I'm not thinking of them at the moment.
To me some races should NOT be playable due to their nature as being canon Bad guys for lack of a better way of putting it. Playing a Klingon doesn't ruin the canon factor. The races I'd exclude,
Breen (though more workable than the other's below)
Borg
Founder/Changeling
Undine
Iconion (sp?)
Q (who?) Sorry couldn't resist
Traveler
There's a few other's but I'm not thinking of them at the moment.
But what about the Klingons and Romulans...like everyone else, they were only deemed "bad" because of ignorance and lack of understanding...even as enemies, they were all eventually allowed to be shown as more than just bad, mindless thugs.
The Borg stop being boogeymen during the Voyager series, the genie has been let out of the bottle. Star Trek has historically presented the fear of the "unknown peoples" in order to eventually show how much alike we all are...no matter how alien they may have seemed...this includes the Borg.
We already have a Borg Faction. After all, not all Liberated Borg are liberated.
Im speaking of a Borg faction as in a State/Sovereignty...the Collective. You can be Borg, as in having inplants...but that doesnt make you part of the Collective.
7 of 9 is Borg if you want to go by looks and such(sort of like a race)...but she isnt part of the Collective. Her faction is Federation.
A lot of the remarks supporting this seem to be coming from people who are willing to throw everything we know about Star Trek out the window and turn this game into something else, just so they can fool around with Borg tech.
Yes it's not real, yes it's a game, but it is a Star Trek game, not "I wanna be a Borg Online".
The only way that Borg would work as a faction is if these Borg are disconnected from the collective somehow or more importantly are free of the Queen's control, they may have access to a collective consciousness but still have free will to pursue matters as they so choose, hence the players involved get to play the game as they choose.
A race that is implacably hostile with everyone would be impossible to accommodate in game without creating an infrastructure and economy (yes there has to be an economy, it's intrinsic to the game) unique to them, essentially a game within the game , unless this quasi-liberated subset of Borg pick a side to have relations with, be it Federation or Klingon, or at the very least choose to be neutral with both.
Assimilated ships is one thing and would quite frankly be necessary, since Borg ships are visually uninteresting. Cubes, spheres and probes (which look like little more than irradiated suppositories), may interest players for a short time just as a novelty item, but that novelty would wane quickly. Borg drones are grotesque menageries of bits and pieces of organic and cybernetic technology and despite Borg claims of perfection their drones look bulky, clumsy, inelegant, unrefined and incomplete, for the player, customization options for a character could be numerous, but none less ugly than any other.
If something is not broken, don't fix it, if it is broken, don't leave it broken.
Thats not the only way the Borg can be played...maybe thats the only way uou can see it, or want to see it. The only thing required is some thought, themed interfaces and missions and a perspective not tied down to that of a meat-bag.
Just because you close your eyes and cover your ears to it doesnt mean it cant be. Ive prrsented enough and can present more of why it is possible. A couple of years back I outlined the method on numerous occasions.
Im speaking of a Borg faction as in a State/Sovereignty...the Collective. You can be Borg, as in having inplants...but that doesnt make you part of the Collective.
7 of 9 is Borg if you want to go by looks and such(sort of like a race)...but she isnt part of the Collective. Her faction is Federation.
You aren't getting the meaning of my post. There is the liberated borg captains from the lifetime subscription, liberated borg bridge officers from the C-Store and KA Ground STF, and liberated borg duty officers from various locations. Not all of these liberated borg are liberated like 7 of 9 and Picard, but are sleeper agents to get into positions of power and attack when the Collective is ready. The Borg have failed countless times in assimilating the Federation so this is their next method of invading.
Fortunately for my crew, my Liberated Borg captain is an exiled Borg due to her trying to take over the Collective and requires every former Borg under her crew to be part of a limited hive mind. They still have their individuality, but any signs of mutiny or potential espionage are easily discouraged. Also, a limited hive mind makes running a ship far more efficient.
Thats creative an all, and i can certainly appreciate smashing the meat-bags from the inside...but its not the experience Im looking for.
just like using a Vulcan character to make believe is a Romulan spy isnt the same as flying a Romulan D'deridex and smacking a Fed cruiser in the mouth, or commanding an away team...
Still, fight on brother...I hope the day comes soon when you can steal away with the federation crew's hopes and dreams smashed beneath you boots.
Me? I want to drop their shields, cut into their ship and observe the fear and dread empty from their faces as their eyes glaze over, their skin grey and see the spark of their feablie individuality extinguished as they are re-born into true life and service.
But what about the Klingons and Romulans...like everyone else, they were only deemed "bad" because of ignorance and lack of understanding...even as enemies, they were all eventually allowed to be shown as more than just bad, mindless thugs.
The Borg stop being boogeymen during the Voyager series, the genie has been let out of the bottle. Star Trek has historically presented the fear of the "unknown peoples" in order to eventually show how much alike we all are...no matter how alien they may have seemed...this includes the Borg.
To a point this is TRUE but most want full fledged BORG from what I've seen in the thread. This doesn't work.
Liberated BORG as pointed out by other's aren't BORG they're Federation, Romulan, Klingon etc... They aren't connected to the Collective. What I've seen here is people wanting collective BORG then there is no point as there is no individuality left. Do you want to play a char that instead of going to do story X you end up having to go defend against X? Technically as BORG you should have NO Choice but to do what is dictated by the collective. There's still only 1 queen. Not everyone can be queen or king so thus no one therefore the only option is for PCs as BORG do be limited in their ability to do what they want and instead be moved around at random. EX: have them take the place of NPCs on PVE BORG missions.
Fully integrated BORG I just don't see as being viable. Sorry. 7 wasn't integrated. She was liberated thus Federation not BORG. Now being able to play as Liberated? We can talk about. I just don't see a viable way for integrated BORG.
You aren't getting the meaning of my post. There is the liberated borg captains from the lifetime subscription, liberated borg bridge officers from the C-Store and KA Ground STF, and liberated borg duty officers from various locations. Not all of these liberated borg are liberated like 7 of 9 and Picard, but are sleeper agents to get into positions of power and attack when the Collective is ready. The Borg have failed countless times in assimilating the Federation so this is their next method of invading.
Fortunately for my crew, my Liberated Borg captain is an exiled Borg due to her trying to take over the Collective and requires every former Borg under her crew to be part of a limited hive mind. They still have their individuality, but any signs of mutiny or potential espionage are easily discouraged. Also, a limited hive mind makes running a ship far more efficient.
"Exiled Borg?" You really don't get the concept of the Borg, do you?
The reason my character was exiled was because she wanted to change the Collective from within so being part of the Collective would be voluntary.
Most people don't realize the benefits of the Borg. They retain the knowledge and genetics of countless dead societies. Of course, most of the dead societies were caused by the Borg, but lots of these races would have perished to some other cause. The whole assimilation process is just the pursuit of knowledge. Basically, the Borg are the Ultimate Library. You can learn the secrets of countless races at the low price of your individuality.
The reason my character was exiled was because she wanted to change the Collective from within so being part of the Collective would be voluntary.
Most people don't realize the benefits of the Borg. They retain the knowledge and genetics of countless dead societies. Of course, most of the dead societies were caused by the Borg, but lots of these races would have perished to some other cause. The whole assimilation process is just the pursuit of knowledge. Basically, the Borg are the Ultimate Library. You can learn the secrets of countless races at the low price of your individuality.
But you would have to be 'liberated' first. And the Borg would not exile you, they would either re-assimilate you or destroy you.
You seem to think that the Borg are a hive mind of individuals rather than one collective parasitic organism that hijacks and overrides organic bodies.
"Exiled Borg?" You really don't get the concept of the Borg, do you?
I did not want my Liberated Borg Captain to be an emo character that is constantly plagued by the memories of her assimilating countless people. Add an extremely rare genetic quirk that allows a drone to retain their individuality and being raised most of her life as a Borg. Have her learn about countless civilizations to form opinions that are contrary to popular Borg belief. Results in a Borg drone that will set up various traps that will devastate the Borg if activated and try to overthrow Borg Collective. Rebellion failed so my captain made a deal with the Queen, my captain's life for the promise to not destroy a few borg planets. This results in an exiled borg with an interesting story and did not have to be rescued like most or all other liberated borgs. Also gives her a reason to be part of Starfleet with the whole revenge against the Queen motive.
To a point this is TRUE but most want full fledged BORG from what I've seen in the thread. This doesn't work.
Liberated BORG as pointed out by other's aren't BORG they're Federation, Romulan, Klingon etc... They aren't connected to the Collective. What I've seen here is people wanting collective BORG then there is no point as there is no individuality left. Do you want to play a char that instead of going to do story X you end up having to go defend against X? Technically as BORG you should have NO Choice but to do what is dictated by the collective. There's still only 1 queen. Not everyone can be queen or king so thus no one therefore the only option is for PCs as BORG do be limited in their ability to do what they want and instead be moved around at random. EX: have them take the place of NPCs on PVE BORG missions.
Fully integrated BORG I just don't see as being viable. Sorry. 7 wasn't integrated. She was liberated thus Federation not BORG. Now being able to play as Liberated? We can talk about. I just don't see a viable way for integrated BORG.
Read my posts again, you still seem to be thinking as if the player is to represent a single drone.
You certainly assume their is no autonomy in the Collective, you assume all a.ctions must be dictated directly and explicitly from the Queen. None of this is true.
How is a ship commanded by a vinculum by definition expressing some level of individualism...there is no reason to assume two cubes are exactly the same, even if the dimensions and struture maybe, the fact that the drones are not means each cube can bring something different to the table for any given scenerio....no matter how small and infintesible. But its the fact that there is a difference means the vinculums between the two ships can be taking these small varibles into account when determining how to deal with a situtation. That then means two ships can come to two seperate conclusions on how to proceed...even if they both decide the proper course it to assimilate. One ship may decide to go for the bridge as a primary tatget, the other may choose engineering.
But the fact they can come up with different ways to approach even the same task, means there is some level autonomy...some limited degree of individualism...certainly not the same as a humans, but enough to justify why a borg cube under one player may behave/approach a situtation different than a cube played by another player.
Who is to say human individualism is no more than the same model to a mucgh greater extreme. The Collective inheritly homogenizes the collective experiences of all within, minimizing the difference between the two ships. Due to isolation of the human consciousness, your individualism may just be the summation of all your experiences setting you part from the experiences of everyoen else..i mean how do yu even really know everybody else is even "real"/conscious. Though society attempts to homogenize your experiences through its various social institutions, its just a horribly inefficent method of what the Borg Collective's net does extremly well.
Basically Human individuality is a failure of an ineffective social system for which the Borg perfected. or, the Borg Collective is the extreme and successful implementation of what humans inheritly long for as social/herd animals.
The Borg is just you...perfected. We are everything you sub-consciously desire to be, even to the genetic level.
The Collective is the next level up, fractal existance of humanity.
Of course anything is possible... but anything is also not necessarily good or expedient.
Yes, we could choose to throw out any inconvenient fact which would make a playable Borg faction not fit into the game.
But Cryptic does not have that luxury. A playable Borg faction has implications related to story (canon) and to gameplay that Cryptic has to deal with. Some of those implications have been debated here and others haven't.
There's a basic dichotomy here that has not been resolved, and maybe can't be resolved.
And that is: the Borg Superiority Complex vs. MMO Social Interaction.
Heck, I've even seen that at work in this very thread.
Whether or not they are a superior race, the Borg are conditioned to absolutely believe that all other races are inferior. They assume they have the right to take whatever they want. They do not normally interact peacefully and even when they do, it's only to gain an advantage. They have no intention of honoring any agreement any longer than they can use it to their advantage. They are known to have hostile intentions toward every other race, nobody trusts the Borg, and a non-liberated Borg is automatically considered to be a threat. They have no autonomous identity or sense of self that isn't brutally suppressed under the Borg hivemind.
As a player, you could certainly play that up. But what happens when the average player winds up in a cross-faction mission? Or visits a cross-faction social zone to use a mail terminal? Or ends up in a cross-faction STF where they're fighting against the Collective?
Everybody's supposed to ignore that anomaly?
"Oh, there's a Borg on Drozana drinking cosmic cocktails and dancing on the bar. And another one over there using the mail terminal. And a group of them over there threatening to assimilate everybody if they don't get their banana splits right now. Ho-hum."
Doesn't fit. To keep the main storylines consistent, Borg shouldn't freely interact with everybody else in the normal, casual MMO way.
Cryptic can throw all that out the window, if CBS lets them, but it might not be in their interests to do so.
So the real question here is... could a Borg faction be set up in such a way that it does not have a negative impact on the game? Possibly, but not as easily as some are making it sound.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Thats it, no liberated, Fed-washed, watered down, house Borg.
Am I the only one who caught that and found it slightly offensive? I know that probably wasn't your intention though. On to the topic, I don't think the Borg could work as a playable faction for the simple reason that the borg are meant to seem as this monolithic "thing", impenetrable, and only on very rare occasions does someone make it out. This would allow everyone the freedom to move between Borg, Klingon and Fed easily. It could blur the lines and make them seem like less of a threat.
Some of you people are SO ridiculous its funny. Once again, the idea of a playable borg faction is no more contradictory to the IP than the fact that Fed and KDF players magically come back to life when their ship explodes. While we, the PLAYERS are aware of re-spawning, the make-believe characters we play are NOT. Likewise, while we, the PLAYERS, are aware of the difference between a real person playing a Borg and an NPC, the make-believe characters we play are NOT.
Within the GAME WORLD, our characters dont actually die. And within the GAME WORLD, a playable Borg faction would not have free will. What we, the PLAYERS are aware of has absolutely NOTHING to do with the STORY of the game. If you cannot comprehend the difference between what the player is aware of and the story of the game, that is a problem within your own mind, but it has nothing to do with this discussion.
Some of you people are SO ridiculous its funny. Once again, the idea of a playable borg faction is no more contradictory to the IP than the fact that Fed and KDF players magically come back to life when their ship explodes. While we, the PLAYERS are aware of re-spawning, the make-believe characters we play are NOT. Likewise, while we, the PLAYERS, are aware of the difference between a real person playing a Borg and an NPC, the make-believe characters we play are NOT.
Within the GAME WORLD, our characters dont actually die. And within the GAME WORLD, a playable Borg faction would not have free will. What we, the PLAYERS are aware of has absolutely NOTHING to do with the STORY of the game. If you cannot comprehend the difference between what the player is aware of and the story of the game, that is a problem within your own mind, but it has nothing to do with this discussion.
Again with this? Besides the explanation I already gave, I take it you don't know the difference between a game mechanic and plot?
Again with this? Besides the explanation I already gave, I take it you don't know the difference between a game mechanic and plot?
I most certainly do. I am completely aware that what I, the player, know, has absolutely nothing to do with the story/plot of the game. Just because I, the player, know my character died and re-spawned does not change the story/plot of the game. And just because I, the player, may know another real person is playing a Borg character, does not change the story/plot of the game. And just because I, the player, may know that I am drinking a cup of coffee or eating a piece of pizza while I play, does not change the story/plot of the game. The list goes on and on. What I, the player, know has absolutely NOTHING to do with the story/plot of the game.
Read my posts again, you still seem to be thinking as if the player is to represent a single drone.
You certainly assume their is no autonomy in the Collective, you assume all a.ctions must be dictated directly and explicitly from the Queen. None of this is true.
According to you. Every other source says otherwise.
How is a ship commanded by a vinculum by definition expressing some level of individualism...there is no reason to assume two cubes are exactly the same, even if the dimensions and struture maybe, the fact that the drones are not means each cube can bring something different to the table for any given scenerio....no matter how small and infintesible. But its the fact that there is a difference means the vinculums between the two ships can be taking these small varibles into account when determining how to deal with a situtation. That then means two ships can come to two seperate conclusions on how to proceed...even if they both decide the proper course it to assimilate. One ship may decide to go for the bridge as a primary tatget, the other may choose engineering.
There is every reason to assume two cubes are exactly the same, at least in the context of this discussion. Everyone in canon from Guinan to Seven to Picard to Q says so. Individual ships do not decide. Decisions are made by the collective, not by the ship, per canon. They may appear to be individual from time to time (such as Seven, pre-liberation, or Picard as Locutus), but that is a show to trap non-Borg. There was no evidence that Locutus had any autonomy.
But the fact they can come up with different ways to approach even the same task, means there is some level autonomy...some limited degree of individualism...certainly not the same as a humans, but enough to justify why a borg cube under one player may behave/approach a situtation different than a cube played by another player.
Again, they don't. They seem to because that ship responds to its particular situation, but it is a collective decision.
Who is to say human individualism is no more than the same model to a mucgh greater extreme. The Collective inheritly homogenizes the collective experiences of all within, minimizing the difference between the two ships. Due to isolation of the human consciousness, your individualism may just be the summation of all your experiences setting you part from the experiences of everyoen else..i mean how do yu even really know everybody else is even "real"/conscious. Though society attempts to homogenize your experiences through its various social institutions, its just a horribly inefficent method of what the Borg Collective's net does extremly well.
The Trek writers are to say. And similarities don't equate to equality. Both the Borg and Federation operate as collectives, but the Borg take the concept to the extreme where personal designations are nothing more than IP addresses for functional purposes. After liberation, it took effort to convince Seven that she was an individual, even after most of the Borg tech was removed.
Basically Human individuality is a failure of an ineffective social system for which the Borg perfected. or, the Borg Collective is the extreme and successful implementation of what humans inheritly long for as social/herd animals.
The Borg is just you...perfected. We are everything you sub-consciously desire to be, even to the genetic level.
The Collective is the next level up, fractal existance of humanity.
If you feel the Borg perfected it, why do you keep trying to attribute them with aspects of individuality? It seems like you are trying to make the Borg perfect by giving them qualities that they simply do not have, rather than accepting that they are meant to be flawed for literary and plot purposes.
I most certainly do. I am completely aware that what I, the player, know, has absolutely nothing to do with the story/plot of the game. Just because I, the player, know my character died and re-spawned does not change the story/plot of the game. And just because I, the player, may know another real person is playing a Borg character, does not change the story/plot of the game. And just because I, the player, may know that I am drinking a cup of coffee or eating a piece of pizza while I play, does not change the story/plot of the game. The list goes on and on. What I, the player, know has absolutely NOTHING to do with the story/plot of the game.
But Borg having individuality does change the plot. That is more than just a game mechanic, it fundamentally changes the nature of the Borg.
Respawning doesn't fundamentally change the nature of anything. As you have mentioned and I have run with as an explanation, there are examples in canon or equivalent situations. In many of the time loop episodes, the entire ship is wiped out over and over again until they figure out how to resolve the situation in a manner that they survive.
How is that not equivalent to what is happening in game, other than scale?
Comments
Just like you are assuming that the characters we play would be able to tell the difference between a playable Borg faction and NPCs. However that entire concept is flawed because those terms are terms that we, the players, use to describe video games. So unless you are saying that the characters we play would be aware that they are just characters in a video game, then they would have no more awareness of the difference between NPC and playable Borg than they would that they respawn every time they die.
The Collective isnt like an ant colony. The Collective is a single, intelligent, sentient, conscious being made up of individual drones, ships and the "hive" interface. The Collective is an amorphous animal. The drones are like cells of the organism, the large groupings of drones and ships are like the organs.
The Collective is the many taken as a whole. The queen isnt a queen as you think of it, not a commanding entity seperate from the masses. The Queen is a symbolic, embodiment that is a representation of the Collective's conscious individuality as a living being. The Queen isnt necessary for the Collective, but was only a symbolic means for interacting with humanity in a way that humans could understand. Just like most people here, humanity couldnt see the Forest(Singular identity of the Collective) because of the trees(all the drones making up the Collective being). Humanity was "lucky" enough to be allowed to interact with the Collective as a conscious being, we can assume most people who met the Borg were just procedurally absorbed.
Basically, the Collective being is curious about humanity and was willing to deal with them on a more intimate level(in more ways than one...Locutus was to be a concubine of the Collective...later settling for Data), not unlike the curisoity of Q.
Anyway, back to the organsim...like any organsim, not all functions require micro-managment by the central consciouness. There are certain directives/standing orders set forth to maintain the organisim...the various organs/sub-systems/ships/adjunxts operate autonomously within its area of operation or specialty as deemed fit and necessary to maintain the interests and well being of the larger organism. How often are you micxromanaging the organs in your body? Sometimes the interest of the Collective requires self-sacrifice, it can be commanded or done autonomously with direct order. Just like white-blood cells dying to fight off infection, or white blood cells destroying healthy tissue surrounding an infection. Just like skin cells, gastro-intestinal cells fluffing off after exhaustion or to protect.
My proposal for the Borg play is based on canon...as autonomous sub-systems/organs of a larger Collective organsim/consciousness.
you dont play a drone, because that would be contradictive to canon, but instead you play as a command and control structre that does process and make determinations, then acts on those determinations in a calculated manner that understands cause and affect.
Why would you assume the exchange has to be between entities...natural law has exchanges to...its detail thoroughly in the laws of physics. It to works in currency. The Borg wouldnt be accessing a market as you see it...but there is still a cost for any activity, consumption, growth, change, etc.
The Borg wouldnt see exchange as a market, but as a manipulation of natural law. In order ot repair my ship it requires energy, matter, processing power and time. Niether of these is truly free, they all come at a cost of one another. Even when any of them are in abundance, it still a process of allocation, moving the resource from one accounting field to another. Even with time, you still have to weigh the time needed with the time available.
Once again, the limitation isnt in the Borg, its in how you percieve the means and relationships. The biggest obstacle is getting people to get out of their normal way of seeing things and stop think from the perspective of a meat-bag. When you do that, you realize how well the Borg parallels the other factions.
These costs can easily be reflect in the game interface, the only difference being the symbolic reference for use of this unique currency...but honestly, that only requires a new symbol...the relationships are the same. the translation and exchange to be handled on the back end within the game.
I get that, but credits are a man made currency. Nothing to do with physics there.
Breen (though more workable than the other's below)
Borg
Founder/Changeling
Undine
Iconion (sp?)
Q (who?) Sorry couldn't resist
Traveler
There's a few other's but I'm not thinking of them at the moment.
Freee your mind, credits are only system of measure. Thats like saying you cant build house in America using the metric system.
Costs and exchange are the same regardless of the system of measure or even what they are measuring...its the relationships that matter.
But what about the Klingons and Romulans...like everyone else, they were only deemed "bad" because of ignorance and lack of understanding...even as enemies, they were all eventually allowed to be shown as more than just bad, mindless thugs.
The Borg stop being boogeymen during the Voyager series, the genie has been let out of the bottle. Star Trek has historically presented the fear of the "unknown peoples" in order to eventually show how much alike we all are...no matter how alien they may have seemed...this includes the Borg.
Im speaking of a Borg faction as in a State/Sovereignty...the Collective. You can be Borg, as in having inplants...but that doesnt make you part of the Collective.
7 of 9 is Borg if you want to go by looks and such(sort of like a race)...but she isnt part of the Collective. Her faction is Federation.
Yes it's not real, yes it's a game, but it is a Star Trek game, not "I wanna be a Borg Online".
The only way that Borg would work as a faction is if these Borg are disconnected from the collective somehow or more importantly are free of the Queen's control, they may have access to a collective consciousness but still have free will to pursue matters as they so choose, hence the players involved get to play the game as they choose.
A race that is implacably hostile with everyone would be impossible to accommodate in game without creating an infrastructure and economy (yes there has to be an economy, it's intrinsic to the game) unique to them, essentially a game within the game , unless this quasi-liberated subset of Borg pick a side to have relations with, be it Federation or Klingon, or at the very least choose to be neutral with both.
Assimilated ships is one thing and would quite frankly be necessary, since Borg ships are visually uninteresting. Cubes, spheres and probes (which look like little more than irradiated suppositories), may interest players for a short time just as a novelty item, but that novelty would wane quickly. Borg drones are grotesque menageries of bits and pieces of organic and cybernetic technology and despite Borg claims of perfection their drones look bulky, clumsy, inelegant, unrefined and incomplete, for the player, customization options for a character could be numerous, but none less ugly than any other.
Just because you close your eyes and cover your ears to it doesnt mean it cant be. Ive prrsented enough and can present more of why it is possible. A couple of years back I outlined the method on numerous occasions.
You aren't getting the meaning of my post. There is the liberated borg captains from the lifetime subscription, liberated borg bridge officers from the C-Store and KA Ground STF, and liberated borg duty officers from various locations. Not all of these liberated borg are liberated like 7 of 9 and Picard, but are sleeper agents to get into positions of power and attack when the Collective is ready. The Borg have failed countless times in assimilating the Federation so this is their next method of invading.
Fortunately for my crew, my Liberated Borg captain is an exiled Borg due to her trying to take over the Collective and requires every former Borg under her crew to be part of a limited hive mind. They still have their individuality, but any signs of mutiny or potential espionage are easily discouraged. Also, a limited hive mind makes running a ship far more efficient.
just like using a Vulcan character to make believe is a Romulan spy isnt the same as flying a Romulan D'deridex and smacking a Fed cruiser in the mouth, or commanding an away team...
Still, fight on brother...I hope the day comes soon when you can steal away with the federation crew's hopes and dreams smashed beneath you boots.
Me? I want to drop their shields, cut into their ship and observe the fear and dread empty from their faces as their eyes glaze over, their skin grey and see the spark of their feablie individuality extinguished as they are re-born into true life and service.
To a point this is TRUE but most want full fledged BORG from what I've seen in the thread. This doesn't work.
Liberated BORG as pointed out by other's aren't BORG they're Federation, Romulan, Klingon etc... They aren't connected to the Collective. What I've seen here is people wanting collective BORG then there is no point as there is no individuality left. Do you want to play a char that instead of going to do story X you end up having to go defend against X? Technically as BORG you should have NO Choice but to do what is dictated by the collective. There's still only 1 queen. Not everyone can be queen or king so thus no one therefore the only option is for PCs as BORG do be limited in their ability to do what they want and instead be moved around at random. EX: have them take the place of NPCs on PVE BORG missions.
Fully integrated BORG I just don't see as being viable. Sorry.
"Exiled Borg?" You really don't get the concept of the Borg, do you?
Most people don't realize the benefits of the Borg. They retain the knowledge and genetics of countless dead societies. Of course, most of the dead societies were caused by the Borg, but lots of these races would have perished to some other cause. The whole assimilation process is just the pursuit of knowledge. Basically, the Borg are the Ultimate Library. You can learn the secrets of countless races at the low price of your individuality.
But you would have to be 'liberated' first. And the Borg would not exile you, they would either re-assimilate you or destroy you.
You seem to think that the Borg are a hive mind of individuals rather than one collective parasitic organism that hijacks and overrides organic bodies.
I did not want my Liberated Borg Captain to be an emo character that is constantly plagued by the memories of her assimilating countless people. Add an extremely rare genetic quirk that allows a drone to retain their individuality and being raised most of her life as a Borg. Have her learn about countless civilizations to form opinions that are contrary to popular Borg belief. Results in a Borg drone that will set up various traps that will devastate the Borg if activated and try to overthrow Borg Collective. Rebellion failed so my captain made a deal with the Queen, my captain's life for the promise to not destroy a few borg planets. This results in an exiled borg with an interesting story and did not have to be rescued like most or all other liberated borgs. Also gives her a reason to be part of Starfleet with the whole revenge against the Queen motive.
Read my posts again, you still seem to be thinking as if the player is to represent a single drone.
You certainly assume their is no autonomy in the Collective, you assume all a.ctions must be dictated directly and explicitly from the Queen. None of this is true.
How is a ship commanded by a vinculum by definition expressing some level of individualism...there is no reason to assume two cubes are exactly the same, even if the dimensions and struture maybe, the fact that the drones are not means each cube can bring something different to the table for any given scenerio....no matter how small and infintesible. But its the fact that there is a difference means the vinculums between the two ships can be taking these small varibles into account when determining how to deal with a situtation. That then means two ships can come to two seperate conclusions on how to proceed...even if they both decide the proper course it to assimilate. One ship may decide to go for the bridge as a primary tatget, the other may choose engineering.
But the fact they can come up with different ways to approach even the same task, means there is some level autonomy...some limited degree of individualism...certainly not the same as a humans, but enough to justify why a borg cube under one player may behave/approach a situtation different than a cube played by another player.
Who is to say human individualism is no more than the same model to a mucgh greater extreme. The Collective inheritly homogenizes the collective experiences of all within, minimizing the difference between the two ships. Due to isolation of the human consciousness, your individualism may just be the summation of all your experiences setting you part from the experiences of everyoen else..i mean how do yu even really know everybody else is even "real"/conscious. Though society attempts to homogenize your experiences through its various social institutions, its just a horribly inefficent method of what the Borg Collective's net does extremly well.
Basically Human individuality is a failure of an ineffective social system for which the Borg perfected. or, the Borg Collective is the extreme and successful implementation of what humans inheritly long for as social/herd animals.
The Borg is just you...perfected. We are everything you sub-consciously desire to be, even to the genetic level.
The Collective is the next level up, fractal existance of humanity.
Yes, we could choose to throw out any inconvenient fact which would make a playable Borg faction not fit into the game.
But Cryptic does not have that luxury. A playable Borg faction has implications related to story (canon) and to gameplay that Cryptic has to deal with. Some of those implications have been debated here and others haven't.
There's a basic dichotomy here that has not been resolved, and maybe can't be resolved.
And that is: the Borg Superiority Complex vs. MMO Social Interaction.
Heck, I've even seen that at work in this very thread.
Whether or not they are a superior race, the Borg are conditioned to absolutely believe that all other races are inferior. They assume they have the right to take whatever they want. They do not normally interact peacefully and even when they do, it's only to gain an advantage. They have no intention of honoring any agreement any longer than they can use it to their advantage. They are known to have hostile intentions toward every other race, nobody trusts the Borg, and a non-liberated Borg is automatically considered to be a threat. They have no autonomous identity or sense of self that isn't brutally suppressed under the Borg hivemind.
As a player, you could certainly play that up. But what happens when the average player winds up in a cross-faction mission? Or visits a cross-faction social zone to use a mail terminal? Or ends up in a cross-faction STF where they're fighting against the Collective?
Everybody's supposed to ignore that anomaly?
"Oh, there's a Borg on Drozana drinking cosmic cocktails and dancing on the bar. And another one over there using the mail terminal. And a group of them over there threatening to assimilate everybody if they don't get their banana splits right now. Ho-hum."
Doesn't fit. To keep the main storylines consistent, Borg shouldn't freely interact with everybody else in the normal, casual MMO way.
Cryptic can throw all that out the window, if CBS lets them, but it might not be in their interests to do so.
So the real question here is... could a Borg faction be set up in such a way that it does not have a negative impact on the game? Possibly, but not as easily as some are making it sound.
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Am I the only one who caught that and found it slightly offensive? I know that probably wasn't your intention though. On to the topic, I don't think the Borg could work as a playable faction for the simple reason that the borg are meant to seem as this monolithic "thing", impenetrable, and only on very rare occasions does someone make it out. This would allow everyone the freedom to move between Borg, Klingon and Fed easily. It could blur the lines and make them seem like less of a threat.
Within the GAME WORLD, our characters dont actually die. And within the GAME WORLD, a playable Borg faction would not have free will. What we, the PLAYERS are aware of has absolutely NOTHING to do with the STORY of the game. If you cannot comprehend the difference between what the player is aware of and the story of the game, that is a problem within your own mind, but it has nothing to do with this discussion.
Again with this? Besides the explanation I already gave, I take it you don't know the difference between a game mechanic and plot?
this game has a plot?!?!
I most certainly do. I am completely aware that what I, the player, know, has absolutely nothing to do with the story/plot of the game. Just because I, the player, know my character died and re-spawned does not change the story/plot of the game. And just because I, the player, may know another real person is playing a Borg character, does not change the story/plot of the game. And just because I, the player, may know that I am drinking a cup of coffee or eating a piece of pizza while I play, does not change the story/plot of the game. The list goes on and on. What I, the player, know has absolutely NOTHING to do with the story/plot of the game.
According to you. Every other source says otherwise.
There is every reason to assume two cubes are exactly the same, at least in the context of this discussion. Everyone in canon from Guinan to Seven to Picard to Q says so. Individual ships do not decide. Decisions are made by the collective, not by the ship, per canon. They may appear to be individual from time to time (such as Seven, pre-liberation, or Picard as Locutus), but that is a show to trap non-Borg. There was no evidence that Locutus had any autonomy.
Again, they don't. They seem to because that ship responds to its particular situation, but it is a collective decision.
The Trek writers are to say. And similarities don't equate to equality. Both the Borg and Federation operate as collectives, but the Borg take the concept to the extreme where personal designations are nothing more than IP addresses for functional purposes. After liberation, it took effort to convince Seven that she was an individual, even after most of the Borg tech was removed.
If you feel the Borg perfected it, why do you keep trying to attribute them with aspects of individuality? It seems like you are trying to make the Borg perfect by giving them qualities that they simply do not have, rather than accepting that they are meant to be flawed for literary and plot purposes.
So do most action movies. In such cases, the plot is an excuse for more action and 'excitement.'
But I suspect you knew that
But Borg having individuality does change the plot. That is more than just a game mechanic, it fundamentally changes the nature of the Borg.
Respawning doesn't fundamentally change the nature of anything. As you have mentioned and I have run with as an explanation, there are examples in canon or equivalent situations. In many of the time loop episodes, the entire ship is wiped out over and over again until they figure out how to resolve the situation in a manner that they survive.
How is that not equivalent to what is happening in game, other than scale?