Intelligence Report: The Borg Collective
Table of Contents
Relevant History
The Borg are long forgotten… after the Dominion War, the Alpha Quadrant was quite busy with internal matters. Romulans creeping about, Klingons brawling, and the Federation rebuilding everything. A true golden age for civil industrial companies. That might also be the cause for the large influence of certain Federation member planets… and other minor powers... but that’s another story altogether. You can be certain, however, that the Borg are still lurking about somewhere in the Delta Quadrant - black nanite-filled tubules reaching for humanity… but this time, with the Prime Unimatrix laid to waste, priorities have changed.
Of course, this didn't exactly stop the Borg from invading the Dominion in the Delta Quadrant... and for the Dominion, things do not look so good. In the campaign, this is what leads up to the Eraudi Incident, which might be seen in the official intro video for the game.
Unimatrixes
The Borg do not have admirals like the other factions. The Collective is divided into different unimatrixes which fulfill different aspects to serve the Collective’s needs. For example, one unimatrix (a unimatrix is not a building but a section of the Collective. It can contain multiple uni complexes and "fleets") could be specialized on assimilation, and another one on destroying vessels which exceed the assimilation capabilities. Therefore you select “directives” for the Borg.
Directive-Optimize: Unimatrix 001
The first and most important directive in the Collective has always been to attain perfection. A primary Borg fleet follows this rule in order to destroy enemies or to assimilate them using a minimum of resources and time.
Directive-Assimilate: Unimatrix 008
While our primary goal remains to perfect ourselves, we had yet to learn that many of our enemies were able to resist. Species 8472 and the humans showed us that perfection requires a lower relevance. Rather, we are now after technologies that can be exploited to seek and to assimilate to our advantage. Perfection through assimilation--many species and their technologies were thus added to the Collective.
Weaponry
Graviton Torpedo
Graviton-based weaponry is very effective and causes heavy mass fluctuations, resulting in destructive forces that will literally crush the target that they are fired upon. Due to this fact, there is no real armor against Graviton Torpedoes once shields are down. Nevertheless, the production of these weapons is very resource intensive, and only the Borg are known to use them as regular weapons.
Energy Phaser
Borg High Energy Phasers are powerful beam weapons that are capable of cutting through armor plates and the decks of most vessels.
Vessels
Designation: Pyramid
Chassis 703, vessel signature: combat, directive: assimilation. That could be the Borg designation for this giant vessel in the shape of a pyramid. While the Borg Cube was and will always be the standard vessel for most tasks the Collective adapted after an attempt to assimilate border space of the Dominion. The Pyramid is the result of this adaption.
Designation: Assembler
The Assembler is equipped with a very large drone complement and multiple replication, recycle and incubation nodes, which allows this slow vessel to create every Borg station within a short amount of time.
Designation: Resource Assimilator
The Resource Assimilator is capable of mining massive amounts of useable resources from valid sources. It is used to extract resources from planets or asteroids in regions outside Borg space to serve the Collective's needs.
Designation: Probe
The Probe is basically just a Borg scout. Still, compared to other interstellar species' scouts it is well armed and has a large amount of crew onboard, which allows this small and fast vessel to operate far away from the Collective without the need of supplies or repairs. It is equipped with special command nodes, which allows the drones on board of a Probe to operate without a link to the Collective to fulfill a predefined task and then return to the collective.
Designation: Adaptor
If an unassimilated species has been detected which resists assimilation and has been marked as a possible threat to the Collective, it's the role of the Adaptor to assimilate and analyze as many technologies from this species as possible. With this knowledge the Collective will be able to adapt to this race and continue with its assimilation.
Designation: Assimilator
The Assimilator is the basic vessel which is used if the Collective has marked a species for assimilation. Once some of these vessels exit transwarp near the targeted planet they will immediately begin to assimilate and board every vessel or station they can detect.
Designation: Sphere
The Sphere is one of the most common and most feared vessels in use by the Borg Collective. Its impressive armor and weaponry make it an enemy to every ship class and it is capable of regenerating even critical damage within very short time.
Designation: Scout Cube
The Scout Cube is an efficient short range vessel, which has been designed to destroy ships which exceed the limits of acceptable danger to the Collective.
Designation: Diamond
This is a very special and rare Borg vessel. It is equipped with various special technologies which allow this vessel to adapt to most hostile weapons. In a common Borg fleet these ships have the role of command nodes, which deliver the orders from the Collective to the vessels of the fleet.
Designation: Cube
The Borg Cube is the most common Borg ship. Most vessels of the Collective are vessels of this type, because it provides a maximum efficiency in most tasks. Cubes are equipped with deadly weaponry and massive armory. A Cube can easily destroy single enemy ships or assimilate them and multiple Cubes can only be stopped by very large fleets. In the Fleet Operations Universe, the Borg Cubes that were present in the battles of sector 001 (TNG: Best of Both Worlds and Star Trek VIII: First Contact) were Command Cubes. These are vessels designed for Command and Assimilation and are extremely powerful and large with some limited adaption features. The Cubes seen in Voyager on the other hand were your normal Cubes - hence the greatly reduced scaling and weaker firepower and armor.
Designation: Tactical Cube
Tactical Cubes are the result of an adaptation of normal cubes. For some missions the Borg Collective requires a vessel which has more armor then the already impressive Borg Cube. These vessels are called Tactical Cubes and are only used for special attack objectives or to assault a heavy armed base. Sometimes the presence of a Tactical Cube is used by the Collective to break the resistance of a race and acquire them as a valuable target for assimilation.
Plans
Designation: Command Cube
The most powerful Borg vessel is the Command Cube. One of these vessels was once able to destroy 39 Federation starship in its attempt to assimilate Earth. The Command Cube is a very special adaptation to long range weaponry. It is equipped with a very powerful slicer beam, which is capable of breaking through all known armor and inflicting massive damage to the interior of a ship. Such a slicing beam can even cut whole parts of a starship off. The Command Cube will be returning to Fleet Operations very shortly, although it is still in the planning stages. It will be incredibly expensive (also requiring Collective Connections) and be very high in the Borg technology tree. It will also feature the same "module customization" as other Borg units, although the modules will be unique to the Command Cube. The developers want this vessel to be very customizable - if you want a vessel capable of assimilating battleships, or if you need a big shield-vessel ... it has no definite role.
The developer teams wants to give assimilating ships a more Borgy flair: if the Borg enter a sector they do not just build up a station or two, they assimilate everything that's usable. That is of course something Borg players should do too, and that will be seen in their redo.
A Borgie-style experience system is coming. Adaption is inevitable.