Biological weapons would be able to, at most, destroy a single ship and possibly other ships in very close physical proximity (anything in range of its "feelers"). The piece of the consciousness controlling that ship would be hit by it, but not killed- death of a controlled ship does affect the Nomads, but not a whole lot. Such weapons, regardless of origin, would do the same thing as shooting the ships with guns would do- kill the vessel.
To target the collective, you'd need to either A) target their power supply like opening the hypergate did, or B) target the telepathic network itself. The latter option would require humans with telepathic abilities or machines duplicating that- as well as intimate knowledge of how the Nomads talk to each other. If you could build machines that "talked" the same way Nomads did, you could theoretically DDoS the Mindshare, keeping them from communicating and either driving the minds insane or at least immobilizing the physical manifestations (meaning that a group of strike teams could clean house fairly effectively). Theoretically. If you didn't keep it secretive enough, they might find a way to resist it or do something similar to modulating a comm frequency- "dodging" your interference. You'd need to catch them by surprise, and with enough machines to knock out the network in one fell swoop. That's the sort of thing you should be looking at for this.
It's entirely possible that the Nomads have already foreseen such a "weakness" and have already set up protocols to deal with it and thus avoid another disaster like the Battle of Omicron Major. But if you wanted to "capture" a Nomad ship, this would be where you should start looking- using telepathic abilities similar to the Nomads to "blot out" a small area from the network as well as keeping the mental imprint running the ship occupied instead of self-destructing. I have a theory on how you might "assassinate" a given personality, but that's not for display until I've thought about it more- and there's no way humans could figure it out with their current level of understanding.
' Wrote:It is similar to someone who doesn't know about Nomads.
One massive difference:
Borg are technology that can interface with living flesh
Nomads are living flesh that can interface with technology
Think you guys are still missing the point. I am not trying to argue that they are the same or anything else. I am not claiming to be an expert on either (because, you know, I have a life and everything). All I am saying is that they are similar enough that sharing that common plot device would be acceptable. There would be two reasons to capture a nomad from the perspectice of plot and story development. The first, which is being discussed heavily in this thread, is to engineer some sort of weapon (which you joked about in a previous post, I did not catch that my first run through the thread).
The second, which has not been discussed as much, is to humanize the nomad. The nomad (and borg) serve as such effective enemies because they are purely evil. There is no reasoning, no peace, no compromise. It also serves as a hinderance to plot development. That is why they don't serve as a primary enemy for most factions. To humanize the enemy serves to give it unique personalities and characteristics to consider and enjoy. In short it deepens the quality of the plot. I think that is one reason for the Wilde, to add a human element. Only the Wilde are pretty restrictive on membership and not necessarily human enough since they still have that collective consciousness thing going on.
Both perspectives are covered within the TNG episode I mentioned, which is why I brought it up, to confirm possibility and to offer a point of reference. And on that note I say adios to this thread since I have nothing else to offer it.
"Hell, there are no rules here--we're trying to accomplish something."
-Thomas Alva Edision
' Wrote:The second, which has not been discussed as much, is to humanize the nomad. The nomad (and borg) serve as such effective enemies because they are purely evil. There is no reasoning, no peace, no compromise. It also serves as a hinderance to plot development. That is why they don't serve as a primary enemy for most factions. To humanize the enemy serves to give it unique personalities and characteristics to consider and enjoy. In short it deepens the quality of the plot.
You were quite right by saying you don't quite understand what they are. Because you really don't by considering borg and nomads similar to each other in this way. If you want purely evil beings - look for phantoms. Nomads are simply alien, different, they're agnostic in terms of morale, therefore "evil"/"good" stamps are not applicable to them unless you're in-character, but here we are talking outside of that. There are (and were) unique characters and personalities of those allied to them by their own will, individuals who had greater knowledge of what "associates" are. So who is missing the point here really? Putting all eggs into one basket, that is both borg and nomads, is hindrance to the story rather than filling special niche. Just think outside of ST TNG box without references to it.
p.s. Replying to your posts before that one: yes, Discovery does actually remove/replace ships borrowed from other fictional universes from version to version to make each new ship added into the mod genuine.
Same thing that humans would use on nomad could end up killing more humans then nomads, we all know how humans reproduce so it would harm humans more then nomads so humans stopped all research about biological weapon they could use on nomads.
End of discussion.
not necessarily. viruses harmful to nomads should be fundamentally different from the ones harmful to humans.
nomads - opposed to humans - dont have blood for example, dont need to breathe, their tissue is simply one huge mass, and not separate organs like humans have. that's why they can shapeshift.
Bottom line, whatever "biological weapon" being made will have to go with approval from the other side as well. No one-way street surprises like "I've made a virus that will end Nomad threat!". The exact details, the usage and so forth will have to be discussed and agreed to specific limits outlined beforehand. If someone need something like that for their story they'll have to contact me privately first. I'm all ears if that will be interesting, complex and twisted story.
It seems to me that everybody is missing the two true weaknesses of the nomads.
First, their technology relies heavily on biological improvements. That means that to them viruses and bacteria are much like rust and water damage is to us. It's probable that thier ships are so shot through with disease and plauge that even Typhoid Marry would wear a vac suit around them. No, the weakness of thier ships is in the mechanical aspects and thier interface with the biological. Mess up the interface between thier two technologies and they will be easy prey.
Thier second weakness is that they don't understand us any better than we understand them. How does this help? Well, each of thier patrols contains multiple ships, but is controlled by only one mind. That makes them the ultimate organizers. The best way to disrupt organization is to bring chaos into it. When we attack them, throw out formations and wingmen tactics. Simply mob them attacking from all angles with all different kinds of weapons. It is my bet that, while our minds can handle this kind of confusion, even revel in it from time to time, the Nomads will be so disoriented that taking them apart will be as easy as that time you beat down the neihbors kid.
So, hit them with weapons designed to interrupt thier biomechanical interfaces and drown them in chaos. We don't know thier neurological circuitry, or even if they have them, but thier thoughts have to be processed, moved through thier body into an interface, reprocessed, and then carried out. That means there has to be some kind of energy involved and all we have to do is to find the right kind, right wavelength, and then, disrupt it. And while we are doing that, we swarm them one time, attack in a straight line the next. Make it so they can't predict our movements and patterns because there are no patterns and we don't know where we're moving next, ourselves.
"Two things I know; Gravity sucks and Ion Storms blow. And that proves the universe is trying to kill us all" - Barren Waste, Captain of the Wasteland Wanderer
An approximation of my reaction when I see my next victim...er, these forums.
' Wrote:It seems to me that everybody is missing the two true weaknesses of the nomads.
First, their technology relies heavily on biological improvements. That means that to them viruses and bacteria are much like rust and water damage is to us. It's probable that thier ships are so shot through with disease and plauge that even Typhoid Marry would wear a vac suit around them. No, the weakness of thier ships is in the mechanical aspects and thier interface with the biological. Mess up the interface between thier two technologies and they will be easy prey.
Thier second weakness is that they don't understand us any better than we understand them. How does this help? Well, each of thier patrols contains multiple ships, but is controlled by only one mind. That makes them the ultimate organizers. The best way to disrupt organization is to bring chaos into it. When we attack them, throw out formations and wingmen tactics. Simply mob them attacking from all angles with all different kinds of weapons. It is my bet that, while our minds can handle this kind of confusion, even revel in it from time to time, the Nomads will be so disoriented that taking them apart will be as easy as that time you beat down the neihbors kid.
So, hit them with weapons designed to interrupt thier biomechanical interfaces and drown them in chaos. We don't know thier neurological circuitry, or even if they have them, but thier thoughts have to be processed, moved through thier body into an interface, reprocessed, and then carried out. That means there has to be some kind of energy involved and all we have to do is to find the right kind, right wavelength, and then, disrupt it. And while we are doing that, we swarm them one time, attack in a straight line the next. Make it so they can't predict our movements and patterns because there are no patterns and we don't know where we're moving next, ourselves.
' Wrote:It seems to me that everybody is missing the two true weaknesses of the nomads.
Thier second weakness is that they don't understand us any better than we understand them.
![[Image: ZeroWingCATS.gif]](http://www.freewebs.com/nintendobible/ZeroWingCATS.gif)
![[Image: SCRAgenderheuristics.png]](http://i530.photobucket.com/albums/dd343/sovfalcon/SCRAgenderheuristics.png)
![[Image: bleach46.gif]](http://i801.photobucket.com/albums/yy293/barrenwaste/bleach46.gif)
![[Image: vladsignature.png]](http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc247/globalplayer-svk/vladsignature.png)