Operation Assimilation: Intro

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Operation Assimilation


What do the first officer of the Lalo, a Hirogen hunting party, a Klingon youth from a frontier colony, and a Cardassian scientist have in common? They were all once individuals with their own identities, their own lives, their own personalities. Then the Borg came. And like so many other uncounted billions before them they struggled, they fought, and they ultimately met the same inevitable fate: assimilation. Their identities, their lives, their very beings were stripped away, replaced by the indomitable will of the Borg Collective. Despite their disparate origins and the vast distances between them, after their encounters with the collective one inexorable truth remained: no matter how valiant your struggle, no matter how long you hold out against the storm, the Borg will prevail. Resistance is futile.

For millennia the Borg have spread throughout the galaxy like a plague, destroying thousands of civilizations on thousands of worlds across all four quadrants of the Milky Way and possibly beyond. Driven by a single will, a will to conquer, to expand, to assimilate anything that they consider useful in their quest for perfection. Borg perfection, the driving force behind a perverse manifest destiny by which the collective grows ever stronger at the expense of the lives and individualities of the countless souls who have had the misfortune to cross their path. For those unfortunate enough to encounter the Borg Collective and face down the specter of assimilation, death may be preferable.

Operation Assimilation is a series of seven vignette-style short stories each telling the story of an encounter with the Borg Collective. The stories are told from different perspectives, with different characters, different circumstances, in different parts of the galaxy. Despite these differences, they all conclude in similar fashion, namely facing the specter of assimilation.



The stories:

1. Federation: The Fate of the Lalo

The USS Lalo, a Federation cargo ship. One of the most banal assignments possible. A routine cargo run becomes the voyage of the damned when the Lalo crosses paths with the Borg ship that would later attack and destroy a fleet of starships at Wolf 359. This encounter is referenced in TNG: The Best of Both Worlds, Part I.

2. Hirogen: The Hunted Hunters

Deep in the Delta quadrant in the heat of the hunt a Hirogen vessel stalks its prey. The hunt is cut short when a Borg ship enters the sector and pursues the Hirogen ship. The tables are turned as the hunters now become the hunted.

3. Klingon: Deprived

A colony world on the frontier is assimilated. Told from the perspective of a Klingon youth watching as the colony, his home, his friends and family, everything and everyone he's ever known is destroyed around him.

4. Cardassian: Uninvited Guests

A secret research station far from Cardassian space, its’ existence and work known to but a select few. A test of an experimental weapon technology attracts some unwanted attention.

5. Dominion: The Order of Things

The year is 2374. While war rages in the Alpha Quadrant the Dominion forces locked in the Gamma Quadrant behind the Federation’s minefield work to find another way to send badly needed reinforcements across the galaxy to the frontlines. The efforts of Dominion scientists at one research facility have unintended consequences.

6. Bajoran: Sole Survivor

A Bajoran transport ship is attacked during a transport run and forced to crash land on an uninhabited planet. The last survivor, an officer in the Bajoran militia, alone on the planet, running, with nothing but her wits to protect her. Will she escape her Borg pursuers? Or die trying?

7. Vulcan: Only Logical

A Vulcan science ship on a long range deep space exploration mission comes across the wreckage of a lost Federation ship. Will the Vulcan crew solve the mystery of what happened to the lost ship? Or will they share the same fate?

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