Star Trek Adventures - Delta Quadrant

Available in print and pdf from the Modiphius website and pdf from the Drivethrurpg website. This is of course the last quadrant of the Star Trek universe and within the pages of this book are the Borg. So I may as well say it straight off, you want Borg in your Star Trek Adventures game? Buy this book.

But onwards with the review. The PDF has 144 pages, that includes covers and end papers. You also get two versions, the normal version and then printer friendly one with a white background. Chapter 1 starts on page 3 and the last page of the index is 135. The layout is the standard two column of text per page with some inserts from various characters. Art is strong and there are many half page pieces within the book

The book is split into five chapters, Introduction, The Delta Quandrant, Species of the Delta Quadrant, Starships of the Delta Quadrant and Encounters and Adversaries which is consistent with the other books in the series.

Chapter 1 - Introduction

It opens with a quote from Captain Janeway from the first episode where says she doesn't accept 75 years to get back to the Federation. The chapter is short, a mere 5 pages, giving a quick synopsis of the following 4 chapters and also a section with advice regarding the books usage in a campaign. It is worth noting the default timeline has been advanced again to 2379, four years after the end of the Dominion War (the Gamma Quadrant book moved it forward to 2374). There is advice for running it in the different eras.

Chapter 2 - The Delta Quadrant

By far the biggest chapter in the book at nearly 50 pages, again the chapter start with a briefing from Captain Janeway which frames the new timeline, ultimately with the instruction to boldly explore. We then have four sub sections which are written from the point of view of Starfleet. The first is a write up of the species in the Delta Quadrant, listed in alphabetical order with the structure of firstly a summation of encounters with them, their technology and weapons. Secondly a description of their physiology and lastly Starfleet's thoughts on them, often with a eye to future relationships with them.

We have 14 species discussed. Delta Quadrant is not the friendliest place, quite of a few of them attacked first, being quite aggressive. One example is Species 8472 who even the Borg are afraid of. In some cases, things have improved slightly and there is hope for future co-operation. Of course some are likely to be good potential allies such as the Talaxians. Note the Borg are not in this section, they get their own, Closing out this section is Stellar and Spatial Phenomena. Oh, you have the normal weird stuff - temporal distortions, quantum singularities but also get some news ones Graviton Ellipses and the frankly very scary Chaotic Space are but two. Certainly life could be very interesting in the Delta Quadrant.

The second second section in chapter 2 is Worlds of the Delta Quadrant. As it says in it's introduction, we are talking about a quarter of the known galaxy and Delta Quadrant contains thousands of planets so this section gives a snapshot of a tiny amount of that, 20 to be precise. Where relevant the worlds are linked to the species involved. They are all quite varied. Of course the gamesmaster has the scope to create any amount of worlds that they want. If their players have watched every episode, it will still be possible to have something fresh for them.

Now it time for the Borg

A chilling site whenever one of their cubes appear, the Borg are, as the book says the single greatest threat the Federation has ever encountered. Most people recognise the phrase "Resistance is futile" demonstrating they have become one of the classic Sci-Fi bogeymen. In this section we get a thorough description of the Borg, how they are many species, altered cybernetically when they are assimilated. They are one conciousness, connected together throughout space via powerful subspace transceiver arrays on their ships. This gives them vast computational power and the communication between the Collective, as this conciousness is known, is very fast. When they assimilate new technology, it is almost instantly incorporated into other Borg.

We learn there is a Borg Queen but there is much conjecture of what this entity actually is in terms of the Collective. There is discussion on how to deal with the Borg. I suspect this part of the reason the timeline has been advanced as Capt Janeway and USS Voyager have had some success against them and Starfleet have started to develop countermeasures against assimilation.

Then there is their ships. The classic assimilation cube, the tactical cube and the Borg Sphere which is their scout ship. All are frightening and the other two, in most cases are more dangerous than the assimilation cube. The Star Trek Adventures corebook has the stats for the assimilation cube, the others have their stats in Chapter 4. The report describing the battle of Wolf 359, where in 4 minutes the Starfleet vessels were reduced from 40 to 16 by one cube, demonstrates how dangerous Borg cubes are.

The section then describes the Borg assimilation process and the drones that are created by it. It is worth noting that drones can be disconnected. They will seek other drones to re-establish a connection to the collective. If disconnect for a week or two they can potentially become liberated, Seven of Nine being an obvious example if you have watched Voyager.

Rounding off this section is Borg locations which rather than a list of planets it is how the Borg interact with planets and asteroids, as well as Borg structures in space called Unicomplexes. These dwarf Borg cubes in size. They are the Borg command and control stations. They are always heavily protected by Borg ships.

Chapter 3 - Species of the Delta Quadrant

This chapter has 12 new species available for character lifepaths. At the start of each entry it says what era of play they are suitable for but the general advice is from Next generation onwards. It goes without saying these new lifepaths are only usable the GM permission.

Some will be instantly familiar to fans of Voyager, Liberated Borg (Seven of Nine), Ocampa (Kes) and Talaxian (Neelix) as they have been, at some point, members of the Voyager crew.

Each entry has 3 attribute adjustments, a trait and a list of their talents followed examples of names. Two of them have telepathic abilities, the Mari and Ocampa, though it is dormant with the Ocampa. Rounding out the chapter is Species Both Familiar and Strange - Disconnected Borg Drones, Silverbloods, Kobali and the last lifepath the Zahl. I guess it was to do with page layout and page count, I think it would make more sense to have the Zahl entry first.

Chapter 4 - Starships of the Delta Quadrant

This starts with the Borg ships. As already mentioned the Assimilation Cube is in the corebook. Listed here is the Borg Octahedron which is a command and control ship for the Borg Queen, the Borg Probe ship which I believe is the Borg Sphere scout ship, the Borg Tactical Cube, which is quite frankly lethal compared to a typical Starfleet ship and the Borg Torus which is their contruction/transportation ship. There is also a section on Borg technology, including what they do when they assimilate starships (examples from the TV shows are listed).

The other ships of the Delta Quandrant have one entry from Starfleet, the Delta Flyer that the crew of USS Voyager designed. The Talaxians have a freighter, the Kazon/Trabe have raiders and carriers (the Kazon call them Predators). These ships were originally only Trabe but after the Kazon rebelled against they captured hundreds of ships. The Hirogen have two as do the Krenim including a timeship! Much potential for craziness there. A patrol ship and warship are the entries for the Lokirrim and they are armed with Photonic Disruptors as they are at war with holographic "terrorists". This can obviously affect holodecks and EMH programs on Federation starships. Filling out the chapter are ships from Species 8472, the Vidiian and the Voth. The Species 8472 ship is unique in two ways. Firstly it is a bioship and secondly it's weapon is capable of bypassing defense systems of the Borg ships.

Chapter 5 - Encounters and Adversaries

This chapter is split into 2 sections, non Borg and then Borg specific. In the first section there are 6 encounter seeds including trying to escape the clutches of the Overlookers, a very strange situation on a Demon planet, straight up kidnapping and a couple that involve the crew potentially getting caught between two species. The adversaries are 30 potential NPC's that came be encountered. They are drawn from the species prevalent in the Delta Quadrant. They are categorised as either Minor, Notable or Major NPC. Most, but not all, species have at least 2 entries and they are generic like Haakonian Scientist or Hirogen Hunter. There are 3 named characters, they are all major characters. Strange being and deadly space has 3 entries, the Maw of Bliss, Photonic Lifeforms and Isomorph which highlight the strangeness of Delta Quadrant. This section also discusses running a campaign in the Delta Quandrant.

In the Borg section there are 7 encounters. The first Crossing the Hollow is a tricky journey across a sector of space due to various anomalies, one of which is a Borg transwarp conduit.

The second Evacuation is about helping a planet's population get offworld - The Borg are coming! Another couple of seeds deal with Borg technology incl the ship being infected by it.

Also discussed is campaign based around the Borg, the real potential for npc crew of the players starship to be assimilated.The encounter seeds continue with relevant Borg and Federation NPC's included. The Borg Queen gets a full page to herself and there is two pages on defeating the Borg Collective. After this is the index and the end of the book with two pages of adverts and the endpapers.

Overall, a very strong book. It contains the big bad of the later eras of Star Trek and closes out the known universe. The encounter seeds are just that, seeds that will require fleshing out by the gamesmaster. The Borg is this book are upgraded from those that are in the corebook especially regarding the assimilation process. Space itself has more anomalies than in the other quadrants. The PDF is well hyperlinked and easy to navigate. the book follow the same structure as the other Quadrant book I have seen so I presume it is the standard format of them all. As I said at the start, if you want Borg buy this and realistically if you plan to venture to the Delta Quadrant you are going to want this book. from the point of view of the players the Delta Quadrant is ripe for exploration with plenty of dangers that could be encountered though i wouldn't advise going toe to toe with the Borg.

Fair disclosure, this pdf was provided to me by Modiphius for review purposes.