Dragonball Z: The Borg Saga
an original fan-fiction by Demon-Fighter Ash
based on characters created by Akira Toriyama
based on Gene Roddenberry's "Star Trek"
Prologue: The Harvester of Worlds
They swam through an infinite abyss of stars and dust, invisible beams sweeping through each passing star-system, searching each planet as they rushed silently onward. They had no destination, no specific purpose aside from the single purpose that stretched across the whole galaxy, the purpose that had defined their existence for thousands of centuries--to bring order to chaos, to bring perfection to the imperfect authority-driven societies languishing in the remote corners of the universe, and to finally become one with the heavens themselves.
Countless civilizations had become one with them over the millenia, and within their single mind lay the knowledge and experiences of hundreds of billions of minds, the memories and lifetimes of millions of generations. Yet they had no name for themselves. They had no need for a name, for they had no peers, nobody who existed apart from them--even those primitive cultures who still lay outside the hive would someday become one with them. They were the living will of existence itself, the final inevitable existence of all species, the ultimate destiny of all life throughout the universe.
Other species didn't understand this, however, and so the outsiders had given them many names throughout the eons. The Destroyers, the Devourers, the Reapers, the Harvesters of Worlds, and many more names, all of them based on the fear and misunderstandings of cultures too primitive and archaic in structure to understand or appreciate their benevolence, to understand the perfection that they sought to bring to the galaxy.
Several hundred years ago they had encountered and, with some difficulty, assimilated a race of beings called the El-Aurians, and the name that the El-Aurians gave to them had spread throughout that part of the galaxy, giving them a common name for the first time in centuries: the Borg. Even that was simply one of many names, but it had proven convenient, for many races and species knew of it. So, for now, in this part of the universe, they were known to outsiders simply by the El-Aurian name, "the Borg."
A single cube-shaped ship swept through the darkness, the minds of the countless thousands of Borg aboard it invisibly linked to the billions of minds of countless other cubes just like it, all of them part of the single will of the collective. The cube's sides stretched dozens of miles along each side and outsiders often mistook them for moons before realizing the truth. The black ship didn't have a metal hull covering it like most spaceships; its force-fields took care of that.
Instead, the cube seemed to be woven from wires and metal beams, a massive block of pure naked technology in its most essential form. The Borg had no concept of aesthetics, nor any need for them. The cube's shape and structure symbolized the ideology of the Borg far better than any of the archaic flags and national symbols of the lesser races--pure function, pure efficiency and economy, the purpose alone dictating its design, with no emotional or sentimental influences corrupting the efficiency of the ship's structure...
But that sparsity of design had not been decided upon at any shipyard or orbital station, nor had the cube-shaped vessels ever been drawn on a blueprint. The gigantic ships had simply evolved over the centuries, the cybernetic hordes known as the Borg assimilating every ship, colony and space-station that they happened upon into their own ship, layer upon layer of fused alien technology converted into a single amalgamated cube, the same way a wasp's nest arises from the random peacemeal gatherings of all the workers, with no deliberate intent or design.
When a cube finally grew too large for its drones to maintain, or when they simply needed no more raw material to repair it, they began to instead convert other ships into cubes--within the heart of every Borg cube, buried deep beneath the metal catwalks and dim flickering hallways filled with silent cybernetic drones, lay an ancient, forgotten ship or space-station, the seed that had, countless eons ago, been infected and changed by another Borg cube, that had, after decades of engulfing every piece of technology in its path, sprouted into the colossal cubes that now scoured the galaxy for still more alien ships and worlds to devour.
Some races had considered the Borg a kind of interstellar cancer, infecting one world after another, annihilating entire civilizations and changing them all into Borg drones and cubes, but those races had long ago become one with the Borg, and they had finally come to understand the Borg's true purpose--to bring perfection to a universe of chaos, to bring enlightenment to all species, throughout the galaxy...
The black cube glided through the emptiness of interstellar space, the faint pulsing hum of its engines and field-generators silent within the soundless vacuum. Thousands of Borg drones stood within its maze of corridors, each pair of drones sharing an alcove filled with flickering display screens and twisting hoses and wires. Metal cables and rods linked the back of each cyborg's head to the walls of the alcoves and, through this network of flesh and circuit, the Borg communed with their ship, seeing every sensor reading as if through their own eyes, their thoughts guiding the cube as their minds scoured the stars for some hint of new worlds, new technology...
New energy-signature detected
Apparent magnitude: -4.6
Red-shift factor: 312
Estimated distance: 8600 light-years
Spectroscopic composition: biogenic
The Borg sensed something strange, a flicker of energy from somewhere far beyond the center of the galaxy, all the way on the other side. They knew of only a few phenomena whose energy could be detected so far away: supernova, particle fountains, exposed singularities, all natural phenomena that they had long since studied and grown bored with. None of those things, however, had biogenic energy signatures, the uniquely complex fluctuations that marked the energy of a living being. The Borg quickly focused the cube's sensors on the mysterious energy...
Energy analysis complete
Luminosity: 76312
Visual Radius: 0.8 km
Energy-signature's location confirmed
Quadrant coordinates: Alpha-298.63
System coordinates: G4 star, 3rd planet
Planetary status: Stable orbit and infrastructure
A biogenic form of energy powerful enough to destroy a star-system, and yet so tightly focused that it hadn't even destroyed the planet from which it seemed to eminate. They might have mistaken it for a supernova if the energy hadn't been clearly organic in origin, and now, as they studied it more carefully, they saw that the energy came from a small life-supporting rocky planet--and that the planet showed no signs of stress, no hint of ripping itself apart against the vast power being unleashed across its surface.
The Borg ran a system-check on the cube's sensors--no malfunctions. The energy was real.
Subspace network established
123,876 cubes connected
0.4% maximum network capability
New information disseminating...
The whole galaxy pulsed with the instantanious subspace transmissions and signals of the cubes all communicating at once, the hive-mind quickly buzzing with excitement. The Borg hadn't encountered anything new in centuries; advanced technology and new planets, but no real mysteries. The single mind of the Borg pondered the vast energy pouring out of that distant corner of the galaxy, powerful enough to annihilate a whole star-system, and yet somehow bearing the unmistakable marks of a living, organic being. Some living entity had given off all this energy...and the Borg had never encountered anything like that.
They began searching through all the different frequencies and subspace-layers around the distant planet, trying to uncover clues about the mysterious energy. The blast of biogenic energy nearly drowned out every other transmission, but the Borg finally discovered a faint electromagnetic transmission coming from the planet, an encoded signal that their network of cybernetic minds quickly deciphered...
"I'm reporting live from a site three miles south of the Cell Games, where you can see a huge glowing ball on the horizon...our on-site cameras are still down, and the government has issued an advisory against venturing any closer to the actual tournament ring..."
"Earthquakes continue to rock the major cities and tidal waves have battered much of the coastal region...the geological disturbances seem to be originating from the Cell Games, where blasts of light so strong that they've illuminated the entire hemisphere have been reported..."
"Here in downtown South City, most people seem to have given up on evacuation and are instead resigning themselves to what virtually everyone believe is the end of the world..."
Primitive planetary communication networks, the Borg quickly realized, and they analyzed the information once more. A level of energy normally reserved for stellar collapse being emitted by living beings on an inhabited planet with relatively primitive technology...a biogenic energy that, though easily strong enough to destroy an entire star-system, seemed to be only barely disturbing the planet emitting it...
The entire process, from the first glimpse of the energy-burst to the final analysis and decision, took less than a second, and the Borg cube suddenly changed its course. The ship had no mast and so it had no need to turn around; it simply shot away from its original course at a different angle without even slowing down. The cube had found a new destination, a new mystery to solve...and a new world to devour...
an original fan-fiction by Demon-Fighter Ash
based on characters created by Akira Toriyama
based on Gene Roddenberry's "Star Trek"
Prologue: The Harvester of Worlds
They swam through an infinite abyss of stars and dust, invisible beams sweeping through each passing star-system, searching each planet as they rushed silently onward. They had no destination, no specific purpose aside from the single purpose that stretched across the whole galaxy, the purpose that had defined their existence for thousands of centuries--to bring order to chaos, to bring perfection to the imperfect authority-driven societies languishing in the remote corners of the universe, and to finally become one with the heavens themselves.
Countless civilizations had become one with them over the millenia, and within their single mind lay the knowledge and experiences of hundreds of billions of minds, the memories and lifetimes of millions of generations. Yet they had no name for themselves. They had no need for a name, for they had no peers, nobody who existed apart from them--even those primitive cultures who still lay outside the hive would someday become one with them. They were the living will of existence itself, the final inevitable existence of all species, the ultimate destiny of all life throughout the universe.
Other species didn't understand this, however, and so the outsiders had given them many names throughout the eons. The Destroyers, the Devourers, the Reapers, the Harvesters of Worlds, and many more names, all of them based on the fear and misunderstandings of cultures too primitive and archaic in structure to understand or appreciate their benevolence, to understand the perfection that they sought to bring to the galaxy.
Several hundred years ago they had encountered and, with some difficulty, assimilated a race of beings called the El-Aurians, and the name that the El-Aurians gave to them had spread throughout that part of the galaxy, giving them a common name for the first time in centuries: the Borg. Even that was simply one of many names, but it had proven convenient, for many races and species knew of it. So, for now, in this part of the universe, they were known to outsiders simply by the El-Aurian name, "the Borg."
A single cube-shaped ship swept through the darkness, the minds of the countless thousands of Borg aboard it invisibly linked to the billions of minds of countless other cubes just like it, all of them part of the single will of the collective. The cube's sides stretched dozens of miles along each side and outsiders often mistook them for moons before realizing the truth. The black ship didn't have a metal hull covering it like most spaceships; its force-fields took care of that.
Instead, the cube seemed to be woven from wires and metal beams, a massive block of pure naked technology in its most essential form. The Borg had no concept of aesthetics, nor any need for them. The cube's shape and structure symbolized the ideology of the Borg far better than any of the archaic flags and national symbols of the lesser races--pure function, pure efficiency and economy, the purpose alone dictating its design, with no emotional or sentimental influences corrupting the efficiency of the ship's structure...
But that sparsity of design had not been decided upon at any shipyard or orbital station, nor had the cube-shaped vessels ever been drawn on a blueprint. The gigantic ships had simply evolved over the centuries, the cybernetic hordes known as the Borg assimilating every ship, colony and space-station that they happened upon into their own ship, layer upon layer of fused alien technology converted into a single amalgamated cube, the same way a wasp's nest arises from the random peacemeal gatherings of all the workers, with no deliberate intent or design.
When a cube finally grew too large for its drones to maintain, or when they simply needed no more raw material to repair it, they began to instead convert other ships into cubes--within the heart of every Borg cube, buried deep beneath the metal catwalks and dim flickering hallways filled with silent cybernetic drones, lay an ancient, forgotten ship or space-station, the seed that had, countless eons ago, been infected and changed by another Borg cube, that had, after decades of engulfing every piece of technology in its path, sprouted into the colossal cubes that now scoured the galaxy for still more alien ships and worlds to devour.
Some races had considered the Borg a kind of interstellar cancer, infecting one world after another, annihilating entire civilizations and changing them all into Borg drones and cubes, but those races had long ago become one with the Borg, and they had finally come to understand the Borg's true purpose--to bring perfection to a universe of chaos, to bring enlightenment to all species, throughout the galaxy...
The black cube glided through the emptiness of interstellar space, the faint pulsing hum of its engines and field-generators silent within the soundless vacuum. Thousands of Borg drones stood within its maze of corridors, each pair of drones sharing an alcove filled with flickering display screens and twisting hoses and wires. Metal cables and rods linked the back of each cyborg's head to the walls of the alcoves and, through this network of flesh and circuit, the Borg communed with their ship, seeing every sensor reading as if through their own eyes, their thoughts guiding the cube as their minds scoured the stars for some hint of new worlds, new technology...
New energy-signature detected
Apparent magnitude: -4.6
Red-shift factor: 312
Estimated distance: 8600 light-years
Spectroscopic composition: biogenic
The Borg sensed something strange, a flicker of energy from somewhere far beyond the center of the galaxy, all the way on the other side. They knew of only a few phenomena whose energy could be detected so far away: supernova, particle fountains, exposed singularities, all natural phenomena that they had long since studied and grown bored with. None of those things, however, had biogenic energy signatures, the uniquely complex fluctuations that marked the energy of a living being. The Borg quickly focused the cube's sensors on the mysterious energy...
Energy analysis complete
Luminosity: 76312
Visual Radius: 0.8 km
Energy-signature's location confirmed
Quadrant coordinates: Alpha-298.63
System coordinates: G4 star, 3rd planet
Planetary status: Stable orbit and infrastructure
A biogenic form of energy powerful enough to destroy a star-system, and yet so tightly focused that it hadn't even destroyed the planet from which it seemed to eminate. They might have mistaken it for a supernova if the energy hadn't been clearly organic in origin, and now, as they studied it more carefully, they saw that the energy came from a small life-supporting rocky planet--and that the planet showed no signs of stress, no hint of ripping itself apart against the vast power being unleashed across its surface.
The Borg ran a system-check on the cube's sensors--no malfunctions. The energy was real.
Subspace network established
123,876 cubes connected
0.4% maximum network capability
New information disseminating...
The whole galaxy pulsed with the instantanious subspace transmissions and signals of the cubes all communicating at once, the hive-mind quickly buzzing with excitement. The Borg hadn't encountered anything new in centuries; advanced technology and new planets, but no real mysteries. The single mind of the Borg pondered the vast energy pouring out of that distant corner of the galaxy, powerful enough to annihilate a whole star-system, and yet somehow bearing the unmistakable marks of a living, organic being. Some living entity had given off all this energy...and the Borg had never encountered anything like that.
They began searching through all the different frequencies and subspace-layers around the distant planet, trying to uncover clues about the mysterious energy. The blast of biogenic energy nearly drowned out every other transmission, but the Borg finally discovered a faint electromagnetic transmission coming from the planet, an encoded signal that their network of cybernetic minds quickly deciphered...
"I'm reporting live from a site three miles south of the Cell Games, where you can see a huge glowing ball on the horizon...our on-site cameras are still down, and the government has issued an advisory against venturing any closer to the actual tournament ring..."
"Earthquakes continue to rock the major cities and tidal waves have battered much of the coastal region...the geological disturbances seem to be originating from the Cell Games, where blasts of light so strong that they've illuminated the entire hemisphere have been reported..."
"Here in downtown South City, most people seem to have given up on evacuation and are instead resigning themselves to what virtually everyone believe is the end of the world..."
Primitive planetary communication networks, the Borg quickly realized, and they analyzed the information once more. A level of energy normally reserved for stellar collapse being emitted by living beings on an inhabited planet with relatively primitive technology...a biogenic energy that, though easily strong enough to destroy an entire star-system, seemed to be only barely disturbing the planet emitting it...
The entire process, from the first glimpse of the energy-burst to the final analysis and decision, took less than a second, and the Borg cube suddenly changed its course. The ship had no mast and so it had no need to turn around; it simply shot away from its original course at a different angle without even slowing down. The cube had found a new destination, a new mystery to solve...and a new world to devour...