[MUD-Dev] Re: Idea: Hive-mind monster

[Brandon J. Rickman]

On Fri, 31 Oct 1997 (Halloween) 10:31:28 PST8PDT,
Derrick Jones <gunther at online1.magnus1.com> wrote:
>I've actually toyed around a little with a borg mob.  I assumed a 
>flawless, continuous connection between Local and Group minds.  As one
>borg learned information/skills/tactics, every borg learned the same
>things.  The main problem I faced was that if the borg were allowed a
>sufficient foothold in an area, they became impossible to kill.  For
>example, if enough borg were attacked by fire, all borg became resistant
>to fire;  if they faced enough characters wielding swords, their
>dodge/block/parry skills would improve for the entire race.  I soon found
>that players would quickly run out of ways to kill the borg, much like the
>Star Trek version.  While my original goal was to create a nigh
>indestructable race, I found that they became unwieldy and unplayable.
>I'll probably never release them unless my players _really_ piss me off.

Hive mind behavior versus natural selection: I suppose creating a group
mind means having less data to store for each "indiviaul" monster, since
the individuals are just mobile instances of the hive parent.  There may
be some useful pieces of evolutionary theory that would make the Borg
model more useable.  It is variation within a species (like one
creature being less susceptable to poison X than another) that
"causes" the evolution of a more resistant
species during critical moments.  Those members
of the Borg that are more vulnerable to fire will die when attacked 
by fire, and the survivors will be those less vulnerable.  The next
generation (or version if you prefer) of Borg would then be less
vulnerable to fire.

This is fairly standard natural selection.  The problem with the 
instant adaptation of the Borg, as quoted above, is that it doesn't
account for the resources needed to build better Borgs.  That is to say,
the more invulerable the Borgs are, the harder it should be for
them to reproduce: they need faster CPUs, or more memory, or more
redundancy, etc.  Of course in an optimal situation there are
always enough resources, but then there is the risk of overpopulation
and a resulting lack of resources.  (i.e. there is no such thing as an
optimal situation.)  In that case the more efficient Borg, those
that are perhaps not so resistant to fire, are selected for the
next version.  

Now for the extra fun part: this latest generation of Borg, more
efficient but less fire resistant, also have a latent ability to 
become fire resistant when needed.

Eventually the best way to kill a Borg may be to set fire to it, then
start beating it with a stick.  If the fire won't kill it maybe the
beating will, because it is unlikely that an individual Borg would be
invulnerable to this strange attack combination.

[I would recommend reading some Richard Dawkins, perhaps _The Selfish 
Gene_, for more stuff on natural selection.  And _Why Things Bite Back_
by Joseph Tenner for fun theories on fighting increasingly resistant
pests.]

[I'm behind in responding to the list.  I'll track down the old 
threads in the next few days.]

- Brandon Rickman - ashes at zennet.com -
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