Harvesters

From FEInfobase

"These harvesters seemed to be even more savage and brutal than the stories made them out to be."
"Perhaps they learned a lesson from us on how to win next time, by doing whatever it takes."

- Unknown

Harvesters are groups of Borg whom exist outside of the normal collective consciousness and reside on the fringes of controlled space.

Noted for their brutality and savagery, their existence is officially denied by most known governments, yet the reality is that Harvesters are a horrible part of daily life around the outer sectors of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants.

Racial Overview

Harvesters are savage, brutal and primal. Their contact with other species is limited to combat, torture, murder and harvesting of biological and technological parts to sustain themselves. As yet no Harvester has been known to speak. Yet when they are encountered, they have been observed to never verbally communicate with each other, suggesting that they retain elements of the Borg Hive Mind. More likely it is some sort of preternatural instinct.

Harvesters are known to raid ships and colonies to kill and cannibalise anyone or anything they are able find. They are known for their delight in causing pain and suffering in sentient beings. Their methods are often so horrifying that when faced with capture by them most victims attempt suicide, and mercy killings of those who fall into the hands of harvesters are considered humane. The harvesters do occasionally intentionally leave survivors of their raids in some perverse way of spreading the myth about themselves.

Most harvester ships may have at one time started out as Borg cubes or spheres. As time passed and the ability to assimilate with nanoprobes was lost, as a result the Borg adapted and began to physically connect captured starships and shuttles to their own vessels when something was needed.

This may indicate a lack of the Borg Hive Mind, since presumably it's presence would permit a sharing of information allowing Harvesters to maintain their vessels. It can be speculated though that the attachment of other vessels may be a means of psychologically affecting their victims.

The standard Harvester ship is a jumbled mass of hull pieces interconnected systems and as some say madness. They are usually heavily armed and not very well shielded. Each one has some system for latching on to another ship. Either by tractor beams capable of swallowing them whole within a massive bay or (in more primitive tribes) harpoons or spears attached via tritanium cable.

Harvesters are creatures of opportunity. Like many predators they follow potential prey for a short while to observe and see and visual weakness. Once they attack they will not stop until driven away destroyed or in rare cases they lose interest.

When attacking Harvesters are indeed ruthless. Sever the limb of a harvester and it keeps coming. Phaser off it's legs and it keeps coming. During known encounters Harvesters that have sustained massive amounts of physical damage are still able to continue to function.

Assimilation

Assimilation by Harvesters is a rare event. Most captives are used for spare biological components or in the event of a base need, they are used for consumable biomatter (food). Once captured the typical captive is dissected crudely and fought over by any Harvester near that needs what they might have.

In the rare event of assimilation, a captive is held and brought aboard the Harvester ship for the start of a seemingly endless batch of surgery. Each one designed specifically to strip away another aspect of whatever self image or consciousness the captive may have had.

The process beings with the insertion of several mood altering probes in the captives forward cortex and ends with some sort of modification to enhances the captive's physical ability. The surgery is both crude and poorly conducted with a high mortality rate, possible a fortunate circumstance.

Weapons

In most documented encounters the use of particle or "beam" weapons by Harvesters is almost non existent. Preferring to utilize makeshift hand weapons such as axes and knives. The only known uses of such weapons are ship mounted.