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The Romluan Empire also is very grateful for the kindness of the Federation in this matter, especially considering our unfortunate lack of involvement.

If the Hur'q become a problem, we will do our best to assist, either with offensive action, or defensive if the need arises.

We have an old Cardassian proverb.

"Tis better to kill your enemy than allow him to kill you. But if you must die, drive the soul of your enemy before yours, so you may prevail in the next life."

The Hur'q seems to pose an interesting dilemma. They conqured the Klingons centuries ago, and suddenly fled into the Delta Quadrant, where now they are powerful enough to defeat the Borg.

I'd like to request from the Klingons any historical data they may have left on the Hur'q. Anything at all would be helpful.

How again did we get the Borg to give us nano-probe technology, obviously they were defeated, but they just gave it up?

They wished to use the wormhole that was a cost of transport

Borg Information On the Hur'q

History- The Hur'q are a very old scavenger race that even precedes the beginnings of the collective. They have no currently known homeworld, though it is presumed they originated somewhere in this galaxy they are creatures of short-term memory that are singularly adapted to their way of life, which is now entirely nomadic.

Borg had first contact with Species 84 early in their history and quickly drove the Hur'q from the nearby regions of space.

The Borg and Hur'q fought a long war in the timeframe between the years 1200 and 1700 on the Earth calendar. Of the course of the long conflict the Hur'q were driven to the fringes of the Delta Quadrant, where the Borg were able to keep them contained. Of particular note to the Alpha Quadrant would be that the Hur'q were driven from the Delta Quadrant terminus of their wormhole to the Alpha Quadrant in the early 1400's. This appears to have cut short an invasion of this region of space by the Hur'q.

Since that time the Borg have largely kept the Hur'q contained along the fringes of the Delta Quadrant.

Technology- The Hur'q are a curious blend of nearly antiquated technology, a scavenging hive mind mentality and incredibly well refined capabilities in a few areas of great interest to them.

Their weapons and propulsion system are primitive. They possess no known projectile weapons and instead rely on a short-range plasma cutter and a combination of grapples and tractor beams to essentially pull and tear an enemy to pieces. None of their ships are faster than warp five. Indeed they have shown no effort to upgrade their systems in nearly 1,000 years of recorded history given over by the Borg.

However they do possess highly advanced technology in two regards. Their replicator and industrial production technology is far beyond the capabilities of even the Borg. They are able to reprocess materials in a highly efficient manner. It is theorized this is the product of an advanced method of discriminating between various elements in a structure and re-assembling them in the most efficient manner possible. The end result is that they are generally able to take almost a destroyed Borg cube and reprocess that mass into around 50% of its original total into Scavenger Drones in as little as a day.

Additionally they have shown skill in manipulating space-time to form wormholes that facilitate their long-range travel. The Borg abandoned such an approach as "inefficient" and instead embarked down the path to transwarp. However the Hur'q have highly refined the technique to the point they could open wormholes spanning the known galaxy. Indeed both stable wormholes known to our powers were created by this process.

As a general rule a wormhole will connect one known point to another with two mobile production facilities spending upwards of a year making the connection after traveling the distance for many years or even decades at their slow warp speeds. However the Borg know of no method that will allow the permanent destruction of a wormhole once created. They have successfully collapsed both ends of many only to have them re-opened upon the approach of Hur'q ships. It seems that once put in place they can be found by the Hur'q again and re-activated with little trouble. Though the process takes at least one year.

Tactics- The Hur'q have little interest in occupying planets long term. In general their Scavengers simply swarm a planet and rip away its infrastructure and other assorted technological items that can be efficiently reprocessed and haul them away. Unless they resist biological organism are ignored.

They proceed from planet to planet in a highly condensed swarm comprised of thousands and sometimes millions of scavengers and a handful of mobile production facilities. They expand without any overall objective, towards the nearest and largest source of material they can find. When finished they will resume searching for me, then expand in that direction in a haphazard manner, often crisscrossing their own path many times in an in-efficient manner.

Tactically their ships are very weak and Borg cubes are capable of killing many thousands of the Scavengers before being overwhelmed. However the death of just one Borg cube can provide material for up to 9,000 Hur'q Scavengers.

When a high-developed planet is set up it can be used to create upwards of 25-30 thousand Scavenger Drones. The Borg are particularly vulnerable with highly dense and technological worlds being far more lucrative for the Hur'q than a typical Alpha Quadrant world.

In battle their ships attempt nothing other than to close quickly. The range of their weapons is limited with the exception of the Mobile Production Facility.

Current State- Two events allowed the re-emergence of the Hur'q. Emergence began with the Borg-8472 war that saw the Borg lose many important planets and a large portion of their fleet.

The traditional Borg method of dealing with the Hur'q was to swarm any anomaly that appeared to be a wormhole under generation and pinch off the attempted expansions with massive force. The loss of ships impacted their ability to do this and many Hur'q swarms were able to start leaking through in the most dense portion of their wormhole network in the Delta Quadrant.

However the Borg appeared to be holding the threat back. Forces were being rallied to push the enemy back until the destruction of the Transwarp Hub by USS Voyager. This move left a large portion of the Borg Fleet stranded in the southern portion of their territory with no way to rapidly get to the now growing crisis.

Borg forces in the North began to be overwhelmed and worlds began to fall. The Borg lost nearly 1/3rd of their fleet strength in the North before being able to hold a line with ships moving conventionally from the Southern portions of their empire. The collective estimates it will take then 50 years to push the Hur'q back out of the areas now being overrun.




Hur'q Scavenger


Dimensions
Length : 30 m
Beam : 15 m
Height : 20 m
Decks : NA
Mass : 5,000 Metric Tons
Crew : None

Armament :
1 1,750 Terra-watt plasma cutter
1 High-Capacity tractor beam


Defence Systems : 1,000 TJ shield system

3CM high-density armor

Low level Structural Integrity Field

Warp Speeds
Maximum Rated : 5.0

Strength Indices (Galaxy class = 1,000)
Beam Firepower : 35
Torpedo Firepower : 0
Weapon Range and Accuracy : 10
Shield Strength : .37
Hull Armour : 301
Speed : 65
Combat Maneuverability : 3,000
Overall Strength Index : 50


Hur'q Mobile Production Facility

Dimensions
Length : 8,000 m
Beam : 3,000 m
Height : 4,500 m
Decks : NA
Mass : 60,000,000 metric tons
Crew : Millions

Armament :
Numerous plasma cutters, total output 10,000,000 TJ
Thousands of High Capacity Tractor Beams

Other Capabilities:

Worm hole opening construction capable

Defence Systems : 10,000,000 TJ shield system

100CM high-density armor

Low level Structural Integrity Field

Warp Speeds
Maximum Rated : 4.0

Strength Indices (Galaxy class = 1,000)
Beam Firepower : 200,000
Torpedo Firepower : 0
Weapon Range and Accuracy : 1000
Shield Strength : .3783
Hull Armour : 10030
Speed : 53
Combat Maneuverability : 50
Overall Strength Index : 56,000

It seems that they're biggest offense is their defense.

And since we never thanked the federation for their generous donation of the nano probe information. As well as to the Borg, who although it was semi-forced they contributed a great deal to us that has virtually eliminated them mas a threat to the quadrant.

Does anyone have any specific plans of what they will do with the nano-probe technology once they receive it? We will hold onto it for the time being, and as we are not the most scientifically inclined species we won't have much to contribute knowledge-wise, sadly.

Its medicinal and military applications are unlimited.

Speaking of which,

I acted in good faith for all those of the quadrant in securing these nano-probes, and intelligence, and shared it with all. I think that it would be a wise an honorable thing for everyone to agree that the nano-probes are not to be used for military purposes, at least against anyone but the borg. I for one intend to have my scientists look at the technology to prevent another federation citizen from being assimilated, however beyond that I believe that for the sake of everyone's peace of mind and the continued prosperity of the quadrant, any and all technology shared from the delta quadrant should be kept for peaceful means only.

I for one will stick with this plan of action, what of the rest of you?

We of the Ferengi Republic will respect this as well, we only plan on using it to reenforce our ships and as a means to help our society as a whole. We do not wish any harm on anyone in the quadrant. We would also like to begin some more trade with our comrades, if anyone is interested in opening trade routes we would be very open to this.

Pending our negotiations with the new Gorn government we may be willing to expand trade with the Ferangi Alliance.

And we will be glad to accept more trade from the Federation.

In regards to the nanoprobe technology, the Romulan Empire feels that it would be better served used as a defensive measure, rather than a weapon. The very fact that everyone has them limits their viability as a destructive weapon. However, as a medical tool, these devices could be unmatched in their usefulness. That is where we would prefer to focus our efforts.

Also, if we do develop some new medical technique that would greatly benefit another power, we would be willing to share it. Cooperation is key at the moment, and we do not want to be strangers to the rest of the quadrant.

In the spirit of that co-operation, the Gorn Hegemony now has access to a number of ex-Starfleet vessels which are more expensive than they are useful. We would be willing to discuss conditions for sale. Contact the Hegemony directly if interested (PM)