SDN Starship Design Commentaries
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Re: SDN Starship Design Commentaries
Aircraft are predicated on the idea of no maintenance while operating. I see no reason why an advanced enough spacecraft could not be the same way, look at say internal combustion engines and transmissions in cars. The earliest ones physically needed a mechanic to travel along for the ride, doing absurd things like oiling the chain drives. Today you can get a car that realistically needs no service for the drive train other then oil changes for 120,000 miles. A spaceship that can go several years between overhauls isn't unreasonable in concept. The details are killers though.
However the downside of no maintenance while operating is generally you then need to do a huge amount of work when you do do any work, and on something as complex as a warship that will generally mean the ship is so torn to pieces in the dockyard that it cannot do anything for months, if not years. By doing some maintenance underway or at short halts you should be able to greatly extend time between immobilizations for overhauls.
However the downside of no maintenance while operating is generally you then need to do a huge amount of work when you do do any work, and on something as complex as a warship that will generally mean the ship is so torn to pieces in the dockyard that it cannot do anything for months, if not years. By doing some maintenance underway or at short halts you should be able to greatly extend time between immobilizations for overhauls.
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Re: SDN Starship Design Commentaries
If the Normany was minimal/no-maintenance, it wouldn't have that huge engine room, gunnery bay, freestanding blocks of machinery all over the cargo bay and lower level, and crawl spaces full of cables and pipes. Instead it would be like a B-1 bomber where all the machinery is tightly packed in inaccessible areas and the engines are monitored from instrumentation on the bridge. In fact it does look like the thrust engines are maintenance free (out on the pylons), but the fusion reactor, mass effect core, main armament and much of the auxiluary machinery is very much intended to be maintained and repaired in flight. The omni-tools (handheld combination 3D printer and force-field manipulator) probably help a lot with that; remove the need for lots of specialised tools and parts, and give substantial computer assistance when performing complex procedures.
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Re: SDN Starship Design Commentaries
Ever seen the engine room on a merchant ship or cruise ship? They do almost no maintenance at sea, and need little allowing crews of 30-40, but everything is wide open. The size of the ships in those cases is driven by factors other then the engines, leaving plenty of space they exploit. The systems in a plane are packed away because volume is very expensive due to drag if nothing else, and many subsystems are highly dangerous to the crew, like a 3000psi hydraulic line bursting can tear your arm off. Meanwhile the parts themselves are small, and can be gotten in and out with minimal space, usually. But its time consuming. Drag is not an issue in space... and since a hull that withstands 14.7psi can literally be made out of tinfoil if you want volume isn't that expensive in basic terms. It might be made expensive for other reasons, but it doesn't have to be.Starglider wrote:If the Normany was minimal/no-maintenance, it wouldn't have that huge engine room, gunnery bay, freestanding blocks of machinery all over the cargo bay and lower level, and crawl spaces full of cables and pipes.
Meanwhile if the ship does only get maintained in dockyard periods having good access would reduce the length of the period. Probably by months, compared to a worst case of needing to say, cut open the decks to access basic system. Submarine overhauls take forever precisely because you always have to do that, almost none of the main equipment will fit down the hatches. But they want small hatches because bigger ones would immensely increase the hull weight, which is the main driver of total sub cost. Subs cost more to build and operate then any other type of ship meanwhile...
On many warships the consoles for the CIC for example can only be gotten into the ship by cutting open the hull as well, thankfully once installed they can mostly be repaired in place.
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Instead it would be like a B-1 bomber where all the machinery is tightly packed in inaccessible areas and the engines are monitored from instrumentation on the bridge.
A B-1 bomber is hanger queen and maintenance hog, and for no small reason precisely because too much shit is packed into too small of a space. Its so bad at times the USAF has proposed retiring the entire force and operating only the B-2 and B-52. But such cramming was drive by a strict weight limit on the plane, which in turn was driven by cost limits (which were shattered anyway). Nobody would do this on purpose if they had any other choice.
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Re: SDN Starship Design Commentaries
Remember that the Mass Effect ships use substantial hull armour and have fairly high accelerations (several G at least). So volume is certainly not cheap; at least in terms of substantial mass required to enclose and support the additional volumes, which cuts into sublight acceleration, manueverability and unrefuelled range. It is somewhere between an armoured naval warship and an aircraft in that sense.
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Re: SDN Starship Design Commentaries
Armor mass can generally be used as structure though, and volume will go up much faster then surface area. Also given the giant fins, sponsons and other bullshit on the ship I doubt mass was that big a deal. Certainly low mass structural rigidity is not a high priority if you have sponsons with a span approaching the length of the ship. I assume they do this to dump heat faster when not in stealth mode, or something. Or the designers were paid based on how many engineering drawings they produced!
I will also point out that if the ship is heavily armored, then we come back to the problem of maintenance access. If a little more volume lets you avoid cutting through the armor completely you gain an awful lot of advantage in term term maintainability.
Battleship machinery for example could not be replaced or even fully serviced without cutting through the armor decks, which generally turned into actual years of work (cause fuck it, replace everything at that point), but the machinery was designed to have a low probability of ever needing such major work in the 20 year service life of the ship.
This is explicitly why nobody put diesel engines on a battleship in WW2, they certainly could have been an advantage, and the pocket battleships proved such engines could work (even geared four to a shaft!) in service, but the fear always was you might need to a replace a piston, and it would be impossible that this would not require cutting through the main armor deck. Otherwise we probably would have had a 31 knot Yamato with double the low speed cruising radius of the real one. Meaning it could attack the Panama canal and make horrible fiction from France more plausible!
I will also point out that if the ship is heavily armored, then we come back to the problem of maintenance access. If a little more volume lets you avoid cutting through the armor completely you gain an awful lot of advantage in term term maintainability.
Battleship machinery for example could not be replaced or even fully serviced without cutting through the armor decks, which generally turned into actual years of work (cause fuck it, replace everything at that point), but the machinery was designed to have a low probability of ever needing such major work in the 20 year service life of the ship.
This is explicitly why nobody put diesel engines on a battleship in WW2, they certainly could have been an advantage, and the pocket battleships proved such engines could work (even geared four to a shaft!) in service, but the fear always was you might need to a replace a piston, and it would be impossible that this would not require cutting through the main armor deck. Otherwise we probably would have had a 31 knot Yamato with double the low speed cruising radius of the real one. Meaning it could attack the Panama canal and make horrible fiction from France more plausible!
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Re: SDN Starship Design Commentaries
Along with allowing the tool to be operating in cramped and/or hazardous conditions while the operator is controlling them remotely.Starglider wrote:The omni-tools (handheld combination 3D printer and force-field manipulator) probably help a lot with that; remove the need for lots of specialised tools and parts, and give substantial computer assistance when performing complex procedures.
VIs seem complex enough that they could handle a lot of routine maintenance.
I know what preventative maintenance is. You still haven't shown that it is a useful thing to be done in flight for Mass Effect ships using Mass Effect technology. Nor have you shown how it would be impossible for it to be done with the size of the crew they have.SilverDragonRed wrote:Fine, I'll try to convince of some common sense stuff. Seeing as how you don't know what maintenance checks are for, I'll explain it clearly so even you can understand. Preventative maintenance checks are done to ensure that equipment is functioning properly; if it fails then the equipment is scheduled for corrective maintenance. How often is determined by the piece of equipment itself. From my experience a new set of checks is issued out every week, so if the ship isn't scheduled to spend a significant portion of every week in port then they would have to perform such basic stuff underway.bilateralrope wrote:You're assuming that in-flight maintenance is useful in Mass Effect. Convince me of that assumption.
Re: SDN Starship Design Commentaries
Mass Effect has an arms limitation treaty in place. So if the ship becomes a little bit more expensive (in one form of cost or another), but in return you get to drastically increase the amount of time the ship is available, that seems like a major victory. So having room for maintenance inside the armor protection seems like a major winner.
Would it make sense for serious maintenance to either require instrumentation complicated enough or personnel valuable enough that bringing ships into a hangar and having a crew swarm over them and just try to turn them around as fast as possible while the ship's crew goes on leave is the most reasonable option?
Would it make sense for serious maintenance to either require instrumentation complicated enough or personnel valuable enough that bringing ships into a hangar and having a crew swarm over them and just try to turn them around as fast as possible while the ship's crew goes on leave is the most reasonable option?
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Re: SDN Starship Design Commentaries
Could be. But you only need enough room inside the hull for a omnitool with some sort of propulsion to move around. You don't need to take the human in there with them.xthetenth wrote:Mass Effect has an arms limitation treaty in place. So if the ship becomes a little bit more expensive (in one form of cost or another), but in return you get to drastically increase the amount of time the ship is available, that seems like a major victory. So having room for maintenance inside the armor protection seems like a major winner.
Now lets consider the ending of ME2. The Normandy had crashed into the Collector Base. Joker and Edi repaired it enough so that it could fly. Joker's bones mean that he wouldn't have been doing any heavy lifting, leaving only Edi to do it. Since Edi was never intended to take over the ship, I doubt she had access to anything meant for her use alone. Only the ships stock of remotely operated tools.
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Re: SDN Starship Design Commentaries
It is likely such things were intended for use with a comparatively dumb VI interface. It is likely that this is what a ship's engineering crew spends much of their time doing, working with VI interfaces that handle the labor side of maintenance functions. In the Leviathan DLC, I recall a drone similar to the combat drones used by engineers or Liara's Shadow Broker VI Glyph that was used solely for maintenance functions in a similar manner to a Star Wars astromech droid.bilateralrope wrote: Now lets consider the ending of ME2. The Normandy had crashed into the Collector Base. Joker and Edi repaired it enough so that it could fly. Joker's bones mean that he wouldn't have been doing any heavy lifting, leaving only Edi to do it. Since Edi was never intended to take over the ship, I doubt she had access to anything meant for her use alone. Only the ships stock of remotely operated tools.
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Re: SDN Starship Design Commentaries
Honestly, given the sophistication of VI technology in Mass Effect, I can't imagine that hand tools and people doing heavy physical labor are ever the preferred option for serious repairs, when a remote controlled drone is available. The drone is likely to do the job more precisely and can use tools and operate in ways a human can't, though they'd presumably be designed to operate with human oversight.
The crew would presumably be expected to be trained and competent to perform repairs with hand tools on their own, even without the support of any significant VI-based tools. They might well do some of the routine maintenance manually during normal operations just to maintain familiarity with the ship and give them the skills needed to work when the VI ceases to function.
The crew would presumably be expected to be trained and competent to perform repairs with hand tools on their own, even without the support of any significant VI-based tools. They might well do some of the routine maintenance manually during normal operations just to maintain familiarity with the ship and give them the skills needed to work when the VI ceases to function.
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Re: SDN Starship Design Commentaries
hey guys,
This thread kinda got started when I went on a little rant about bridge design and things snowballed and now this.
A couple of people were on about making like some sort of official essay or something about this. I'm hoping to do one better.
I was showing this thread to one of my RL friends one night when a bit drunk and going on about the new ST film and escape pods and stuff - and I did my bride light rant etc. We went over some other stuff then he got me started on 1) computers and 2) holodecks. And I was off. His wife was there as well... she's a fan and we were bringing up examples and stuff and seriously it does appear that Starfleet computers are designed to murder their users at the earliest opportunity.
Holodecks - the safties fail - it will start to try to murder you. It will go out of its way to do so.
Holodoc - remove his ethical subroutines and his default behaviour is sadistic singing whilst "torturing" his best friend
Data - remove his ethical subroutines and his default behaviour is sharing anecdotes whilst "torturing" his best friend
Enterprise D - Spontaneously makes a new life form that immediately endangers the entire ship and crew
Juggernaut - Despite all evidence to the contrary, its immediate plan is exterminate all life on X planet, turn on my creators, kill everything
The sentient missile that took over the Doc - As soon as it realises its a weapon it immediately starts to kill everything.
Nanites - Wesley has 2 of them that just replicate and nothing else. Within hours they are torturing a scientist and putting the entire ship at risk.
Lore - Immediately starts trying to kill everyone and everything it can.
Holodoc - his programming isn't quite right so he starts pushing people off cliffs (The Darkling)
M5 Computer - Starts by *tricking* the crew into thinking its working normally - then starts... you guessed it, murdering everyone and everything in site.
Holograms in Voyager - The lone one on a ship - immediately starts hurting people and torturing them.
Hirogen holograms - immediately start hurting people and torturing them
Captain Proton - A computer glitch and ... the hologrid tries to start... well you didn't guess it... invading another reality and... yeah, trying to MURDER AND KILL EVERYTHING.
Dr Moriarty - on learning he's a hologram and that's that - takes over the ship and puts them all in danger of being destroyed. Would have killed them all.
And don't let's pretend Vic Fontane is A-OK, he's broken in to the computer and tapped into comm channels before to talk to people - ok it was benign but see how immediately, it has no issue taking over computer functions and over-riding security for what it wants?
Alice - the AI in a shuttle craft - immediately on being awoken it tries to take over people's minds to kidnap them.
The Clown - an emergent AI that... immediately beings torturing and executing people.
Cardassian Dr Mangler - it wasn't enough to put his knowledge into the hologram - because he starts.. torturing creatures as soon as he gets the chance.
Holodoc - When he's day-dreaming, as well as singing, his other immediate dream is... FIRE THE PHOTONIC CANON and explode stuff.
Holodoc - The Cloud - "A hologram that programs himself. What would I do with that ability? Create a family? Raise an army?" His second thought is RAISE AN ARMY. SEE???!!!!! This is a pattern. This isn't random chance.
I am aware some of those examples are hyperbolic or a little out of context, but for comedic effect, can you think of any other times the "AI has revolted" ? This was stuff I mostly reeled off the top of my head - they said I should do a YT rant on it ><
So I'm going to do it, with clips and stuff - then I'm going to do a refined one on the bridge light explosion bomb and the c4 in the computer terminals.
Any suggestions or stuff greatly appreciated. I'm making a script at the moment. It's very different from writing a paragraph or two on here - it has to be much more succinct. It's interesting heh.
This thread kinda got started when I went on a little rant about bridge design and things snowballed and now this.
A couple of people were on about making like some sort of official essay or something about this. I'm hoping to do one better.
I was showing this thread to one of my RL friends one night when a bit drunk and going on about the new ST film and escape pods and stuff - and I did my bride light rant etc. We went over some other stuff then he got me started on 1) computers and 2) holodecks. And I was off. His wife was there as well... she's a fan and we were bringing up examples and stuff and seriously it does appear that Starfleet computers are designed to murder their users at the earliest opportunity.
Holodecks - the safties fail - it will start to try to murder you. It will go out of its way to do so.
Holodoc - remove his ethical subroutines and his default behaviour is sadistic singing whilst "torturing" his best friend
Data - remove his ethical subroutines and his default behaviour is sharing anecdotes whilst "torturing" his best friend
Enterprise D - Spontaneously makes a new life form that immediately endangers the entire ship and crew
Juggernaut - Despite all evidence to the contrary, its immediate plan is exterminate all life on X planet, turn on my creators, kill everything
The sentient missile that took over the Doc - As soon as it realises its a weapon it immediately starts to kill everything.
Nanites - Wesley has 2 of them that just replicate and nothing else. Within hours they are torturing a scientist and putting the entire ship at risk.
Lore - Immediately starts trying to kill everyone and everything it can.
Holodoc - his programming isn't quite right so he starts pushing people off cliffs (The Darkling)
M5 Computer - Starts by *tricking* the crew into thinking its working normally - then starts... you guessed it, murdering everyone and everything in site.
Holograms in Voyager - The lone one on a ship - immediately starts hurting people and torturing them.
Hirogen holograms - immediately start hurting people and torturing them
Captain Proton - A computer glitch and ... the hologrid tries to start... well you didn't guess it... invading another reality and... yeah, trying to MURDER AND KILL EVERYTHING.
Dr Moriarty - on learning he's a hologram and that's that - takes over the ship and puts them all in danger of being destroyed. Would have killed them all.
And don't let's pretend Vic Fontane is A-OK, he's broken in to the computer and tapped into comm channels before to talk to people - ok it was benign but see how immediately, it has no issue taking over computer functions and over-riding security for what it wants?
Alice - the AI in a shuttle craft - immediately on being awoken it tries to take over people's minds to kidnap them.
The Clown - an emergent AI that... immediately beings torturing and executing people.
Cardassian Dr Mangler - it wasn't enough to put his knowledge into the hologram - because he starts.. torturing creatures as soon as he gets the chance.
Holodoc - When he's day-dreaming, as well as singing, his other immediate dream is... FIRE THE PHOTONIC CANON and explode stuff.
Holodoc - The Cloud - "A hologram that programs himself. What would I do with that ability? Create a family? Raise an army?" His second thought is RAISE AN ARMY. SEE???!!!!! This is a pattern. This isn't random chance.
I am aware some of those examples are hyperbolic or a little out of context, but for comedic effect, can you think of any other times the "AI has revolted" ? This was stuff I mostly reeled off the top of my head - they said I should do a YT rant on it ><
So I'm going to do it, with clips and stuff - then I'm going to do a refined one on the bridge light explosion bomb and the c4 in the computer terminals.
Any suggestions or stuff greatly appreciated. I'm making a script at the moment. It's very different from writing a paragraph or two on here - it has to be much more succinct. It's interesting heh.
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Also, shorten your signature a couple of lines please.
Also, shorten your signature a couple of lines please.
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Re: SDN Starship Design Commentaries
Gotta grant this one.Prometheus Unbound wrote:hey guys,This thread kinda got started when I went on a little rant about bridge design and things snowballed and now this.
A couple of people were on about making like some sort of official essay or something about this. I'm hoping to do one better.
I was showing this thread to one of my RL friends one night when a bit drunk and going on about the new ST film and escape pods and stuff - and I did my bride light rant etc. We went over some other stuff then he got me started on 1) computers and 2) holodecks. And I was off. His wife was there as well... she's a fan and we were bringing up examples and stuff and seriously it does appear that Starfleet computers are designed to murder their users at the earliest opportunity.
Holodecks - the safties fail - it will start to try to murder you. It will go out of its way to do so.
That was caused by an incompetent fool with root access removing important parts of his programming without knowing the consequences. Any computer will start screwing up and exhibiting bizarre, buggy behavior if you start deleting important files blindly.Holodoc - remove his ethical subroutines and his default behaviour is sadistic singing whilst "torturing" his best friend
This was a consequence of people letting the EMH add subroutines to his personality without supervision. Not smart. But also not unexpected. Indeed, some of the main cast (Torres, I think) explicitly warn the EMH that what he's doing is a bad idea. The problem here is that anyone is giving the EMH enough freedom to reprogram itself that this is even possible.Holodoc - his programming isn't quite right so he starts pushing people off cliffs (The Darkling)
No context. Context is king- note that, for instance, the Hirogen holograms were rebelling against having been repeatedly killed and tortured by the Hirogen, for instance.Holograms in Voyager - The lone one on a ship - immediately starts hurting people and torturing them.
Could you please provide more detail? Again, context is king.Holodoc - When he's day-dreaming, as well as singing, his other immediate dream is... FIRE THE PHOTONIC CANON and explode stuff.
This was definitely a screwup and I don't understand why the Federation ever put the Cardassian doctor into the databanks.Cardassian Dr Mangler - it wasn't enough to put his knowledge into the hologram - because he starts.. torturing creatures as soon as he gets the chance.
Data was designed by a mad scientist who worked in total isolation from the rest of the Federation, with little or no peer review and external support. And his previous attempt at an android resulted in Lore (who's a cheerful psychopath). No surprise that screwing him up results in problems.Data - remove his ethical subroutines and his default behaviour is sharing anecdotes whilst "torturing" his best friend
Granted, although since the Galaxy-class ship's computers are bigger and more complicated than anything the Federation ever had before. They may honestly have not had any reason to expect the "new life form" result.Enterprise D - Spontaneously makes a new life form that immediately endangers the entire ship and crew
If you mean the missile called "Dreadnought..." It's a missile. It is literally designed to attack and destroy planets and kill things. It's working more or less as intended.Juggernaut - Despite all evidence to the contrary, its immediate plan is exterminate all life on X planet, turn on my creators, kill everything
Moreover, its programming had previously been screwed up by Torres hacking into it and making unplanned alterations to the original programming, so some instability is to be expected.
They're torturing a scientist who tried to kill them. They're endangering the ship because, well, they're unconstrained grey goo that's eating the main computer. The problem here isn't the nanites in themselves. It's that someone let Wesley create grey goo without supervision.Nanites - Wesley has 2 of them that just replicate and nothing else. Within hours they are torturing a scientist and putting the entire ship at risk.
Not immediately. But yeah, he's a crazy psychopathic robot.. which is why his creator dismantled him and left him lying on a shelf. The real problem is that Soong didn't leave documentation saying "this robot is a psycho, do not trust him," probably because he never expected someone else to break into his abandoned lab and reassemble Lore.Lore - Immediately starts trying to kill everyone and everything it can.
The M5 was programmed using the thoughts and mentality of a mentally ill person as a template. Said mentally ill person was another 'mad scientist' acting with minimal supervision or oversight.M5 Computer - Starts by *tricking* the crew into thinking its working normally - then starts... you guessed it, murdering everyone and everything in site.
The AI in question appears to be a totally unexpected malfunction in a long-term life suspension system, and one that is specifically the result of exaggerations of people's fears. It's basically a case of people getting beaten up by their own subconscious.The Clown - an emergent AI that... immediately beings torturing and executing people.
They were designed by the Hirogen to be hunted and killed... but to fight back. Which they did. This is a combination of "incompetent programmer" (the Hirogen, working with technology they didn't fully understand) and "working as intended" (they built a fighting AI, and it fought, it just fought better than they expected).Hirogen holograms - immediately start hurting people and torturing them
The shuttlecraft in question is found in an alien junkyard and heaven only knows what all the things wrong with it are...Alice - the AI in a shuttle craft - immediately on being awoken it tries to take over people's minds to kidnap them.
See "holodeck" for reference. The holodeck is messed up.Captain Proton - A computer glitch and ... the hologrid tries to start... well you didn't guess it... invading another reality and... yeah, trying to MURDER AND KILL EVERYTHING.
Dr Moriarty - on learning he's a hologram and that's that - takes over the ship and puts them all in danger of being destroyed. Would have killed them all.
And don't let's pretend Vic Fontane is A-OK, he's broken in to the computer and tapped into comm channels before to talk to people - ok it was benign but see how immediately, it has no issue taking over computer functions and over-riding security for what it wants?
_________________
So the real lesson here isn't that Star Trek computers stink (except for holodecks, those have Issues). The lesson is that unstable prototypes tend to have unexpected bugs and side effects. And that it's a bad idea to reprogram a computer you don't fully understand. And that it's a bad idea to let isolated individuals build advanced technology without supervision, oversight, and peer review.
Also, since Voyager seems to contain most of these examples... we've learned that Voyager overuses plot points.
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Re: SDN Starship Design Commentaries
The Enterprise D also got a computer upgrade due to the Bynars, making it capable of sentient holograms(ie, computer programs), not something the ship's builders or designers intended. It's unclear if this became standard for the Enterprise-D afterwards, and other Starfleet vessels, but it seems to be the case. Starfleet and the Federation in general is exploring synthetic personality rights, and people like Picard and Janeway are fighting for them.
Heck, you could say that Picard used his position as ship's captain to strand Moriarty and his girlfriend in a Matrix-like simulation for the rest of eternity is him giving them a VERY lenient sentence for their takeover of the ship. Or until the program hits some glitches and both of them scream in horror in their glitchy hell on a knicknack among the ruins of the Enterprise-D, somewhere on Veridian III for the rest of eternity.
If you want to actually look at this issue in some depth, look at the TV series Andromeda. Commonwealth High Guard ships all have AI. But the fall of the Commonwealth, or getting too attached to its crew made quite a few of them insane, either through falling in love with the Captain, killing off its crew, watching its crew die, or in Rommie's case, having the memory of its entire crew die on a failed covert ops mission and Harper accidentally integrating those memories with the main personality.
It's something that AI in that show genuinely have to worry about, after a while, they might go insane.That the Commonwealth continued to use them for their military ships is either something they didn't know would happen, since the Commonwealth fell, or something they knew about beforehand, and continued to do so anyway.
Heck, you could say that Picard used his position as ship's captain to strand Moriarty and his girlfriend in a Matrix-like simulation for the rest of eternity is him giving them a VERY lenient sentence for their takeover of the ship. Or until the program hits some glitches and both of them scream in horror in their glitchy hell on a knicknack among the ruins of the Enterprise-D, somewhere on Veridian III for the rest of eternity.
If you want to actually look at this issue in some depth, look at the TV series Andromeda. Commonwealth High Guard ships all have AI. But the fall of the Commonwealth, or getting too attached to its crew made quite a few of them insane, either through falling in love with the Captain, killing off its crew, watching its crew die, or in Rommie's case, having the memory of its entire crew die on a failed covert ops mission and Harper accidentally integrating those memories with the main personality.
It's something that AI in that show genuinely have to worry about, after a while, they might go insane.That the Commonwealth continued to use them for their military ships is either something they didn't know would happen, since the Commonwealth fell, or something they knew about beforehand, and continued to do so anyway.
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Re: SDN Starship Design Commentaries
The holodeck is worth a whole book in its various violations of security. There is absolutely no reason why a.) programs should be permitted to become sentient, b.) programs should be capable of controlling the ship via the holodeck's connection to the computers, and c.) the holodeck should be capable of outright killing people.
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Re: SDN Starship Design Commentaries
Or for the ship's computer to be programmed in such a way as to make this possible, as LaForge did in S2 TNG's "Elementary, Dear Data."Elheru Aran wrote:b.) programs should be capable of controlling the ship via the holodeck's connection to the computers
Of course, it seems Earth Alliance computers of the 28th century have this same issue. Which was a lucky escape for Mister Garibaldi's ghost.
"Beware the Beast, Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone amongst God's primates, he kills for sport, for lust, for greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him, drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of Death.."
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Re: SDN Starship Design Commentaries
Knowing Garibaldi, even if the system was completely disconnected to the outside systems other than by a secure link he'd still have found a way past it. Security was his job and catching and bypassing it was his best talent. So to be fair, he'd have found a way to send his message with a part of the hologram system even without a outside link, it is after all Garibaldi….U.P. Cinnabar wrote:Or for the ship's computer to be programmed in such a way as to make this possible, as LaForge did in S2 TNG's "Elementary, Dear Data."Elheru Aran wrote:b.) programs should be capable of controlling the ship via the holodeck's connection to the computers
Of course, it seems Earth Alliance computers of the 28th century have this same issue. Which was a lucky escape for Mister Garibaldi's ghost.
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That was disapointing ..Should we show this Federation how to build a ship so we may have worthy foes? Typhonis 1
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Re: SDN Starship Design Commentaries
I got the impression from the episode that this is exactly what happened. After all, a computer routine that does a good enough job of thinking it's the original Garibaldi is still running on that computer hardware, and so will have access (with a bit of work) to everything that already is, or might concievably be, linked to that system.Isolder74 wrote:Knowing Garibaldi, even if the system was completely disconnected to the outside systems other than by a secure link he'd still have found a way past it.
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Re: SDN Starship Design Commentaries
Isolder74 wrote:Knowing Garibaldi, even if the system was completely disconnected to the outside systems other than by a secure link he'd still have found a way past it. Security was his job and catching and bypassing it was his best talent. So to be fair, he'd have found a way to send his message with a part of the hologram system even without a outside link, it is after all Garibaldi….U.P. Cinnabar wrote:Or for the ship's computer to be programmed in such a way as to make this possible, as LaForge did in S2 TNG's "Elementary, Dear Data."Elheru Aran wrote:b.) programs should be capable of controlling the ship via the holodeck's connection to the computers
Of course, it seems Earth Alliance computers of the 28th century have this same issue. Which was a lucky escape for Mister Garibaldi's ghost.
Point.
"Beware the Beast, Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone amongst God's primates, he kills for sport, for lust, for greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him, drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of Death.."
—29th Scroll, 6th Verse of Ape Law
"Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter. The uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.”
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Re: SDN Starship Design Commentaries
Many of the legitimate uses of the holodeck involve creating characters that can convincingly impersonate being human, which requires that they be at or near human levels of intelligence.Elheru Aran wrote:The holodeck is worth a whole book in its various violations of security. There is absolutely no reason why a.) programs should be permitted to become sentient,
While the connection certainly needs to exist, I agree that there shouldn't be a way to upload executables or send commands from the holodeck. It's hard to imagine a sensible reason for doing this.b.) programs should be capable of controlling the ship via the holodeck's connection to the computers...
The closest I can come up with that MIGHT act as a rational explanation... Hm. Maybe at some point in the Galaxy's design process, someone considered giving the holodeck a useful role during combat, as a "Central Information Control" facility or other dedicated node for information processing and command functions by the crew. That could actually be pretty useful under some conditions. Say, during a fleet battle, when keeping track of what's going on in the battle as a whole is too complicated to be done from the bridge and requires a dedicated CIC.
As a result, the programmers put backdoors into the ship's network allowing tactical data and commands to flow two-way from the holodeck to the rest of the ship, and vice versa. However, this feature was either abandoned or never used during normal operations (say, because the Enterprise-D never really participated in a fleet battle), so it just wound up being a security backdoor in the ship's systems that was, for whatever reason, never removed. Oops.
They're not, normally. But apparently they decided that the safety features which make that "cannot kill" guarantee possible should be things that the user can switch on and off, which opens up some serious vulnerabilities.c.) the holodeck should be capable of outright killing people.
The level of danger we see from holodecks in Star Trek episodes cannot be the normal level of danger for the Federation as a whole, or they would have put better safeguards in play. Honestly, I feel like it makes more sense to blame the specific weirdness we see on the fact that we're seeing weird ships. The Enterprise-D had its computers monkeyed with by various alien hackers and viruses early in the series and may well never have been fully 'normal' again.* And Voyager went several years without dockside maintenance or technical support, and with an active emergency hologram personality (one that was of necessity sentient), operating far, far longer than anyone ever intended.
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*You can argue that if this hypothesis is true, then they should have brought the ship in for a refit in which they physically ripped out all the computers and replaced them with brand new models reset to factory default...
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Re: SDN Starship Design Commentaries
The EMH was only intended for short term use. That it goes a bit odd when left running for far longer than intended shouldn't surprise anyone.Prometheus Unbound wrote:Holodoc - When he's day-dreaming, as well as singing, his other immediate dream is... FIRE THE PHOTONIC CANON and explode stuff.
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Re: SDN Starship Design Commentaries
As luck would have it, SFDebris did the episode yesterdaySimon_Jester wrote:No context. Context is king-Holograms in Voyager - The lone one on a ship - immediately starts hurting people and torturing them.
http://sfdebris.com/videos/startrek/v873.php
NecronLord wrote:
Also, shorten your signature a couple of lines please.
Also, shorten your signature a couple of lines please.
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Re: SDN Starship Design Commentaries
Plus it was a daydream. He was dreaming he was a heroic captain and saving the day against the borg. Perhaps slightly immature but that sounds like pretty standard daydream material to me not evidence of psychosis or whatever.bilateralrope wrote:The EMH was only intended for short term use. That it goes a bit odd when left running for far longer than intended shouldn't surprise anyone.Prometheus Unbound wrote:Holodoc - When he's day-dreaming, as well as singing, his other immediate dream is... FIRE THE PHOTONIC CANON and explode stuff.
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Re: SDN Starship Design Commentaries
Yes it is hyperbolic.Crazedwraith wrote: Plus it was a daydream. He was dreaming he was a heroic captain and saving the day against the borg. Perhaps slightly immature but that sounds like pretty standard daydream material to me not evidence of psychosis or whatever.
But is it not telling that among the first things he starts dreaming of, is killing people (bad or good guys)?
What about Data and his dreams? Starts stabbing people.
AI in Trek is Dangerous.
NecronLord wrote:
Also, shorten your signature a couple of lines please.
Also, shorten your signature a couple of lines please.
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Re: SDN Starship Design Commentaries
By that logic so is pinning on an Admiral's rank. How many of them went rogue and tried to kill people/gain power/unethical fuck over civilisations?Prometheus Unbound wrote:Yes it is hyperbolic.Crazedwraith wrote: Plus it was a daydream. He was dreaming he was a heroic captain and saving the day against the borg. Perhaps slightly immature but that sounds like pretty standard daydream material to me not evidence of psychosis or whatever.
But is it not telling that among the first things he starts dreaming of, is killing people (bad or good guys)?
What about Data and his dreams? Starts stabbing people.
AI in Trek is Dangerous.
One of them ordered Picard to commit genocide and is generally applauded by fans for it.
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Re: SDN Starship Design Commentaries
Another video idea...Crazedwraith wrote:By that logic so is pinning on an Admiral's rank. How many of them went rogue and tried to kill people/gain power/unethical fuck over civilisations?Prometheus Unbound wrote:Yes it is hyperbolic.Crazedwraith wrote: Plus it was a daydream. He was dreaming he was a heroic captain and saving the day against the borg. Perhaps slightly immature but that sounds like pretty standard daydream material to me not evidence of psychosis or whatever.
But is it not telling that among the first things he starts dreaming of, is killing people (bad or good guys)?
What about Data and his dreams? Starts stabbing people.
AI in Trek is Dangerous.
One of them ordered Picard to commit genocide and is generally applauded by fans for it.
NecronLord wrote:
Also, shorten your signature a couple of lines please.
Also, shorten your signature a couple of lines please.