The Biofilter Brainbug

[Patrick Degan]

Today, SciFi's stripping a bunch of their horribly butchered first season episodes of TOS, and the one up now as I write is "The Naked Time", which is probably the origin episode for the biofilter brainbug.

As you recall, Mr. Spock and Lt. Tormoleon were sent down to Psi 2000 to pick up the science team monitoring the planet's very improbable contraction prior to its even more ludicrously improbable breakup and of course they discover everybody dead. Both officers from the Enterprise beamed down in full biohazard suits (one of the very few times a planet expedition was written with some consideration for hazardous conditions). When they return to the ship, they are held in the transporter chamber for decontamination. From what's depicted, it's quite obvious that what's occurring is that both men are being subjected to a low-level radiation bombardment to kill off microbes on the surface of their suits; similar to the present-day irradiation of foodstuffs to destroy contaminating bacteria. The decontamination didn't work however because the substance they picked up wasn't a biohazard but chemically-altered water, and of course because Tormoleon was stupid enough on the surface to expose himself to contamination. But in the TOS episode, the mechanism depicted in the transporter decontamination actually makes sense and is analogous to a present-day process.

But the writers for TNG somehow transformed this into some mechanism of the transporter which kills off microbal contamination during the beaming process —unless of course the transporter's not programmed for it, and hence the odious brainbug we know today as the biofilter, which made its first appearance in TNG's half-assed rewrite of "The Naked Time" for season one.

Oh for the days when the transporter was simply a handy device to get you from A to B.

[Tsyroc]

I don't have a problem with something that works on a sub-molecular level being able to detect things that they don't want beamed up.

However, I don't think they should ever be able to beam up problems with people they originally beamed down. It makes some sense that if they beam up someone who's hasn't been on the ship before that the computer might not catch something that it hasn't been programmed for, but people who left the ship via transporter and returned the same way should never be able to carry anything that would infect the ship. The transporter computer should be comparing a person's pattern from before and eliminating anything that it doesn't recognize, including funky water molecules. If that means that away members sometimes have spotty memories of their away trip then that's going to be one of the trade offs of using the transporter for away missions instead of taking a shuttle.

[Batman]

The transporter computer should be comparing a person's pattern from before and eliminating anything that it doesn't recognize, including funky water molecules

Anything it doesn't recognize as benign (that's what the biofilter is supposed to do), or anything it doesn't recognize, period?
Apart from some problem's I'll get into below, that means keepingeverybody's tranporter pattern forever, doing a complete medical on everybody who wants to beam. Every time.

. If that means that away members sometimes have spotty memories of their away trip then that's going to be one of the trade offs of using the transporter for away missions instead of taking a shuttle.

Given my understanding of our understanding of how memory works, they'll always loose all memories of the time they were down. Makes recon/science missions rather useless.
Mind you, they'll also always stay the age the are in they're buffered profile but that's not a way I'd like to live.
Taking meals down planet is a waste of time, the stuff's not going to stay with you.
Oh, better don't change your clothes.
Beaming down to /up from Organ transplants are going to become pretty interesting.Or artificial organs.
Don't bother painting your nails or dying your hair down there. Ditto for bolt-on ornamentation.
Shopping is out of the question.
God forbid you catch pregnant.

While you can technically use shuttles given the prevalence of transporter usage in Trek that would be a major headache.
Alternatively, you can go with my proposed 'benign' filter-which essentially is the biofilter as it exists now (or bog-standard decontamination but this being TNG+...)

[Drooling Iguana]

But the writers for TNG somehow transformed this into some mechanism of the transporter which kills off microbal contamination during the beaming process —unless of course the transporter's not programmed for it, and hence the odious brainbug we know today as the biofilter, which made its first appearance in TNG's half-assed rewrite of "The Naked Time" for season one.

Would you rather see Picard and Worf covering each other with decon gel?

[Tsyroc]

Anything it doesn't recognize as benign (that's what the biofilter is supposed to do), or anything it doesn't recognize, period?
Apart from some problem's I'll get into below, that means keepingeverybody's tranporter pattern forever, doing a complete medical on everybody who wants to beam. Every time.

I was thinking everything that it doesn't recognize period but that was because of the water molecule problem.

As for the transporter pattern you mention I was only thinking along the lines of storing the pattern of people as they beam down and then compareing that with their pattern as they beam back up and blocking anything that looks out of the ordinary or can't be identified as safe before letting them onto the ship.

This would just be on an away team to away team basis so they wouldn't waste a ton of computer memory storeing everyone's patterns.

Given my understanding of our understanding of how memory works, they'll always loose all memories of the time they were down. Makes recon/science missions rather useless.
Mind you, they'll also always stay the age the are in they're buffered profile but that's not a way I'd like to live.

I didn't mean for everything to be taken to that extreme. I just meant that if on ocassion they couldn't identify something it's possible that in eliminating it there could be some side-effects, like the memory loss. I suppose there could also be worse side-effects but I was hoping that if something was that questionable in their pattern that they'd either leave them where they were or beam them into quarantine.

Taking meals down planet is a waste of time, the stuff's not going to stay with you.
Oh, better don't change your clothes.
Beaming down to /up from Organ transplants are going to become pretty interesting.Or artificial organs.
Don't bother painting your nails or dying your hair down there. Ditto for bolt-on ornamentation.
Shopping is out of the question.
God forbid you catch pregnant.

I'm thinking that I didn't explain myself very well and that you are taking it to extremes. It wasn't my plan to just reassemble the person to the exact parameters they had before they left the ship. I just wanted to use those to compare for differences that could not be explained or identified by the computer except maybe a bit more restrictive so stuff like the altered water molecule wouldn't get through.

The thing with the organs shouldn't be a problem if the person had them before they left or if they computer is set up to identify such things. Maybe a person might have to be cleared before they beam up with such things for the first time?

I would think that pregnancy should be something that should normally go through, but considering some of the freaky stuff that happens in Trek maybe people who got pregnant while on an away mission should be beamed to quarantine just in case anyway.

[Batman]

Anything it doesn't recognize as benign (that's what the biofilter is supposed to do), or anything it doesn't recognize, period?

I was thinking everything that it doesn't recognize period but that was because of the water molecule problem.

Hence my list of potential problems with that.

As for the transporter pattern you mention I was only thinking along the lines of storing the pattern of people as they beam down and then compareing that with their pattern as they beam back up and blocking anything that looks out of the ordinary or can't be identified as safe before letting them onto the ship.

Sort of like the biofilter then?

This would just be on an away team to away team basis so they wouldn't waste a ton of computer memory storeing everyone's patterns.

Which works only as long as nobody but away teams uses the transporter...

Given my understanding of our understanding of how memory works, they'll always loose all memories of the time they were down. Makes recon/science missions rather useless.
Mind you, they'll also always stay the age the are in they're buffered profile but that's not a way I'd like to live.

I didn't mean for everything to be taken to that extreme. I just meant that if on ocassion they couldn't identify something it's possible that in eliminating it there could be some side-effects, like the memory loss.

OK. You're working with selective elimination, hence my 'benign' filter.

I suppose there could also be worse side-effects but I was hoping that if something was that questionable in their pattern that they'd either leave them where they were or beam them into quarantine.

This is why I split it of between selective and conditional removal. Conditional removal brings us back to how the computer identifies what is 'benign' and what not. Unless you spend consideral resources on keeping the biofilter 'virus' database continually updated you're sooner or later going to run into something it doesn't know.

Taking meals down planet is a waste of time, the stuff's not going to stay with you.
Oh, better don't change your clothes.
Beaming down to /up from Organ transplants are going to become pretty interesting.Or artificial organs.
Don't bother painting your nails or dying your hair down there. Ditto for bolt-on ornamentation.
Shopping is out of the question.
God forbid you catch pregnant.

I'm thinking that I didn't explain myself very well and that you are taking it to extremes.

While I AM taking this to a deliberate extreme, the problem is not your explanation but that IMHO you didn't think it's consequences through.

It wasn't my plan to just reassemble the person to the exact parameters they had before they left the ship. I just wanted to use those to compare for differences that could not be explained or identified by the computer except maybe a bit more restrictive so stuff like the altered water molecule wouldn't get through.

Which is what the biofilter already (supposedly) does. The water should have been filtered out because they had known about it for 300 years (the effects were to close to that of the original Psi2000 water for them not to be closely related, but the biofilter concept is OK.
It's just shoddily executed and should realistically be combined with standard decontam/your reconstruction/quarantine idea.

The thing with the organs shouldn't be a problem if the person had them before they left

Sorry, I meant beaming down FOR a transplant. Like to a hospital planet or something.

Maybe a person might have to be cleared before they beam up with such things for the first time?
I would think that pregnancy should be something that should normally go through, but considering some of the freaky stuff that happens in Trek maybe people who got pregnant while on an away mission should be beamed to quarantine just in case anyway.

Problem, transporters are used for everything, not just away teams. How 'bout you're picking up on planet for quite a while? Say on TDY? Or NON-Starfleet members? Relocation of colonists? Random civilians?
None of my examples is all that irrational given the extent of transporter usage (though most of them are in AwayTeam situations, I'll give you that). With your 'complete' reconstruction system all those run into trouble. 'Selective' reconstruction basically means the biofilter (at least in principle).

[Batman]

The real sad part is that even as it is the biofilter isn't actually a considerable problem -in low-thread situations.
Shuttling civilians from Earth to Vulcan is not likely to have them encounter any unknown (if at all) dangerous organisms. No Prob.
But in situation were they are, how about more restrictive safety parameters? Like a reduced list of benign alterations, the transporter outright rejecting anything it doesn't know to be benign, up to it rejecting anything it doesn't know, period?
But oh no, let's just use the same leaky filter files all the time.

[General Zod]

The real sad part is that even as it is the biofilter isn't actually a considerable problem -in low-thread situations.
Shuttling civilians from Earth to Vulcan is not likely to have them encounter any unknown (if at all) dangerous organisms. No Prob.
But in situation were they are, how about more restrictive safety parameters? Like a reduced list of benign alterations, the transporter outright rejecting anything it doesn't know to be benign, up to it rejecting anything it doesn't know, period?
But oh no, let's just use the same leaky filter files all the time.

they clearly base their transporter filters off of a microsoft configuration. now we know what happens to the future when microsoft takes over the world.

[Patrick Degan]

But the writers for TNG somehow transformed this into some mechanism of the transporter which kills off microbal contamination during the beaming process —unless of course the transporter's not programmed for it, and hence the odious brainbug we know today as the biofilter, which made its first appearance in TNG's half-assed rewrite of "The Naked Time" for season one.

Would you rather see Picard and Worf covering each other with decon gel?

I could have gone the rest of my life without that mental image...

[Tsyroc]

Sort of like the biofilter then?

I guess, except I thought the biofilter was only checking for things it recognized as hazardous or as an unknown organism. I didn't think they were comparing before and after patterns of the away team. I was thinking that might be more thorough. It might also be a waste of time for what little advantage it could possibly bring.

This is why I split it of between selective and conditional removal. Conditional removal brings us back to how the computer identifies what is 'benign' and what not. Unless you spend consideral resources on keeping the biofilter 'virus' database continually updated you're sooner or later going to run into something it doesn't know.

They already should be doing that anyway with the way the current biofilter seems like it should work, but as you pointed out they haven't dealt with a problem that they've known about for 300 years so there must be a pretty big backlog in updating the database.

While I AM taking this to a deliberate extreme, the problem is not your explanation but that IMHO you didn't think it's consequences through.

Actually with the way I was picturing it I thought of many of those things but didn't see them as a problem because I was thinking things would mostly be selective and that the vast majority of the time nothing would be filtered on a molecular/sub-molecular level. I guess I was just expecting things to work better than they likely would. I mean, most stuff in Trek seems to work extremely well until it's time for the plot device of the week.

Which is what the biofilter already (supposedly) does. The water should have been filtered out because they had known about it for 300 years (the effects were to close to that of the original Psi2000 water for them not to be closely related, but the biofilter concept is OK.
It's just shoddily executed and should realistically be combined with standard decontam/your reconstruction/quarantine idea.

Maybe the water thing is a problem because it's chemcial and not biological? Or maybe they decided not to program something into a safety device when they've only seen the problem once in 300 years and because it was in such a unique situation.

Problem, transporters are used for everything, not just away teams. How 'bout you're picking up on planet for quite a while? Say on TDY? Or NON-Starfleet members? Relocation of colonists? Random civilians?
None of my examples is all that irrational given the extent of transporter usage (though most of them are in AwayTeam situations, I'll give you that). With your 'complete' reconstruction system all those run into trouble. 'Selective' reconstruction basically means the biofilter (at least in principle).

I was thinking my idea would be helpful with the away teams because they usually seem to be the ones who pick stuff up because they are more likely to be going to an unknown place. They also seem to be in a hury more than most, but you are right my idea would not be helpful at all during emergency evacuations and the like.

The rest of the people you mention should be going through some sort of quarantine before and/or after they transport to the ship. For the sake of story speed they've allowed the biofilter to work very well in most cases and to fail in some rather iffy ones.


Anyway, I see your point. What I was proposing is mostly how the biofilter should be working already. Come to think of it, I think there have been times when the crew has compared a person's before and after patterns in the transporter logs but not quite to the extent I was thinking.

[Tsyroc]

Would you rather see Picard and Worf covering each other with decon gel?

I could have gone the rest of my life without that mental image...

Really? How about this one?

THATS NOT DECON GEL!

[Patrick Degan]

Would you rather see Picard and Worf covering each other with decon gel?

I could have gone the rest of my life without that mental image...

Really? How about this one?

THATS NOT DECON GEL!

AAAAAAAGH!

[Tsyroc]

AAAAAAAGH!