Manual over-ride? HUH?

[RobertScorpio]

I was watching Star Trek DS9 last night. It was THE VISITOR, the great episode where Jake has to go on with out his father. I noticed how the manual over-ride didn't work in a pivotal scene. Then I got to wondering, in all of Star Trek(s), has that damn over-ride ever worked? It is usually jammed, or malfucntions, or whatever. So my challenge to my Star Trek kin; has the Manual Over-ride ever worked on Star Trek, and when?

Robert Scorpio
and the Ice Princess

 

[David cgc]

In "Generations," the manuel lever worked when Geordi was sealing off the Jeffery's Tube leading to the battle section.

Of course, my personal favorite instance of the manuel lever failing would be "First Contact," where Picard tries to use it to open the door to engineering, and it breaks off in a shower of sparks. I think Starfleet might've overdesigned their doorknobs.

 

[Trekwatcher]

It actually makes a lot of sense on a computer driven ship to have manual overrides, but I agree they never really do a good job of conveying this. They were close in TOS in some of the Jeffries Tube scenes, but even those looked hokey to me.

 

[-Brett-]

As far as useless features on a starship go, the transporter overrides seem to be the worst. On one of the spin offs, I think it was Voyager, someone would be beaming off the ship when they shouldn't be just about every week, and every time the captain would say "Override that transporter" and every time that nameless asian redhirt would say "Too late" or "I can't" or "How do you do that again?" or "I'm sorry, I wasn't paying attention, what did you say?".

I guess if it's some badass commando with leet skills it would be understandable, but half the time it's just some dumb space-hick.

 

[HaplessCrewman]

Wasn't there a scene in First Contact where Data activates the "manual over-ride" on a door and the computer says "Manual over-ride online"? I thought "manual" meant "operated by the hand rather than by an electronic device" Why would it have to be "online"?

Someone, please explain!

It's like "The League of Unaligned Worlds" on Babylon 5.

 

[Trekker4747]

Wasn't there a scene in First Contact where Data activates the "manual over-ride" on a door and the computer says "Manual over-ride online"? I thought "manual" meant "operated by the hand rather than by an electronic device" Why would it have to be "online"?

Someone, please explain!

It's like "The League of Unaligned Worlds" on Babylon 5.

Yeah. That always made me laugh.

Similary, I laughed in "Nemesis" when the damn auto-destruct was off-line. How the hell does a series of bombs set around the ship go off-line? Or, for that matter, the on/off switch to the antimatter containment pods?

It's absurd that anything "manual" would fail to be online.

 

[Mr. Fergy]

Wasn't there a scene in First Contact where Data activates the "manual over-ride" on a door and the computer says "Manual over-ride online"? I thought "manual" meant "operated by the hand rather than by an electronic device" Why would it have to be "online"?

Someone, please explain!

It's like "The League of Unaligned Worlds" on Babylon 5.

It was Worf and Picard actually, and they where in the space suits on the outside of the E-E trying to stop the 24th century Borg from communicating to 21st century Borg far away from attacking Earth.

 

[Trekker4747]

Wasn't there a scene in First Contact where Data activates the "manual over-ride" on a door and the computer says "Manual over-ride online"? I thought "manual" meant "operated by the hand rather than by an electronic device" Why would it have to be "online"?

Someone, please explain!

It's like "The League of Unaligned Worlds" on Babylon 5.

It was Worf and Picard actually, and they where in the space suits on the outside of the E-E trying to stop the 24th century Borg from communicating to 21st century Borg far away from attacking Earth.

No it's in the corridor.

One of them opens the panel to the door handle and the computer says, "Manual Override Online" then Data pulls the handle... right out of the wall.

 

[Timo]

How the hell does a series of bombs set around the ship go off-line?

The wires in between get cut?

That sort of thing happens all the time in the real world. Scuttling a warship at sea has always been a tedious and difficult task, and one that more often fails than not. After all, it's not a good idea to sail a ship that is rigged to explode or otherwise perish in a surefire manner. Self-destruct systems are instead always based on the idea that it should take considerable effort to make them work. And the odds of failure are often greater than the odds of success, which is good, because failure protects the ship and the crew in most situations, and most situations call for those to be protected...

I thought "manual" meant "operated by the hand rather than by an electronic device" Why would it have to be "online"?

There are many things in this world, let alone in Star Trek's, that cannot be operated by simple mechanical force no matter what the emergency. "Overrides" for those would necessarily involve complex components, electric power, codes, interacting chemicals, computational resources and whatnot. The simplest of the multiple backups might be referred to as "manual" in such a case, even if the role of the hand would be limited to pushing yet another button.

(...However, the handle to a set of pocket doors isn't one of those things!)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[hokstein]

Wasn't there a scene in First Contact where Data activates the "manual over-ride" on a door and the computer says "Manual over-ride online"? I thought "manual" meant "operated by the hand rather than by an electronic device" Why would it have to be "online"?

I believe "manual" means that a human is in control of the process, whether or not he's really using his hands to do it. While the other way ("automatic"?) means that the computer is following its predefined programming. So that message might be saying that the computer has stopped acting, and the equipament in question will now be getting commands from the terminal the human is using.

 

[Cicero]

It's like "The League of Unaligned Worlds" on Babylon 5.

Yeah. That always made me laugh.

There's a similar organization in the real world, the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), formed under Indian auspices in 1955. The NAM has begun to fall apart since the end of the Cold War; several member states have left the organization (to join the EU, primarily), and even India is beginning to move into association, with the United States.

 

[erastus25]

Wasn't there a scene in First Contact where Data activates the "manual over-ride" on a door and the computer says "Manual over-ride online"? I thought "manual" meant "operated by the hand rather than by an electronic device" Why would it have to be "online"?

I believe "manual" means that a human is in control of the process, whether or not he's really using his hands to do it. While the other way ("automatic"?) means that the computer is following its predefined programming. So that message might be saying that the computer has stopped acting, and the equipament in question will now be getting commands from the terminal the human is using.

That was always my interpretation too. Although it opens the door to have a manual override of a manual override. For example: door doesn't open, so you hit some buttons on the panel to convince the computer to open. That doesn't work and you open another panel and there's a flimsy handle to pull on.

 

[Timo]

...And THEN there is this small gadget you press against the door so you can slide it aside by sheer muscular strength. We see the gadget in a number of episodes where the hero ship loses internal power, most significantly in TNG "Starship Mine".

Is it just a suction cup (or magnet or gravitic grappler) to create leverage so that the otherwise handleless doors can be forced by muscle? Or does it also have the function of demagnetizing the maglocks of the doors, or something like that? It's too bad we didn't see this silly little gadget in ST:FC instead of the handle - an opportunity for continuity lost, but perhaps a moment of dramatic clarity gained.

As for a treknobabble reason for the rather absurd handle we saw in the movie, perhaps the heavy vertically moving doors like those to Enterprise-E Main Engineering cannot be budged without the benefit of motors of some sort? The handle might simply be the switch for those motors, or then perhaps a crank lever for powering up the motors / creating the necessary hydraulic pressure.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Dr_Daystrom]

Apparantly all doors in the Star Trek universe have a basic manual override.

Place your hands on the door, palming the flat surface
Slide the door a little to the side
Hook your fingers over the edge
Push the door the rest of the way open

How many times have we seen that manuever in every incarnation of Star Trek? There isn't a secure door in the whole Federation!

 

[hokstein]

^^I wonder if this system shows an "online" message as well.

 

[erastus25]

Apparantly all doors in the Star Trek universe have a basic manual override.

Place your hands on the door, palming the flat surface
Slide the door a little to the side
Hook your fingers over the edge
Push the door the rest of the way open

How many times have we seen that manuever in every incarnation of Star Trek? There isn't a secure door in the whole Federation!

That only works if your Data or Worf. Or if it's necessary for the plot.

 

[Dr_Daystrom]

Apparantly all doors in the Star Trek universe have a basic manual override.

Place your hands on the door, palming the flat surface
Slide the door a little to the side
Hook your fingers over the edge
Push the door the rest of the way open

How many times have we seen that manuever in every incarnation of Star Trek? There isn't a secure door in the whole Federation!

That only works if your Data or Worf. Or if it's necessary for the plot.

No, others have done it as well. Picard, Khan (but he had great strength), Janeway, Archer & others. Yes, it's a plot device, but a poor one. When a door is locked, but someone needs to get in, they just force the door. It's just like time travel in Trek. An over used plot device.

Of course, maybe you're just funning with me!

 

[erastus25]

Apparantly all doors in the Star Trek universe have a basic manual override.

Place your hands on the door, palming the flat surface
Slide the door a little to the side
Hook your fingers over the edge
Push the door the rest of the way open

How many times have we seen that manuever in every incarnation of Star Trek? There isn't a secure door in the whole Federation!

That only works if your Data or Worf. Or if it's necessary for the plot.

No, others have done it as well. Picard, Khan (but he had great strength), Janeway, Archer & others. Yes, it's a plot device, but a poor one. When a door is locked, but someone needs to get in, they just force the door. It's just like time travel in Trek. An over used plot device.

Of course, maybe you're just funning with me!

Yeah, my point was that if Data or Worf are there they almost always get it done, but if they're not, another character suddenly has super strength too!

 

[drasche]

In Insurrection, when Riker used the joystick to helm the Enterprise.

 

[RobertScorpio]

In Insurrection, when Riker used the joystick to helm the Enterprise.

It took a long time for me to surpress that memory..THANKS ALOT!!!

Rob