Self Destruct.
- Thread starter dispatcher812
- Start date
Wasn't it? No more movies about them since then... (excluding STXI, which isn't even this universe)!
As I understand your post. Which ever three person group contains the highest ranking officer, would be the group that the computer "listens to."
So one group with the 2nd, 12th and 15th officers make one order and the other group with the 3rd, 4th and 5th officers makes another order, the computer would follow the order of the group with the 2nd officer.
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I'm reminded of the old Space: 1999 series, when someone would die or be killed, the computer would automatically make an announcement in the command center: "Specialist John Smith, life function terminated."
Of course, they all had surgically implanted medical sensors, tied into the communications system. Clever them British.
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T'Girl
Didn't they give the same three passwords for destruction after fifteen-odd years (TOS to TSFS) had elapsed? How'd they get away with that?
And, using 1A, 2B and such . . . that's not much better than Mel Brooks' 1-2-3-4 combination in Spaceballs.
And, using 1A, 2B and such . . . that's not much better than Mel Brooks' 1-2-3-4 combination in Spaceballs.
And how many officers does it take to engage self-destruct? Several times in TNG, it takes Riker to agree with Picard.
COMPUTER: Does the First Officer concur?
RIKER: Yes, the First Officer concurs. Code blahblahblah
But in VOY, Janeway turns it on by herself, like in "Deadlock."
COMPUTER: Does the First Officer concur?
RIKER: Yes, the First Officer concurs. Code blahblahblah
But in VOY, Janeway turns it on by herself, like in "Deadlock."
^ That's Janeway though...and since her first and third officers are former terrorists, I'm guessing she thought "Screw it, I wanna be able to kill stuff and not worry about the consequences...like hybrids of my crew, only on a larger scale...like the entire crew or something?"
Worf: "Hey Geordi, how many officers does it take to engage self-destruct?"
Geordi: (**sigh**) "Oh I don't know ... how many officers does it take to engage self-destruct Worf?"
We don't know if those were passwords. In both TOS and ST3, the three officers first identified themselves for the computer by their names (and supposedly their voiceprints, plus whatever else the computer was equipped to scan of them), and only then began spelling out these instructions that all went
1) Destruct sequence # (where # was a sequential number)
2) Code BlahBlah (where we never learned what the BlahBlah bit did, but it wasn't tied to the person or the position because Chekov had the same BlahBlah in ST3 as Scotty had in TOS, and Scotty had the same in ST3 that Spock had in TOS).
Probably the litany had no ID role to serve because ID matters had been taken care of already. It may have held some other information content instead. Say, "1, 1A" may mean "Yes, I mean it, plus I request it under the A category of access for top officers", while "1, 1A, 2B" means "I add my bit despite being a B-category officer so I quote the privileges of the A guy who started this all" and "1B, 2B, 3" is something like "I am a lowly B here, but since there's nobody else around above my level, I invoke clause 3 and now get going with it already".
Timo Saloniemi
I imagine the self-destruct situation to be similar to the procedure that Submarine captains and XOs have to go through to launch a nuclear missile. Basically triple redundancy in both code, physical key, and personnel. When ever the anyone of the officer is out of the chain of command for whatever reason, the next ranking officer takes over the role. The codes don't change, but the authority and the physical key passes hands.
I'm guessing Janeway pulled the same stunt as the Ramsey in becoming the sole person with the ultimate power. (Not literally the same stunt, but the result was the same)
I'm guessing Janeway pulled the same stunt as the Ramsey in becoming the sole person with the ultimate power. (Not literally the same stunt, but the result was the same)
I find it interesting that Worf was able to issue one of the three required authorizations to the Enterprise-E computer in First Contact, even though he was not even part of the Enterprise-E's crew. Can any command-level Starfleet officer give the destruct authorization -- or at least one of the "yes, I agree with the captain" authorizations -- on any ship? It seems unlikely that in the midst of a battle with the Borg, that someone would have taken the time to actually officially transfer Worf to the Enterprise crew and fit him with the appropriate command codes.
Good explanations. Thanks.
Considering that it apparently is necessary and desirable for Starfleet to destroy its own starships, it's probably better to give the authority to many rather than few.
I mean, when scuttling or disabling has been needed, the cases have been split almost evenly between the need to destroy or paralyze one's own ship (the Enterprise in ST3, the E-D in "11001001" and "Where Silence Has Lease", the E-E in ST:FC and ST:NEM, the Voyager numerous times) and the need to destroy a fellow Starfleet vessel (the Lantree in "Unnatural Selection", the Reliant in ST2, the Phoenix in "The Wounded", the runabout in "Timescape" or "Armageddon Game").
Remote control by people not directly associated with the vessel to be controlled is a must for Starfleet. Scuttling via remote control, or by personnel unassociated with the vessel but trusted by Starfleet, would be a logical extension of that.
Admittedly, though, not even the Lantree was scuttled by remote command, but by a photon torpedo. So perhaps there are too many firewalls between one ship and another for such things to be handled without allowing the "guest executioner" inside the victim vessel.
Timo Saloniemi
I imagine that Worf's transfer was done in a matter of seconds with a few spoken words from Picard or Riker. 'Computer, transfer post of Lt. Cmdr Worf to NCC-1701-D, authorization baker baker charlie whiskey...' etc. And all rank authority would transfer immediately. After all, field promotions and the like would be taking place all the time.
That aside, I think the self-destruct question is suffering from a bit of overthinking, here. 'Automated self-destruct' requires authorization codes, etc, sure. But Kirk was able to more or less just order Scotty to blow up the ship in TMP. I imagine an engineering crew, given the order from a superior officer to make the warp core go boom, could pull it off, computer be damned. The computerized self-destruct sequence feels more like an automation feature than an actual safety measure. Most episodes were oriented around engineering crews keeping the ship from blowing, up rather than attempting to do so intentionally, and, let's face it - if they have the level of access to the system that allows them to keep it from going KABOOM, then they almost certainly have the ability to make it happen. The safeguards would be other people. If some rogue crew member attempts to make steps to initiate such an event, by lowering the Antimatter Inhibitor Field Strength or whatever - by issuing computer commands or simply disconnecting wires - alarms start going off, and countermeasures can begin before the redundant systems are also compromised.
To put it shortly, unless the computer is all-powerful, i.e., able to stop you in your tracks physically, one should be able to self-destruct 'manually' without too much trouble.
Picard: " Mister Worf, we could use some help at tactical."
That might have been all that was required, Picard assigning Worf to a bridge (or any) station.
The Enterprise E's computer likely has all Starfleet personnel's identities stored in a sub-file, now in an emergency if Picard had assigned someone like Vash to a bridge station she wouldn't have been able to confirm a self-destruct order.
Kurn, while he was first officer could yes, Odo ... hard to say.
The big question here is the countdown. A 'manual' self-destruct would probably mean suicide, at least for the team left behind to commit the act. Delayed fuses and the like would probably be too unreliable in most cases, considering that self-destruct would usually be commanded when everything was going haywire anyway.
Coded, computer-controlled scuttling would be the more viable tactical maneuver, the one that can be used to destroy an enemy boarding party or to blackmail an already successful boarder to backing off. Manual scuttling would be fairly rarely needed, as Starfleet doesn't usually want to blow up its own ships... If the ship is a dangerous derelict like the Lantree, it can be disposed of with a single photon torpedo as shown. If it's a benign derelict like the Stargazer, Starfleet apparently has no regulations calling for its scuttling.
Which is why I'm dismayed by this bit in ST:NEM...
If Picard wanted to commit suicide there and then, he would have needed no authorization, no computer, no sequence. He could have walked down to the kaboom-prone bits of his ship and drawn his phaser.
Of course, the movie could have offered the further rationalization that nothing in the ship was kaboom-prone any more. Say, the warp core might have been ejected, all the fuel purged, and nothing in Picard's suicide would help harm Shinzon and his evil starship. Too bad none of this was suggested in the dialogue.
Timo Saloniemi
Yeah, I had to laugh at the notion of the self-destruct system being 'offline'.
...To be sure, the real history of naval fighting is full of sad stories of failed scuttlings, even though one'd think it trivially easy to send one's own warship to the bottom of the sea. It carries ordnance and combustibles, after all, and even a fairly small hole below the waterline will be fatal. Yet in practice, it's difficult to rig ordnance to explode, and scuttling valves work slowly and can be closed again by enemy boarders. Which is why special training and equipment is provided for efficient scuttling, amounting to pretty much the same as Trek's "self-destruct systems". Without them, the ship may well fall into enemy hands.
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
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