AUTO-DESTRUCT Protocol Question
- Thread starter rramarr
- Start date
The Worf thing is a plot hole I never noticed before. Data can mimic voices of other crew members and can type very fast. If anyone can override the fail safes on a ship and defy the Captain, it would be Data
I never even thought about it as a plot hole regarding Worf, until I read this thread.
And you are 100% correct about Data. If anyone can get around the bulit-in security measures, it would be him.
Which is as it should be. It's a secret code, damnit! It's intended to keep roughly 100% of the people in the universe from performing the self-destruct, so that only a handful of people can successfully order it. Of course it should never be the same code twice. Or even the same exact procedure - if the setup allows for variation, this variation should be implemented.
Timo Saloniemi
That's interesting! We may have to meet with the starfleet council of regulations over that one. If I understand you correctly you would prefer some various changing procedure to initiate and abort auto-destruct. What if captain Picard misses a subspace memo while he is off trimming his vineyard and doesn't know or remember how to abort the procedure or he is dead. In a crisis situation, I don't think I want to put a lot of effort remembering what is the current process for initiating or aborting a starfleet vessel from blowing up - especially during a silent countdown.
"What do you mean the escape pods are damaged? How do we abort the auto-destruct? I don't know... let's see... last week you needed three bridge officers. This week I think its a cook and four ensigns." "The code is zero-zero-zero-A1A-A2 or is it B3?"
I'm just fooling. You are right only a hand full of senior officers but something they can remember quickly when they need it in a crisis. There is already a voice recognition safeguard. I like the naval submarine protocol for firing a nuclear missile better.
Today Scifi ironically aired ST: TNG "Where Silence Has Lease" On that show It took Picard and Riker from Engineering to initiate the auto-destruct using their hand prints. To abort they did it on the bridge without hand prints and the computer asked if Riker concurred. They did not use any command codes.
That is consistent with 11001001 from the first season.
One might assume that the need for spoken codewords or codenumbers would decrease when advances were made in recognition technology: if the computer can scan the person ordering the self-destruct, and is convinced the person is the one authorized to do so, then there's no need for a special code.
One might in turn assume that the need for spoken codewords would increase in times of crisis: even if the computer verified by scan that an authorized person was ordering the destruct, it might feel an increased need to verify the person wasn't being coerced, or a devious and skilled enemy wasn't doing an exceptionally good impersonation.
In TOS, recognition tech other than voiceprint ID (which is also their prime choice for IDing Kodos the Executioner) might be too primitive to be trusted - that is, forgery of other things like retina scans would be more advanced at that time than counterforgery measures. Codewords would thus be a necessary additional security layer. In TNG, the computer would have more and better means of identifying the speaker, and a new technology that defeats palmprint forgeries has also been invented (but is soon defeated by improved forgeries and abandoned), but voiceprint would still be the principal means of ID. Only paranoid Cardassians would do DNA scans ("Civil Defense") - or then Cardassians would have such primitive forgery tech that they would still trust DNA scanners which the Federation no longer trusts.
Timo Saloniemi
One might in turn assume that the need for spoken codewords would increase in times of crisis: even if the computer verified by scan that an authorized person was ordering the destruct, it might feel an increased need to verify the person wasn't being coerced, or a devious and skilled enemy wasn't doing an exceptionally good impersonation.
In TOS, recognition tech other than voiceprint ID (which is also their prime choice for IDing Kodos the Executioner) might be too primitive to be trusted - that is, forgery of other things like retina scans would be more advanced at that time than counterforgery measures. Codewords would thus be a necessary additional security layer. In TNG, the computer would have more and better means of identifying the speaker, and a new technology that defeats palmprint forgeries has also been invented (but is soon defeated by improved forgeries and abandoned), but voiceprint would still be the principal means of ID. Only paranoid Cardassians would do DNA scans ("Civil Defense") - or then Cardassians would have such primitive forgery tech that they would still trust DNA scanners which the Federation no longer trusts.
Timo Saloniemi
I know that it isn't canon but the novelization of First Contact says that Data used backdoor that had been built into the system to override the self destruct protocol. In a later novel Picard orders Data to engage the protocol a second time, but tells Picard that he patched the program after the encounter with the Borg.
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