Cube thing they saved Moriarty's program on

[K-Star]

What's it called? And could it theoretically be able to store other computer data on it as well, not just a holodeck program? If not, what kind of object would you store stuff on? Basically, I'm looking for the 24th century equivalent of a flash drive. Something that could be available to anyone for the purpose of saving programs externally.

I need this for a fanfic.

 

[Sec31Mike]

Holographic Data Core IIRC. The core actually kept the program running ad infinitum, to keep Moriarty fooled into thinking they honored their bargain. Holographic Data Cores are used to contain Holo-Matrixes, not normal data.

 

[Nebusj]

Plus it conveniently lets Aram Fingle dopple his way back in.

 

[Trekker4747]

Nebusj said:
Plus it conveniently lets Aram Fingle dopple his way back in.

Trekker, has only dabbled in dopples.

 

[USS Excelsior]

When they invent a mobile emitter they can let them out.

 

[Adagio]

I'm betting Picard got tired of Moriarty screwing with his starship and just flushed the cube down the toilet.

*flush*

 

[Trekker4747]

Adagio said:
I'm betting Picard got tired of Moriarty screwing with his starship and just flushed the cube down the toilet.

*flush*

Wouldn't it still be in the ship?

 

[gcmcdowell]

Didn't Janeway give the Hirogen the same (or a very similar) type of device as a trophy at the end of "The Killing Game?" They were able to use it as the basis for developing holographic technology. So it's more than just a flash drive - it's specific to the holodeck systems.

 

[Trekker4747]

gcmcdowell said:
Didn't Janeway give the Hirogen the same (or a very similar) type of device as a trophy at the end of "The Killing Game?" They were able to use it as the basis for developing holographic technology. So it's more than just a flash drive - it's specific to the holodeck systems.

I'd like to thik that much thought went into Voyager's prop use, but...

 

[gcmcdowell]

Check out the screen caps.

"Ship in a Bottle" (TNG)
"The Killing Game" (VOY)

 

[Trekker4747]

Oh, I don't deny it's the same prop.

But I don't want to give them the credit for choosing a prop previously seen as having something to do with the holodeck.

 

[K-Star]

I'm talking about the cube itself, not the device it was put in.

Anyway, I still need to know what methods of external data storage exist in the TNG era.

 

[Trekker4747]

Ioslinear Chips seemed to serve that function in many cases.

PADDs also had a "wifi" ability and presumably the desktop computers and tricorders did as well. I suspect removable/portable media isn't all that a big deal in the 24c.

The "idea" (atleast to me) seemed to be that the computers cores on the Enterprise didn't necessairly store all the information available/in the universe but that they had to "log on" to the LCARS Network and get information that way. (A throw away line in the movie Insurection would seem to support this, although Voyager seemed to suggest that the computer core(s) on the ship held all the information in the universe.)

Anyway, yeah, I think isolinear chips where also supposed to serve as removable/portable media. "Flash drives" if you will. Isolinear Rods in DS9 certainly served this function.

 

[K-Star]

Hmm...

See, the reason I need this is because I need something that stores computer data AWAY from the Enterprise's network. I'm trying to isolate a strange computer virus this way in my fic. And it needs to be something any civilian would have as the one who comes up with the idea is not a crewmember.

 

[Trekker4747]

Well, I would assume that Isolinear Chips are common devices to have in the 24c, like I said they seem to be like thumb drives. So I don't see why a civilan wouldn't have one.

I should point out, an alien "computer virus" forced itself into the Enterprise's computer in "Contagion," Geordi is able to restore the computer from its "protected archives" suggesting, that the Enterprise computer has a registy rollback.

 

[K-Star]

Well, the Enterprise computers don't HAVE this virus. They're trying to keep it from even getting on the computers at all. Man I don't really want to have to ruin a major plot point for my fic but if I must...

Spoiler: For my fic

Data and Geordi go down to this planet, where there's a virus in the climate control center's network. The virus manifests itself in the computers like a real illness would in a human... kinda. Well, Data interfaces with one of the computers, almost positive it won't affect him, but it does. So now that he's got this virus it's almost like he's come down with the flu or something. The virus left the climate control center's network and went into him. So now it's getting really bad, and Data's antivirus protection ain't good enough. So the idea is to hook him up to something that's independent from the ship's computer network and get the virus to go there.

 

[David cgc]

Why not use a shuttlecraft computer, after disabling it's communications equipment?

(Answer: because that's exactly what happened in the Stargate: Atlantis episode "The Intruder," and the SG-1 episode "Entity" before that)

 

[K-Star]

Really? I've never watched Stargate.

 

[K-Star]

Ah, here's another idea... that box thingy they brought with them onto Timothy's ship in "Hero Worship" in order to download the ship's stuff. I assume all the stuff on there was isolated from the Enterprise computer until they hooked it up. Perhaps they could use that! But they'd need a way to monitor what's going on... If I remember correctly it has no screens.

 

[Sec31Mike]

Isolinear optical Chips were primarily used to modularize command pathways. You can reconfigure them to create various interconnections between the ship's systems. They do have some storage capacity as well, but they weren't the equivalent of thumb drives.

In 'The Naked Now" the chief engineer removed all the command chips, thereby disabling critical ship's functions. It took data restoring them to the proper configuration to restore the ship's impulse drive.

In First Contact, they had to rearrange the Isolinear optical chips to engage the manual overrides on the deflector dish's maglocks. They needed to do this to reroute command pathways.