Were the gel packs a bad idea?

[Timo]

But still why was there no backup system?

Does your computer have backups?

If it fails in the field, can you manufacture replacement microchips?

When your computer faces its nemesis, the electromagnetic pulse, do you curse the engineers for creating such a completely useless technology that should never have been installed in place of the good old abacus?

It's quite difficult to see the gel packs as in any way inferior to any other piece of technology in the real world or in Star Trek. They work fine until they fail, just like any technology. And no doubt they are extremely robustly backed up, only with more of the same, as it doesn't seem as if any other options would exist (save for the above mentioned abacus, or technologies comparable to it, such as semiconductor microchips or isolinear chips).

I suspect the original idea was for Voyager to have a sentient computer

Although it seems that every starship ever shown has had a sentient computer. They all can pass the Turing test, after all - we've heard their verbal interfaces in action. They joke, cheat and giggle with the best of 'em natural blondes. They second-guess, they grow impatient, they lapse, they outdo, they suggest, they mock.

How else would faster, smarter computing make ANY difference when the computers were already so capable in TNG?

In no way. After all, you can't tell the Commodore 64 apart from the Samsung NP900 except by aesthetics of the outer casing - unless you witness the two doing quantifiable number-crunching, which just plain never happens in Star Trek. Either we can't quantify what's going on at all, or then we can't observe it long enough to tell whether something is happening faster in the 24th century than in the 22nd.

So yes, having the gel-packs manifest as increased performance would be a hopeless task for the writers. Having them manifest as newly found AI capabilities would be quite possible. But if this were attempted, it should have been done in the pilot episode already, so I don't think it was something they still kept on considering when they started writing the actual episodes. It may have been an earlier concern, though, somewhere in the deep planning stages - but I'm happy nothing came out of it, as introducing AI this late in the game would be inconsistent. What's Data, nano-chopped cyberliver?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[SchwEnt]

I'm not recalling clearly, but I thought there were backups on VOY.

I recall the MSD of Enterprise-D having two large computer cores and another in the stardrive section.
The ship could operate on only one if required.

Similarly, I thought Voyager also had two computer cores, one being redundant or a backup spare if needed. Is this not so?

Unless the giant cores are one thing, and the gel packs going south are another.

 

[F. King Daniel]

We saw in "Concerning Flight" that Voyager had one computer core, and the ship was utterly crippled without it. MSD's are pretty set dressing, but (as we'd already seen with Voyager's single warp core and Defiant's fifth deck) don't mean much more.

 

[The Overlord]

Does your computer have backups?

If it fails in the field, can you manufacture replacement microchips?

When your computer faces its nemesis, the electromagnetic pulse, do you curse the engineers for creating such a completely useless technology that should never have been installed in place of the good old abacus?

It's quite difficult to see the gel packs as in any way inferior to any other piece of technology in the real world or in Star Trek. They work fine until they fail, just like any technology. And no doubt they are extremely robustly backed up, only with more of the same, as it doesn't seem as if any other options would exist (save for the above mentioned abacus, or technologies comparable to it, such as semiconductor microchips or isolinear chips).

Except the computer I use is for my personal use, its not designed to fly a space ship. If my computer breaks, its merely inconvenient, not a matter of life and death. It seems like they can easily replace isolinear chips, but with the gel packs, they seem irreplaceable, which is a serious design flaw.

I bet NASA has back up systems for everything on their space ships, why would the Federation be less interested in safety then NASA. There was a scene in the DS9 episode "Destiny" where O'Brien was arguing with a Cardassian on the importance of a secondary Backup, why would Star Trek fleet make a ship without the same safety conscious attitude?

 

[R. Star]

Does your computer have backups?

If it fails in the field, can you manufacture replacement microchips?

When your computer faces its nemesis, the electromagnetic pulse, do you curse the engineers for creating such a completely useless technology that should never have been installed in place of the good old abacus?

It's quite difficult to see the gel packs as in any way inferior to any other piece of technology in the real world or in Star Trek. They work fine until they fail, just like any technology. And no doubt they are extremely robustly backed up, only with more of the same, as it doesn't seem as if any other options would exist (save for the above mentioned abacus, or technologies comparable to it, such as semiconductor microchips or isolinear chips).

Except the computer I use for my personal use, its not designed to fly a space ship. If my computer breaks, its merely inconvenient, not a matter of life and death. It seems like they can easily replace isolinear chips, but with the gel packs, they seem irreplaceable, which is a serious design flaw.

I bet NASA has back up systems for everything on their space ships, why would the Federation be less interested in safety then NASA. There was a scene in the DS9 episode "Destiny" where O'Brien was arguing with a Cardassian on the importance of a secondary Backup, why would Star Trek fleet make a ship without the same safety conscious attitude?

Beat me to it. Was going to make that arguement as soon as I saw that post.

 

[TorontoTrekker]

Voyager's original mission was only supposed to last a couple of weeks, though. It's quite possible that the plan after they returned was to use the ship as a test bed for this new technology. They wouldn't necessarily have been spending all their time out on the frontier - if they needed replacement gel packs, or if they turned out to be a complete disaster, they likely would have been close enough to a Starbase that they could have gotten there before it was too late.

When I first heard that Voyager would have bioneural gel packs, my first thought was, "I wonder what would happen if they caught a cold..." It seems like an obvious premise for a story.

 

[GulGoneCrazy]

Those bioneural gel packs are maybe first signs of using bio technology ships.I mean maybe Star fleet will build bio ships in future like breen?

 

[Lord Manitou]

Star trek.com wrote
bio-neural gel packs
Advanced Federation technology which adds synthetic neural cells to a soft-sided circuitry module, designed to organize information more efficiently and speed up response time.
The crew of Starship Voyager had to sacrifice to get that type of response time from their computers. Chakotay would say, "I guess were not that technologically advanced." Voyager is a successful ship by all means and this they proved many times until the very end when they reached home.
One should never underestimate the efficiency of neural circuitry. It's use can put man well beyond the digital age.
An AI language programming environment is just as important but the former is used for defense. Together with these two, man can build machines that will meet and exceed his past immaginings.

 

[MacLeod]

Does your computer have backups?

If it fails in the field, can you manufacture replacement microchips?

When your computer faces its nemesis, the electromagnetic pulse, do you curse the engineers for creating such a completely useless technology that should never have been installed in place of the good old abacus?

It's quite difficult to see the gel packs as in any way inferior to any other piece of technology in the real world or in Star Trek. They work fine until they fail, just like any technology. And no doubt they are extremely robustly backed up, only with more of the same, as it doesn't seem as if any other options would exist (save for the above mentioned abacus, or technologies comparable to it, such as semiconductor microchips or isolinear chips).

Except the computer I use is for my personal use, its not designed to fly a space ship. If my computer breaks, its merely inconvenient, not a matter of life and death. It seems like they can easily replace isolinear chips, but with the gel packs, they seem irreplaceable, which is a serious design flaw.

I bet NASA has back up systems for everything on their space ships, why would the Federation be less interested in safety then NASA. There was a scene in the DS9 episode "Destiny" where O'Brien was arguing with a Cardassian on the importance of a secondary Backup, why would Star Trek fleet make a ship without the same safety conscious attitude?

Backups such like the one and only thruster on the LEM's? I wonder did they even have a backup computer incase the main one failed, I don't think they did.

 

[Rick Sternbach]

^^^ don't tell Sternbach that.

I don't recall exactly, but were the gel packs intended to supercede the isolinear chip technology?

If so, would a closet of isolinear banks as backup not be feasible? Are the two systems incompatible?

Been awhile since I watched Learning Curve, but they only had so many spare gel packs and I think Chakotay said they didn't have what they needed to swap it out to isoleniar chips.

I love the idea of synthetic neural gel things, but I wasn't in charge of the drama involving them. Me, I would keep constant computer monitoring on them to nip infections before they got too far. I would make the packs completely sealed, with filtered nutrient and waste ports, etc. If anything was going to go wrong, it would likely be from some subtle breakage or degradation, something that would go undetected until... until...-cough- uh...

 

[R. Star]

^^^ don't tell Sternbach that.

I don't recall exactly, but were the gel packs intended to supercede the isolinear chip technology?

If so, would a closet of isolinear banks as backup not be feasible? Are the two systems incompatible?

Been awhile since I watched Learning Curve, but they only had so many spare gel packs and I think Chakotay said they didn't have what they needed to swap it out to isoleniar chips.

I love the idea of synthetic neural gel things, but I wasn't in charge of the drama involving them. Me, I would keep constant computer monitoring on them to nip infections before they got too far. I would make the packs completely sealed, with filtered nutrient and waste ports, etc. If anything was going to go wrong, it would likely be from some subtle breakage or degradation, something that would go undetected until... until...-cough- uh...

I agree, it was an interesting idea with poor execution. The moment they became ziplock bags of green slime that were vulnerable to basic bacteria, they became another typical Voyager self-parody.

 

[Timo]

Except the computer I use is for my personal use, its not designed to fly a space ship. If my computer breaks, its merely inconvenient, not a matter of life and death. It seems like they can easily replace isolinear chips, but with the gel packs, they seem irreplaceable, which is a serious design flaw.

That's in no way different from the VOY situation - if anything, VOY is much better off than NASA.

An astronaut today cannot make a replacement silicon chip. He's screwed if the multiply backed-up computers based on the technology all fail.

A Starfleet crew in VOY cannot make a replacement gel pack. They are screwed if the multiply backed-up computers based on the technology all fail. But at least the VOY crew can make replacement isolinear chips and jury-rig a system of inferior performance in a situation where NASA astronauts just wait for death.

There is no evidence that USS Voyager would not have multiply backed-up systems. It's just that this is of zero help when the very technology behind the computing falls victim to a shipwide problem.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[R. Star]

Except the computer I use is for my personal use, its not designed to fly a space ship. If my computer breaks, its merely inconvenient, not a matter of life and death. It seems like they can easily replace isolinear chips, but with the gel packs, they seem irreplaceable, which is a serious design flaw.

That's in no way different from the VOY situation - if anything, VOY is much better off than NASA.

An astronaut today cannot make a replacement silicon chip. He's screwed if the multiply backed-up computers based on the technology all fail.

A Starfleet crew in VOY cannot make a replacement gel pack. They are screwed if the multiply backed-up computers based on the technology all fail. But at least the VOY crew can make replacement isolinear chips and jury-rig a system of inferior performance in a situation where NASA astronauts just wait for death.

There is no evidence that USS Voyager would not have multiply backed-up systems. It's just that this is of zero help when the very technology behind the computing falls victim to a shipwide problem.

Timo Saloniemi

Except NASA tested those silicon chips. By all accounts if the Federation didn't consider the effects of organic computer ziplock bags would have to viruses or bacteria, it seems they didn't test them.

 

[matthunter]

Except NASA tested those silicon chips. By all accounts if the Federation didn't consider the effects of organic computer ziplock bags would have to viruses or bacteria, it seems they didn't test them.

Humanoid lifeforms are crawling with bacteria and viruses. Voyager let newly-discovered species (with completely unknown microbiomes so the transporter biofilters would only be so useful) beam aboard week after week until a single incident several years in got the gel packs infected. That's a pretty damn impressive resistance for a system "Starfleet didn't consider". Almost on a par with the human brain, for instance, and that's also a few kilograms of slimy biomass that regularly outperforms any other computer system on the planet.

 

[R. Star]

Except NASA tested those silicon chips. By all accounts if the Federation didn't consider the effects of organic computer ziplock bags would have to viruses or bacteria, it seems they didn't test them.

Humanoid lifeforms are crawling with bacteria and viruses. Voyager let newly-discovered species (with completely unknown microbiomes so the transporter biofilters would only be so useful) beam aboard week after week until a single incident several years in got the gel packs infected. That's a pretty damn impressive resistance for a system "Starfleet didn't consider". Almost on a par with the human brain, for instance, and that's also a few kilograms of slimy biomass that regularly outperforms any other computer system on the planet.

Setting aside the technobabble explanation of how a bag of green slime makes computers faster, it wasn't several years when they started popping out. It wasn't even one year as season 1 was short being they started comparitively late. Voyager's season 1 had like 20 episodes compared to the normal 26.

It's a good point you raise on the alien viruses and bacteria coming through the biofilter. Certainly Neelix's cheese qualifies. Though I guess the alternative of not using the transporters, to heck with the consequences, is Voyager scenes in the decon chamber and Enterprise proved what a horrible concept that was time and again.

I want to say the number of spares they had was 47. I could be off as I said it's been awhile since I watched Learning Curve. Janeway and Chakotay implied that's a low amount and that if they start losing gel packs ship wide, that won't be enough to keep them running. So from a Federation society built in on redundancy(see O'brien's line of "You don't have a secondary backup?!") that seems to be poor planning too.

And surely you'd expose these biological packs of ooze to every bacteria, virus, pathogen, funny fungus you can find to see how it holds up. So you mean to tell me in all that they didn't encounter one problem and it's Neelix's cheese that's more infectious than any other agent the Federation has yet to encounter? That's pretty funny in a way.

 

[Timo]

"Low on spares" was the very definition of the operational status of the Voyager. They were lightly loaded on photon torpedoes as well, initially. Later on, they got over it - no doubt because they got their replicators working again. This would have eliminated all spares problems with the computers as well.

"Poor planning"? I guess it's the old chestnut again - how do you plan for Armageddon? With replicators running, low on spares is the smart way to go. With replicators down, you simply go back to base because you are no longer spaceworthy anyway. But if you can't go back to base, you are past the limit of plannability and the smart option is to die.

So you mean to tell me in all that they didn't encounter one problem and it's Neelix's cheese that's more infectious than any other agent the Federation has yet to encounter?

Makes good sense. The main thing about biological threats is that they are varied, almost infinitely so. There will always be something that gets through the defenses - if not today, then tomorrow. You prepare for the known, but you can't prepare for the unknown, the not-yet-encountered (or, in the case of biology, perhaps the not-yet-existing).

Of course, you could do hermetic sealing or something like that. But computing systems are subject to another type of multifaceted and mutating threat: the software attack. Silicon computing is already inherently vulnerable to that; if gel-pack computing adds another mode of attack, it may be an insignificant addition in face of the multitude of mutating infiltration threats already in existence or looming at the horizon.

In general, if something fails spectacularly, poor design or poor testing or incompetence or conspiracy is the least likely explanation. After all, the spectacularity comes from the fact that the system has not failed previously!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Lord Manitou]

Like before said, if they must sacrifce to get a better response time it's their freedom to do so.
One of NASA's priorities is studying the effects of living alone in a small, closed habitat. If an astronaut feels sick from constant bombardment of radiation, their voyage will most likely be cut short.
'Spirit of the Lone Eagle' a retired NASA engineer proposes first sending one man alone to Mars. This seems at first to be drastic or un-orthodox but, if he survives acouple years, more astronauts and missions will follow. Saving acouple billion dollars might only be one of mission perogitives.

 

[Timo]

An interesting idea. Is human labor really that expensive? If it's just a matter of casualties, then why should one casualty be less significant than, say, the loss of a crew of twelve? Both are likely to have the exact same impact of "Oh no, Mars kills people! Let's stay home!" regardless of numbers - and OTOH a series of three deaths of small crews is likely to be much worse than one big loss.

Bags of goo doing computing was one of the very rare interesting things Trek dared do in its later days. That, and the EMH. It's too bad that they couldn't plausibly keep whipping up new Starfleet inventions and technologies, as there was no Starfleet to provide the heroes with them - but the format would have allowed our heroes to accumulate fascinating alien technologies instead. I mean, in addition to Seven's body parts.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Lord Manitou]

Yes, I can believe that got home fast with either transwarp or slipstream without the Borg Transwarp Hub.
As I was saying it's not that it's bloody, it's just that instead of a; gymnnasium, 2 control panels, a kitchen, storage are, a lounge, one astronaut would require a control panel and a table and a computer hutch.
The impact of the advertising media would probable pay for the trip.

 

[exodus]

e

Does your computer have backups?

If it fails in the field, can you manufacture replacement microchips?

When your computer faces its nemesis, the electromagnetic pulse, do you curse the engineers for creating such a completely useless technology that should never have been installed in place of the good old abacus?

It's quite difficult to see the gel packs as in any way inferior to any other piece of technology in the real world or in Star Trek. They work fine until they fail, just like any technology. And no doubt they are extremely robustly backed up, only with more of the same, as it doesn't seem as if any other options would exist (save for the above mentioned abacus, or technologies comparable to it, such as semiconductor microchips or isolinear chips).

Except the computer I use is for my personal use, its not designed to fly a space ship. If my computer breaks, its merely inconvenient, not a matter of life and death. It seems like they can easily replace isolinear chips, but with the gel packs, they seem irreplaceable, which is a serious design flaw.

But when they designed the Intrepid class, who would have thought one would have ended up lost 75 thousand light years away from a starbase where it couldn't get replacements? Even if they did fail, the Intrepid class would still be in hailing range of another starship or base for back-up parts if it remains within Alpha or Beta Quads. Nobody could have foreseen a fluke accident would take the ship outside contact range thus creating an unforeseen issue.