Were the gel packs a bad idea?

[R. Star]

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.

Given you're an organization who's primary purpose is exploration, with all the funky crap we've seen on TOS and TNG, including getting flung to opposite ends of the galaxy already, you'd assume it's entirely possible they could get out of range/contact for an extended period of time.

To an organization that habitually employs "secondary backups" it would be prudent to keep plenty of spares around and top off the reserves every time they stop in at a starbase. It's not like these things are taking up a lot of space that could be used for something else.

 

[MacLeod]

"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

Voyager was only supposed to be out for a couple of weeks, so it's not fair to say it was low on spares. Do you need plenty of spares if you're only on a two week mission?

 

[Pavonis]

^Well, Ginger and the Howells brought enough supplies along on a 3-hour tour to last for 3 years!

 

[exodus]

e

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.

Given you're an organization who's primary purpose is exploration, with all the funky crap we've seen on TOS and TNG, including getting flung to opposite ends of the galaxy already, you'd assume it's entirely possible they could get out of range/contact for an extended period of time.

To an organization that habitually employs "secondary backups" it would be prudent to keep plenty of spares around and top off the reserves every time they stop in at a starbase. It's not like these things are taking up a lot of space that could be used for something else.

Voyager wasn't fully stocked when they left DS9.
Wasn't it mentioned they didn't have the full compliment of torpedoes upon departure?
How can we be sure the ship wasn't supposed to get a full stock of replacement gel packs?