Trek Remastered: The Ultimate Computer

Things which came to my mind while watching The Ultimate Computer
this week:

The Ultimate Computer
Plot:
A supercomputer with a mind of its own controls the Enterprise
during a battle exercise; guest William Marshall. (Tivo.)

We learn that it's absolutely impossible to have a starship
without a huge crew to do so much of the scut work behind the scenes, at
least not until The Search For Spock when the producers notice that only
a couple obsessive fanboys committing acts of fanzines with each other
can identify anyone other than three-quarters of the main cast. Come
the time of 24th century Trek they won't even bother having a crew; they
just have a couple holographic simulations wander back and forth in the
halls without looking at or saying anything to any of the people named
in the opening credits.



Thoughts While Watching:
- Standard orbit around a space station? And they're on the
brink of the station before anyone makes any calls to anyone?

- They do a lot of work to turn a wargames exercise into
tension.

- ``Our producer's pseudonym! What is this about?'' Commodore
Wesley really does sound like a Commodore, though.

- Why does the Enterprise's crew need to be kept off the station
for wargames exercises, even with the M-5 in nominal control? All
right, it serves the dramatic need for loneliness and isolation, but
McCoy's observation that should something go wrong they won't have the
crew needed to control the ship is a legitimate one and one that should
be better answered. And in actual battle, you know, who would be the
damage control parties, if nothing else? Or does this imply the
existence of automated repair projects, so that actual damage control
parties are minimal supervisory affairs? But in that case what do the
other 410 people on the crew *do* all day?

- So a standard battle group is (will be revealed to be) four
starships?

- That's a mighty long walk-and-talk scene from the turbolift to
the engineering room.

- You know, the M-5 is a pretty small computer to be the whole
control system of a starship. Is this the first on-screen
representation of the power of miniaturization in human technology,
rather than alien hardware meant to be inexplicable?

- Alpha Carinae is about 310 light-years away from Earth; it's
an odd Class F supergiant, with a diameter nearly as wide as Mercury's
orbit.

- ``Why were the Captain and Chief Medical Officer not included
in landing party recommendation?'' TOM SERVO: Because it's dumb to send
the Captain down on the first landing party to an unknown planet with
untold dangers if you want him kept alive?

- M-5 needing more power to do more work, what a silly chintzy
sci-fi premise! ... hold on, my laptop just slowed down to lengthen
battery life.

- 1/100th power phasers won't do any damage to a starship. Do
they go that low just for training and wargame exercises, or is this
just setting ship's phasers on stun again?

- The M-5 can carry out the obvious attack techniques even
faster than when the Captain calls out ``evasive maneuvers!'' over and
over.

- Regards to Captain Dunsel. Man, Wesley can be a jerk.

- ``Secure from General Quarters.'' Do the geologists have
battle stations? (Are there actual geologists on board, or were they
simulated crew remaining?)

- Kirk holds romantic notions about the days of sailing ships.
Diane Carey would turn this into about 34 Trek novels.

- So, Sulu, Chekov, and Scott's jobs are completely redundant to
M-5's workings, but Uhura's isn't. M-5 knows who's sleeping with the
executive producer.

- ``The M-5 is attacking an automated ship.''
CROW: It's killing its daddy! It's the Oedipus Machine!

- So what ore do you suppose the Woden was hauling about?

- Everybody's in the same room -- let's go to another room to
hold a conference!

- Spock thinks the designer should know how the computer would
behave. Spock works on the very amusing assumption that computers are
deterministic phenomena.

- Pattern of three rule: Einstein, Kazanga, Sitar of Vulcan. As
usual in Original Series Trek, they do not use the
two-historical-and-one-fictional example.

- H279 elements and G95 systems: Spock is either having Chekov
look up engineering data or he's examining strains of the influenza
virus.

- M-5 has discovered the use of simple decoys! It's seen
Jefferies Tube episodes before!

- Dr Daystrom's invented a way of impressing human engrams on
computer circuits, and it was COMPLETELY TOTALLY NOT LIKE Ruk's
equipment did or Mudd's androids did or Sargon's plans were for, so he
didn't just invent that all over again.

- Wesley asks what Kirk's doing with full phasers in the war
games. Does he actually think that a starship captain would snap and
turn into a homicidal lunatic -- oh, wait. Dumb question. Sorry.

- Wesley's crew still has some uniforms from 'Where No Man Has
Gone Before'.

- Apparently, in Remastered Trek, whenever there's to be two
starships in the same scene, at least one of them must be in shadow
of another.

- ``M-5, this is -- this is Daystrom.''
TOM SERVO: How have you been, sweetie?

- I don't actually see the difference between M-5's personality
and that of other extended computer interactions.

- The M-5's caused a boom mike shadow to appear over Spock's
station.

- Kirk has to get into his third great round of talking a
computer to death and once again he does it not by logical paradox but
by bringing out human imperatives: the computer's continued functioning
is contrary to its objectives.

- M-5 has a cute little label panel on it. I wonder if we
looked close enough would there be a serial number.

- M-5, and Daystrom evidently, feels the proper punishment for
murder is death. Is this Federation law or simply what he feels is
appropriate for moral balance? Kirk's kind of lucky if it was simply
karmic balance he was relying on.

- So how much crew do you suppose the Enterprise took from the
other ships to make it back to starbase? Kirk's still in kind of a
cheery mood for having a starship and a quarter killed while he watched.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: RTLS Story
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  • RTLS Story
    ... As expected, there would not be enough power left in the remaining two engines to make it to an abort orbit, or even to get across the Atlantic and land in Europe or Africa. ... That is if control is shortly after the main engines are turned off on an RTLS abort, the crew will command a fast separation. ... In the debrief I showed him the flight rule that says the crew should perform a fast separation in that phase if control is lost. ...
    (sci.space.shuttle)
  • Re: OT: The Real Culprit
    ... If the crew proved to have slept for six hours, ... is the level of manning in the airport control facility. ... "Tune and identify" then set up the departure heading index (AKA ...
    (rec.aviation.military)
  • Re: RTLS Story
    ... That is if control is shortly after the main engines are turned off on ... the crew will command a fast separation. ... flight rules, the crew engaged the Backup Flight System, BFS. ...
    (sci.space.shuttle)
  • Re: Another hardware question - keyboards
    ... On 14/01/2011 21:33, KCB wrote: ... that thing looks like it should control a starship. ... I just want to type and play wasd games.... ...
    (comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action)