This topic has come up in a private discussion regarding possible engineering projects during the Dominion War. (It's for the "Renaissance" project that I'm a part of.)
Some of us think it's possible to simply install the gelpacks in a starship in the field, provided they have the right equipment. During the Dominion War, as gelpacks became a proven system they were introduced throughout the fleet, and especially on the front lines in order to improve computer response times -- something that could be a key benefit during combat.
From what I remember, the gelpacks' SOLE purpose was to categorize and sort data faster than a normal mechanical router would. The computer cores themselves stayed the same, I think.
However, someone else is arguing that installing gelpacks on older ships requires a complete computer systems overhaul in drydock.
So I guess the question is, just what exactly did the gelpacks do? The Encyclopedia says that the circuitry "supplemented" the traditional ODN network... but just how key a role did it play?
Posted by Siegfried (Member # 29) on :
Your post contains more information about the gelpacks than I know, so I can't offer anything subtantial.
However, what about looking back at the Voyager episode when the cheese gave them all the flu? If I remember correctly, didn't the crew start swapping out the gelpacks with isolinear processors to prevent a complete computer failure? I'll admit I haven't seen the episode in a long time, but it didn't strike me as something being difficult to do. They were out in the field and downgrading the computer system in a time crunch. The reverse might be as simple as that procedure was.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Ah, I forgot about the cheese incident!
However, my question applies to starships that are already in service and were not equipped for gelpacks. Like the Enterprise-D, for example. Do you think that the ship could have installed the gelpacks (and the necessary equipment to connect them to the ODN network) in the field?
Given the amount of improvisation shown in later Trek shows (and ENT, unfortunately) I can't believe they couldn't do something like that out in the field.
One of the issues the other guy I'm arguing with brought up, though, is the assertion that the gelpacks would require something equivalent to a motherboard and OS upgrade. He cites the slightly different style of LCARS graphics that was used in Voyager. I'm not sure if I buy that -- it's possible to upgrade an OS without changing the processor behind it, and vice versa.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
I've never understood "speeding up response time". What computer would need to be faster? ANY of them are capable of identifying a comm request, locating a person, engaging their combadge, opening a channel, and broadcasting a voice message from Picard to Riker the moment Picard utters the "P" sound.
[Yes, someone else said that first]
Mark
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
I always thought that BNG circuitry was retrofittable to existing vessels--to a point. For some reason, I always had the idea that fully 30-35% of the processing power & standard isolinear circuits had been replaced by BNG systems on newbuild vessels designed for it (e.g., Voyager & Enterprise-E). Also, I've been working under the impression that it's been standard on all newbuild vessels since the early 2370s.
As for retrofitting, well, obviously you can't have complete backwards compatibility, so I think that on older vessels that have been refitted, the BNG system percentage is probably more like 10 or 15%, definitely no more than 20%.
And as for what they do, the idea is that the synthetic neural cells in the packs are able to handle "chaos organization" like biological brains do.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
quote:And as for what they do, the idea is that the synthetic neural cells in the packs are able to handle "chaos organization" like biological brains do.
Aha! Yeah, it's not the processor speed directly that matters on a starship, it's the volume of data that it can handle at any one time. And the gelpacks help boost that volume by sorting the data faster.
Thanks!
Posted by Siegfried (Member # 29) on :
Correct my if I'm wrong, but didn't the Defiant use a different style of LCARS screens thant the Enterprise-D? And wasn't it stated somewhere that the little ship definitely did not have gelpacks?
Anyway, I doubt the operating system would need to be overhaul if a starship upgraded. The network protocol probably would (if we assume that all the gelpacks did was handle the data transfer differently), but drivers and the like could probably integrate the gelpacks into the OS easily.
Edit: Eh, nevermind this part. Beaten to the punch.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
I guess my theory would be that Starfleet developed some kind of adapters that would allow the gelpacks to be installed into the computer systems of older starships. However...even older starships probably wouldn't be decades behind on computer upgrades. I'm guessing they get overhauled every 5 years or so. If that's the case, then any starship in active service wouldn't be too far behind the state of the art. Now... if you tried to stick the gel packs into the Genolan...or some other ship that had been out of service for decades... there would probably be problems.
Posted by Ace (Member # 389) on :
From First Contact, we know that the Enterprise-E uses the old chips. Of course, there is no reason why the two can't co-exist. After all, the isolinear chips make great "disks" to give to other people.
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