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To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest)

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To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest) Starfleet Ship Design Bureau, Refit ("To Boldly Go...")
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Vebyast said:
Taking into account that Mipek is an infomorph and and therefore likely a superlative programmer and computer scientist - note the way he contributes 1S - I have no doubt that it'd take him a matter of hours or days to write an emulator for his own computational hardware given access to a Federation software development environment and a matter of days. It's a not unreasonable for a good programmer to be able to start hacking out pure mathematics in a new software development environment in a matter of minutes, and an emulator, while complex and finicky, is actually one of the more language-agnostic things to write. The emulator would probably be slow and inefficient at first, but given that he's already used to running on a disintegrating interstellar probe with almost zero power budget, the raw horsepower of a Federation computer core should be more than enough to get him into a stable situation where he can bootstrap.

So the entire "computer languages" argument is silly, in the same way that it'd be silly to care about whether a skilled chef calls it beef or rindfleisch or govjádina: it's the same meat, you cook it the same way. You might have to get used to the other guy's frying pan first, but unless you need it perfect, all that really means is figuring out how to turn on their stove and heat the thing up.


Okay, that's my fifteen-minute science rant for the month.
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All of that said, I have an unreasonable fondness for fictional hardware-based AIs. They're much cooler to me than software AIs that can easily be transferred from system to system. Reduces easy problem solving and makes them more vulnerable.
 
AlphaDelta said:
That's.... Okay. I guess.


Well... It turns out one Ms. Porter was her sponsor. Go figure.

On the bright side, Thrishar hasn't accidentally phasered a governor's back yard, or torpedoed (with a dud) Enterprise with both Sousa and the President.

... Yet.
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I'm thinking that if Personnel assigns you to the Thrishar it's a not so subtle sign that you should probably be looking for another career.

Thrishar: Starfleets dumping ground for personnel that they can't get rid of but don't have confidence in.
 
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Briefvoice said:
All of that said, I have an unreasonable fondness for fictional hardware-based AIs. They're much cooler to me than software AIs that can easily be transferred from system to system. Reduces easy problem solving and makes them more vulnerable.
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Can't disagree! And there's precedent: sufficiently dense analog circuitry doing direct computations instead of a well-separated abstract computational approach would combine features of a physical uncloneable function and a real brain. You'd essentially have a very, very regular, obviously-engineered brain built out of semiconductors. Which'd also be cool, I'm reminded of FPGA genetic algorithm shenanigans. Migrating Mipek off that would be a huge PITA. Maybe something with the transporter?
 
Briefvoice said:
All of that said, I have an unreasonable fondness for fictional hardware-based AIs. They're much cooler to me than software AIs that can easily be transferred from system to system. Reduces easy problem solving and makes them more vulnerable.
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Well, we could have it both ways? The programming language itself being easily deciphered, but the computational devices be made with technologies and/or substances the Federation is unfamiliar with, so any 'file transfers' would see differences, and the transferred AI would be markedly different enough that we couldn't really call it the same AI.
 
OneirosTheWriter said:
This caused considerable discomfort to Petty Officer McClusky, who was in a limited state of dress at the time. However, despite a number of security personnel being in swimsuits, evening wear, or recreational equipment, we were able to access an armoury cache and secure the central computer core against intruders.
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Eh. Weirder boarding & counter boarding incidents have happened in Trek. This is amusing but barely phases me.

OneirosTheWriter said:
Disclosure of information averted
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Why would we want to prevent word getting out that multiple Enterprises and Lion saved the timeline from Mentat shenanigans?

OneirosTheWriter said:
Captain's Log, USS Excelsior, Stardate 25953.8

That was a horrifying blast from the past! It seems that the Romulan redeployment to the Klingon fronts has flushed out lingering remnants of an old, ugly foe. We just had our first encounter with the Ulith III Biophage in many years. We have destroyed the infected Bird of Prey. The Cloudburst scanned us carefully, and confirmed we were clean, and the debris disinfected. I am rushing to Athos V where we will meet with our Romulan counterparts to go over the logs.
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Literally got chills there...

UberJJK said:
:o

I really hope these two events aren't connected.
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With our luck? Yes.
 
Nix said:
We have a bonus for when we start developing quantum torpedoes in 20 years or so. Maybe it will even shave off a couple of years from the approximately 30 years development time.
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Wow, I just looked at the tech path for that thing and it's nuts. How scary are these things exactly?

I would hope a "major bonus" would be more than just a couple of years' worth though.

chriswriter90 said:
Why would we want to prevent word getting out that multiple Enterprises and Lion saved the timeline from Mentat shenanigans?
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Because even if it's good PR, we don't want people getting access to our 1-AAA secrets on principle. And people finding out that time travel is actually doable would be... bad.
 
It's interesting to think how other powers, ones who don't range far and wide with broadly capable ships, deal with the incidents that arise in their space. Obviously there would be a fair number they won't care about, like anomalies, and some will be dealt with very differently. But I can only assume that they miss some events that then escalate into situations they can deal with by throwing a sector fleet at it. Maybe. Or maybe they're just as good at space patrol as we are.
 
Eh, most of the non-Federation civilizations in Trek aren't very good at any type of diplomacy besides gunboat diplomacy, and have a lot more focus on the military in general, so I can see events escalating like that.
 
The war with Cardassia will likely upset any schedule we might have for who gets to be Commander, Starfleet. If it starts during Sulu's term, he may stay until its end. If it looks imminent when he retires, we might pick someone with a slight military bent, who may or may not be Chen. If it's going to be a while that will affect the decision too.
 
Briefvoice said:
Future Starfleet Commanders:
2316 - 2320 Hikaru Sulu
2321 - 2324 Patricia Chen
2325 - 2328 Eaton or Thuir or T'Lorel....
2329 - ??? ??????
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I really really dislike how human centric that list is. Personally I want Shey Ch'Theravasse for 2316-2320, with Sulu and Chen following. That breaks it up at least a little bit.
 
AKuz said:
Now I kind of imagine some of the ships sitting around and talking and Excelsior looks over at Thirishar playing by herself off in the corner just in time to watch her fill her mouth with paste yet again and Excelsior just sighs for the hundredth time, "I just don't know about that girl. Something ain't right"

She's the Ralph Wiggum of starships I guess
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cast2007 said:
We really should rename it the USS William D Porter.
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Night said:
Don't shoot, we're Expansionists!
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Enjoy this shitty recolour:

 
Who wants to put money on the klingons doing something stupid with the biophage when it inevitably joins the war? or Mentats just being Mentats.

Wait, if the beast absorbs a mentat carrying ship does that mean it gains access to super science?
 
Nervos Belli said:
I really really dislike how human centric that list is. Personally I want Shey Ch'Theravasse for 2316-2320, with Sulu and Chen following. That breaks it up at least a little bit.
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I'm afraid it's now or never for Sulu. If he's not picked, I have my doubts he'll hold off retirement another four years. He is quite old already.

EDIT: Anyway, it's a Caitian president doing the picking. If people bitch about another human, she's the one taking the political fall. Win-win!

Also, for some reason and I'm not sure why, I always have in my mind that Shey Ch'Theravasse is slick in a way I don't like.
 
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Deathbybunnies said:
Wow, I just looked at the tech path for that thing and it's nuts. How scary are these things exactly?

I would hope a "major bonus" would be more than just a couple of years' worth though.
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We'll, it's like phase arrays and burst torpedo launchers. It's a multiplier that basically let's us make ships much more efficiently.

To explain in more detail, the ship design sheet works according to a parts system. There are subdivisions (tactical, engineering, operations, hull, and warp core) that each have slots for different parts. So under tactical, you have phases, torpedoes, SR sensors, targeting, shields, and impulse power. You select the type of part (small, medium, heavy) which all have different tradeoffs in power, crew, resource, and weight costs for a given stat value. Then you choose how many of each part that you want. The trick is that, as you add more parts, efficiency drops. 1 phaser part might be worth C0.8. 2 are probably worth around 1.42, etc. But costs remain constant. Ergo, it is much more efficient to use as few duplicate parts as possible (so you might put on 2 phasers, 1 torpedo, and 1 targeting computer instead of 5 phasers).

Burst launchers and phase arrays apply a multiplier to the stat value out of proportion to their costs. Those two phasers worth 1.48? With arrays, they become worth 2.97. And all they cost is extra weight.

Qtorps with burst launchers and pulse phasers are the secret to getting C10 on a tiny, cheap ship like the Defiant. That's how nuts they are.

Edit: This is part of why we want Isolinear so bad. It will likely significantly increase the values from the computer core parts (mandatory parts that give a small but significant bonus to all stats) and might improve our labs and sensors. Right now on the Amby, computer core adds anywhere from 0.33-0.82 per stat, depending on which one it is. C & S benefit the most.
 
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Gravitas Hunt said:
Well, given that UP didn't exist at the start of the quest, that's not really true...
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Leila Hann said:
We literally built UP during the time of this quest. Not a single Enterprise has ever been made at UP.
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Ironically, Ent-B doesn't list her yard of origin on her dedication plaque from Generations (which is weird because the previous Enterprises do, they were San Fran), but Enterprise-C does in her one appearance and it was Utopia Planitia. So from a canon standpoint...uh, sorry? The only Enterprises we are likely to build in this quest were built at Mars, unless we go for years, in which case we might switch back to San Fran with the Sovereigns.
 
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