| The Next Generation | |
| 135 | |
| The Quality of Life | |
| 46307.2 | |
"To boldly go where no-one has evaluated a new mining technique before!" It sounds neither as interesting nor dramatic does it? A particle fountain sounds more like an exotic cocktail than a mining technique, but either way it's Geordi's job to evaluate it. The evaluation isn't going well - it's well behind schedule and not efficient enough. "We'll have it completed real soon now." claims Dr Farallon "In fact I'm sure it will be ready in two weeks!" That's what they said about DOOM too...
Boom! Why is it that there are always catastrophic failures when the evaluation team arrives? Containment has been lost, and the entire fountain will have to be shut down if the problem can't be fixed in two minutes. This looks like a job for ExoComp!
The ExoComp is the latest in a range consumer robot products, combining functionality with extremely silly design. It has a microreplicator to fashion the correct tools to fix a problem, and learns from its experiences. You'll no longer have to agonise over colour choices for your industrial machinery as the ExoComp will learn what you like. All this and more from those great guys at the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation!
What's more, it actually works! Picard gives Dr Farallon 48 hours to prove its concept. Did I say it worked? I meant that it worked sometimes. When ordered to seal a plasma conduit, one of the ExoComps flatly refuses and burns out its control circuitry when forced. You can imagine the petulant screams of its binary brain "I'm not going!" Data and Dr Farallon don't have much time to mull over its refusal as the conduit promptly explodes.
Sometimes the ExoComps fill their little neural nets with huge numbers of useless new pathways, and then shut down - just like this one did. Since they're useless the only option is to erase them and start again. Data's not convinced it was a malfunction and when Dr Farallon leaves he snatches the faulty unit and runs away. Two hours later the ExoComp's interface circuitry is mysteriously repaired. "How can that be?" wonders Data. According to the diagnostics the ExoComp burned itself out, and then repaired itself. Could it be... alive?
As the leader of the mechanical proletariat, Data immediately goes to see the bourgeoisie oppressor Dr Farallon and tells her that she must no longer exploit his hard working comrades as labourers. Was the ExoComp's disobedience a self-preservation instinct, a malfunction, or merely an excuse for Data to lead a Marxist revololution?
There's one way to check - duplicate the situation and see if you get the same results. A plasma conduit is set up with a simulated plasma cascade failure. If the ExoComp leaves within sixty seconds to save itself, then it's alive, if it stays and would have been destroyed, then it isn't. Comrade Data is certain that the workers will not fail him. They do. If at first you don't succeed, then try, try, try, try again. In fact try 34 more time, all with the same result - an unresponsive ExoComp. On the 35th try Dr Social Conscience distracts him and the ExoComp, given a little extra time returns by itself. It not only fixed the plasma fault, it also deactivated the overload signal as it realised that there was no real danger. Number Five is Alive!
Picard and Geordi beam over to the mining station for a final evaluation, and by an amazing coincidence, the fountain picks just that moment to lose internal confinement! Evacuate! The mining team beam off, but Picard and Geordi get left behind. The radiation levels rise too high to manage another transport. Sorry 'bout that Chief. Geordi jury-rigs a forcefield, but it will only last 23 minutes, after which there will be no choice between medium-rare and very well-done.
A shuttle will take too long to rescue them, and it will also take too long to reprogram a photon torpedo to explode in the stream. There's only one choice left - reprogram an ExoComp to explode and beam it instead. Comrade Data objects strenuously "Using the workers as reactor shielding is unthinkable." "Shove it!" yells Laughing Boy. They can't even object to the programming if we lobotomise them first...
Energising... Nope. All the power just failed to the transporter room. Failure or sabotage? Comrade Data grins, as he admits that he's locked out the controls. "You capitalist pig-dogs will never sacrifice the loyal workers for the sake of fleshy humans!" Riker gives him a direct order to release the controls, which he promptly ignores. The first officer can't override computer blocks set up by someone else? Seems like a bit of a security hole there...
Laughing Boy isn't laughing much now, but he does have one final option - ask the ExoComps nicely if they'd like to be destroyed. Dr Farallon programs them, puts them on the transport pads and then... they promptly reprogram themselves and change the transport co-ordinates. Do they have a better plan? Energise...
The ExoComps beam into the station and start syphoning power off the fountain. This reduces the radiation level enough that Geordi and Picard can be beamed back. After they're safely back, it's time to retrieve the three trusty workers. Unfortunately only two come back - the third stayed so that they could live.
