Atoz 77
Vice Admiral
[M:0]
[ss:Insurrection]
Posts: 4,065
|
Post by Atoz 77 on Nov 10, 2008 8:50:12 GMT -6
This episode was on the SciFi Channel this past Friday night. If you need your memory refreshed, check out the Memory Alpha entry... memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Evolution_%28episode%29Okay, another of Wesley's science experiments gone awry, resulting in nanites invading the ship's computer core. This is one of those episodes where I think the writer had a great idea, but in order to dramatize it properly, he had to exaggerate the growth rate of the nanites to the point that all plausibility flies out the window. But it was a cool episode for the relationship between Wesley and Dr. Crusher. BTW, I had never noticed before that Dr. Crusher is a Full Commander!
|
|
|
Post by andrewlee on Nov 21, 2008 19:25:48 GMT -6
As far as I know Dr Crusher has always been a full commander. Wasn't this the episode that the nanites nearly ruined a scientists experiment due to the malfungions caused by the nanites?
|
|
Atoz 77
Vice Admiral
[M:0]
[ss:Insurrection]
Posts: 4,065
|
Post by Atoz 77 on Nov 24, 2008 8:41:59 GMT -6
Exactly right! They invaded the computer core, and they were either eating the isolinear chips or messing up the programming in some other way (the story wasn't too clear), so the ship's computer couldn't be counted on to do anything. It would be fine, then it would make a mistake, then refuse to acknowledge that anything was wrong. It was frustrating. (Seeing as how this originally aired in the 90s when a lot of people were getting their first PCs, I suppose a lot of people could identify with that.)
But I couldn't help wondering -- why would a bunch of nanites start reproducing like that in the first place? Why would they necessarily evolve intelligence? It doesn't make sense to me.
|
|
|
Post by andrewlee on Nov 24, 2008 9:21:25 GMT -6
I'm not sure why the nanites started reproducing by consuming parts of the ship like in the computer core. When they did increase in numbers, they could have had some kind of collective intellegence. There was evidence for this at the end of the episode when the crew learened to communicate with them.
|
|
Atoz 77
Vice Admiral
[M:0]
[ss:Insurrection]
Posts: 4,065
|
Post by Atoz 77 on Dec 1, 2008 9:07:24 GMT -6
These were medical nanites, normally used for cellular repairs. I'm not sure, but I wouldn't think they'd normally be programmed to reproduce, because to do that they'd have to cannibalize cells to do it, and it would just put an extra strain on an already sick person.
Apparently Wesley's modification was just to allow them to work together. Maybe that is where the collective intelligence you're talking about came from. But if that was all there was to it, they wouldn't have made such a big deal about them being intelligent. The implication was that they "evolved" intelligence through some sort of natural selection. Which is kind of dumb, really. Natural selection requires competition of some kind. These nanites wouldn't have had the necessary conditions for natural selection of that kind. (Neither would the Replicators of Stargate SG-1, either, I have to add.)
|
|