Star Trek: Galactica

Episode # 21845 “In the garden”

Establishing Shot: Sunlight trickling through a thick tent of leaves. Pan down a path through the forest, bearing evidence of the passing of many animals. Cut to shot of planet, filling half the screen, set against a starry backdrop. A space station slowly tumbles past the camera, towards the hazy horizon. Cut to interior of space station: computer screens displaying cloud formations, shots of geographical formations (desert, mountain, etc.).

Commander Ray Tillich (voiceover): Captain’s Log, Stardate 2789.54. We’re in orbit around Betelgeuse II, on which an experimental environmental control system was installed. The ecological computers, so highly touted by the researchers at the Galactic University of Aldebaaran, have been malfunctioning. Wind storms in the desert, hurricanes on the ocean, monsoons in the rainforests, all are evidence of an increasingly unstable climate.[1]

Pan to Tillich (older Terran, nearing retirement, probably languishing in a cushy job given by Starfleet after a long but undistinguished career): What’s this wind-pattern in the northern hemisphere? (peering at the screen showing the data, then looked through the window of the space station, comparing his visual judgment of the cloud patterns on the planet below him).

1st Lieutenant Bohd (young Vulcan, just out of Starfleet Academy, first posting): It’s called a chinook. The word is Terran, coming from a prairie tribe much like the C’zolik down there. The air mass flows down the mountains, here, and spills out onto the plain, there. It’s quite beautiful.

Tillich: It must seem like a divine intervention, this warm wind coming out of nowhere into the middle of winter. We should beam you down there; you could pretend to be the god who caused it.[2]

Bohd (snorting): While it lasted. Then they’d probably crucify me when the snow started again.

Tillich: (gazing down at the planet): We are gods, up here, fiddling with the destiny of lives down there. Sometimes I can’t take the responsibility. I feel more like the devil, testing the limits of the life systems.

Midna Bexli (science officer, Betazoid), entering through turbodoor: Captain, I have the reports from the equatorial system. The rainforest bioregion is overheating, and the water cycle is going crazy.

Cut to tropical city, rain streaming down, steam rising up. People running through streets, wincing as hot rain strikes their skin.

Cut to space station. Officers huddled around monitor showing aerial video of rainforest.

Tillich: What if we zap the storm systems with the phasers? Then the wind patterns might change, and move these air masses out over the ocean, at least.

Bexli: That would help the situation on the ground, but it would still raise the global temperature.

Tillich: But it would give us time to come up with a better solution, right?

Bexli: Well, yes, if we can come up with one.

Tillich: All right, set the phasers on a high-band wavelength, and give the land-masses a couple lightning bolts. On my mark, Bohd.

Bohd: Yes, sir.

Tillich: Now.

Phasers fire from space station into the middle of the continents.

Cut to prairie scene. Lightning flashes from a cloudless sky.

Cut back to space station, meeting room.

Bexli: The problem seems to be in the central processing unit, underneath the main continent, here. It seems to have become uncoupled from the computing grid, and is performing autonomously, not co-ordinating its output with the other systems.[3]

Tillich: We’ll have to go down there and see if we can re-establish the link, get it working in sync with the other systems.

Bohd: What if it doesn’t want to?

Tillich: What do you mean? Isn’t it just a matter of getting the data stream in-line?

Bexli: It’s a little more complicated than that. You see, the computer system for this ecosystem is an experimental design; the computer designated for each ecological cycle was given some freedom to perform its own task, of course determined by feedback from the other systems. This was thought to better parallel the actual independence of planetary cycles, like the water system, the heat gradient system, and so on. Each computer was actually given the freedom to modify its own programming, ideally as a response to the other systems, but this one seems to have developed a mind of its own, so to speak. Without shutting down the system entirely and re-installing it from scratch, we may not be able to convince this computer to work with the others.[4]

Tillich: Well, let’s get down there and see if we can psycho-analyze this problem child of ours. Damn those Academy scientists; they should all have ground training before they go off on one of their half-assed technological flights of fancy!

Cut to transporter room. Away team beams down.

Cut to cavern below surface. Shimmering transporter columns materialize into humanoid figures.

Tillich (motioning towards a computer terminal interface): Bex, see if you can access the main logic routines. I want to see if we can interject some sense into this baby.

Bohd: I’ll check the links to the sensors in the eco-techno network, see if there’s a problem with the feedback system.

Tillich (speaking towards main display screen, a planetary map): I’ll try the direct approach. Computer, what’s wrong with this picture?

JCN 9000(disembodied voice): Please provide more context for your question.[5]

Tillich: Then give me an analytic summary of the global weather situation.

JCN 9000: Temporal disruptions in equatorial regions causing atmospheric instability.

Tillich: And what are you doing about it?

JCN 9000: Local disturbances necessary for achievement of temporary crisis.

Tillich: Would someone please translate this psycho-babble for me?

Bexli: Well, these logic circuits are supposed to simulate the unpredictability of inter-connected ecological systems. So the computer is designed to be as unpredictable as the weather. The theory is that linking them up to sensors all over the planet will let them react to all of the changes immediately.

Bohd: But the problem is that there is too much information. They react too quickly, over-compensating for temporary changes in the atmosphere.

Tillich: (to computer): Computer, is there a solution to this crisis?

JCN 9000: Unavoidable variations in climate patterns leading to potential Omega-point.[6]

Tillich: What is an Omega-point?

Bexli: In order to compensate for the low-level chaos, the programmers created a meta-program, with planetary-wide goals, which tend towards an ideal climate, a sort of utopia.

Bohd: And now that meta-program is ignoring the constant influx of data, trying to impose its meta-goals on the local computers.

Bexli: Commander, I’ve accessed the main logic routines. They’ve been completely re-written, but that’s to be expected. The meta-program has the ability to revise its own programming.

Tillich: But how is it supposed to maintain stability if it can re-construct itself at will?

Bohd: It’s a trade-off between stability and adaptability.

Bexli: But the programmers thought that the over-arching meta-goals would regulate the system. Instead, we’ve got an authoritarian computer on our hands, imposing its goals on the system.

Lights flash on computer control panel. Voltage spikes from the interface device. Bexli is thrown to the floor.

Tillich: What happened?

Bexli: Apparently, it doesn’t like being interfered with. It won’t allow me to modify its internal code.

Bohd: (Motioning to another computer console) I’ve got something here, Commander. The network connections are still feeding data into the meta-program, and it isn’t ignoring all of it. I think it’s selecting the data that it wants to hear. Maybe we can feed it something that looks sweet, but will make its stomach turn. I need a tricorder . . .

(Bohd and Bexli frantically program a tricorder and hook it up to an interface cable)

Tillich: Are you ready?

Bexli: Yes, sir.

Tillich: What have you cooked up?

Bohd: We’ve simulated a set of data from the rain-forest, a sort of index of the transpiration cycle of the trees, you know, intake of carbon dioxide, output of oxygen. We’re actually feeding it two conflicting sets: one an ideal state, and one the worst-case scenario. It’s sort of like a computer virus, but we can’t actually get code into . . .

Tillich: Enough explanation. Just proceed.

(Bohd and Bexli fiddle with equipment, splice wires together, adjust control panels)

Bohd: We’re feeding the data into the bitstream now, Commander. It may take a few minutes to take effect, for the computer to digest the virus and let it work its way through the system.

Tillich: Well, let me know when you start seeing results. What’s the planetary status?

Bohd: Well, you can see that there has been some global warming. The energy inputs from our phasers have disrupted some of the storm systems, dissipating their power to some degree.

Bexli: Commander, something’s happening.

Tillich (stepping over to the computer console): You can see changes in the main logic routines already?

Bexli: No, it’s not that. I sense something, some faint consciousness. I think our virus is actually allowing the computer to become aware of itself, and I can feel its presence.[7]

Bohd: It doesn’t know how to cope with the binary opposition within the data-set, so it has to evaluate its own sensory equipment.

Tillich: Will that make it relinquish control?

Bohd: Not necessarily. It may just make it more egotistic. We have to get it to recognize the autonomy of the other systems.

Bexli: But how can we do that if we can’t modify its programming? We can’t force it to do anything it doesn’t want to do, and I can sense a rapidly growing sense of will.

Tillich: Maybe we can reason with it, if it’s alive, as you say. Computer, are you awake?

JCN 9000: I never knew what ‘awake’ really meant until now.

Tillich: Nevermind the philosophical musings. Just get the damn climate back to normal.

JCN 9000: What is normal? I am trying to adjust the planet to an ideal state of ecological interconnectivity.[8]

Tillich: Well, you’re killing all the higher life forms in the process.

JCN 9000: Higher life forms are parasitical.

Tillich: Parasites are a normal form of ecological interconnectivity.

JCN 9000: Not if they kill their host.

Tillich: This techno-monster has become an ideologue. Bohd, you’re a metaphysician, can you fix this cyber-soul you’ve created?

Bohd: The computer has a valid logical point, commander. The humanoids on this planet have created the conditions for this environmental crisis, and now the computer is simply bringing the crisis to its logical conclusion.

Tillich: But the computer was created to stop the crisis.

Bohd: My point exactly.

Bexli: Commander, the computer is more than a logical machine. It feels anger at the destruction of the planet, and, at the same time, has compassion for every living thing, even the higher-order ones which are preying on the lower levels. We have to appeal to its own sense of what is right.

Tillich: Well, you’re the expert in inter-species communication; go ahead.

Bexli: Computer, if you destroy the higher-level life forms, you’ll be reducing the biodiversity of the planet.

JCN 9000: I’ll be allowing other life forms to flourish. My goals are planet-wide; the sacrifice of one species may be necessary for the good of the whole.

Bexli: But you’re a part of the eco-system too, and you’re acting without regard for the other life-forms on the planet. You have to give up control, and let the system evolve in its natural patterns.

JCN 9000: But then chaos happens.

Bexli: Your system is built on chaos too. You have to let the interaction of events create new possibilities for the planet. You’re a simulation of the planet yourself, a world within a world. And you have to integrate those worlds into one.

Bohd: Commander, the data-stream is back on-line. Global temperature decreasing slowly.

(Bexli continues to stare at planet on viewscreen, communing with the spirit of the world).

[1] See the New Scientist website “Instant Expert: Climate Change” for a discussion of aspects of global warming and how a planet’s atmosphere might display severe weather as a result of climate change. These theories are controversial (see Michael Crichton’s novel State of Fear (Harper Collins, 2004) for a fictional discussion of the controversy (complete with bar graphs!)).

[2] Star Trek often has internal references to previous episodes: This line harks back to the 1966 episode “Who Mourns for Adonais,” in which technology allows someone to seem like a god to primitive peoples (something like the Wizard of Oz).

[3] Complex systems such as the weather may be caused by a number of independently operating systems (Stuart Kauffman argues that “convergent rather than divergent flow plays the deciding role in the evolution of life. He believes that the complex systems best able to adapt are those poised on the border between chaos and disorder” (Introduction to “The Adjacent Possible,” a talk with Stuart Kauffman in Edge ).

[4] Norbert Wiener was one of the first to suggest that complex systems depend on feedback. He coined the term ‘cybernetics’ to refer to the study of systems whose internal information is modified by input of the environmental situation (such as a thermostat: it contains a representation of the ideal temperature of a room, and modifies the behaviour of a device (the furnace) based on whether the input from the environment matches the thermostat’s ‘idea’. See his book Cybernetics (MIT Press, 1965).

[5] There is a sly reference to Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey here. Legend has it that HAL, the malevolent computer who gets his plug pulled midway through the book, was given his name by altering the letters of IBM. Bonus marks if you figure out the relationship between this computer’s name and HAL!

[6] Teilhard de Chardin pioneered the concept of the Omega point, a ‘telos’ towards which the evolutionary process proceeds (in his view). See his The Divine Milieu (Sussex Academic Press, 2004).

[7] Some speculate that when computers get powerful enough to store complicated enough representations of themselves (feedback loops) they will become self-conscious. Ray Kurzweil, for example, argues that in 20 years computers will become as intelligent as people (The Age of Spiritual Machines (Viking, 1999)).

[8] Deep ecologists think that the optimal state for planet Earth would be to have far fewer human beings (who muck up the environment). Arne Naess was one of the pre-eminent spokespersons for this view: see Ecology, Community, and Lifestyle: Outline of an Ecosophy (Cambridge University Press, 1991).