On Mon, Dec 03, 2001 at 02:48:39PM +1300, Nicola Mody-Nikoloff wrote:
Sally Manton wrote:
Nico suggested that Avon could have: <used Orac, the most powerful computer in the galaxy (human-controlled anyway) to hack into the Federation's IS systems and subvert them from within.>
Well, so could Blake have done :-) Actually, since canon insists that [a] Blake didn't, [b] neither did Avon, [c] nor did any of the rest suggest it, and [d] there was no sign that Servalan and the Federation authorities were worried that they *could* ... IMO there has to be some reasonable reason why Orac was incapable of it.
Do our techie people have any suggestions here?
Maybe Orac could only *read* other computers, not write to them. We see him getting data, but never planting it. Could he even send e-mails?
I was going to suggest just that. Problem is, we have a counter-example in canon -- Orac controlled Zen, and messed up the System computers. Was there something especially vulnerable about System technology that Orac was unable to exploit in Federation technology?
But Orac *could* "send emails" -- wasn't it Orac who sent the message to Servalan about the Andromedan invasion? And Orac delegated the starship design problem to other computers in Traitor, didn't he?
(shrug)