DS9's "homefront" No longer so outrageous

[Lord MJ]

I'm pretty sure, Mike Wong would have had a field say with DS9's homefront where cadets are able to take down the power on the entire Earth by disabling a single power station.


But recent events, with large sections of the US and Canada bought down with by the failure of one power plant, prove that Earth's lack of redundancy in power systems actually has basis in reality

[Darth Wong]

I'm pretty sure, Mike Wong would have had a field say with DS9's homefront where cadets are able to take down the power on the entire Earth by disabling a single power station.

But recent events, with large sections of the US and Canada bought down with by the failure of one power plant, prove that Earth's lack of redundancy in power systems actually has basis in reality

Interestingly enough, if the military had designed our power grid, this would never have happened. This is an example of civilian vs military thinking: the civilian world thinks in terms of efficiency, while the military world thinks in terms of reliability and redundancy.

[Sea Skimmer]

Except that power failure didn't knock NORAD down nor fatally threaten the national security of the US or Canada. The "homefront" power loss did so to the Federation.

[Gil Hamilton]

That got me too when watching Homefront. How come critical Earth facilities didn't have back-up generators or their own powerplant? I seem to remember that places like NORAD and the Pentagon are basically self-sufficent in the event of catastrophic power failure in the surrounding power grid, even if only to give the order to fire back. Interestingly enough, this is why the internet was originally designed and was purposely created so that it massively decentralized for the exact reason that one person or event can take down one node and the rest will function properly (once again, if long enough to give the order to fire back). The Federation should take a lesson from DARPA... decentralization in key systems is your friend.

[Demiurge]

WTF? Even Starfleet Command lost power? That's a new level of stupidity in Star Trek. Don't the writers know anything about the real world?

[Darth Wong]

WTF? Even Starfleet Command lost power? That's a new level of stupidity in Star Trek. Don't the writers know anything about the real world?

No.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

WTF? Even Starfleet Command lost power? That's a new level of stupidity in Star Trek. Don't the writers know anything about the real world?

WTF Officially Seconded, Demi.

No.

You nailed that on the fucking head yet again (as always). Do you ever get sick of always being right?

[YT300000]

Do you ever get sick of always being right?

I think Wong has answered that before. Many times.

[Rye]

Do you ever get sick of always being right?

I think Wong has answered that before. Many times.

By being wrong?

[Sea Skimmer]

That got me too when watching Homefront. How come critical Earth facilities didn't have back-up generators or their own powerplant? I seem to remember that places like NORAD and the Pentagon are basically self-sufficent in the event of catastrophic power failure in the surrounding power grid, even if only to give the order to fire back.

That is the case. Cheyenne Mountain for example has four diesel generators; it can run at full capacity with just two, and fuel for six weeks operation all contained within the blast doors.

As for firing back, the US had a contingency for that even if all long range ground and radio communications got knocked up. We fitted radio transmitters onto several modified ICBM's that when launched would broadcast attack orders as they rose. They couldn't reach all strategic forces but they would alert every missile silo and some SSBN's.

This kind of redundancy is of course completely unknown to Starfleet or any part of the Federation.

[Rubberanvil]

This is an example of civilian vs military thinking: the civilian world thinks in terms of efficiency, while the military world thinks in terms of reliability and redundancy .

If Rumfield continues to have his way, the US Military can kiss all of it redundancies goodbye.

[Montcalm]

WTF? Even Starfleet Command lost power? That's a new level of stupidity in Star Trek. Don't the writers know anything about the real world?

Remember the ST writers live in Hollywood,the land of make believe and alter reality.

[lukexcom]

I think I read somewhere that back in the olden days, AT&T had their decentralized relay system in hardened shelters designed for a nuclear attack. Then the gov't creamed the company and that system became too expensive to maintain. Anyone have info on this?

[phongn]

I think I read somewhere that back in the olden days, AT&T had their decentralized relay system in hardened shelters designed for a nuclear attack. Then the gov't creamed the company and that system became too expensive to maintain. Anyone have info on this?

Yeah. It used a combination of copper and microwave links. Major stations were placed 20 miles outside of the then-existing city borders to improve survivability and were rated to survive around a 20MT airburst at three miles.

Spare parts, rations, NBC filtration equipment and other stuff were stored; they had sensors to detect a nuclear detonation and automatically close the blast doors.

Not all of the stations were this hardened, of course - most weren't. But all had some hardening on it to one extent or another.

When AT&T was broken up in 1984, the remaining long-distance company couldn't afford to maintain the network and it was gradually shut down and replaced by the modern fibre-optic network.

[Jeremy]

Why was it broken up anyways?

[Darth Yoshi]

Anti-trust violations, probably. Like what was suggested for Microsoft a while back.

[Sea Skimmer]

If Rumfield continues to have his way, the US Military can kiss all of it redundancies goodbye.

That's one of the stupidest things I've heard in quite some time, please do explain it.

[Patrick Degan]

If Rumfield continues to have his way, the US Military can kiss all of it redundancies goodbye.

That's one of the stupidest things I've heard in quite some time, please do explain it.

Army logistics has been privatised, which has already resulted in some of the supply fuckups to the troops in Iraq, and Rumsfool has been the main proponnent for doing away with large ground formations in favour of "leaner, meaner" lightning-response forces.

[HemlockGrey]

WTF? Privatizing the military is the stupidest thing I've ever heard of.

[Sea Skimmer]

Army logistics has been privatised, which has already resulted in some of the supply fuckups to the troops in Iraq, and Rumsfool has been the main proponnent for doing away with large ground formations in favour of "leaner, meaner" lightning-response forces.

Only some very high levels of logistics have gone private and under a program started during the Clinton Administration, which has worked just fine. Most of the US propositioned force has been privately owned and operated for over a decade. the only supply problems we've seen in Iraq where the result of problems in-between the docks and the fighting men, and that's all still military personal.

[Stormbringer]

Not sure but I think this belongs in PST.

[Solauren]

Didn't the cadets in 'homefront' use a virus or protocal or something to disable the power grid, presumably including backups, if they had any.

Also, you have to remember, the writers are from California, the land of Enron and black outs around the clock

[TrailerParkJawa]

Didn't the cadets in 'homefront' use a virus or protocal or something to disable the power grid, presumably including backups, if they had any.

Also, you have to remember, the writers are from California, the land of Enron and black outs around the clock

Hasnt been a black out around here since FERC capped prices. And last time I checked Enron was a Texas company. I really dont think the energy crisis and the stupidity of the writers has any correlation.

[Sea Skimmer]

Hasnt been a black out around here since FERC capped prices. And last time I checked Enron was a Texas company. I really dont think the energy crisis and the stupidity of the writers has any correlation.

Especially since "Homefront" predates the whole fiasco by a number of years.

[Darth Wong]

Hasnt been a black out around here since FERC capped prices. And last time I checked Enron was a Texas company. I really dont think the energy crisis and the stupidity of the writers has any correlation.

Especially since "Homefront" predates the whole fiasco by a number of years.

Indeed. "Homefront" was clearly inspired by Microsoft's design philosophy, not the Enron fraud scandal.

The key revelations of "Homefront" are:

1. The Federation has no segregation between civilian and military power systems. This fits in neatly with the fact that there appears to be little or no segregation between their civilian and military leadership structure.
2. The Federation's power delivery grid is incredibly centralized, with an entire global system that is interconnected. As bad as it was for several adjacent states and one Canadian province to lose power in real life, the disruption did not spread beyond there. A global cascade failure is beyond belief.
3. The Federation's power grid is interconnected not only at the transmission level, but also at the software level. The entire system runs off a single network with no security safeguards, thus allowing a computer virus to propagate across the system.
4. While the recent real-life power blackout triggered numerous calls for reform, there was no indication that the blackout of "Homefront" triggered any calls to rethink the design of Earth's infrastructure. This is not indicative of a government which fears the judgement of its citizenry.