Central Computer

I hate central computers. Not dislike, hate. With a vengeance. Queiba Command has done it again with their new initiative to link all the ships together on one big interstellar computer network. It makes doing anything a royal pain.

Take starting programs on a desktop terminal, for instance. Ordinarily, under the old system with average conditions, starting the log recorder or viewer, or opening up sensor logs, took a few hundred milliseconds to a second or two. That was with the ship handling its own processing and data storage. Now, with the single computer at Queiba Command handling every little minute task for every ship in the fleet, doing anything takes five minutes, if not longer.

Just opening the program to record this log entry (I am using my 'personal' tag for this entry, even though I know they read everything anyway) took ten minutes. First the program had to start, then it had to connect to the central computer. Next, it loaded a list of all my previous entries. Finally, and this is the longest step, it loaded the full text and audio of every entry in the list, even though it's just a log recorder and can't play the logs back. It's a flaw in the program's design, for sure, since it's loading a ton of data that it doesn't need; but at least under an on-board system the delay was tolerable.

The latency of doing anything on a central computer is ridiculously high, too. Not only do programs take ages to load, but issuing commands results in a several-second delay before any results show up. Even changing "tabs" (I'm not sure what to call them, actually; that's just a nickname) takes on average five seconds. Accessing data in the Automated Reporting, Reporting, and Reporting Interface (ARRRIn, so named because it submits triply-redundant data and wastes even more time that way) or opening a queued report waiting to be sent takes another ten seconds per request. Most of the delay time is made up of wait intervals, spent giving data time to be transmitted across the ridiculously slow radio network.

I'm thinking of writing up a petition and clandestinely (can't do anything in the open, of course) gathering signatures from other commanders whose ships have been affected. Once I've gotten enough signatories, I'll present it to Queiba Command anonymously, in the hopes that they'll see all the signatures and go back to the old one-ship-one-computer model. If only to have the performance back...

-Commander Nemulo of the Qlaque