From: heim@vms.macc.wisc.edu (JOHN HEIM	)
Subject: ST:TNG vs LiS book chapter (long)
Organization:  University of Wisconsin Academic Computing Center
Date:  9 OCT 92 15:52:04    

Last week, when someone posted a message saying Lost in Space is 
better than Star Trek alarm bells went off in my head.  I posted a 
response that said that a friend of mine had written a book in which 
something just like this occured.  I've gotten a few questions about 
the book, which was distributed, in part, via BBSs.  So I'm posting 
the chapter in question below.  The book has not yet been published in 
hardcopy but it may be soon.

I'm not sure if this chapter stands on it's own.  But if you want to 
read more about the main characters you'll find more chapters on 
CompuServe, Genie, and Exec-PC BBS (414) 789-4210 and maybe on your 
local BBS.  Look for a files named LWS-1.ZIP, LWS-2.ZIP, LWS-3.ZIP, 
etc...

PS. Don't ask me about the author - I'm not supposed to talk about 
that.  But it's not me, honest.

-------------------------------------------------------------------- 
System Bull Maximum Exceeded
from "The Adventures of Lone Wolf Scientific"
Copyright 1992 Michy Peshota, All Rights Reserved

<<A mysterious flood of angry messages on the computer
network CompuPeople causes S-max to lose his head. Suddenly,
computer users as far away as Bengladesh are writing to him,
telling him exactly what they think of him.>>

Nebo scurried back and forth across the room, shrinkwrapped
boxes spilling from his chubby arms.  Austin rattled away
intently on his computer, bug-eyed with fatigue, unconscious
as a zombie to the hubbub around him.  Their boss, the
besuited, but rumpled looking Andrew.BAS, slouched in the
chair at the computer beside him, holding a phone receiver
to his ear.  He ran his hand through his hair tensely as he
listened to a customer recite a long list of problems with
their software.

Occasionally the doorbell jangled, and when it did, in its
warped, fluttery, broken-sounding way, SPARC leaped up from
his bed on the end of the R and D couch and bayed at the top
of his lungs, sounding like the hound of the Baskervilles
auditioning for work as a civil defense siren, and everyone
who worked for Lone Wolf Scientific who wasn't wearing a
suit and tie bolted out of sight, up the stairs or into the
kitchen, in case it might be a pinstriped customer who'd
blanch at the thought of buying computer software to control
millions of dollars worth of financial assets from a pack of
sneakered keyboard rats wearing jeans and t-shirts branded
with pictures of floppy disks, looking like they had all
just stumbled out of a state prison work bus.  Of course,
the one keyboard rat who never fled was S-max, the self-
appointed President, Chairman of the Board, CEO, Head of
Science, Head of Hardware, Vice President of Research on the
days when Andrew.BAS wasn't, Vice President of Fiduciary
Matters, and Guy With All the Keys.  He never cared much
about what people thought about him.  He was also the one
who most looked like he had just stumbled from a state
prison work bus, with his uncombable civil disobedience
afro, his weathered army jacket, and general appearance that
looked like he had just been thrown from an exploding car.

As his business partner and employees conducted their work
with their usual irritating, obsequious freneticism, S-max
languished on the couch, like a spoiled diva on a dressing
room loveseat, chomping corn chips, listening to a baseball
game on the radio pressed to his ear, one hand pointing a
remote control device that steered a radio-controlled toy
car aimlessly across the floor, and reading an engineering
magazine, his dog curled by his knees.  He'd occasionally
glance over his magazine at Lone Wolf Scientific's two most
devoted employees, the dreadlocked Austin and the hobbity
Nebo, both of whom had, just weeks ago, wiggled out from S-
max's bear-trap Macchiavellian grasp and were now
responsible only to the soft-spoken bidding of that teddy
bear-souled, congenitally dimpled Andrew.BAS.  The whole
thing made S-max seethe with jealousy.  Austin and Nebo had
once been his employees, now they were that goofy
programmer's.  It was not fair.  His annoyance with them
grew as the days passed, and they toiled away tirelessly,
retooling Andrew.BAS's software like two chirpy slaves, all
the while ignoring the computer builder who had originally
hired them.  He dubbed them Huey and Dewey, for the
programmers reminded him of two hapless, antic-prone cartoon
ducks.  Sometimes he heard them snickering, and he suspected
they were laughing at him behind his back.  Last night he
had heard them giggling almost until dawn on their cots in
the attic, and it made him scowl to think of what
monkeyshines they might be up to, what devilry his
managerial CEO style had unwittingly inspired.  His paranoia
was fueled by the fact that *he* had always laughed at his
former employers.  Around noon S-max hoisted his chip-and-
screwdriver laden bulk off the R and D couch and tottled
over to his moose antler-crowned computer.  He sank into his
faux zebra-fur cloaked computer chair and poked a series of
keys.  As his electronic phone book popped on the screen, he
grunted contentedly.  He poked another key, and the
computer's modem dialed the phone number for the
international computer network CompuPeople.

"Men of technological vision such as myself are always
treated like royalty on CompuPeople," he huffed over his
shoulder to Andrew.BAS, who was still on the phone and
frowning, "even when our ingrateful staffs completely desert
us."

The modem connected to the network with a "hssssssh" that
sounded like a cat hissing and made SPARC glance over his
shoulder suspiciously.  He watched the CompuPeople welcome
sign paint its pink, video game-like lines across the
screen.  "Andrew.BAS," he frowned, "why does it say here
that my mailbox contains 11,452 electronic messages, all of
them pertaining to that tiresome space opera 'Star Trek: The
Next Generation'?"   He pointed a thumb at the screen.

"Oh, I don't know," mused his partner, not quite paying
attention.  "Maybe you posted in CompuPeople's Star Trek
conference one of your typically juvenile flames and got a
lot of people mad at you?"

"Not likely.  I wasn't even home last night at four a.m.--
the hour when I am most likely to log onto CompuPeople and
post irresponsible messages that get a lot of people mad at
me."  He sniffed and poked a key. "As you'll recall, last
night I was standing out on the sidewalk in front of
Snookey's Parts Shack for most of the night.  I was awaiting
the start of their annual Midnight Madness MOS Transistor
Curb Sale--although it never did begin because the computer
magazine in which I read about it was almost three years
old.  So you see," he continued, squinting at the heading on
one of the messages, "I could not have posted any riot-
inducing philosophical tomes in the Spock & Schlock
Conference because I wasn't even home."

He stared at the screen, mystified. "It says here," he began
reading, "'Dear sir, I find your mindless assertion that the
old TV sitcom 'Lost in Space' starring Billy Mummy surpasses
in scientific accuracy and gripping portrayals of the laws
of physics 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' to be the
product of a hayseed sensibility and a gap-toothed mind."

"That certainly sounds like you, doesn't it?" said his
business partner.  Hanging up the phone, he got up and
walked over to S-max's computer.  He read some of the
messages over his shoulder.  "Are you sure you weren't in
the Star Trek Conference last night?" he frowned.

"Positive.  As I told you, I was standing in front of
Snookey's for most of the night, awaiting the start of their
MOS Transistor Midnight Madness Sale--"

"And you didn't post any messages about Billy Mummy?"

"Certainly not."  S-max scowled deeply and poked another
key.  The next e-mail message scrolled onto the screen.
"This one says, 'Dear 'My Favorite Martian' Groupie, The
next time you are overcome with the overwhelming conviction
that Captain Jean Luc Picard, whom everyone knows to be one
of the bravest and most heroic starship commanders that the
Federation has ever hired--Geezus," he snorted, "--would be
more realistic a character if accompanied by a chirping
robot rolling around on old bed-frame castors--"

Andrew.BAS looked at his friend horrified.  "Why would you
have said that?"

"I told you, I did not say that," S-max snapped.  "I told
you, I was standing in front of Snookey's--"

"Yeah, o.k., so what does the rest of the message say?"

"It says, 'I suggest you turn off your TV and--'"  S-max
gasped.  He covered the screen with his hands.  "I don't
think you want to read this Andrew.BAS, you are too young."

"No, I wanna read it."  Andrew.BAS cranned to see the words
between his fingers.  "It says....all I can make out is
something about Legos and Ferengis."

"That's all you need to read."  S-max stabbed a key and
another message rolled across the screen.

"Hey, that message calls you a 'Romulan love child'!"

'There's more."  S-max punched more keys.  "Here's a message
that calls me a 'surrogate mother to a huge alien creature.'
This message accuses me of being a frustrated 'Battlestar
Galactica' fan.  Here's one in which the writer threatens to
write Parmount and demand my excommunication from every
trekkie convention from now through eternity."  He scowled
fiercely.  "Geezus, as if I really cared."

"People can get very impassioned about their 'Star Trek'
viewing, you know," Andrew.BAS said, his face now
thoughtful, "particularly programmers.  They tend to find in
its poignant portrayals of warp speed travel on The Starship
Enterprise problems and situations they can intimately
relate to in their own working lives."

"You don't have to tell me how kooky you people are.  When I
got home from Snookey's last night I heard Huey and Dewey
giggling till dawn, and I think I heard them mention 'Star
Trek' at least once."  He shook his bushy head.  "Here's a
message that suggests my TV viewing preferences are the
result of a failed Vulcan mind meld."

At mention of the two reclusive programmers, Andrew.BAS
turned to look at them in curiosity.  He watched them
closely to see if their faces expressed any reaction to S-
max's e-mail travails, but both appeared to be going about
their business with calm indifference.  He thought that
rather odd, for he would have thought that they would be
listening to and maybe even enjoying his despair, for only
last night he had heard them in their cots, whispering to
each other gripes about the computer builder's endless
fulminations against the quirks of programmers.

S-max poked more keys, and more messages scrolled.  "Even as
I read these lamebrained messages," he lamented, "nitwits
are writing and sending me more message.  Lookit this."  He
pointed to the screen icon signifying his message queue.
"When I first logged onto CompuPeople ten minutes ago, there
were 11,452 e-mail flames from offended trekkies waiting for
me.  Now there are 13,902 messages."  He angrily pounded out
a reply to one.

"You don't plan to answer every one of them, do you?"
Andrew.BAS asked, astonished.

"Of course I am!  What better way is there to defend my
hardwon reputation on CompuPeople as a man of technological
vision and excellence than to personally address the charges
of each and every one of these nitwits?"  His fingers
rattled the computer keys like an assault weapon.

Andrew.BAS heard a laugh twitter in the vacinity of Nebo.
He wheeled around to look at the pigeon-toed programmer, but
he only sneezed and glanced back to his work

"Now there are 18,902 messages in my mailbox!" S-max wailed.
He pounded away on the keys.

Andrew.BAS peeked over his shoulder at the message he was
typing in reply to an accoster.

ATTENTION MISLED CHUMP:  I DID NOT, REPEAT NOT, ISSUE ANY
INFLAMATORY STATEMENT STATING THAT 'LOST IN SPACE' IS
SUPERIOR TO 'STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION' IN SCIENTIFIC
ACCURACY!!!'  (ALTHOUGH OBVIOUSLY A CASE COULD BE MADE FOR
IT BEING SO.) OBVIOUSLY SOME HEATHEN PROGRAMMER GOT HOLD OF
MY COMPUPEOPLE PASSWORD AND SCRIBBLED UP YOUR STUPID STAR
TREK CONFERENCE WITH INFLAMMATORY STATEMENTS ISSUED UNDER MY
GOOD NAME IN AN ATTEMPT TO BLACKEN MY ENVIABLE REPUTATION.
I REPEAT:  I DID NOT ISSUE ANY INFLAMATORY STATEMENT.

With maladroit forefingers that trembled with anger, he
tapped on:

FURTHERMORE, NOODLEHEAD, I AM NOT AND HAVE NEVER BEEN A
ROMULAN LOVE CHILD.  I AM A TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATOR.  THAT
IS NOT THE SAME  THING AS A ROMULAN LOVE CHILD, TURKEY!

S-MAX
CEO, CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD, HEAD OF HARDWARE, HEAD OF
SCIENCE, ETC.
LONE WOLF SCIENTIFIC


The programmer's face puckered into a frown of concern.
"You might want to temper some of those statements with a
bit of diplomacy," he suggested.  "Even if you've been
wrongly accused, you don't want to make enemies of your
accusers."

"No, no, Andrew.BAS!"  S-max turned to him.  "This is
exactly the tone used by people on CompuPeople in responding
to scurrilous personal attacks.  I have spent years
imitating it and getting it down pat."

"Well, yes, I'm aware of that," Andrew.BAS said, "but I
still think you should be a bit more diplomatic, and maybe
tone down your responses.  At the very least you shouldn't
type everything in capital letters.  It gives people the
impression that you're a government teletype machine that
has just issued a declaration of war."

"But that is exactly the tone I am striving for!"

Andrew.BAS sighed.   This was like trying to coax Ivan the
Terrible to draw smiley faces beside his name.  "If you
like," he persisted, "I'll help you prepare a public
statement to help quell the unrest."

"Certainly not!"  S-max jabbed a key and his message was
jettisoned to its intended recipient.  "The only way to deal
with these brain-addled trekkies is to confront them with
the harsh realities of their own insanity and send them back
to their Schlock & Spock Conference with their pointy ears
dangling between their legs. The capital letters will remind
them of the kind of person they are toying with."

"Don't you think maybe you'd be better off just stopping
what you're doing and apologizing to everyone," Andrew.BAS
pleaded, worried, "regardless of whether you were the one
who wrote the message about 'Lost in Space' in the first
place--just to calm people down.  You know, things like this
tend to blow way out of proportion on computer networks and
get everyone upset."

"Nonsense!" S-max scoffed.  "You do not understand the
dynamics of computer networks at all!  When you exchange
messages with boobs on computer networks, you can't just
stop an argument, calm down and apologize to everyone.  You
have to vent your spleen, you have to put silly people in
their place, you have to call bovine-brains bovine-brains,
you have to carry your anger to its most logical, irrational
extreme.  You have to take revenge.  You have to let the
argument run its coarse, even if four million innocent
strangers are sucked into it and they all start accusing you
of being a  Billy Mummy groupie.  Technological innovators
such as myself have a responsibility to respond to insults
by doing more than merely pressing the delete key.  We have
to set an example for others."  Thus inspired, he typed
faster, keying in a response to another message that
rivalled the first in its diplomatic subtlety.

Andrew.BAS thought he heard a snicker emmanate from
somewhere in the vacinity of one of his employees, but when
he turned to look, Nebo was crunched over his keyboard and
Austin was gaping dully at his computer screen, his mouth
crooked open with a drool.

Over four million computer messages from insulted 'Star
Trek' fans filled S-max's e-mail box within the hour.  There
were messages from trekkers in Finland who accused him of
having lost, in an unstable worm hole, some essential part
of his brain that appeared to rhyme with "fluggernut."  (Or
maybe they were calling him an unstable worm hole?  He
couldn't tell.)  There were missives from trekkers in
Indonesia who marvelled that it was so easy in the United
States for worthless people to have television sets.  There
were messages from trekkers in Brazil who told him how much
a shrunken head of a 'Star Trek' disparager can be sold for
in the markets of Rio.  There was even a message from a
trekker in a small village in India where inhabitants were
petitioning Buddha to have the computer builder reincarted
as a mole on the pig-nose of a Farengi warrior.  And of
course, there were messages from trekkers who told him that
they were simply praying for him, period.  Thousands more
messages streamed in every second.

The more e-mail messages S-max got, the madder the computer
builder became.  His two fingers flew over the keys like
Mafia hitmen following an episode of "Family Feud" in which
all the contestants share a single Sicilian grandmother.
With each boorish, capital letter-scarred rebuttal his
forefingers pounded out, a million more irate notes poured
in.  By late afternoon, his mailbox brimmed with an
astonishing 57,621,093 angry e-mail messages.  By early
evening the number had increased to 125,892,190,104.  He
typed faster.

He shot off one tactless, invective-riddle e-mail response
after another.  He was going to answer all these
noodleheaded space-casers if it took him the rest of his
life, he resolved.  Eventually, he started getting messages
from CompuPeople itself.  They were software messages, they
did not come from any real person.  They popped onto the
bottom of his computer screen without warning.  They looked
like the kind of messages that appear on computers in movies
just before the world is about to end, they were that
melodramatic.  One said, "Pittsburgh Network Node Down, E-
mail Overflow."  Another said, "Saudi Arabian Network Node
Down, Flame Queue Full."  One warned "Peruvian Network Node
Down, System Bull Maximum Exceeded."  He got about fifty
messages like this, one for every country in both the
northern and southern hemispheres.

He was regarding these messages with nothing more than
annoyance, and worry about he was now going to be able to
respond to those whiney trekkers in Rio who were threatening
him with the prices of shrunken heads (as if it was really
possibly to shrink the titanic head of a computer genius
like S-max! he scoffed) now that the Brazilian node was
down, when the phone rang.  He wrenched it from the cradle.

"Hullo?" he snorted into the receiver.

"Hello," piped a friendly voice.  "My name is Mort.  I am a
representative of CompuPeople."

"Oh, you."

"We've spoken before?"

"Unfortunately, yes.  You are the insensitive bureacratis
lout whom I tried futiley to get fired after your Classic
Computer Games conference deleted from its message
collection my brilliant seven-hundred-page expose of the
different kinds of affective personality disorders of people
who like UNIX and have no reason to live."

"Ah, yes," said Mort, still surprisingly cheery, "come to
think of it, I recall something of the matter."

"You know," huffed S-max," it took me almost a week to type
in that message."  He frowned.

He noticed that Austin and Nebo were openly watching him, as
if they were now spellbound by his crisis.  He ignored them.

"We make every effort to accomodate all our customers--"

"Not to mention the extensive footnotes."

"We try to keep messages in Classic Computer Games down to
two screens each--"

"And the foldout electrical schematic," S-max snorted.  "Do
you have any idea how difficult it is to type into a
CompuPeople message a foldout electrical schematic?  Have
you ever even tried it?!"

Mort grew silent.

S-max grunted with wounded pride, memories of the
indignation of the Classic Computer Games situation
floodingback to him.

"The reason I called--" Mort began again.

"Do you know your Saudia Arabian Network Node is down?"
blurted S-max.

"Yes, we're aware--"

"So is your Pittsburgh node."

"Our engineers are working to correct that--"

"If I were you I would increase the size of my flame queue
as quickly as possible!"  S-max said this with an urgency
that frightened Mort.  "I'd also talk to the programmers
about doing something to increase the size of the System
Bull Maximum.  Programmers, you know, tend to be rather
clever at increasing the parameters of any System Bull
Maximum."

"Yes, we--"

"Most people are not aware of it, but the job title 'system
analyst' is actually comprised of three words, 'system bull
analyst.'  The clever programmer will leave the middle word
off his resume in order to negotiate a higher salary, but
those of us with years of experience with their harrowing
species know better."  The computer builder grunted in
thought.

"Mr. Maxwell," said the CompuPeople representative.  This
time his voice resounded with brassy authority.   "Not only
has our Saudi Arabian network node crashed, as well as our
Pittsburg node, but so have our Dublin, Paris, Amsterdam,
Bangkok, and Antarctic nodes.  Our Geneva, London,
Stuttgardt, and Genoa network nodes have also crashed.  In
fact, the entire CompuPeople network is dead, except for
your node--to which I see you're still hoggishly logged on
and entering messages.  Do you have any idea why this has
happened?!"

"It's like I told you, your flame queue is not roomy
enough!" S-max howled.  He rolled his eyes.  He couldn't
believe these techno-bureacrats.  Their insights into
computer problems were truly apalling.  It was probably
because they were nothing but glorified salespeople.  He
grunted.

"Our flame queue can never be big enough to accomodate hot-
fingered malcontents like you!" erupted Mort, now sounding a
bit frantic.  "You have just crashed the world's biggest
computer network, except for your node--"

"And I plan to continue entering messages in it, too," the
computer builder sniffed.  "Because I am a paying
subscriber."

"Mr. Maxwell," he pleaded.  "Please desist from keying in
anymore messages in the Star Trek Conference, at least for a
few hours.  The Star Trek Conference, as you may  know, is
our most popular message conference.  In fact, it is the
world's largest online public message conference.  Trekkers
from all over the world log on to CompuPeople just to read
and exchange messages with other fans of the show.  Millions
of messages fly through that conference every week, more
messages than even in the online quilting conference.  If
you persist in leaving inflammatory messages all over the
conference, calling other members 'Klingon feral children'--
"

"They called me a Romulan love child first," S-max
protested, still smarting from the barb.

"--it will result in more avalanches of outraged messages,
and more system lockups, and CompuPeople will keep crashing
until we can calm everyone down and bring back order.  And
that may take us months."

"Listen, my friend," S-max interrupted, "my intellectual
ruminations have crashed computer networks before, so I'm no
stranger to what can happen--"

"Wait a minute, you're not that guy who caused the
continental European branch of CompuPeople to crash last
fall with an overflow of messages defending that lamebrained
computer The Treasure of Everlasting Joy PC?"

"I am one and the same," S-max said proudly.  "And The
Treasure is anything but lamebrained.  It was technology at
its finest, even though the keys were a bit felty.  It was
technology that the common man could afford.  Now that you
know who you are dealing with--the designer of the legendary
Treasure of Everlasting Joy PC--I suggest you retreat to
your tacky plaid upholstered cubicle and reread my censored
manifesto on the bio-neurological deficiencies of dupes who
like UNIX and try to come to terms with the genius in it.
Meanwhile, I will finish mopping up the carnage in the
Schlock, Spock, and Green Women Conference."

He tossed the phone back into its cradle with a haughty
shake of the head and resumed typing a reply to a Baden-
Baden trekker he addressed as "Warp 2 Beetlebrain."

He thought he heard Nebo giggle, but when he turned to look
at the hobbity programmer, he was once again sneezing.  He
thought he heard a croaked laugh emmanate from the shriveled
asssembly savant, but when he turned to look at him, his
mouth gaped open and he drooled down the front of his t-
shirt.

Stupid programmers, he huffed to himself.

In less than an hour, the one remaining "live" CompuPeople
network node, the one that S-max hoggishly inhabited, had,
like the nodes in London, Paris, Tokyo, Bangkok, Dublin,
Amsterdam, Geneva, and many other cities, crashed.  When it
did, it spit out on S-max's screen a final lone, pained
message:  "SYSTEM BULL MAXIMUM EXCEEDED - CMOS BULL CONTROL
LOST."  The computer builder scowled at it.

A few minutes later, Mort called back.  He read to him an
emergency directive from the president of CompuPeople--a man
named Bob, that's all, just Bob, he never told anyone his
last name.  It banned the short-fused computer builder from
the computer message network for life.  Mort read the memo
over the phone in a somewhat sympathetic but clearly
victorious voice.

As he hung up, he said, "It's been a pleasure to have--"  He
started to say "met," but then said "encountered."  "It was
a pleasure to have encountered you, Mr. Maxwell.  It is
unfortunate that we will never encounter each other again."
His voice lingered deliciously over the words never...again.

After hanging up, the computer builder stomped up the attic
stairs.  His ripped sneakers pounded the steps with the
heavy futility of the pedal extremities of a defeated King
Kong.

Upstairs, he found Austin and Nebo burrowed in their
sleeping bags on their cots, and Andrew.BAS cross-legged on
his cot.  They were watching an old 'Star Trek' episode,
spellbound.  S-max marvelled that no matter how many times
these nudnik programmers saw these wornout 'Star Trek'
episodes, they still watched them spellbound.

He pointed an accusing, albeit tired finger at Andrew.BAS.
"You are going to have to do a better job of controlling
those programmers, Andrew.BAS," he roared, "unless you want
me to file a class action suit against all of you!"

Andrew.BAS, who now knew who was responsible for the
original CompuPeople 'Star Trek' message, as did S-max, said
absently, his eyes remaining riveted to the TV screen, "You
shouldn't have written your CompuPeople password on all
those pizza delivery takeout menus lying on the floor around
your desk."

"What other choice did I have?"  He threw his hands in the
air.  "I wouldn't have been as likely to remember it if I'd
scribbled it on the back of a pizza box."

With that, he shook his flame-colored mane back and forth in
a gesture of disgust and turned and shuffled down the
stairs.  "Blockhead trekkie programmers," he despaired.
"Billy Mummy groupie, indeed."
Newsgroups: rec.arts.startrek.misc