[Barnacle Bill]

I think the model for Master Computers (under whatever name) in science fiction games is the M5 computer from one episode of the original 1960's Star Trek TV show (forget the episode name). For those who don't know what I'm talking about, M5 was an experimental self-aware/sentient computer that was intended to replace all (or nearly all) of the crew of a starship. M5 was supposed to be able to learn, not just follow its original programming. It was invented by a middle-aged scientist (Dr. Daystrom)who had, as a very young man invented the crucial technology used in the current production generation of computers but had done nothing of note since (and had a complex over people saying he was a "flash in the pan" or just got lucky or whatever). So, Daystrom created M5 by impressing the functions of his own brain onto it (I would have used the brain of a highly experienced starship captain, but what the heck...). Anyway, to test M5 they installed it on the Enterprise and removed most of the crew. In wargames, fought using weapons dialed down in power to the point they can't penetrate shields, M5 wiped the floor with conventionally crewed ships of the same class. However, M5 turns out to be unstable, and gets more so progressively, so that it stops being able to tell the difference between wargames & reality and starts shooting full power. It was handily defeating 4 ships when our heroes figured out how to pull the plug.

Based on that model, the Master Computer should actually get an experience bonus. It would still gain experience normally, but would start at a higher level that wetware crews (increasing with each generation of the Master Computer component). It would be immune to psychic or political subVersion, but as suggested it would possibly be vulnerable to takeover via computer virus/hacking. Then again, it might be vulnerable to crew insurrection if you could figure out something a sentient computer would want or resent badly enough to defect. However, it should be vulnerable to a random event "Master Computer goes crazy", in which the ship is under nobody's control and attacks anything it sees.

[This message has been edited by Barnacle Bill (edited 15 January 2001).]