A series of gel packs
A gel pack in the panel behind a replicator
Bio-neural gel packs are a form of computer technology used by Starfleet, first developed in the early 2370s.
The gel packs form the basis of the bio-neural circuitry, which is essentially an organic computer system. The packs contain neural fibers surrounded in a blue gel with metallic interfaces on the top and bottom. They help store more information and operate at faster speeds than isolinear circuitry.
The fibers in an individual gel pack are capable of making billions of connections, thus generating an incredibly sophisticated and responsive computing architecture. This kind of organic circuitry allows computers to 'think' in very similar ways to living organisms; by using 'fuzzy logic', they can effectively operate by making a 'best guess' answer to complex questions rather than working through all possible calculations. This is due in part to the inherent nature of organic neural systems to correlate chaotic patterns that yet elude the capacities of conventional hardware.
The USS Voyager was one of the first starships equipped with the technology. (VOY: "Caretaker") Gel packs cannot be replicated. (VOY: "Learning Curve") Voyager stored their spare gel packs in engineering locker Gamma 5. (VOY: "Renaissance Man")
Like other biological forms, gel packs are susceptible to bacteria and viruses. As such, heating them can remove such infections. (VOY: "Learning Curve")
- They were infected with bacteria due to cheese created by Neelix. (VOY: "Learning Curve")
- A gel pack in the mess hall was infected with a macrovirus, and led to an outbreak when it ruptured. (VOY: "Macrocosm")
- During a voyage through a Mutara-class nebula, the gel packs began to fail due to subnucleonic radiation. (VOY: "One")
Bio-neural gel pack sequence 6-Theta-9 is located on Deck 4 of an Template:ShipClass starship. (VOY: "One")
Gel packs can be modified by injecting a type of serum into the packs in order to return a ship caught in numerous temporal periods, such as caused by a temporal anomaly, to a single temporal period. This process returns the ship to a few seconds before the anomaly occurs. (VOY: "Shattered")
When members of the Hierarchy species kidnapped Captain Kathryn Janeway, The Doctor was forced to steal gel packs by posing as Lieutenant B'Elanna Torres. However when Janeway was rescued by Lieutenant Tom Paris and Lieutenant Commander Tuvok, the gel packs were returned to Voyager. (VOY: "Renaissance Man")
Janeway once commented that a bio-neural gel pack could plot vectors "a bit faster" than Tom Paris.(VOY: "Fury")