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This article researched/written by Erica (erica@netcon.net.au)
GAN: I've got their communications frequency.BLAKE: Voice contact? GAN: No, just computer talk.BLAKE: Can our machines translate? GAN: Negative.BLAKE: Zen, identify the hostiles.CALLY: Forty-two seconds.BLAKE: Zen![Zen burbles] AVON: The information must be bypassing the translator systems.[Burbles and gargles in two tones from Zen] JENNA: It's another computer. It's communicating with Zen. VILA: Someone outside is controlling the Liberator.
AVON: I think the attack ships did exactly what they intended. They knocked out our manual control systems.JENNA: Their blaster strike would have to be enormously accurate to cause selective damage. AVON: It could be done if they knew the vulnerable points.JENNA: All right, but how could their computers override Zen? AVON: There's a command code programmed into every system. Key that code, and the computers will only respond to orders from source.JENNA: But who would know the code that operates Zen?BLAKE: It's obvious, isn't it?JENNA: The people who built the Liberator?BLAKE: Just taking back what's theirs. Redemption.
Presumably the System transmitted the command code and the rest of itsorders to Zen through the ordinary communication channels; hence the"computer talk" detected by Gan. Without the code, any orders issued byanother computer would be ignored. Unless they're from Orac, who it wouldseem either (a) doesn't use the ordinary communication channels; and/or (b)can somehow override the command code requirement. Again I'll save that forthe Orac discussion....
At a stretch it is also possible that the System didn't use the ordinarycommunication channels and that:
(a) the System is like Orac (at least with respect to its own technology), doesn't need no stinkin' command code and can control Zen without a direct link;
(b) the Altas are already on the ship and the System is controlling Zen fromwithin, that is communicating directly with the Altas who then transmit theorders to Zen on the ship.
Ah, you're going to go into that business from "Shadow," aren't you, inwhich it is revealed that Orac's communications can pass through the samedimension as telepathy. Hmm, there's something that can be done with thatand Cally, probably...something more interesting than what happened in theactual episode.
I assumed the first time the Altas boarded the ship was when we are shownthe teleport activating. However, it could have done so earlier and wasnot seen by any crewmember. The Alta who questioned Blake had to touch adomed contact point to communicate with the system, so that could be a sortof back-up for the idea that a physical link was needed to take over Zen.