Aren't they just the best? But also, aren't they just a right pain in the you know what exactly when you don't want them to be?

I think my favourite Holodeck themed episode is from Voyager. It's called 'Worst Case Scenario'. The crew are getting themselves involved in a new Holo-novel. For a while the identity of the author remains a secret... until Tuvok owns up and claims it was only supposed to be a tactical training program. The novel's story focuses on a mutiny by the Maquis members of the crew, but it turns out that Seska has 'interfered' with it and Tuvok and Paris get trapped inside with the safety protocols disabled. Quite thrilling, I thought.

What do you think about the Holodecks then? Great idea full of endless potential, or a bit of a cop out when all other ideas have been exhausted?

Also, how can the holodeck work if two people are in the same scenario but the distance between them is greater than the physical size of the holodeck and they're both in seperate 'rooms'?

 

I don't know the answer to your question, but I love in Generations when they're all playing pirates or whatever and Data pushes Dr. Crusher into the water, only to be reprimanded for it not being funny.

 

A good example of my question (which really puzzles me) is in the episode from season two when Dr. Pulaski (die! die! die!) is being held by Moriarty in the Victorian England programme. Data, Picard and Geordi (maybe) enter to rescue her. Pulaski however, is so very distant (in terms of the fictional city) from her rescuers... and yet they are all in the same confined holodeck space. Peculiar, it is.

 

Um... it's sci-fi?

No, I completely understand what you're saying, and it's occurred to me, too. Like, in the one I mentioned above, do you remember if Beverly was actually wet after they left the holodeck?

I don't know; you obviously have to suspend disbelief to watch sci-fi, but the type of thing you're talking about just doesn't seem physically possible. Unless it's some weird thing, like with x-wing simulators or something, where you think you're moving through an area but you really aren't, and it's all just illusion. (Well, obviously, if you're talking about the holodeck, it's all illusion, but... I'm not making much sense anymore, am I? Was I ever?)

 

Oh yeah absolutely suspension of disbelief and all that.

But still... my inner nerd wants a solid and sustainable answer to this most pedantic of questions.

 

Oh, remember that one where Data is playing detective in old murder mysteries and Georgie Laforge tells the computer to challenge Data or something. And the whole episode is about Data trying to solve a real murder.

At least, I think that's what happened.

 

I never really understood how it was possible to even turn the saftey protocols off in the first place. Who designed it so it could kill people? You'd think they would find a way to make it not even possible. Also, could a fall kill you in the holodeck? Because no matter how high you go you're still limited to the room which only seems to be a 20 ft. cube. Add on a person's height and reach and we're talking like a 13 ft. fall max. Regardless, I want a holodeck in my house.

 

Seconded.

 

QFT.

Really, that's the same type of thing. How could something that isn't real kill you? I mean, aside from making you have a heart attack? It's almost as if instead of creating images and illusions, it's creating real things, or transporting you somewhere...

 

Well I suppose if a knife can be made 'hologramatically solid' then it could puncture the skin and mangle a person's internal organs. If a rocky surface can be made 'hologramatically solid' and moved at a dangerous speed towards a person then the impact would replicate a real world situation. If a person is falling, then surely the person isn't actually moving but instead the hologramatic envirnoment is moving around them. Mebbee.

 

I?d hate to be the poor sap that gets stuck with holodeck cleanup duty.

 

Yeah, unless all the holograms become real and try to kill you. But what are the odds of that happening?

Warrior_of_Mandalore Strikes Again!

 

I liked the Futurama take on the holodeck where they got attacked by Genghis Khan, Abe Lincoln and some other guys, and then the moon plugged the hole in the ship.

 

Well if you go by Star Trek...about every time.

 

Theres a difference in object creation going on too. Objects created by the holodeck cannot be removed, whereas objects created by replicator matter conversion can be removed;however, they will not be under computer control anymore.

Another neat thing is the substrate forcefield. That makes it so when you walk on the floor, you don't actually go anywhere.

At least thats as far as I understand it. Someone better get working on this stuff.

No, I don'thave the technical manual.

 

I remember reading in a issue of Omni magazine in the early nineties that a set designer from Star Trek said the Holodeck isn't like a tesseract,you know,bigger on the inside than out. There's a fixed amount of space in there.

 

Remember in the first episode when data chucked a rock at the wall? There's obviously limited space.

Also in my post right above yours, I mentioned the "Substrate forcefield" that creates the treadmill effect so that you don't walk into the wall.

I'd draw you a diagram, but I'm not ready to sell my soul to photobucket just yet.

 

I don't remember that incident with the rock. Was it a holorock? Because if it was, then surely it shouldn't have hit the wall?

 

It must have been a replicator rock.

 

I remember when he threw his communicator badge and it hit the wall, don't remember the rock though...

 

One thing I've often wondered why they never used the holodeck for something like the Stellar Cartography room in Generations,you know,use it to create 3-D maps of systems and such,or to study the layout of a planet's surface and the like. It seems like it'd be a better tool for exploration than recreation.