It just popped up in my mind.
- You could decorate any room as you like. You don’t even need to step out of it most of the times.
- Other people can be projected inside it like Voyager’s doctor.
- Also rooms could be much smaller. They only need to be big enough a human(oid) can fit inside.
- In emergency cases most holograms can be shut off to match increased energy demands by weapons and shields. You only really need seating/bed and a (non-exploding) console screen.
- Much of the specialized rooms like a bar, med bay, etc. won’t be needed anymore as a holodeck can imitate all of them.
It irritated me a bit that a Discovery gets fancy floating warp nacelles but holodecks are… wait, does Discovery has a holodeck? I don’t remember seeing one.
As people said, the Holodeck uses a lot of energy, “Homeward” is an episode who show this.
In emergency cases most holograms can be shut off to match increased energy demands by weapons and shields.
Disengage the safety protocols and suddenly you’ve got weapons and shield emitters than ought to work just as well as their material counterparts, but can’t be damaged (or any damage can be instantly reset). We know that holograms can be projected into space so the only limitation would be the range of the holoemitters.
Considering how often a single holodeck tries to take over the ship/kill its occupants/malfunctions, the fewer the better.
Surely The Year of The Holodeck Desktop would arrive eventually?
What if we use a holodeck to simulate a holodeck so that if one breaks down, they try to kill each other and leave us alone?
Like a virtual machine kinda deal?
Yeah, exactly. It seems like it would be safer.
Containerized holodeck clusters.
Really this should probably be the norm anyway. Why would a holodeck require root access to any vital ship functions if all it needs to do is simulate entirely fake environments and characters?
Well, virtualizatiin systems tend to run at root level, since they need to emulate things like processors (yea, that’s not the only way, but business-class virtualizatiin is done at the OS level).
I feel like you’re right, but what if we need to reverse the polarity and reroute auxiliary power to the main deflectors?
The higher the fewer, even.
HA
yeah, man
Expensive?
According to Picard in the Movie First Contact money doesn’t exist anymore. I guess those latinum bars are only used by Ferengies, in border systems and outside the Federation.
That doesn’t mean there’s nothing that measures expense. The Federation might have a lot of available resources but they can’t be infinite.
- Energy. In TNG, the holodecks burn a lot of energy. Can’t imagine what would happen if you turned every room into one.
- The holodeck isn’t a Tardis. The space inside the holodeck is an illusion created by the room. The room can make the space look infinite, and the floor can function as a hard-light treadmill that let’s you explore that infinite space, but the room still needs to be large enough to accommodate all the real-world things in it. That’s why they’re so large in TNG and Voyager. Holo-quarters would still need to be roughly the size of regular quarters.
- Same problem with the bar. Sure, you could make anyone’s quarters look like Ten Forward, but if your quarters fit 3 people, that’s how many people can drink there.
- The sickbay would still be essential because the problem isn’t medical equipment, it’s staff. Unless you’re going to have the medical staff running all over the ship making house calls, having that staff in a centralized location and having the crew come to them just makes more sense, especially in an emergency. Emergencies are also why that equipment should never be holographic. If the ship is under attack, the last thing you want is sickbay disappearing because of a phaser hit or having to turn off the medical equipment to power the sheilds.
- Some episodes and movies show ships that are essentially flying holodecks. Energy doesn’t seems to be a problem.
- That’s the point: You don’t need real-world things. The reason the holodeck is so large is to accommodate dozens of people at the same time.
- Some kind of multiplayer function across several holodecks should be possible.
- You either have a holodoctor for everyone who needs one or the few medical practitioners see a holo of their patient on which they operate. The holoroom the patient is in then replicates what the doctors are doing.
1 the things that have extra holodecks that I’ve seen are just space stations, which can have larger power stations. The ship in insurrection was purpose built to trick people into thinking it was their small village that they don’t leave often. It can have all the power it needs dedicated to the holodeck and be slow with a Son’a escort for protection.
2 with you on that one.
3 also with you on this one. It just makes sense. Two people on opposite sides of the system could have dinner together in a holodeck. Easiest sell in the world after the holodeck itself.
4 the only issue I have with medical areas being holodecks is how often we see power issues in star trek. If they lose power, no med bay, no holo-docs. But if you’re already doing it, I see no reason there can’t be all the holographic doctors you need, and if the entire interior of the ship is filled with holo-emmitters then the EMH isn’t an issue.
For the record, I’m with you. I think by the end of the 2380s they should definitely be having entire swathes of ships dedicated to holographic rooms.
In Voyager, The USS Prometheus had holo-emmitters all over, so the EMH was able to walk around and take the ship back from romulans.
Incidentally I was listening to some Certifiably Ingame ship breakdowns and they touched on a ship that has holographic interiors for a lot of spaces, but since I was falling asleep at the time I am unsure which ship it is. I’m trying to peruse the Playlist to see if anything looks familiar.
There was the VOY episode where the hirogen had converted alot of voyager over to holodecks to hunt the crew. The WW2 and klingon settings. The left Kim around to keep it running. Wasn’t that a huge drain on all the other systems?
I mean, the largest holodeck ship I can think of was the one from Insurrection, and that was specifically designed to secretly abduct a whole population without their knowledge. I don’t think it would work for exploration or combat, just transport. I think they started incorporating holoemiters into systems on all decks by the time of the Enterprise-E, but they were supposed to be supplemental systems, not replacements.
I just don’t see how these holoquarters would improve much. Like, what real-world things are you replacing? You’ve already said that they need to have real-world seating and beds (and I’m going to go ahead and add bathrooms to that list), so what are we phasing out? Clothes and personal effects? Sure, you can replicate a new uniform every day, but it’s probably a waste of energy, and you wouldn’t have space for sentimental possessions.
Being able to go on some sort if multi-player adventure sounds cool, but I think most people would prefer to able go out to a real bar with their friends rather than go to a virtual bar from their bedroom. This is starting to feel like how Zuckerberg tried to replace meeting rooms with VR meetings. I think most people would rather go to a place and see someone real face-to-face.
And holodoctor or a holographic patient interface is even more risky. Even if you assume that a holodoctor is just as good as a real doctor (and there’s really only been one EMH that was), or that a holographic version of your patient is exactly like the real thing, all of the problems with holographic medicine I mentioned get even worse. Imagine being halfway through surgery when your doctor just dematerializes.
I thought the same. It helps to watch the first episode of the next generation. Will talks to wesely about it and its a rare thing at that time and sounds like it takes a lot of resources. Later episodes the holodeck using a lot of power comes up. People have to sign up for them and I took it there is no point in making more holodeck rooms than is prudent for the amount of power they draw just for leisure (mostly) activities. All the rooms have replicators but if someone was running it constantly it would become quite the power drain and we see in voyager that with no source of resupply have to ration replicators (although curiously I don’t recall them rationing the holodecks, but maybe they did). As far as discovery in the future you see the energy issues and they use that programmable matter which I think is supposed to be more energy efficient.
They hand waved away the holodeck power thing in Voyager by days something along the lines of it is a different type of power that wasn’t worth trying to convert to normal power for some reason. Basically just another Voyager excuse to ignore the premises of the show unless they happen to be bored that day.
yeah its funny because the way I understand it the holodeck uses a compination of holgrams, tractor beam type thing, and replicator tech. Feels like in their situation a competent engineer could get it utilized for the more important just replication or heck they are always rerouting power. they can’t do that???
They didn’t go into depth at all, don’t believe we even have one with a name, but they talked about seeing federation ships made entirely of ‘holographic containment walls’ in Discovery Season 3. Pretty sure it was when they first arrived at federation headquarters in the future.
There was also that ship in insurrection where it was just one giant holodeck, but still existing inside a regular ship. The concept just hasn’t made it into something that’s broadly popular in the mainstream trek fandom.
Good catch, I’d completely forgotten about that line:
Some of these hulls are organic. Some…some are completely comprised of holographic-containment walls.
OG Discovery had some kind of combat simulator (kind of a proto-holodeck) that Lorca and Tyler used to train for a mission.
After the 31st century refit, the cabins used programmable matter for their furniture, etc. My understanding is that programmable matter is the transistor to the holodeck’s vacuum tube (i.e. it made holograms obsolete). Ok, I said that, but there are advanced holograms at HQ, so I guess holography hasn’t gone totally out of style. I don’t recall if it was ever established as such, but my head canon is that programmable matter is more efficient for “static” objects since it doesn’t need energy to maintain form, just when it changes (unlike holograms which require constant energy). That would explain why PM is used for furnishings/decor and holograms are still used for humanoid constructs.
As for why all rooms aren’t holodecks/suites in the 24th century, probably due to power consumption. In VOY 4x18 “The Killing Game”, the Hirogen had Harry Kim expanding the holo emitters throughout the ship which seemed to be putting considerable strain on the ship’s power system (despite not being in battle or at high warp; perhaps not in warp at all – been a minute since I saw that episode).
While the Prometheus had ship-wide holo emitters and seemed fine power-wise, there’s a difference between projecting an EMH (or two) versus simulating an entire environment plus the associated NPCs.
As for why all rooms aren’t holodecks/suites in the 24th century, probably due to power consumption.
It’s been a while and I might not remember correctly. Wasn’t there an episode in Voy? with holographic lifeforms that rebelled against their creators and lived inside a flying holodeck ship? And there was that Insurrection movie in which a whole village was teleported into a giant holodeck ship.
It seems possible.
There’s another episode in VOY where the Hirogen force Harry to build basically 3/4 of the ship into a massive set of holodecks. It’s mentioned multiple times that this is a MASSIVE power drain (this may be due to the smaller warp core of the ship, though).
Wasn’t there an episode in Voy? with holographic lifeforms that rebelled against their creators and lived inside a flying holodeck ship?
Yep. But the ship was just projecting the holographic lifeforms and not an entire environment. Probably used a bit less power than a full-blown, ship-wide holodeck. Life support (which seems to require a lot of power in the Trek universe) on the ship may also have been minimal since they didn’t need it. It was still online, at least in certain areas, since B’Elanna was able to survive when she was shanghai’d aboard.
And there was that Insurrection movie in which a whole village was teleported into a giant holodeck ship.
Also yep. There was also a TNG episode with the whole village Worf’s (human/adopted) brother was embedded into that was was stealth transported into the D’s holodeck and moved to a new planet.
I’m not saying it’s impossible to make every cabin a holo-suite, just that in most cases, it would seem to be impractical. i.e. Awesome, but Impractical
Edit: If you’ve seen PIC, they actually do make at least some of the cabins holo-suites. The cabin Picard is assigned is made up to look like a room in his chateau. I think that room is special, though (might even be the captain’s quarters that Rios gave up/didn’t use) since Raffi’s and Rios’s cabins seemed standard for a starship of that size/class. I don’t think we saw any other cabins aboard La Sirena. That, or they didn’t have enough cabins and just stuck Picard in the ship’s holodeck lol.
Came here to mention La Sirena from Picard.
Hologram bridge crew with fully hologram passenger quarters, the introverts starship par excellence 👌
The holo-crew is a really smart idea for a solo freighter captain.
Prodigy has holoemitters on every deck and is able to reconfigure the bridge using them. It is possible but they just need a reason.
I’d say the biggest reason is energy, like everyone else. But also, being able to make your room into any fantasy scenario you want would probably lead to problems with adjusting to everyday life. They don’t need a whole ship full of Barclays screwing up at their job.
Warships need to be able to keep functioning even if they take damage, loss of power, etc. A holographic system seems to be fragile, and requires lots of other ship systems to be fully functional.
Not to mention energy use, purpose-built compartments probably use less energy just to exist
The defiant class was technically the only warship they built for a long time.
wait, does Discovery has a holodeck?
They actually seem to have what you’re describing, more or less - Burnham was able to run complete holosimulations in her quarters.
This is a fun thought experiment and I’m kind of surprised Discovery didn’t do something like this with holodeck tech in the “future” since the writers weren’t afraid to do other tech-taken-to-natural-conclusion like tiny phaser transporters (or whatever those were).
Semi-related but I always thought it would be cool to see a Star Trek future where things have advanced so far that it would appear to someone like Picard like he and the Enterprise appeared to the Mintakans.
a Star Trek future where things have advanced so far that it would appear to someone like Picard like he and the Enterprise appeared to the Mintakans.
This was my major gripe with the 900+ year jump in Disco. The premise of TOS is that 300 years from now, we have developed warp speed, transporters and evolved past scarcity.
In the 32nd Century of Discovery… looks like shoulder pads are back? 🤷
I got a strong impression that the future of the Federation we saw in Disco was specifically built around the values of keeping “humanity” (and inalienable species) at the center of everything.
This is a fun thought experiment and I’m kind of surprised Discovery didn’t do something like this with holodeck tech in the “future” since the writers weren’t afraid to do other tech-taken-to-natural-conclusion like tiny phaser transporters (or whatever those were).
They kinda did, they just didn’t go into detail. There were ships that were made entirely of holodeck at the new federation headquarters in discovery season 3ish, we just never got beyond being mentioned briefly and people going ‘Oh, thats cool’.
A) waste of energy
B) horrible source of possible complications, problems and Desasters.
Guess that’s already enough reasons. Good idea though.
I feel like most of the objections could be satisfied by having non-essential holodeck stuff in rooms only.
So you have a bed and lighting and core furnishings without it. But you get to use the holodeck to adjust all that to your taste, decorate the room, and othewise make the space yours. Maybe you get a virtual companion if you are lonely.
OTOH, I think replicators are already capable of doing most of what would be done by the in-room holodeck in that case.
To me the energy needs don’t really matter since energy consumption only matters in emergencies in Star Trek usually. If the first things you lose when there are power issues are your decorations and your virtual companion, I think that’s OK…
