Holodeck mistakes! Post your favourites...

I've always found holodeck mistakes amusing...

Such as the first time the holodeck is used in TNG and Picard gets lipstick on his cheek from a holographic character, yet when he leaves the holdeck, the lipstick remains...

Or the TNG episode ' The Defector' when Data is practicing his acting in the holodeck and Picard is applauding him - Data freezes the program but the fire in the background is still going and the bird/forest sounds are still happening even though it's frozen.

And I was always confused in the VOY episode with the Nazi's (the name escapes me) when they manage to shut the holodeck down and the Nazi's disappear but the surrounding setting still survives...

If you've spotted any holodeck mistakes, post them here!

 

Ha! Great thread... I've noticed these, too. Doesn't Wesley emerge from the holodeck soaking wet after falling in the holographic stream of water in "Encounter At Farpoint?" If I recall, he's dripping water in the corridor outside.

Please correct me if I'm mistaken; it's been a while since I saw that episode. But it bugged me at the time!

 

It didn't have to be holographic water. It could have been replicated.

Not everything in a holodeck program is a simple holo-image. If you go in there and recreate your favorite restaurant, the food you eat will be 'real' (replicated), not holographic. Same thing for the water.

 

Honestly, I think the biggest mistake with the holodeck was using it in the first place. I never liked the idea of watching a fictional show about fictional characters role-playing fictional scenerios.

As for these being mistakes, I have to say I agree with Babaganoosh. These were all explained away within the internal logic of the program.

 

...Indeed, the holodeck started out as a realm that left you actually wet if you fell into its simulated water. It was some sort of baseless after-the-fact speculation that a holodeck shouldn't do that.

If the holodeck really replicates what it has to offer, or at least parts of it, it's pretty darn difficult to think of a "mistake" - because we then face a situation where things on the holodeck are real, and things on the sets and locations where they filmed the holodeck are real, so they automatically behave the same way, whilst any transition from set to set, location to location can be expected to feature discontinuities both on the holodeck and in reality.

Timo Saloniemi

 

not sure if this counts as a mistake but i'm sure voyager had a limited amount of power or the reserves were low or something yet they kept the holodecks running. i would have thought the holodeck takes a lot of power to run.

 

It's the "limited amount of power" thing that never made any sense. If the ship can do warp drive, she must have enough power to sustain her crew in luxury for the next ten thousand years...

When they discussed the issue of keeping the holodecks running in "Parallax", they decided that solving the compatibility problems of the power sources was not worth the trouble, because shutting down life support on Deck 9 would do the trick. If the holodecks consume as much power as the life support of one deck, it doesn't mean a pittance in the overall energy budget.

And in any case, the problem in "Parallax" wasn't that there was a shortage of power, or a shortage of fuel for generating power. The problem was that things were broken. And after our heroes got out of Kazon territory and started finding solid allies, things weren't broken any more. So there wasn't a need to regulate power consumption, either. (But they did regulate holodeck and replicator time, probably for reasons of discipline.)

Timo Saloniemi

 

The first mistake I remember catching, relating to a holodeck, is when Data and LaForge leave the 'deck after encountering Moriarty, and Geordi is aghast at the drawing he holds in his hand. When we flips it over so we can see it, it is right side up, meaning that he was looking at it upside down. D'oh!

Other than that, there are the numerous instances where characters in the holodeck go 'off-script' and notice things like Picard's Starfleet uniform. They're projections, not people - they don't have real eyes or anything; unless the holodeck is programmed to badger its users into costumes, the characters should respond to the player in the context of the story, rather than in the context of the player's reality - they should never 'notice' that the player doesn't look like his or her character, or silly stuff like that. Of course, the biggest mistakes are ones where the characters begin to question their existence - on a regular basis! - the holodeck computer must be really schizophrenic to project characters that then wonder how they got there, even though they're still only running inside the same computer!

 

Holodecks & holosuites are what our video games & consoles evolved into by the Picard/Sisko/Janeway Era.

I guess the holodeck is the 24th Century's X-Box 360, Wii & PS3 all at once & then some

Getting to the point, these holodeck mistakes, within the context of the Trekverse, are just bugs & errors not corrected, or even noticed, & so you see the mistakes aficionados, ^, mentioned.

Happens sometimes with videogames in 2009. 24th Century videogaming, AKA: the holodeck, certainly wouldn't be infallible either

 

What would be awesome is if one of the Characters in my Halo 3 game began to question it's existence and tried to take over earth.

 

That would be AWESOME!

 

Of course I'll I'd have to do is unplug it. But then maybe it would gove M-5 computer on me and shoot a laser beam that would vaporise me when I try and unplug it. How it would manage to construct a laser emitter in the casing of my Xbox 360 I don't know.

 

Hmmmm.........!

You raised some very good points & valid safety/security concerns.

Ever see TRON (1982)?

Has Captain John Sheridan, Ambassador Londo Mollari & Chancellor Gorkon in it

You might enjoy it, or at very least, find it amusing.

 

TRON is AWESOME!

End of Line.

 

In an early episode (I think it was the first proper story after the pilot), there's a scene where they are discussing the need for rationing, low power usage etc., and someone claims that the holodeck generators are 'not compatible' with the rest of the ship .
Clearly the writers wanted to use the 'deck in the series, and just came up with a handwave explanation as to why they weren't shut down. It's a particularly dumb one though. If they'd claimed the ship had new, super efficient, low energy use holodecks, that could have made sense.

 

iirc there was an explanation that things like water, food, objects, etc are replicated. However, this is contradicted when Picard throws a book off the holodeck and it disappears. I can't remember if there was a second explanation, but I do remember that sticking out in my mind after weasly not drying out after leaving the holodeck.

 

Why should it be contradicted? Surely the holodeck can do both replicated and nonreplicated illusions? And surely it can unreplicate things that are no longer needed, or things that are about to perform against the rules of the program (such as flying out of the door).

This is a mistake in terms of the real world, yes, something they didn't catch when filming...

But consider this: Data is carrying and holding the paper in order to demonstrate it to a fellow officer. Data is planning on flipping it over for somebody to see. Surely he would then deliberately hold the paper upside down, so that it becomes rightside up when flipped!

So it's not really a mistake in-universe... Unless we want it to be.

I strongly disagree. The programs are interactive - the characters are supposed to comment if Picard, in the role of Dixon Hill, cracks a joke or stumbles on a body. It is only logical that they would and should comment on how Picard, in the role of Dixon Hill, combs his, uh, eyebrows, or holds his fork when eating, or dresses up. The uniform is a choice/action performed by the user, and the program exists for the purpose of responding to the choices/actions of the user!

No doubt there is a user-selectable mode where the characters will ignore certain things, and will for example accept a Starfleet uniform as period costume, or Jean-Luc Picard as a 17-year-old girl. But when the characters do comment on uniforms or the like, it is in the context of programs where no such mode was selected.

It doesn't seem right to treat the computer as some single entity where everything is interlinked. Rather, it most probably is suffering from multiple personality disorder, being at least a thousand different "people" at the same time. Some of those people/programs are sapient experts or entertainment characters. Some are stupid animals in comparison, with little or no intelligence. And the computer as a whole need not be either sapient or non-sapient: it all depends on what sort of programs it is running at a given moment in a given section of its self.

Timo Saloniemi

 

One thing I never understood was the need to get changed into a costume for holodeck fun, when the computer could just as easily projected a holographic costume on them...

 

Was that ever shown in any episode other than "These are the Voyages"? Changing into actual clothes would help you get into character.

 

There are already quite a few "errors" mentioned concerning holodecks, and I will concede that it might be so that water, food, dirt, etc. are replicated instead of projected... but why would anyone do that? Food and drinks, okay, it would save time and you would not need to spend the ship's energy twice if you leave the holodeck well fed. But why the water? And even more so, why the dirt?! You might need a shower anyway if you're sweaty from the exercise, but dirt? You would have to spend the ship's energy twice, once to create the dirt, and again to wash it off...

But I admit, you might choose to do so. For whatever silly reason anyone can think of, you might... But there's one thing for which there is no explanation at all. For the story's sake, I suppose there's no getting around it, but the holodeck is way too small for most of the stories. If you're alone, the holodeck might make it seem enormous, but when we're talking about groups of people, or even just 2 persons, they're in trouble...

In the movie Star Trek: Insurrection there's an extremely large holodeck to transport the population to another world similar to their own - without all the advantages, obviously - but when Worf's brother transported the whole village on Bolaar II to the holodeck in the episode "Homeward," they traveled through an extensive grotto, with large distances between the people. That is simply impossible.

A similar situation is in Voyager episode Fair Haven. The village area is simply too large to fit in the holodeck. The system would have to be more like in "The Matrix," or even "Total Recall."

That being said - or rather, typed - I feel a bit sorry for the crew of The Original Series... They actually had to leave the Enterprise to experience adventures...