Why not have holographic armies?

[SchwEnt]

^^^ Yeah, that's the idea.

Or start de-materializing someone and just after it starts, shut off the transporter and let the guts fall where they may.

You know, it's almost like disintegrating someone with a phaser... only remotely and at a distance and with specific targeting.

You can stand in front of someone and disintegrate him with a phaser, or you can dematerialize him at a distance with a transporter beam. Either way, he ends up as disassociated molecules.

Like a Tantalus Device, maybe.

 

[T'Girl]

^^^ Oh I was thinking way more creative than that VOY eps.

... beaming out critical components of an enemy ship, to disable or destroy it.

Like the Equinox did in that Voyager episode?

Transporter weapons, been there - done that.

 

[Argus Skyhawk]

^^^ Yeah, that's the idea.

Or start de-materializing someone and just after it starts, shut off the transporter and let the guts fall where they may.

You know, it's almost like disintegrating someone with a phaser... only remotely and at a distance and with specific targeting.

You can stand in front of someone and disintegrate him with a phaser, or you can dematerialize him at a distance with a transporter beam. Either way, he ends up as disassociated molecules.

Like a Tantalus Device, maybe.

Of course, transporter technology could probably also be used to take the high road and win battles without hurting anyone, like beaming all of your enemies into prison cells, or or disabling all of their weapons by beaming pieces out of them (or beaming their weapons away entirely). It's not as fun to imagine, but this is the Federation we're talking about.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

^So much for "boldly" going...

My hunch is that future space exploration will be a combo of holographic technology (maybe connected cyberpunkishly to the nervous system) and robotic exploration vessels. The robots explore, the humans stay at home and experience the exploration seamlessly, in their own brains, which is how they would experience "real" space travel - all reality takes place in your brain. So is there any difference, really?

Since human bodies are unlikely to ever be able to stand the stress of near-lightspeed (nevermind faster than lightspeed), this is a pragmatic way of going boldly. It might lose the drama of astronauts putting themselves in harm's way, but it's far more likely to actually happen. The Mars rovers, which beam back information and pictures to scientists sitting in nice safe NASA offices are the portents of the future.

The next step is to enhance the scientists' perception and grasp of that data by increasing the reality of it. Maybe this would be less of a science-driven thing than a PR thing. Scientists would be less likely to "need" heightened perception of the data (what's wrong with reading a printout?) than the public, who won't be able to relate to exploration unless they can experience it more directly than dry scientific data, and whose support is vital to continued funding.

Back to the holographic army concept...

They worked in some Voyager episodes. And they are probably cheaper than a real army.

Because its no fun, drama, not conducive to the plot, blah blah blah

This is getting beyond the boundaries of Star Trek, like using the transporter as a weapon, but it would be fun to see in an original space opera series. Just center the action around some kind of humanoid race that is considered inferior, yet is equivalent to humans in their sensitivity, yearning for freedom, etc. They could be clones, advanced AI, holograms, genetically engineered animals or what have you. They're being exploited by being sent to fight a war, while the "superior" humans stay safe at home.

I know The Clone Wars is sort of doing this with clones, but since the clones are being manufactured by "the good guys" and Star Wars will never be dark and nasty like BSG, they really can't do all that much interesting with it.

 

[sojourner]

Since human bodies are unlikely to ever be able to stand the stress of near-lightspeed (nevermind faster than lightspeed),

What stress? Are you confusing speed with acceleration? Remember speed is relative. The earth is currently moving thousands of miles per hour round the sun while the sun is orbiting the center of the Milky Way. We seem to be handling the stress of that just fine.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I'm thinking of whatever it is that turns you into salsa if you don't have intertial dampeners. Yeah I guess that's the accelleration part. If there was a way to skip the nasty accellerating part and pop right to lightspeed, then there wouldn't be a problem.

Presumably machines could be built to handle the accelleration better. Also, I wouldn't rule out the possibility of human consciousness in robot bodies, or genetic engineering that makes fragile human bodies much sturdier.

 

[Witterquick]

I'm thinking of whatever it is that turns you into salsa if you don't have intertial dampeners.

We just need to become salsa in a more organized way. Transporters of course! I wouldn't step into one though or let my loved ones. Althogh space travel is very tempting and might make me do stupid things like follow the suicide herd.

 

[sojourner]

I'm thinking of whatever it is that turns you into salsa if you don't have intertial dampeners. Yeah I guess that's the accelleration part. If there was a way to skip the nasty accellerating part and pop right to lightspeed, then there wouldn't be a problem.

Presumably machines could be built to handle the accelleration better. Also, I wouldn't rule out the possibility of human consciousness in robot bodies, or genetic engineering that makes fragile human bodies much sturdier.

People regularly accelerate in all kinds of vehicles today without inertial dampers/magic machines. I still don't see what the problem is. Unless you're intimating that the option to gradually get to a high speed wouldn't be available. Which is just silly.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Sure, if you've got plenty of time to spare, you could get close to lightspeed. Humans are notoriously impatient. There's another advantage of robots - they just turn themselves off and wait. Or play scrabble.

I'm thinking of whatever it is that turns you into salsa if you don't have intertial dampeners.

We just need to become salsa in a more organized way. Transporters of course! I wouldn't step into one though or let my loved ones. Althogh space travel is very tempting and might make me do stupid things like follow the suicide herd.

Well if we've got transporters (and people stupid enough to use one), you just convert the matter to energy and beam yourself across the cosmos, reassembling yourself at the destination. Who needs starships at all?

So once again, the human factor is the problem. Robots wouldn't ask questions like "so is my soul going to be reassembled on Alpha Centauri, too?"

 

[Butters]

I'm thinking of whatever it is that turns you into salsa if you don't have intertial dampeners. Yeah I guess that's the accelleration part. If there was a way to skip the nasty accellerating part and pop right to lightspeed, then there wouldn't be a problem.

Presumably machines could be built to handle the accelleration better. Also, I wouldn't rule out the possibility of human consciousness in robot bodies, or genetic engineering that makes fragile human bodies much sturdier.

People regularly accelerate in all kinds of vehicles today without inertial dampers/magic machines. I still don't see what the problem is. Unless you're intimating that the option to gradually get to a high speed wouldn't be available. Which is just silly.

Do you need inertial dampeners at warp velocities though? I thought that trek world FTL was based on wrapping space around you, i.e. space itself was moving and inertia wouldn't apply, which is why warp velocity cannot be sustained if the warp bubble fails.

 

[milo bloom]

But I could easily see Trek writers going for this angle. A huge and invincible army that for some mysterious reason works on a single central holoprojector or control computer or has a single jammable frequency would be just like the thing to pit our heroes against...

Timo Saloniemi

Psshaw. A nine year old with minimal piloting experience, in an unfamiliar tactical vehicle, with an advanced AI partner could take that out....



But seriously, I've never considered this as a viable path for Starfleet, though I could see them using the single holographic humanoid approach as something like an auxiliary bridge or engineering officer.

 

[Showdown]

Using transporter technology as a weapon (in all kinds of ways) is something that has never really been explored in ST. Maybe some kind of ban on that kind of stuff, like bio-warfare.

Maybe its not very efficient. They have to disable the enemy ship's shields with phasers or torpedoes first. Then, they would keep shooting instead of switching to transporters.

 

[sojourner]

^You make it sound like someone onboard would have to put down his phaser then pickup the transporter.

 

[Deks]

how wuold you deploy them outside of a holodeck? mobile emitters? that wouldn't work since even B'Ellanna couldn't replicate its technology.

besides, like people said, EMPs or some other dampening field would render them useless.

Quite simple.
Have you seen episode 'Baiscs Part 1' ?
The crew was able to create 3 Talaxian holographic ships as a means of diversion for the Kazon carriers, maintained full shield integrity, maxed out phaser power, photon torpedoes and impulse engines.
I would say they have the means to pull it off, with a bit of thinking that is.

Granted, it was stated the holo-grid in question would be power hungry and the ships never fired, but they were able to pull it off as a diversion tactic to allow Voyager to handle the Kazon (and had that idiotic prisoner not blew himself up, there's a very good chance Voyager would be able to destroy all 4 Kazon carriers instead of just 1).

If SF wanted to pursue this technological implementation in the future, then it stands to reason the power-grid would have to be properly modified.
I would also surmise that if holo ships would fire holo-weapons, safety features would have to be turned-off and power expenditure would be greater compared to just a simple moving target that fires no weapons.

But in-essence, it WOULD be a viable alternative... especially if you are sending just 1 ship into the unknown.
Creating friendly holo ships for small engagements and limited amounts of time would probably be beneficial as far as survival goes.

However, multiple creative ways of deploying existing technologies that could deal a crippling blow to an enemy target were used rarely and not explored in detail.

I agree with another poster for example that dimensional transporters bypass the shields as we know them easily.
Instead of transporting organic matter (which gets damaged with frequent use), why not simply beam photon or quantum torpedoes on-board and blow it up... or reduce the explosive yield significantly so the enemy ship is disabled or crippled.

 

[Yevetha]

The crew was able to create 3 Talaxian holographic ships as a means of diversion for the Kazon carriers, maintained full shield integrity, maxed out phaser power, photon torpedoes and impulse engines.
I would say they have the means to pull it off, with a bit of thinking that is.

That probably only works on technologicaly not to advanced races with stolen tech.

Romulans or klingons probably know the difference because of their sensors. Or if the dont they would invent some.

 

[Rojixus]

Using transporter technology as a weapon (in all kinds of ways) is something that has never really been explored in ST. Maybe some kind of ban on that kind of stuff, like bio-warfare.

Maybe its not very efficient. They have to disable the enemy ship's shields with phasers or torpedoes first. Then, they would keep shooting instead of switching to transporters.

They can always use subspace transporters.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I'm thinking of whatever it is that turns you into salsa if you don't have intertial dampeners. Yeah I guess that's the accelleration part. If there was a way to skip the nasty accellerating part and pop right to lightspeed, then there wouldn't be a problem.

Presumably machines could be built to handle the accelleration better. Also, I wouldn't rule out the possibility of human consciousness in robot bodies, or genetic engineering that makes fragile human bodies much sturdier.

People regularly accelerate in all kinds of vehicles today without inertial dampers/magic machines. I still don't see what the problem is. Unless you're intimating that the option to gradually get to a high speed wouldn't be available. Which is just silly.

Do you need inertial dampeners at warp velocities though? I thought that trek world FTL was based on wrapping space around you, i.e. space itself was moving and inertia wouldn't apply, which is why warp velocity cannot be sustained if the warp bubble fails.

I was initially drawing on popular speculations about how to do close-to-lightspeed travel "for real" by accellerating over the course of years (as perceived by the crew in the ship) to avoid the salsa problem. But the Star Trek style of FTL travel is a different thing altogether. Anyway, I see the discussion has moved on from this digression.

 

[Deks]

The crew was able to create 3 Talaxian holographic ships as a means of diversion for the Kazon carriers, maintained full shield integrity, maxed out phaser power, photon torpedoes and impulse engines.
I would say they have the means to pull it off, with a bit of thinking that is.

That probably only works on technologicaly not to advanced races with stolen tech.

Romulans or klingons probably know the difference because of their sensors. Or if the dont they would invent some.

Voyager crew was indeed counting on the Kazon to not scan the holo-ships, however, one can easily modify holo-tech to give off realistic sensor readouts (as evident by the Hirogen in 'Flesh and Blood').

With those modifications (which would require elaborate fiddling), I doubt even the Romulans or Klingons would be able to tell the difference.

Also... I know it's not canon, but holo-cloack variation of the technology was introduced in 2 ST games.
Away Team and ST: Armada 2.

Furthermore, this technology was demonstrated by the Romulans in mid 22nd century (season 4 of Enterprise).
I would imagine that 24th century version of this deceptive technology would be even more indistinguishable from the 'real' thing with proper methods.
Utilization of holo-ships on the other hand that for all accounts and purposes look and 'feel' like the real thing would probably be doable (though power hungry in the effect that it might require powering down the Warp drive and diverting power, or a separate power source).

 

[Timo]

I guess the big tactical difference there is that a cloak makes the enemy think there's nothing there, while a holo-decoy makes the enemy think there's something there (even if it isn't what they think it is).

Something is more likely to be subjected to scans and analysis than nothing. Using a decoy will always call attention - and we are not given a reason to think that an enemy who devotes some scanning and analysis resources at a decoy would be running short on such resources and for that reason fail to scan the actual target. It's always a trick that targets the weaknesses in the person of the enemy rather than those in his hardware. A clever and experienced enemy will see through a decoy without even having to scan it; a clever and experienced enemy will have more difficulty coping with cloaks because those don't actively prompt him to start thinking...

That said, holographically projected physical hardware might still be useful in combat: you could fly a mixture of perfectly harmless decoys and incredibly harmful combat drones around or ahead of your own ship and make things at least a little bit more difficult for the enemy, probably at very little cost to yourself. You could also place a physical shield between yourself and the enemy; for all we know, that's how the ablative armor of the Defiant works - after enemy fire has ablated some of it away, a projecting replication system not unlike a holodeck will replenish the armor.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[The_Baroness]

besides, like people said, EMPs or some other dampening field would render them useless.

No more so than a big bloody bomb would render humans useless...

And wheres the moral issue? Why is it more of an issue to send in holograms to a war than it is to the alternative of sending, oh I dunno....people?...