A question about holodecks.

[The Rock]

I've always been somewhat confused by them. I'm not good at explaining things, so I hope this makes at least a modicum of sense!

In the very first TNG episode, we saw that once a holodeck program is started, one's freedom of movement inside the program is limited to the actual walls of the holodeck room (as we saw when the holodeck wall was hit by a rock). In other words, if you started a holodeck program of, say, Disney World, you wouldn't be able to walk through the entire park, you'd just be limited to the actual walls of the holodeck, right?

Well, why is it we saw some TNG episodes of Dixon Hill (and also in "A Fistful of Datas") where the virtual environment was bigger than the room, and the crew was able to walk beyond the walls of the holodeck?

Also, in the Voyager episode "The Killing Game" they were fighting a World War II battle in the holodeck, and the program was messing up, somehow the holodeck became like two or three stories tall when the room was NOT that big!

 

[trekshark]

supposedly there is some kind of treadmill effect so you end up walking in place and the picture around you changes so you think you're moving

 

[The Rock]

supposedly there is some kind of treadmill effect so you end up walking in place and the picture around you changes so you think you're moving

Ah, that makes sense! And it makes holodecks a lot more fun!

 

[Ithekro]

Also one assumes some sort of forced perspective on other living beings taking part in the holodeck so that even if you are basically across the room from them, they appear to be much farther away. Also so you don't have to stick together as a group in the room and go off on your own, even though you actually are basically only a few yards away from each other.

Sound isolation as well. Otherwise you might find people....doing things, upon entering the holodeck.

 

[Christopher]

Also, in the Voyager episode "The Killing Game" they were fighting a World War II battle in the holodeck, and the program was messing up, somehow the holodeck became like two or three stories tall when the room was NOT that big!

Actually, that 2-parter established that the Hirogen had forced the crew to convert large portions of the ship into holodecks, so just that once, the holodeck really was several decks high.

 

[The Rock]

Also one assumes some sort of forced perspective on other living beings taking part in the holodeck so that even if you are basically across the room from them, they appear to be much farther away. Also so you don't have to stick together as a group in the room and go off on your own, even though you actually are basically only a few yards away from each other.

Sound isolation as well. Otherwise you might find people....doing things, upon entering the holodeck.

The logistics of that blows my mind!

Also, in the Voyager episode "The Killing Game" they were fighting a World War II battle in the holodeck, and the program was messing up, somehow the holodeck became like two or three stories tall when the room was NOT that big!

Actually, that 2-parter established that the Hirogen had forced the crew to convert large portions of the ship into holodecks, so just that once, the holodeck really was several decks high.

Ah that's right. It's been a good while since I've seen that episode. Thanks for the correction. Also, I enjoy your novels. Keep up the good work!

 

[Ithekro]

Logic suggest that the first time we see the holodeck, Data and later Riker are farther into the forest than the room is large, yet Riker and later Wesley can enter the holodeck and not see or hear Data at the start. Thus there must be something in place to make the room seem like a forest larger than said forest, plus be able to pull that off with people inside already that have gone beyond the distance from the door to the far wall when someone new enters the room.

Plus in later episodes, it takes time to find people inside the holodeck when it is active, yet the space inside the room should not be enough to hide in given an outdoor enviroment as the pattern.

 

[Christopher]

^Yup. Part of the holographic illusion is making other people in the room seem farther away than they really are, or hiding them from view altogether even if they're standing just a couple of meters away.

 

[varek]

Your points about perspectives are very insightful. Could the actual holodeck floor be slightly slanted, like a modern theater's stage, to make the downstage persona seem closer and the upstage persona seem farther away?

Could the holosuite also employ some kind of subtle energy curtains, to make people seem farther away, the more upstage they are?

 

[Christopher]

^I think it's more a matter of projecting a holographic image between two people that makes them see each other as farther apart than they actually are. For instance, if I'm standing two meters from you but there's a curtain between us on which I project an image of me standing 20 meters from the camera, then it would look to you as if I were farther away than I was. The holodeck does the same, but with some kind of optical force-field projection thingy rather than a curtain. Of course, it would also have to be able to muffle and alter sounds so that you couldn't hear that a person was close to you; presumably that's a matter of projecting sound-blocking force fields between them.

 

[LMFAOschwarz]

With all of these factors being compensated for on a holodeck, it seems like it'd be pretty easy to 'stump' the holodeck...tilt the pinball machine, so to speak...

What if two people go in to simulate a two-man pursuit, or even a man-on-man hunt of sorts. There is just no way the computer could know where to begin in trying to construct a 'reality' as the two men would wish to perceive it. Such a scenario would seem contradictory the norm, where people generally would go in to see or do the same thing, I would think.

 

[Ithekro]

O'Brian and Bashir got into the habit of recreating battles to fight. The Battle of Britain, with both is flight suits, would mean they were in separate airplanes, since British fighters are one man craft. And the Battle at the Alamo, were you have an entire fortified mission were they could be on different places of the walls to defend it. To the point were they started to map it out on a model to plot out were they should be.

Both those programs would require a lot of holographic people and movement. An air battle over London would take the two all over the place in separate airplanes.

 

[LMFAOschwarz]

I think my favorite representations of the holodeck were very early in the series: the lone fight opponent Yar created in Code of Honor, and most especially Yar's memorial service. It looked...good, but very definitely not quite real. I liked it better that way.

I think the holodeck needed a "range limit", of some sort to tie it down before the concept ran astray. But I guess it was inevitable.

 

[Ithekro]

"The Big Goodbye" was fairly early on and basically made it so the holodeck could recreate fictional cities and people large enough to go around in without being together, and that it could kill you if the safety was broken or off.

 

[The Rock]

O'Brian and Bashir got into the habit of recreating battles to fight. The Battle of Britain, with both is flight suits, would mean they were in separate airplanes, since British fighters are one man craft. And the Battle at the Alamo, were you have an entire fortified mission were they could be on different places of the walls to defend it. To the point were they started to map it out on a model to plot out were they should be.

Both those programs would require a lot of holographic people and movement. An air battle over London would take the two all over the place in separate airplanes.

Ha, I forgot all about DS9! Good points. And DS9's holosuites are fairly small as well.

 

[Mytran]

If they're both in planes, doesn't that make it even easier? Neither person is going to walk anywhere unexpected as they're both strapped into seats. All the computer needs to do is project convincing images around the cockpit areas and ensure they match up with one another.

 

[Christopher]

What if two people go in to simulate a two-man pursuit, or even a man-on-man hunt of sorts. There is just no way the computer could know where to begin in trying to construct a 'reality' as the two men would wish to perceive it. Such a scenario would seem contradictory the norm, where people generally would go in to see or do the same thing, I would think.

Umm, how is that any different from a present-day MMORPG like Star Trek Online or World of Warcraft? Those are able to simulate a reality from the perspective of thousands of different players simultaneously. Granted, each individual player has their own software, but I presume they're all interfacing with some central game server somewhere that's sending them information about the world they're perceiving and coordinating them with one another. I think some such games even have split-screen modes so that one player's computer can show the virtual world from two locations at once. So what you're talking about is quite easy for early 21st-century computers to do; it shouldn't be a problem at all for a 24th-century computer that's eight decks high and processes at FTL speeds. (Although, really, one of the most outdated assumptions of TNG is that a computer would need to be anywhere near that huge to be that powerful.)

 

[varek]

To me, the cool thing about holodecks and holograms is how the Doctor's mobile emitter works. Of course, since it was developed in the 29th century, Starfleet had not yet been able to duplicate it in the 24th century.

I think it would be great to use Hologrammic Engineers, especially in ships like the Oberth-class that are sleek but difficult to travel around on.

 

[Christopher]

I figure the Federation must have been close to developing mobile emitters in the 2370s, otherwise the Temporal Integrity Commission probably wouldn't have let the Doctor keep his.

 

[T'Girl]

Once Voyager returned to the Federation, I figure it would be doubtful that the Doctor would be allowed to claim the mobile emitter as his personal property. No more than he would be able to claim the holo-emitters in Voyager's sick bay as his own.