Are 24th Century apartments just holosuites?

[Jedi Marso]

Think about it- post scarcity economy with an effectively limitless supply of energy. What is the easiest way to house all those people yet provide the highest possible standard of living?

Everyone gets a 50' x 50' meter square box to live in, stacked in city skyscrapers, but each one is a holosuite that can be configured to appear as large or small as the resident desires. People living together get larger boxes, with each individual allotted the 2500 square meters. In a way it would feel like living in a TARDIS.

Floor plans could be configured to provide the illusion of contiguousness (linked rooms which one has to physically move between), or room configurations could simply be changed by verbal command to the computer. You could reside in the city, in the country, on another planet, in Galadriel's treehouse in Lorien, or even aboard a starship- whatever illusion you preferred. Work better at night? Then in your pad, it's always night time. So on and so forth.

And you could stack people like sardines while giving them the illusion that every person had a virtual mansion, or a cabin in a forest- whatever their heart desired. Makes Chateau Picard kind of suck in comparison.

Discuss.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

There is no suching thing as a "limit-less suppy of energy".
Everything has a limit, just depends on time scale.
And creating all the energy generators / collectors does take resources, how much you get as an individual will depend on so many factors.

Who creates, maintains, & distributes the energy that is created or generated?

That's an entirely complex topic in itself.

 

[Jedi Marso]

There is no suching thing as a "limit-less suppy of energy".
Everything has a limit, just depends on time scale.
And creating all the energy generators / collectors does take resources, how much you get as an individual will depend on so many factors.

Who creates, maintains, & distributes the energy that is created or generated?

That's an entirely complex topic in itself.

Well, that's why the cashless economics of Trek has never made sense anyway, right? TANSTAAFL.

But play along for fun. I said effectively limitless energy, and a post-scarcity civilization.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

TANSTAAFL

?
What's that short for?

 

[Jedi Marso]

?
What's that short for?

T here
A in't
N o
S uch
T hing
A s
A
F ree
L unch.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Picard's quarters on La Sirena were just that, a holosuite playing a program of his chateau back on Earth.

 

[Takeru]

People living together get larger boxes, with each individual allotted the 2500 square meters.

And you could stack people like sardines ...

At 2500 square meters per person there's no stacking them like sardines. That's more space than Oprah Winfrey's mansion has.

 

[Jedi Marso]

At 2500 square meters per person there's no stacking them like sardines. That's more space than Oprah Winfrey's mansion has.

A box 50 meters (roughly 150 ft) per side? I think Oprah can claim a helluva lot more than that! You are right, though, I think I meant to imply something more like 50 FT, not meters. It has to be enough space to accommodate the individual and some friends in a holodeck environment. Either that or make individual boxes smaller and large gatherings have to reserve a larger space as needed.

 

[blssdwlf]

The people of Gideon could've used holoroom tech before they culled themselves...

 

[David cgc]

A box 50 meters (roughly 150 ft) per side? I think Oprah can claim a helluva lot more than that! You are right, though, I think I meant to imply something more like 50 FT, not meters. It has to be enough space to accommodate the individual and some friends in a holodeck environment. Either that or make individual boxes smaller and large gatherings have to reserve a larger space as needed.

I had a feeling you were mixing up your units, but even 2500 square feet is a lot of space for one person, especially when the whole thing is being simulated. It's the size of the average house in America. As long as you can stretch out to your maximum length or width without touching a wall, smaller is fine. Even 500 square feet would be able to accommodate a handful of guests without the holosuite being unable to prevent them from running into each other when they don't expect to.

 

[Takeru]

A box 50 meters (roughly 150 ft) per side? I think Oprah can claim a helluva lot more than that!

No, I looked it up, her house is around 2000 square meters. She might have more than one house but the point was that 2500 square meters is a shit ton of space and goes against your idea of holographic apartments to save space. Even 2500 square feet is way too much, that's still way more than the average person has or needs in real life.

 

[Tosk]

The ability to go off-world with ease, coupled with the technology to live pretty much anywhere on the planet means Earth has a shit-load of space for people. No real need to holo-box people. Though I'm sure some might do it.

 

[publiusr]

Shades of the Matrix, I could see a collection of spheres with each person moving about…being watched by beings outside.

 

[at Quark's]

Given that even large and luxurious ships such as the enterprise D only has a limited number of holodecks, and that you still have to rent time in Quark's holosuites, I would expect that holodecks aren't yet 'normal' in average homes in the TNG/DS9/VOY timeframe. Also, realistic holodecks as we see them on TNG (and later series) are quite new by the time TNG begins (hence the amazement of some characters at its realism in early TNG episodes). Perhaps a few wealthy people do have them (if there's such a thing as wealthy people in the Federation). But, I wouldn't be suprised if it were the case 75 years later on.

And yes, it would be 'wasting energy' - then again, medieval persons might complain about us wasting energy by keeping our cities and roads illuminated at 3 am in the night, when the great majority of people is sleeping anyway.

 

[Forbin]

I had a feeling you were mixing up your units...

He was in the Navy, cut him some slack.

 

[GNDN18]

?
What's that short for?

T here
A in't
N o
S uch
T hing
A s
A
F ree
L unch.

From Heinlein’s The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, a book worth reading.

 

[Jedi Marso]

Given that even large and luxurious ships such as the enterprise D only has a limited number of holodecks, and that you still have to rent time in Quark's holosuites, I would expect that holodecks aren't yet 'normal' in average homes in the TNG/DS9/VOY timeframe. Also, realistic holodecks as we see them on TNG (and later series) are quite new by the time TNG begins (hence the amazement of some characters at its realism in early TNG episodes). Perhaps a few wealthy people do have them (if there's such a thing as wealthy people in the Federation). But, I wouldn't be suprised if it were the case 75 years later on.

You wouldn't need 'full' holosuite capability for a simple home. Merely the ability to shape the confines of the rooms and simulate whatever exterior envrionment you want, probably only as a visual through windows, etc. But I wouldn't expect the home to be fully interactive with holographic characters, etc. More along the lines of what you see in the movie Cloud Atlas, if you've ever seen that.

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[Unicron]

Amusingly, I was recently looking at some of my D & D stuff in relation to an unrelated project, and the Stronghold Builder's Guide has a range of interesting options for that sort of thing. The most exotic and distinctly unusual sample structure was built by a group of wealthy adventurers, with multiple rooms opening up on different planes. Each area is essentially connected to a specific plane, with considerable magic binding the disparate sections together. On the respective plane, each of these rooms/enclaves is carefully disguised so natives and outsiders visiting won't notice anything under normal circumstances.

 

[Jedi Marso]

Amusingly, I was recently looking at some of my D & D stuff in relation to an unrelated project, and the Stronghold Builder's Guide has a range of interesting options for that sort of thing. The most exotic and distinctly unusual sample structure was built by a group of wealthy adventurers, with multiple rooms opening up on different planes. Each area is essentially connected to a specific plane, with considerable magic binding the disparate sections together. On the respective plane, each of these rooms/enclaves is carefully disguised so natives and outsiders visiting won't notice anything under normal circumstances.

That's pretty wizard. Very few of my adventuring groups ever survive to that level of power.

 

[Unicron]

Yeah, it's clearly meant to be a very high level example (along with a few other exotic structures) and not something the average players would likely build, but it's pretty cool regardless and a nice example of what one could do with a few million gold and other achievements. As an example, the bath area opens into the Elemental Plane of Water and makes cleanliness much easier, as well as being a place to relax in if you want to do some underwater sightseeing.

All of the rooms have their own practicality, and there's a reason why each planar connection was chosen. Plus being able to store some of your loot in a magically secure vault, located on an inhospitable plane that most intruders can't easily get to, has advantages as well.