Food in the holodeck...

[Space Coast]

I prick a holo-person. Do they bleed? Is that replicated? Can I use it for a transfusion?

It would be extremely painful.

 

[The Wormhole]

If anyone has ever been in a holodeck and unaware of it, there must be full taste and smell feedback.

Maybe 24th century people just aren't that observant?

 

[UnknownSample]

In all these decades, it never occurred to me once that there was any physical reality to anything created on the holodeck. I suppose they probably have never said transporters/replicators were involved, but there's no reason they couldn't be. Except that everything in a holodeck disappears instantaneously, and transporters/replicators require a few seconds, and have a visible effect. We don't see that when a supposed holodeck replication is underway, either.
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I always thought holo-food was one of those areas they're vulnerable on, makers of Trek, just as they are on universal translators. Best not to think about it. I don't know how to work into things a Voyager ep where the power went off for the holodeck, and everything in Captain Proton kept existing. As if it was real.

 

[Timo]

The thing is, even if replication creates a light-and-sound-show, the holodeck is inherently capable of masking it, being a light-and-sound-show itself.

In "Devil's Due", Picard dismisses the fake Ardra's transportation and replication achievements as cheap parlor tricks, the niftiest part apparently being her user interface. If Ardra can mask the noise and glitter of transporting on the very bridge of the Enterprise, the holodeck doing those tricks should not surprise us (and indeed this is probably exactly what makes Picard so dismissive of Ardra's achievements).

It's just that there would appear to be a penalty of some sort on masking the sound and light of transporting, because Starfleet never tries that operationally. Need not be a big penalty, because unmasked transport isn't a big tactical problem to begin with...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Light and sound is not the problem.

Specific tactile feedback is the problem if nothing is replicated. After all, Quark's holosuite programs are awfully popular. They must be convincingly realistic.

 

[Herbert]

The holodeck is part replicator anyway - any time a person is required to interact with something on the holodeck beyond simple touch, it's replicated. That's how Wesley got soaked when he fell in the water in Encounter at Farpoint, and why he stayed soaked after leaving - replicated water.
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So in that episode, the water is real (replicated) but everything else in that simulation is holographic? Something about that doesn't seem right.

 

[Timo]

We have seen "tactile" things that are probably replicated - snowballs and pieces of paper that leave the holodeck and do not lose consistency in the process. OTOH, we have seen equally "tactile" things that disappear when leaving the holodeck - the chair used to demonstrate to Moriarty the futility of leaving, the Dixon Hill gangsters whose fists, pistol butts and bullets felt quite real just moments before.

Does this mean everything is replicated and the computer then selectively dereplicates stuff if it thinks the user wants it to disappear, but refrains from dereplicating if this is the user's wont? Or that a surface layer to everything is replicated, and this is enough to allow a snowball to hit Picard or a piece of paper to survive indefinitely, but not enough to keep the bodies of the gangsters together when the forcefields and tractor beams no longer reach them in the corridor?

I'd assume it's even subtler than that, with a touch of replication here and there, but with the machinery producing just the desired partial effect of "matter" when plausible - just the warmth of the touch, the hint of a scent, a slight breeze or electric charge, all covering the hard forcefield with the impression of "skinness". Only in certain special cases does the computer do more, and typically it does much less, trying to exercise as little effort as it possibly can. It's not "all this" or "all that", just as theater or circus never is.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Jedman67]

It's also a lot easier to film a live-action plate with real elements, and superimpose the holodeck doors/grid onto the scene, than to create "holographic fakes" in CG. They did get better about manipulating the limits of the holodeck on TNG (and smoked crack on voyager) during the later seasons.

 

[DamarsKanar]

We have seen "tactile" things that are probably replicated - snowballs and pieces of paper that leave the holodeck and do not lose consistency in the process. OTOH, we have seen equally "tactile" things that disappear when leaving the holodeck - the chair used to demonstrate to Moriarty the futility of leaving, the Dixon Hill gangsters whose fists, pistol butts and bullets felt quite real just moments before.

Does this mean everything is replicated and the computer then selectively dereplicates stuff if it thinks the user wants it to disappear, but refrains from dereplicating if this is the user's wont? Or that a surface layer to everything is replicated, and this is enough to allow a snowball to hit Picard or a piece of paper to survive indefinitely, but not enough to keep the bodies of the gangsters together when the forcefields and tractor beams no longer reach them in the corridor?

I'd assume it's even subtler than that, with a touch of replication here and there, but with the machinery producing just the desired partial effect of "matter" when plausible - just the warmth of the touch, the hint of a scent, a slight breeze or electric charge, all covering the hard forcefield with the impression of "skinness". Only in certain special cases does the computer do more, and typically it does much less, trying to exercise as little effort as it possibly can. It's not "all this" or "all that", just as theater or circus never is.

Timo Saloniemi

This makes me think of the EMH and how when he is treating someone or hugging them or whatever, he is obviously solid and has a 'skinness' to him..but if he is punched by some villain, he goes full hologram and zaps out of solidity almost like a protection mechanism. So could there be a sense of the holographic technology de-solidifying itself in certain circumstances? Returning to a less complex state when its not needed oe would not be beneficial?

Presumably one could also program beforehand how replicated vs holographic you wanted the experience. Say, you could ask Quark to set you up with real replicated bloodwine and gagh in today's holosuite beforehand, or maybe holonovels have different 'levels' (just like having safeties turned off - actually more replicated material than holographic would mean lower safeties since, for example, Wesley could actually drown in that water if it was replicated).

 

[Timo]

That's what I think never happens - you don't select the settings because that would not just mentally undermine the illusion, that would also limit the ability of the computer to do the tricks required for optimizing the illusion.

I'd rather see even the simplest holoprograms as infinitely variable in complexity and technique: Yar's opponent in "Code of Honor" could be a simple 2D image at a distance, then be turned into a 3D image closer up, with a bit of air movement and scent added, then forcefield solidity, body heat, complex forcefield texture, a slight layer of replicated surface, then contact with Yar and a prodigious throw - and then removal of the detail in reverse order.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[UnknownSample]

The difference between Next Gen holograms and all others depicted previously has always been that NG's are "solid". Except when programmed not to be. Since one component of the hologram environment is described as force fields, I imagine that's where they come in. Your hand is stopped from going through the 3D visual image by a force field. Unless it isn't stopped.

 

[Timo]

Hmm. "Depicted previously"? The simulation in TAS was quite solid, with the heroes stumbling on uneven ground and getting blasted with a snowstorm. Losira had a physical effect on her victims. Landru... Well, Kirk didn't wave his hand through the hologram. What else was there previously?

Timo Saloniemi