Hollow Pursuits Revisited

[at Quark's]

Now this part I can't really agree with. Holodeck isn't a tool that is issued by Starfleet with the goal to do your job. It's a recreation device that people aboard Enterprise have access to. So it would be more like discovering that your collegue is late for work because he obsessively visits strip clubs. In Barclay's case: strip clubs that allow you to put super-realistic masks of your collegues from work onto the strippers

The holodecks are Starfleet property, though, and are made available to Starfleet employees for recreative purposes. So in your analogy, those strip clubs would have to be Starfleet property as well.

Also, I believe that holodecks have a double role and that they are also used for training (i.e. work-related) purposes. After all, they're far too useful to not use them for that as well. We see that sometimes, too. Worf's Calisthenics program, Geordi running engine room simulations, Deanna taking the bridge officer test on it. It's just that we see them more often in a recreative context.

 

[Rozz]

So in your analogy, those strip clubs would have to be Starfleet property as well.

Fair point! I stand somewhat corrected, because I don't think I considered Enterprise to be Starfleet property that literally up to this point. But you're right, everything on the ship "belongs" to Starfleet, including holodecks.

Now you made me wonder: how much leeway does Starfleet allow with its resources that are made available to the crew? Because, from this point of view, even the quarters do not "belong" to its occupant. Would there be any restrictions on, for example, what kind of art are you allowed to hang on the wall? Would Starfleet object to a painting that some might find offensive? Interesting topic regarding the balance of freedoms allowed... But I don't want to hijack the thread with my stupid ideas Thanks for planting the seed for them to grow in my head, though!

 

[FederationHistorian]

What I was always scratching my head about is the apparent lack of privacy control on holodecks. In many episodes people were casually walking in during someone's session - and that's what really bothered me. Barclay's program was really just an extension of his imagination, and I find Riker and the gang invading his privacy way more disturbing than his program.

I wonder if that’s by design. Use the holodeck for whatever purposes you want in exchange for everyone getting to know about it.

In LD, everyone seems to known about Beverly and the candle. I can only presume that everyone knows about Barclay’s holodeck use, and Geordi and holo-Brahms.

Didn't Wesley make a crack about Geordi finding women on the holodeck?

 

[Jellico]

Yes, why wouldn’t Geordi lock out the Leah Brahms hologram? Had he done that we wouldn’t have seen him so embarrassed after Brahms discovery. All that dramatic tension wouldn’t have happened, so I’m glad he didn’t protect his privacy there.

 

[vulcancicada]

I never understood this either with the Brahms program. It seems like they had a poor understanding of technology back then. You'd think each person would have to log in and use the holodeck kind of like a public computer and load their personal programs from their own account/cloud or whatever. Then each person's porn is each person's responsibility...right? But in the episode with Geordi's Leah program, wasn't it somehow attached to the record of the modifications he made with the program, and that was how she accessed it?

 

[Oddish]

Another alternative is for Barclay to set up a "boss wanders by" program, where the holodeck characters instantly become randoms whenever anyone enters the simulation. The program itself was unobjectionable, it's just the inclusion of actual crew that was problematic.

 

[at Quark's]

Another alternative is for Barclay to set up a "boss wanders by" program, where the holodeck characters instantly become randoms whenever anyone enters the simulation. The program itself was unobjectionable, it's just the inclusion of actual crew that was problematic.

Well, that, and that he was running the program under working hours when he should be doing other things (but that's not a problem with the program itself, I agree on that).

 

[vulcancicada]

There's a lot of strange ethical concerns on the holodeck. I really loved how "meridian" in DS9 actually explored how the tech could be used in such a violating way.

 

[Doug Otte]

Writers often have a poor understanding of technology, or bend it to meet their plot needs.
In the Netflix series The Night Agent, a top secret hard drive was for some reason being decrypted on the desktop of the POTUS' Chief of Staff. The hero steals her badge while she's not looking, breaks into her office, then downloads something into the machine via a USB drive to activate wifi (?!) so the other hero can download files from the hard drive while miles away in a diner.

 

[trekshark]

But in the episode with Geordi's Leah program, wasn't it somehow attached to the record of the modifications he made with the program, and that was how she accessed it?

It's been a while since I've rewatched that episode but I think you're right.

 

[ReddishAlert]

I forgot how funny it was when Picard calls him Broccoli accidentally. The faces of everyone around are hilarious as well.

Also, I really love Barclay’s explanation of how he feels. It’s great when Geordi says “you’re just shy” and he says “just shy” and ruefully laughs.

It is exactly what I feel like when people say “oh just be yourself.”

Great episode about anxiety, social norms, addiction and genuinely funny to boot.

 

[Oddish]

Since a lot of Trekkies are on the spectrum, it can hit a bit close to home for many of us.

 

[Crewman6]

So I suppose the situation is analogous to you finding out your colleague is not only not doing his job, but watching porn during working hours on the laptop issued to him by the company. Upon closer inspection, it turns out to be not just any porn, but a deep fake in you and your coworkers are starring. (Of course what they showed on TNG would be a strongly toned down 'family friendly' version of this). But that's seriously messed up.

It's not a "company laptop", the holodeck is available for everyone's use. Since the ship is both workplace AND home to the crew, it's hardly fair to say he's not allowed to use ship resources for personal use. After all, everyone uses the holodeck for recreation, that's its primary function.

What gets you off in the privacy of your time is nobodies business but your own.

 

[Qonundrum]

Since a lot of Trekkies are on the spectrum, it can hit a bit close to home for many of us.

In both bad and good ways, certainly. Could showing how people subconsciously treat each other might not always be a bad thing?

How many of us have been on both sides of that issue? (I recall college classes where presentations were taped and we had to sit and watch afterward, but that was decades ago...)

Anyhoo, even when Barclay would later on be turned into SuperBarc(tm) in VOY with the one-person satellite communications expert routine for systems that seem to be large for one person in a realistic sense (never mind how big the Delta quadrant is, much less the whole universe), it still adds a little spice in the other direction. Especially when we saw Wesley giving orders to people who told him "that's small so it can't be a thing and doesn't matter" in season 2 episodes (e.g. Pen Pals - a story that, like "Tapestry", treats only one type of position as being worthwhile and the rest are menial fluff, oddly... only for that story they're playing with reverse-ageism, but I digress into a digression.)

 

[Quantum21]

Following from my revisit of The Nth Degree a few weeks ago, I went back in time to watch Hollow Pursuits last night. A few notes:
1) This is of course a wonderful episode, with a great performance by Dwight Schultz. But, the regular cast turned in wonderful performances, too. The humor poked gentle fun at some of the tropes in TNG, but in a loving way.
2) Geordi's engineering team was usually diverse, but this time it seemed to be entirely white males.
3) The holodeck stage was gorgeous, with a lot of detailed landscaping and a platform that looked similar to the one used in ST's Who Mourns for Adonais? I especially appreciated the surrounding sky. I assume this was the "alien planet" set with a painted backdrop?

This episode is creepy in so many ways. Both with how Barclay acts and how our evolved humans react to him. It needed a major re-write.

 

[Qonundrum]

This episode is creepy in so many ways. Both with how Barclay acts and how our evolved humans react to him. It needed a major re-write.

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It creeps me out the most that the Enterprise crew never made use of the neural technology that Barclay told the computer all those schematics of in a refreshingly small quantity of seconds.

 

[Orphalesion]

This episode is creepy in so many ways. Both with how Barclay acts and how our evolved humans react to him. It needed a major re-write.

Yeah it's really a jarring aspect of the episode and pretty clumsy. It's so weird to see these "evolved humans" who almost always seem ready prostrate themselves to any wild aspect of various alien cultures (including the bloodthirsty Klingon culture, which is so different from the ideals of the Federation) apparently can't handle it when a fellow human is socially awkward and proceed to treat them with disdain.

 

[Oddish]

Maybe because the experience of the socially inept members of humanity might vary from year to year, century to century, but some aspects of it are timeless.