Holodeck FAIL SAFE

[RobertScorpio]

On several of the modern TREKS there are several episodes where it is implied that the 'holodeck fail safe' measures are on,ect. Meaning, if a holodeck character were to shoot you with a gun, it wouldn't kill you because the bullit would not be real...or if you ran over by a car it wouldn't kill you...

So what happens when the safety measures are off??? Does that mean you could ask the computer for a phaser, it would actually create a real one, which would then fire a real beam of energy? If so, then when you fire that beam of energy what is powering it? The phaser that suddenly is real? Could you then take that phaser off the holodeck and kill someone with it???

Same question about cars...you tell the holodeck to create a freeway, a good old 21st century freeway with zillions of cars zooming about. You turn the safety protocols off and run across the freeway. If the car hits you that means it has mass, and I suppose the mass of a car, so when it, the car, hits the side of the holodeck (with all the other cars as well) would they smash through the walls of the holodeck?

Swords and knives I can see...but cars, phasers, cannons? Nuclear bombs? Heck could you have the holodeck creat a nulcear bomb and destroy the ship (or DS9) up?

Rob
Scorpio

 

[STIntergalactic]

It won't actually create real cars, or guns, or bullets or bombs. If I created a car on the holodeck, it wouldn't be real, but it would seem real due to the forcefields giving the hologram it's tactile integrity. If the holodeck safeties are off, then that holomatter could do serious harm to you by running you over, because it has the same weight and acceleration and whatnot of a real car. Although, it would cease to exist once it went past the holoemitters on the holodeck.

This should be in trek tech, anyway IMHO

 

[RobertScorpio]

It won't actually create real cars, or guns, or bullets or bombs. If I created a car on the holodeck, it wouldn't be real, but it would seem real due to the forcefields giving the hologram it's tactile integrity. If the holodeck safeties are off, then that holomatter could do serious harm to you by running you over, because it has the same weight and acceleration and whatnot of a real car. Although, it would cease to exist once it went past the holoemitters on the holodeck.

This should be in trek tech, anyway IMHO

Okay..that helps..I get it, sorta. What if the holoemitters were reconfigured to give a distance outside the 'wall' or, if the emitters just didn't turn off? Can the car hit the so called wall of the Holodeck? If it can hit me then it can hit the walls as well.

Rob

 

[STIntergalactic]

I'm sure the walls are just outside the range of the emitters. I suppose you could rig the emitters to project a certain way outside the holodeck. Hell, you could just install emitters all over the ship. Then, yeah, without safety protocols, you could run down people in the hallways with your '73 Gremlin if you really wanted to.

 

[grabmygoblin]

I'm sure the walls are just outside the range of the emitters. I suppose you could rig the emitters to project a certain way outside the holodeck. Hell, you could just install emitters all over the ship. Then, yeah, without safety protocols, you could run down people in the hallways with your '73 Gremlin if you really wanted to.

that would have made the virus in "The Naked Time" even more interesting...

 

[Sheliak]

On several of the modern TREKS there are several episodes where it is implied that the 'holodeck fail safe' measures are on,ect. Meaning, if a holodeck character were to shoot you with a gun, it wouldn't kill you because the bullit would not be real...or if you ran over by a car it wouldn't kill you...

So what happens when the safety measures are off??? Does that mean you could ask the computer for a phaser, it would actually create a real one, which would then fire a real beam of energy? If so, then when you fire that beam of energy what is powering it? The phaser that suddenly is real? Could you then take that phaser off the holodeck and kill someone with it???

Same question about cars...you tell the holodeck to create a freeway, a good old 21st century freeway with zillions of cars zooming about. You turn the safety protocols off and run across the freeway. If the car hits you that means it has mass, and I suppose the mass of a car, so when it, the car, hits the side of the holodeck (with all the other cars as well) would they smash through the walls of the holodeck?

Swords and knives I can see...but cars, phasers, cannons? Nuclear bombs? Heck could you have the holodeck creat a nulcear bomb and destroy the ship (or DS9) up?

Rob
Scorpio

I'm sure you could be vaporized by an atomic blast if you really wanted to but it would probably put an incredible drain on the ships's power systems and it would only destroy whatever was inside the holodeck itself. I'm sorry I'm in tears laughing at this post while typing.

 

[jimbtnp2]

On several of the modern TREKS there are several episodes where it is implied that the 'holodeck fail safe' measures are on,ect. Meaning, if a holodeck character were to shoot you with a gun, it wouldn't kill you because the bullit would not be real...or if you ran over by a car it wouldn't kill you...

So what happens when the safety measures are off??? Does that mean you could ask the computer for a phaser, it would actually create a real one, which would then fire a real beam of energy? If so, then when you fire that beam of energy what is powering it? The phaser that suddenly is real? Could you then take that phaser off the holodeck and kill someone with it???

Same question about cars...you tell the holodeck to create a freeway, a good old 21st century freeway with zillions of cars zooming about. You turn the safety protocols off and run across the freeway. If the car hits you that means it has mass, and I suppose the mass of a car, so when it, the car, hits the side of the holodeck (with all the other cars as well) would they smash through the walls of the holodeck?

Swords and knives I can see...but cars, phasers, cannons? Nuclear bombs? Heck could you have the holodeck creat a nulcear bomb and destroy the ship (or DS9) up?

Rob
Scorpio

What to do when the fail safes are off:

# 1 - Get the following characters:

Troi's Mother
Ferengi Clowns
Alexander
Vic Fontaine
Barclay
the EMH
Ensign Kim
Chakoty
Naiomi Wildman
Jar Jar Binks

# 2 - Put them in the Holodeck

# 3 - Activate the Roman Gladiator program

# 4 - Make some popcorn

# 5 - Sit back and enjoy

 

[Hermiod]

So what happens when the safety measures are off??? Does that mean you could ask the computer for a phaser, it would actually create a real one, which would then fire a real beam of energy? If so, then when you fire that beam of energy what is powering it? The phaser that suddenly is real? Could you then take that phaser off the holodeck and kill someone with it???

Yes, in fact it can create all sorts of weapons - even fictional ones - and they will have an effect.

In "Night", Seven disables the safety protocols and shoots an alien trespasser in the holodeck with a Captain Proton "raygun". It shoots a suitably silly looking beam that would not look out of place in the serials she, Harry and Paris were recreating but it did work.

In Star Trek: First Contact, Picard guns down a Borg with a holodeck Tommy Gun.

In "Extreme Risk", a depressed Torres began risking her life by switching off the safeties in her holodeck programmes and then putting herself through increasingly dangerous simulations. Her simulated version of the Delta Flyer begins to break apart and she is injured as it does. It's made clear in the episode that she had been patching up her own injuries to keep them a secret from Janeway and the Doctor.

Same question about cars...you tell the holodeck to create a freeway, a good old 21st century freeway with zillions of cars zooming about. You turn the safety protocols off and run across the freeway. If the car hits you that means it has mass, and I suppose the mass of a car, so when it, the car, hits the side of the holodeck (with all the other cars as well) would they smash through the walls of the holodeck?

I'd imagine that it would be similar to the Delta Flyer simulation I mentioned. Those cars, safeties on or off, are just simulated. They are created with light projection and forcefields. They cannot move outside of the boundaries of the holodeck. Sure, those forcefields could hit you with sufficient force to simulate being hit by a car.

Swords and knives I can see...but cars, phasers, cannons? Nuclear bombs? Heck could you have the holodeck creat a nulcear bomb and destroy the ship (or DS9) up?

No, you couldn't. You might feel the simulated effects of a nuclear blast within the holodeck but it would not be possible to recreate those effects outside of the holodeck walls.

 

[grabmygoblin]

except if it's a snowball. all snowballs are designed to be able to be taken outside the holodeck so you can comically paff the captain.

 

[Timo]

I would again think that the holodeck always cheats as much as is possible, and reluctantly adds more reality and complexity when forced to.

If the scenario allows, the holodeck creates most things merely as optical illusions that hover at a distance.

If something has to be physically touched, the optical illusion is reinforced with forcefields.

If the texture of the object to be touched is of essence, a more detailed forcefield is used, or then some actual material is replicated at those points where the user touches the illusion.

If the object is something relatively homogeneous and difficult to imitate by forcefields, it is more often replicated than not - say, a snowball.

If the object is to be consumed, it is replicated, at least for those parts that are to be actually consumed - say, real wine in a forcefield bottle.

If the purpose of the object changes in mid-run, the holodeck adjusts in an eyeblink, replicating a glass bottle in place of a forcefield one if it looks as if the bottle is to be taken outside the 'deck - or inserting a forcefield bottle in place of a glass one if it looks like player A is going to hit player B on the head with it.

So "safeties off" would probably just mean the holodeck wouldn't bother to replace a real bottle (which always hurts) with a forcefield (which can be adjusted to not hurt as much as the real thing, or perhaps not at all).

However, as for nuclear bombs, TNG "A Matter of Perspective" sets a frightening example. Clearly, the E-D holodeck has enough resolution to perfectly recreate a true Krieger Wave Generator, a device that causes actual (not simulated, as it extends far outside the holodecks) damage to the ship when operated. If all safeties were turned off and very specific instructions were given, the holodeck would no doubt be able to produce a nice little fusion warhead that would blow the ship into smithereens when detonated. Nothing "simulated" about the fusion process, nothing "simulated" about the blast wave that rips out the bulkheads or the thermal shock that melts them.

With safeties on, though, all the holodeck would replicate is a forcefield box with some texture on it that makes it look like a bomb, and a big whiteout optical effect when the bomb goes off, followed by simulation of the player's preferred afterlife.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Hermiod]

^I'd imagine that's why disabling the safeties requires specific authorisation from a senior officer.

Though they're inconsistent on that too. Seven of Nine is not a senior officer and she does not give a command code when disabling the safeties in "Night".

 

[Timo]

Perhaps a special Borg ability? A backdoor she had prepared beforehand, just because?

I could easily see Seven holding the keys to the ship in a secret pocket in case the humans proved too incompetent.

Luckily for continuity, other occasions of "safeties off" tend to involve the ship's chief engineer!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[cultcross]

I've never been able to come up with an even half decent reason why you would want to disable the safeties. Why is it even an option? I don't think the scenario in First Contact would have genuinely been high on their list.

 

[Hermiod]

^No, but Torres' simulation in "Extreme Risk" might require having the safeties disabled to ensure an accurate simulation.

 

[Timo]

I'd think disabling all the safeties would be an unusual step, but telling the 'deck to allow for pain in a martial arts training simulation would be a frequent occurrence, and asking it to provide various levels of risk of injury in sports would significantly increase the enjoyment. Say, you might dive off a high cliff, and set the 'deck to allow for pain if you belly-flop but disallow for cranial injury if you hit a rock.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[RobertScorpio]

I'm sure the walls are just outside the range of the emitters. I suppose you could rig the emitters to project a certain way outside the holodeck. Hell, you could just install emitters all over the ship. Then, yeah, without safety protocols, you could run down people in the hallways with your '73 Gremlin if you really wanted to.

72 Pinto actually!!!

Rob

 

[RobertScorpio]

On several of the modern TREKS there are several episodes where it is implied that the 'holodeck fail safe' measures are on,ect. Meaning, if a holodeck character were to shoot you with a gun, it wouldn't kill you because the bullit would not be real...or if you ran over by a car it wouldn't kill you...

So what happens when the safety measures are off??? Does that mean you could ask the computer for a phaser, it would actually create a real one, which would then fire a real beam of energy? If so, then when you fire that beam of energy what is powering it? The phaser that suddenly is real? Could you then take that phaser off the holodeck and kill someone with it???

Same question about cars...you tell the holodeck to create a freeway, a good old 21st century freeway with zillions of cars zooming about. You turn the safety protocols off and run across the freeway. If the car hits you that means it has mass, and I suppose the mass of a car, so when it, the car, hits the side of the holodeck (with all the other cars as well) would they smash through the walls of the holodeck?

Swords and knives I can see...but cars, phasers, cannons? Nuclear bombs? Heck could you have the holodeck creat a nulcear bomb and destroy the ship (or DS9) up?

Rob
Scorpio

What to do when the fail safes are off:

# 1 - Get the following characters:

Troi's Mother
Ferengi Clowns
Alexander
Vic Fontaine
Barclay
the EMH
Ensign Kim
Chakoty
Naiomi Wildman
Jar Jar Binks

# 2 - Put them in the Holodeck

# 3 - Activate the Roman Gladiator program

# 4 - Make some popcorn

# 5 - Sit back and enjoy

i would have to add RICK BERMAN to your list!