of holodecks, replicators and snowballs

[Rÿcher]

I read a lot of questions and complaints about how could Captain Picard have been hit by that snowball while in the corridor outside the holodeck in the episode "Angel One" when all the stuff on the holodeck is holographic and not really "real" or how could Geordi have taken the piece of paper that Professor Moriarty drew the Enterprise on out of the holodeck?

It's my understanding that the holodeck works by projecting light and forcefields that we interact with called holograms. Those holograms would probably be the very complex stuff like life forms like people, animals, plants and other things that are living - things that the replicator can't replicate. Simple objects like water (in whatever form like ice) or paper and ink can be replicated and the holodeck uses replicator technology if you're going there for a picnic or to a restaurant and want to eat - it would be a shame if you ate a good meal and left the holodeck and the food vanished from your stomach.

It could be plausible that the computer initially creates everything as a hologram but if it becomes clear that the holodeck user intends to remove an item that is allowed to be removed from the holodeck, say, a piece of paper then it replicates it en route to the exit or calculates the speed a trajectory of a flying snowball and of the holodeck's door happens to be open and someone happens to be outside in the field of fire, he'd better have a change of uniform handy.

 

[Captain Robert April]

This has been answered before, but here goes.

Not everything in the holodeck is holographic, some is replicated matter. This makes it possible for you to have that nice meal at your favorite resturaunt in Paris or take a souvenir back to your quarters of that visit to Woodstock.

But as for that late night rendezvous with that Moulin Rouge showgirl or hippie chick, sorry, what happens in the holodeck stays in the holodeck.

 

[Crewman47]

I was watching the extras for Lost season 4 yesterday and the described the difference between props and set dressings where a prop is something an actor interacts with and set dressing just sits untouched. This could be the same way the holodeck works, anything the user interacts with is replicated into the real deal and anything not interacted with is simple light.

 

[Captain Robert April]

I'd also add in how complex the object in question is, whether a living being is being represented, etc.

A snowball or piece of paper, not a problem, but a Victorian criminal mastermind? Sorry, only within the friendly confines of the holodeck.