One Human(oid), rest are holograms

What do you think it would be like to serve on/captain a ship where you're the lone Human(oid) on a ship full of holograms? (Assuming that there's multiple redundancies/isolated systems/plenty of mobile emitters so that a power outage doesn't wipe out your entire crew at once).

Please understand that I'm not discriminating against holograms. It's just that there would be challenges if most/all of your crew is photons.

For one thing, I'm sure it would come in handy in dangerous scenarios - less loss of life as long as the main program of these individuals is regularly backed up so that all you would lose if the version of their programs on the ship was destroyed would be their memories in between the most recent back-up upload and now.

 

I would have to fight the temptation to treat them differently than I treat real people.

Otherwise I would end up with a ship full of holograms with wedgies and signs on their backs that say "kick me."

Kor

 

Suppposedly, one and the same computer runs all the holographic personalities in a typical holoprogram. Essentially I'd be working with a partner who has multiple personality disorder, then (although he might be so good at it that it's actually multiple personality order).

Would this putative mission involve more carefully segmented personalities? Ones that wouldn't be allowed to share their thoughts even when convenient (and thus leaving me the only non-telepath aboard)? Ones chained to a set of parameters instead of being hollow shells whose static me-interface hides a malleable entity that develops and discards personality traits only as best serves the interaction?

I'd think forcing the holograms to be "real people" that way would diminish their capabilities and their very existence, and might not be a reasonable price to be paid for making me better at ease. But living with multiple holograms as portrayed in TNG would be weird with a capital X.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Multiple holograms as developed as the EMH is (perhaps cultivating personalities and acquiring knowledge in a sort of hologram training academy before being sent out), but with differing personalities and features. Aware of their status as holograms.

 

One would think so, and this has been my argument for years. However, they consistently portray the holographic characters and equipment as separate from the main computer or operating systems.

Makes me want to bang my head against the wall. "Reg, you just discussed physics (or math or whatever the line was) with Einstein." Um, no. No he didn't. Reg had a discussion with the computer that presented an input interface that looked like Einstein. Geordi fell in love with a computer simulation. Those damn holodeck systems on Voyager should have been part of the ship's systems and not some cop-out separate and incompatible system different from the rest of the ship. The doctor on Voyager, a Hologram, should have been an avatar for the entire ship and not some independent program or subroutine that gained sentience within the non sentient environment of the computer. Sheesh, his entire essence was able to be downloaded into that mobile emitter? And he's a program, for crying out loud! Learn how to do backups and system restores, Starfleet! Heck, back in the day we had 1 copy of the original beta version of Quake on 1 computer. 3 of us were playing that game at the same time via the network. All 3 of us using the same computer program. That doctor should have been able to be both on the ship and with an away team.

Sorry, I'm ranting.

 

According to chakoteya: "You just spent the entire night arguing grand unification theories with Albert Einstein!"

The point being made was that Reg was able to carry on a coherent (to him, at least) conversation at an Einsteinian level that he previously had been incapable of, formulating theories that would never have entered his head before. If the real Einstein had been talking to Barclay, the quality of the discussion would have been the same (aside from all the "who the heck are you? what are you wearing?" stuff, that is. )

If the intent was to make him relateable to his patients (talk to the hologram, not the faceless robot arm with a scalpel attached to it), then it stands to reason that he would have the limitation (all in the name of realism) of not being able to exist "physically" and mentally in more than one place. (Granted, there are probably non-photonic alien races that CAN do this.)

 

I would be terrified. Holographic beings is not a good thing for " "organics." The people in "Body and Soul" were fighting a terrible war against them. The guy in "Revulsion" was made to clean the ship. He became so obsessed with sanitation, he killed all the organics on his ship. The leader of the holograms in "Flesh n' Blood" went crazy too. He wanted to wage war against all "organics." Yes, I'd be very afraid. The Doctor himself gives cause many a time to be feared. I would even keep my distance from Vic Fontaine. We have no idea what kind of things are creeping into his subroutines as he develops...

 

An EMP breaks through the shields and hits your ship directly. Congratulations, you now have no crew. Enjoy the afterlife.

 

You're dead, too, tho. What kills durable robots and holograms generally tears mere flesh to unrecognizable forms in the general case. That is, your heart is more likely to stop in an EMP attack than a hardened computer.

Also, I don't get the part where a program running in a computer somehow has to be an integral part of the entire computer, acting as its avatar or whatnot. That's not how computers and programs work today: if my multi-thousand-page treatise on starships somehow began interacting with my multi-thousand-page treatise on ponygirls, let alone with my Spore or LightScribe or Skype, there'd be something seriously wrong with my PC or my cloud or whatever.

Surely it would be better not to give the EMH a free run of all the computing resources of the Voyager, even if this meant the hologram would have to use a keyboard every now and then?

As for backups of programs, that's not generally possible even today with the more involved ones. The EMH would be a dynamic entity that might well crumple and tear if stored, copied or otherwise mangled the way simple data files get treated. It should be fallacy and folly to think that Trek 24th "computing" has anything much to do with today's, any more than it has with abacus counting and cuneiform writing. And giving up features to acquire others is certainly a ruling trend in computer "evolution"...

Timo Saloniemi

 

It would depend. Are we talking more TNG holograms that will malfunction in some way, DS9 sex holograms, or VOY annoying as hell holograms?

 

That is how he accesses the computer. He is an independent program. All of.his files are stored on his holomatrix.

Annoying? More like deadly, murderous, unstable, and they hate your sack of skin.

 

Exactly. And surely this is better than giving him the free roam, as Shawnster seems to suggest?

Timo Saloniemi

 

Oh...I see...Yeah, I think the holodecks were an alien technology to begin, and humans seem to have a very conservative attitude towards technology in Trek. They build their ships to be "people friendly." They probably learned at some point to keep a balance between humans and technology, because they don't want...yaknow, the machines to take over, build T-1000's and exterminate everyone. That's why the whole "holographic rights" thing leaves an ominous feeling in the pit of my stomach.

 

I still think holographic security officers would be wonderful. They can adjust shape to fit what ever they are confronted with, even become non-anthropomorphic. Like Odo any physical weapon or attack could pass right through them and they could be as strong as the force field generated. Look what havoc The Doctor caused when he went renegade- he even created multiples of himself.

Having a master computer running all the different holograms, each one with a special set of abilities appropriate for their assigned task, which could be altered on the fly in case of combat or unusual circumstances. facing a weird anomaly?- back you have 500 specialists in the needed field, damage control?- bang you have 500 engineers who also have any tool needed instantly with them.

 

If they are all Andy Dick, I'm quitting Starfleet.

Why crew a ship with holograms in the first place? If we say the EMH is an AI person, then can they not build a ship that is an AI person as well, a ship that doesn't need a fleshly overseer, or anthropomorphic holograms within it?

 

We could all just sit in hoverchairs and let the computers do all the exploring...

 

A partial crew of holograms might work if they all had mobile emitters and were sentient (as long as they didn't turn 'evil' as has been noted above). They would likely be used for hazardous duties to limit casualties.

 

In the spirit of the OP question, I would love it because I would not be surrounded by idiots, like at work.

 

One person in a ship full of holograms? They'd go mad.

 

Almost sounds like Red Dwarf