What happened to the holo-com?
- Thread starter Photon
- Start date
I believe the Companion mentioned that it was more of a pain to do the holo-com lighting/direction/sfx than the tried and true green-screen work for the viewscreen. Couple that with the fact that the writers seemed to have found it less visually interesting than the viewscreen.
As an in-universe explanation, I've always favored the idea that it wasn't as secure a means of communication as was acceptable in wartime. Whereas Starfleet experts had a century or more of securing traditional viewscreen-tech, this was too new and the materials and time needed to lock it down were better spent fighting the Dominion, since a cool-looking toy could be put aside til all was settled. So just as WW2 delayed commonplace TV for a time, so Holo-Comm got put aside for the DW.
One possibility I imagined : Once a holo-comm contact was made, a holo-generator could make the image solid, and the construct of themselves controlled by the sender. Might do well by married couples, anyway.
One possibility I imagined : Once a holo-comm contact was made, a holo-generator could make the image solid, and the construct of themselves controlled by the sender. Might do well by married couples, anyway.
I don't think it was a terribly great piece of equipment, anyway.
The viewscreen was a simpler design using time-tested technology. It was more versatile, allowing displays of almost anything imaginable, as opposed to one person standing in a rigid position. It took up less space on the bridge, being built directly into the wall. The holo-com, on the other hand, had to take up valuable floor space, not to mention the fact that careless crewmen might even trip over its raised edges. The holo-com was flashy, but not very practical.
The viewscreen was a simpler design using time-tested technology. It was more versatile, allowing displays of almost anything imaginable, as opposed to one person standing in a rigid position. It took up less space on the bridge, being built directly into the wall. The holo-com, on the other hand, had to take up valuable floor space, not to mention the fact that careless crewmen might even trip over its raised edges. The holo-com was flashy, but not very practical.
Which could be the main reason why the military might cling to it even when the rest of the Federation adopts the fully three-dimensional technology.
Although the points about poor use of volume and floor space are valid ones. Star Wars style tabletop models should be more practical. And we have seen such tabletop holograms, say, on Riker's cabin table in the first season of TNG. Perhaps these are the standard civilian model of phone? Old Joe Sisko might have one on his table, too - it just happens to have "bowl of fruit" as the idle setting, so it's not that easy to spot...
Timo Saloniemi
My money is on that it probably needed its own generator. It was established on Voyager that Holodeck Power is incompatible with other systems. Meaning that it would only be useable for that one purpose. In a time of war when you can just use the viewscreen, that space on a Warship like the Defiant definately would have much better use. More Phaser generators or Quantum Torpedoes maybe?
doubleohfive
Fleet Admiral
I think it was either Ron Moore or Ira Behr who had been wanting to change the viewscreen thing for a while. Moore and Braga had to push for the hologram screen in First Contact too.
As for the holocom, it just boiled down to production issues as AdmiralGarak referenced, as well as Behr's contention that it was also confusing if you were just tuning in -- holy hell, WTF is Eddington doing back on the Defiant???
I had just assumed it was taking up too much bandwidth on the communications network and got shaped to the point of being useless 
Holo-com was awesome and viewscreens suck really badly in comparison IMO.
I don't buy the writers' "official" explanation of why it wasn't used again.
I chalk this up to a matter of sometimes cools things just get flushed down the drain for no reason other than they are too cool and life never works out in such a way where all cool things are left alone. Similar tragic things happened to Vortas' telekinetic butt-kicking powers, the character of Dukat etc. etc.
I don't buy the writers' "official" explanation of why it wasn't used again.
I chalk this up to a matter of sometimes cools things just get flushed down the drain for no reason other than they are too cool and life never works out in such a way where all cool things are left alone. Similar tragic things happened to Vortas' telekinetic butt-kicking powers, the character of Dukat etc. etc.
With the way holodeck technology seem to fail every other month, safeties get disabled, holo-characters go crazy, wierd effects from techo-yon particles and what nots, it just seem prudent to limit holo-technology to just that one square room than to put holo-technology in every mission critical area of the ship.
Heh.
Really!
I mean, how many episodes are there in Trek where holo-characters gum up the entire universe?
Did we ever learn what the other side of the holo-line looked like? Was Eddington standing inside a holo representation of the Defiant's Bridge? Or was there a holo-image of Sisko and his Chair on Eddington's Bridge, was Sisko hovering in a sitting position without the chair? Or was Eddington only seeing the usual viewscreen image?
It's been a long time since I've seen the ep. but the viewer (Eddington) was to have full immersion into the viewed environment - so that it looked like (to Eddington) one was in the location that was being viewed. The normal holodeck interaction was different in that you did not physically touch the environment.
So Eddington was standing inside a holo representation of the Defiant's bridge. As far as I remember, Eddington couldn't move around the bridge, he could only view what was in the bridge from his little raised circle.
People,
It was an interesting idea, but I can see how its execution would be problematic. Esp. if you were just tuning in. If a character is on a viewscreen, you immediately know he/she is someplace else, whereas the character in the little holo-circle, you wouldn't quite be sure he/she wasn't on the ship.
It would probably work better in an instance where you have a briefing between folks in different locations in a similar briefing room. The people being emitted via holo-technology would occupy the same empty seats in say, Defiant's briefing room as they were occupying in their own briefing rooms. And Sisko's holo-image would simultaneously appear in the other briefing room or rooms in the same seat he occupied on the Defiant or in his office on Deep Space Nine.
Red Ranger
It was an interesting idea, but I can see how its execution would be problematic. Esp. if you were just tuning in. If a character is on a viewscreen, you immediately know he/she is someplace else, whereas the character in the little holo-circle, you wouldn't quite be sure he/she wasn't on the ship.
It would probably work better in an instance where you have a briefing between folks in different locations in a similar briefing room. The people being emitted via holo-technology would occupy the same empty seats in say, Defiant's briefing room as they were occupying in their own briefing rooms. And Sisko's holo-image would simultaneously appear in the other briefing room or rooms in the same seat he occupied on the Defiant or in his office on Deep Space Nine.
Red Ranger
Never seen on screen again. But didn't the holo-com make an appearance in the Gateway novels? All the great captains linked up; Picard, Calhoun, Janeway, Kira and etc.
Right, like in the Star Wars Prequels, just with better images
The holo-comm was used just once more on DS9, in the episode that revealed Bashir as an augment. At the climax of the show, Sisko and the Bashirs are addressed by an Admiral (from JAG or something) was standing in the office with a blue light overhead being the only real indication that he wasn't "there". As with the usage in "For the Uniform", the idea was to have a greater phyical presence for dramatic exchanges, and it worked here too.
I chalk it up to the idea tha the holo-comm was just a bad idea in the first place, and that it was part of the continuing experiments and new tech on Defiant as the class ship. It worked, but there was no point installing it everywhere or leaving it there, so they just took it out. Effects of this would later be seen on DS9 where full holograms of characters would easily be projected without a holodeck, as in "Statistical Probabilities" where the Jack Pack was analyzing a holo recording from the Dominion, as projected in their cargo bay / quarters.
Mark
I chalk it up to the idea tha the holo-comm was just a bad idea in the first place, and that it was part of the continuing experiments and new tech on Defiant as the class ship. It worked, but there was no point installing it everywhere or leaving it there, so they just took it out. Effects of this would later be seen on DS9 where full holograms of characters would easily be projected without a holodeck, as in "Statistical Probabilities" where the Jack Pack was analyzing a holo recording from the Dominion, as projected in their cargo bay / quarters.
Mark
I thought it appeared once more - wasn't it in Doctor Bashir, I Presume?
(edit) why is it that despite reading the thread I only notice when someone says the same thing afterwards?
(edit) why is it that despite reading the thread I only notice when someone says the same thing afterwards?
