Flare Sci-Fi Forums: Is the holodeck dimensionally transcendental???

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Posted by MIB (Member # 426) on :

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think this topic has ever been discussed. Has anyone ever noticed whenever the holodeck is off, it is quite small, but when it is on, it is huge?

I know all about the little treadmill effect generated via forcefields under the holoedeck user's feet so that he/she can cover "huge" distances while staying in the same place.

However, this explanation is not satisfactory to me. Many times now we have seen multiple people use one holodeck at the same time and be very far apart from each other. Distances between 2 people would be larger than the floor size of the holodeck! The Voy episodes 'Fair Haven' and 'Spirit Folk' is proof of this. I don't even need to mention the other episodes in VOY and TNG that support this.

And so I've been wondering. While a holodeck is on does it become dimensionally transcendental?? In other words, while the holodeck is on, does it literally become larger on the inside than it is on the outside via some wierd quantum flux type thing????

[ July 15, 2001: Message edited by: MIB ]

Posted by Ryan McReynolds (Member # 28) on :

quote:
Originally posted by MIB:
And so I've been wondering. While a holodeck is on does it become dimensionally transcendental?? In other words, while the holodeck is on, does it literally become larger on the inside than it is on the outside via some wierd quantum flux type thing????

Um, no. This is hardly a new question... the holodeck simply projects a wall between the two people and makes virtual holodecks for each of them, with independent imagery and sound fields.

Posted by MIB (Member # 426) on :

I guess that's a good explanation. But somehow, I don't feel that's right. hmmmm

Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

It is right. As I recall, this is the explanation put forth by the TNGTM, and the one that's generally accepted. Not that TPTB seem to care what's generally accepted, but I doubt they'll have any reason to contradict this one.

Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :

quote:
Originally posted by MIB:
While a holodeck is on does it become dimensionally transcendental?? In other words, while the holodeck is on, does it literally become larger on the inside than it is on the outside via some wierd quantum flux type thing????

"NEW!! for Starfleet vessels, 2361! The HOLODECK!! From TardisCo!!"

Posted by Stingray (Member # 621) on :

If anybody's read Shatner's novels, there's a part in one of them where Spock and Kirk break out of a Vulcan holding cell which is also a holodeck (to prevent the occupents from finding the exit). They break out of it using the whole independent imagery thing. I think 'Avenger' is the one, they're all very good books.

Posted by Veers (Member # 661) on :

I've learned not to trust his books. A Romulan-Borg alliance? A Defiant-class USS Monitor? The Farragut being assimilated after "Generations?" Kirk's one million lives? They may be good books, but not exactly "canon." (Which isn't a bad thing, actually)

Posted by Eclipse (Member # 472) on :

The really cool holo-trick was in Boogeymen, in which there was a holodeck simulating a blank holodeck.

Posted by Joshua Bell (Member # 327) on :

The "compartmentalization" of holodecks is *not* mentioned in the ST:TNG:TM. At the time that was written, I'm not sure if any episodes actually demanded that sort of technology.

Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :

Encounter at Farpoint? Riker shouts to Data, and Data doesn't hear him. They have to be over a holodeck distance apart.

Elementary Dear Data, Pulaski is kept a long distance away from the rest of the people on the holodeck.

Possibly the Big Goodbye too, I can't remember.

So, yeah. Pretty much every episode demanded it.

Boogeymen was a good book. The weirdo-holodeck stuff was quite original at the time, pre-empting Ship in a Bottle by a couple of years.

Posted by Treknophyle (Member # 509) on :

Encounter at Farpoint? Riker shouts to Data, and Data doesn't hear him. They have to be over a holodeck distance apart.

- Not so. Simple sound-cancelling field.

Elementary Dear Data, Pulaski is kept a long distance away from the rest of the people on the holodeck.

- Not so. Trick perspective (you know, bending light - the stuff holograms are made of)

I'm still trying to figure out how people can play baseball in the damned things.

Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

Treknophyle: That was Liam's point. Someone said that, when the TNGTM was written, those issues had never come up in episodes. He was giving examples of episodes in which they did.

Posted by Joshua Bell (Member # 327) on :

In "Encounter at Farpoint" [TNG], another possible explanation is that the simulation was too noisy - there were trees and running water and other distractions. Data also wasn't paying too close attention. Also, that episode shows explicit interaction of a rock with the holodeck walls; in a decent simulation the rock would simply be dematerialized and a hologram projected. The software must differ between that simulation and most of the rest of what we see.

In "Elementary, Dear Data" [TNG] it's conceivable that the London simulation was convoluted, and fit within the confines of the Holodeck.

The Sherlock Holmes episodes antedate the Bynars upgrade of the holodeck, so it's possible they added the compartmentalization code.

...

In any case, I have a FAQ on this:

http://www.calormen.com/Star_Trek/FAQs/holodeck-faq.htm

Needs updating, but then what FAQ doesn't?

Posted by Wes1701E (Member # 212) on :

Yep thats all TNGTM stuff

Posted by Stingray (Member # 621) on :

quote:
Also, that episode shows explicit interaction of a rock with the holodeck walls; in a decent simulation the rock would simply be dematerialized and a hologram projected. The software must differ between that simulation and most of the rest of what we see.

Probably Data programmed that for that special occasion just to examine the nifty techno.

Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

"In "Encounter at Farpoint" [TNG], another possible explanation is that the simulation was too noisy - there were trees and running water and other distractions. Data also wasn't paying too close attention."

With Data's computerized ears? I doubt it...

The throwing-a-rock-against-the-wall thing I understood in EaF. The technology was still kind of slow. But, when they did it in "Ship in a Bottle", it didn't make much sense. Shouldn't the holodeck have been able to accomodate that sort of thing by that time?

Posted by Bernd (Member # 6) on :

quote:
And so I've been wondering. While a holodeck is on does it become dimensionally transcendental?? In other words, while the holodeck is on, does it literally become larger on the inside than it is on the outside via some wierd quantum flux type thing????

I don't think so. On many occasions we could see people enter and exit from both sides of the holodeck, and the scale stayed the same. It also wouldn't comply with some of the holodeck failures, most notably in "Night" when it went offline and just froze. It's already hard to explain how this could possible with a 1/1 scale holodeck when the projectors go offline, but in quantum flux it should be quite dangerous if whatever controls everything inside fails (i.e. more dangerous a place than it seems to be anyway).

Posted by Stingray (Member # 621) on :

that'd must be damn dangerous, Bernd, considering the shit that's gone down in these relatively 'benign' holodecks.