Flare Sci-Fi Forums: $$ Night: holodeck and power failure $$

This is topic $$ Night: holodeck and power failure $$ in forum Starships & Technology at Flare Sci-Fi Forums.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://flare.solareclipse.net/ultimatebb.php/topic/6/9.html

Posted by Bernd (Member # 6) on :

This issue might have been discussed before, but I watched the episode "Night" recently, and I came across several inconsistencies.

When power is completely shut down and emergency power fails, every system is supposed to stop working immediately, maybe except for the gravity generators that continue working without main power for several hours (TNGTM). This applies to the holodeck as well, in that the whole scenery is "frozen" and any system inside the holodeck including the light fails. This impact would be consistent, if all the matter inside the holodeck were actually "holomatter", i.e. some kind of replicated matter. However, most objects are supposed to be mere projections which was obviously not the case in "Night". Why should Tome create a complex "Captain Proton" program, where everything is "real"? Moreover, the whole scenery including Tom and Seven remained black and white, which is only possible if a converter/filter is active which needs power. The most obvious error is that Seven has voice access to the computer and can disengage the safety protocols. The computer should be offline as well! What is Captain Proton's "ray gun" supposed to emit anyway? I think it should be a mere harmless light effect. After all, it's a 20th century fantasy weapon, not a phaser. If, however, it can be turned into a dangerous weapon just by disabling the safety protocols, it would have to be charged, but that's hardly possible without energy.

------------------
I know engineers - they love to change things. (McCoy, STTMP)
www.uni-siegen.de/~ihe/bs/startrek/

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

Safety protocols. You could be seriously injured if a program suddenly switched off with no warning, depending on what you were doing. The holodecks have auxilary back ups. Not enough to keep the program active, but enough to keep it running.

------------------
"And though I once prefered a human being's company, they pale before the monolith that towers over me."
--
They Might Be Giants

[This message was edited by Sol System on April 07, 1999.]

Posted by Bernd (Member # 6) on :

I could imagine that very basic systems (like emergency lighting) or safety systems have a decentralized (does this word exist?) power supply. However, emergency power failed, lighting failed, and so I supposed that really every power source on the ship was blocked.

Posted by Cargile (Member # 45) on :

Injured how?

If you are rock climbing and the systems shuts down how far do you fall? 3 inches? I'm sure the holodeck programmers make sure that if a system failure--power outage--occures, no one is seriously hurt or dies. To suggest otherwise implies that there is no safety protocol at all.

A good rule of thumb is "How would you do it?"

------------------
What do you mean I'm not kind. Just not you're kind.
--Dave Mustaine
"Peace Sells"
MEGADETH

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

I admit, I have the more cavernous TNG holodecks in mind. A fall from the top of those wouldn't be pleasant.

------------------
"And though I once prefered a human being's company, they pale before the monolith that towers over me."
--
They Might Be Giants

Posted by Curry Monster (Member # 12) on :

Hiking up Mt Everest....then a 29 000 foot drop *L*

------------------
I drink therefore I am.

-Descartes

Posted by Bernd (Member # 6) on :

There are far too many holodeck accidents and injuries in TNG and Voyager. In my opinion, the worst thing that should be allowed to happen on a holodeck would be that the rock suddenly disappears in the improbable case of a total power failure, and the person would fall to the floor.
Why should quasi-real weapons be replicated on a holodeck and only secured by safety protocols that can be disabled any time and the power is available at once? This would mean the phaser is charged all the time and only a software lock prevents it from being fired. Creating real weapons does not make sense on a holodeck, since their impact can't be allowed to be real anyway, otherwise the holodeck would be damaged like in "The Killing Game".

------------------
Early bird catches the gagh. (The Doctor to B'Elanna at 06:00, "Drone")
www.uni-siegen.de/~ihe/bs/startrek/

Posted by Montgomery (Member # 23) on :

Aside from the craziness of the Holodeck stuff as discussed above. My beef is with the whole concept!

You'd see stars, even if none were nearby.
Only some huge dark clousd encompassing the whole region could block of all the light. It was dismissed callously as "due to theta radiation". PAH! If there were any sector of our galaxy that opaque, we'd have seen it on Earth by now.

That aside, twas a good ep.

------------------
"Is there anyone there with a gun?"
- On the Hour