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Ooooh! The holo communicator! What ever happened to that? It was used in only one episode, but was a damn cool idea! (I plan on using such a device in my sci-fi novels - if they ever get written!). Bring the pics on AndrewR, I'd love to see them!
Mark - same again! But this time, with email too!
-------------------- If you cant convince them, confuse them.
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
The holo-communicator was only really *in* style because it was a useful dramatic device. They invented it because they didn't want to have Sisko and Eddington exchange dialogue over the viewscreen all the time. They only brought it back so that some Admiral's final speech would have more emotional impact on the audience when Bashir's dad's sentence was read. I believe they took it out because they'd otherwise have to be explaining it all the time, and couldn't justify the time and expense of doing so, or providing special effects to provide a visual cue that the guy was a hologram, a la Star Wars.
As for the in-Trek explanation, I'd say that the holocomm was an experimental device that didn't offer any really useful advantage over the standard comm systems, and had no real practical advantage other than making it more "personal" for people to be talking to each other. While in practice the technology was proabably sound, it just didn't make sense to equip every ship in the fleet with it - especially since the war started up a few months later. However, since the war ended they no longer had any excuse...
In related history, I once came up with a nifty idea for a fanfic involving a holo-conference some time before the holocomm came up. Every ship in a fleet with a holodeck would create an identical conference room with enough seats for the captain and XO of everyone in the fleet. Then, the images of each officer would be transmitted to every other ship as a practical hologram, effectively creating a conference room filled with a bunch of people who could fully interact without anyone beaming over. I used this gimmick in a story that would have filled in the battle with the Borg in "First Contact", with Worf beaming to the USS Bozeman to sit in on the holo-conference briefing of Admiral Hayes' fleet with Captain Bateson and his XO.
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