This is no doubt one of the best answers. But also I think the episode where Data is studying humor kind of answered it as well. If there’s no consequence to failure, it’s not actually thrilling, it’s just VR. If you can’t feel the pain of the cut, are you going to learn to sword fight as well?
Training martial arts would actually be amazing in a holodeck. Imagine being able to fight Tyson, but at 10% strength so you can better understand his moves, then ramp up his strength slowly to understand how you can counter stronger opponents? Or Ali at 25% speed so you can work your way up to full speed reaction timing.
Based on a quick search, the estimates I found had a pretty wide spread but most people seem to put him as punching 5-10 times harder than an average man. At 10% you still have to contend with his technique, but the force would be comparable to an amateur boxer.
Granted, without training an amateur boxer could still probably wreck your shit, but they probably wouldn't put you in the hospital.
From a technical standpoint I feel like it would be easier to implement when you need hardlight interactions for things like chairs and consoles to be tangible in the holodeck. Seems easier to just implement a safety protocol that affects anything moving at a harmful velocity than any other way. Anyway, programming it like that would allow for the safeties to be easily disabled.
It's a military vessel. The bigger question to me is why don't they turn off all the safety protocols around the transporters more often?
I think at least half of their problems could be solved if they used transporters to intentionally kill people or to disable other vessels. "Their shields are down? Beam their life support system and parts of the ship's hull into space."
The holodeck is also just a plot device. Instead of the TOS penchant for time travel and "oh no, we ended up on Earth in 18XX/19XX" plots, they could hit the Holodeck as the release valve. Lower stakes, lower contrivance barrier to get the crew into the situation.
You want real life? The safety protocols keep people from breaking the damn thing. It wouldn't render half the dangerous stuff, like bullets flying too fast to bother rendering. The emitters wouldn't be able to render objects inside a body, so bullets would only penetrate a few cm at best if they did render. Knives and sharp objects might not render sharp enough to cause real harm, and might not render into the would, either, so also low penetrative range. Chemical reactions are visual simulations, so acid doesn't really burn. Poison isn't real poison because it's a hologram that feels real, not real chemicals. Blunt force trauma, crushing force, and maybe heat, might be the only guaranteed ways to do violence in the Holodeck with the protocols turned off.
I like the part about how the holodeck power was separate so they could fuckoff there when they were about to die instead of hooking that power supply up and getting life support back.
I mean, the holodeck probably theoretically requires at least most of the power available on the whole Earth right now. Wouldn't want it to touch the ship's other systems.
It's basically just tractor beam forcefields, maybe not the whole Earth.
And I can see how an IRL explanation is that of someone is doing something crazy and flipping around, if everything disappears, they might get hurt falling even a meter at an awkward angle.
No it is not a military vessel. It is an exploration vessel. That is the core mission. Not sure how anyone who has actually watched StarTrek miss this key point.
Good point. Even if it’s science and exploration, wtf do they need a thousand people for? Unless they are trying to find some place to colonize, but it’s pretty clear from watching the show they are not. A lot of those people don’t wear uniforms, so they are not part of this rank hierarchy. What are all those people doing there?
I think that people who say that Starfleet is not a military organization must just have a different definition of "military" than I do.
In addition to all of the things you mentioned, when Earth is attacked, Starfleet frequently orders ships to return and fight.
So, they're either a police or a military, and the fact that they may face court martial for disobeying orders to fight really decides it in the direction of military for me.
That's by my own definition of military. I was looking at the Star Trek wiki and it seems that Roddenberry was very much against Starfleet being the military. He must just have a different criteria.
I can totally see them as not a military. They are to science and diplomacy what the East India Companies were to capitalism. Sure they have a military structure and a militia role, but if anything they're more like general purpose UN vessels. They need to be capable of military force because they're the government's ships, and because even beyond dealing with aggressive governments, they're also responsible for peacekeeping missions and they're off in unexplored places.
I think Enterprise covered it fairly well. They definitely started it more towards the science/exploratory side but quickly ran into the "1000001 ways to die horribly in space" and started jerry-rigging stuff like phasers and photon torpedoes from what was formerly mining equipment etc. Even then they did still have a command structure similar to military, which just makes sense from a practical "who's in charge of what" perspective. They also do have a mix of civilian and more military-style ranks.
Starfleet may have an overall scientific mission/objective, but it definitely developed along the the structure of a military protectorate or coalition, though again that was likely due to a certain amount of necessity. I'm pretty sure that exploratory or trading vessels in historic times tended towards that in some regard.
Its always been dumb that transporting opposing crews into space or directly into brig cells isn't the main strategy for any culture with transporter tech.
Oh, their shields are down. Better poke tiny holes in their hull for an hour and hope they don't kill us first.
For sure. Its just a thing we have to accept to keep the writers from having to spend all day working through this shit to the point where its just boring reality.
Like how "the ability to destroy a WHOLE planet" is treated as some kind of significant technological advantage in so many universes that also treat propelling a hundred thousands tons of spaceship well beyond the speed of light as a trivial every day thing. A star destroyer or galaxy class ship traveling at a multiple of C is a thousand times more devastating than any super-weapon that has ever threatened to upset the balance of power in a science fiction story.
The ship isn't moving at C. Its warp drive is bending space around it, the ship is actually at rest. Therefore, we aren't accelerating the ship's mass to ridiculous speeds at all.
Theoretically a warp bubble would push all the small space debris in the bow automagically, I'm not sure of the specific function of the navigational deflector.
Eh, it's a decent four episode arc. The protagonists try it, it works, they use it once very effectively, they try to use it again and the antagonists have pattern scramblers all over their ships. And then the antagonist uses it in a different, more devastating way, so now transport blocking becomes decoupled from shields in the plot.
They would just have to find a reason to disable it via plot devices before every battle.
Kinda like in action movies where the heroes come out shooting guns at each other but immediately get them batted away so that they can begin hand to hand fighting.
However, much like myself, they recognize that the place they're in isn't a peaceful utopia where everyone gets along, and nobody wants to push others around just for being there. So of course they're armed and armored exploration vessels.
The ranks and protocol just make for standardized things across the fleet so people don't need 500 different ways of doing things, and can integrate with each other more easily. Ranks make chain of command clear in stressful situations.
In very few instances is starfleet's intent to end the life of anyone else. Why punch a hole through shields and beam a quantum torpedo into the enemy ship's engineering section when you want them to stop fighting and talk things out? Hard to do when you're dead.
Starfleet has similar patterns to militaries, but as a peaceful exploration focused group tries to use peaceful measures at every turn, even when their opponent has refused to listen every time.
Hell, even the romulans got help when they needed it despite centuries of constant threats, fleet action, intrusions into territory, subterfuge and sabotage, and outright hostility. The klingons are allies despite once being at war, and older generations still being distrusting of the federation.
The ranks and protocol just make for standardized things across the fleet so people don’t need 500 different ways of doing things, and can integrate with each other more easily. Ranks make chain of command clear in stressful situations.
It's also just how real life ships have worked for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Ships are inherently dangerous, you can't discuss everything to death or have two parts of the crew follow mutually exclusive plans when you're supposed to respond to an emergency.
Then you'd have to worry about sourcing cinder blocks. How about, instead of cinder blocks, you beam another crew person in, or just their head? That way, you get two at once.
Or, just beam them over but mimic that time they turned Picard into a child. Then train the kid to be nicer and achieve diplomacy.
If that does not work, put them in the pattern buffer but put it on a drive that is prone to bit rot so they slowly start losing small pieces of their data/themselves until they surrender from the pain.
Here's another question: In a world where you can remotely read the quantum state of every atom of someone's body from (at minimum) thousands of miles away (as this is what would be required for beaming from the surface of a planet into orbit, a fairly ordinary task by Trek standards), how could informational security exist? A transporter sensor array ought to be able to read the screen on any computer on any ship without specific shielding, as that would be a comparatively macroscopic task, compared to transporting a living being.
Fun fact: In universe the OS is called LCARS or Library Computer Access and Retrieval System. The name and how they use the computers are largely due to the main lore building happening in a time before PCs were ubiquitous and mainframes were still the norm.
Yep. The ship computers are basically terminals that are sub-space connected to the mainframe, called Memory Alpha, in San Francisco, where Starfleet is headquartered.
The Holodeck isn't someone's personal device though, I could believe it if it's the captain or chief engineer, but it shouldn't be that easy to get admin rights if you're considerably below those.
If you look at the series as a whole, basically everyone has admin everywhere.
There's very few situations where someone is stopped by a security protocol. Mostly things that will destroy the ship.
Heck, there was an episode where they found and unfroze a bunch of 21st century people, and Picard had to be "hey, knock it off, we don't have security locks on these things cause nobody is usually annoying enough to do this."
Maybe not remotely without an exploit, but if you're local then I don't see how you could be stopped. Though, as for how quickly it is done, no explanation.
In the TNG episode Descent, Data tries to run a physically dangerous experiment and turn off the safety protocols, but this time the computer requires 2 officers to authorize it. I guess they finally got smart after a few years?
The answer is religious purposes, notably Klingon and presumably Jewish ceremonies with one being explained in the show and the other is me just assuming they probably don't have all the religious centers onboard but could generate any of them in the holodeck.
A moyle which is traditionally done in Temple with family but many religions have done form of bloodletting or ritual combat/painful physical contact. Like say for instance they got a dude from that tribe in Africa that use those trippy ant filled reed gloves, the pain has to be real and the danger has to be real or they couldn't be considered a man. For any of these to work safeties would have to be off to accomplish them.
Because apparently getting your balls stomped on by the tall vampire lady from Resident Evil counts as “unsafe.” She knows my safety word, how is that not safe?
Probably for physics experiments. The holodeck isn't just used for entertainment. They might use it to simulate new engines or technologies they are working on. If the forcefields can interact to work just like a prototype engine would, it becomes possible to prototype new tech in the holodeck then fabricating the real thing.
I was blown when I found out that liquid can be drank in the holodeck, and went down a rabbit hole where I found out that modern holodecks have replicators built in, and mix/match when to create real water, and when just to simulate a virtual (but hard) liquid.
Whenever you see a waterfall in the holodeck, it's likely just rendered scenery until you interact with it, in which case they switch to using a replicator to give the real effect.
TL;DR -- Video game mipmapping hasn't changed essentially
My headcanon is that the holodeck is basically like a big replicator that you can play around inside. It can effectively create anything from the molecules up. That's why you can drink alcohol in a simulated bar, for example. Most of the time the holodeck is just used for fun.
If you went into the replicator for a camping trip, you might want to boil some water over the holodeck "fire", but most of the time it would be a simulated fire that didn't get hot enough to hurt you because of the safety protocols. It could simulate the look of the boiling water over the fire, and let you pour that into a teapot. Then, it would simply replicate some tea, earl grey, hot, into the teapot (at a safe, drinkable temperature).
In that case there's really no need to disable the fire or boiling water safety protocols.
But, what if the ship was damaged while out in deep space and couldn't easily get back home to a repair dock. You'd want some way to repair it. As far as I can remember, they've never shown the ship to have a machine shop, so maybe that's how they use the holodeck. Since those situations are really rare the holodeck is mostly a place for people to play around, but in a disaster you see its primary purpose.
For certain things, it can just replicate them directly, like say some antimatter conduit, it's just a room-sized replicator that can create big items. They even show the holodeck having a huge doorway, instead of just a normal person-sized door. Since the holodeck can simulate big things, presumably you wouldn't need to say drive a dune buggy into the holodeck because it can just create one inside. So, maybe the big doors are for taking things out of the room.
Maybe you don't need to disable safety protocols for that. You just say "replicate an antimatter conduit". Then Barclay and Jordi can carry it out through those big doors and put it where it needs to go.
But, there seem to be some things that can't be created by a replicator. I assume latinum can't because otherwise why wouldn't the Ferengi just create as much of it as they wanted. Also, if you could just replicate dilithium, a lot of problems would be solved, so presumably you can't do that.
But, maybe you can build a dilithium repair machine, or something like that. Now, if the crew is training how they'd use that kind of a machine shop in a disaster, maybe the safety protocols would be on, and out of the simulated machine would pop a simultated dilithium crystal. But, if there were a real disaster, you'd need a real machine, with dangerous electricity, dangerous antimatter, who knows what else. So, in that case, the holodeck becomes a machine shop where you turn off the safety protocols and real physics happens and you can do whatever's necessary.
What you say about the holodeck could make sense, but, for whatever reason, they frequently make a point that things can't be carried out of the holodeck... except when someone gets soaked in the holodeck and walks out wet meaning they did incidentally take something out of the holodeck.
Of course, even if very large and with pretty big doors, probably not big enough for any equipment they might need. Since the replicator technology is like the transporter tech, it would stand to reason they could just replicate something to anywhere they need, without having a dedicated area where replicator stuff must come from. Of course then you get into why do they even have cargo room transporter pads, or transporter pads at all, why is 'site to site' transport the exception rather than the norm? Why do they have to 'go to the replicator' to get their food instead of it materializing right on their table?
Then you get into Voyager where they got extra weird about things being "holographic" as a kind of whole distinct state of being...
Well anyway, short answer is repeat to yourself 'It's just a show, / I should really just relax.
But yes, the safety protocol off for some actual experiment is ok...
The official Treknobabble explanation, seen in the TNG Technical Manual and other official media, is that most of the stuff on the holodeck is holographic and can't be carried outside but some stuff (like food and drink) is replicated matter you can really eat and drink. The "mostly holographic but sometimes it's replicated" explanation also covers the occasional on-screen inconsistency like when someone in an episode threw a snowball out the holodeck doors into the hall, or when someone fell in holodeck mud and left footprints in the corridor as they left.
they frequently make a point that things can’t be carried out of the holodeck
Yeah, in my head that's a "safety protocol" thing too. I know it's not really consistent with anything, but it's just an explanation I like.
Of course, even if very large and with pretty big doors, probably not big enough for any equipment they might need.
In my head there's no reason why it couldn't just be a normal human-sized door like any other door unless they needed it extra big for some reason. Maybe the ships are designed with standard parts, so anything they need to replicate in the holodeck can fit through a standard-size cargo door. But, the explanation is probably really "the show's designer thought that door looked cooler for that room".
why is ‘site to site’ transport the exception rather than the norm? Why do they have to ‘go to the replicator’ to get their food instead of it materializing right on their table?
Yeah, if you really think about it, it all starts to fall apart. My thought was along the lines of "energy budget" and/or "margin for safety". But, like you said, it's a show, I doubt anybody really spent much time justifying it or thinking about it.
why is ‘site to site’ transport the exception rather than the norm
You know the episodes where they have to bring pattern enhancers and shit to get a lock on folk to beam them up?
My headcanon is that all that shit is built into the transporter pad as a safety/emergency thing, but you only really need it on both ends when the connection is shitty. And no one wants to end up confined to a beep chair
They aren't replicating things in the holodeck (though food/drink might be a special case, as well as smells), it uses holograms and force fields to simulate what is seen, heard, and touched. Taste/smell would depend on how fine the holodeck's control is, as that's not just a touch-based thing, but touch with a specific chemical interaction between our cells and the substance touching them. The holodeck would either need to fake that interaction or fake the signal in our brains telling us what that interaction felt like.
The safety protocols are likely just rules on how much a hologram (or rather the force field making it feel real) can enter your personal space (it's fine to press a bit on skin but you don't want to pierce into it), how much force can be used to interact with you or subject your body to, probably rules about those chemical interactions (if the holodeck is capable of simulating those) or what chemicals it will replicate (if that's the mechanism it handles taste/smell with), and acceptable environmental parameters like pressure and temperature.
I wonder if realistic holodeck safety protocols even allow for sex. Not because I think they are prudes but just thinking about how to simulate sex using holographs and force fields makes it seem risky to do at all. Like how would one determine the exact position of the skin in contact to be sure it feels pleasurable and doesn't do things like getting too close and pinching parts it is supposed to just rub up against. The sensor array that would require might be unrealistic on its own, let alone the processing you'd need to do to handle that in real time.
Yeah, mostly they dock for repairs. But, if I were the captain of an explorer ship going out into the depths of space, I'd want some way to do basic repairs out in deep space if necessary. In the modern world that's how things tend to work. Ships dock for repairs, but they also have machine shops on board that allow them to do the basic repairs necessary to get back to a dock.
Enterprise-D's holodecks were bleeding-edge experimental technology. For example, check out that first episode where they introduce them; the crew had never seen them before! Also, the Bynars upgraded them pretty quick.
In contrast, DS9's holosuites a few years later were established technology for commercial use. They were reliable because they were designed for paying customers who wouldn't tolerate shit turning real and hunting them or whatever.
It's also getting to them. Holodecks appear larger than they are because as you move around the projections move with you.
And they can even isolate individuals inside the holodeck in smaller "rooms" that move the projections relative to that person so people can be spread around in the virtual space while remaining in the room.
Would You expect them to replicate real machine guns?
"We are an advanced race of super-intelligent networked computers. We have solved the problem of your primitive laser pistols by creating a deflection shield that can be tuned to the frequency of the beam within a few minutes of its use."
"Okay, but I've got a high velocity shard of metal that I can launch through a long tube."
"Does not computer! Does not computer! We are defeated!"
The Borg have blasters of their own, so it's not much of a fight unless the Federation recruits some Jedi.
Even then, the general "solution" to the Borg is to outsmart them or exploit a weakness. So many of the Borg end-games tend to be some combination of computer virus and propaganda counter-programming, turning their habit of assimilation against them.
If you're fighting them straight up, you're almost guaranteed to lose.
They also just sort of stand around until provoked, so you could transport a few hundred sword welding soldiers over on a cube and count of three, lop their heads off all at once.
The enterprise may be a science and diplomacy ship but it’s still effectively a warship and is occasionally used as one when the situation demands it. But since its mission isn’t combat related itself it’d stand to reason that the holodecks would be used to maintain combat readiness for the crew in addition to entertainment.
Ha! I just back-to-back watched an episode of Voyager where B'ellana turns off the safety protocols because she's suicidal, and an episode of Lower Decks where they're turned off by accident. Coincidentally. It does seem to be an overused plot point.
Because safety protocols would inherently be a software issue and you might need to turn them off to calibrate it from time to time. Also, what might be safe for one species could be dangerous to another.
Bondage, physics/science experiments that are above danger thresholds (or have unknowns), Worfs training programs, emergency medical programs. Aliens who have physical tolerances that were too difficult to build protocols for.
I'm surprised teleporters aren't weaponized. Like, "Suuuuure we can beam over your leader and best warriors for a diplomatic meeting!" And then just don't re-energize them.
Had this idea playing No Mans Sky. I defeated a pirate dreadnaught, boarded them, and used the teleport-evator from the ship bay to the bridge.
Seems like it would be a standard security feature or something.
if I remember correctly there were some agreements/accords that were signed that legally blocks the federation from doing such a thing. similar to how they aren't allowed to have cloaking devices.
this is one of the many directives Janeway decided to, ahem "overlook", while in her stay in the delta quadrant.
I don't know about that. Like obviously it violates The Federations moral principles. But there's nothing specific like the treaty with the Romulans and cloaking devices. The Janeway thing was a much more complicated moral dilemma than capital punishment and had nothing to do with transporter laws.
However after looking into it, TNG episode 6 shows teleportation from the 1st person perspective, and my assumption that the technology could kill people is wrong.
Torpedos shouldn't be fired at an opposing ship, they should just be teleported onto their shields, or, ideally, bridge. It's always bugged me they weren't used in more creative ways.
Teleporting takes seconds, and they should be able to synchronise it with the shields so they're only vulnarable for a moment. They have separate shield segments, so they'd only have to drop one segment, further reducing the risk.
It's because the force field is part of the systems, so they have to have safety regulations to not have it pass a force field through you. They could have a holodeck without force fields... But then you couldn't be kept in the smallish area of the deck (they're used to create an endless treadmill effect), or physically touch objects since they would just be light without any other physical properties.
And why are they usually related to injury via obvious things? Like a gun, or oxygen, etc.
I mean for instance, lets say a math processor went out, is it possible that random matter just starts appearing all over the place like static or glitch art or video datamoshing? That seems really damn dangerous.
instead its often: this little corner isnt drawing right now. It could be so much worse.
207 Comments
DmMacniel@feddit.org · 122 pts · 2d
To accommodate Klingons.
invertedspear@lemmy.zip · 39 pts · 2d
This is no doubt one of the best answers. But also I think the episode where Data is studying humor kind of answered it as well. If there’s no consequence to failure, it’s not actually thrilling, it’s just VR. If you can’t feel the pain of the cut, are you going to learn to sword fight as well?
Training martial arts would actually be amazing in a holodeck. Imagine being able to fight Tyson, but at 10% strength so you can better understand his moves, then ramp up his strength slowly to understand how you can counter stronger opponents? Or Ali at 25% speed so you can work your way up to full speed reaction timing.
FenrirIII@lemmy.world · 24 pts · 2d
Tyson at 10% would still wreck my shit
agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 2d
Based on a quick search, the estimates I found had a pretty wide spread but most people seem to put him as punching 5-10 times harder than an average man. At 10% you still have to contend with his technique, but the force would be comparable to an amateur boxer.
Granted, without training an amateur boxer could still probably wreck your shit, but they probably wouldn't put you in the hospital.
chiliedogg@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
I don't think I'd react well to 50-100% of a normal person's punch.
SlurpingPus@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 2d
Probably in one punch, if he was anything like modern heavyweights.
edible_funk@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 2d
From a technical standpoint I feel like it would be easier to implement when you need hardlight interactions for things like chairs and consoles to be tangible in the holodeck. Seems easier to just implement a safety protocol that affects anything moving at a harmful velocity than any other way. Anyway, programming it like that would allow for the safeties to be easily disabled.
DagwoodIII@piefed.social · 3 pts · 1d
To dredge up the old argument.
Ali fought a lot of powerful hitters. George Foreman was a monster, Joe Frazier was a monster, Sonny Liston was a monster. He beat them all.
Name one really great boxer Tyson defeated.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2d
Or speed
atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 2d
You bring up and interesting point though, there are probably different protocols based on species, age, etc.
gnufuu@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 2d
rants_unnecessarily@piefed.social · 1 pts · 2d
Don't forger about T'Ana
BillyClark@piefed.social · 71 pts · 2d
It's a military vessel. The bigger question to me is why don't they turn off all the safety protocols around the transporters more often?
I think at least half of their problems could be solved if they used transporters to intentionally kill people or to disable other vessels. "Their shields are down? Beam their life support system and parts of the ship's hull into space."
hansolo@lemmy.today · 42 pts · 2d
Shhhhh... It's a TV show and the transporters were always just a plot device anyway.
BillyClark@piefed.social · 14 pts · 2d
Yes, that's why it was a response to the holodeck question, which has the same answer, only the holodeck is far less immediately powerful.
hansolo@lemmy.today · 16 pts · 2d
The holodeck is also just a plot device. Instead of the TOS penchant for time travel and "oh no, we ended up on Earth in 18XX/19XX" plots, they could hit the Holodeck as the release valve. Lower stakes, lower contrivance barrier to get the crew into the situation.
You want real life? The safety protocols keep people from breaking the damn thing. It wouldn't render half the dangerous stuff, like bullets flying too fast to bother rendering. The emitters wouldn't be able to render objects inside a body, so bullets would only penetrate a few cm at best if they did render. Knives and sharp objects might not render sharp enough to cause real harm, and might not render into the would, either, so also low penetrative range. Chemical reactions are visual simulations, so acid doesn't really burn. Poison isn't real poison because it's a hologram that feels real, not real chemicals. Blunt force trauma, crushing force, and maybe heat, might be the only guaranteed ways to do violence in the Holodeck with the protocols turned off.
MehBlah@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 2d
I like the part about how the holodeck power was separate so they could fuckoff there when they were about to die instead of hooking that power supply up and getting life support back.
hansolo@lemmy.today · 4 pts · 2d
.... What? That was for real a thing? JFC
laurelraven@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 8 pts · 2d
Mostly I think that was done (for plot reasons) so when it went haywire, they couldn't just cut the power to fix it
hansolo@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 1d
Good thinking!
SlurpingPus@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 2d
I mean, the holodeck probably theoretically requires at least most of the power available on the whole Earth right now. Wouldn't want it to touch the ship's other systems.
hansolo@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 1d
It's basically just tractor beam forcefields, maybe not the whole Earth.
And I can see how an IRL explanation is that of someone is doing something crazy and flipping around, if everything disappears, they might get hurt falling even a meter at an awkward angle.
SippyCup@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2d
This isn't Nam Donnie this is bowling, there are rules.
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 2d
Transporters were a device to save money having to film scenes of moving from ship to planet.
0x4f1@lemmy.world · 41 pts · 2d
No it is not a military vessel. It is an exploration vessel. That is the core mission. Not sure how anyone who has actually watched StarTrek miss this key point.
tiramichu@sh.itjust.works · 24 pts · 2d
Whether or not Starfleet is a military force is a pretty debated topic, you really can't brush it off like it's a closed case.
They have command rank and structure similar to a military. They have ships. The ships have weapons - powerful ones. Sometimes they use the weapons.
We can argue "well they don't want to use them," but a lot of earth militaries don't really want to be in combat either, until they have to be.
tempest@lemmy.ca · 14 pts · 2d
It depends what Star Trek you are watching as well.
Defiant is very definitely a military vessel. Next Gen Enterprise has like a thousand people on it or something so it's less clear.
jaybone@lemmy.zip · 5 pts · 2d
Good point. Even if it’s science and exploration, wtf do they need a thousand people for? Unless they are trying to find some place to colonize, but it’s pretty clear from watching the show they are not. A lot of those people don’t wear uniforms, so they are not part of this rank hierarchy. What are all those people doing there?
grue@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 2d
Might as well link the plot exposition on that one.
tempest@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 2d
So subtle even I couldn't miss it
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 2d
Enterprise D is a small space station with big engines.
BillyClark@piefed.social · 9 pts · 2d
I think that people who say that Starfleet is not a military organization must just have a different definition of "military" than I do.
In addition to all of the things you mentioned, when Earth is attacked, Starfleet frequently orders ships to return and fight.
So, they're either a police or a military, and the fact that they may face court martial for disobeying orders to fight really decides it in the direction of military for me.
That's by my own definition of military. I was looking at the Star Trek wiki and it seems that Roddenberry was very much against Starfleet being the military. He must just have a different criteria.
captainlezbian@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
I can totally see them as not a military. They are to science and diplomacy what the East India Companies were to capitalism. Sure they have a military structure and a militia role, but if anything they're more like general purpose UN vessels. They need to be capable of military force because they're the government's ships, and because even beyond dealing with aggressive governments, they're also responsible for peacekeeping missions and they're off in unexplored places.
phx@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
I think Enterprise covered it fairly well. They definitely started it more towards the science/exploratory side but quickly ran into the "1000001 ways to die horribly in space" and started jerry-rigging stuff like phasers and photon torpedoes from what was formerly mining equipment etc. Even then they did still have a command structure similar to military, which just makes sense from a practical "who's in charge of what" perspective. They also do have a mix of civilian and more military-style ranks.
Starfleet may have an overall scientific mission/objective, but it definitely developed along the the structure of a military protectorate or coalition, though again that was likely due to a certain amount of necessity. I'm pretty sure that exploratory or trading vessels in historic times tended towards that in some regard.
Iheartcheese@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2d
The E was designed for combat right?
UnspecificGravity@piefed.social · 10 pts · 2d
Its always been dumb that transporting opposing crews into space or directly into brig cells isn't the main strategy for any culture with transporter tech.
Oh, their shields are down. Better poke tiny holes in their hull for an hour and hope they don't kill us first.
tiramichu@sh.itjust.works · 9 pts · 2d
In real life it would absolutely be this. There could be no weapon more powerful than a transporter.
But it would make for a very dull show and that is the reason they don't (usually) do it.
chaogomu@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 2d
You'd also see massive investments in transporter blocking, including passive blocking built into the hull.
Which is completely possible based on half a dozen episodes.
UnspecificGravity@piefed.social · 4 pts · 2d
For sure. Its just a thing we have to accept to keep the writers from having to spend all day working through this shit to the point where its just boring reality.
Like how "the ability to destroy a WHOLE planet" is treated as some kind of significant technological advantage in so many universes that also treat propelling a hundred thousands tons of spaceship well beyond the speed of light as a trivial every day thing. A star destroyer or galaxy class ship traveling at a multiple of C is a thousand times more devastating than any super-weapon that has ever threatened to upset the balance of power in a science fiction story.
darkwing_duck@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 2d
The ship isn't moving at C. Its warp drive is bending space around it, the ship is actually at rest. Therefore, we aren't accelerating the ship's mass to ridiculous speeds at all.
UnspecificGravity@piefed.social · 2 pts · 2d
Then what is the navigational deflector for?
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 2d
Deflecting navigators
darkwing_duck@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 2d
Theoretically a warp bubble would push all the small space debris in the bow automagically, I'm not sure of the specific function of the navigational deflector.
EvilHankVenture@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
For moving at sunlight speeds.
CannonFodder@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2d
Computer, teleport me down to earth's surface, then drive the ship at warp 9 right through the center of Romulus.
Computer: I'm gonna have to push back on your plan a bit.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2d
Eh, it's a decent four episode arc. The protagonists try it, it works, they use it once very effectively, they try to use it again and the antagonists have pattern scramblers all over their ships. And then the antagonist uses it in a different, more devastating way, so now transport blocking becomes decoupled from shields in the plot.
I'd rather stick with poking holes
SmoothLiquidation@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 2d
They would just have to find a reason to disable it via plot devices before every battle.
Kinda like in action movies where the heroes come out shooting guns at each other but immediately get them batted away so that they can begin hand to hand fighting.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2d
Now I want to watch equilibrium again
panda_abyss@lemmy.ca · 10 pts · 2d
Isn’t that what the borg did?
They just kinda pulled off sections to analyze/wreck the ship like a tiny bug.
MoffKalast@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 2d
I think the cannon response is that you'd have to lower your own shields to do it, which is risky. But yeah if both were down, then go to town.
EggInDisguise@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 8 pts · 2d
Military? What military?
It's an exploration fleet.
However, much like myself, they recognize that the place they're in isn't a peaceful utopia where everyone gets along, and nobody wants to push others around just for being there. So of course they're armed and armored exploration vessels.
The ranks and protocol just make for standardized things across the fleet so people don't need 500 different ways of doing things, and can integrate with each other more easily. Ranks make chain of command clear in stressful situations.
In very few instances is starfleet's intent to end the life of anyone else. Why punch a hole through shields and beam a quantum torpedo into the enemy ship's engineering section when you want them to stop fighting and talk things out? Hard to do when you're dead.
Starfleet has similar patterns to militaries, but as a peaceful exploration focused group tries to use peaceful measures at every turn, even when their opponent has refused to listen every time.
Hell, even the romulans got help when they needed it despite centuries of constant threats, fleet action, intrusions into territory, subterfuge and sabotage, and outright hostility. The klingons are allies despite once being at war, and older generations still being distrusting of the federation.
rumschlumpel@feddit.org · 3 pts · 2d
It's also just how real life ships have worked for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Ships are inherently dangerous, you can't discuss everything to death or have two parts of the crew follow mutually exclusive plans when you're supposed to respond to an emergency.
edible_funk@sh.itjust.works · 7 pts · 2d
The Federation is a pseudomilitary thank you very much.
jaybone@lemmy.zip · 5 pts · 2d
Beaming out their life support system seems pretty slow. Why not just beam a bunch of cinder blocks into their body cavities.
BillyClark@piefed.social · 5 pts · 2d
Then you'd have to worry about sourcing cinder blocks. How about, instead of cinder blocks, you beam another crew person in, or just their head? That way, you get two at once.
jaybone@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 2d
I assume you can re-use the cinder blacks. Though I imagine pretty much anything that will roughly fit into a body cavity or skull would do.
BillyClark@piefed.social · 5 pts · 2d
You know what you could do is to teleport all of their shoes onto the wrong feet.
jaybone@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 2d
The Three Stooges war tactics.
DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 2d
The damn transporters are cloning and immortality machines.
The transporters and replicators solve virtually every problem they have.
laurelraven@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 4 pts · 2d
This is how Thrawn would have used teleporters
agentTeiko@piefed.social · 3 pts · 2d
I mean Janeway did that once to the Borg
Sendpicsofsandwiches@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 2d
"I have done nothing but teleport bread for the last 3 days"
DmMacniel@feddit.org · 2 pts · 2d
Dear God!
AmyAye@nord.pub · 2 pts · 2d
Or, just beam them over but mimic that time they turned Picard into a child. Then train the kid to be nicer and achieve diplomacy.
If that does not work, put them in the pattern buffer but put it on a drive that is prone to bit rot so they slowly start losing small pieces of their data/themselves until they surrender from the pain.
snooggums@piefed.world · 2 pts · 2d
Mutually Assured Destruction
GraniteM@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
Here's another question: In a world where you can remotely read the quantum state of every atom of someone's body from (at minimum) thousands of miles away (as this is what would be required for beaming from the surface of a planet into orbit, a fairly ordinary task by Trek standards), how could informational security exist? A transporter sensor array ought to be able to read the screen on any computer on any ship without specific shielding, as that would be a comparatively macroscopic task, compared to transporting a living being.
rovingnothing29@lemmy.world · 46 pts · 2d
snooggums@piefed.world · 11 pts · 2d
Is Riker in danger?
KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 10 pts · 2d
Always, and never.
Iheartcheese@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 2d
He is the danger.
not@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 10 pts · 2d
Always use protection!
then_three_more@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 2d
If you turn off the safety protocols can you get a HSSTD (Holo Space Sexually Transmitted Disease)
AmyAye@nord.pub · 3 pts · 2d
Can you get pregnant/get the holograms pregnant?
rovingnothing29@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 2d
Captain Branigan has a bunch of paternity suits that say yes.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2d
Those aren't paternity suits, they're sexual harassment suits (we used to call em leisure suits)
rants_unnecessarily@piefed.social · 3 pts · 2d
Trip got pregnant via a holodeck.
ramble81@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 2d
Beware of Space Herpes
panda_abyss@lemmy.ca · 6 pts · 2d
What episode is this lol
GenXLiberal@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 2d
Deja-Q
At the very end of the episode
Just watched it lol
taiyang@lemmy.world · 46 pts · 2d
Well, obviously it is based on Linux. What, you don't want root access to your holodeck?
At least you don't need a Meta account to access the holodeck!
Oh! Edit! That's the Ferengi model!
jj4211@lemmy.world · 51 pts · 2d
"Disable the safety protocols"
"That functionality is not permitted"
"Sudo disable the safety protocols"
"Okie dokie"
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 2d
"Disable the safety protocols"
"That functionality is not permitted"
POP! hisssss "Computer! Observe verification can consumption"
FiniteBanjo@feddit.online · 6 pts · 2d
I imagine a bit of a gap moe in how the cold heartless machine voice changes to a heavily accented voice for the Okie Dokie.
atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works · 16 pts · 2d
Fun fact: In universe the OS is called LCARS or Library Computer Access and Retrieval System. The name and how they use the computers are largely due to the main lore building happening in a time before PCs were ubiquitous and mainframes were still the norm.
JcbAzPx@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 2d
They were still outputing paper tape in the TOS era. Almost like they had to relearn computing from first principles at some point.
AutistoMephisto@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
Yep. The ship computers are basically terminals that are sub-space connected to the mainframe, called Memory Alpha, in San Francisco, where Starfleet is headquartered.
FiniteBanjo@feddit.online · 30 pts · 2d
In the future everything runs on some variation of Linux, so even if there were barriers in place: you own your device, it's not going to stop you.
rumschlumpel@feddit.org · 8 pts · 2d
The Holodeck isn't someone's personal device though, I could believe it if it's the captain or chief engineer, but it shouldn't be that easy to get admin rights if you're considerably below those.
LastYearsIrritant@sopuli.xyz · 6 pts · 1d
If you look at the series as a whole, basically everyone has admin everywhere.
There's very few situations where someone is stopped by a security protocol. Mostly things that will destroy the ship.
Heck, there was an episode where they found and unfroze a bunch of 21st century people, and Picard had to be "hey, knock it off, we don't have security locks on these things cause nobody is usually annoying enough to do this."
FiniteBanjo@feddit.online · 1 pts · 1d
Maybe not remotely without an exploit, but if you're local then I don't see how you could be stopped. Though, as for how quickly it is done, no explanation.
rumschlumpel@feddit.org · 2 pts · 1d
TBF just because it's possible for anyone, doesn't mean everyone knows how, just like today...
SulaymanF@lemmy.world · 29 pts · 2d
In the TNG episode Descent, Data tries to run a physically dangerous experiment and turn off the safety protocols, but this time the computer requires 2 officers to authorize it. I guess they finally got smart after a few years?
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 2d
Maybe it was just that dangerous to let data fuck around with the holodeck.
Wait, disregard I'm thinking of Geordi and Barclay
sunbytes@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1d
Haha maybe Picard had set it up to only say that to Data.
Everyone else was allowed to do it.
Honytawk@discuss.tchncs.de · 7 pts · 1d
Or the ships computer doesn't see Data as an actual officer.
The racist bastard.
BlackLaZoR@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
Racist? It's Machinist!
Madison420@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 1d
The answer is religious purposes, notably Klingon and presumably Jewish ceremonies with one being explained in the show and the other is me just assuming they probably don't have all the religious centers onboard but could generate any of them in the holodeck.
RebekahWSD@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1d
What Jewish holidays are we celebrating that require the holodeck be turned off??? Are we bringing Haman back for some reason?
Madison420@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 1d
A moyle which is traditionally done in Temple with family but many religions have done form of bloodletting or ritual combat/painful physical contact. Like say for instance they got a dude from that tribe in Africa that use those trippy ant filled reed gloves, the pain has to be real and the danger has to be real or they couldn't be considered a man. For any of these to work safeties would have to be off to accomplish them.
LocalAreaMan@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1d
I'll stick with the pain sticks.
bj8534@thelemmy.club · 2 pts · 1d
Moloch to Baal. Anything less would antiseptic
ricecake@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 1d
Nah, in the future they just use the teleporter and a deft hand.
NotASharkInAManSuit@lemmy.world · 24 pts · 2d
Because apparently getting your balls stomped on by the tall vampire lady from Resident Evil counts as “unsafe.” She knows my safety word, how is that not safe?
hakunawazo@lemmy.world · 22 pts · 2d
That's what it is for:
JcbAzPx@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 2d
When you really just need to empty a Tommy gun into a guy.
isekaihero@ani.social · 20 pts · 1d
Probably for physics experiments. The holodeck isn't just used for entertainment. They might use it to simulate new engines or technologies they are working on. If the forcefields can interact to work just like a prototype engine would, it becomes possible to prototype new tech in the holodeck then fabricating the real thing.
tetris11@feddit.uk · 6 pts · 1d
I was blown when I found out that liquid can be drank in the holodeck, and went down a rabbit hole where I found out that modern holodecks have replicators built in, and mix/match when to create real water, and when just to simulate a virtual (but hard) liquid.
Whenever you see a waterfall in the holodeck, it's likely just rendered scenery until you interact with it, in which case they switch to using a replicator to give the real effect.
TL;DR -- Video game mipmapping hasn't changed essentially
LogicalDrivel@sopuli.xyz · 19 pts · 2d
Its for the sex stuff.
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 2d
HumanOnEarth@lemmy.ca · 18 pts · 2d
For those....extra spicy...holodeck programs
lividweasel@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 2d
Sigh… time to change out the holodeck biofilters again…
merc@sh.itjust.works · 18 pts · 2d
My headcanon is that the holodeck is basically like a big replicator that you can play around inside. It can effectively create anything from the molecules up. That's why you can drink alcohol in a simulated bar, for example. Most of the time the holodeck is just used for fun.
If you went into the replicator for a camping trip, you might want to boil some water over the holodeck "fire", but most of the time it would be a simulated fire that didn't get hot enough to hurt you because of the safety protocols. It could simulate the look of the boiling water over the fire, and let you pour that into a teapot. Then, it would simply replicate some tea, earl grey, hot, into the teapot (at a safe, drinkable temperature).
In that case there's really no need to disable the fire or boiling water safety protocols.
But, what if the ship was damaged while out in deep space and couldn't easily get back home to a repair dock. You'd want some way to repair it. As far as I can remember, they've never shown the ship to have a machine shop, so maybe that's how they use the holodeck. Since those situations are really rare the holodeck is mostly a place for people to play around, but in a disaster you see its primary purpose.
For certain things, it can just replicate them directly, like say some antimatter conduit, it's just a room-sized replicator that can create big items. They even show the holodeck having a huge doorway, instead of just a normal person-sized door. Since the holodeck can simulate big things, presumably you wouldn't need to say drive a dune buggy into the holodeck because it can just create one inside. So, maybe the big doors are for taking things out of the room.
Maybe you don't need to disable safety protocols for that. You just say "replicate an antimatter conduit". Then Barclay and Jordi can carry it out through those big doors and put it where it needs to go.
But, there seem to be some things that can't be created by a replicator. I assume latinum can't because otherwise why wouldn't the Ferengi just create as much of it as they wanted. Also, if you could just replicate dilithium, a lot of problems would be solved, so presumably you can't do that.
But, maybe you can build a dilithium repair machine, or something like that. Now, if the crew is training how they'd use that kind of a machine shop in a disaster, maybe the safety protocols would be on, and out of the simulated machine would pop a simultated dilithium crystal. But, if there were a real disaster, you'd need a real machine, with dangerous electricity, dangerous antimatter, who knows what else. So, in that case, the holodeck becomes a machine shop where you turn off the safety protocols and real physics happens and you can do whatever's necessary.
jj4211@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 2d
What you say about the holodeck could make sense, but, for whatever reason, they frequently make a point that things can't be carried out of the holodeck... except when someone gets soaked in the holodeck and walks out wet meaning they did incidentally take something out of the holodeck.
Of course, even if very large and with pretty big doors, probably not big enough for any equipment they might need. Since the replicator technology is like the transporter tech, it would stand to reason they could just replicate something to anywhere they need, without having a dedicated area where replicator stuff must come from. Of course then you get into why do they even have cargo room transporter pads, or transporter pads at all, why is 'site to site' transport the exception rather than the norm? Why do they have to 'go to the replicator' to get their food instead of it materializing right on their table?
Then you get into Voyager where they got extra weird about things being "holographic" as a kind of whole distinct state of being...
Well anyway, short answer is repeat to yourself 'It's just a show, / I should really just relax.
But yes, the safety protocol off for some actual experiment is ok...
rob_t_firefly@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 2d
The official Treknobabble explanation, seen in the TNG Technical Manual and other official media, is that most of the stuff on the holodeck is holographic and can't be carried outside but some stuff (like food and drink) is replicated matter you can really eat and drink. The "mostly holographic but sometimes it's replicated" explanation also covers the occasional on-screen inconsistency like when someone in an episode threw a snowball out the holodeck doors into the hall, or when someone fell in holodeck mud and left footprints in the corridor as they left.
scrion@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 2d
That's pretty much it. The common explanation is "light and force fields", with some replication for spice.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2d
The holodecks must flow
merc@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 2d
Yeah, in my head that's a "safety protocol" thing too. I know it's not really consistent with anything, but it's just an explanation I like.
In my head there's no reason why it couldn't just be a normal human-sized door like any other door unless they needed it extra big for some reason. Maybe the ships are designed with standard parts, so anything they need to replicate in the holodeck can fit through a standard-size cargo door. But, the explanation is probably really "the show's designer thought that door looked cooler for that room".
Yeah, if you really think about it, it all starts to fall apart. My thought was along the lines of "energy budget" and/or "margin for safety". But, like you said, it's a show, I doubt anybody really spent much time justifying it or thinking about it.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2d
You know the episodes where they have to bring pattern enhancers and shit to get a lock on folk to beam them up?
My headcanon is that all that shit is built into the transporter pad as a safety/emergency thing, but you only really need it on both ends when the connection is shitty. And no one wants to end up confined to a beep chair
merc@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 1d
"Beep chair". Nice reference.
Buddahriffic@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 2d
They aren't replicating things in the holodeck (though food/drink might be a special case, as well as smells), it uses holograms and force fields to simulate what is seen, heard, and touched. Taste/smell would depend on how fine the holodeck's control is, as that's not just a touch-based thing, but touch with a specific chemical interaction between our cells and the substance touching them. The holodeck would either need to fake that interaction or fake the signal in our brains telling us what that interaction felt like.
The safety protocols are likely just rules on how much a hologram (or rather the force field making it feel real) can enter your personal space (it's fine to press a bit on skin but you don't want to pierce into it), how much force can be used to interact with you or subject your body to, probably rules about those chemical interactions (if the holodeck is capable of simulating those) or what chemicals it will replicate (if that's the mechanism it handles taste/smell with), and acceptable environmental parameters like pressure and temperature.
I wonder if realistic holodeck safety protocols even allow for sex. Not because I think they are prudes but just thinking about how to simulate sex using holographs and force fields makes it seem risky to do at all. Like how would one determine the exact position of the skin in contact to be sure it feels pleasurable and doesn't do things like getting too close and pinching parts it is supposed to just rub up against. The sensor array that would require might be unrealistic on its own, let alone the processing you'd need to do to handle that in real time.
JcbAzPx@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 2d
I've always seen it described as a mix of holograms and replicator tech.
treesapx@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 2d
Dont they dock for repairs in TNG? Its like a Die Hard episode or something, with Picard in the McClain role.
merc@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 2d
Yeah, mostly they dock for repairs. But, if I were the captain of an explorer ship going out into the depths of space, I'd want some way to do basic repairs out in deep space if necessary. In the modern world that's how things tend to work. Ships dock for repairs, but they also have machine shops on board that allow them to do the basic repairs necessary to get back to a dock.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2d
The machine shop was a plot point in prodigy iirc
A_norny_mousse@piefed.zip · 17 pts · 2d
Be glad. Many an episode would not have happened otherwise.
sem@piefed.blahaj.zone · 6 pts · 2d
I am so grateful that it all of DS9, and there were many hologram-related episodes, they never used "holodeck problem" as a plot hook.
The writers could have.
But they granted us a reprieve after all the times this was used on TNG.
grue@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 2d
Enterprise-D's holodecks were bleeding-edge experimental technology. For example, check out that first episode where they introduce them; the crew had never seen them before! Also, the Bynars upgraded them pretty quick.
In contrast, DS9's holosuites a few years later were established technology for commercial use. They were reliable because they were designed for paying customers who wouldn't tolerate shit turning real and hunting them or whatever.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2d
The time everyone got dumped into the pattern buffer and then into the holodeck counts
sem@piefed.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 1d
Sounds like the holodeck was the part of the chain that worked
Deebster@infosec.pub · 3 pts · 2d
I was trying to think of what the opposite of plot armour is called, cos it's that.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2d
Plot'brien?
daggermoon@piefed.world · 16 pts · 2d
plot convenience
darthelmet@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 1d
That, and why do the doors not have a manual override?
MrNesser@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 1d
I think they do but the problem is finding them
chiliedogg@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
It's also getting to them. Holodecks appear larger than they are because as you move around the projections move with you.
And they can even isolate individuals inside the holodeck in smaller "rooms" that move the projections relative to that person so people can be spread around in the virtual space while remaining in the room.
marcos@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 2d
How else do you expect to use it against the Borg?
Would You expect them to replicate real machine guns? Are you crazy?
criscodisco@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 2d
Picard out here making ghost guns.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2d
I love the term ghost gun
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 2d
"We are an advanced race of super-intelligent networked computers. We have solved the problem of your primitive laser pistols by creating a deflection shield that can be tuned to the frequency of the beam within a few minutes of its use."
"Okay, but I've got a high velocity shard of metal that I can launch through a long tube."
"Does not computer! Does not computer! We are defeated!"
AmyAye@nord.pub · 5 pts · 2d
I actually wonder sometimes why they don't use swords against the Borg.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 2d
The Borg have blasters of their own, so it's not much of a fight unless the Federation recruits some Jedi.
Even then, the general "solution" to the Borg is to outsmart them or exploit a weakness. So many of the Borg end-games tend to be some combination of computer virus and propaganda counter-programming, turning their habit of assimilation against them.
If you're fighting them straight up, you're almost guaranteed to lose.
AmyAye@nord.pub · 1 pts · 1d
They also just sort of stand around until provoked, so you could transport a few hundred sword welding soldiers over on a cube and count of three, lop their heads off all at once.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
Don't Borg Cubes have over 100k drones each?
AmyAye@nord.pub · 3 pts · 1d
We're gonna need some more Starfleet vessels.
marcos@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
Up to the end of Voyager, touching a Borg drone is basically instant assimilation. So melee weapons are out.
grue@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2d
In Star Trek Online, I do use swords against the Borg!
marcos@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 2d
It's the Stargate's replicators logic... That I'm sure is a joke about the Borg.
atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 2d
Meanwhile over on DS9…
Kowowow@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 2d
Now imagine putting a localised emitter on a t1000 terminator type program on an enemy ship
LazyOldPervert@lemmus.org · 14 pts · 2d
God forbid Geordi wants to bang the Dr. Brahm hologram once and a while, it's not like he's in DEEP space or anything.
autonomous@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 2d
Why does he need to turn the safety protocols off for that... Is he coming out of the holodeck with bruises and contusions?
grue@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 2d
Iheartcheese@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 2d
Don't judge.
jaybone@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 2d
He needs to turn off the safe sex protocols. Then he can really creep her out next time when he introduces her to their kids.
LazyOldPervert@lemmus.org · 3 pts · 2d
We don't kink shame on the final frontier.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 2d
We do not discuss it with outsiders
rnduser314@lemmy.zip · 14 pts · 2d
So the scriptwriters can make their plot happen. Same answer to every technical "Why?!" question.
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 2d
“Developer mode”
L0rdMathias@sh.itjust.works · 11 pts · 1d
So you can pull out emergency Tommy guns if the ship ever gets boarded.
hypeerror@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 1d
Clearly you are someone who knows where the line must be drawn.
EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 2d
The enterprise may be a science and diplomacy ship but it’s still effectively a warship and is occasionally used as one when the situation demands it. But since its mission isn’t combat related itself it’d stand to reason that the holodecks would be used to maintain combat readiness for the crew in addition to entertainment.
foggianism@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 1d
It's like the SafeSearch off option in Google Chrome
SatyrSack@quokk.au · 9 pts · 2d
WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2d
The Riddler?
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 2d
Wasn't that those aliens at the galactic core?
Randelung@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 1d
BDSM fans of course
ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 1d
Why is our power source named "the demon core"?
DagwoodIII@piefed.social · 8 pts · 2d
Live fire exercises have always been a thing in the military.
Even if someone is badly hurt on the holodeck they are seconds away from the medical bay.
Underwaterbob@sh.itjust.works · 8 pts · 2d
Ha! I just back-to-back watched an episode of Voyager where B'ellana turns off the safety protocols because she's suicidal, and an episode of Lower Decks where they're turned off by accident. Coincidentally. It does seem to be an overused plot point.
Duamerthrax@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 1d
Because safety protocols would inherently be a software issue and you might need to turn them off to calibrate it from time to time. Also, what might be safe for one species could be dangerous to another.
gnufuu@lemmy.ca · 7 pts · 2d
Geordi installed a jailbreak for uhm science
DmMacniel@feddit.org · 2 pts · 2d
No backdoors?
DarkCloud@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 2d
Bondage, physics/science experiments that are above danger thresholds (or have unknowns), Worfs training programs, emergency medical programs. Aliens who have physical tolerances that were too difficult to build protocols for.
DagwoodIII@piefed.social · 6 pts · 2d
The aliens is a good point.
There might be an alien who'd die in the medical bay, but would thrive if they could get a cyanide rich atmosphere and 100 times Earth gravity.
davidgro@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 2d
Amaze amaze amaze!
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2d
They do the atmosphere in sickbay behind a force field in threshold but not the gravity
lorty@lemmy.ml · 7 pts · 1d
It runs on linux so it's just one sudo away.
gigaqps@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 2d
Have you ever tried to use sandboxed Snap applications on Linux?
horn_e4_beaver@discuss.tchncs.de · 1 pts · 2d
No wonder nerds love shibari so much.
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 6 pts · 2d
Riker. He doesn't believe in safe words.
LazyOldPervert@lemmus.org · 5 pts · 2d
Unless the safe word is "Harder".
BlackLaZoR@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 1d
Whoops, we accidentally a supervillain!
LocalAreaMan@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1d
"Computer, create me a conundrum so enigmatic it is a paradox."
nectar45@lemmy.zip · 5 pts · 1d
Cause motherfuckers get horny, thats why
Sam_Bass@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 2d
could be a very cool method for execution
Canconda@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 2d
I'm surprised teleporters aren't weaponized. Like, "Suuuuure we can beam over your leader and best warriors for a diplomatic meeting!" And then just don't re-energize them.
Had this idea playing No Mans Sky. I defeated a pirate dreadnaught, boarded them, and used the teleport-evator from the ship bay to the bridge.
Seems like it would be a standard security feature or something.
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 2d
if I remember correctly there were some agreements/accords that were signed that legally blocks the federation from doing such a thing. similar to how they aren't allowed to have cloaking devices.
this is one of the many directives Janeway decided to, ahem "overlook", while in her stay in the delta quadrant.
Canconda@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 2d
I don't know about that. Like obviously it violates The Federations moral principles. But there's nothing specific like the treaty with the Romulans and cloaking devices. The Janeway thing was a much more complicated moral dilemma than capital punishment and had nothing to do with transporter laws.
However after looking into it, TNG episode 6 shows teleportation from the 1st person perspective, and my assumption that the technology could kill people is wrong.
https://www.reddit.com/r/DaystromInstitute/comments/d51z99/transporters_do_not_kill_you/
JcbAzPx@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2d
It might not kill you, but if it goes bad what's left won't live long, fortunately.
Canconda@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 2d
I don't wanna spoil the episode but Voyager S2E24 (the episode we were talking about) is worth a watch!
JcbAzPx@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
Was making a movie reference, but thank you for the cite.
Canconda@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 1d
Which movie? I've been meaning to rewatch all of them but so far I've only rewatched first contact
Australis13@fedia.io · 4 pts · 2d
Kirk and co use the transporter in "Wolf in the Fold" to get rid of the entity, so it does occasionally happen.
notabot@piefed.social · 4 pts · 2d
Torpedos shouldn't be fired at an opposing ship, they should just be teleported onto their shields, or, ideally, bridge. It's always bugged me they weren't used in more creative ways.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2d
Teleporting shit requires lowering shields, right? Not the best tactical move in combat.
notabot@piefed.social · 1 pts · 2d
Teleporting takes seconds, and they should be able to synchronise it with the shields so they're only vulnarable for a moment. They have separate shield segments, so they'd only have to drop one segment, further reducing the risk.
Canconda@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 1d
Hey borg adapt this!
Kolanaki@pawb.social · 5 pts · 2d
It's because the force field is part of the systems, so they have to have safety regulations to not have it pass a force field through you. They could have a holodeck without force fields... But then you couldn't be kept in the smallish area of the deck (they're used to create an endless treadmill effect), or physically touch objects since they would just be light without any other physical properties.
minorkeys@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 1d
Because they trust their crew to make wise use of it and have advanced, free medical treatment available for the risks involved?
MBech@feddit.dk · 4 pts · 1d
Because porn. It's always porn guys....
jerkface@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 1d
So you can masturbate!! Duh!!
charonn0@startrek.website · 4 pts · 2d
They stopped calling it a "failsafe", what more do you want?
tgcoldrockn@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 2d
X-Men Danger Room training... designed by C.Xavier aka CaptP.
NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 2d
And why are they usually related to injury via obvious things? Like a gun, or oxygen, etc.
I mean for instance, lets say a math processor went out, is it possible that random matter just starts appearing all over the place like static or glitch art or video datamoshing? That seems really damn dangerous.
instead its often: this little corner isnt drawing right now. It could be so much worse.
panda_abyss@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 2d
Guiltless execution by firing squad.
minorkeys@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 2d
Because TNG doesn't retreat ppl like children?
xia@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 1d
I seem to recall seeing a newtrek episode where it was literally a switch under the bar that could accidentally be flipped (er, tapped?).