You say goodbye, but I say hello...

[AslanC]

Hello... Hello...

I don't know why you say goodbye, I say Hello.

Why am I quoting the Beatles? Good question.

After having a long talk with my players we have agreed to keep the USS Lexington game going

Yes indeed, Season 2 will continue

Here's the fun part. The "Savage World" game I am going to run this summer (4 sessions tops) will actually be their characters stuck in the Holodeck ala "Our Man Bashir".

They will be characters in a bad holonovel, after their transport patterns are sucked into the holodeck buffers, after their shuttle explodes due to an antimatter containment failure

They won't see it coming

[StyroFoam Man]

This message has been removed on request by the
poster

[PGoodman13]

The campaign I'm looking at would be set sometime shortly after the Khitomer Accords in 2294.

My question is: Out of idle curiosity, in case I did want to include yet another holodeck quasi-disaster in an adventure somewhere, when did holodeck technology first get introduced? (And the corollary to that question: Who signed off on the safety of the damn thing in the first place? If I do this, I'm going to have some player characters really pissed off at the guy who said it was a good idea to put something like this on a starship....)

[Tilarium]

Well we know now that holodecks existed back in the 2100's as one race Archer encountered had holodecks (and also gave one to the Klingons) and then there was that ship of holograms in that other episode (Hope I didn't give anything away!). I'm thinking it's safe to assume that Earth has the tech mainly cause our RL scientists are getting close to it apparently and because Archer hasn't tried to aquire this new tech. One thing to remember though. Federation ships didn't have holodecks for sometime mainly cause there wasn't room. All it will take is some interesting workarounds, I see nothing wrong with it!

[Paul]

Originally posted by AslanC
Here's the fun part. The "Savage World" game I am going to run this summer (4 sessions tops) will actually be their characters stuck in the Holodeck ala "Our Man Bashir".

They will be characters in a bad holonovel, after their transport patterns are sucked into the holodeck buffers, after their shuttle explodes due to an antimatter containment failure

They won't see it coming

Isn't the holodeck wonderful?

You can blame it for so many bad episodes...

[Imagus]

ISTR the Animated Series had something similar in one episode, if that's any help!

[Capt Daniel Hunter]

Originally posted by Imagus
ISTR the Animated Series had something similar in one episode, if that's any help!

The episode in question was Practical Joker, and as you would expect, the damn thing went nuts (albeit thanks to the Enterprise being possessed by an alien entity with an odd sense of humour).

However, I would seriously question that the Federation had reliable holodeck technology as we know it by TNG times, much before TNG. Remember the holodeck was a novelty in Farpoint, and it was pretty new to Riker.

I'm guessing they had something prior to that, but maybe it lacked the substance, and AI capabilities. So you could say that the Holodeck as we know it now, was a big jump in realism and capability maybe. So any earlier versions should be much moire limited.

[C5]

I agree with Capt. Daniel Hunter here. Picard was amazed at the possibilities of the holodeck when he played his Dixon Hill game for the first time, and they didn't even seem to understand how it worked at all.

But this doesn't mean there were no holodecks before. For instance, I like to think of the simulator in ST:II (where the cadets fail the Kobayahi Maru) as an early holodeck. And the fact that holodeck are never mentioned in TOS doesn't imply there were none on the Enterprise (to that account, we rarely see any recreation room on the Enterprise).

Besides, it's TNG crew's fascination with the holodeck in the first season could also be put upon some novelties - after all, even today, there are computer games that make players say "Wow! This is sooo realistic" (this has nothing to do with my recent fascination to the video RPG Morrowind ), while computer games are actually two decades old. You get that with movies too - hey, special effects were invented by Meliès almost a century ago, and now every decade there is a new movie with unbelievable FX.

So I don't think it'd be too far-fecthed to have holodecks in TOS - it's even becoming canon for those who like Enterprise

One interesting thing to do however would be to guess how holodecks were at this time. I guess the AI would be rather limited (like the puppet Yar used to practise martial arts), and maybe also some limitations to the actual size of the reproduction (like the wall in Encounter at Farpoint).

[Acroyear]

Holodecks may have existed but with very restricted use (to be honest, look at how many decks there are on a Galaxy class... now assume everyone gets 2 hour sessions... how long between sessions? And then look at the show... those decks are nearly always available whenever someone on the bridge crew decides they need to run a simulation or something).

Holodecks raise many questions. How do you motivate people to do much of anything else when absolute paradise is just through that door? You can do anything, anywhere, with anyone without fear of injury or any sort of consequences. What does that do to social structures?

That girl ignores you? Nope, now whenever you want, she gives you all the attention you desire. Feeling down about yourself? Make yourself a big media star whom everyone loves. Your commanding officer giving you a rough time? Now you can torture him in your own private little sessions of hell. And since it's so very real, it's easy to blur the lines (I have my doubts that Mr. Barclay was a rare case. Look at all the internet junkies, web widows, etc... and the net isn't nearly as powerful as a holodeck).

[jedimuldoon]

mmmmmmmmm..........

i dont buy that u had to wear an encounter suit in 2294 from the book "Ashes to Eden"

in 2268 Practical Joker was a projection system

in 2294 i would say that since force fields were used for deflector shields and barriers for the brig

...the AI would be limited

the images would be 3D

replication of food would be nill

you wd feel the weight of the glass but there wd be nothing in it

you wd SEEE something in it

no real water, rain, snow, etc

no real clothes etc

ex Tasha Yar getting a coat and a mat

Sounds wd be 3D

no smells

cold or heat could be created by the environmental controls

sunlight and darkness would be EASY

force fields would wrap around the object

it wd FEEL like a rock but if you ran ur hands over it for a while you could tell
it wasnt real

it wd be HEAVY

when someone kissesd you you wd feel pressure, no warmth

an IMAGE of dust when you moved

how players or holograms would cast shadows on each other or objects?

swimming..........this wd be done by force fields and changing the gravity

nooooooooo exact, tiny ability to control or change

BROAD ability to control or change

"Terra, San Francisco, April 23 1967"

"Working........."

WHOOOSH

"naaaa Terra New Orleans April 15 1957"

"Working.......................................... .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. ..............................."

WHOOOOSH

of course by 2364 i wd think the viewscreen wd be 3D

ex. "someone is hailing captain."

"on screen"

a figure forms in front of you

a posh suite forms around him

something to do with the EMPTY space between the viewscreen and the front consoles

also in picard's ready room a 3D lifesize figure would appear in "First Contact"

since LCARS exists by 2287 the viewscreen must be like the one for "First Contact"

[First of Two]

Paragraphs and complete sentences are your friends.

Fragments

not

[Capt Daniel Hunter]

Someone's off his meds again

So Aslan, are you still planning on running the Genesis plot?

[AslanC]

Looks like. My players are more indeciscive than I am

Lexington may get a farwell episode, but that will be the end of it...

I am looking forward to the ST: Genesis game now

Gonna be different.

Though I will be milking you all for ideas on how to run an interesting Station game.

[AslanC]

As said in the Genesis thred, this is now on hold as we are gonna at least finish season 2 of Lexington.

Wish me luck.