I seem to remember the official explanation being that they’re not that far apart, but that the holodeck can use perspective tricks to seamlessly make them seem that far apart. You could run away from someone in one direction and never hit the wall while things shrink and enlarge to make you seem far away from your companions.
this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2023
21 points (100.0% liked)
Daystrom Institute
3446 readers
14 users here now
Welcome to Daystrom Institute!
Serious, in-depth discussion about Star Trek from both in-universe and real world perspectives.
Read more about how to comment at Daystrom.
Rules
1. Explain your reasoning
All threads and comments submitted to the Daystrom Institute must contain an explanation of the reasoning put forth.
2. No whinging, jokes, memes, and other shallow content.
This entire community has a “serious tag” on it. Shitposts are encouraged in Risa.
3. Be diplomatic.
Participate in a courteous, objective, and open-minded fashion. Be nice to other posters and the people who make Star Trek. Disagree respectfully and don’t gatekeep.
4. Assume good faith.
Assume good faith. Give other posters the benefit of the doubt, but report them if you genuinely believe they are trolling. Don’t whine about “politics.”
5. Tag spoilers.
Historically Daystrom has not had a spoiler policy, so you may encounter untagged spoilers here. Ultimately, avoiding online discussion until you are caught up is the only certain way to avoid spoilers.
6. Stay on-topic.
Threads must discuss Star Trek. Comments must discuss the topic raised in the original post.
Episode Guides
The /r/DaystromInstitute wiki held a number of popular Star Trek watch guides. We have rehosted them here:
- Kraetos’ guide to Star Trek (the original series)
- Algernon_Asimov’s guide to Star Trek: The Animated Series
- Algernon_Asimov’s guide to Star Trek: The Next Generation
- Algernon_Asimov’s guide to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
- Darth_Rasputin32898’s guide to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
- OpticalData’s guide to Star Trek: Voyager
- petrus4’s guide to Star Trek: Voyager
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
I could see that working for everything except for other people and objects brought into the holosuit.
I guess that could work if the holosuites either project a simulation of people/foreign objects once they get farther away in the simulation than in reality. Or, if it can do some really clever lensing magic with force fields to make the real world people and objects seem closer or further? That's plausible, and maximizes the "reality" of what people are seeing.
This is the way I imagine it too, basically everyone gets divided up into their own little cubicles, with them essentially running on treadmills, every player gets their own view projected to them, and the physical ball is most likely 'cloaked' by the holograms, with force fields moving it around as needed through the various 'cubicles'.
From Prodigy 1x17 Ghost in the Machine (go to 06:15):
Gwyn: "If we're all stuck in one room, how is Zero all the way over there?"
Rok-Tahk: "Motion floor tracking, visual horizon manipulation. The Holodeck tricks the mind to create any scenario!"
Could have sworn there was a visual in the episode as well, but I can't find it.
It's admittedly a very low tech explanation but if all the suites are next to each other, perhaps they just have removable dividing walls to allow for different size requirements?
Maybe Quark has one big one that he charges extra for, except Sisko gets to use it for free since Starfleet doesn't charge him rent.
It definitely breaks the explanations that we've gotten in-world for how the holosuites work. There's even comments in other DS9 episodes about the walls being closer than they appear (Garak in Afterimage comes to mind). We never see a large holosuit inactive to get a sense of the walls, but the Vic Fontaine episodes also break this space with lots of people being fairly spread out.
I just watched Afterimage a few days ago, which is literally the episode right before Take Me Out To The Holosuite.
I’m sure O’Brien could figure out a way to adapt a cargo bay to be used as a holosuite.
The magic of suspension of disbelief
view more: next ›