Question on Holodeck capacity
Posted by JediMatt1000@reddit | TNG | View on Reddit | 35 comments
Does anybody know if there was a capacity limit as to how many people could participate on the Holodeck at any given time? I mean, theoretically couldn't Captain Picard have beamed several million people from a planet's surface to live on the Holodeck of something happened to their planet and they needed to relocate? Has anyone ever discussed Holodeck capacity before?
JCEE4129@reddit
I was thinking of this the other day watching VOY. The episode where Tuvock and Harry are infatuated with the holo woman. There were so many crewman in the holodeck and it looked so big and spaced out. LOL.
Whoever thought of the holodeck as a extra story telling vehicle...congrats to them. Very creative and unique idea.
JediMatt1000@reddit (OP)
I did like those "one-off" episodes that revolved around the Holodeck. What comes to mind too was that one episode of TNG with the Bynars and how Riker's creation of Minuet had explained more about what the Bynars wanted with the Enterprise.
sunkskunkstunk@reddit
The holodeck does what it does for what the episode needs it to do. Discussing the concepts can be fun, but there is probably another episode where the same idea won’t work.
You can feel real objects, so obviously many things are not just holograms. You can hit and kill real people without the safety protocols, so does the bullet disappear once the program turns off? And it can do all this stuff, and also create a whole personality of a real person from their personality profile that engineers want to bang, but it also does not know if a person is left or right handed. lol.
violetcat13@reddit
I feel like holodeck is somewhat of a misnomer (not advocating for a change of name lol) because in one episode they mention how it partially works like the replicators and so can create physical matter, alongside the holographs ofc.
makegifsnotjifs@reddit
No. It's a finite space. It's not the TARDIS, it's just a room with a bunch of holo-emitters and force fields. The illusion it creates doesn't change the dimensions of the room.
ArcherNX1701@reddit
Exactly!
LOUDCO-HD@reddit
In SE07 EP13 Homeward When Worf is helping his brother Nikolai Rozhenko relocate the people of Boraal II, at one point while moving through a rocky area, the line of people stretches off into the distance what could be a kilometre or more. So I'm curious how the Holo-deck pulled that off, if it's a finite size.
When they are standing in it, and a program is terminated, and the gridlines appear, it doesn't appear to be more than 100 feet wide at any given point. Perhaps there are different sized ones depending upon what type of simulation is required.
They do call it a holo-'deck', so perhaps one entire deck of the saucer section is dedicated to holographic simulations, which would be a considerable area if it was was a midline cross-section.
Med_irsa_655@reddit
If there’s few enough people to fit into the space of the actual room, they could be standing right next to each other and the holodeck by way of illusion makes them appear to be elsewhere, trailing off in the distance. For that matter, they could occupy the above head volume too, their feet appearing as sky and cliff side to those below. What if a lower guy needs a stretch and reaches up, does he touch an overhead shoe? The computer can snap the higher person away (and his adjacent like dominoes) and back again without any of them perceiving it. Or just keep’m outta reach
LOUDCO-HD@reddit
In the case of Homeward they were relocating an entire village (to a new planet) and were using a holodeck to preserve the illusion that the merely went on a journey on foot to another resettlement location. The holographic illusion would’ve needed to encompass 100’s of people, not holograms of one another, and that takes physical space.
Certainly characters used in a holodeck scenario can be illusions, but not if they are actual participants.
I think the writers just took great artistic license with the use of the holodeck, without much thought as to how they would be analyzed by their faithful followers.
Med_irsa_655@reddit
Truer words haven’t been spoken
Scrat-Slartibartfast@reddit
it can be that they used multible holodecks that worked together for the people.
deloaf@reddit
The internal physics of the holo-deck are a pretty loose set of rules. In Farpoint, they throw a rock and hit the holodeck wall. But Riker and Wesley are trying to find Data, so he's somewhere in the actual holodeck room, whistling. But you can't see or hear him whistling, so you can assume the holodeck obfuscates vision as well as sound using 'photons and forcefields'. You could probably assume that in the holodeck you could have as many people as would be physically possible to squeeze into the space, as long as they weren't bumping into each other.
I dunno. Take a look at the holodeck engine and maybe you can decipher its complex inner workings.
Epic2112@reddit
Some of the holodeck stuff early in the series, before they really thought through everything, are kind of annoying.
There's a scene, I think in one of the Dixon Hill episodes, where the bad guys walk outside of the holodeck and into the ship for a good few steps before they slowly dematerialize.
There's another where Wesley throws a snowball. Picard happens to open the door at just the wrong time and gets hit and soaked, while he's still out in the hall.
Wilful suspension of disbelief and all, I know, but still...
ShiroHachiRoku@reddit
You should watch the DS9 episode where the DS9 crew play baseball with a Vulcan crew. 20 plus people on a field?!?!!?
JediMatt1000@reddit (OP)
Yes I remember that one. Very entertaining.
ShiroHachiRoku@reddit
I would've loved that episode to take place on Bajor with them building a field and maybe make it the start of Sisko's plan to build his home there.
JediMatt1000@reddit (OP)
That would have been a great segway. And as emissary it probably would have been very interesting for the Bajorsns to learn about the game and why it's important to him.
ShiroHachiRoku@reddit
Oh man! Imagine if Bajor resurrected baseball?! That would’ve been amazing.
JediMatt1000@reddit (OP)
I think so too! Might have to live on in fanfiction.
Plodderic@reddit
Prodigy talks about (and I think shows) how the crew are in fact much closer to each other than they think because of how the holodeck messes with perspective- so you could presumably stack hundreds of people in 2 metre holographic cubes, and they’d be none the wiser and think they were in a much wider area and able to “touch” people in the cube on the other side of the holodeck thanks to the technology providing it artificially.
JediMatt1000@reddit (OP)
Yed and Prodigy seems a lot more futuristic both with what the Protostar can do in terms of travel and holoemitters throughout the ship.
mumblerapisgarbage@reddit
It ain’t that kinda movie, kid.
Rooster_Ties@reddit
👍
Familiar-Lab2276@reddit
If people are looking at the size of your holodeck, we're all in trouble
forhekset666@reddit
I feel like each entity would need about 5x5m to have their own area projected.
However the floor would have to act as a treadmill in some way.
Or I forget what its called, it's used in large scale VR - They slightly misalign your forward movement so you think you're walking straight but its actually a parge circle. You don't notice.
JediMatt1000@reddit (OP)
That's a great idea!
Brooklion@reddit
I asked this same question recently
here
JediMatt1000@reddit (OP)
lol
Aezetyr@reddit
In one of the early holodeck episodes, might even have been Encounter at Farpoint, someone threw a rock at the holodeck wall to show that there was a physical wall that had an image projected on it.
Scrat-Slartibartfast@reddit
that was data and it was indeed in the first second episode of encounter of farpoint
Theborgiseverywhere@reddit
S7E13 Homeward cover this issue IIRC, you should check that episode!
JediMatt1000@reddit (OP)
Will have to watch that one.
BowserPong11@reddit
Worf's brother slices up garlic for everyone as they adapt to the new surroundings and look out for the sign of LaForge.
JediMatt1000@reddit (OP)
Good points.
Plenty_Shine9530@reddit
I believe the people must fit in the room itself and then the holodeck while operating would expand their perception of space, the ambiace, etc according to whatever its programmed