Hologram crew, and other uses.

[Nephtys]

We all know about the EMH from Voyager, and that one episode where a ship of sentient holograms were escaping slavery... that got me thinking. The EMH is by no means unique, and there were holograms capable of engineering duties, piloting, et cetera.

This makes me wonder of possible, better uses for these guys. If say, a Starfleet ship had projectors close enough to most of the ship, wouldn't it be a nice idea to use hologram security? Oops. Your phaser hits that redshirt's chest, which is a class-3 forcefield. Yoink! He does an elastic-punch with the 'hologram/forcefield' thing, right to your left chin. Oh jeez, now our holofriend has become a holo-cage about the subdued intruder.

Really, all of these things seem within the realm of holodeck related capabilities, based on what we seen. Think of some more creative uses!

[Srynerson]

Yes, but that would violate Star Fleet's regulations against ever re-using a handy invention developed by a starship crew.

[Gandalf]

I think hologram tech was well used in "Author, Author", when they had a lot of EMH's working in a mine. Why they kept their personalities was beyond me, but it was an inherently cool idea. You'd save energy usually spent on life support and feeding your guys.

I imagine that could easily be expanded to many non crucial, menial jobs.

[Uraniun235]

I recall a scene in First Contact where a drone scanned Ethan Phillips' holographic character, and seemed to cause some pretty severe distortion. I wouldn't put it past Trek technology to devise countermeasures that would effectively disable any holographic security systems. Hell, the non-holographic forcefields on the Ent-D were taken down fairly easily by certain individuals, and they don't have nearly the treknobabble particle quotient that hologram tech does.

Given that boarding parties never seem to use environment suits, Starfleet would be better with just sticking with the intruder control gas (or, if the alien of the week is immune, pumping out the atmosphere in that section altogether). And if they have environment suits? Immediately activate the auto-destruct and pray you kill the intruders before the timer hits zero.

As for creative uses of a ship-wide holodeck? I guess you could have a vast selection of decorations you could have on the deck walls and rotate through on a monthly basis, although they'd certainly be energy-intensive. Maybe a simulated boarding action as part of a battle drill for the security detail to practice on? Simulated casualties for the medics to practice on?

Yes, but that would violate Star Fleet's regulations against ever re-using a handy invention developed by a starship crew.

The Prometheus' shipwide holo-projection system was not a crew invention, but part of the design of the ship. Nice try on rehashing a tired old joke, though.

EDIT: I just had a thought.

The EMH is by no means unique, and there were holograms capable of engineering duties, piloting, et cetera.

The computer controls all these holograms, right?

And when the holograms hit the Okudagrams, they're interfacing with the computer, right?

So why not just run the programs internally, save power from not having to run hologram projectors, and get a far quicker response time?

Granted this wouldn't work for cleaning the plasma shitter or what-have-you, but it would work for the piloting/defense/monitoring and other essentially software functions of the ship.

[Prozac the Robert]

I think hologram tech was well used in "Author, Author", when they had a lot of EMH's working in a mine. Why they kept their personalities was beyond me, but it was an inherently cool idea. You'd save energy usually spent on life support and feeding your guys.

I imagine that could easily be expanded to many non crucial, menial jobs.

I still think that it was a stupid scene. If you think about it, a ST hologram is a collection of light and forcefields. These forcefields and light can get to any part of the area that needs mining, and are all controlled by a compuer anyway.

So why not just have the computer use only the forcefield component, either to mine directly or to move the mining tools around?

[Bounty]

The computer controls all these holograms, right?

And when the holograms hit the Okudagrams, they're interfacing with the computer, right?

So why not just run the programs internally, save power from not having to run hologram projectors, and get a far quicker response time?

Granted this wouldn't work for cleaning the plasma shitter or what-have-you, but it would work for the piloting/defense/monitoring and other essentially software functions of the ship.

Haven't you just decribed the autopilot ?

[Darth Wong]

What a great idea: make the starship even more technologically fragile. Now your damage-control teams will disappear if the holo-projector system is damaged! And what happens when you have to shut down power to nonessential systems in order to keep the ship running? Your crew shuts themselves off?

The real question here is not why Starfleet doesn't make holo-crews, but why they don't focus research on androids. A crew android doesn't need to have sentience or a personality; it only needs to know how to do a very specific job. You would think, given their computer technology, that they should be able to design one, even if it doesn't necessarily look like a human (suppose they can't miniature the brain to the appropriate size; they can just make a non-humanoid droid).

The mining example is a salient one: if you need to do mining in hazardous environments, why the fuck would you use holo-emitted medical personnel instead of simply inventing a miner droid? How much programming can a miner droid possibly need?

[NecronLord]

The mining example is a salient one: if you need to do mining in hazardous environments, why the fuck would you use holo-emitted medical personnel instead of simply inventing a miner droid? How much programming can a miner droid possibly need?

You forget the exocomps. The federation, capable of building droids that don't rebel or become sentient or become posessed by local gaseous anomalies? Absurd.

[Bounty]

The mining example is a salient one: if you need to do mining in hazardous environments, why the fuck would you use holo-emitted medical personnel instead of simply inventing a miner droid? How much programming can a miner droid possibly need?

You forget the exocomps. The federation, capable of building droids that don't rebel or become sentient or become posessed by local gaseous anomalies? Absurd.

There is an absurd rate of accidental sentience in Trek - M5, Exocomps, the nanobots in early TNG, Moriarty, the Enterprise herself, Mk I EMH, the Fair Haven program... perhaps it's an inevitable consequence of Federation computer design ? Mayeb that's why they don't mass-produce droids, it'd only be a matter of time before they start demanding better work hours and weekends off

[Uraniun235]

I don't think M5 was accidentally sentient - I suspect Daystrom designed it as such, although he may not have wanted that aspect of it widely publicized.

Haven't you just decribed the autopilot ?

Yeah. I guess my point is, why have a holographic pilot when you could just have an autopilot that should be able to do even better?

Although, given that they do not seem to have any significant number of droids onboard a ship for repairs and what have you, Starfleet really needs to dump their "apartment for every man" bullshit idea of Gene's (I can only imagine what drugs he was smoking when he thought it was a grave indignity for enlisted men to bunk together) and add more crew to their starships, because that Galaxy class is badly under-crewed. Shit, how many times did we see Main Engineering practically deserted?

(Actually, what really needs to happen is for Starfleet to redo their entire training program. However I think this warrants a new thread and I will make one on this topic.)

[Nephtys]

I don't think M5 was accidentally sentient - I suspect Daystrom designed it as such, although he may not have wanted that aspect of it widely publicized.

Haven't you just decribed the autopilot ?

Yeah. I guess my point is, why have a holographic pilot when you could just have an autopilot that should be able to do even better?

Although, given that they do not seem to have any significant number of droids onboard a ship for repairs and what have you, Starfleet really needs to dump their "apartment for every man" bullshit idea of Gene's (I can only imagine what drugs he was smoking when he thought it was a grave indignity for enlisted men to bunk together) and add more crew to their starships, because that Galaxy class is badly under-crewed. Shit, how many times did we see Main Engineering practically deserted?

(Actually, what really needs to happen is for Starfleet to redo their entire training program. However I think this warrants a new thread and I will make one on this topic.)

Less undergraduates and more ratings is in order. Exactly how many botanists do you need aboard a ship? Or people without any use at all, like Whoppi Goldberg? Or a captain's yacht that was never, ever used?

[Uraniun235]

To be fair, I have never heard the Captain's Yacht ever referred to in dialogue in TNG, so canonically the Galaxy class just has a funny looking bump on the underside of the hull - and I'd personally be very willing to accept the idea of such a craft being in the original design proposal, but eventually scrapped in favor of another sensor suite or something like that.

[CDiehl]

Since the issue of accidental sentience is a side issue, I'll say only this. Starfleet needs to stop making computers that can do everything, and simply design their equipment to do a few things very, very well. Maintenance droids, for example, only need to be able to perform maintenance and obey Starfleet personnel when they give them orders.

I would use holograms to create phony sensory impressions in an enemy. Imagine a boarding party having false phaser shots fired at them out of a fog in a corridor, while strange sounds issue randomly from all around them, various scents fill the corridor and an occasional forcefield taps them on the shoulders. Some means would have to be invented to render Starfleet personnel immune to the holograms so they can function normally. Also, a means would be needed to deceive scanning equipment.

[Uraniun235]

If they can smell funny things then they can smell intruder control gas.

[CDiehl]

And when they smell that, they'll move away from it. You don't have to actually release gas into the corridors, just convince the enemy that it's there.

[Uraniun235]

And when they try to move away from it, they'll find the whole deck - or perhaps even close to the entire ship - has been flooded with it.

[Kurgan]

Distracting holo-porn characters appearing in front of boarders...

The regular crew would have to wear special goggles to protect them of course.

[bilateralrope]

The mining example is a salient one: if you need to do mining in hazardous environments, why the fuck would you use holo-emitted medical personnel instead of simply inventing a miner droid? How much programming can a miner droid possibly need?

Per unit a hologram would be cheaper if you already have the holoemiters set up, since software is much eaiser to copy. Also the hologram can be reshapped to reach in small gaps, and can be instantly moved past obstructions (I know teleporters can also do that). IF you need a specialised peice of equpment you would need to bring it in, with a hologram you just run that program. If a disaster wipes out a section of the mine, you lose all the equiptment in there. Ifyou use machines you lose all that expensive equiptment, or just the emmiters if using holograms.

Personnaly the first change I would make is that the emh program would be able to run multiple form at once, since something that incapacitates your entire medical staff probably will cause more injuries that a single form could take. (I remember one eppisode of voyager where they lost someone because the doctor could only operate on one of the 2 injured people)

[Enigma]

problem about making droids to do the menial jobs is that sooner or later they'll get the same rights as anyone and that sooner or later those droids will be off to do whatever they want.

[Darth Wong]

The mining example is a salient one: if you need to do mining in hazardous environments, why the fuck would you use holo-emitted medical personnel instead of simply inventing a miner droid? How much programming can a miner droid possibly need?

Per unit a hologram would be cheaper if you already have the holoemiters set up, since software is much eaiser to copy. Also the hologram can be reshapped to reach in small gaps, and can be instantly moved past obstructions (I know teleporters can also do that). IF you need a specialised peice of equpment you would need to bring it in, with a hologram you just run that program. If a disaster wipes out a section of the mine, you lose all the equiptment in there. Ifyou use machines you lose all that expensive equiptment, or just the emmiters if using holograms.

Personnaly the first change I would make is that the emh program would be able to run multiple form at once, since something that incapacitates your entire medical staff probably will cause more injuries that a single form could take. (I remember one eppisode of voyager where they lost someone because the doctor could only operate on one of the 2 injured people)

You are thinking like a salesman, not an engineer. A salesman thinks about maximum features for minimum price. An engineer has trouble getting past that "single point of failure" problem which hologram systems have. What if the hologram system breaks down? Then you're truly fucked, aren't you? And what kind of idiot would design damage-control crews which could not move into an area which is heavily damaged? Or do you figure that even the most heavily damaged areas of the ship would be guaranteed to have reliable holo-emitters?

[bilateralrope]

You are thinking like a salesman, not an engineer. A salesman thinks about maximum features for minimum price. An engineer has trouble getting past that "single point of failure" problem which hologram systems have. What if the hologram system breaks down? Then you're truly fucked, aren't you? And what kind of idiot would design damage-control crews which could not move into an area which is heavily damaged? Or do you figure that even the most heavily damaged areas of the ship would be guaranteed to have reliable holo-emitters?

I'm talking about when you are using the holograms for civilian tasks like mining (by the time the attackers reach the mine, they would of already passed the control rooms and any security you have set up), where you arn't likely to get attacked, not on exploration or military ships. Unless there is a real shortage of whatever your mining, you probably won't need to get into the damaged area in a hurry

[Raven]

I hated that holodoc mining scene.

What is a hologram (in Star Trek)? In addition to being a holographic projection, it's made of force fields to mimic solid surfaces.

You obviously have the ability to create forcefields of arbitrary size and shape, and manipulate them with a high degree of precision.

Why do we even need the visual holograms, much less finely detailed holo-docs? Why not have human-shaped avatars in the first place? If you ask me, invisible forcefields tearing rocks out of the ground seems a lot cooler anyway.

The same applies to holographic ship defenders. Why bother with human-like holographic soldiers subject to human limitations? If you have the ability to arbitrarily generate forcefields anywhere in the ship, why not use it to Force Choke boarders?

[Patrick Degan]

You are thinking like a salesman, not an engineer. A salesman thinks about maximum features for minimum price. An engineer has trouble getting past that "single point of failure" problem which hologram systems have. What if the hologram system breaks down? Then you're truly fucked, aren't you? And what kind of idiot would design damage-control crews which could not move into an area which is heavily damaged? Or do you figure that even the most heavily damaged areas of the ship would be guaranteed to have reliable holo-emitters?

I'm talking about when you are using the holograms for civilian tasks like mining (by the time the attackers reach the mine, they would of already passed the control rooms and any security you have set up), where you arn't likely to get attacked, not on exploration or military ships. Unless there is a real shortage of whatever your mining, you probably won't need to get into the damaged area in a hurry

Sorry, but a holographic workforce is a fundamentally stupid idea for about the same reason as a holographic starship crew. Mining operations are based upon steady production in order to remain viable, and a malfunction or shutdown of the holosystem means the loss of the entire workforce in one stroke which will remain offline until the system is repaired, which means lost production time. The breakdown of a single droid or even several of them will not fundamentally affect that day's production of raw ore.

[bilateralrope]

You are thinking like a salesman, not an engineer. A salesman thinks about maximum features for minimum price. An engineer has trouble getting past that "single point of failure" problem which hologram systems have. What if the hologram system breaks down? Then you're truly fucked, aren't you? And what kind of idiot would design damage-control crews which could not move into an area which is heavily damaged? Or do you figure that even the most heavily damaged areas of the ship would be guaranteed to have reliable holo-emitters?

I'm talking about when you are using the holograms for civilian tasks like mining (by the time the attackers reach the mine, they would of already passed the control rooms and any security you have set up), where you arn't likely to get attacked, not on exploration or military ships. Unless there is a real shortage of whatever your mining, you probably won't need to get into the damaged area in a hurry

Sorry, but a holographic workforce is a fundamentally stupid idea for about the same reason as a holographic starship crew. Mining operations are based upon steady production in order to remain viable, and a malfunction or shutdown of the holosystem means the loss of the entire workforce in one stroke which will remain offline until the system is repaired, which means lost production time. The breakdown of a single droid or even several of them will not fundamentally affect that day's production of raw ore.

Having backup systems would reduce that problem, and a damaged machine would still get in the way. I would think that a holo-emiter is a smaller peice of equipment, so it could be quiker to replace a broken one (And cheaper to have a stock of spares, espicaly since you only need 1 type of emmiter but several types of machines) but I am not sure about that.

[Patrick Degan]

I'm talking about when you are using the holograms for civilian tasks like mining (by the time the attackers reach the mine, they would of already passed the control rooms and any security you have set up), where you arn't likely to get attacked, not on exploration or military ships. Unless there is a real shortage of whatever your mining, you probably won't need to get into the damaged area in a hurry

Sorry, but a holographic workforce is a fundamentally stupid idea for about the same reason as a holographic starship crew. Mining operations are based upon steady production in order to remain viable, and a malfunction or shutdown of the holosystem means the loss of the entire workforce in one stroke which will remain offline until the system is repaired, which means lost production time. The breakdown of a single droid or even several of them will not fundamentally affect that day's production of raw ore.

Having backup systems would reduce that problem, and a damaged machine would still get in the way. I would think that a holo-emiter is a smaller peice of equipment, so it could be quiker to replace a broken one (And cheaper to have a stock of spares, espicaly since you only need 1 type of emmiter but several types of machines) but I am not sure about that.

Um, wrong —the problem would not be reduced in the slightest. The control software for anything as extensive as a holographic emitter network capable of projecting a large workforce in an area such as a mine would require every bit of data-storage and processing capability of the computers built into it. It would be using all that computer power simply to run the system, which makes it vulnerable to single-point failure from hardware failure or software problems. That and the fact that the system would be wholly dependent upon the mining operation's main power grid which can also suffer failure and shut down the system. Independently-powered and -programmed droids maximise redundancy and obviates against the danger of single-point failure.