#holo-meta

[procrastinatorproject]

Holo-Tech Database

Over the last seven or so months, I have watched through every episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. It’s the first time I’ve seen the entire series, there were quite a few episodes in the later seasons I’d never seen before. Quite an enjoyable experience on the whole.

But because I’m me, of course I didn’t just watch TNG. Instead, I took notes every single time the holodeck or any other piece of holo-technology played a part in the plot, were the setting for even the briefest of scenes, or so much as got mentioned. Essentially, I’m building towards a database of every little scrap of canonical information about holo-technology that I can get my hand on. And this was a start.

I haven’t had the time or energy to look through all of my notes in detail. There is a lot of information in there already. Of course, I’ll only be able to draw any real conclusions once I add in all the data from DS9, Voyager, and PIC, (since I’m interested in the state of technology at the time La Sirena is in operation, because of course that’s what this is about), but it’ll be quite a while before I get there.

So, in lieu of any detailed analysis, here are some quick impressions of my first foray into holo-episode-tracking!

[Image ID: a table showing the number of total holo-episodes for TNG is 58, and breaking that number down for each season. Season 1 has 10 episodes, season 2 has 8, season 3 has 6, season 4 has 9, season 5 and 6 both have 8, and season 7 has 9 episodes. /end ID]

My observation aren’t limited to the holodeck, but also to other instances of holo-technology. An example for an entry might be:

S03 E04 - Who Watches the Watchers

Archaeologists watch a pre-warp civilzation from an outpost that is hidden behind a holo-projection of a rock

The projection is powered by a 4.2 Gigahertz generator, which is failing.

When the projection is reinstated, it is solid to the touch and indistinguishable from the surrounding rock

In total, my notes about TNG (including episode titles) come out to 18.417 words, though my notes did get more elaborate the later the season. I still think I made a note of every time holo-tech was mentioned, even if it was just in passing. Though only a full rewatch would confirm that, of course, and I’m not there yet 😅

One interesting factoid I have pulled from the data so far is whether the holodeck/holo-tech is the main focal point or main setting for the episode, whether it’s importance is only secondary (only a short scene, inclusion has no bearing on the plot or characters, etc.) or whether it is merely mentioned but is not actually seen on screen.

[Image ID: a pie-chart titled “Role of Holo-Tech in the Episode”. Over have of the pie are episodes labeled “secondary”. The wedge labeled “Offscreen” is about a fifth of the pie. The wedge labeled “Main” is slightly larger than the “Offscreen” one, and comes to a quarter of the pie when you add the very small wedge labeled “Main (questionable)”. /End ID]

So this is what I’ve been working on - and why watching all of TNG has taken so long. I frequently got stuck when an episode hit a holo-moment and I didn’t feel like getting out the notes, or when I knew the next episode was one of the designated Holodeck Episodes 😅

But I’m still glad I’m doing this. Research!!!

Next: The TNG movies and DS9!

[procrastinatorproject]

Enoch, Emmet, and the Most Excellent Playground

I’ve been doing another SketchUp tutorial, and it predictably devolved into holo rambling. So now you all get subjected to that 😋

The software I’ve been using to model La Sirena’s furniture (and eventually general interior) is called SketchUp. They have tutorials that teach you how to use all the functions, and once they explain how to Do The Things, it’s actually really straightforward.

The examples they use to teach you things are often playground structures, because there is a lot of variety of shape in those, but also a decent amount of repetition, so you get to try a lot of things.

In the Fundamentals Practice course I did today, you follow along creating this structure (colour choice mine):

[ID: a screenshot of a 3D model of a playground structure. There are three platforms with roofs above them and railings around one of them. The platforms are connected by a bridge, and there are various steps, railings and climbing structures spread around the model. Slides curve gently down from two of the platforms. The model is coloured in very spacey blues, purples, greys, and turqouise. /end ID]

I sent an early stage of this model to @regionalpancake​, and she was confused for a moment, trying to figure out what part of La Sirena I was currently modelling. So, my brain being my brain, it immediately came up with the following:

This is obviously a model of a holodeck programme. Enoch, when he’s not on duty as ship’s navigator, has a whole lot of hobbies, from citizen science to knitting (which Ian is teaching him). One of the things he occasionally spends his time on is designing playground structures on the holodeck.

They’re obviously a lot spacier and more exciting than the one above, but Enoch believes in learning things “from scratch” rather than importing some design skill libraries, so even he started small and humble. (Though if your brain is literally a supercomputer, that gives you quite the leg up on the learning curve.)

The other holos may or may not know about this, but it’s just one of the ways they each have taken up to pass the time in the boring depths of space, so it’s not particularly noteworthy to any of them - except Emmet.

Emmet occasionally loads up Enoch’s designs when he’s sure nobody else is active or going to use the holodeck anytime soon. He's especially fond of elaborate slides, ball pits, and the anti-grav mazes where you have to make your way past obstacles in close to 0G (Don’t worry, those have excellent failsaves if there should ever be a power outage and are also equipped with dampening fields that will prevent anyone from gaining too much speed or bumping into the walls with too much force.)

Of course, Emmet would never admit any of this if his life depended on it!

Enoch regularly tests the efficacy of his designs by generating a set of diverse, low-resolution child simulations and setting them loose on the playground (think a mix of holographic crashtest dummies, focus group, and sims. They look like children in a slightly blurry photo might. Rios finds them creepy as fuck). Because Enoch is a good little scientist, he’ll have some monitoring routines running in the background, collecting data, so he can evaluate his designs and make changes accordingly.

One day, he is called away from a test-run of his latest design by an engineering emergency. He shuts off the holodeck, but in the chaos he forgets that he still had the monitoring routine running in the background.

When the chaos is over and he finally finds time to return to his playground design programme a few days later, he makes a startling discovery: The monitoring routine was activated the night before, when someone else ran the programme. To his astonishment, Enoch discovers that Emmet spent three hours on his holographic playground, a good portion of which was apparently spent on trying to teach one of the simulated children to do cartwheels on the sring-floor section of the playground.

From then on, Enoch keeps the monitoring routine running whenever he finishes one of his designs and shuts down the programme. While Emmet doesn’t run the playground programmes that frequently, over time Enoch slowly optimizes his structures to include all the things the ETH enjoys the most.

He tries to be very subtle about it, so Emmet will think it’s a coincidence. Of course, his attempts fail miserably because “subtle” is not one of Enoch’s strong suits.

Emmet notices fairly quickly that Enoch must have some way of observing him, and uses this knowledge to strategically coax him into stretch his design abilities. Both because Emmet likes how Enoch is putting so much effort into developing his skills, and because it means he gets to explore amazing structures.

Enoch still doesn’t know Emmet has found him out and is directing his building efforts on purpose, because Emmet does know how to do subtle.

They still haven’t spoken about any of this to anyone, least of all each other, and it’s entirely possible that they never will. But the nonprofit organization building low-cost high-quality playgrounds in under-privileged communities all throughout the former Neutral Zone sure appreciates the slow but steady supply of new designs being donated by the anonymous architect N.H.

Author’s Note

If you’ve made it all the way to the end, I assume you are as much of a holo-fan as I am. I occasionally have these outbursts of holo-creativity, prompted by the most ridiculous things (in this case: playground model on La Sirena, but preivous contenders include: “Not being able to find my keys” -> “I wonder how each of the holos would help you search for something you’ve misplaced”; “Rios should have a real walkman :D” -> An honest-to-god ficlet, though that one was only marginally holo-focused; An (absolutely gorgeous!) drawing of Enoch wearing Emmet’s vest for Haloween -> a screed about ho clothing works for holograms).

I love writing these, and I’m always looking for prompts and excuses. So if you’re bored and would like to read some slap-dash holo-commentary (with no guarantee as to whether it will take me a few hours or many months to reply), feel free to send me prompts.

Can be anything from “Do the holos need to sleep in any way shape or form?” to “Ian needs a fish” to “holo squad +🎆”, and you may get anything from a long, rambly, techno-babble laden think-piece to short spiffy dialogue in return - unless you ask for something specific ;)

SEND ME PROMTS 😁

[procrastinatorproject]

Holo-Tech Database (Update)

I’m now three seasons into my DS9 rewatch and still taking diligent notes on Holo technology. So far, a clear trend is emerging.

Here is what the breakdown of holo-tech in TNG looked like:

[ID: a pie-chart titled “Role of Holo-Tech in the Episode. Over half the diagram is taken up by a slice labeled “Secondary”. A rather small slice of the cake is labelled Main (questionable), while the rest is split between “Main” and “Offscreen”, each taking about a sixth of the pie. /END ID]

As you can see, the vast majority of episodes were classified as “secondary” holodeck-episodes, i.e. parts of the episode might take place on the holodeck, maybe it even had some bearing on the plot, but it wasn’t the main focus of the episode.

Now, in contrast, here is how the first three seasons of DS9 break down:

[ID: Another pie chart, also labelled “Role of Holo-tech in the Episode”. In this one, about two thirds of the pie are the slice labelled “offscreen”. The slice labelled “Secondary” is about a quarter of the pie, and the last little sliver is split evenly between “main” and “main (questionable)”. /END-ID]

Of course I’m only halfway through so far, but it looks very much like the holosuites on DS9 are much less prone to malfunction than the holodecks on the Enterprise-D were, and thus there aren’t nearly as many full-fledged holo-episodes.

In fact, the vast majority of screentime the holosuites get is when they’re being mentioned, without actually appearing. A good number fo these are actually Quark, trying to get himself out of one pickle or another by offering a disgruntled guest a free hour on the holosuite in compensation 😅

There’s still a lot of great holo-content coming up. I haven’t met Vic Fontaine yet, and “Our Man Bashir” is still half a season away. I’m very curious to see, how the comparison will shake out when I reach the end of DS9 season 7.

Es bleibt spannend!