Star Trek: Mark Two (JBR Mega-rant

8.0 GENERALITIES

Holodecks (hereinafter HDs) are less relevant to my theme, being an added rather than inherent flaw in Star Trek Universe plausibility, but I like lambasting them anyhow. Now, given highly advanced forcefields, holography, and continuous use of imperceptible transporters, controlled by a super‐AI, I'll swallow the HDs as a feasible technology. The obvious spin‐off applications are, as always, what make it preposterous. HDs are too close to omnipotence, which (like Utopia – see 9.4) makes for low‐quality plots.

8.1 PSEUDOMATTER [see footnotes, postscripts]

Objects created by the HD are supposedly made of pseudomatter, which evaporates when removed from the holofield. Pseudomatter is real enough to eat; real enough to fool Geordie's vizor; to reflect Krieger waves (“A Matter of Perspective”, ST:TNG3); to feel wet; to kill you; even to step out through the doors (“The Big Goodbye”, ST:TNG1)… but it's not “really” real. Yet we know that orthodox Star Trek replicators could build a visually convincing “puppet” from spam! Add holograms for detail, move it with forcefields and transporters; if it runs away, it drops dead. So who needs the extra quasiscience involved in the idea of pseudomatter?

8.2 ILLUSTRATION PROGRAMS [see footnotes, postscripts]

Porn – the obvious use for the HD, though I would expect standard HD etiquette to involve (A) conventions and/or restrictions on the simulation of real people, (B) security codes so nobody else who sneaks in can sabotage your program, and (C) a Vacant/Engaged sign.
Horror – program it with the collected works of Cronenberg, Lovecraft, and Giger, then let it improvise. Whatever you do, though, don't go in.
Mindwarp – try the collected works of Sheckley, Watson, and Philip K Dick. If you enter, don't expect ever to be sure you've got back out again… unless of course you realise you are evaporating. I suspect this is where the twenty‐fourth century's SF fans have gone, leaving nobody who can recognise and short‐circuit the sci‐fi‐cliché plots the Enterprise runs into.
Banquet – have a slap‐up meal; come back outside; and keel over dead as the food evaporates from your innards, and your metabolism goes crazy.
Dog bite – if a holo‐simulation rabies virus “simulatedly” invades and reprograms one of your cells, you are left with genuine hydrophobia.
The Great Zombini – simulation hypnotists are likewise a bad idea.
Torture chamber – you get the picture.
Fraud – fabricate any evidence you want. The premier abdicating in your favour, your enemy molesting children, you walking on water…
Memory extension – if the ship runs low on memory capacity, you can create vast upgrades made out of pseudomatter on the HD. (?!)
Brains trust – simulate Lao Tze, Bacon, Einstein, Surak etc. Either (A) actually take their advice or (B) throw custard pies at them.
Turing test – tell the computer to simulate Alan Turing, then ask him whether he really is an intelligent being or “just a simulation”.
Moriarty – remember ST:TNG2's “Elementary, Dear Data”, swiftly followed by “The Schizoid Man”? The NCC1701D's databanks held (A) a sentient mind seeking a body and (B) Dr Graves' expert‐system for transcribing sentient minds into android bodies. Another reason for replicating Data (cf. 7.2). And I wonder: has Moriarty got a pseudomatter brain? Or is his head hollow and his neurochemistry purely a HD emulation?

8.3 MILITARY APPLICATIONS

If even Starfleet's guaranteed‐safe recreational HDs can kill, imagine the potential of a battleship with a HD built onto its hull: Holocaust class. This “openplan HD” could easily provide:

Guns – any size at all: they may be illusory, but the effects aren't.
Camouflage – forget mere “cloaking devices”; this can disguise you to the eye, to radar, or indeed to the touch as anything or nothing.
Armour – any type, any amount, right in the way of incoming missiles.

Or if you can't swallow “openplan HDs”, how about… Holoheart class. Gut a ship of all its contents bar HDs, then simulate the absent rooms. Use the saved space for extra‐huge engines, computers, and guns; the crew (if not the “Away Team”) can contain as many geniuses and heroes as you like. No need to tell them what's really going on…