this post was submitted on 15 May 2026
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Both this post and that one scene from Lower Decks forgets how holodecks work (no surprise from LD. It tries to insert humour at the expense of lore the whole bloody time...)
Anyway...
The holodeck, as established in the very first episode of TNG, is also a replicator. Throughout TNG, DS9, and VOY we see multiple instances that a replicator works both ways. Cleaning the dishes is a matter (hah) of putting it all back into the replicator and watching it get turned back into energy.
When you create a bar or a restaurant on the holodeck, all the food and drink there is real. You really eat and drink something, it has real flavour. Snow, water, mud, are all real too (Wesley Crusher got snow on Picard's uniform one time when exiting the holodeck). But it all disappears instantly when you command the program to be ended.
No wonder, then, that certain experimental medical procedures were done on the holodeck in some episodes; it's an incredibly sterile space. Everything that isn't the people who entered the deck instantly gets turned into energy. For all the "holodeck gone wrong" episodes, none of them had a situation where a person accidentally gets vapourised. Damn thing is safer than a transporter.
Anyway; yes, very funny. But no, that's not how holodecks work. Nobody needs to clean your cum off the walls.
Idk where you even got this idea but here, from DS9, which would seem to contradict that.
S3e8 "Meridian"
The emphasis of this scene is that the food is for free. Not that the holodeck can't replicate food.
However, there are other issues here. Firstly, it's not a federation holodeck. Secondly, for some reason they're not called holodecks either, but holosuites. This isn't a direct comparison.
Yeah it's called a suite because it's not a deck of any sort on a ship.
I'm still going to ask where you're getting "all the food is real" from?
Nor do I think them necessarily not being federation holotech, which I also don't know where you're getting that, but since DS9 was under Cardassian rule and whatnot it's not entirely unbelievable.
First episode of TNG describes the holodeck replicating things for authenticity, specifically when Riker got his suit wet for real with water from the holodeck.
There have been multiple instances of this after the very first episode too.
I provided you with an actual photograph with a quote that's clearly showing that holographic food isn't real, as otherwise Quark wouldn't need to offer the person real food.
You're just saying "trust me bro, it's definitely real food"
Sure, TNG has like water leaving the holodeck as wet people can walk out. But Voyager contradicts those notions.
https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/143271/is-there-any-explanation-as-to-why-the-voyager-crew-dont-eat-on-the-holodeck
Tldr;
Like I've said, the holo-tech is just beyond inconsistent and should not be anyones idea of "hard" scifi. The explanations contradict each other from one episode to the next and especially from one show to the next. It's soft scifi and I'm completely fine with that. Are you?
No you didn't. You showed a photograph of Quark complaining about giving away free stuff. Other sources from Star Trek episodes themselves have verbally explained the holodeck replicates.
Go watch Encounter at Farpoint again.
Yeah true screenshot not a photo.
Anyway, it's very clearly stated in it that it's real food that he's providing, with a strong implication that otherwise it'd be holographic.
But I think most of what you have is pure conjecture.
You know, because the holodecks are about as scientific as the TARDIS.
Which you just refuse to admit, despite the various contradictions one can just rattle a list of.
If all holodeck food was real edible food, Voyager could've used it to stock up on food. As it is, it was coveted with "holodecks have their own power sources" or smth iirc and no-one went in there to nourish their bodies, just souls.
Like how could people in a limited size room actually be further away from each other than they actually are? Not to mention a whole ship full of people running around in a single town.
Let's face it the holodeck isn't exactly hard science, has too many logical holes in it from the start.
It's just a fantasy machine and I'm fine with that.
An independent power system doesn't mean the holodeck doesn't still use power. It wasn't until much later in the series that Jeanway started considering a more regular use for the holodeck as a common recreational area. Before that everything had to be rationed quite strictly. So... No... Not they couldn't just replace replicator rations with replicated holodeck food because the same problem exists with both.
In short; the holodeck doesn't "magic" its own power into existence.
Thw holodeck room can easily accommodate a whole lot of people. It's pretty large. Perhaps not the entire ship's crew, but I can't remember an episode where literally EVERYONE on the ship was stuck on the holodeck. If you consider that it's not actually necessary for attendants to physically move around (they can walk in-place) you are only really left with the creation of the illusion and the logistics it have tightly localised illusions happening around each individual.
It would've been an interesting problem to explore in an episode; the performance of the illusion with the holodeck full of people vs the holodeck having to just accomodate two or three individuals. It's just one of those things that Star Trek never did, and considering the types of stories NuTrek prefers to tell, never will.
Yes, I'm aware. But even when they were running on strictly least power, they kept the holodecks up for entertainment. So yeah, some things about it won't ever make sense.
I just watched voyager a while ago I should be able to remember it better damn.
But anyway, even just having a large tenniscourt. Larger than the holodeck is. Let's say 16 tennis fields each with human players, and then the whole stages filled with people. How is none of that coming against the limitations of a small room? See what i mean. If everyone stands in one corner. Then how do you emit a town that should be just a display on the walls, but everyone can start traveling in opposite directions if they so choose.
That's because a holodeck isn't merely a projection on the walls. It's been described a few times as a complex array of volumetric displays, forcefields, and replicated materials that shift around the individuals participating in the holodeck.
Basically, the way it's described, the illusion shouldn't work from your perspective as viewers/audience.
Thats like saying "it works because of magic"
No amount of any technology would be able to make people think they're in a vast desert with others several kilometers away when theyre actually standing within arms reach.
But the technobabble handwaving works for me.
There's just absolutely zero point in pretending the holodecks are "hard scifi"
I mean... If you're wearing a VR headset and move via treadmill... Then you're pretty much halfway towards what holodeck does already. So now imagine it's a few centuries into the future.
Yeah, a bad copy that's not affecting all of your senses as has lots of limitations?
VR is fun but it's nowhere near fooling the senses properly. Proprioception, acceleration.
You refuse to answer questions which I say can't be answered while still not agreeing with me that it's goddamn ludicrous to even suggest the holotech has anything to do with hard scifi.
It's a pure fantasy machine only limited by the writer's imagination, nothing else.
Maybe because it's older technology than a holodeck? You do understand how the progress of technology usually involves the solving of problems and limitations, right?
That's all the answer you need.
I don't think you understand what our senses are capable of.
You're literally just handwaving all the issues. Which is completely fine, as long as you stop pretending there's some actually reasonable science behind this fantasy-machine.
The only limitations it has is the writer's imagination and the budget of the show. That's all. It's soft scifi.
None of your explanations have even remotely explained anything. But you're refusing to accept they are actually handwavy soft scifi, which they very much are.
Saying "volumetric displays and forcefields" doesn't make it rational that a group of people in a limited size room could think they're all in very different places in massive village for instance. That I could play tennis with you in the same village while there's a whole dancing competition going on in the same village but 3km away, with competitors and real people in thw audience.
If you don't realise that 16 people in a small room the size of a couple of buses couldn't do that unless they're being essentially completely neurologically manipulated and just still instead of actually being on a tennis court, then I can accept it. It's completely just fooling your brain and not actually doing any of the things. That's acceptable. Pretending that saying "volumetric displays and forcefields" is a good explanation for any of that is beyond ridiculous.
It's a soft scifi fantasy machine. Maybe you're just allergic to even thinking you might be watching fantasy instead of scifi and that just irks you doesn't it.
But honestly, Outlander is harder scifi than this. And it's not especially technological. (It still is marked as scifi though or was at least)
There is, and...
... It does.
But that's OK. You don't have to understand it.
Oh, just any technobabble ever is enough to make something hard scifi and reasonable to you? I don't think you've ever used reason, then. Which is sort of the issue here.
You can't reason why the contradictions aren't contradictions, you just stomp your foot "no no no I'm right and I don't have to reason in it any way"
I'm guessing you consider Rick & Morty intellectual hard scifi as well, with those criteria.