I have a few questions about the holodeck, which I'm hoping you, faithful readers, will mull over for me either alone or in some sort of round-table forum and come up with some answers to these questions. Here it goes...
We aren't far from J.J. Abrahams' new Star Trek prequel, a movie that will, if it abides by the established continuity of the 'Trek' universe,
a. Suck.
b. Not feature any jaunty, exciting, calamitous 'random era in American history likely decided by the current trend of available attire in the costume trailer' romps in the good ol' holodeck, made so popular in The Next Generation; or the superior holoshed, referenced randomly in an episode of Futurama.
c. All of the above.
The existence of such a device provided an easy - some would say 'cheap' but certainly not me - device for writers to knock out one or two episode scripts between story arcs around the mid-season breaks. What's that, the Borg aren't quite ready to invade yet to kick off the 'Best of Both Worlds' storyline in which Picard is abducted and made via assimilation into the Borg collective into a delegate at the future Republican National Convention? (Editor's note: topical humor - I am raising the bar, Nelson.) Well then, we, the NextGen writers have just the thing: let's throw the entire bridge crew of the Enterprise into Old West gear and make them drive cattle across the New Mexico Territory with Jack Palance! It'll be great... until Jack makes his way out of the 'deck and commandeers the ship from the B-team currently staffing it because everybody else is trapped trying to ford the Colorado River. Jack Palance may know him some cattle driving, and that means he can probably figure out how to drive himself a spaceship, all the way back to the glitzy Casino Planet.
Yes, I know the Casino Planet is from the original Battlestar Galactica, which was basically one of 300,000 'jump the shark' and 'missed the point entirely' moments in that series.
This leads us into my first question: Isn't there likely some sort of regulation governing the watch-off cycles for ranking officers that would keep them from all placing themselves in a room that occasionally locks them all in, far away from their rather important duties?
It'd seem only logical that you wouldn't want all of the people who most know what to do during times of crisis to be simultaneously sailing the open ocean during a cataclysmic storm a la the Edmund Fitzgerald. But what do I know?
How tall must one be to ride?
Can kids use the machine? And, nobody ever told me how long a holodeck adventure can be. There has to be a time limit. Otherwise, there's nothing keeping a person from moving into Nixon's Oval Office and steering the country into World War III over the course of a four-year term. I figure there's probably a timer that corresponds directly to the amount of space-quarters or credits one has deposited in the slot out front. Does the machine take bills? Does it make change? Is there a player's club or some sort that offers rewards for time spent in the holodeck with yet more time in the holodeck?
How violent can a user be?
I'm sure, at some point, at least half of the men and women on the Enterprise would have an overwhelming desire to behead an annoying supervisor with a lightsaber, or a magic flaming chainsaw. Is this kosher? Isn't it just a harmless, cathartic outlet for frustration? Yet, would there be some sort of warning system to alert Will Riker that his current fake-beheading, disemboweling or de-genitalizing tally had reached over ten thousand instances? Or would there be a rule keeping one from making copies of real people to murder? On that note, is it really any healthier for Jordi LaForge to run around plucking the eyes out of, skinning alive, raping and massacring nameless Romulan peasants, as opposed to an entire village of Counselor Troys?
Speaking of raping, how about sex?
There are a whole bunch of sex questions I could delve into here... so I will. Can one hump a hologram in the holodeck? And, if that's the case, who cleans up the mess? Is there a bucket and a mop in the corner of the room for that purpose? I like to think you can bang with or be banged by a holodick, and that there's some Ferengi whose thankless job is to tidy up after. But I don't know. This area wasn't really dealt with in the series, leaving people like me to clog up the internets with hypotheticals in that regard.
Assuming one can have a sex program, why would anyone ever procreate... or keep a significant other at all? If it's just like real life, it seems way easier and safer to have the literal boyfriend or girlfriend in the box - like having a significant other in prison, except you don't have to smuggle in heroin to him or her - rather then go through the mess of dating on the outside. There's nothing sexy about those polyester jumpsuits, and they don't do anything good for body odor, especially in the crotchal region.
What isn't okay to do, sex wise? Is there some sort of morality protocol keeping the onboard sex predator from having a pretend pederastic orgy with a team of young slave boys or girls? Could one be a digital serial rapist, keeping various computerized versions of Jodi Foster down in a hole in the ground, ordering her repeatedly to put the lotion in the basket lest she get the holohose again?
What about beastiality? Would one have to hide the desire to be plowed by a horse in a Catherine the Great-themed historical adventure? Or would one proudly walk into the holodeck, and beam out before the doors close behind, "Computer, Daddy wants to bone a pony! Chop chop!" Basically, how small must the pretense be in order to violate generally accepted rules of established sexual norms, and what are the fail-safes to ensure compliance with this directive?
Who heads the committee? Please say it isn't Guinan. The very idea of talking about anything sex-related in the same room as Whoopi Goldberg makes me want to boil myself.
Is there a bathroom?
Or does poor Mr. Ferengi's job really suck about as much as I think it does?
In closing, I'd like to say that we can all see how many unanswered questions there are regarding this fascinating piece of technology. Feel free to provide answers and email them to me, or come up with some more. If nothing else, I'll be able to sleep a little better knowing that I can or cannot, actually, go fuck myself. |
