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Not sure if this is quite a nit, but maybe a couple people can help out a bit... I'd love the input!

First, in the episode "Datalore", it is established that Data can't use contractions. However, when Data beams his twin out into space, the captain asks if he's alright, to which he responds "Yes, sir, I'm fine." Is this just because he's still got Lore's facial twitch? I really don't think so...

Also, on a different episode... Or rather, episodes. Specifically, "Encounter at Farpoint" and "The Big Goodbye". (I noticed there was a little posting on Starfleet's continued use of the holodecks, so I thought I'd add in my two cents.)

In "Encounter at Farpoint", Wesley falls in the water and comes out of the Holodeck soaking wet. Now, since most things that leave the Holodeck disappear (see "The Big Goodbye" or any of the episodes featuring Moriarty from Data's Sherlock Holmes program) it would be assumed that Wesley should be perfectly dry. Since he is not, we must assume that certain elements of a holodeck are not illusions, but are instead real in some sense....a replicator comes to mind? Why couldn't specific items in the holodeck be replicated? This makes more sense if you take into account the amount of food items that people in the Trek universe consume in the holodeck. If those nutrients were processed by the body and integrated into their physiology, then removal from the holodeck would cause the nutrients and possibly key elements of a person's body to vanish, causing all sorts of medical problems. (To carry this out, a person living in a holodeck could eventually be nothing more than a projection, and therefore either be immortal due to the unlimited potential of a holodeck, or die horribly at some point.) It would seem, therefore, that Starfleet would include a replicator function to help NOT kill a person with continued use of the Holodeck. This would also explain Wesley's clothes not drying out after his tumble in the lake...and it was such a poor tumble in the first place...

Now, onto the next episode... In "The Big Goodbye", the holodeck malfunctions for the first time and the crew is trapped inside. The episode analysis states that the holodeck seems to have no failsafe. Here's a theory: What if sealing the crew inside and turning the safety protocols off IS the failsafe? Using my previous argument about the use of replicators in the holodeck might imply that the fewer safety protocols a person selects for a program, the more and more objects might be replicated instead of being holographic projections. Sure, you can't replicate a person, per se. That much is left to holographics. But bullets, chairs, tables, glass, nails, rocks...all might be replicated and then recycled when the program is able to be terminated. (Except for the parts with have been consumed...) By sealing someone inside during a system malfunction, the computer makes sure that the person has the ability to survive by giving them real things to live off of until the problem can be fixed. Also, nothing harmful can get into the ship by sealing the doors off. In this sense, the holodeck could have a very effective...if not annoying, failsafe.

twitch2oh wrote:Not sure if this is quite a nit, but maybe a couple people can help out a bit... I'd love the input!

First, in the episode "Datalore", it is established that Data can't use contractions. However, when Data beams his twin out into space, the captain asks if he's alright, to which he responds "Yes, sir, I'm fine." Is this just because he's still got Lore's facial twitch? I really don't think so...

There's so many times that this is the case it could be a list. Now all we need is for someone to watch all the episodes

Also, on a different episode... Or rather, episodes. Specifically, "Encounter at Farpoint" and "The Big Goodbye". (I noticed there was a little posting on Starfleet's continued use of the holodecks, so I thought I'd add in my two cents.)

In "Encounter at Farpoint", Wesley falls in the water and comes out of the Holodeck soaking wet. Now, since most things that leave the Holodeck disappear (see "The Big Goodbye" or any of the episodes featuring Moriarty from Data's Sherlock Holmes program) it would be assumed that Wesley should be perfectly dry. Since he is not, we must assume that certain elements of a holodeck are not illusions, but are instead real in some sense....a replicator comes to mind? Why couldn't specific items in the holodeck be replicated? This makes more sense if you take into account the amount of food items that people in the Trek universe consume in the holodeck. If those nutrients were processed by the body and integrated into their physiology, then removal from the holodeck would cause the nutrients and possibly key elements of a person's body to vanish, causing all sorts of medical problems. (To carry this out, a person living in a holodeck could eventually be nothing more than a projection, and therefore either be immortal due to the unlimited potential of a holodeck, or die horribly at some point.) It would seem, therefore, that Starfleet would include a replicator function to help NOT kill a person with continued use of the Holodeck. This would also explain Wesley's clothes not drying out after his tumble in the lake...and it was such a poor tumble in the first place...

Now, onto the next episode... In "The Big Goodbye", the holodeck malfunctions for the first time and the crew is trapped inside. The episode analysis states that the holodeck seems to have no failsafe. Here's a theory: What if sealing the crew inside and turning the safety protocols off IS the failsafe? Using my previous argument about the use of replicators in the holodeck might imply that the fewer safety protocols a person selects for a program, the more and more objects might be replicated instead of being holographic projections. Sure, you can't replicate a person, per se. That much is left to holographics. But bullets, chairs, tables, glass, nails, rocks...all might be replicated and then recycled when the program is able to be terminated. (Except for the parts with have been consumed...) By sealing someone inside during a system malfunction, the computer makes sure that the person has the ability to survive by giving them real things to live off of until the problem can be fixed. Also, nothing harmful can get into the ship by sealing the doors off. In this sense, the holodeck could have a very effective...if not annoying, failsafe.

The encyclopedia directly states that there is a mixture of holo projection and replication involved in the holodeck.

Right, I think a lot of us here have taken the fact of both replication and holographic projection as a given for the holodecks. We've ttalked about it at length, and it's the simplest explanation for a great many things.

twitch2oh wrote:What if sealing the crew inside and turning the safety protocols off IS the failsafe?

Doesn't make sense. Perhaps it is a third- or fourth-tier backup failsafe; but if it were the primary one, the staff of the E-D wouldn't regard such an occurence as a failure of the failsafe.

Thanks, IanKennedy for pointing out the encyclopedia... Methinks I need to get acquainted with it. However, Mikey, I still think that sealing the holodeck off could be a logical primary failsafe. As I've already stated, it would keep whatever might be lethal inside the holodeck and doesn't allow it access to the rest of the ship. By simply shutting down the holodeck, you could risk recycling a person who is in there... don't want that. But, once again... just a thought. (One that apparently has been thought of before lol.) I'll try to stay ahead of the curve in my next post!

P.S. I might just take you up on that challenge, IanKennedy. I'm working my way through the series and now I have a purpose: to point out the slip-ups of Data.

P.P.S. In "All Good Things", we see Data as a professor...yet in "ST: N" he dies destroying the Scimitar. Are we to assume that the B-4 has become a replacement body for Data? Or is this another 'alternate timeline'? And if so, then how?

Not alternate as much as fictional. The divergent timeline could very well have been prevented by the actions performed in AGT; and in any event, it was seemingly a production of Q's.

I've never understood the whole "recycling" people in the holodeck if it's shut down improperly.

Mark wrote:I've never understood the whole "recycling" people in the holodeck if it's shut down improperly.

Well, if a replicator can recycle food and other items, including items which it doesn't create, couldn't it recycle people?

If it could, then why not mount "recyclers" in the halls and use them for anti intruder measures? It seems more than a little over the top to me.

The word Generator to me suggested that the holodeck was sustaining the simulations in real time. Its an active system, pull the switch it disappears. I didn't think it created the objects in the holodeck and then destroy them later, I thought the simulation literally switched off.

Me too. If it DID replicate anything, it simply recycled what it created.

Mark wrote:Me too. If it DID replicate anything, it simply recycled what it created.

Ok, but that would only work if what was made in the holodeck stayed in the holodeck. Also, on the subject of malfunctions, our computers, when an error is made in something like Internet Explorer, can very often shut down every other program we were using instead of just the window that caused the issue. Why couldn't the same be said of the holodeck?

twitch2oh wrote:

Mark wrote:Me too. If it DID replicate anything, it simply recycled what it created.

Ok, but that would only work if what was made in the holodeck stayed in the holodeck. Also, on the subject of malfunctions, our computers, when an error is made in something like Internet Explorer, can very often shut down every other program we were using instead of just the window that caused the issue. Why couldn't the same be said of the holodeck?

Um... We have seen that if it is made in the replicator it stays there.

Because their holodecks are better written programs than Internet Explorer.

Nickswitz wrote: Because their holodecks are better written programs than Internet Explorer.

Really? Have you seen the same "Holodeck Malfunctions Again" episodes I have?

Sonic Glitch wrote:

Nickswitz wrote: Because their holodecks are better written programs than Internet Explorer.

Really? Have you seen the same "Holodeck Malfunctions Again" episodes I have?

Yeah, but still, a holodeck malfunction doesn't completely stop all ship function... Therefore being better than ie in programming.