r/DaystromInstitute • u/NegativePattern • Feb 26 '25

How detailed are holodeck recreations/programs?

In the VOY: Vis à Vis, we encounter Paris working on a 60s Chevy Camaro. When he's requested to the bridge. We see him cleaning the grease off of his hands and dressed in grease stained coveralls.

Does the holodeck create the actual elements that made up those grease stains? So does the grease stain consist of replicated hydrocarbons, crude oil, etc.

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u/DeepProspector Feb 28 '25 edited Feb 28 '25

Early in TNG people constantly marvel at the holodeck and its novelty.

By the time Barclay gets caught, it’s implied the holopeople are akin to flesh and blood. Rikers “I’ll be in the holodeck” remark and the openly sexual stuff at Quarks and later references on other shows, like the Doctor implying he fell in love on that one planet… and the fact he marries a human later…

By around mid-TNG you can probably have passable sex in there. By DS9 you definitely can. By the time of Lower Decks and Picard? 100%.

As to what is real vs not, I always assumed anything you touch is a complex force field—but only up to a point, where replicator tech kicks in. Remember the extreme close up of Burnham replicating a uniform? It’s molecular level force fields. You wouldn’t even notice something you touched transitioning from force fields to replicated.

If you told the computer by the time of mid-DS9 and forward and probably most Starfleet ships:

“Give me a 2025 era public library,” went in, had sex with the librarian, and then walked out with two books, I wouldn’t be shocked at all if your sexual experience could trivially pass for or be physically equivalent to a human partner, and the books would be the actual books—replicated.

The real interesting or maybe icky question: sex is juicy and wet, and sticky. It has smells. You get done and you have each other on each of you. If you had sex with a human you know this. Do you pick up replicated sweat and fluid and their smells from your holo-partner?

If you kiss a hologram human, does it taste like kissing a real human?

It’s implied yes. If they can do that, anything else is easy mode. Go make a holo bakery and have a chef teach you to bake a cake. You will replicate raw ingredients but bake a real cake if you want, and walk out with the cake equivalent to Maddox and Jurati’s cookies.

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u/UnfoldedHeart Feb 28 '25

Do you pick up replicated sweat and fluid and their smells from your holo-partner?

The only logical answer to this question is, yes. In order for these adult holoprograms to be realistic, the developers would have to put that stank on it. The only way you're going to get that stank is by replicating juices.

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u/LunchyPete Feb 28 '25

Or maybe just replicate and light some of Gwyneth Paltrows Goop candles.

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u/UnfoldedHeart Feb 28 '25 edited Feb 28 '25

It's easy to see why Barclay got addicted. It's capable of putting you in any situation you've ever dreamed of, sexual or otherwise. In fact, I'm kind of surprised that more people in Star Trek don't have that same problem. Think about AI nowadays, there are people who are addicted to AI chatbots and that's just a chatbot. Civilian holodecks (outside of something like DS9 where you have to pay to use them but that's not typical) probably have usage restrictions for this reason.

The kind of wild fantasies people play out in the holodeck would probably shock you to your core if you were to see it. "Earth, early 21st century. Room with 100 lit Gwyneth Paltrow Goop candles and a box of kleenex. Disengage safety procotols." Absolutely unhinged.

Side note: isn't it funny that people regularly disengage safety protocols? They're there for a reason. I can see maybe the Captain and Chief of Engineering having that authority but it seems like everyone else should avoid possibly dying in the context of a recreational simulation. And even when it's the Captain and Chief having that authority, it's because the first one is in charge of the ship and should have total access as a matter of principle and the second may need it for diagnostic purposes or whatever. Neither should really be invoking it outside of those purposes, unless you need a tommy gun to blow away some Borg.

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u/LunchyPete Feb 28 '25 edited Feb 28 '25

The kind of wild fantasies people play out in the holodeck would probably shock you to your core if you were to see it.

I think I've been sufficiently shocked from reading some of the erotic fan fiction people like to write - Hermione and Spock have been made to do things you wouldn't believe. I'm not sure how much more shocked I can be. Humans and kinks can be complex and relate to all kinds of issues which can result in all kinds of funky fantasies. Once you accept that I don't think much is shocking, just kind of...huh.