• grue@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    I think it’s unfortunate how it kinda undermines Star Trek’s message of fully-automated luxury gay space communism, but I can’t help but point out that Quark’s for-profit holosuites worked flawlessly throughout the entire run of Deep Space Nine.

    Or maybe Rom was just that much more competent than a Starfleet engineer.

    • Infynis@midwest.social
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      2 days ago

      As with all things, Starfleet of course has the have the unstable, bleeding edge version on their spaceships. I’m sure Vulcan holodecks are much safer lol

      I do think we’re supposed to recognize that Rom is actually very skilled though. We see it through Nog’s opinion of him, and how well he does after he joins the Bajoran maintenance crew, despite his first initial awkward interactions. And restrictions often improve creativity in real life, so it makes sense to me that he’d have some unique skills, compared to engineers from Earth, who are used to being able to requisition anything they need eventually. You even see some of it aboard Starfleet ships, like when Geordie meets Leah Brahms, and has to defend all the changes he’s made to the warp engines on the fly, or in the Upper Decks episode of Lower Decks, when Billups is teaching the ensign about maintenance.

      It’s part of the whole idea of the show, that these other people, even ones we might not initially get along with, have valuable perspectives. “Infinite diversity, in infinite combinations.”

      • grue@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        I do think we’re supposed to recognize that Rom is actually very skilled though. We see it through Nog’s opinion of him, and how well he does after he joins the Bajoran maintenance crew, despite his first initial awkward interactions.

        He also invented those self-replicating cloaked mines that stopped the Dominion from coming through the wormhole and saved the Alpha Quadrant.

        But still, the fact that the holosuites didn’t deteriorate after Rom quit working for Quark suggests the first possibility rather than the second.

    • lath@piefed.social
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      2 days ago

      I believe the Enterprise holodeck was connected to its supercomputer which could hold an entire civilization without issue, hence the whole thing was prone to develop intelligence randomly.

      • grue@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        They couldn’t have been sick of the trope because they brought it back for Voyager.

        That’s why I wrote “Starfleet engineer” instead of “Geordi” specifically, BTW: the holodecks (and Sickbay holoemitters) B’Elanna was responsible for were less than 100% reliable, too.

        • someguy3@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          Eh they tend to skip shows. Q was in TNG, not really on DS9, in VOY. MIrror universe was on TOS, not on TNG, was on DS9, not on VOY, on ENT. Klingons are fun though, they just had to find a way to get them on VOY.