Dug out this Season 1 episode today and discovered an "oops". Early in the episode we see Worf and Picard walking by a holodeck when Wesley and one of his friends are exiting. They accidently nail Picard with a snowball. The only problem? As demonstrated in "Elementary Dear Data" and "Ship In A Bottle", matter cannot leave the holodeck. Therefore, the snowball should have vanished upon hitting the threshold of the door into the holodeck and never should have hit the captain out in the corridor.
Angel One "oops"
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There were many things oops with that episode. Also, I think I asked a question like this for an instance in We'll Always have Parents, and I think for non-living matter, it just works like a replicator or transporter. I don't know for sure though.
Actually, "Elementary, Dear Data" established that simple matter could leave the holodeck...such as Moriarty's drawing of the Enterprise. The holodeck could not create a fully-functioning organic being who could exist independently of the holodeck environment...but it is well established by the technical folks behind Trek (and stated clearly in "Farpoint", as I recall) that the holodeck makes some use of replicated matter. Snow leaving the holodeck is consistent with water ("Farpoint") and lipstick ("The Big Goodbye") being able to leave.
Parents
Paris, maybe, and not Tom either.
Exactly. Things like water are replicated (so that you actually get wet when going swimming on the holodeck), Which is why, when Data fell in the water in Geordi's story in "Descent", the water stayed in his system for as long as it did. It didn't disappear like complex non-replicated matter that truly is a hologram.
NewToy Sho-Rin said:
Parents
Paris, maybe, and not Tom either.
Hey, I was close. I actually think that might have been a better title.
Anywho, yeah it's a typo. At least I was kinda right even though no one is going to admit it. 
Holodeck rules should be in the FAQ to clear up such misconceptions.
In the holodeck, material objects that people can hold are real. They are replicated matter, just like a replicated meal, Picard's favorite saddle, or something you request from the replimat. Once made, they exist indepenantly of any support from the holodec. The snow, and the snowball were perfectly real and could be removed from the holodeck.
At the end of the session when you say "end program," the holodeck would dematerialze any matter still on the deck and restore it in its raw matter reserves. Any matter that has LEFT the holodeck is now beyond the reach or control of the deck's systems and remains intact.
This doesn't apply to characters like the bad guys in The Big Goodbye because holopeople are not solid matter, they are illusions created by holographic projection and controlled forcefields, all projected from elements in the room's walls and requiring continual control by the computer. In fact, they should never have been able to step out into the corridor in that episode, they should have been cut off like a flashlight beam at the door.
In the holodeck, material objects that people can hold are real. They are replicated matter, just like a replicated meal, Picard's favorite saddle, or something you request from the replimat. Once made, they exist indepenantly of any support from the holodec. The snow, and the snowball were perfectly real and could be removed from the holodeck.
At the end of the session when you say "end program," the holodeck would dematerialze any matter still on the deck and restore it in its raw matter reserves. Any matter that has LEFT the holodeck is now beyond the reach or control of the deck's systems and remains intact.
This doesn't apply to characters like the bad guys in The Big Goodbye because holopeople are not solid matter, they are illusions created by holographic projection and controlled forcefields, all projected from elements in the room's walls and requiring continual control by the computer. In fact, they should never have been able to step out into the corridor in that episode, they should have been cut off like a flashlight beam at the door.
... and as demonstrated in ``The Big Good-bye'', matter can walk off the holodeck, but it will evaporate in rather longer a time than it takes for a snowball to hit Picard's chest.
Anyway, I thought the thread was going to be about the bigger oops, which is that somehow they started filming this script.
To build on The Old Mixer's point, I'd like to point out that Cyrus Redblock can actually step out of the Holodeck, and even retains coherence for a few seconds. It's only after that point that he begins to distintegrate.
This is quite different to the "Ship in a Bottle" scenario, where if Data threw a book out of the holodeck, it immediately vanished. The latter idea - that holographic material cannot leave the holodeck at all - was followed consistently on Voyager.
This is quite different to the "Ship in a Bottle" scenario, where if Data threw a book out of the holodeck, it immediately vanished. The latter idea - that holographic material cannot leave the holodeck at all - was followed consistently on Voyager.
There is a distinct difference between the two cases, though. In "Goodbye", the holodeck is malfunctioning, while in "Bottle", it is working just as expected.
Surely it would be more realistic to think that the hologenerators that create Redblock have a "fuzzy" reach outside the doorways rather than a sharp cutoff point. On a functioning holodeck, software would ensure that things are dematerialized and projections are discontinued at the doorway - but in "Goodbye", Redblock desperately wants to live, and the malfunctioning holodeck does its best to accommodate this, ignoring the software limits.
Timo Saloniemi
Surely it would be more realistic to think that the hologenerators that create Redblock have a "fuzzy" reach outside the doorways rather than a sharp cutoff point. On a functioning holodeck, software would ensure that things are dematerialized and projections are discontinued at the doorway - but in "Goodbye", Redblock desperately wants to live, and the malfunctioning holodeck does its best to accommodate this, ignoring the software limits.
Timo Saloniemi
How so? There's this whole "door" thing to let holo-radiation through, after all...
It would make zero sense for any sort of a "field" to cut off abruptly. It's hellishly difficult in the real world to create a steep diedown gradient, and the "on/off" type of termination is right out. Trek might achieve it through deliberate use of technology to this end - but without such deliberation, the limits of the holosimulation would be fuzzy by default.
Or should we think that 24th century technology allows lighted rooms to open to a dark corridor, with the light somehow terminating at the threshold?
Timo Saloniemi
It would make zero sense for any sort of a "field" to cut off abruptly. It's hellishly difficult in the real world to create a steep diedown gradient, and the "on/off" type of termination is right out. Trek might achieve it through deliberate use of technology to this end - but without such deliberation, the limits of the holosimulation would be fuzzy by default.
Or should we think that 24th century technology allows lighted rooms to open to a dark corridor, with the light somehow terminating at the threshold?
Timo Saloniemi
One problem with all of you guys' explanations. When Picard is trying to show Moriarty that matter cannot leave the holodeck, he tosses a book, a "material object that people can hold", through the threshold and it vanishes. Also, they tried to beam the chair off the holodeck and took great pains to suggest that matter simply cannot maintain its cohesion outside the grid.
I still claim the exact opposite: items are forbidden from leaving the holodeck in the same sense that water is forbidden from leaving the pool. The point of the pool is to keep the water in. The natural tendency of the water would be to splash out when the pool is in use, but the builders take precautions against this. Similarly, the builders of the holodeck take precautions against the matter leaving the playground.
But those precautions are simple software rules, because whenever the software goes asleep (malfuctions, is commandeered, doesn't care), matter does leave the holodeck, with nary a comment from our heroes. That wouldn't be possible if the no-leave rule stemmed from hardware shortcomings.
So there's a splashguard at the door, usually. But not always. When it works, we get the vanishing book of "Elementary, Dear Data". When it doesn't work (whether by accident or by design), we get the gradual dissipation of complex partially replicated, partially forcefieldish structures as in "The Big Goodbye", or permanence in case of simple replicated substances as in "Encounter at Farpoint", "Angel One" or the piece of paper in "Elementary, Dear Data".
That spectrum of evidence can't be explained if the limitation is all hardware. And IMHO it can't be dismissed, either - not when there's so much of it, and sometimes integral to the plot.
Timo Saloniemi
But those precautions are simple software rules, because whenever the software goes asleep (malfuctions, is commandeered, doesn't care), matter does leave the holodeck, with nary a comment from our heroes. That wouldn't be possible if the no-leave rule stemmed from hardware shortcomings.
So there's a splashguard at the door, usually. But not always. When it works, we get the vanishing book of "Elementary, Dear Data". When it doesn't work (whether by accident or by design), we get the gradual dissipation of complex partially replicated, partially forcefieldish structures as in "The Big Goodbye", or permanence in case of simple replicated substances as in "Encounter at Farpoint", "Angel One" or the piece of paper in "Elementary, Dear Data".
That spectrum of evidence can't be explained if the limitation is all hardware. And IMHO it can't be dismissed, either - not when there's so much of it, and sometimes integral to the plot.
Timo Saloniemi
You are correct. The snowball hitting Picard cannot be rationalized. People should just accept that this was an early episode of TNG and the rules of the Holodeck haven't been fully established yet. I see no point in coming up with complicated fanboy explanations for every Trek inconsistency. I would just ignore it. In fact, I would ignore just about everything from the first season of TNG.
Why not from the second, then? Or third, fourth, fifth? Why not ignore all of Voyager? All the even-numbered movies? All the episodes with Data in them?
A holodeck that stops at the doorframe is just magic. That's fine to a degree, but if there's going to be any sort of an "explanation" to the holodeck at all, save for "It's Magic!", then the ability of replicated matter to leave the holodeck is a trivially simple and plausible part of such an explanation. It's not an additional complication: it's one of the fundaments of the explanation.
That is, if any explanation is needed. For the most part, the audience probably doesn't need one. But episodes like "Elementary, Dear Data"/"Ship in a Bottle" hinge on the idea that the holodeck does function according to a set of rules. Further, they both hinge on the idea that the rules go deeper than what has been told to the audience so far. And that's where "explanations" come to play...
Timo Saloniemi
A holodeck that stops at the doorframe is just magic. That's fine to a degree, but if there's going to be any sort of an "explanation" to the holodeck at all, save for "It's Magic!", then the ability of replicated matter to leave the holodeck is a trivially simple and plausible part of such an explanation. It's not an additional complication: it's one of the fundaments of the explanation.
That is, if any explanation is needed. For the most part, the audience probably doesn't need one. But episodes like "Elementary, Dear Data"/"Ship in a Bottle" hinge on the idea that the holodeck does function according to a set of rules. Further, they both hinge on the idea that the rules go deeper than what has been told to the audience so far. And that's where "explanations" come to play...
Timo Saloniemi
How about explanations from Rick Sternbach and Mike Okuda in the Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual? Not to mention the brief bit of expository dialogue given the first time that we saw the holodeck, in "Encounter at Farpoint". The holodeck sometimes makes use of real, replicated matter. But the replicators can't create a lifeform. What's so complicated?
And the number of times that we do see simple matter leave the holodeck outweigh the one time we see simple matter unable to leave the holodeck.
What the one time matter can't leave the holodeck is in the context of PROVING that matter can't leave the holodeck....um...yeah...we need to let that outweigh pretty much everything else.
