Holoship – It Just Bugs Me

[Stabbim the Skutter]

Wait, so, there’s a ship full of holograms just drifting aimlessly in the middle of deep space, 3,000,005 years into the future? And the Red Dwarf crew aren’t excited about having discovered that the human race is still alive and well? This has been playing on my mind for a while now.

[Jason aka Smeg4Brains]

Yea, that has always bugged me too.
Something else that bugs me about that episode is something Kryten says which is something like:
“The project was in it’s initial phases as I left the galaxy”
“Holoships are legendarily arrogant”
How does he know that they are arrogant if it was only in it’s initial phases when he left the galaxy?………..still a good episode though.

[Seb Patrick]

To that I would simply say that holograms =/= “the human race”. The filthy deadies.

[Pheonix11]

One thing I never quite got, the enlightenment has no mass, this is canon fact.

Rimmer is mostly powered by Holly/Red Dwarf, we learn about the light bee, he becomes more self sustaining. OK Fine.

What Powers Enlightenment?
If it’s not some kind of super computer, which is what I assume Stocky is, then what?

One light bee may be small and have a negligible mass but what about 1000 odd?

Other than that, good ep.

[Tanya Jones]

>And the Red Dwarf crew aren?t excited about having discovered that the human race is still alive and well?

The Red Dwarf crew at the time of Holoship;
Dave Lister, the last human being alive, and too thick to stand a chance of relating to any of the holograms.
Arnold Rimmer, hologram with a MASSIVE chip on his shoulder. He both admires and despises the Holoship crew.
Cat, a self-obsessed felix sapiens.
Kryten, a mechanoid who exists to serve humans, not holograms who essentially need no such maintenance.
Holly, a computer who presumably has no strong opinions.

The Holoship isn’t really evidence that the human race is alive and well, is it? It’s just a bunch of electronic dead guys who have created their own society, which differs widely from human society, so it’s no surprise that only Arnold is in any way excited by them, as he felt shunned by humans when he was alive.

Also, if Kryten’s been party to the specifications of the project, he could well draw his own conclusions about the people chosen, or could have encountered one of the prototypes. Or it could simply be a line written to introduce us to them…

[Jonathan Capps]

> One light bee may be small and have a negligible mass but what about 1000 odd?

Maybe the Time Lords rent out space in the Eye of Harmony?

[Andrew]

> What Powers Enlightenment?

If zero-mass also means no light bees – otherwise I’ve no problem with the batteries of the 23rd century beinf shuper long-life and able to take new charge from all manner of sources – then the ship is only a projection anyway. Which means there’s a projector on some planet somewhere that nobody ever unplugged…

[ChrisM]

>How does he know that they are arrogant if it was only in it?s initial phases when he left the galaxy?

Ah, but that doesn’t mean he’s never met them. He could have met holograms chosen for the project before they embarked. He could even have encountered a ship in the early days. How initial is initial?

What I wondered was how the ship gets around since it is entirely holographic. I.e. there is usually a physical projector of some kind, i.e. a light bee, or light cage etc. Is there a self charging large light bee, or a cluster of light bees at the centre of the ship, capable of interstellar travel and whizzing it around?
(Edit- Ok, that bit got covered by Andrew as I wrote this.)

This didn’t really bug me mind. It doesn’t matter, it’s a comedy after all, but I am curious about such things.

Much as I’m curious as to why Rimmer needed to take an escape pod back to Red Dwarf when they utilized his ‘remote projection unit’ (which I assume is another term for light bee.)to bring back the scientist in Quarantine. Assuming ships have their own holographic projectors if the light be isn’t around (which must be the case else how would he be able to travel aboard the escape pod without his projection unit) why wouldn’t they just switch him off at Starbug and back on again abroad Red Dwarf? Come to think of it, why would he need to return at all as the light bee could project the scientist lady and the ships projector would project Rimmer? (Ok that latter could be answered concerning limitation of ships power….)

Hee hee.

[Andrew]

Alternatively: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7575618.stm

[ChrisM]

>Alternatively: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7575618.stm

That’s a brilliant idea. (Not sure of effects on the human body mind you, all those magnetic waves around, but there was a similar fear from mobile phones wasn’t there?)

Of course it beggars the question… why did Cat have to unplug the console to use his hair drier? (I’m joking of course. That was a great gag.)

[John Hoare]

“This is a potentially world changing event,” said analyst Rob Enderle of Enderle Group.

Oh Christ, not him.

Not that that affects how interesting the story is. I just seize up every time I read his name.

[Somebody]

There’s also the thought that, even if it’s 90% efficient at optimal range:

1) Humans won’t use it at optimal range, but wherever they can get just enough of a signal to run the device – which won’t be anything like optimal, and…
2) How much would using these as standard, without increase in used power, add to the electricity consumption of the planet, and thus to the burning of fossil fuels, building of huge dams, and all those negative things…

[Andrew]

I wasn’t saying we should start using it this week or anything…

[Dave]

>Maybe the Time Lords rent out space in the Eye of Harmony?

“It’s a rent in the space-time continuum”

[ChrisM]

Oh-ho dear…

Someone pass me the bazookoid please.

(I know I’m mixing genre’s but it’s so more satisfying than a sonic screwdriver.)

Nah. Actually I like bad jokes.

[Daff]

I suppose you could take it that the Enlightenment project was in it’s initial stages and Holoships had been around for ages. Actually they could probably have initially started off as scout parties for exploring uninhabitable planets and finding data to enable successful terraforming. The ability that they could travel through tiny wormholes to anywhere in the galaxy could have been added as an afterthought.

Question is, had the holoship been around exploring for 3 million years or had it found a timehole?

[hummingbird]

It’s those cute little continuity errors that keep a guy interested.

[Author]

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