Wait… you’ve met people who think that?
I’ve met tons of people who relate to Reginald but none of them would never (or at least would never openly admit) that they’d do something this creepy.
Although I’d totally use the holodeck to get a hug from Frakes. He looks like he has warm dad hugs.
Closest thing I can say for me is a Mariner-style fantasy where I am able to be quite violent to someone I dislike.
Unpopular opinion(?): Barclay’s fantasies weren’t the creepy thing about this episode. Nothing wrong with having weird fantasies, as long as you keep them to yourself, and Barclay never meant for anyone else to see his holodeck programs.
The unsettling thing about this episode, to me, is the fact that the holodeck apparently doesn’t have any usage restrictions on the likenesses of real people. They really ought to have an opt-in system for allowing others to simulate you on the holodeck.
TL;DR: He just like me fr!!! /j
I’m just trying to compare this to real-world equivalents and honestly your point keeps getting more and more true to me. If you were to police someone from having fantasies about someone then that is just thought crime. The Holodeck is just an extension of your imagination, or at least it can be, so provided it’s private then there’s no reason to have anything against it.
So real-world. You start writing a story with the help of ChatGPT. It has a bunch of numerous open-ended ways of going through it so there is a level of interaction. The story involves real world people but they are based loosely on their real world selves, mostly focusing on perceived personality traits. Not famous people either but people you work with and are close to. So far so good. Using CG you make visual representation of these people. A little ‘odd’ but not illegal. I don’t see it as immoral or unethical either considering it’s a private fantasy. Someone then walks in and sees it and has an emotional reaction. But yet again there’s nothing wrong about that. Just because they discovered it doesn’t mean that it was wrong to do so. It sucks that the person feels that way but it wasn’t about them. It was about the person who was fantasizing.
So I also popped this episode on while typing this and was skipping throughout. I forgot about one bit which relates to your ‘real unsettling thing’. Riker says that creating versions of crew on the holodeck was against protocol. LaForge points out that there isn’t any protocol against it and given his past experience he would definitely know whether that was true or not. Riker then says that there should be protocol against it. We’ve also seen Mariner do it on the Cerritos. The Holo-Whateverthefuck on La Sirena. I’m sure there are other examples too that just aren’t coming to mind at the moment. So Starfleet really doesn’t give a shit whether you remake someone on holodeck or not. Private sector really doesn’t give a shit either given Rios/Sevens ship.
I like your idea of an opt-in system. “Please select all genres and roles you are willing to have your holo participate in.” Then it’s just like a 150 point list of all kinds of random shit from “Tourist” to “Murder Victim” to “Red Shirt”.
We’ve also seen Mariner do it on the Cerritos.
That was Boimler. Mariner just appropriated his program for her own purposes. She even initially objects to the fact that he based the characters off the logs of the crew.
Ah yeah you’re right. It’s been a hot minute since I’ve seen the episode. However, if I remember correctly, the reason he was making the holodeck program was to simulate crew for interviews. At least he was trying to make them as realistic as possible for a genuinely noble reason. He just happened to do something mildly horrific to get it done.
I swear, my logs on any Starfleet ship would be something like “Nice day today. I had soup.” “Today I drew an art.” “If a woodchuck could chuck wood…”
he was trying to make them as realistic as possible for a genuinely noble reason.
He wanted a leg up to advance his career…
Yes. And?
And that’s hardly noble.
To you. I disagree.
They sort of addressed this in Deep Space 9 when Quark tries to use Kira for a high paying customer. So there’s a little story line on preventing using unwilling characters in this way.
Totally agree that there should have been a mention of giving consent earlier on. The Jordi/Dr Leah Brahms storyline does touch on how there was an abuse. Perhaps Starfleet later on added the restrictions that are seen in Deep Space 9.
I dont recall that being a regulation on DS9. I think Quark was just aware that Kira would literally beat him to death with the latnium he made from the deal if he did it.
I don’t think he actually has sex with them in there, still weird tho.
He wasn’t having sex with the ‘Goddess of Empathy’ but he was definitely acting a bit sus.
Dude also had numerous other programs considering the ‘delete all programs’ line at the end of the episode. Although even more sus is the fact that he specifically said don’t delete this one and then smiled. I’m not sure how to take that smile to be honest. That could be innocent or that could make LaForge look like a Boy Scout.
I’m sure that even in 1990, they knew that making it explicit that Barclay was having sex with representations of the crew would have been a step to far, but in the cold open of “Hollow Pursuits”, after he beats up Geordi and Riker, Barclay is interrupted just as he’s about to kiss Troi, and it’s pretty clear where the simulation is going to go from there.
