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Star Trek: How Does The Holodeck Actually Work?

When listing the most iconic pieces of tech from the various "Star Trek" shows and movies, the transporter, phaser, and tricorder all rise to the top of any survey. But we'd be remiss not to mention the holodeck. Made famous in "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and appearing even on shows like the animated "Star Trek: Lower Decks," the virtual space has become a pillar of the franchise and prompted some of the best "Star Trek" episodes ever . 

Holodeck adventures are often fan favorites, but "Star Trek" has spent notably less time exploring how the device actually works. The worlds it conjures are so lifelike and expansive in scale that they seem impossible, which, of course, they are, at least in our world. In the "Trek" universe, however, we do know at least a bit about what makes the holodeck tick.

The mechanics of the holodeck are similar to those of two other big pieces of "Trek" tech — the transporter and the replicator. The things created within the virtual room are a combination of generated matter (using replicator technology) and photons encased in force fields that create the impression of physical matter. This is also why material from within the holodeck occasionally appears to exit and exist beyond its virtual walls for a brief period of time.

How the holodeck changed over the years

Watching the various "Star Trek" series, you'll see the subtle evolution of holodeck technology. In "Star Trek: Enterprise," before humans have access to the technology, it's revealed that similar holographic tech was used by the Xyrillians. A more rudimentary version of a holodeck also appears in "Star Trek: The Animated Series." "Star Trek: Voyager" expands the perception of holograms in "Star Trek" immensely through its Doctor character, a holographic medical officer who is able to learn, love, achieve sentience, and even evolve.

Visually, holodecks have also changed quite a bit over the years. In "The Next Generation," the inactive room basically just looks like a cyber grid. This design was fleshed out more in the holosuites of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" due to larger budget allowances.

"When we did 'Next Generation' we were in a budget constraint that made us do a set that is a wireframe look; it's a grid of squares when the holodeck is not activated and they just see a black void with yellow grids," production designer Herman Zimmerman revealed in "The Deep Space Log Book," a companion piece to the show's second season. "In the Cardassian holodeck when the lights go off, so to speak, you see the machinery that creates the imagery. It's a step forward for us and it's something we've always wanted to do on 'Next Generation' and we were never able to achieve."

Star Trek’s Holodeck: from science fiction to a new reality

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Many of the technological advances predicted in Star Trek’s fictional universe have become reality , such as the mobile communicator and hand-held tablet computers.

Others, such as tractor beams and warp drives , are still a work in progress. But what of the Holodeck ?

The Holodeck first appeared in The Practical Joker , a 1974 episode of the Star Trek animated series. It was depicted as a recreation room containing a simulated, alternative version of reality. It featured heavily in The Next Generation series and in the 1996 film First Contact .

Anyone entering the Holodeck could interact with “solid” props and characters in any scenario based on whatever parameters they programmed.

These programs are not unlike the narrative-driven, cinematic videogames we have today, such as Grand Theft Auto , Red Dead Redemption or The Witcher .

The Holodeck was a narrative device that allowed Star Trek’s writers to experiment with philosophical questions in settings not available in a typical sci-fi context.

It inspired several generations of computer scientists who spearheaded research in artificial intelligence, computer graphics and human-computer interaction.

The convergence of these research areas has given rise to other forms of reality on the path to the construction of a real Holodeck.

A real Holodeck?

In virtual reality ( VR ) we are fully immersed in a synthetic, “virtual” version of reality, experienced through dedicated VR headsets such as the Oculus Rift or the HTC Vive .

A typical example of VR is an immersive war game that puts a user in charge of a Roman army as Caesar, battling Vercingetorix’s Gaul troops at Alesia.

But VR has a major drawback for some applications. Being isolated from the real world, it’s not easy to engage in social interaction or physical movement in a way that feels natural to most people.

Augmented reality ( AR ) blends synthetic, virtual objects with the view of our physical reality. In AR, we can interact with virtual humans inhabiting our physical space or we can work with our children, for example, to build virtual LEGO houses on real tables in our own living rooms.

Headsets are available that allow us to create AR in our office or lounge rooms, such as the Microsoft Hololens or the Meta .

But AR headsets still suffer from several technical limitations, such as a reduced field of view. The software that lets the virtual and real worlds interact believably and naturally still needs work.

Sensing humans

Real-world Holodeck programs would also need the technology to sense human actions. This would provide useful information that the virtual personas inhabiting the Holodeck programs would use to anticipate our human intentions.

Progress here has been fast and constant, with great improvements in speech recognition and language translation, such as Apple’s Siri , Google’s Assistant and Microsoft’s Cortana .

We now take almost for granted the ability to search for information with speech or to command our mobiles to schedule meetings and appointments. Other devices, originally conceived for entertainment applications, can track human gestures or even their full body posture.

For example, Microsoft Kinect can track a human body, and the technology is now included in the Hololens as its gesture-recognition component.

Lots of other sensing devices are now commonplace in mobile devices, such as accelerometers, gyroscopes, magnetometers, and temperature and pressure sensors.

The general trend is towards giving humans the ability to communicate using a combination of their body and their voice via hands-free or wearable user interfaces.

Enter the artificial intelligence

The key ingredient for Holodeck programs in the real world is the ability to equip virtual characters with sophisticated forms of artificial intelligence (AI).

AI and machine learning – the art of teaching a machine how to learn to perform a complex task – have seen advances in areas such as automated game playing , autonomous car driving and drone control , and deep learning .

These advances, while noteworthy, do not necessarily show strong progress towards general forms of artificial intelligence (AGI) exhibited by humans.

It has been argued that defining or providing general human intelligence may prove a very elusive problem for a long time, or indeed forever.

Fortunately, a restricted version of a Holodeck program may only require a slightly weaker, not fully general form of intelligence. This was exemplified by androids in the popular TV series reboot of Westworld .

Almost human? Close enough

The good news is that this may shorten the time needed to realise the hypothetical Holodeck programs. The bad news is that such a feat is still beyond us at this stage, although recent progress in machine learning will likely help us close the gap faster.

The question is then whether we shall ever be able to reach the level of sophistication in AR and AI needed to build a Holodeck? And if so, when?

Making predictions on such matters is not trivial, but I am inclined to think that current advances in VR and AR technologies will provide us with the required sophisticated headsets within the next five to ten years.

The question then is also whether we shall ever be able to achieve AR using alternative forms of projections that remove the need for a headset altogether.

This may be possible, eventually, but it would be irrelevant if headsets could be miniaturised and potentially implanted into human eyes, similar to what was suggested in other sci-fi classics such as Neuromancer or Snow Crash , and recently advocated by transhumanists .

The recent predictions about breakthroughs in general artificial intelligence by experts seem to converge around a date around 2040. This would put the sort of AI required for Holodeck characters somewhat earlier than that.

So I believe that one day humans will be able to experience some form of Holodeck similar to what was envisaged in Star Trek.

To paraphrase Star Teek’s infamous Borg alien race, I will say that resistance to this technological progress is futile and it will be assimilated, one day.

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Published May 18, 2021

Begin Program: The Reality Of Building a Holodeck Today

How close is current technology to creating fully immersive photonic playgrounds?

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Since the moment we first saw Commander William T. Riker step out of an air-conditioned corridor on the U.S.S. Enterprise-D and into a lush green forest — still aboard the Enterprise — in “Encounter at Farpoint,” the holodeck has become a Starfleet fixture and a signature innovation of the Star Trek universe.

An early incarnation of the holodeck first appeared in an episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series in 1974 and was simply called a ‘recreation room.’ But it was The Next Generation that fully brought the storytelling possibilities of the 24th-century holodeck to life. It provides a space where crewmembers can run training scenarios, relax inside recreational ‘holonovels,’ and hang out with AI-powered approximations of their favorite historical figures.

Here in the 21st Century, the technology required to create interactive holographic projections still appears to be light-years away. But achieving holodeck-like experiences, capable of transporting out of our everyday world and into convincing alternate realities, are still possible.

The holodeck, from Gene Roddenberry’s original concept probably inspired by the work of Gene Dolgoff , works by blending transporter, replicator, and holography tech to create ‘solid’ photonic people and places out of ‘holomatter.’ The holodeck can also manipulate depth perception and spatial awareness to give people the sense of being in sprawling, fully-explorable environments, like the town of Sainte Claire in Voyager ’s “The Killing Game” — all without anyone running into the holodeck’s solid and immovable walls.

Since the holodeck first appeared, people have wondered what it would take to create one in real life. “The true holodeck of the future would need to be made of some kind of infinitely configurable organic matter,” says Verity McIntosh, Senior Lecturer in Virtual and Extended Realities at the University of the West of England.

Walking up a flight of stairs, McIntosh explains, would require the floor beneath you to rise up to create steps, organize itself into the rough texture of wood as you brush past a fence, and reconfigure itself to feel like fur as a cat passes by. “It could reconstitute itself in real-time to form the shapes, textures, and properties of the virtual world,” she says.

The tech used to construct the holodeck, though, isn’t simply highly advanced; it’s physically impossible. If you were to attempt to build your own, you would have to violate the laws of physics, which, to echo the feelings of many chiefs of engineering,  is easier said than done. So until a Q pops by to leapfrog us into a new technological epoch, we can focus our energies instead on what’s readily achievable through virtual reality.

VR  has already been shown to have many applications beyond entertainment. It can help with pain managemen t and support surgical training . Therapists have developed VR-based interventions to help with the treatment of PTSD , phobias , and managing stress . VR also gives us a meaningful way to connect with our friends, family and colleagues when we can’t see each other in person — which is why some believe it could come to define the future of working , learning , and socializing .

VR might also have an important role to play in our ongoing exploration of the cosmos. NASA has a Virtual Reality Lab where astronauts can prepare for spacewalks and train for delicate procedures, and VR has the potential to improve the wellbeing and mental health of astronauts embarking on longer missions as we travel further into space.

If VR is going to be our real-world answer to the holodeck, how does it measure up? Studies suggest that VR experiences are far more satisfying the more we feel immersed in them, which is why the goal of virtual reality developers — and what the holodeck perfectly nails — is greater immersion. Key to this is our sensation of presence,  fooling our senses to believe that we are physically present within another space.

People who work in VR have spent years figuring out what it takes to achieve this, seeking out answers to questions like ‘how should light behave,’ ‘how wide does our field of vision need to be,’  and ‘how quickly do frames need to refresh to avoid motion sickness.’ But the biggest question is how do we bridge the gap between a virtual world and our five senses.

“In some respects, we are already there,” says McIntosh. “We now have a huge range of experiences in VR. Many of these track our head, hands, sometimes body and even eye movements so accurately that the 3D worlds rendered in real-time trick our brains into believing that we are physically present.”

McIntosh explains that incredibly sophisticated ‘holophonic’ sounds are able to replicate the position, movement, and dynamic quality of real-world sounds—to the level that people genuinely can’t tell what’s real and what’s virtual. “I have often witnessed people lifting and replacing their headphones to try to work out if the sounds they are hearing are ‘in or out’ of the story world,” she tells us. You don’t get more present than that.

There still remain several significant obstacles between today’s VR and the hyper-real experiences of the holodeck. The first is the fidelity of our vision. In other words, how real can we make what we see inside a VR headset look?

Most people are amazed by their first VR experience, whilst recognizing that it still doesn’t come close to our visual experience of the physical world: “Even the fanciest headsets cannot yet encompass our natural field of view. The resolution achieved is nowhere near that of the human eye,” McIntosh explains.

The color spectrums and black levels in most VR headsets is worse than most TVs, and having images rendered more than 60 times per second in each eye can make a virtual world today “look more like PlayStation 2 games circa 2002,” says McIntosh. We cannot yet forget that we’re still looking at a screen.

Another major challenge for VR is in reproducing the tactile sensation of touch. Unless somebody is able to crack the code to create ‘holomatter,’ how do we reach out and touch a virtual object?

We spoke to David Parisi, Associate Professor of Emerging Media at the College of Charleston and author of the book Archaeologies of Touch, who told us about ‘sensory capture.’ This is when tech is used to “envelop and enclose the senses, through a headset and headphones and bodysuit, with sensory input being taken over by a computer-generated apparatus.” The more complete this takeover of our senses is, the more complete our sense of immersion.

Imagine being able to stand beneath a virtual thunderstorm and feel the rain on your arms because you’re wearing a long-sleeved shirt that creates small haptic vibrations to simulate the droplets as they land. Or working at a virtual canvas and feeling the paintbrush between your fingers because you’re wearing gloves that apply the perfect amount of pressure to your fingertips. Haptic technology such as this, which helps to ‘envelop’ our senses, already exists.

The Teslasuit uses electrical impulses to simulate touch all over the body. Parisi explains that this kind of tech is a big step forward but currently isn’t ideal. “It’s uncomfortable for anything more than short bursts,” he explains.

Whether it’s a full-body suit or a single headset, discomfort continues to be a common complaint in the VR space. The tech we currently use to step into virtual worlds is still fairly restrictive, as well as not being inclusive of all body types. And physical irritations that arise from the tech pull us out of the virtual experience. It’s hard to convince yourself you’re playing pool at a bar in the south of France if your face is throbbing from having a screen strapped to it.

Looking ahead, both Parisi and McIntosh imagine tech that can incorporate aspects of the physical world to create a hybrid ‘mixed reality’ experience — replacing the need to wear lots of cumbersome equipment. For right now, though, our brains already seem to be doing a lot of the “mental gymnastics” that help us to make VR experiences feel meaningfully realistic.

“We seem incredibly well adapted to pick up on minimal visual cues,” McIntosh says. ‘We infer stereoscopy, depth, motion, and material qualities from some pretty basic optical illusions.

“People who have tried VR often talk about what they experienced as though it actually happened to them ‘I did this’, ‘I went there’, ‘they whispered in my ear’,” McIntosh continues. “Maybe this is enough for now.” Our present-day VR tech may prove to be the historical equivalent of the VHS recorder, but the value it delivers is real and measurable. This means we could be a lot closer than we think to significant breakthroughs in the medium.

A holodeck that looks, feels, and functions like the ones we’re familiar with isn’t going to appear in our lifetimes — if at all. But the possibilities represented by virtual reality mean we may soon experience fully immersive virtual worlds and applications, which will not only benefit us here on Earth but could also be crucial to our success as we move further into outer space.

Becca Caddy (she/her) is a London-based journalist specializing in tech, science and the future. Her first book, Screen Time, was published in January 2021. You can follow her on Twitter @beccacaddy.

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Star Trek: The Next Generation: Advanced Holodeck Tutorial

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• Captain Jean-Luc Picard welcomes you, a top-rated cadet at Starfleet Academy, to the most intense training session you'll ever experience: the Advanced Holodeck Tutorial! The Holodeck's computer simulations put YOU at the helm of the Galaxy Class Starship Enterprise - all of its power and crew await your orders. You'll embark on a series of missions assigned by your instructor, Captain Picard, but only you can make the life-or-death decisions required of a Starfleet officer. The more successful you are at completing your missions, the higher your Academy ranking and the more complex the missions become. So test your split-second decision-making skills and push your Starfleet training to the limit: the possibilities are as limitless as the universe itself! "The U.S.S. Enterprise is yours to command!" Life support malfunction! Order LaForge to allocate power before it's too late! A Romulan fleet encounters the Starship Enterprise! Prepare to face the ultimate challenge of your career at Starfleet Academy!

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Holodeck safety protocol

Safety protocol controls

The holographic safety protocols (also known as mortality failsafes , holodeck safeguards , or safety routines ) were a safety subsystem of the holodeck computer and designed to protect the participants of a holoprogram .

Safety protocols were present to prevent serious injury of the people inside a simulation. This meant that weapons fired within the simulation would not be able to kill or that the computer could prevent dangerous situations when testing a new ship design.

Safety protocols could be overruled if the person in question had the correct access codes . It was also possible for a holoprogram to disable the safety protocols if it was programmed to do so. ( VOY : " Worst Case Scenario ") A malfunction in the ship 's main computer could render the safety protocols inoperative. ( TNG : " A Fistful of Datas ")

In 2364 , when a Jaradan probe inadvertently caused a malfunction in the safety protocols Whalen was shot and seriously wounded by Cyrus Redblock 's henchman Felix Leech who also struck Jean-Luc Picard with his Pistol , busting his lip for striking him earlier. ( TNG : " The Big Goodbye ")

In 2369 , the holodeck safety protocols were rendered inoperative due to a malfunction in the USS Enterprise -D 's main computer. This resulted in injury to Lieutenant Worf and placed him, Counselor Deanna Troi and Worf 's son, Alexander Rozhenko , in continued jeopardy, as the computer also did not respond to their request to terminate the Ancient West simulation that they were engaged in. ( TNG : " A Fistful of Datas ")

That same year, Data attempted, but was unsuccessful, to override the holodeck safety protocols while recreating an unusual Borg attack on the Ohniaka III Research Station where Data became, seemingly spontaneously, angry. After attempting to increase the simulated Borg's strength by 30 percent, Data informed Geordi La Forge that the computer required the voice authorization of two senior officers to disable the safety routine and asked for his help in overriding the it. La Forge refused, but this was the only instance where two individuals were needed to disable the protocols. Data's rank was presumably insufficient to complete the procedure alone, even though Lieutenant commander was sufficient aboard other vessels like USS Voyager ( VOY : " Extreme Risk "). It may have been a requirement unique to the USS Enterprise -D , or the requirement may have changed between this and other points in time. ( TNG : " Descent ")

In 2371 , when Tuvok and Chakotay investigated a malfunction with a holographic novel of Beowulf being run by Harry Kim , they discovered that the holodeck command systems were down after a failed attempt to delete the holographic character Freya . This led Tuvok to suspect that the safety protocols might be malfunctioning as well, a suspicion that was borne out with further exploration of the program. ( VOY : " Heroes and Demons ")

In 2372 , Julian Bashir and Elim Garak ran the holoprogram Julian Bashir, Secret Agent together. While fighting Falcon and his men, Bashir noticed that Garak was bleeding. Garak noted that the holosuite 's safety protocols must have been turned off. ( DS9 : " Our Man Bashir ")

While trying to evade the Borg on the USS Enterprise -E , Captain Jean-Luc Picard and Lily Sloane retreated into one of the ship's holodecks, where Picard ran a holoprogram of the Dixon Hill series . He was able to kill both of the Borg who were following him with a submachine gun after turning off the holodeck safety protocols. ( Star Trek: First Contact )

In 2373 , General Martok told Julian Bashir he had deactivated the safety protocols of a holosuite on Deep Space 9 , leading to an injury, although he had in fact been injured by Worf . ( DS9 : " Soldiers of the Empire ")

In 2373, the safety protocols were disabled as part of Ensign Seska 's revised Insurrection Alpha program. Her holographic form informed Lieutenants Tuvok and Tom Paris of this at the beginning of the program stating that it meant " …if I shoot you, and I am going to shoot you, you'll die. " Later, after Paris stated that nothing that was happening in the program was real, she had a holographic Chakotay phaser him in the arm and taunted " Next time, you'll believe me when I tell you the safety protocols are off. " ( VOY : " Worst Case Scenario ")

In 2374 , the holographic safety protocols were disabled by the Hirogen when they subjected the Voyager crew to a number of dangerous simulations. The Doctor urged that they be reactivated, as a number the ship's crew had been seriously injured. Karr , however, refused, as he felt it would eliminate the challenge of the hunt. ( VOY : " The Killing Game ") Later, when Captain Kathryn Janeway came up with a plan to disable the neural interfaces that were controlling the crew by using holographic explosives, she noted that with the safety protocols offline they were as good as the real thing. Later, as a number of Hirogen had been killed, the Hirogen medic urged Karr to enable the safety protocols, but at this point it was no longer possible, as the holodeck had been too badly damaged. ( VOY : " The Killing Game, Part II ")

In 2375 , Seven of Nine deactivated the safety protocols on The Adventures of Captain Proton holoprogram so she could fire a holographic ray gun at a Night Alien and stun him. ( VOY : " Night ")

In 2375, after learning of the Maquis ' destruction in the Alpha Quadrant , B'Elanna Torres began running dangerous holodeck programs on the USS Voyager with the safety protocols turned off. ( VOY : " Extreme Risk ")

On Voyager 's holodeck, Ensign Tom Paris noted a particular limitation when Captain Kathryn Janeway posed as Queen Arachnia , that the safety protocols couldn't prevent her from being restrained, nor from being thrown in Doctor Chaotica 's Dungeon of Pain . ( VOY : " Bride of Chaotica! ")

In 2377 , the holograms created by a group of Hirogens got control of the system and deactivated the safety protocols. ( VOY : " Flesh and Blood ")

In 2380 , damage to the USS Cerritos by a Drookmani ship caused the safety protocols to fail while Ensigns Sam Rutherford and D'Vana Tendi were operating Rutherford Training Beta 2.5 , freeing virtual tutor Badgey from his behavioral restraints and causing a dangerous emotional processing flaw to come to light. ( LD : " Terminal Provocations ") Later that year, Rutherford intentionally deactivated the safety protocols to enable Badgey to create a computer virus to disable Jackabog's ship . ( LD : " No Small Parts ")

In 2381 , T'Ana disengaged the safety protocols during a romantic tryst with Shaxs in which they played early 20th century bank robbers engaged in a gun battle with the Feds . ( LD : " Room for Growth ")

In 2401 , Admiral Jean-Luc Picard surreptitiously deactivated the safety protocols after he was forced, at phaser -point, into Ten Forward, 2024 on the USS Titan by Commander Ro Laren . This allowed him to pull a phaser hidden behind the bar on her. ( PIC : " Imposters ")

It is the tradition of Star Trek script writers to "deactivate" the safeties when the holodeck malfunctions.

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Radha has a PhD in theoretical quantum physics. Apart from…

Force fields. Holography. Augmented reality. Have you heard terms like these flying around the science fiction sections of the film/TV world? Have you ever wondered just how accurately these films portray real science? Well, my friends, today is your lucky day: this column,  Fantasy Science & Coffee ,  aims to bridge the gap between science and science fiction in films and popular culture. My hope is to explain things in a fun way – like we’re chatting over coffee.

You may be thinking: who is this person, why does she think she can explain science, and why the  heck  would I want to have coffee with her? Well, I’m Radha, a researcher in India, who recently submitted a PhD thesis in theoretical quantum physics. I quite like hot beverages. I’ll also pay.

In this twentieth part of the series published on the second and fourth Tuesdays of every month, we are going to look at how Star Trek’s iconic holodecks work!

Holodecks in Star Trek

If you’re an avid reader of fiction, you likely enjoy the feeling of diving into a different world to get away from real life. In Star Trek, this is literally possible with holodeck technology. It’s one of my favourite narrative tools in the Trek universe, because there’s so much story potential: it can be used for recreational storylines, for serious training through realistic simulations, or even for alien encounters such as those with photonic beings in Voyager .

Holodecks are used to create very realistic environments that one can interact with tangibly. Here’s a clip from The Next Generation in which Data introduces Commander Riker to the holodeck:

In order to generate these complete, fictional worlds, holodecks make use of programs. Human holograms can be programmed to be as complex as real humans, responding to people based on their programmed characteristics. Creating these programs is an art, akin to present day publishing; one of the coolest concepts in Voyager is the holonovel.

Captain Kathryn Janeway, in order to deal with the stress of being a captain, often turns to the holodeck to unwind. In a few episodes, she takes part in a holonovel, in which she becomes a Jane Eyre-esue governess for a rich man with two children.

Later in the Voyager series, Lieutenant Tom Paris creates the Scottish township of Fair Haven, as a place for the crew to unwind. He prides himself on the detail he put into everything, including the holographic townsfolk.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqkFbxBbus4&t=4s

What makes the holodeck truly remarkable is that despite being a moderately sized room, two people do not have to visit the same place in the fictional world. If Tom Paris wants to visit Fair Haven’s seaside, and Harry Kim wants to explore the castle on the hills near the village, they can do so simultaneously. They can be kilometers apart, but do not run into each other, nor the room’s walls. They cannot, however, access two different holodeck programs simultaneously; only one is allowed to run at a time.

What makes the show creators’ holodeck idea even more remarkable, is that there’s a very realistic explanation behind holodecks: its science is explained in the Voyager Technical Manual.

The technology is based on two concepts: 1) holographic imagery with force fields to project illusions for the human participant, and 2) replicator technology (the matter conversion subsystem) to convert energy to matter so that participants can actually feel the things they touch.

Brief Overview: Force Fields

Let’s take a look at the first concept. One can think of a force field as a map of how a force acts on a particle at each point within a certain space. For instance, the force fields generated by the holodeck are confined to within its walls, thus they do not have any influence beyond that room.

A force field is represented by curved or warped lines, to show just how the force acts along those paths. As an example, look at the magnetic field lines around a theoretical magnet (on the left).  The arrows indicate the direction along which the force acts for each point on that path.

We can physically see this with iron fillings scattered over a real magnet (on the right). The magnetic field acts on them and arranges them in a way that we can actually see the field lines!

How Holodecks Work

Now that we have force fields down pat, let’s look at how the holodeck creates a tangible environment. This image, taken from Voyager’s technical manual, provides a nice explanation about how holodeck technology works:

The force fields, along with the replicator technology, constantly adapt to give a human participant the feeling of moving through space, without her actually moving very far, in much the same way a treadmill does. Rather than the participant moving around the room, the imagery provided by the holographic projectors warp to give her the visuals she expects to see, and the ground under her feet continuously replicates to make her feel like she’s walking.

A good example of this constant adaptation is when B’Elanna Torres goes skydiving in the Voyager episode “Extreme Risk”. When she jumps, the force fields compensate, giving her the feel of rapid free fall of hundreds of kilometers.

She prematurely ends the program before hitting the ‘ground’. It’s seen that she had been hovering a few feet above the floor of the holodeck all along. The holodeck safety controls soften her landing.

Real Life Tech

While we are far from being able to create tangible objects the way Star Trek’s replicator technology does, interesting strides have been made towards immersive virtual experiences. You may be familiar with the Oculus Rift, a virtual reality headset. Another really cool technology is that of augmented reality, which Pokemon Go players are familiar with, since a particular mode allows Pokemon to appear as though they are in one’s own surroundings. One of my favourites is Quartz’s iPhone app . I low key hung out with the Lunar Rover recently thanks to this app!

The extent of today’s technology, and the interesting strides in research and development are a tad long to be addressed here, so I’ll save those for a later date. Instead, I’ve linked below to a few interesting resources you may like to explore.

Before you leave, however, I have a question for the bibliophiles out there: which novel would you love to see converted to a holonovel?

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Radha has a PhD in theoretical quantum physics. Apart from research, she consults on sci-fi screenplays/books. In her free time, she cosplays and irritates her three cats. Bug her on Twitter: @RadhaPyari

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Star Trek: How Does Holodeck Technology Work?

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All 41 cameos in deadpool & wolverine, best spider-man movie endings, ranked.

In the wild and wonderful world(s) of Star Trek, one of the biggest core elements has to be the futuristic technology dreamed up by the creative writing team. While the majority of these seem unachievable, some of them have actually steered the creation of technology that people now use on a near-daily basis .

Of all the incredible things Star Trek has shown, none is potentially more alluring and incredible than that of the holodeck. This seemingly impossible creation acts as the cornerstone for many TNG plot lines. But how exactly is this tech supposed to work?

RELATED: Star Trek: Exploring The Borg’s Creepiest Weakness

While the holodeck is an incredible piece of technology, it is really more of a plot device than an actual fully functioning, and fictionally scientific creation. This is in contrast to something like the franchise's warp drive , which is totally fictional, but it has a solid grounding in fictional science. The warp drive can be explained (granted, using made up concepts, materials, and science). It makes sense within the universe. Holodecks, much like transporters , have never been fully explained, and often they conflict with other previously stated information provided with the audience. This is often the way with such a massive universe like Star Trek, which has had multitude of writers over the course of multiple decades.

The holodeck is, conceptually, a fairly simple bit of kit. It allows the users to fabricate any environment and situation their mind can dream up (or more accurately, that their hands can code). It is primarily a form of entertainment. While it can be used for training exercises to test real life situations and scenarios, its main purpose is to allow crew members to unwind and have fun. It can be used to create relaxing spas, Olympic stadiums to work out in, and most importantly for the writers, to dream up wacky situations for the protagonists to come up against. The heroes of the show have battled holodeck foes such as holographic Moriarty's and space Nazis. These are obviously less relaxing for the crew, often putting them in real peril. But as a foundation for an entertaining episode, the holodeck is the perfect bouncing board.

There are four primary cornerstones for how the holodeck works. The most important of these is the hologram itself. Throughout the years, Star Trek has had fun playing around with the idea of holographic lifeforms , and whether they can gain sentience or actually be ‘alive.’ But for the fundamentals of the holodeck, these holograms are much more simplistic. Unless tampered with, they are usually lacking in the sentience department. They are 3-dimensional images controlled by the holodeck computer, wrapped in a type of force field that simulates the feeling of physicality. The EHD (Emergency Holographic Doctor) from Voyager, while a much more complex hologram, works on the same fundamentals. He can deactivate his force field to allow objects and others to pass straight through him. Holograms are not inherently physical; they are more like a highly intricate assortment of light.

The second important element of a holodeck is the AI. This is the computer intelligence ( much more advanced than ones found today ) that creates the holodeck simulations. While more complex simulations require a person to write out the code and script, most of the time, the computer is able to create stories, situations, environments, all from the simple verbal commands of its user. It can take these commands and create an entire program based upon often vague suggestions. There is also primitive (at least, primitive for the minds of the future) AI found within the holograms, giving them their character and allowing them to react naturally to whatever the holodeck does. This is where things often get dicey, with the AI becoming self-aware under specific circumstances.

The built-in replicator is also an important element of the holodeck. Most of the objects found within the simulation are just holograms (like furniture and tools). However, some are actually physical, real things. Food and drink is a prime example of this. Users can eat using holographic plates, knives and forks, on a dining table made from light, but actually consume real, nutritious, and tasty food. It’s the same technology used for the replicators elsewhere on the ship, able to create any non-living object .

Finally, the holodeck also uses a combination of treadmills (though that name makes them sound far more rudimentary than they are) and blended light to give the illusion of distance. The holodeck itself is fairly small. While distance can be fabricated easily using holograms, actually walking off into the sunset for miles and miles is only possible using the treadmills built into the floor of the space. The user would largely remain in the center of the room, with the holographic simulations moving around them. If there is more than one person using the holodeck at once, then, upon spreading out, they are sectioned into their own, smaller holographic space.

While these are fundamentals of how the holodeck works, It's impossible to go into any real depth into the fiction technology, and exploring how exactly the computer is able to create the simulations. If it were, maybe holographic technology might be something possible today. But as it stands, the writers have never been able to flesh it out properly. Perhaps as more and more Star Trek programs are added to the franchise, and the universe continues to be fleshed out by programs such as Discovery, Picard and Strange New Worlds the technology will finally be given a proper scientific grounding. But until then, it remains one of the best, and most desirable, examples of science fiction ‘magic’.

MORE: Star Trek: How This Deep Space 9 Episode Changed The Franchise Forever

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Star trek’s 20 best holodeck episodes.

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Star Trek Reveals The Enterprise's New Design as a Full-Fledged Warship

Star trek introduces its most powerful alien species of all time (shattering the fourth wall), star trek's forgotten 'theme song' is now part of official canon.

Star Trek regularly relies on the recreational simulator to explore genres outside the sci-fi constraints of the franchise, and here are 20 of the very best holodeck episodes. During Star Trek: The Original Series , if the writers wanted to tell a gangster story or restage the gunfight at the OK Corral, there had to be a convoluted sci-fi explanation. The introduction of the holodeck changed all that, allowing various Star Trek shows to put a sci-fi spin on sports movies, spy thrillers, and World War 2 movies.

First introduced in Star Trek: The Next Generation , the holodeck has provided Star Trek with some of the most enjoyable and emotional episodes of all time. While holodeck episodes are often an excuse to cut loose, they can also be a means to explore mental health or the existential concept of reality itself. Here are 20 of the best holodeck episodes from across the entire Star Trek franchise.

RELATED: Star Trek: Every Holodeck Accident In The Franchise (So Far)

20 Star Trek: Prodigy Season 1, Episode 6, “Kobayashi”

After discovering the holodeck aboard the USS Protostar, Dal R’El (Brett Gray) ran Star Trek ’s Kobayashi Maru simulation to test his capabilities as a starship Captain. With a crew of Star Trek legends from TOS to DS9 , Dal learned valuable lessons about the pressures of command. His creative efforts were a joy to watch and even led to a favorable comparison to Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) by the man who knew him best, Commander Spock (Leonard Nimoy).

19 Star Trek: Voyager Season 4, Episodes 18 & 19, “The Killing Game”

Star Trek: Voyager ’s Hirogen were a fascinating species who were galactic nomads driven purely by their hunter instincts. When they encountered the USS Voyager and its holodeck technology, they imprisoned the crew in various violent simulations to sate their appetites for the hunt. It’s an interesting exploration of the concept of the holodeck and its more unsavory uses, even if it relies heavily on the novelty of placing the Voyager crew in a World War 2 setting.

18 Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 2, Episode 8, "I, Excretus"

Star Trek: Lower Decks ' "I, Excretus" sees the crew of the USS Cerritos engage in simulations of various Starfleet drills - pitting Bradward Boimler (Jack Quaid) against a holographic Borg Collective. As with Lower Decks ' "Crisis Point" holodeck episodes, "I, Excretus" is full of Star Trek references as Boimler rescues some Borg babies, becomes Excretus of Borg, and encounters the Borg Queen. As it's a holographic simulation, It allows the overtly comic Lower Decks to feature the Borg without compromising their major Star Trek villain status.

17 Star Trek: TNG Season 6, Episode 8, "A Fistful of Datas"

Although it's a good excuse to show off Brent Spiner's acting range in a series of outrageous mustaches, "A Fistful of Datas" has much to recommend. It's essentially an episode about Lt. Worf (Michael Dorn) and his difficulties in bonding with his son, Alexander Rozhenko (Brian Bonsall). Hoping to bond like Klingon warriors, Worf instead participates in a Wild West hologram program at Alexander's request. Due to a freak accident, the outlaws and residents of the Wild West town all look and sound suspiciously like Data. It's a comedy filler episode, but has some genuinely touching moments between Worf and Alexander.

16 Star Trek: TNG Season 1, Episode 12, "The Big Goodbye"

"The Big Goodbye" is the first of Star Trek: The Next Generation 's "holodeck gone wrong" episodes, trapping Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) inside a Dixon Hill holonovel. There's a joy in seeing Captain Jean-Luc Picard, a serious man who enjoys Shakespeare, delight in pulpy detective fiction. It's a lot of fun to see Picard, Lt. Cmdr. Data (Brent Spiner) and Dr. Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden) attempt to outwit the deadly holographic gangsters, establishing the ground rules for future Star Trek holodeck episodes as they go.

RELATED: What Picard’s “There Is A Tide...” Finale Speech In 10 Forward Means

15 Star Trek: Voyager Season 5, Episode 12, "Bride of Chaotica!"

A misunderstanding involving a race of photonic aliens results in the USS Voyager crew having to play along with a schlocky sci-fi holonovel from the pen of Lt. Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill). "Bride of Chaotica!" is at its best when Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) is vamping it up as Arachnia, Queen of the Spiderpeople. Kate Mulgrew's Janeway rarely got to have fun as she had to steady the ship, so it's refreshing to see her cut loose as the campy sci-fi villain in "Bride of Chaotica!"

14 Star Trek: DS9 Season 6, Episode 20, "His Way"

"His Way" introduces Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 's resident holographic lounge singer, Vic Fontaine (James Darren), who makes an instant impression. Vic helps Odo (Rene Auberjonois) to finally confront his romantic feelings for Major Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor) in one of DS9's holosuites. The episode plays out like a classic screwball comedy of errors, as Odo and Kira finally find love at Vic's club. However, it's not until some typically passionate arguing after one of the episodes' many comic misunderstandings that the two become an official couple, to the delight of everyone on DS9's promenade.

13 Star Trek: Voyager Season 5, Episode 8, "Nothing Human"

Star Trek: Voyager explored the moral and ethical implications of holographic technology like no other Trek show before or since. One of the strongest examples of this is "Nothing Human", in which the Doctor (Robert Picardo) requests the assistance of a holodeck representation of a cruel Cardassian exobiologist called Crell Moset (David Clennon). It created a fascinating ethical dilemma over whether a simulation of someone is the same as the original because the Doctor created the hologram without the awareness of Moset's worst crimes. Eventually, the Doctor deleted the program because he could not reconcile Crell Mosset's brutal methods with his scientific genius.

12 Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 1, Episode 9 "Crisis Point"

"Crisis Point" is both a great holodeck episode and an affectionate tribute to the Star Trek movies. Created by Ensign Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome) as an alternative to therapy, "Crisis Point" casts Mariner as Vindicta, a vengeful villain who is the Khan Noonien-Singh (Ricardo Montalban) to the Cerritos' Captain Carol Freeman (Dawnn Lewis). It's an action-packed, tongue-in-cheek Star Trek adventure that also reveals the sensitive information that Freeman is Mariner's mother to Boimler, setting up a very awkward moment in the Lower Decks season 1 finale.

11 Star Trek: Voyager Season 6, Episode 10, "Pathfinder"

There are several Star Trek: Voyager episodes that use the holodeck to provide an alternate take on the titular hero ship. "Author, Author" in season 7 is more about the Doctor's rights to be recognized as a sentient life form than it is about the holodeck simulation. "Pathfinder" is different as it revisits Lt. Reginald Barclay (Dwight Schultz) and his addiction to the holodeck. Tasked with figuring out how to communicate between the Alpha Quadrant and the USS Voyager, Reg becomes obsessed with his holographic simulation of the ship and its crew. It's an update on the classic TNG episode "Hollow Pursuits" that forms a key moment in Voyager's homecoming arc.

10 Star Trek: DS9 Season 6, Episode 18, "Inquisition"

"Inquisition" takes an idea from Star Trek: The Next Generation season 4, episode 8, "Future Imperfect" to tell a gripping espionage thriller. When Starfleet Intelligence accuse someone on DS9 of being a spy, it quickly becomes apparent that Dr. Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig) is firmly in the crosshairs. Coming hot on the heels of the revelations that Bashir had been replaced with a Changeling, and had also been genetically augmented, it's hard not to suspect another big reveal. Thankfully, it's an elaborate holodeck simulation to test Julian for a position with Section 3, an offer that Bashir firmly turned down.

9 Star Trek: TNG Season 2, Episode 3, "Elementary, Dear Data"

Data's Sherlock Holmes simulation is good fun, but it also sets up the idea of a self-aware hologram that will lead to Star Trek: Voyager 's Doctor storyline. The sentient Professor James Moriarty (Daniel Davis) would later return for an even better holodeck episode. However, there's a lot of fun to be had with the concept of Data being too smart even to play Sherlock Holmes, solving Conan Doyle's complex mysteries easily. The Holmes character would leave a lasting impression on Data, who kept the deerstalker and pipe among his " trinkets " in Star Trek: Picard season 3.

RELATED: Every Data TNG Easter Egg In Star Trek Picard Season 3 Episode 8

8 Star Trek: Voyager Season 3, Episode 22, "Real Life"

Star Trek: Voyager 's Doctor was a natural successor to Data, and many of his best episodes repurposed elements of the TNG android's arc. In "Real Life", the Doctor created his own loving suburban family to experience a loving home life. However, when his loving 1950s sitcom-style family unit received criticism, the Doctor attempted to add conflict. What followed was a gut-wrenching family drama as Voyager's EMH found himself unable to save the life of his daughter, while his son went off the rails. It was a bold new take on Star Trek 's "holodeck gone wrong" trope that delivered a devastating ending.

7 Star Trek: DS9 Season 7, Episode 15, "Bada-Bing, Badda-Bang"

"Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang" is Ocean's 11 in the style of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , pitting the crew against a programming glitch that manifests as brutal holographic gangsters. To return several favors to Vic and oust the gangsters from his club, the DS9 crew stage an elaborate con, assuming various heist movie archetypes. To top it all off, Captain Sisko got his own Picard poker moment by cutting loose with his crew; playing the character of a high-roller, and joining Vic Fontaine for a joyous duet of "The Best is Yet to Come". It's a refreshing change of pace before DS9 plunges headlong into the final stages of the Dominion War.

6 Star Trek: Voyager Season 3, Episode 25, "Worst Case Scenario"

The holodeck allowed Star Trek: Voyager to explore what a Maquis mutiny would look like without compromising the integrity of its lead characters. A holodeck program entitled "Insurrection Alpha" was designed by Lt. Tuvok (Tim Russ) to train Starfleet security officers in the event of a mutiny. Although Tuvok abandoned the program, Voyager's only Maquis traitor, Seska (Martha Hackett) had discovered it and altered it with potentially deadly consequences for Tuvok and Tom Paris. It's an exciting episode that, in depicting the Maquis mutiny, answers one of Voyager 's biggest "What If?" questions.

RELATED: Voyager's Maquis Becoming Starfleet Right Away Was A Mistake

5 Star Trek: DS9 Season 7, Episode 4, "Take Me Out to the Holosuite"

The holosuites at Quark's Bar provided much-needed relaxation for the DS9 crew as Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 's Dominion War heated up. One of the very best examples of this is "Take Me Out to the Holosuite" in which Captain Sisko (Avery Brooks) is challenged to a baseball game by his Vulcan rival, Captain Solok (Gregory Wagrowski). Watching Sisko teach his crew how to play baseball, and succumb to the fury and passions of all great sports coaches is a joy. Sport is something that's rarely tackled well in Star Trek , if at all, but "Take Me Out to the Holosuite" is a classic underdog sports movie with a DS9 twist.

4 Star Trek: TNG Season 6, Episode 12, "Ship in a Bottle"

Moriarty returned to Star Trek: The Next Generation in "Ship in a Bottle", which saw the criminal mastermind subvert Picard, Data, and Barclay's perception of reality itself. Petitioning Picard for the right to live outside the confines of the holodeck. In an ingenious attempt to convince Picard that Moriarty is ready for the outside world, Sherlock Holmes' nemesis trapped the three Starfleet officers inside an elaborate simulation of the USS Enterprise-D. Ultimately, Picard, Data and Barclay turned the tables on Moriarty, trapping him inside a holocube, where he's gifted the illusion of free will.

3 Star Trek: DS9 Season 4, Episode 10, "Our Man Bashir"

A transporter malfunction resulted in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine crew being stored inside the holosuite systems during a James Bond -style simulation . It's a substantial upgrade on TNG 's "A Fistful of Datas" as it allows each of the DS9 cast to show off their range. Avery Brooks played a chilling Bond villain, while Colm Meaney excelled as his eye patch-wearing henchman. "Our Man Bashir" established how DS9 's holodeck episodes would often be a chance for the cast to take a break from the darker storylines involved with the Dominion War. It also proved that Alexander Siddig is the best 007 that the James Bond franchise never had.

2 Star Trek: TNG Season 3, Episode 21, "Hollow Pursuits"

"Hollow Pursuits" is the first Star Trek episode to explore the connection between holodeck technology and mental health. Focusing on the shy and awkward Lt. Reginald Barclay (Dwight Schultz), "Hollow Pursuits" reveals how the holodeck enables Reg to rehearse social interactions like standing up for himself with Commander Riker. The message of the episode is that, as comforting as these simulations can be, they can often stop people from appreciating the world around them. It's a fantastic Star Trek story about mental health that many Trek shows have tried to improve upon, with only one episode topping "Hollow Pursuits" for emotional impact.

1 Star Trek: DS9 Season 7, Episode 10, "It's Only a Paper Moon"

"It's Only a Paper Moon" expands upon the message of "Hollow Pursuits" by focusing on Ensign Nog (Aaron Eisenberg) and his struggle to come to terms with his experiences on the battlefield. Nog sought solace at Vic Fontaine's club, where he used his Ferengi heritage to help the nightclub owner turn his business around. Sadly Nog's inability to leave Vic's club prevented him from coming to terms with his experiences and fear of death. "It's Only a Paper Moon" shows every aspect of Star Trek 's holodecks: the entertainment, the healing properties, but also the addictive qualities of experiencing another life. It's why it's the franchise's very best holodeck episode.

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• Star Trek Adventures: The Roleplaying Game Second Edition Core Rulebook Review

I have received review copies in the past from Modiphius for other 2d20 products, but I have not received any review material for the Star Trek Adventures: The Roleplaying Game Second Edition Core Rulebook, and I purchased this for review on my own. I have not had an opportunity to play through or run the material in this book, but I have run the first edition of the game for multiple campaigns, as well as other 2d20 RPGs.

  Star Trek Adventures: The Roleplaying Game Second Edition Core Rulebook 2d20 System Designer Nathan Dowdell Project Manager Jim Johnson Writers Mike “O’dah ziibing” Ashkewe, Tilly Bridges & Susan Bridges, Rachael Cruz, Alison Cybe, Michael Dismuke, Nathan Dowdell, Keith Garrett, Patrick Goodman, Jim Johnson, Fred Love, Erin Macdonald, PhD, Aaron M Pollyea, J.D. Kennedy, Chris McCarver, Troy Mepyans, Al Spader Editors Jim Johnson, Marieke Cross, Scott Pearson Proofreaders Jim Johnson, Marieke Cross Art Director Ariel Orea Graphic Designers Michal E. Cross, Mark Whittington, Stephanie Toro Cover Artist Paolo Puggioni Interior Artwork Artists Eren Arik, Cristi Balenescu, Marc Bell, Carlos Cabrera, Joshua Calloway, Alexey Chernik, Aurea Freniere, Michele Frigo, Chaim Garcia, Nick Greenwood, Aaron Harvey, Eva Lara, Jens Lindfors, Toma Feizo Gas, Matheus Graef, Vincent Laik, Thomas Marrone, Wayne Miller, Ariel Orea, Dat Phan, Paolo Puggioni, Tobias Richter, Vadim Sadovski, Martin Sobr, Steve Stark, Vitali Timkin, Rodrigo Gonzalez Toledo, Salvador Trakal, Justin Usher, Rhys Yorke, Eaglemoss Ltd., CBS Studios, Inc. For Paramount Global Marian Cordry, Stephen Zelin, Brian Bromberg, Aaron Hubberman, Brian Lady, Danwei Lando, James Salerno, Russell Spina With Thanks To Gene Roddenberry, Marian Cordry, BC Holmes, and the many fans who support this game

Computer, Display Schematics

For this review, I have had the opportunity to look at both the PDF and the hardcover version of the game. The hardcover is a solid chunk of a book that is very similar to both the original Star Trek Adventures book and the Klingon variation of the core rules. It uses similar font, but the colors deviate from the darker colors of the spines for the original books. The original version of the game had pages that emulated the L-CARS appearance of Next Generation consoles, including the black background for the pages. The second edition ditches those black backgrounds for a white one, which I can understand. It’s always a little disheartening when you end up with a permanent fingerprint on your solid black pages.

The official page count of the book is 384 pages, and includes the following:

• Front Endpapers with a map of the Alpha and Beta Quadrant (2 pages, PDF, endpapers in hardcover)
• Back Endpapers with a timeline of Star Trek properties, the Prime Timeline, and the
• Terran Universe Timeline (2 pages, PDF, endpapers in hardcover)
• Credits Page (1 page)
• Table of Contents (1 page)
• Character Sheet (2 pages, front and back)
• Personal Log (1 page)
• Index and Acknowledgements (4 pages)
• Front and Back Cover (2 pages, PDF, front and back cover, hardcover)

Most of the book is in a two-column layout. Some pages have a smaller column with sidebar commentary, as well as offset text boxes exploring topics brought up on the page. There are full color pieces of art introducing each chapter, and there are many half page pieces of art portraying various scenes that would be common for a Star Trek narrative, which includes staring at majestic ships in drydock, Starfleet medical personnel treating inhabitants of a planet, enjoying a meal in the lounge, and the more action oriented combat scenes. There are images from across the timelines detailed, and most are in the same style, except for a few “ Lower Decks ” styled images inserted in various locations.

While there are images from across the timelines, the book also uses a set of iconic characters, first introduced in the quick start. These characters are all from the Strange New Worlds era of Star Trek , with the same uniform and gear from that show. This includes a Betazoid security officer, a human science officer, a Vulcan chief medical officer, a Tellarite chief engineer, an Andorian first officer, and a Trill captain. These are the characters that make some opening comments about the topics introduced in the various chapters.

In addition to those iconic characters and their chapter introductions, there are quotes from a wide range of characters. Some of the characters that contribute quotes or commentary include Picard, Archer, Worf, Tendi, Boimler, Pike, Janeway, Gwyndala, Zero, McCoy, Booker, Data, Georgiou, Kirk, Mariner, Nog, Decker, Sisko, Freeman, Kira, Quark, Ransom, La Forge, and M’Benga.

The book itself is broken up into the following sections:

• A Star Trek Primer
• The Final Frontier
• Reporting for Duty
• Your Home Among the Stars
• Technology and Weapons
• Gamemastering
• Introductory Adventure
• Allies and Adversaries

The new format makes one nice improvement. There aren’t the random strings of numbers on various pages that were meant to represent cluttered data on a viewscreen. I often run the PDF text to speech function while reading, and it could get very tedious when those numbers were read as text instead of a background image.

For The Seasoned Officers

Before I dive into the details of the book, I wanted to hit a quick summary of the differences between the 1e and 2e edition of Star Trek Adventures . This is just a fast rundown, so feel free to check out the details further in the review.

• Say goodbye to the challenge dice–damage and progress are tracked without them now
• Stress is now determined only with your Fitness attribute, unless you have a trait that uses a different attribute
• Some challenges may use stress as one of the consequences of accomplishing goals
• In combat, you take an injury unless you spend stress equal to the weapons rating to resist the injury
• You can recover different amounts of stress by taking a breather (10 minutes or so), taking a break (a half hour to a couple of hours), or sleeping (several hours)
• NPCs don’t have a stress track, but Notable and Major NPCs can spend threat to resist injury
• In ship combat, shields work more like a progress track you are working to complete, rather than the stress for the ship
• There are guidelines for when to use a challenge versus when to use an extended task
• Your progress on extended tasks is based on your rating in a relevant department, rather than the results of the challenge dice
• Many species talents of been rewritten
• You get an additional focus at the end of character creation to reflect a personal interest (for example, Riker might use this extra focus for Jazz)
• There are more guidelines to what species traits are meant to summarize
• Character progression now defaults to the “personal log” method first introduced in the Klingon core rulebook
• Much like in certain political discussions of climate change, the scientific method has been abandoned
• The book is a “greatest hits” of some of the previous releases, incorporating some player character rules for species, traits, technobabble, reprimand and acclaim, and commendations, to name a few

Life in the Federation

I wanted to talk about the Star Trek primer section of the book first, because I think the summary of how the Federation operates may be one of the most concise and inclusive attempts that I’ve seen in any Star Trek product. The primary purpose of this section is to set the tone for what a Star Trek Adventures campaign should look and feel like, but it does more than that. The baseline assumption is that Star Trek Adventures is meant to portray a hopeful future, where humanity can live up to it’s potential, and learn and grow by interacting with other advanced species, while also pointing out where conflict happens.

There is a section that touches on the major cultures of the setting, including:

• The Klingon Empire
• The Romulan Empire
• The Cardassian Union
• The Ferengi Alliance
• The Orion Syndicate
• The Borg Collective
• The Dominion

These aren’t exhaustive treatments, but they often touch on those societies in multiple eras. The Klingons and Romulans both get multiple pages, the Cardassians and the Dominion both get a page, and the others each have a half-page of information. The information is current up through the third season of Picard , but that also means we get some season four information from Discovery .

There is a page on “other civilizations,” which includes a few paragraphs on the Tholian Assembly, the Q Continuum, and the Pakleds (including Lower Decks updates), as well as a paragraph that talks about Delta Quadrant societies like the Hirogen, Kazon, Vidians, and Talaxians. A notable omission is the Gorn Hegemony, which I imagine may have been avoided since Strange New Worlds is still in the midst of an ongoing narrative with that culture.

The information about life in the Federation is where this section shines. Have you ever wondered exactly what Star Trek means when various characters say they don’t have money in the Federation, especially in light of situations where Federation members seem to be working for profit or trading with cultures that definitely do still use money? What about human religion in the Federation? Have you ever wondered why sometimes something from the holodeck can leave the holodeck? Why can’t you use cargo transporters to transport large numbers of people from one place to another? These all receive answers that should make you feel better equipped to answer those questions when they come up.

Life in an Alternate Federation?

The previous version of Star Trek Adventures included a section on planet classification, space-phenomenon, and the basics of warp travel and subspace. This time around, there are a few more sections that touch on additional topics like alternate universes and time travel.

There is a brief section on the Terran Universe (or the Mirror Universe), and Quantum Multiverses (lots of different realities where things may be changed in smaller, significant ways). This also touches on time travel, and the different ways it can be accomplished in Star Trek (there are at least five different ways that this can happen outlined in the book).

Life in Starfleet

While this iteration of Star Trek Adventures isn’t quite as tied to portraying only Starfleet Personnel, it is still considered the default mode of playing the game. As such, we get a section on how Starfleet works, and how it has changed over the eras.

There are some sidebars on organizations adjacent to Starfleet, like Division 14, the section of Starfleet introduced in Lower Decks , which deals with Starfleet personnel that have been affected by strange phenomena. There is also a sidebar with a few paragraphs on Section 31, which frames the organization the way I prefer it to exist, as an organization that isn’t known outside of a few members of Starfleet that are allied with it, which does not have any official standing with the Federation or Starfleet.

The book touches on the Temporal Prime Directive and assumptions about what Starfleet personnel should do in a time travel situation. The original Prime Directive is also addressed. I enjoy that the examples they give make the Prime Directive feel more like something you can discuss and use in game, rather than an absolute hammer to drop on players that make the wrong decision. True to many of the episodes, you may need to justify your interpretation, but unless you completely throw it out the window, it should provide you with more roleplaying opportunities rather than an excuse to punish players for making hard decisions.

The section on Starfleet then discusses Starfleet Academy, duty assignments, and mission types. I appreciate that among the mission types, we get Second Contact missions integrated into standard Starfleet procedures, giving us a solid tie into the contribution made by Lower Decks.

There is a half-page dedicated to Non-Starfleet campaigns, which are better supported than in the original Star Trek Adventures book, but not as supported as, for example, in the Klingon core rulebook, which make sense. The biggest support from this section would be Federation civilians working in concert with Starfleet personnel, representing characters like ambassadors and civilian academics working with Starfleet science personnel.

(Quantum) Game Mechanics

The heart of the 2d20 system is pretty simple. Whenever you make a check, you roll two twenty-sided dice. You compare this to a number derived from an attribute and a department (in the case of Star Trek Adventures ). Your attribute will top out at 12, and your department will top out at 5. If you roll under those two numbers added together, you get a success. If you have a Focus that applies to the task you are attempting (like Martial Arts if you are making a hand-to-hand combat attack), you gain an additional success if you roll below your Department score. That means if you have a focus that is relevant, on 2d20, you could get from 0 to 4 successes.

You can spend some game currencies to buy extra dice, and some talents may add an additional die. You can never roll more than five on a check., meaning you would max out, in a spectacular series of rolls, at 10 successes. In some situations, someone else can aid you, but they will only be rolling 1d20, and you can only add their successes to your own if you have at least one success. That means, if you are facing a Difficulty 3 check to calm down an enraged government official, and someone is aiding you, and they roll two successes on their attempt to help you, if you roll 0 successes, it doesn’t help you at all. But if you roll one success, you can add their successes to your own and meet the Difficulty of three.

There are several currencies in the game. Momentum tops out at six. If you get more successes than you need on a check, you can generate momentum to add to your pool. You can use Momentum for several things, like buying extra dice, asking additional questions, or adding damage to a weapon’s rating. Threat is a similar currency that the GM can use. Whenever a PC rolls a complication (usually a 20), the GM can create a trait in the scene or add two additional Threat to their pool. Among other things, the GM can use this to create scene traits, or to modify NPC rolls in a manner similar to what PCs can use Momentum for. Players can choose to add threat whenever they don’t have Momentum to spend.

The final currency is Determination. You can only have three Determination at any one time. You can only spend Determination if you have a Value relevant to the task you are attempting, or if your task is related to the mission directives you have been given. Determination buys you an extra die, but the die is considered to have rolled a 1. That die does count against your five dice maximum. Your Values determine what your character believes, and if you challenge one of your values, you can add a Determination, cross it out, and rewrite it after the mission is over.

Talents work the way you may expect, being much like feats, talents, perks, or other game rules across RPGs. They are exceptions to how the regular rules work, granting you things like rerolling dice under certain circumstances. There are talents that add additional species abilities, general abilities, or abilities related to what career path you are on.

Character advancement is tracked by filling out character logs. The log doesn’t need to be a deep explanation of what happened in a game session. Instead, it’s a quick note about “X happened, this relates to my Value of Y.” After a number of log entries, a character gains an advancement, and characters can “spend” those log entries to remember a relevant situation to generate Determination in a current mission.

A good portion of play deals with traits. A scene trait may narratively deny a course of action or may make something more difficult to accomplish. Traits can have higher magnitudes, so you can have Ion Storm (3), which would make the difficulty of checks to transport through the storm, or send communications through the storm, increase by three. Traits are more open-ended, where the GM and the players can discuss what those traits mean and when they apply.

Character Creation

Character creation can be done in one of two ways. The first is a Lifepath system, where you walk through your character’s life up to the current day, adding attributes, department ratings, talents, and values at various steps of the process. The lifepath follows the following steps:

• Environment (where you were raised)
• Upbringing (how you were raised)
• Career Path (what you learned)
• Experience (how long have you been doing this)
• Career Events (significant events)
• Finishing Touches

If you don’t want to go through this process, there is the Creation in Play method. In this case, the character has a number of values, focuses, and unassigned division ratings. When your character attempts to do something, they can decide they want to assign points to one of their departments, and maybe a focus, to help with the roll. Once this happens, those elements are locked in, and the character has one less of each of those to assign.

There is much more direction about what a character’s species trait means. For example, they give examples that something that requires raw strength may be slightly less difficult for Klingons or Vulcans, because they have above average strength for humanoids their size. The species abilities have been reworked, and I like the directions many of them have moved. For example, Vulcans can spend stress to avoid gaining a trait associated with an emotional state, but if they are Fatigued, any emotional state trait they have is increased in potency by 1, to represent that Vulcans aren’t emotionless, they are just tightly in control of their strong emotions.

There are additional career paths that are civilian based, instead of the standard Starfleet career paths, including Diplomatic Corps, Civilian (Physician), Civilian (Scientist), Civilian (Official), and Civilian (Trader). Service roles integrate some of the slightly different roles that appear in the Star Trek Adventure’s Player’s Guide, including civilian postings like Bodyguard, Expert, Merchant, or Political Liaison. You can also choose to have a character that has cybernetic components or that has been genetically modified.

Starship combat is a little different from the first edition of Star Trek Adventures , but not dramatically. One of the big differences is that it has been framed to look a lot more like personal combat, but with a few more formal procedures that take place with each action. I don’t mind some extra procedure in rules like these, mainly because starship combat in Star Trek is more deliberate and tactical when it occurs. But that added procedure still needs to be approachable.

Like ground combat, movement is defined by zones. Unlike 1e edition, the similarity in combat rules means that you can fly your ship behind cover if cover exists in the zone, making you harder to hit. If your helm operator takes the Evasive Action option on their turn, the difficulty of hitting your ship changes from a static number to an opposed test. Damage takes down your shields, but you may also be reducing incoming damage as well based on your size and hull. If you can’t mitigate oncoming damage, you suffer a breach. When a system is breached, you need to make temporary repairs to get it back online, but if it takes a number of breaches equal to your ship’s scale, that system has been effectively destroyed.

Certain options are available to characters in different positions on the ship. For example, the Operations console allows you to reroute power to regenerate your shields.

Should I drop supporting characters here? Your number of supporting characters is tied to the scale of your ship, so why not?

Just like in STA 1e, you can bring supporting characters into scenes. This can be done when a player’s role on the ship doesn’t make sense for the away team, for example. You can create a number of supporting characters up to your Crew Compliment, and these characters belong to the ship, not any particular player. Supporting characters have a slightly lower standard array of Attributes, a range of Department ratings, and three foci.

Lower Decks has inspired a new twist on this, which is a Supervisory character, a senior character not played by one of the players that can be adopted by players when they need an officer to help direct them. They get a slightly higher array for their attributes and departments, and an additional focus. They also start with a value and stress track. Since I had a crew of players where no one wanted to play the captain, this would have been a nice rule to have available for that campaign.

While you can still contribute your own advances to supporting characters, reintroducing a supporting character now triggers an advancement once per adventure. These include gaining a Value and a stress track, increasing Attributes or Departments, adding a focus, or adding a talent to the character. A character that has gone through all of these improvements can’t be further improved unless a player adopts them as their new player character.

Mission Status

In addition to the rules, character creation, NPC stat blocks, and ships, the core rulebook also contains a starting adventure. If you’ve been following my reviews for a while, you know I’m a fan of including adventures. Even if you aren’t going to use them, they help you to see how the designers intend the rules to be used for game sessions.

The adventure included in this book is based in the Strange New Worlds /just pre-The Original Series era. I like the structure of this adventure, because it presents a Prime Directive quandary, and enough wiggle room to argue for limited intervention, in addition to the science/medical emergency that is the primary conflict of the adventure.

The adventure includes a synopsis, a section on Spotlight Roles (the crew positions that will be doing the heavy lifting in the adventure), and the mission directives. The action is divided into three acts. The adventure has one encounter that might turn into combat, but most of the conflict comes from the moral quandaries and the science that needs to be done.

Glory to Your House  The broader options for non-Starfleet characters open up some character types that we’ve seen in multiple series. 

The way much of this book has been put together really does simplify the processes in the game. Combat makes more sense. Stress is more versatile. The species abilities are more nuanced and work together well with some of the new talents. The broader options for non-Starfleet characters open up some character types that we’ve seen in multiple series. There are better examples for when to utilize challenges and when to use extended tasks, and extended tasks are a little easier to follow. While the challenge dice were never a major impediment to me, I have to admit that when I’ve played 2d20 games that don’t utilize them, everything feels like its rolling along just a little bit smoother.

I Protest, I Am Not a Merry Man

The discussion of species traits did a wonderful job of explaining how those traits can be used in a contextual manner to cover a wide range of abilities native to the species. I wish they had extended that logic to Attribute bonuses, which are still tied to species. The organization of the book is much better than 1e edition, but I still feel like I need to hunt a bit to pull together all of the Starship rules. Some of the game rules are great and make sense for Star Trek, like the character log advancement, but may seem a little intimidating to a player that has first encounters it.

Recommended–If the product fits in your broad area of gaming interests, you are likely to be happy with this purchase.

When the original Star Trek Adventures rulebook came out, I thought it was one of the best examples of an RPG based on a property that understands its topic and is designed to support the emblematic narratives native to it. This version is no exception, doing what a solid new edition does–keeping a lot of the familiar structure that works, and streamlining the elements that weren’t as flexible or as intuitive in long-term play.

• STA 2e Cover - Images for Journalistic / Review Purposes     
• Personal Photo - Other     
• Reporting for Duty Chapter Art - Images for Journalistic / Review Purposes     
• Operations Chapter Art - Images for Journalistic / Review Purposes     
• Allies and Adversaries Chapter Art - Images for Journalistic / Review Purposes     

About The Author

Jared Rascher has been gaming since 1985, when he stole his sister’s D&D Basic Set to rescue it from disuse. In the past, he has written several articles for the Forgotten Realms fan site Candlekeep, was present for ground zero as a GM for Pathfinder Society Season Zero at Gen Con 2008, and helped provide feedback on the original documents for that organized play program. He has been a moderator for several online gaming communities, and these days, he likes to write RPG reviews to justify all of those games he can’t keep himself from buying.

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