“Fair Haven”
Written by Robin Burger
Directed by Allan Kroeker
Season 6, Episode 11
Production episode 231
Original air date: January 12, 2000
Stardate: unknown
Captain’s log. We open on Fair Haven, a coastal town in Ireland around the turn of the twentieth century. It’s the latest holodeck program created by Paris, who is enjoying the ambience alongside Kim and the EMH (who is cosplaying as the local priest). This includes being hit up for a shilling by a guy named Seamus whose wife threw him out and flirting with a woman named Maggie, who has a dubious reputation.
Later, they’re in the local pub, where Kim actually wins an arm-wrestling competition (to Seamus’ regret, as he bet on the other guy). Janeway arrives and, after admiring the cut of the landlord’s jib, says that they have to get back to work.
Turns out, they’re on a collision course with a neutronic wavefront. It’s neutralized their warp drive, and it’s too big to go around at impulse, so they have to ride it out. They use an inverse warp field to keep themselves stationary in space, and then get pounded by the storm for three days. Neelix suggests to Janeway that they leave Fair Haven running constantly as a place for the crew to relax. Janeway agrees. No provision is made for people who think that a town full of tiresome Irish stereotypes is a lousy place to go and relax.
Janeway herself visits again, and finds the pub empty save for the landlord, Michael Sullivan. They share a pot of tea and then play rings, and even arm wrestle. Janeway finds herself very much intrigued by the bartender right up until the part where he introduces his wife.
Paris asks Janeway to expand the scenario to the other holodeck, and Janeway agrees. So even less consideration for anyone who wants a different type of recreation.
Buy the Book
A Psalm for the Wild-Built
A wavefront slams into the ship, doing minor damage.
Janeway finds herself unable to stop thinking about Sullivan, and goes into the holodeck controls and modifies the character to give him more of an intellectual bent, to make him a bit taller, and to also lose the wife.
She gets into costume and returns to the holodeck, chatting with Sullivan when he sits at the train station reading poetry. Their chemistry is even greater now—though at one point, Janeway sees Chakotay and is modest about what’s going on. (Chakotay, of course, knows exactly what’s going on.)
Later, she attends a shindig at the pub, and after dancing with Sullivan, deletes all the other people in the pub (thank goodness no other Voyager crew were present, or that would’ve been embarrassing) and smooches him.
After they spend the night together, though, she backs off. She recycles the poetry books she’s replicated and avoids the holodeck. Since the program is running constantly, the character of Sullivan is distraught at the fact that his lady love hasn’t returned. In fact, he’s so despondent, that he winds up instigating a bar brawl in the pub.
Janeway is appalled to find out that she was indirectly responsible for the brawling. The EMH tries to get her to say what’s bothering her, and she eventually opens up. She doesn’t want to get into a relationship with a hologram, especially one she can reprogram at will. The EMH points out that she can’t get involved with someone under her command, so where does that leave her beyond the occasional random alien?
Voyager encounters a nasty part of the wavefront. It’s buffeting the ship something fierce, doing considerable damage, and also making Tuvok (and presumably other Vulcans on board) ill. They need to boost power to the deflectors, taking power from wherever they can—including the holodeck. (How they can divert power from the holodeck when it was established in the early first seasons that the systems were incompatible for such things is left as an exercise for the viewer.) Unfortunately, doing so without taking the time to shut down properly (which they don’t have time to do) will result in the program needing to be reprogrammed from jump. Janeway agrees, and they ride out the storm.
Paris says it will take six to seven weeks to reconstruct the Fair Haven program, because apparently it never occurred to anyone to say, “Computer, save program.” Janeway goes to holodeck control, calls up the Sullivan character and says a proper goodbye to him before making one final modification: to not allow Janeway to ever modify the character again.
Can’t we just reverse the polarity? After establishing early on that holodeck power can’t be diverted to other systems as a feeble excuse to keep doing holodeck stories, now they can divert holodeck power to other systems. Of course, my complaint at the time was that Starfleet engineers should be able to figure out a way around that, and maybe they finally did some time in the last five years…
There’s coffee in that nebula! Following in the grand tradition of William Riker and Geordi La Forge, Janeway falls for a holodeck character.
Mr. Vulcan. The wavefront at one point makes Tuvok queasy. He demurs from Seven’s suggestion that he go to sickbay, but then he overhears Neelix, Paris, and Kim describe waves crashing on the coast and also some of the more bizarre examples of Irish food, at which point an even-more-ill-looking Tuvok gets up and announces that he’s going to sickbay.
Everybody comes to Neelix’s. Neelix is the one who suggests the holodeck run Fair Haven 24/7, and also starts learning how to make Irish food, for some inexplicable reason.
Please state the nature of the medical emergency. The EMH plays the role of the town priest, and at one point asks for a bigger role. Paris’ suggestion is to have him go to a monastery and take a vow of silence.
The EMH also plays the role of counselor (appropriate both in his role as a physician and as a fake priest) to help Janeway through her difficulties.
Resistance is futile. Seven proves adept at rings, to the admiration of Seamus, though that isn’t what Seamus is actually admiring. Wah-HEY!
No sex, please, we’re Starfleet. Janeway knocks boots with a hologram, and she acts like it’s some kind of weird thing when you know that that’s how most people use the holodeck, really…
What happens on the holodeck stays on the holodeck. For reasons that are never adequately explained, they lost 90% of the program when the wavefront hits and they have to shut it down, even though holodeck programs can easily be saved and stored.
Do it.
“Oh, you know the story: girl meets boy, girl modifies boy’s subroutines…”
–Janeway being all romantic.
Welcome aboard. The great character actor Richard Riehle attempts an Irish accent as Seamus. He previously played Batai in TNG’s “The Inner Light,” and will also play Dr. Lucas in the Enterprise episodes “Cold Station 12” and “The Augments.” Fintan McKeown plays Michael, Jan Claire plays Frannie, Henriette Ivanas plays Maggie, and Duffie McIntire plays Grace. Aside from Claire, all of the above will return for the inexplicable sequel, “Spirit Folk,” later this season.
Trivial matters: This is the first Voyager script by Robin Burger, who joined the staff as a producer in this season. She previously wrote the TNG episode “The Hunted,” writing as Robin Bernheim.
Fair Haven will be revisited in “Spirit Folk,” which aired six weeks after this one, exactly the amount of time Paris said he would need to reconstruct the program.
Jane Eldon and Sean Gogerty are both fictional poets. It’s not clear why Burger didn’t have Janeway and Sullivan reading any actual Irish poets, of which there are more than a few.
Set a course for home. “A stranger is a friend you just haven’t met yet.” According to an interview Bryan Fuller did for Star Trek: The Magazine in 2001, there were several candidates for the latest recurring holodeck program, following up on Chez Sandrine, the Paxau Resort, and Captain Proton. Fuller listed an aircraft carrier, an Agatha Christie-style drawing-room mystery, a haunted castle, and a movie studio.
Any of those would have been significantly more interesting than this utter nonsense. Apparently they didn’t feel like they offended enough Irish people in TNG’s “Up the Long Ladder,” which after all, only took up about half the episode. No, much better to devote a full episode (and a sequel!) to doing so!
The setting is just revolting, indulging in all kinds of tired stereotypes, most of which have their root in racist assumptions made about Irish immigrants in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries here in the United States: drunken, lazy, philandering, etc. (Plus, of course, they were Catholics, coming to a country dominated by Protestants, an issue faced by Italians who immigrated to the U.S. as well.)
Also Voyager has a crew complement in the low three figures, and not all of them are human, and even the humans aren’t all from Earth. I find it impossible to credit that a plurality of them are going to find this particular setting so compelling that it’s worth devoting all the holodeck time to it. Especially since we don’t really see much of it beyond the pub…
And it’s all in service of a story is just not that compelling. Creating characters you can flirt with and/or have sex with is a perfectly reasonable thing to be doing on the holodeck. The whole point of the holodeck is a place to indulge yourself, and Janeway getting all skittish about recreating with a hologram just seems absurd. And the technobabble plot is lame even by Voyager‘s low standards of lame technobabble plots, as it’s just riding out rough waters, but in space! Which, apparently, is exactly the same as it would be on water, complete with “dropping anchor” and some folks getting nauseous. Snore.
On top of that, the ending where the program is irretrievably damaged makes absolutely no sense, not based on the way computers work in general and how holodecks on three different shows have always worked in particular. It’s just there to create artificial pathos, which is necessary, as there’s no real pathos here to speak of. Just a tiresome, pointless bit of nonsense.
Warp factor rating: 0
Keith R.A. DeCandido will be part of a three-night virtual event celebrating the release of the charity anthology Turning the Tied held by the University Bookstore, on the 25th, 26th, and 27th of May at 9pm Eastern time. The anthology features stories about various public-domain characters, and benefits the World Literacy Foundation. Keith will be participating in the first night’s panel, alongside the anthology’s co-editor Robert Greenberger, and fellow contributors David Boop, Jennifer Brozek, Steven Paul Leiva, Yvonne Navarro, and Weston Ochse. The other two nights will feature the other co-editor, Jean Rabe, and authors Rigel Ailur, Derek Tyler Attico, Greg Cox, Kelli Fitzpatrick, Nancy Holder, Jonathan Maberry, Will McDermott, Scott Pearson, Ben H. Rome, Aaron Rosenberg, Stephen D. Sullivan, Robert Vardeman, and Tim Waggoner. Details here!
“Following in the grand tradition of Riker and La Forge, Janeway falls for a holodeck character.” Let’s not make Lwaxana feel neglected (“Manhunt”). Or Barclay.
Ah, Fair Haven. What a bunch of nonsense- and on top of it being nonsense, it is spectacularly boring and lacking in imagination. Of the 4 major holodeck programs I can think of (Sandrine’s, the Resort, Fair Haven, and Captain Proton) 3 of them are either based on a place on earth, or so similar as to make any differences pointless, and only Captain Proton even bothers to try to have a little creativity to it. I will never understand the Star Trek writer’s rooms obsession with 18th and 19th century (western) settings. YOU ARE ON A SF SHOW! YOU COULD HAVE THE SETTING BE LITERALLY ANYTHING IN THE WHOLE UNIVERSE!!! It always comes across to me as the writers trying to pad their resumes with non-science fiction stories, and most of them are barely tolerable. If I wanted to watch a movie or show about Irish people, there are ones that feature *actual* Irish people that I could watch, instead of this weird, stereotypical schlock.
Honestly, Janeway is way too mature for this plot point. Developing a crush on a holo-character is likely something every person going through puberty in the future deals with- just like people in our own time develop obsessions with boy bands and celebrities. Sure, the holodeck is more *ahem* physical than just writing your own fanfiction, but the principle of it is basically the same. Janeway mentions playing the Flotter stories as a kid, so it isn’t like she grew up not playing holodeck stories or something. If she gets this ruffled about the spectacularly bland and gentlemanly Michael Sullivan here, it is a good thing she never went into one of Quark’s holosuites. Janeway being lonely and desperately wanting companionship would actually have made a good episode- but this ain’t it.
Seamus tells the Doctor that he’s broken the Fifth Commandment again. That’s murder! Does Seamus have a pile of bodies hidden in his root cellar?
Interesting score of 0. “Spirit Folk” is even worse; you’ll have to dip into the negatives.
@3: Seamus tells the Doctor that he’s broken the Fifth Commandment. That’s murder!
Yeah, about that. There are numerous versions of the Ten Commandments. Relevant to this episode, the Protestant version has the Fifth Commandment as “Honor thy father and thy mother.” For Catholics, that’s the Fourth Commandment, and the Fifth Commandment is “You shall not kill.”
Normally this is strictly a matter of trivia, although it can be fun to flummox “we should post the Ten Commandments in public” people with, “Which version?” But I bring this up because Seamus mentions that he broke the fifth commandment “again,” which I think makes him a serial killer. Presumably the intent was the Protestant Fifth Commandment, except we’re in Ireland and the Doctor is cosplaying as a Catholic priest. Very authentic simulation, would visit again, 10/10.
I give this episode slightly more than a 0, because I give an automatic point to any episode that DOESN’T have a lame jeopardy angle shoe-horned in, and this mostly qualifies– the ship is never in any real danger, they just have to batten down the hatches and turn off the holodeck. But yeesh, the best case scenario is that there’s a good idea in there somewhere that just didn’t make it to the screen.
I suspect it’s much the same reason as the original Trek writers had the Enterprise visit Old West Planet, and Gangster Planet, and Ancient Rome Planet, and Curiously Similar To Mayberry Planet: they could have the crew encounter something that wasn’t the Enterprise, but didn’t break the budget because it could reuse costumes and props (and often sets) that the studio had sitting around.
In the late 80s I had a really great computer game called Starflight. Its one fault was that if you didn’t shut it down and save properly on two 5.25-inch floppy discs, the game was totally corrupted and could not be played again unless you started from the beginning.
I’m sorry to hear that this is still an issue by the 24th century.
One of those boring episodes when Star Trek looks as though it was made by a joint venture of Hallmark Cards, Masterpiece Theatre, and the people who make Lucky Charms.
Ain’tWatchin @@@@@ 7
You win the internet this day!
This episode would be improved by Colm Meaney trashing Voyager the way he abuses Colin Farrell in Intermission. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlorlsDJyV0#t=33s (Warning: strong language)
Yeah, pretty forgettable. I wonder if the main incentive driving this and “Spirit Folk” is that maybe the producers got a good deal on renting the Little Europe section of the Universal Studios backlot (previously seen in “The Killing Game”), or something like that. As #5/elcinco said, a lot of the incentive for holodeck episodes is to reuse existing present-day or historical assets like studio backlots and stock costumes.
“Jane Eldon and Sean Gogerty are both fictional poets. It’s not clear why Burger didn’t have Janeway and Sullivan reading any actual Irish poets, of which there are more than a few.”
Maybe they’re future Irish poets, and this is one of those rare instances of Trek actually postulating some human culture that isn’t from the show’s own past. Which would be ironic in an episode that’s all about yet again romanticizing Earth’s past, and not even bothering to get much about it right.
@10/”Maybe they’re future Irish poets”
Eldon is confirmed in Michael’s past (“She’s been dead seventy years.”), although that’s possibly the case for Gogerty. But if the “authentic” holodeck program has characters familiar with poetry that hasn’t been written yet, then that’s even more screwed up. So I think the best read is that the Star Trek timeline diverged from our own at some point before when the holosimulation is set and these are poets that exist in Star Trek’s past but not the real past.
Which, I guess, acts as a natural saving throw for all the things they got wrong, including the Fifth Commandment blooper mentioned above. The simulation is 100% accurate! For Star Trek’s version of Ireland, which isn’t the same as ours. Sure, why not.
Well, TNG taught us that the USSR still exists long after it fell in the real world (since the Tsiolkovsky was built there), so that seems plausible.
Quoth Christopher: “Maybe they’re future Irish poets”
Not really possible for characters in a holodeck program that’s from roughly 1900 reading poets who’ve been dead for seventy years.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Guest actor Richard Riehle has 415 acting credits to his name on IMDB. I’ve never seen an acting resumé that extensive before.
I will always remember him as one of the corrections officers from The Fugitive. He’s on the prison bus with Harrison Ford during the train crash. “Do you want to change your bullshit story, sir?”
Ahh, the old moral quandary of having sex with a hologram. Well, seeing as how they’re “sailors” and stuck out on the “sea” a long way from home, at least it’s not a barrel on the deck with a hole in it…
And trying not to think about what poor soul has holodeck cleaning duty…
@11/dunsel: “So I think the best read is that the Star Trek timeline diverged from our own at some point before when the holosimulation is set and these are poets that exist in Star Trek’s past but not the real past.”
You don’t need any labored discussion of “timelines” to explain a fictional series having fictional people in its history, e.g. Edith Keeler, Flint, or the guest cast in DS9: “Little Green Men.” Still, one wonders why the Paramount research department couldn’t have coughed up a few authentic Irish poets’ names for them to use. Or corrected any of the other egregious historical and cultural errors.
Apart from all the other things that are awful about this epiosde is a recurring problem on voyager is when are holograms considered sentient? i accept the Doctor as sentient but he’s special right? it doesn’t mean every hologram is right? if they are then what the crew does to them on a regular basis is immoral if there not then why give a dam about them?
I actually disagree with the 0 rating, for one specific reason: Janeway learning not to mess with holodeck characters. That’s an interesting bit of psychological drama, and I feel like it makes the episode at least a 1 or 2. It was explored to about the extent I’d want it to be, just the right amount of time.
Out of curiosity, what other episodes have you rated 0, Keith? I only know of “Profit and Lace” getting that rating (and it really does deserve the 0).
Ah, yes. The Voyager crew is sent to The Bad Place.
I laughed when The Good Place used this same set.
It’s really all I have to say good about this episode.
Bobby
I just came for the rating and the comments. Lol. As for the actual episode I only got as far as the teaser and maybe a minute into the first act and I could stand no longer. I guess the rating and the comments back up my instinct and the episode’s reputation and I can avoid watching the rest of it and its sequel.
Given that this holodeck locale lasted for only two episodes I guess the producers deemed it was unsuccessful as a hangout for the crew. But I don’t think a new one ever came after this attempt.
After a mostly good run of episodes I think this particular one starts the unevenness of Season Six as plenty of other stinkers are coming like this one’s sequel: “Spirit Folk”, “Ashes to Ashes”, “Collective”, and “Fury” (which while terrible, I personally find very watchable like a train wreck I can’t tear my eyes away from).
@2: I think the Paxau Resort program wasn’t based on Earth because as I recall, Neelix initially designed it. Tom and Harry then tweaked it.
@18: “Shades of Grey” (the infamous clip show) from TNG got a 0 from Krad.
If we’re trying to no-prize the poets, I’ll opt for the over elaborate explanation of
1) They are in fact future Irish poets.
2) Paris heard Janeway discussing them at some point.
3) When creating the rugged yet sensitive publican for his stereotypical Irish village, Paris instructed the computer to “make him the sort of guy who reads Irish poets like…” at which point he failed to think of any era-appropriate Irish poets and named the first two to come to mind.
Alternatively Paris, as part of some sick psychosexual game, designed Sullivan explicitly to appeal to Janeway, and then also programmed him a wife.
cuttlefishbenjamin: Sorry, no No-Prize, because Sullivan’s interest in poetry wasn’t part of how Paris programmed him. The interest in literature was put in by Janeway when she redid him (along with making him taller and making him single).
—-Keith R.A. DeCandido
As for your alternative, cuttlefishbenjamin, I don’t buy for a nanosecond that Paris is even capable of programming a man to appeal to a specific woman on purpose.
—-KRAD
You are correct! Which is why I added the “so few differences” caveat, because if you didn’t remember that one line from the first episode it appeared in, I doubt anyone would have guessed it was supposed to be from an alien world. It basically looks like what a set for any earth resort would look like. I just find it disappointingly uncreative.
@23- Ah, damn, I missed that. In which case I’ll go with the computer, deciding that this isn’t an accurate historical Ireland anyways*, helpfully filling in his taste in poetry from the texts Janeway calls up most often.
*I’m not sure what Paris’s ‘designing’ of the scenario amounted to, but I can’t help but imagine him saying “Computer, create a simulated village of early twentieth century Ireland. Okay, increase stereotypes by twenty- no, thirty percent.”
@17/John: Holograms are not a species, despite Trek’s tendency to treat them as one. They’re just avatars or interfaces controlled by computer programs. Not all computer programs are sentient, any more than all biological organisms are sentient. The Fair Haven characters are not individual intelligences, just characters in a simulation, all operated by the holodeck computer in the same way that NPCs in Grand Theft Auto or Overwatch or whatever are operated by the game software.
@25: I agree regarding the general lack of creativity of holodeck programs on all of the various Star Trek spin-offs. They’re almost always so focused on the same few time periods in Earth’s past. An exception I really enjoyed was Barclay’s program in “Hollow Pursuits”. Sure it was rooted in the past with the swashbuckler characters and costumes, but the design was very dreamlike and lush in quality plus it was just a hoot having the main cast play such over-the-top characters so far from their normal staid personas. It’s part of why I love that episode.
I remember this episode gave me the idea of a spaceship with shared venue like Second Lives where the crew could escape their limited ship environment. Only instead of a holodeck it was a VR that played when you slept. Then when you went to bed in the simulation you woke up on the ship. Problem was the VR is so real the crew begins to wonder which life is the fantasy. They pretty much decide it’s got to be the ship because Spaceships Are Cool, and 20th century suburbia isn’t. Then the ship reaches port – and yeah, that’s reality.
I imagine that depicting past events (but the future for us) is a tough sell. There’s the cost—creating new sets and/or CGI—and then there’s the issue of the event having no connection with the audience. It can be done, of course; Voyager just recently did it in this rewatch with the astronaut episode. But in that case it was our near future and a relatable subject.
Honestly, it really just comes down to cost. Using pre-existing sets, etc. It’s the same reason why so many aliens in Sci-Fi shows are bipeds that look a lot like us, but under heavy makeup (or, in Voyager’s case, minimal forehead makeup).
The Star Trek franchise ended 1999 with a superb episode in Pathfinder, and then chose to open up the new freaking millennium with Fair Haven. Seriously! This is the episode they picked to start the next 1000 years! They could have switched airdates with Blink of an Eye (the much better episode!) in order to preserve the historical significance. Now, Trek will forever be remembered as the franchise that chose to start the year 2000 with one of its most disastrous episodes. Then again, they ended the 1960’s with Turnabout Intruder, and the 1980’s with The Vengeance Factor….
Of course, holodeck romances have been done before, and way better. 11001001 is my favorite episode from TNG’s first season, and easily the best example of a romance done well. And Fair Haven has another significant problem besides stereotypical Irish folk: Janeway and Michael Sullivan together. They have zero chemistry. It’s not helped by the fact that McKeown is a lousy actor. Voyager usually gets the guest casting right, as seen with Janeway’s last squeeze in Counterpoint. Not so this time. Not once the episode convinces me that these two are remotely right for each other (certainly not him), and Janeway’s attempts at reprogramming might be trying to be humorous, but I just found it appalling. Even Geordi and Leah Brahms wasn’t this bad.
I feel sorry for Allan Kroeker. The best action director in this era of Trek had just wrapped up DS9‘s spectacular two hour finale, presumably took a long break from that marathon, and then ended up doing this. Not unlike Kolbe being stuck with TNG’s Up the Long Ladder, or Livingston having to direct the upcoming Spirit Folk. Even the best directors get the short end with lousy scripts that are beyond salvageable.
I imagine this would have eventually happened on TNG, had that show gone beyond seven seasons. Emergence was a warning sign for holodeck shows, especially when the writers start running out of ideas.
@24 – “Computer, create a character that will appeal to Captain Janeway” (Tom Paris after reading about how Moriarity came about on the Enterprise-D)
“Tommy boy, you forgot the leprechauns.”
Yeah, let’s gloss over the biggest bunch of Irish stereotypes since “Up the Long Ladder”, okay? It’s bad but, I dunno, not “makes you want to scratch your eyes” out bad? Maybe?
I started off thinking that this was another episode which hadn’t quite decided on its message, but actually I thought it turned out surprisingly well. (Checks world hasn’t imploded. Continues.) Given the crew’s isolation and surprising lack of romantic interest in each other, it’s a wonder this sort of thing doesn’t happen more often. Janeway’s obviously involved in her quest for a holographic boyfriend, yet also somewhat reluctant to commit to it full-time, which is understandable. Chakotay seems to be displaying the vaguely voyeuristic tendencies he demonstrated back in “Remember”, but the Doctor makes a decent, if rather biased, relationship guru. (He was never going to say it’s icky to date a hologram and even makes out Michael is no different from him.) It’s also a decent episode for Paris, who’s nicely discreet on the subject while also looking out for Janeway’s feelings. (Their final ready room chat goes just as well as it could.) It’s a shame they weren’t confident enough to stick with the character drama and leave out the Anomaly of the Week B-plot.
The Doctor indicates that, as captain, Janeway can’t have a relationship with a subordinate, which is a policy change from TNG’’s “Lessons” if true. (See also “Workforce”.) Actually, he seems to implying no-one can have a relationship with a subordinate, even though Paris and Torres are different ranks now. Seven goes to a 19th century pub dressed like that? Then again, no-one bats an eye at the Starfleet uniforms or Talaxian bartender, so I guess the programme has the “Characters do not notice blatant anachronisms” box ticked.
Paris’ tastes definitely seem to have changed as his new programme seems rather wholesome compared to Sandrine’s and the Paxau Resort. The crew getting beaten up by the holocharacters is a bit odd: Do safety protocols only prevent life-threatening injuries? Despite this being her boyfriend’s programme, Torres doesn’t appear to visit it and only appears on-screen in one scene.
And I am now in a sea of confusion about there being more than one set of Ten Commandments and looking at my 20th century translation of the Bible going “Yep, number five, honour your father and mother, do other copies have it differently?” So I’ve learnt something from this thread, kind of…
@33/cap-mjb: “The crew getting beaten up by the holocharacters is a bit odd: Do safety protocols only prevent life-threatening injuries?”
I tend to assume they’re for serious injuries, not for minor boo-boos and scrapes. After all, a lot of people would consider the odd cuts and bruises and strains to be an integral part of a realistic recreational activity. But actually getting beat up by holocharacters seems to be stretching things. If it were a boxing or rugby simulation, you’d expect that to be something the live participants would be okay with, up to a point. But this is supposed to be a relaxing social gathering place, so you’d think the safety parameters would be dialed up higher.
Keith when you get to Spirit Folk, save your sanity.
A 0 score seems rather low for an episode that is less actively awful and more snore-inducing. Then again, with all the Zs I caught when watching this dud maybe Zero is appropriate.
Ha – we are all “bracing for impact” for the Spirit Folk review already!
The rewatch suddenly became so much more entertaining (not that it wasn’t before, it has been consistently excellent and enjoyable – thank you Krad!)
Quoth Don S.: “Let’s not make Lwaxana feel neglected (“Manhunt”). Or Barclay.”
I didn’t neglect them, but I’m not sure they count. While Lwaxana was intrigued by a holographic character, that was because she thought he was real and couldn’t read his mind. As soon as she found out he was fake, she lost interest. And Barclay didn’t fall in love with any of the holographic re-creations he made, at least not that we were told….
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@29: That’s an awesome idea!
I believe the commandments differ slightly in Catholicism v. Protestantism. Growing up Catholic, I always knew that “Honor thy father and thy mother” was the Fourth Commandment, and the Fifth Commandment was “Thou shalt not kill/murder.” I did not learn until much later that the Protestant commandments were different. To simplify it, what Catholics consider the first two commandments are stretched out to three for Protestants, and the last two commandments for Catholics (both address coveting) are combined into one for Protestants.
So… I doubt Voyager’s writers had intended to imply that Seamus was a serial killer. Perhaps Voyager’s writers were more familiar with the Protestant version of the commandments since it is the dominant religion in the U.S. But for 1900’s Ireland, it certainly would have been Catholicism. Despite the fact that “Father Doctor” never once mentions God or Jesus in his sermons, and there are no religious icons or images in the church. Even the stained-glass windows are the most bland I’ve ever seen anywhere. The Doctor is a computer program, and as such, should have an encyclopedic knowledge of Catholicism. So when Seamus confesses to breaking the Fifth Commandment “again” – even if Seamus is simply confused about the numbering and meant to confess to, say, lying or stealing – you’d think the Doctor would have shown a bit more alarm to what he should have perceived as a confession to multiple murders. But perhaps I’ve put more thought into the matter than Voyager’s writers did.
@34 These are the same safety protocols in place for Worf’s Klingon Calisthenics programs, no? But yeah, for a resort or otherwise relaxing milieu, one would think they’d be a little stricter.
I think the decision to use invented Irish poets was idiotic (Yeats, Dunsany, Wilde anyone?). Or perhaps it was a decision to avoid the implications of using real, historical poets and writers, the same as Fair Haven is in no way representative of turn of the century Ireland. It was too turbulent a time in real life. Although that would have required some forethought, which the stereotypes dialed to 11 seem to indicate was missing from this script.
Up the Long Ladder all over again (which begs the question, why would a 22nd century anti-technological movement be so ethnically homogeneous? There should’ve been American survivalists and Rastas in that bunch …)
A last, unrelated point: in the aforementioned dumpster fire of a TNG episode, Pulaski and Riker rightly take offense at being sampled for their DNA to be used in cloning. There’s a chance the Mariposans got genetic input from Riker anyway …
*Enraged Irish man enters the thread. Checks score*
Very good, carry on.
I didn’t find this episode that bad. Maybe the main reason is that I haven’t encountered the Irish stereotypes all that much before and didn’t recognize them as such. I just saw a bunch of good natured folks and I could see how such a peaceful place could be attractive for the Voyager crew as an escapism strategy. If anything, the setting reminded me more of Dr Queen medicine woman. I also found the topic explored with Janeway to be an interesting one: what if you could magically change the person you are with on a whim? It reminds me of the episode where the Doctor created a family on the holodeck, but here the story moved in the opposite direction. Most of the episode was boring, but I found enough interesting moments to get me going.
I have a certain appreciation for episodes which show just how shit it can be to be captain sometimes. I loved the TNG episodes where Picard struggled with the loneliness at the top (The Perfect Mate came to mind, plus that one where he dates the stellar cartography scientist) and I really appreciated this looking into that with Janeway – I wish the Void episode had involved more exploration but I guess the point was she blocked everyone out.
Anyway, back to Fair Haven… terrible location but I liked what they tried to do.
It’s difficult to portray the human side of strong female characters and while this may seem jarring it’s not too bad.
I also giggled at Chakotay’s teasing on the bridge, because yeah boy he’s seen holo-action haha.
@40/bgsu98: “The Doctor is a computer program, and as such, should have an encyclopedic knowledge of Catholicism.”
The Doctor is a medical expert program, and thus only had encyclopedic knowledge of medical subjects to start with, plus whatever knowledge he’s sought out since (and wasn’t lost in his memory purge).
@41/markvolund: I’m pretty sure Worf turned the safeties off for his holodeck “calisthenics.”
I would push back on this a little bit. I don’t think it is any more difficult to show the human side of female characters than it is to show the human side of male ones, if you have competent writers and a firm characterization. Within Trek, I think Kira Nerys is a great example of a character who got to be human (well, humanoid) and flawed while still being someone who could kick butt and take names. Over on BSG Kara Thrace and President Roslin both had their strengths and their flaws, and were allowed to be people who were both vulnerable at times and incredibly strong at others. IMHO the problem is more frequently that female characters don’t get to be as human as male ones (and I think Janeway fell into this a bit, with the writers being so determined to make her the Strong Female Captain that she didn’t always get to be a 3 dimensional person, especially in the early seasons), and so then the show writes itself into a corner, so that when the character does show a human side, it comes out of left field and doesn’t feel organic to the character. But I think that is a flaw in writing, and not one inherent to female characters.
@29: See Poul Anderson’s “The Saturn Game” or Ted Reynolds’ “What Mad Diversions”
@40: Ah, it’s not the Bible that’s different, it’s where people put the numbers. Gotcha.
Top o’ dah morning to ya, laddies! I just finished eatin’ me Lucky Charms. ‘Tis a fine and beautahful mornin’ and I look forward to dah discussion today.
@39, SaraB, Thank you!
@44, Lola, Is this the episode where Janeway confides to Chakotay that her ‘boyfriend’ is glitching? Or is that in the next one?
The problem with Strong Female Characters is humanizing them is read as weakening them. They’ve got to be flawless. Ick.
What is this Star Trek obsession with the Irish? The Idyllic village of Fair Haven could be anywhere, New England, Old England, Brittany, Normandy, the Netherlands, with little change.
@31 – The new millennium started 1st January 2001, not 2000, so it’s not quite that bad. Their first episode of the new millennium was Shattered.
@51/Muswell: Oh, please, let’s not start that argument again. Most of the world celebrated the new millennium on 1/1/2000; only a smattering of calendrical pedants waited a year. Most people don’t care about strict technical accuracy on this point, and it’s all arbitrary anyway. So let them have this.
@51: I was going to tell @31 the same thing but we perhaps we can qualify his statement that this episode was a poor way to start the 2000’s. And I agree that while not a great episode, “Shattered” is a better way for Star Trek to start the new millennium than “Fair Haven.”
Harry also fell in love with a holodeck character once, Marina in the Paxau resort? Although maybe that one doesn’t count since it turned out she was a real person using the holodeck character as an avatar. But apparently it happens to everybody now and then.
I wouldn’t have given this a zero, but certainly a low number. There are some interesting ideas that don’t go explored enough, or at all. The doctor at one point says this is all no different than interacting with him. They’ve gone to some effort to portray him as a sentient being worthy of respecting his dignity and personal sovereignty. So when Janeway has to give the order to sacrifice fair haven, is she effectively sacrificing their lives for the rest of the ship?
Its nice to see that workplace propriety made some progress between TNG and Voyager. TNG didn’t seem to see anything inherently wrong with a captain dating a subordinate, and Picard had to make the personal decision that he’s not cut out to captain effectively in those situations. It seemed absurd then, at least they have the sense to know it isn’t appropriate now.
@54/karey: Yeah, it was silly the way the show had the Doctor treat purely NPC holograms as if they were the same kind of being as himself. That’s the equivalent of thinking of a lifelike animatronic movie character as a real person. What defines personhood is the mind, not the outer appearance.
@54 “Harry also fell in love with a holodeck character once…”
And he will again, or at least make a pass at one in Spirit Folk.
@55 – Maybe the Doctor was uncomfortable with saying the hologram wasn’t real? Your animatronic analogy is flawed; there is no fundamental outer difference between the Doctor and the NPCs, unlike humans and animatronics. The Doctor and the NPCs are both composed of light and force fields. It is, indeed, the mind that counts in this case but I wouldn’t be comfortable calling a brain-damaged human something other than human, even if they couldn’t interact with reality. So I don’t really have a problem with the Doctor viewing the NPCs are something like himself.
@57/Austin: You missed the part where I posited a “lifelike” animatronic. The point is that even if it were completely convincing, that would not even slightly qualify it as a real human being.
“The Doctor and the NPCs are both composed of light and force fields.”
The Doctor’s body is. That has nothing to do with his mind, his personality, his consciousness.
And NPCs are not “brain-damaged humans.” Now, that is a terrible analogy. We’re talking two fundamentally different types of computer program here. One is an artificial intelligence embodying a single individual personality. The other is game code that collectively operates dozens or hundreds of empty puppets with no more individual identity than the characters in a game of Overwatch or Mortal Kombat. Just because they look like individual people doesn’t mean they are. That’s mistaking illusion for substance.
@46 I take your point on the female characters you mention – and that the root problem is imbalanced portrayal of strong female characters so when that shifts it’s jarring. I still feel the combination here for Janeway in being captain and projecting so strongly doesn’t preclude that there would be occasions where that guard drops. I’m glad we didn’t see it super often, but was ok with it here and it made me care a bit more for her as a character. Mileage varies of course.
@50 no thank god the “boyfriend” quip was in Spirit Folk… and it was weird. What you say about strong female characters being read at weak at the slightest change is spot on – my point here is that I didn’t read her as weak from this episode. I read her as human, and so I thought they didn’t do too badly with the writing. Perhaps Kate Mulgrew just had a good balance in the portrayal. There were a lot of specific physical body language choices that probably came down to her.
@58 – “You missed the part where I posited a “lifelike” animatronic. The point is that even if it were completely convincing, that would not even slightly qualify it as a real human being.”
You missed my point. Of course they wouldn’t qualify as human beings, because they’re animatronics. You’re right; no matter how life-like they are, they wouldn’t be human beings. But the NPCs are holgrams and the Doctor is a hologram. There’s no difference between them, other than the Doctor’s mind having developed sentience. The NPCs are more akin to blood cells and the Doctor is the brain. Both are body parts (holograms), though. Just a different function.
““The Doctor and the NPCs are both composed of light and force fields.”
The Doctor’s body is. That has nothing to do with his mind, his personality, his consciousness.”
I know. I said “It is, indeed, the mind that counts in this case.”
@60/Austin: Look, forget about the damn animatronics. Obviously it was a poorly chosen analogy. I’m trying to make the point that outward appearance does not give something its identity.
“But the NPCs are holgrams and the Doctor is a hologram. There’s no difference between them, other than the Doctor’s mind having developed sentience.”
No. They are not holograms, despite Trek’s sloppy usage. They are programs that physically exist within starship computer banks. The holograms are merely visual interfaces that they control. The visual images do not contain their intelligence, any more than a desktop computer’s monitor contains its CPU. It’s just the interface. The actual computations take place elsewhere.
This is what I’m saying — that the same kind of holographic projection can be controlled by different, unrelated types of computer program. You can hook the same video monitor to either a cable TV box or a desktop computer, but that doesn’t mean the cable box and the computer are the same as each other. They just use the same visual interface. It is Trek’s lazy habit to mistake the surface for the identity.
My point is that some computer programs, like the EMH, control only one hologram, while some programs, like a typical holonovel such as Captain Proton or an MMORPG like Sandrine’s or Fair Haven, control many holograms at once. The cops and crooks in Grand Theft Auto don’t each have their own separate identity; there’s only one computer program controlling all of them, creating the illusion that they’re separate people. I’m saying you can’t mistake that illusion for reality. It is silly the way Trek treats mere game holograms as if they were the same kind of individuals as the EMH.
Ideally they should never have used “hologram” as if it were the name of a species. It’s led to the bizarre conceit of Picard where androids are banned but holograms are perfectly okay, as if the outward manifestation made any meaningful difference when they’re both artificial intelligences. You could easily take the same AI that controls a hologram and stick it in the head of an android, or take the CPU out of an android and plug it into a holosuite. They should treat AIs as AIs regardless of external interface, rather than treating holograms as holograms and androids as androids regardless of the nature of the controlling software.
@61 now I want to see a Star Trek crew playing in a Grand Theft Auto holodeck program lol
@61 – I actually agree with everything you’re saying. I’m just trying to give a plausible explanation as to why the Doctor would not be comfortable labeling the holograms as not real. Though that was a good point that the entire holodeck scenario is the hologram, rather than the individual NPCs. It’s hard to remember that with the way that Trek likes to portray the holo programs (basically indistinguishable from real life). It would be nice if the NPCs were portrayed with a little less…realness. Maybe blank expressions when the crew starting talking about real life in front of them.
@63/Austin: I can buy the Doctor feeling some degree of identification with even nonsentient holograms because he doesn’t really have anyone else of “his kind” to identify with most of the time. If you were the only human being on a ship full of robots, you might find yourself identifying with the lab rats as fellow organic life forms, even projecting personalities onto them like we do with pets. And if your robot crewmates started talking dismissively about the rats or planning to dissect them or something, you might stand up for their “rights” because on some level you’d be afraid that the robots might feel the same way about you if you don’t remind them of the worth of organic life forms.
But it’s still not an attitude that makes sense to treat as objectively true.
I actually watched this episode because it was used in a video for Dan Fogleberg’s “Wysteria” It didn’t convince me that it was worth watching more.
@57 & @58 – Perhaps he’s just being polite like Sonya Gomez was with the replicator in Q Who. Just because they’re not sentient doesn’t mean you can’t be polite.
I’m satisfied now! *wink* (Referring to my post from “Threshold” wondering if any Voyager episode would get a warp factor rating of “0”) GarretH was right!
@67/erikm: Hahaha! Why thank you, erikm. I was just making an educated guess! Because this episode is a confirmed “0”, I feel pretty certain I’ll never need to watch it now unless I lose some bet or feel I need to torture myself.
Now the real question is whether “Spirit Folk” will join its partner in zero-dom?
I also think “Fury” is another strong contender for bottom of the barrel but I’ll embarrassingly admit it’s guilty-pleasure viewing of mine.
Agree this episode is a snore. When I late night binge watch Voyager on netflix this is an efficient one to knock me out.
But I often find myself wishing that they made these more historically accurate for the time period they are set in, and had some characters be revolutionaries from the Irish Republican Brotherhood.
I think because this was supposed to be a “light,” humorous-type of episode, the breaking of the Third Commandment and the Doctor’s offhand response was meant as a joke. A very small one.
I’m inclined to be more charitable to this episode, if only because I think the dating a hologram plot line has more weight to it than it seems. It’s asking if a person can have a healthy romantic relationship with a non-sentient AI.
There’s a huge difference between using holograms to get off or an adolescent crush and what Janeway feels tempted by in this episode . If nothing else, it could be the first signs of holo-addiction. If she wanted to, she could keep the infatuation going indefinitely by tweaking his program whenever she wanted.
It’s just too bad the scenario was abysmal.
@71/noblehunter: “It’s asking if a person can have a healthy romantic relationship with a non-sentient AI.”
That’s not a relationship, it’s just a technology-assisted fantasy.
And in that sense, I don’t see the issue. The whole point of fantasy is to imagine getting what you want. So being able to customize a holographic fantasy character to suite one’s preferences is hardly a problem; it’s the whole point of the holodeck, whether you’re programming a romantic/sexual fantasy partner or a karate sparring partner or an adversary in an RPG. It only becomes a problem if you lose sight of the distinction between fantasy and reality, or use the fantasy as a crutch to avoid real-life opportunities.
@69/Mangchi I made the same point back in earlier post (41) regarding the fact that they didn’t use real contemporary Irish writers and poets but resorted to invented ones.
The problem is that name-checking Yeats or any of his contemporaries, or bringing in the IRB, kills the point of it being an idyllic escape. Possibly more interesting, however.
Even possibly as interesting as St. Clare … but then it wouldn’t be an idyllic escape at all.
The one other (and much better executed) example of rural Ireland I can think of, The Quiet Man, at least had some comic/dramatic tension, including the implied tension between the two competing clergymen of the village (one Anglican, the other RC).
Yep, deserves that goose egg.
@73 – I always felt that The Quiet Man was very underrated, especially for a John Wayne movie. My dad was a huge John Wayne fan and pretty much bought every one of his movies on VHS. So I had to grow up with him watching John Wayne movies nonstop. Needless to say, I got sick of John Wayne, who I thought played the same character in most of his movies. But The Quiet Man was an exception. I loved the Taming of the Shrew quality to the romance plot, though that probably wouldn’t be so kosher today.
Interesting enough, I remember several years ago catching the movie on TV and wondering when Maureen O’Hara died. I went to her IMDB page and was gobsmacked to see that she was still alive. It felt so bizarre that someone who started acting in the 1930s was still alive in the modern age. What a contrast in time periods. She did, ironically enough, pass away not long after I looked her up at the age of 95.
@60: To greatly exaggerate my familiarity with the science fiction of Philip K. Dick, he repeatedly uses “androids”, artificially created or duplicated people who are treated as legal slaves or disposable machines, while usually making the differences between android and meat-human falsely specious. These are people; sometime mentally handicapped people perhaps, but people, trapped in a society which treats them as inferior by birth. And people who may have nothing but clockwork and electronics inside them but nevertheless…
These are the “Replicants” in “Blade Runner”, the people that Harrison Ford is paid to find and murder. They have killed a few meaties by the time we see them, and while we watch. This happens partly because we are out to get them in the first place, and partly because they’re psychopaths, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t be nice or aren’t entitled to live.
The Federation hasn’t quite worked out artificial intelligence rights, at this stage. They recognise some, and they have to be made to recognise some others. It seems not unreasonable to me that holodeck characters are operated using AI techniques, although they are created and presumably destructively deleted at the whim of a citizen. Tolerance in this society includes hunting and killing animals, as well as keeping animal pets, so holodeck people may be designed with intelligence between animal and human (which isn’t the maximum) and you can do what you like with them. But increase their intelligence and you cross a line and create a person. And you may only find out later. And that’s what happens with Sullivan.
In line with some recollections from “Spirit Folk”, I don’t think that Captain Janeway is saying “goodbye” to Sullivan, or not long term. She could avoid him; she already did. She could order him to avoid her and to forget her. She could delete him and replace him with a new character. Since she makes his program not editable by her in future, I read it that she intends to use the program, or at least to keep the option… and honourably, without the temptation to change him by ordering changes.
She can delete him later anyway; he’s only a pet.
@75/Robert Carnegie: “he repeatedly uses “androids”, artificially created or duplicated people who are treated as legal slaves or disposable machines, while usually making the differences between android and meat-human falsely specious.”
The original, earliest uses of the word “android” were for synthetic organic humans like Blade Runner replicants. Indeed, the robota of Karel Capek’s R.U.R., the origin of the word “robot,” were organic replicants as well (and the play’s story was fairly similar to that of Blade Runner). It was only later that both terms came to be equated with mechanical automata.
IIRC, it was Edmond Hamilton’s Captain Future pulp series that codified the distinction between “robot” as a mechanical-looking automaton and “android” as one that could pass for human, and I have the impression that Hamilton was fairly vague about whether his android character’s composition was biological or not.
“It seems not unreasonable to me that holodeck characters are operated using AI techniques, although they are created and presumably destructively deleted at the whim of a citizen.”
I just don’t buy that generalization. There is absolutely no reason why a background NPC in an open-world holodeck game, or a combatant in Worf’s calisthenics program, or a holonovel character that’s literally just acting out a pre-written script, would need to have any individual intelligence. There would be a single computer program operating the whole simulation and every character, setting, and object within it as a collective illusion. Even if there were a thousand different characters in the game, there would still only be one program puppeteering them all. Only certain types of holographic programs would need to have artificial intelligence applied to them individually — programs like the EMH or Vic Fontaine, holocharacters that need to be adaptive and responsive in a more advanced and dynamic way than a mere game NPC. Vic has a degree of intelligence because he’s designed to be interactive and adaptive, but there’s absolutely no reason why some random band member or customer in his holographic casino would need to be an individual artificial intelligence, because they’re just part of the scenery.
Like I keep saying, you can’t mistake outward appearance for substance. Holographic human bodies are just illusions. Some of those illusions serve different purposes than others, so you have to look at the underlying purpose.
“But increase their intelligence and you cross a line and create a person. And you may only find out later. And that’s what happens with Sullivan.”
No, it isn’t. Just because a computer program mimics the behavior of a human being doesn’t mean it’s actually sentient. Sullivan and the inhabitants of Fair Haven are nothing more than sophisticated chatbots, programmed to mimic the responses of real people. The only change is in what stimuli they’re able to perceive and respond to, but they still respond in character as they’re programmed to respond, like any chatbot. Illusion should not be mistaken for reality.
It was in the TNG episode, “11001001” that the Bynars introduced adaptive characters to the Enterprise holodecks. Picard is impressed when Minuet speaks in French.
They may also have enabled smells, since Riker comments on Minuet’s aroma.
@77/BeeGee: I’m sure that scents were always part of holodeck programming. A holographic forest wouldn’t be a fully convincing illusion if it didn’t smell like a forest.
@76: The word “android” has been used differently here and there: my point is that Dick usually treated artificial people as people, although sometimes he was also commenting on whether anything is or isn’t differently special in flesh and blood people. So am I.
I don’t say that the Federation are wrong to treat most hologram characters as disposable, any more than we are wrong to use animals as companionship and as food. Many of our favourite animals are carnivores themselves and not detectably worried about it, and we ourselves are only meat that walks and talks.
One could take a hard or fairly hard line that robots and computers and holograms are just property, with possible exemptions for our favourites like Data and the Doctor. A religious view is that they almost certainly don’t have souls and this settles the question. In that case, for Star Trek humans to be concerned about moral rights of artificial consciousnesses is as much a joke as it is in real life now, and five hundred years from now. All right, then, but in that case, you will look foolish as well for being particularly offended when Captain Janeway has moral concerns about a holographic barman, when the entire show has been offending your sensibility every five minutes. Just accept that it’s comedy and everybody on screen with a pulse is an idiot.
But taken at face value, Star Trek is littered with synthesised beings that some or all of the cast treat as persons and even persons in authority, while also being fully aware that they are not biological in nature, although several are regarded as gods rather than machines. The NCC-1701 crew treat most of these artificial people as moral inferiors, and of course some are antagonists to be destroyed but that goes for a lot of people as well. By the 24th century, entities accepted as people are created easily and often accidentally, if you don’t take care not to do that, and it’s shown as a particular problem with holograms.
The implicit “Turing Test” argument is that if you can communicate with a machine and not realise that, then you should not dogmatically deny that the machine has personhood, and while this is not the last word and also includes practical difficulties, I think that an interpretation of hologram consciousness that’s consistent with the presentation in the show is that a hologram starts with a narrowly limited set of possible interactions including conversation, but – if allowed – its database is expanded, by the system adding more functions to it, or by storing its experiences, and, with or without a line being crossed, the outcome is a thing that amounts to an individual mind, with constitutional rights.
I think in fact the first examination of the holodeck personhood problem is back in “The Big Goodbye”, Captain Picard’s first Dixon Hill story, and I’m not thinking of the holographic gangsters who demand access to the rest of the ship, but Hill’s cop friend who starts asking about his own home and his family, which I expect are only created at all if he invites Hill to dinner, which he does not. This is in the context of an externally caused holodeck malfunction, which I consider a narratively acceptable cause of holocharacters becoming conscious programs when they were not designed to. So does Picard since he takes the time to respond, although he can only say “I don’t know”. Would he take time to talk to a mere video game?
@79/Robert: Of course I’m all in favor of sentient rights. I just object to treating all “holograms” as the same kind of entity, as if they were a species. They aren’t. Holograms are just visual interfaces controlled by computer programs. They’re not the CPUs, they’re the monitors. Some computer programs are artificially intelligent, but most are not.
“One could take a hard or fairly hard line that robots and computers and holograms are just property, with possible exemptions for our favourites like Data and the Doctor.”
That’s defining the categories the wrong way. You wouldn’t define a human and a lab mouse as the same kind of legal entity just because we’re both made of living cells, so it wouldn’t make any sense to define a sentient AI like Data as the same kind of legal entity as Data’s tricorder just because they’re both made of circuitry. Personhood should be defined by consciousness, regardless of whether the substrate for that consciousness is organic or technological.
“The implicit “Turing Test” argument is that if you can communicate with a machine and not realise that, then you should not dogmatically deny that the machine has personhood”
No, of course not, but it’s foolhardy to assume that any game avatar that acts like a human must be conscious. That’s reckless and premature. People here (or rather, in the “Spirit Folk” thread) are assuming that the Fair Haven holograms became sentient just because they became aware of 24th-century things, and that’s misinterpreting the intent of the storytellers. “Spirit Folk” was not claiming they became sentient, just that the game program had a glitch that put the crew’s lives and recreational experience in danger, and they had to find a way to salvage both.
The Turing test is often misinterpreted by fiction as a way of proving machine consciousness, but Alan Turing intended the exact opposite. His own term for it was “the imitation game” — he merely proposed it as a way to assess whether a machine could successfully mimic intelligent behavior, and therefore be useful as a model for understanding how human intelligence works. Mimicry alone is not proof of personhood — it requires something more to demonstrate that.
So I’m not talking about the in-universe moral issue here. I’m just saying that viewers of the fiction should not jump to the conclusion that a given hologram is a person just because it’s slightly more convincing at faking it than other programs.
And the same goes for “The Big Goodbye.” Just because the cop character behaved in a way that demonstrated awareness of his holographic existence does not mean he was actually a conscious life form, any more than Deadpool or She-Hulk is a conscious life form because they “know” they’re comic book characters and talk to the reader. It takes more than the superficial appearance to prove there’s actual thought going on. It’s ridiculously easy to fool people into seeing intelligence where it doesn’t exist. So the viewer should not be gullible and should err on the side of caution.
With the various accidental sentience of holodeck characters, I keep waiting for someone to do it on purpose. “Computer, make holodeck character sentient.” Of course the computer would likely need more direction, so then you go to the classic “Make holodeck character able to outthink <insert name of any sentient being here>.” Then, after it becomes fairly commonplace, the computer could start issuing warnings, like it does with the safety parameters. “Warning, creating sentience in holodeck characters is not advisable.”
@81/Quasarmodo: My headcanon is that Moriarty’s sentience was only possible because his program incorporated some leftover bit of the Bynars’ Minuet code in the holodeck computers. So it wouldn’t happen with a normal holodeck/suite.
I think the creation of Moriarty has a lot to do with him being created by Geordi La Forge as Enterprise Chief Engineer, who can probably give orders to the holodeck or the central computer that most people aren’t allowed to, including creating an AI consciousness on demand.
Then again, I also have headcanon that with aliens, advanced humans, and Data who can scan the ship’s data banks in seconds or read minds or perfectly imitate voices or fingerprints, a lot of misuse of ship’s resources just can’t practically be prevented, and it’s only 24th century etiquette that a random Enterprise guest shouldn’t try out the phasers or transporter or self-destruct or borrow a shuttlecraft without asking. Physically nothing stops you, but it’s rude. And an exception of course is if Q has taken everyone else on an adventure, so the only person on board is you: if you have to save the day then not giving you access to stuff doesn’t work. It’s a drawback that aliens steal Voyager pretty regularly too, but it can’t be helped. They have bad manners.
The Fair Haven scenario seems basically to be a LARP, and if it had been treated that way, it would have made so much more sense: “let’s all pretend we’re residents in an Irish village!”
Approaching it that way would have made the stereotyping marginally more forgivable, and also made it slightly more reasonable for the non-Earthling crew members to want to participate (after all, Monopoly isn’t only played by real estate agents).
But only the EMH seems to have gotten into Fair Haven in that spirit. The other crew are all playing themselves in period clothing. What a snore.
As for the pub brawl resulting in injured crew despite holodeck safeties, I assumed the melee became so general that real people ended up punching each other (accidentally or not), in addition to sparring with the holodeck characters.
A prefect episode… if you are looking for a cure for insomnia…
Whoever thought this up and whomever green lit it needs firing out of the Photon torpedo tubes.
I rewatched the last 2 seasons of Voyager at the beginning of the pandemic when my company was shut down. Is it just me, or did they seem to use Holodeck stories much, much more than TNG and DS9? I think they really overdid it with the Holodeck. The non-holodeck episodes were generally much more enjoyable for me.
Fairh Haven and Spirit Folk are two of my favorite episodes. They are functional, light, and imaginative. Who cares about historical accuracy or diverging times lines with fake authors. This is fantasy. It’s a holosuite program. It can be whatever it is made to be. I loved it. Especially when Janeway deletes the wife.
I have no memory at all of this. After re-watching it, I understand why. I do wonder why holodeck characters would be programmed to get drunk and pine for the real people they slept with. I don’t know why anyone would enjoy that.
@88/David Pirtle: Why do novelists or scriptwriters depict characters getting drunk or maudlin? Audiences of fiction like the characters to show a realistic range of behaviors and emotions, good and bad alike. Holodeck programs are immersive fiction, so fans of them would naturally want them to feature interesting character dynamics, conflicts, etc. the same as in any other fiction.
Re-Watching this episode, I think it’s one that would have benefited from interrogating its own premise in a meta sense. The idea of Janeway having a romance with a fictional character is far more interesting than whether or not Michael is “real” or not in defiance of our usual stories about artificial intelligence.
Star Trek fans have always loved romanticizing the characters, ranging from the original Kirk/Spock slash to the fact my twelve year old self’s first love was Doctor Crusher (I’m more a Kira Nerys man these days). There’s nothing particularly weird about having a parasocial relationship like this in real world with lots of women reading romance fiction for this very reason. I see Janeway’s relationship with Michael no different than Twilight or 50 Shades of Gray.
I mean, video game romances are a thing as well. Bioware makes a living on players wanting to be with Leliana, Ashley Williams, Tali, Garrus, or Alistair.
Indeed, it’s kind of weird everyone seems to tease Janeway this episode about it and in a way that’s clearly uncomfortable for her. I mean, it seems like something you’d respect a person’s privacy over.
I feel like I enjoy the episode’s premise but I don’t think they did a good job with an interesting idea: how people enjoy interactive entertainment in the future. Maybe it’s just I think Fair Haven is a terrible idea and the Parisian Pool Hall or WW2 france would have been more fun. At least less insulting.
Not that it would save a truly awful episode but the holodeck data loss mistake could have been so easily fixed by them forgetting it was left on and it therefore not shutting down properly resulting in data corruption. A common computer issue
I don’t hate this episode — though I really expected to — because of what it says about relationships and our desire to have someone conform to our desires. And I think this is the first fall-in-love-with-a-hologram episode where the subject truly tailors the object into a perfect mate (Riker had no hand in creating Minuette, Geordi was going off of a real person and didn’t create the character for romantic reasons). So, I think this goes beyond the sexual temptation of the holodeck to the emotional temptation. I also appreciate that it wasn’t completely oblique on the sexual aspect. The doctor as priest was also just too enjoyable for me. Robert Picardo was made for a clerical collar.
I think the reason for having fake Irish poets is that, in every era, there are poets that slip through the cracks, and I think that’s what these were supposed to be. Janeway would know Yeats — and I think part of what’s happening here is that she creates someone who shows that she doesn’t know everything (yeah, they could have found some forgotten Irish poets).
I can’t totally defend my moderate like of this episode. It’s not one of Trek’s best by any means, but it has a little something to say about human nature that I like.