Drunkard's Walk Forums

Hi... some time ago Dakota and me had some idea on hardlight tech and an incident on Jenga that lead to the tech. After robkelk told me that the Trekkies were working on a similar tech in 2018-2020, I combined both ideas and came up with a wiki entry for it (see below).

Shortly afterwards Cobalt Greywalker remarked that there is evidence in the Second Phobos Invitational that the tech is a lot older (most likely developed in 2013-2016, maybe even earlier), but the story is not conclusive about it.

I would like to hear the opinions of the community how we should handle the whole thing.

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Hardlight Holograms
»I am not sure Mira ever noticed what was wrong when she woke up. Until we told her that she had been sleeping on the branches of our holographic Christmas Tree over the night!«
- Cathy in early 2020, telling a story about the Christmas Party some days ago

»Emergency Medical Holographic Program AK-1 ready for duty... wait, what do you mean, you have still a problem with solid holograms? Wake me up when you got it running you fools!«
- heard during the development of the first room sized Solid Hologram projector on Starbase 1

History

Holographic technology has always been a part of most Fenspace factions. Handwavium allowed the Fen to go from two-dimensional projection to free-floating three dimensional shapes within a months, something that has angered the Daneverse entertainment industry a lot.

But while three dimensional projections became cheap quickly, the results were still without substance, free floating images that could be seen, but not touched. Several factions and research institutions worked on solving this problem without success for years. But then, a blue-hair moment pushed the technology of Fenspace a little bit forward.

During a Christmas party in 2019 at Jenga with lots of partying, a group of catgirls and the Holo artist Dakota suddenly began to rip apart the projectors of the holographic Christmas tree and began to work on it. Like most blue-hair moments, it couldn’t be reconstructed later what had happened during the night, but the Trekkie built holo-projectors had gained a new quality during the night, the projection had become solid.

Unfortunately nobody had a clue how the system did achieve this effect.

It took a combined research team of Trekkie hologram specialists and catgirls from Catgirl Industries (with regular help and advice from Dakota) more than a year to replicate the effect with a new prototype.

The technology

Hardlight system (or Solid Holograms as the Trekkies call them usually) are a more complex kind of projection system that can give their output a solid surface. Depending on the complexity of the projection system this ability can be anywhere between the projection of smooth walls and a Star Trek style holodeck.

Most Hardlight projectors are very limited in the amount of force they can apply on real objects within their area of effect. You can easily touch Hardlight projections, but pressing too hard will let you slide through the projections. Most times this disrupts the effect of a solid surface for all projections closeby.

Quirks:

• A lot of Hardlight holodeck systems have issues with their safety protocols.
  

Trivia:

• It took the Trekkies several years to finish the first Holodeck
  
• Catgirl Industries still use the first Hardlight system at Jenga for their Christmas parties
  

It's entirely possible that different people independently invented it; that kind of thing happens even without the difficult-to-predict and potentially irreproducible effects of Handwavium.

Proginoskes Wrote:It's entirely possible that different people independently invented it; that kind of thing happens even without the difficult-to-predict and potentially irreproducible effects of Handwavium.

That would work too, especially if the Jason did not distributed the secrets behind his invention among the Fen.

I was thinking similar. It may have well been developed before, but it was either not reproduced by choice, or perhaps could not actually be reproduced.
--

"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor

The thing that got plain old holotech off the ground was The Professor giving - and here is the important bit - cheap, easily reproducible holotech to Great Justice.

There's nothing to say CI's version isn't the same sort of thing, in that others made their own versions here and there but CI's was the version that proved to be easy and cheap to reproduce compared to other versions.

Cobalt Greywalker Wrote:The thing that got plain old holotech off the ground was The Professor giving - and here is the important bit - cheap, easily reproducible holotech to Great Justice.

There's nothing to say CI's version isn't the same sort of thing, in that others made their own versions here and there but CI's was the version that proved to be easy and cheap to reproduce compared to other versions.

Maybe I triggered a misunderstanding... CI has not invented holotech... they even bought their holo-emitters from Jenga (from the Trekkies most likely). This post is about the "solid hologram" tech alone.

And maybe I wasn't as clear as I should have been. What I meant is that other Fen may have created versions of 'Hardlight' holotech. It certainly happened with other tech (including 'soft' holotech). What I was suggesting was not that CI 'invented' hardlight holotech, but due to their blue fur day, they came up with the easily reproducible version (or at least, once they figured it out).

Good point... lets try a new draft:

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Hardlight Holograms
»I am not sure Mira ever noticed what was wrong when she woke up. Until we told her that she had been sleeping on the branches of our holographic Christmas Tree over the night!«
- Cathy in early 2020, telling a story about the Christmas Party some days ago

»Emergency Medical Holographic Program AK-1 ready for duty... wait, what do you mean, you have still a problem with solid holograms? Wake me up when you got it running you fools!«
- heard during the development of the first room sized Solid Hologram projector on Starbase 1

History

Holographic technology has always been a part of most Fenspace factions. Handwavium allowed the Fen to go from two-dimensional projection to free-floating three dimensional shapes within a months, something that has angered the Daneverse entertainment industry a lot. Since the Professor gave Operation Gread Justice a robust and easy to reproduce holographic projector system during the Boskonian war, the technology became ubiquitous in Fenspace.

But while three dimensional projections became cheap quickly, the results were still without substance, free floating images that could be seen, but not touched. Several factions and research institutions worked on solving this problem without success for years. There are some examples of solid hologram techs since the early 2014s, but they stayed one-of-a-kind items, because their creators were unwilling or unable to reproduce the technology. But then, a blue-hair moment pushed the technology of Fenspace a little bit forward.

During a Christmas party in 2019 at Jenga with lots of partying, a group of catgirls and the Holo artist Dakota suddenly began to rip apart the UFP built projectors of the holographic Christmas tree and began to work on it. Like most blue-hair moments, it couldn’t be reconstructed later what had happened during the night, but the holo-projectors had gained a new quality during the night, the projection had become solid.

Unfortunately, nobody had a clue how the system did achieve this effect.

Looking forward to work on this technical challenge, Catgirl Industries invited a research time of Federation hologram specialists to work with them solving the puzzle. It took the joined research team of Trekkies and catgirls (with regular help and advice from Dakota) more than a year to replicate the effect with a new prototype, but in the early 2020 they finally did it.

Since then, solid hologram technology sold by both Trekkies became more and more widespread in Fenspace.

The technology

Hardlight system (or Solid Holograms as the Trekkies call them usually) are a more complex kind of projection system that can give their output a solid surface. Depending on the complexity of the projection system this ability can be anywhere between the projection of smooth walls and a Star Trek style holodeck.

Most Hardlight projectors are very limited in the amount of force they can apply on real objects within their area of effect. You can easily touch Hardlight projections, but pressing too hard will let you slide through the projections. Most times this disrupts the effect of a solid surface for all projections closeby.

Quirks:

• A lot of Hardlight holodeck systems have issues with their safety protocols.
  

Trivia:

• It took the Trekkies several years to finish the first Holodeck
  
• Catgirl Industries still use the first Hardlight system at Jenga for their Christmas parties
  

wikified: http://fenspace.net/index.php5?title=Ha ... _Holograms

While pondering this and the implications.... along with the Infinities Factory complex CI wants to install on Frigga.

How good would catgirl hardlight be at stopping bullets?. Or for that matter, simmunition marker rounds? Because I've just had an interesting idea....
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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

Dartz Wrote:While pondering this and the implications.... along with the Infinities Factory complex CI wants to install on Frigga.

How good would catgirl hardlight be at stopping bullets?. Or for that matter, simmunition marker rounds? Because I've just had an interesting idea....

Really bullets? Most likely not... special training markers? That could work.
Yes, Hardlight tech in 2025 can most likely be used well for more flexible "training areas"

I think that hardlight shouldn't be a perfect shield, but it should provide some protection. (Otherwise, what's the point of using it as a shield?)
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

robkelk Wrote:I think that hardlight shouldn't be a perfect shield, but it should provide some protection. (Otherwise, what's the point of using it as a shield?)

Hardlight is mostly "hologram" and a little bit surface so you can touch it... even having hardlight immune to a hard human punch might require special work.

If you want real protection, get a real shield... or wait a few decades until both technologies mature enough to be combined in the same device.

I can see early hardlight systems being used as 'unbreakable' touch panels and keyboards. As long as the emitter is placed off center from the panel so someone has to actually AIM for the emitter to break it.
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