These films, TV episodes, novels, etc. have been identified as likely portrayals of presence but they haven’t been added to the database yet (as of November 2007); please consider watching/reading one or more and adding them (note that some of the descriptions include plot spoilers). There are many other portrayals of presence out there – if you know of one not listed here or in the database, please let us know by sending an e-mail to Matthew Lombard or just add it to the database.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
A
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Alchemy (2005) (TV movie)
“In Alchemy, Mal Downey (Tom Cavanagh) a well known professor, creates a human-like interactive computer, Jerry (voiced by Michael Ian Black), which can emulate human emotions and respond just as a person would. In order to keep his research funded, Mal must his work published and decides to enlist the help of his friend Jane (Nadia Dajani) to document in a popular woman’s magazine whether a woman could fall in love faster with a computer or a real man. Jane knows the right man for the job and lures Dr. Troy Rollins (James Barbour), aka Professor Love, to be part of the experiment. Soon the test subject Samantha (Sarah Chalke), a free spirited commitment-phobe, begins to fall under the spell of Professor Love, prompting Mal to disguise himself as a Frenchman to take on a human form for Jerry. But when Mal begins to fall in love with Samantha, all bets are off. Will Mal be able to make Samantha fall in love with Jerry before she succumbs to the advances of Professor Love?” (from http://www.mickeynews.com/News/DisplayPressRelease.asp_Q_id_E_9265Family)
Alien Intruder (1993) (film)
“A group of space traveling convicts fall prey to their own fantasies when a virtual reality computer goes haywire. The film stars Billy Dee Williams, Tracy Scoggins and Maxwell Caulfield.” (from http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/micro_stories.pl?ACCT=238613&TICK=NCOR&STORY=/www/story/06-07-2005/0003821657&EDATE=Jun+7,+2005)
American Gothic (1995-1996) (TV series; need to identify episodes)
American Gothic is a horror/drama/thriller series set in the heart of South Carolina in a small town called Trinity. In this town everything is not as it seems and everyone looks to town sheriff Lucas Buck for help and guidance, often making a devil’s bargain with disastrous results.” (from http://www.tv.com/american-gothic/show/444/summary.html?q=&tag=search_results;title;1)
Andromeda: Double or Nothingness (2003) (TV episode)
“Season 4; Collection 1; A.D.V Films; Dylan is trapped in a virtual-reality program without his knowledge.” (full synopsis at http://mail.andromedatv.com/episodes/season4/epi_404.html)
Avalon (2001) (film)
Directed by Mamoru Oshii; “Avalon is a virtual reality game where players immerse themselves in simulated combat. Part of a team or by yourself, the more you play, the more money and points you can earn. When you earn enough, you can move up to Special A, the toughest level of the game. However, if you are not careful, your mind can become trapped in the game, unable to “reset”. / In Avalon, Ash is one of the best players around. She is constantly head hunted for either her skills, or because taking her out will help a player move up a level. Once she belonged to a team called “Wizard”, the best of the best. Yet after one fateful mission, the team disbanded. / On her way to play Avalon, Ash encounters former team mate Stunner. He tells her that there is a ghost, a bug in the system, that might be a portal to Special A. He also tells her that former Wizard leader Murphy has “lost his mind”, and is now a vegetable. / As she investigates this supposed ghost, Ash encounters a group that is trying to make it to the next level. They need her and her skills to draw out and kill the ghost. / Ash soon discovers that there is more going on than what she sees. If she is not careful, then she may find herself trapped in the virtual world, unable to reset.” (from
http://www.dvdvisionjapan.com/avalon.htm)
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Babylon 5 (1993-1999) (TV series; need to identify episodes)
“The Emmy-winning Babylon 5 brought many exciting innovations to science fiction television. Computer-generated effects, five-year story arcs, and elaborate mythology made this series stand apart from what came before and point the next generation of sci-fi/fantasy series in bold new directions. This show realized creator J. Michael Straczynski’s vision of creating a five-season novel for…” (from http://www.tv.com/babylon-5/show/11/summary.html?q=&tag=search_results;more;1)
Back to the Future (1985) (film)
“The year is 1985 and Marty McFly (Fox) is your everyday teenager, except for one problem. He is stuck in 1955. After his good friend Doc Emmett Brown (Lloyd) is gunned down, Marty ends up sending the DeLorean back twenty years into the past. Now, he must find the Doc and convince him that he is from the future, in order for the Doc to send him back to the future, but this is the least of Marty’s problem. After accidentally getting in the way of the important meeting between his future mother (Thompson) and father (Glover), Marty must get them back together before he changes time forever, and destroys his own existence.” (from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088763/plotsummary)
Batman: The Animated Series: What is Reality? (1992) (TV episode)
“Seeking to prove once and for all that his is the superior mind, the Riddler lures Batman into a riddle-solving contest inside a computer game of virtual reality. In the course of solving the riddles and escaping the Riddler’s traps, Batman learns that he is able to manipulate the virtual reality landscape much like the Riddler does. With this newfound power Batman causes the Riddler to lose his concentration. As the virtual reality background collapses on Riddler, his “superior” mind is thrown into a state of catatonia, perhaps for all time.” (from http://www.batmantas.com/cmp/episode.htm)
Battlestar Galactica (1978-1979) (TV series; need to identify episodes)
Opening narration: “There are those who believe… that life here… began out there. Far across the universe. With tribes of humans… who may have been the forefathers of the Egyptians… or the Toltecs… or the Mayans… that they may have been the architects of the Great Pyramids… or the lost civilizations of Lemuria… or Atlantis… Some believe that there may yet be brothers of man… who even now fight to survive… far, far away amongst the stars…” (from http://www.tv.com/battlestar-galactica-1978/show/1253/summary.html?q=&tag=search_results;title;2)
Being There (1979) (novel & film)
About film: “A simple-minded gardener named Chance has spent all his life in the Washington D.C. house of an old man. When the man dies, Chance is put out on the street with no knowledge of the world except what he has learned from television. After a run in with a limousine, he ends up a guest of a woman (Eve) and her husband Ben, an influential but sickly businessman. Now called Chauncey Gardner, Chance becomes friend and confidante to Ben, and an unlikely political insider.” (from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078841/plotsummary). Novel by Jerry Kosinski, see http://www.amazon.com/Being-There-Jerzy-Kosinski/dp/0613073304
Birds of Prey (2002-2003) (TV series; need to identify episodes)
“Legend tells of a caped crusader, Batman, guardian of New Gotham, and his one true love, Catwoman, the queen of the criminal underworld. Their passion left behind something extraordinary, a daughter, Huntress. Half metahuman, she has taken up her father’s mantel and under cover of the night, fights to protect the innocent and helpless.” (from http://www.tv.com/birds-of-prey/show/6836/summary.html?q=&tag=search_results;title;1)
Blade Runner (1982) (film)
“Deckard is a Blade Runner, a police man of the future who hunts down and terminates replicants, artificially created humans. He wants to get out of the force, but is drawn back in when 4 “skin jobs”, a slang term for replicants, hijack a ship back to Earth. The city that Deckard must search for his prey is a huge, sprawling, bleak vision of the future. This film questions what it is to be human, and why life is so precious.” (from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083658/plotsummary)
Blakes Seven (1977-1981) (TV series; need to identify episodes)
“Blakes’ 7 was a major Science Fiction TV series made by the BBC between 1977 and 1981. It surrounded the exploits of a group of interstellar terrorists and their efforts to inflict serious damage on a vicious, corrupt and totalitarian galactic Federation.” (from http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Contrib/SciFi/Blakes7/)
Book of Names (Diadem, Worlds of Magic, No. 1) (1997) (novel)
By John Peel “The first book of the Diadem:Worlds of Magic series focuses on Score, Helaine, and Pixel’s thrilling search for who or what has brought them to Treen, a planet on the outer ring of the Diadem. Clues lie inside the tower of a cunning wizard and within a stranger’s rhyming riddles. But the quarrelsome trio is ever doubtful of whom to trust-even among themselves. Danger awaits them at every turn as they battle angry mobs, bloodthirsty wolves, and a conniving wizard. Yet their toughest challenge is learning to band together as a team, their only hope against the perilous spells of their one true enemy.” (from http://www.amazon.com/Book-Names-Diadem-Worlds-Magic/dp/0738706175/ref=pd_ts_b_9/105-8265870-2765233?ie=UTF8&s=books)
Bots: The Origin of New Species (1998) (novel)
By Andrew Leonard “Cyberspace is now heavily populated with non-human residents known as bots. Bots are software robots that facilitate e-mail, entertain visitors, fight for control of IRC chat rooms or flood your e-mail box with spam. Andrew Leonard is the Charles Darwin of bots, chronicling their rise from the primordial cyber-ooze to their becoming major players as both drudge workers and nuisances of the computerized world. The world of bots and their creators is filled with serious issues pertaining to online freedom, and is sometimes downright disturbing, but it is also often hilariously funny. The author takes us from the problems of recognizing artificial intelligence to the almost slapstick comedy of programming bungles. Leonard deftly reveals it all in a book that’s extremely hard to put down.” (from http://www.amazon.com/Bots-Origin-Species-Andrew-Leonard/dp/0140275665/)
Bug Park (1998) (novel)
By James Patrick Hogan “Hogan is great at describing life from a bug’s POV, making our familiar world of carpets and grass seem utterly alien. He moves some very credible characters through their paces, generating honest affection and concern for their fates in the reader … Bug Park is a superior Hardy Boys adventure for the Nineties.”(from http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0671712462/sr=1-1/qid=1193435085/)
Burning Bright (1993) (novel)
By Melissa Scott “Scott’s accomplished new novel shares some of Dreamships ‘s interest in virtual reality, but in a much different context. While her spaceship is undergoing repairs on Burning Bright, a planet enriched by its location on the interstellar trade route between the human and the alien hsai empires, space pilot Quinn Lioe heads to one of the planet’s many gaming houses. An enthusiastic player and designer of scenarios for the Game, a vast shared virtual reality role-playing system popular throughout human space, Lioe’s fledgling reputation as a session designer allows her to run a new scenario. The instantly popular scenario attracts the attention of Illario Ransome, a near-legendary gamer who had absented himself from play to explore the artistic potential of virtual reality. As her reputation grows, Lioe becomes progressively more entangled in Burning Bright politics, including a budding clash between a scheming trader and the hsai ambassador, a situation in which Ransome is involved. While the issues explored are not as absorbing as those in Dreamships , Scott’s intricate plotting and interesting characterization compensate, and her exploration of the entertainment potential of virtual reality and computer nets is an intriguing variation on that common theme. The ending is somewhat drawn out, but overall this is an intelligent, engaging and memorable book.” (from http://www.amazon.com/Burning-Bright-Melissa-Scott/dp/0812521757)
Burning Chrome (1987) (novel)
By W. Gibson ” Ten brilliant, streetwise, high-resolution stories from the man who coined the word cyberspace. Gibson’s vision has become a touchstone in the emerging order of the 21st Century, from the computer-enhanced hustlers of Johnny Mnemonic to the technofetishist blues of Burning Chrome. With their vividly human characters and their remorseless, hot-wired futures, these stories are simultaneously science fiction at its sharpest and instantly recognizable Polaroids of the postmodern condition.” (from http://www.amazon.com/Burning-Chrome-William-Gibson/dp/0060539828/)
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Circuitry Man (1990) (film)
“Circuitry Man is set in a near-future (or so the movie’s opening sequence assures us) Los Angeles. The earth’s entire population has been forced to live in huge government-controlled underground cities because pollution has made the planet’s air unbreathable. / Drugs have been replaced by mind-altering computer chips that are “jacked in” directly into sockets surgically implanted into the human brain. A deal involving such “100% pure” chips goes sour because of a simultaneous double cross and police sting operation. A female Sharon Stone-lookalike bodyguard finds herself in possession of the microchips and decides to make a run for New York where she’ll sell the chips herself. / Soon she is being pursued by two bumbling overweight cops, an ex-psychotherapist called “plughead” because of the myriad of sockets on his bald head and a gang of Kawasaki driving Japanese bikers – to mention only a few! / … manages to transcends its low budget (a modest $1 million dollars), cheap sets and no-name cast limitations with a reasonably inventive plot that manages to be fresh and sustain viewer interest at the same time.” (from http://www.scifimoviepage.com/circuitry.html)
Chrysalis (2007) film
“There’s a short scene about halfway through Chrysalis that’s so beautifully staged it nearly lifts the whole movie up a few notches from its natural place as marvelously-crafted, but ultimately middle-rung sci-fi/action. In that scene, we get to see a doctor of the not-too-distant-future assisting in the operation of a patient who isn’t physically there, through the use of a virtual reality matrix that recreates both the body being operated on and the tools for the operating. Up until that scene, we’ve known that we’re in a not-too-distant-future that has some plausible advancements in technology, including some scary ray-guns, but the film has wisely restrained itself from giving us flashy details just for the sake of showing off its future-world, so when the operating scene hits it somehow comes across as both believable and wondrous. There are other stand-out moments as well that must be mentioned, including several punishing fight scenes that come courtesy of fight choreographer Alain Figlarz, of The Bourne Identity, and a complicated nighttime shot near the end that’s so well-produced it leaps out at you.” (from http://www.cinematical.com/2007/09/12/tiff-review-chrysalis/)
Code Hunter (a.k.a Storm Watch) (2002) film
“America’s best player is being pulled in to the ultimate cyber-terror. The game’s mastermind has stolen his identity, put him on the FBI’s Most Wanted List, and is blackmailing him to take a part in a real twisted plan of world destruction. With just hours left, can the code be broken to save the world from total annihilation? ” (from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0311866/)
Computer Beach Party (1988) film
“Director: Gary Troy; Studio: Southwest Motion Pictures; Short synopsis: The ultimate bikini-human-computer interface movie. Reportedly one of the worst movies ever made.” (from http://www.berkshirepublishing.com/hcipc/View.asp?parItem=119)
Count Zero (1986) (novel)
By W. Gibson “Turner, corporate mercenary, wakes in a reconstructed body, a beautiful woman by his side. Then Hosaka Corporation reactivates him for a mission more dangerous than the one he’s recovering from: Maas-Neotek’s chief of R&D is defecting. Turner is the one assigned to get him out intact, along with the biochip he’s perfected. But this proves to be of supreme interest to certain other parties–some of whom aren’t remotely human. Bobby Newmark is entirely human: a rustbelt data-hustler totally unprepared for what comes his way when the defection triggers war in cyberspace. With voodoo on the Net and a price on his head, Newmark thinks he’s only trying to get out alive.” (from http://www.amazon.com/Count-Zero-William-Gibson/dp/0441013678/)
Cyber Bandits (1995) (film)
Grace Jones, Adam Ant and Alexandra Paul; “A good deal of scenic travelogue footage fixes the location in this futuristic affair as being an unidentified but exotic Asian island, ipso facto ruled by a villainous technology mogul, Morgan Wells, played in his best deadpan manner by Robert Hays, who has financed development of a preposterous weapon that is engineered to translocate the minds of its outer directed human targets into a permanent condition of virtual reality. Wells’ mistress, Rebecca (Alexandra Paul), weary of his harsh treatment of her, steals a CD-ROM which contains encrypted data requisite for the weapon’s implementation, with the hope of capitalizing her escape and freedom but understands she will not be able to achieve her objective alone, thereby luring naive Jack Morris (Martin Kemp), navigator aboard the tycoon’s yacht, to aid her in her flight. Jack and his Cockney shipmate Manny (Adam Ant) have their shore leave interrupted by Rebecca’s plans, particularly so since Morris permits feelings of compassion to bring him into a romantic involvement with the waifish temptress, who induces him into having the stolen data tattooed upon his back within a dragon-like design, and soon Wells and an opposition troupe are literally after Jack’s hide (the original title was Sailor’s Tattoo). The comic book background of scriptor James Robinson is easily visible throughout this low budget film as there is but meagre development of his characters, and neophtye director Erik Fleming is not yet adept in the craft of pacing, but there are scintillas of wit, and savoury acting turns from James Hong and from Hays as a wryly devilish Wells.” (from http://imdb.com/title/tt0112761/)
Cybermama (1997) (novel)
By Alexandre Jardin “When the digitized keepsakes of their late mother are accidentally erased, the Wren children enter a virtual transporter and catapult themselves into the computer’s memory to search for her.” (from http://www.amazon.com/Cybermama-Alexandre-Jardin/dp/0789418061)
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Dark Skies (1996-1997) (TV series; need to identify episodes)
“20th century history as we know it is a lie. Aliens have been among us since the 1940’s, but a government cover-up has prevented the public from knowing this. As the series progresses, we follow John Loengard and Kim Sayers as they attempt to thwart numerous plans of the alien Hive, most of which are tied to historical events and figures. In addition, the pair must stay one step ahead of a covert government agency, Majestic-12, tasked with fighting the aliens while maintaining the conspiracy of silence.” (from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115151/plotsummary)
Digital Sex – The Sex Files (1998) (film)
“Actors: Lauren Hays, Alicia Anne, James Edwards; Studio: Image Entertainment, Inc.; The Virt-Set is the most technologically sophisticated device yet invented for realistic virtual reality simulations. Everybody wants the set, and two mercenaries are trying their luck in an attempt to steal it and get away quietly. They break into the government’s storage facility, seduce the guard, and beat it. However, there’s a sultry agent on their tale, and sooner or later, they’re going to get caught.” (from http://www.bestprices.com/cgi-bin/vlink/014381989724IE?source=froogle)
Disclosure (1994) (film)
“A computer specialist is sued for sexual harassment by a former lover turned boss who initiated the act forcefully, which threatens both his career and his personal life.” (from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109635/)
Doctor Who (1969-1989 +) (TV series; need to identify episodes)
“Doctor Who is the longest-running science fiction TV series in history, airing initially from 1963 to 1989. The series told the story of the Doctor, a mysterious traveller in space and time, whose TARDIS can take him and his companions anywhere in time and space. Inevitably he finds evil at work wherever he goes…
” (from http://www.tv.com/doctor-who/show/355/summary.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=tabssh&tag=tabs;summary)
Dreams and Heresies (2005) (novel)
By Ellen Terris Brenner “Six short works of speculative fiction that explore the farthest reaches of dream, myth and spirituality: a computer artist and a Kabbalist build a virtual-reality Tree of Life, with mind-bending consequences; an outlandishly disfigured stranger adopted by a small New England town struggles to remember his otherworldly past; two fairytale kingdoms go to war over a mysterious mirror from the dawn of creation; a trendy photographer gets a gig documenting the powerful (and bloody) rites of ancient sacrificial god-kings; and more tales from beyond the fringes of orthodoxy.” (from http://www.lulu.com/content/133864)
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Earth 2: Water; All About Eve (1994-1995) (TV episodes)
quot;One of the unique things about NBCs 1994-1995 series Earth 2 is that, on a weekly basis, you barely saw any special effects or the gadgets that litter most SciFi series. Instead, you had a group of people traveling around on another planet like pioneers. They had a robot and a Hummer plus virtual reality headsets and Dr. Heller had a diagnostic glove, but other than that they looked like any other band of dusty, weary travelers traveling around New Mexico (where much of the show was filmed). … the complete series is available on DVD… NBC aired a total of 22 hours of Earth 2 over 20 episodes, including a two-hour pilot and one two-part episode. First Contact aired on November 6, 1994 and All About Eve, the season (and series) finale, aired May 21, 1995.” (from http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art34405.asp). Water: “Julia uses a virtual reality communicator to talk to an Earth government contact who is apparently elsewhere on the planet”; All About Eve: “While engaging in a virtual reality program, a stranger appears to Morgan and directs him to take the colonists to a nearby location. In doing so, they discover the wreckage of a 50-year old Earth sleeper ship.” (from episode guide: http://www.geos.tv/index.php/quickguide/er2/1)
Earth: Final Conflict (1997-2002) (TV series; need to identify episodes)
“In the early twenty-first century Earth is visited by an alien race, the Taelons. They claim they wish to share knowledge with the rest of humanity in the hopes of getting to know us better. William Boone is assigned protector of Da’an, the Taelon “companion” for North America. But Boone is really working for the human resistance who are trying to learn the Taelons’ true motives, which may not be as generous as they claim. At the end of the first season Boone was killed by the taelons. His character was replaced by Liam Kincaid. An alien hybrid taking on the persona of a former comrad of Boone’s. We learn in Season 2 that the taelons are at war with another alien race, the Jaridians, and that earth has a key role in this conflict. He joined in Season Three with another double agent Renee Palmer. As season four drew to a close, the Taelons and the Jaridians were on the verge of extinction. Ironically, their last chance for survival was to join with one another. This joining caused the Atavus to be unleashed upon the earth bringing about the final conflict. Renee becomes a fierce crusader on a mission to expose and destroy the Atavus before they take over the world.” (from http://www.tv.com/earth-final-conflict/show/1522/summary.html?q=&tag=search_results;title;1)
El Lado Oscuro (2002) (film)
“Just as in HOWL and in the 2002 virtual-reality thriller EL LADO OSCURO, the fictional actor’s past career is illustrated by footage lifted from Naschy’s own movies. However, the man himself maintains that the similarity between the two films is only superficial.” (from http://www.fangoria.com/fearful_feature.php?id=3730)
Electric Dreams (1984) (film)
“Meet Edgar. He’ll make you sing, make you dance, make you laugh, make you cry, make you jealous, make you nuts. The most unusual triangle in the history of love: a boy, a girl, and a computer.” (from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087197/)
Epic (2007) (novel)
“Conor Kostick’s “Epic” is the story of a computer game that rules the world in an unnamed country where actual violence has been outlawed. Outside the game, conditions are primitive, and workers are assigned, transferred and even exiled depending on their facility at gaming. Erik is seemingly a slow study in the “Epic” interface, because rather than slogging away with a faceless character for the slow accumulation of coppers, he challenges difficult opponents and often fails. His parents are afraid that he will be “reallocated,” but can’t convince him to give in to the drudgery of a conventional playing of the game. When Erik and his friends suddenly make startling gains in the “Epic” game, they draw the attention of Central Allocations who activate the Executioner to stop them. As perhaps may be true for gamers who confuse virtual reality with life, the “Epic” scenes in this story are often more vivid than real life, and it isn’t always readily apparent whether Erik and his team are in or out of the game. In fact, it’s startling sometimes when they unclip to go to bed or eat supper. Although Kostick has himself worked as a computer game designer, he argues in this well-wrought fantasy against confusing electronic victories with actual achievement and reminds his readers that victories in strategy games derive from a human intelligence. The freedom to grow and learn and help is balanced against freedom from violence in this gripping novel of parallel worlds. Two sequels are planned, one already in the works.” (from http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/240646/3/)
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Forever Knight: The Games Vampires Play (1996) (TV episode)
“While investigating the murder of a virtual reality software designer, Nick is fascinated by the designer’s vampire game. Inside the game, Nick finds the killer waiting, daring him to try and find him. Nick plays the game and searches for clues, but finds himself intoxicated by the vampire feeding instead, feeling his lust for blood and killing reawaken. The closer he gets to solving the crime, the closer he gets to wanting to losing control and kill again.” (from http://www.tv.com/forever-knight/the-games-vampires-play/episode/80197/summary.html?tag=ep_list;title;14)
Frame Grabber (1992) (novel)
By Denise Danks “The virtual world that lies at the heart of the story is a multi-player online game involving sordid sexual conquests instead of dragons and fantasy quests. Technology reporter Georgina Powers becomes enmeshed in this world when she engages in a twisted affair with virtual reality expert David Jones, who enjoys acting out his sadomasochistic fantasies in both the real and virtual worlds. Despite the book’s dated premise, Georgina is a complex heroine who bears weaknesses to match her ample strengths, and Danks’s clean, snappy prose keeps the story moving at a fast clip.” (from http://www.amazon.com/Frame-Grabber-Georgina-Powers-Crime/dp/0752843982)
Friday the 13th (1980) (film)
“In 1957, A young boy named Jason Voorhees drowned. In 1958, two camp counselors were murdered, in 1962, the fires and bad water thwarted to reopen the Crystal Lake Camp. Now in 1979, Crystal Lake was finally reopened by Steve Christy, with the help of a few new counselors. Ignoring the warnings from a local wacko, the murders start once again by a mysterious stalker. It is Revenge what the killer is looking for? Who will survive the nightmare and live to tell the story?” (from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080761/plotsummary)
Fringe (1995) (novel)
By Paul Tobin “The tale of a man who works for the Cathedral and is a “graph” (short for neuron linked holograph projector) which can link into another person’s mind and take them anywhere they want to go. But, sometimes the boundaries between imagination and reality aren’t extinguishable. Fringe is not the only graph, there is also Chernobyl Red who is a hired assassin. In a battle of wills balanced with holographic images, Fringe threatens the leather clad nun, Chernobyl with death…His.” (from http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0941613712/sr=1-1/qid=1193435303)
Futureworld (1976) (film)
“Futureworld – where you can’t tell the robots from the machines – even when you look in the mirror!” (from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074559/)
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Gacha Gacha – Volume Two (2006) (graphic novel)
“Kouhei was just developing feelings for his childhood friend Kurara when she went on vacation to Hawaii. On her return, she brought home a sexy new split personality, “Arisa.” Kouhei swore to stay by Kurara’s side and protect her shocking secret – but just when he’s growing accustomed to Arisa’s antics, suddenly Kurara transforms into “Alice,” another personality!? Alice may look like Kurara on the outside, but on the inside she’s a fourteen-year-old girl who’s convinced that Kouhei is her tutor. Sounds simple enough, but there’s a catch: It seems the only subject Alice is interested in is male anatomy. How in the world will Kouhei cope with this development?” (from http://www.animatedbliss.com/REVIEWS/review.asp?TID=3636)
Gemini Game (1995) (novel)
By Michael Scott “When players of their virtual reality computer game fall into a coma, Liz and BJ O’Connor, teenage owners of a computer games company, flee from the police in an attempt to locate a copy of their game and correct the programming.” (from http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0816742715/sr=1-1/qid=1193435445/)
Glass Houses (1992) (novel)
“A dystopian Manhattan of the next century is the setting for this tough, gritty sf debut featuring an agoraphobic salvage artist who uses virtual reality to connect her with the machines that face the world in her stead. Part cyberpunk, part mystery, Mixon’s first novel introduces a lesbian heroine whose life is made up of second-hand encounters until reality comes calling with a vengeance. The author’s razor-sharp prose catapults this story beyond the bounds of genre. Recommended for most sf collections.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.” (from http://www.amazon.com/Glass-Houses-Laura-J-Mixon/dp/0812519183)
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Harsh Realm (1999-2000) (TV series; need to identify specific episodes)
“Created by the military, Harsh Realm explores a virtual reality world where anything is possible. After seeing the horrors of war in Sarajevo, Lt. Thomas Hobbes is finally ready to settle down with his fiance but the military has one last assignment for him. He must test out the newest in military combat training, a top secret computer simulation code-named “Harsh Realm.” (from http://www.tv.com/harsh-realm/show/1513/summary.html?q=&tag=search_results;title;1)
Headcrash (1995) (novel)
By Bruce Bethke. “Jack Burroughs was a young, brilliant computer programmer working in the shadows of corporate tyranny. That is, until corporate restructuring forced him down the fiber optic road to subterfuge. This is his incredible story–a melange of betrayal, abandonment, impish wit, imaginary sexcapades and a final, desperate attack against the forces of corporate evil.” (from http://www.amazon.com/Headcrash-Bruce-Bethke/dp/1857233522)
Heir Apparent (2002) (novel)
By Vivian Vande Velde. “All of the elements of a good fantasy are present in this adventure. Giannine Bellisario is about to celebrate her 14th birthday. This year, she actually receives a present from her father on time. It is a gift certificate to any Rasmussem Gaming Center Virtual Reality Arcade. Crossing a picket line formed by CPOC (Citizens to Protect Our Children) to enter, she decides to use her certificate for a total-immersion game called Heir Apparent. The object is to be crowned king. When the demonstrators damage the center, the protagonist is on her own and must complete the game successfully in order to escape permanent brain damage. Ghosts, witches, wizards, and magical tools help her as she races against time and faces many setbacks. Challenges range from barbarian attacks and peasant uprisings to a giant dragon. In addition, the half brothers and the hostile queen have treacherous plans to keep the crown for themselves. This adventure includes a cast of intriguing characters and personalities. The feisty heroine has a funny, sarcastic sense of humor and succeeds because of her ingenuity and determination. This unique combination of futuristic and medieval themes will appeal to fans of fantasy and science fiction.” (from http://www.amazon.com/Heir-Apparent-Vivian-Vande-Velde/dp/0152045600)
Highlander (1992-1998) (TV series; need to identify episodes)
“He is Duncan MacLeod… the Highlander. Born in 1592 in the highlands of Scotland, and he is still alive; he is Immortal. For 400 years, he’s been a warrior… a lover… a wanderer… constantly facing other Immortals in combat to the death. The winner takes his enemy’s head — and with it, his power. I am a Watcher, part of a secret society of men and women who observe and record, but never interfere. We know the truth about Immortals – in the end, there can be only one. May it be Duncan MacLeod… the Highlander.” (from http://www.tv.com/highlander/show/306/summary.html?q=&tag=search_results;more;1)
Homewrecker (1992) (TV movie)
“A scientist reprograms his computer with the personality of a woman and names it “Lucy.” When the scientist gets back together with his estranged wife, Lucy, who has fallen in love with him, tries to kill the woman.” (from http://imdb.com/title/tt0104433/plotsummary)
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Johnny Mnemonic (1995) (film)
“In 2021, the whole world is connected by the gigantic Internet, and almost a half of the population is suffering from the Nerve Attenuation Syndrome (NAS).Johnny with an inplanted memory chip in his brain was ordered to transport the over loaded information from Beijing to Newark. While Pharmakom Industries supported by yakuza tries to capture him to get the informaiton back, the Low-tech group led by J-Bone tries to break the missing code to download the cure of NAS which Johnny carries.” (from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113481/plotsummary)
Jonny Quest (Real Adventures of Jonny Quest) (1996) (book series)
By Brad Quentin. The Forbidden City of Luxor “Jonny Quest returns in a groundbreaking new animated series with heart-stopping action and real kid heroes that will make kids stop and wonder “what if that were me?” Together the Quest Team solves mysteries, embarks on adventures, and courts danger in “reality” and in “virtual reality.”” (from http://www.amazon.com/Jonny-Quest-Forbidden-Luxor-Adventures/dp/0006752640); Journey into Q-Space, No 7, “Asked to test QuestWorld’s ultimate virtual reality experience, Jonny, Hadji, and Jessie are launched into an unknown world aboard the experimental Q-Ship, only to come face to face with their bitter enemy, Jeremiah Surd, who has also penetrated the cyberspace universe.” ; Trouble on Planet Q, No 9, “– Everything in Q-Space is high-tech digital, super-simulated alternative dimension. Or is it? Following a mysterious signal from the unexplored frontiers of cyberspace, Jonny Quest crash-lands on a planet of fire-breathing dragons and enchanted castles. Is the magic real? Or is it a plot by an evil scientist? “; The War of the Wizards, No 11, “Deadly demons, pernicious pirates, and evil cyber-gods have the teenage Quest Team battling for their lives in this action-packed series. Combining the enduring popularity of the original with modern high-tech science, each book is a hallmark in “edutainment”, that ends with a four-page scientific afterword, making this series a favorite of parents and teachers.”
Judge Dredd (1995) (film)
“The Year is 2139. The Planet Earth has changed into a virtually uninhabitable place called the “Cursed Earth”. All of the Earth’s population have crowded into the cities across the planet, now known as “Mega Cities”. The crimes in these “Mega cities” became so violent and so powerful, that the regular justice system was powerless to contain, then it collapsed completely. But, a new Justice System came from the ashes, They were 3 justice systems in 1 (Police, Jury and executioner), they were called “Judges”. In Mega City 1 (formarly, New York), There was a Judge, named Joseph Dredd, who was the toughest and most stringent Judge in history. One day, he was charged with murder. He was tried and sentenced to life in prison because of it. Then, Dredd found out that it was in fact a person who shares his DNA. Former Judge Rico. Now, Dredd has to find out what Rico is planning to do, and to discover about his past–Written by John Wiggins.” (from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113492/plotsummary)
Junk Force (2005) (graphic novel)
“In the first story, the gang stops at a deserted town to investigate Z.P.T., the planet-scouring program that is out of control, destroying all life on Earth. What they find instead is a virtual reality program in an abandoned amusement park. With the many bugs in the program, and operating only on stored up solar power, Louis and Liza are stuck inside the program with time running out. If they dona€™t complete the scenario before the power runs out, theya€™ll be lost inside the system forever, and their bodies will die. The problem is that the scenario calls for them to make it to the chapel and kiss while the game does ita€™s best to stop them.” (from http://www.animeondvd.com/reviews2/manga/manga.php?manga_view=914#review)
Jurassic Park (1993) (film)
“Huge advancements in scientific technology have been able to create an island full of living dinosaurs. John Hammond (Attenborough) have invited four individuals, plus his two grandchildren to join him at Jurassic Park. But will everything go to plan? Especially when one of the parks own workers attempt to steal the dinosaurs embryos, and have to shut down all the electricity in the process. It’s now a race for survival with everyone located all over the island.”(from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107290/plotsummary)
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Kill-0-byte (1993) (novel)
By Pier Anthony “Not so much a novel as a series of situational puzzles, this stand-alone book by the bestselling author of the Xanth series features two characters who play a computer-generated virtual reality game called Killobyte. Walter Toland, an incapacitated former policeman, and Baal Curran, an angst-ridden, diabetic teenage girl, get to know each other as they enter into a game that calls for them to rescue a princess from a castle. But then they find themselves trapped inside the simulation by a hacker named Phoney Phreak. While the character-bodies they wear in the computer world are in no danger, their real bodies–Baal’s weakened by diabetes and Walter’s by a bad heart–are very much at risk. Written in Anthony’s usual glib style, the novel is unimaginative in the extreme. Watching these paper-thin characters solve uninteresting puzzles is a maddening bore; and gaping holes in the plot, technological inconsistencies and Anthony’s apparent ignorance of current methods of treating diabetes combine to make this one of his weakest efforts.” (from http://www.amazon.com/Killobyte-Piers-Anthony/dp/0441444253)
Knight Rider (1982-1986) (TV series; need to identify specific episodes)
“Knight Rider’s admittedly weak two-hour pilot (which premiered in 1982) sets the stage for what would become arguably the eighties biggest television phenomenon by introducing us to undercover cop, Michael Long. Michael is investigating a potential corporate heist and is strangely enough not played by David Hasselhoff. Well, his voice is David Hasselhoff’s, but his face is not. They just dubbed Hasselhoff’s face over that of some other guy, so that when Michael’s investigation goes sour and Long ends up getting shot in the face, he can be reborn as someone else. Presumed dead, Michael is rescued by the Foundation for Law and Government, a shadowy organization owned and funded by the eccentric billionaire Wilton Knight. / The Foundation brings Michael back from the brink of death, and uses mysterious and advanced surgery techniques to give him an entirely new face. When the bandages finally come off, he’s played by David Hasselhoff and assumes the new identity of Michael Knight. Meanwhile, Wilton Knight is a crazy old fellow and has been secretly constructing the ultimate tool in law enforcement, a super-car dubbed the “Knight Industries Two Thousand” in the lab he had set up in his garage. Unfortunately, on the eve of the car’s completion, Wilton succumbs to the illness which has been sapping his life away, and with his last breath charges his butler Devon Miles (Edward Mulhare) and newly re-constructed Michael Knight to continue his cause. Michael does, and soon he’s strapped in to the Knight Industries Two Thousand battling crime which, at least for the first six or seven episodes seems entirely confined to small towns in the very dusty desert. Oh funny thing, the “Knight Industries Two Thousand” can talk and prefers to be called K.I.T.T. / Thank god for that, because it is K.I.T.T. not the eye-liner obsessed Hasselhoff who is the real star of the show. K.I.T.T. has real personality and panache, a biting sense of humor and hard hitting tendency towards sarcasm, all of which are truly what makes “Knight Rider” worth watching. Hasselhoff himself has talked about how important it was to him to mix lighter moments of comedy in with action in order for the show to work, and it’s K.I.T.T. that provides all of these, most of them at the slightly brain dead Michael Knight’s expense. But K.I.T.T. is more than just a one note punch-line, he’s a very much ALIVE character, more akin to “Star Trek: The Next Generation’s” Data than anything else. That’s quite an accomplishment for a character whose only visual interaction with the audience is through two flashy red lights, one on his hood, the other on his dash. Like Data, K.I.T.T. even has a character arc of sorts, as he slowly begins to understand and even incorporate different elements of human emotion that he learns from Michael. As a result, K.I.T.T. is a complete and iconic character, one that could have ended up as just a bland talking toaster, but instead turns into a familiar and beloved friend. / Michael Knight on the other hand, is a bit of a boob.” (from http://www.cinemablend.com/review.php?id=609)
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Last Action Hero (1993) (film)
“Young Danny Madigan is a big fan of Jack Slater, a larger-than-life action hero played by Arnold Schwarzenegger. When his best friend, Nick the projectionist, gives him a magic ticket to the new Jack Slater film, Danny is transported into Slater’s world, where the good guys always win. One of Slater’s enemies, Benedict the hitman, gets hold of the ticket and ends up in Danny’s world, where he realises that if he can kill Schwarzenegger, Slater will be no more. Slater and Danny must travel back and stop him.” (from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107362/plotsummary)
Logan’s Run (1976) (film)
“It is 2274. Some type of holocaust has decimated the earth, and the survivors sealed themselves into a domed city near Washington, D.C. To maintain the population balance, the computers that run the city have decreed that all people must die at 30. This system is enforced by “sandmen” : black-clad police operatives who terminate (kill) “runners” (those who attempt to live beyond 30). Logan, a sandman, is sent on a mission to find “sanctuary,” which is a code- word used by the master computer to describe what it believes is a place to which runners have been escaping. Logan begins to question the system he serves and after seeing for himself that there is life beyond the dome, he returns to destroy the computer.” (from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074812/plotsummary)
Lost In Space (1965-1968) (TV series; need to identify specific episodes)
“Even today, the 1960’s television show Lost in Space defies description. Some would call the program “science fiction”, others “action adventure” and still others as “children’s television”. Truth be known, the show probably was all these at one time or another…Two of the most popular episodes emerged from the third season re-tooling, The Anti-Matter Man a spooky tale involving an evil John Robinson exchanging places with his “nice” double and “Visit to a Hostile Planet” where our space faring family actually make the trek back to earth…” (from http://www.tv.com/lost-in-space/show/2099/summary.html?q=&tag=search_results;more;1)
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Machine Guts (2003) (short film)
“Christina Zeidler | Canada | 3 min. | video | 2003 | … an animated elk types out a story, narrated by Bill Burns, about a department-store clerk who begins to see the world as a giant simulation. (from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040415/IMAGES15/
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Mann & Machine (1992) (TV series; need to identify specific episodes)
“Mann & Machine was an American science fiction/police procedural series that aired on NBC during 1992. The series premiered on April 5, and only nine episodes were broadcast. / The series was created by Dick Wolf and Robert DeLaurentis and starred Yancy Butler as Sgt. Eve Edison, a beautiful police officer who is also a sophisticated android capable of learning and emotion. She is partnered with Det. Bobby Mann, a human officer who holds distain for robots. Rounding out the regular cast was S. Epatha Merkerson as Capt. Claghorn, Mann and Edison’s superior – a role almost identical to that which Merkerson would later play on Wolf’s Law & Order series. / The series focused on Mann and Edison’s criminal investigations in a Los Angeles of the “near future” – sometime around the beginning of the 21st century though the exact year is never stated. An ongoing subplot of the series focused on Eve’s continuing education about what makes humans tick, and her ever-growing capacity for emotion.” (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mann_and_Machine)
Masters of Science Fiction: Jerry Was a Man (2007) (TV episode)
“Based on a Heinlein story from 1947, the show has a kind of jokey playfulness.? The year is 2077; the age is one in which the fabulously wealthy are served by an underclass, and by “joes,” genetically manipulated humanoids. One such humanoid, Jerry, survives his job as a minesweeper, but has passed his expiration date and is destined to be ground up for dog food until he meets a billionaire, played by Heche.? To prevent Jerry’s kibble-ization, she goes to court to have him declared a man, suing the company that made him and the company’s mastermind, played by McDowell, who has come a long way and gone a lot gray since his most famous futuristic role, as Alex in “A Clockwork Orange.”? The differences between Heinlein’s story and this adaptation are worth noting. Heinlein’s Jerry is a souped-up chimp, not a humanoid.? And when it comes time to argue Jerry’s humanity in court, his television lawyer emphasizes his willingness to sacrifice others in self-preservation, a human failing; Heinlein’s lawyer emphasizes Jerry’s ability to sing, evidence of a human soul.? But then, Heinlein was writing in a more optimistic age than this one. And science fiction is really about the present, not the future. “The Twilight Zone,” “The Outer Limits” and “Star Trek” used the future as a canvas for morality plays about their times.? “Jerry Was a Man” asks: What makes a human being a human?” (from http://www.tv.com/masters-of-science-fiction/jerry-was-a-man/episode/826551/summary.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=episodessh&tag=episodes;title;1)
Max Headroom (1985, 1987-1988) (TV series; need to identify specific episodes)
“‘Max Headroom’ was the first, and so far the only, cyberpunk TV series. It was characterized by intelligent scripts, a quirky sense of humor, some serious speculation about the power and ethics of television, and a slightly satirical but intricately realized vision of the future with a gritty, “Brazil”-like, “retro-tech” style. It had frequent references to traditional cyberpunk concepts such as “ice,” “flatline,” and “nanotechnology,” and some very good computer-generated special effects (mostly done on Amiga 1000s). Being an intelligent and sophisticated series, it was, of course, cancelled after one season. / The story began in 1984 when Channel Four in Britain wanted to produce a really unusual music-video show. It decided to use a (fake) computer-generated host. It invented the character of Max Headroom and commissioned a screenplay describing the fictional story of his origin. The original plan was to split up the story into five-minute segments and scatter them among the music videos, but Channel Four soon realized that this would be impractical. Instead, “Max Headroom” was produced as a feature-length made-for-TV movie and was shown as a pilot for the music series to critical acclaim. Max Headroom, played by a heavily made-up Matt Frewer, went on to host the series. (Although both the British series and the later American one featured computer graphics on a large scale, Max himself was never an actual computer image.) / In 1987, Lorimar in the United States acquired the rights to the character and produced one season (14 episodes of about 45 minutes each) of a series based on the British movie. The first episode was a somewhat shorter version of the original story, featuring some of the same actors. Later episodes continued the story of Max Headroom, reporter Edison Carter, and Network 23. / There were differences between the British and American versions of the pilot. The British version was longer (about twice as long, in fact) and included a few characters who didn’t show up until later episodes in the American version (notably Dominique and Blank Reg of Bigtime TV), but the plots were similar. One big difference was in the character of Bryce Lynch. In the British version he was a nasty little brat who ended up going down with Grosman (Grossberg), whereas in the American version he had an attack of conscience and ended up on Edison Carter’s side. Another big difference was the fate of Max himself. In the British version he ended up with Bigtime TV; in the American version he returned to Network 23. / Incidentally, from the birth date and age given for Bryce Lynch (in the novelization by Steve Roberts), it can be deduced that “Max Headroom” (at least the British version) takes place in the year 2004.” (from http://www.g4tv.com/techtvvault/features/37823/Max_Headroom_on_TechTV.html)
Mercano el marciano (Mercano the Martian) (2002) (film)
“Director: Juan Antin; 72 Minutes; Argentina; Production co: Malcriados/Universidad del Cine;
In Spanish and Martian with English subtitles; Boldly drawn and squarely aimed at a mature audience, this cutely scurrilous Argentine animated feature allows us to witness our smash and grab world of multinational corporate exploitation through alien eyes. After an errant Voyager probe squishes his beloved space dog, Mercano impulsively leaves his Martian home swearing revenge. Crash landing on planet Earth, Buenos Aries to be more exact, Mercano is stranded on our strange planet with no hope of getting home. The only way he can alleviate his homesickness is by logging onto the internet and programming a virtual world just like home. / Before long Mercano’s presence attracts the attention of big business entrepreneurs (think Microsoft cross-pollinated with the dreaded military-industrial complex) who eye his virtual world as a property ripe for exploitation. Mercano finds himself a captive of corporate greed and his virtual sanctuary perverted into a garish themepark cum shopping mall. His Martian technology proves entirely too compatible with our consumer driven society – much to the chagrin of a group of nihilists and the nerdy young boy that Mercano has befriended. / Independently produced at Buenos Aries’ Universidad del Cine. With its producers not having access to the digital facilities of larger production companies Mercano the Martian features a combination of traditional hand-drawn animation with some 3D computer effects. The scenes and characters were all hand-drawn and scanned into a computer, where they were edited, composited and coloured digitally, whereas Mercano’s virtual world was created with 3D modelling software. The effect gives Mercano the Martian a raw retro feel, perfect for its scabrous expose of corporate greed (and the perfect antidote to sleek homogenised mass–produced animation). / Director Juan Antin, who runs the Digital Animation Department at Universidad del Cine, and Ayar Blasco originally launched the character of Mercano in 1998 in the two-minute animated interludes which separated programs on the Argentine music channel Much Music. We’re grateful that Mercano has boldly taken to the big screen with a film that is by turns hilariously vulgar, politically astute and infused with a visceral wit that sticks to the screen like a spray of gore. — Michael McDonnell (from http://www.enzedff.co.nz/filmsynopsis.asp?FilmID=1502)
Mir: A Novel of Virtual Reality (1998) (novel)
By Alexander Besher “Ultimately a love story–or what Alexander Besher calls more accurately a love triangle between a boy, a girl, and her tattoo–Mir manages to be both serious and silly cyberpunk. This tense, believable thriller still manages to make “robotics”/”raw buttocks” jokes. Trevor Gobi, the son of Rim’s protagonist Frank Gobi, is tracking down Mir, a devastating virus that has infected his girlfriend Nelly (through her sentient tattoo Sinbad) and that threatens to crash both the virtual and “real” world. Not quite the tight read Rim was, Mir still succeeds thanks to the sheer volume of Besher’s imagination. ” (from http://www.amazon.com/Mir-Virtual-Reality-Alexander-Besher/dp/0684830876)
Mirage (1996) (novel)
By F. Paul Wilson and Matthew Costello “Novelist Wilson (The Select) and CD-ROM scriptwriter Costello (The 7th Guest) take the reader on a high-tech voyage to the brain centers of human memory in this vivid cyber-medical thriller. Julie Gordon, a 28-year-old New York neurophysiologist, is pulled away from a breakthrough research project investigating memory via virtual reality technology when she gets an anxious call from her uncle in France. Her estranged twin sister, Samantha, has fallen into an unexplainable coma and seems to be dying, though she does not have a discernible illness. Julie agrees to use “memoryscape,” the spectacular computer program she helped create, to search the minefield of her sister’s memory. As Julie already knows, both sisters’ history is irrevocably scarred by visions of the tragic house fire that killed their parents 23 years ago. But even more secrets haunt the pair. Now, returning to England with Sam and her uncle in a desperate effort to help her sister recover, the secrets Julie didn’t know are revealed. Ultimately, Julie’s entire identity is called into question as she confronts the possibility that the twins’ careful liberal education may have been an elaborate experiment on the human brain. The virtual reality sequences in the novel provide stunningly surreal images, compensating for a plot steeped in melodrama. Although the revelatory conclusion may disappoint some readers as too contrived, others may see it as shocking, and most will be entertained by the med-tech details along the way.” (from http://www.amazon.com/Mirage-Paul-Matthew-Costello-Wilson/dp/0747216746)
Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988) (novel)
By W. Gibson “Into the cyber-hip world of William Gibson comes Mona, a young girl with a murky past and an uncertain future whose life is on a collision course with internationally famous Sense/Net star Angie Mitchell. Since childhood, Angie has been able to tap into cyberspace without a computer. Now, from inside cyberspace, a kidnapping plot is masterminded by a phantom entity who has plans for Mona, Angie, and all humanity, plans that cannot be controlled…or even known. And behind the intrigue lurks the shadowy Yakuza, the powerful Japanese underworld, whose leaders ruthlessly manipulate people and events to suit their own purposes.” (from http://www.amazon.com/Overdrive-Dritter-Roman-Neuromancer-Trilogie/dp/3453108329/)
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Nemesis (1993) (film)
“In the industrial wasteland just outside of Los Angeles, circa 2027, there’s a covert war raging between the cyborgs and the humans. “86.5% is still human,” insists superagent Alex (Olivier Gruner), but as the cyborg conspiracy builds around him he discovers that humanity is more than simply a matter of flesh and blood. — Amazon.com / While it tries to fling the lingo around like in a William Gibson novel, it doesn’t even get its basic terminology right (androids are referred to as cyborgs) and in the end it borrows heavily from far superior films (mostly the two Terminator movies). The plot involves a half-human/half-machine cop (Oliver Gruner) who has to stop a conspiracy by androids to eliminate humans and take over the world.” (from http://www.scifimoviepage.com/nemesis.html)
New World (2000) (novel)
By Gillian Cross “Miriam, a British teen, has been chosen, seemingly at random, to participate in the secret testing of New World, a cutting-edge virtual-reality game. The game exerts an addictive fascination, but Miriam grows convinced that the program is somehow tapping into her greatest (and, she believes, secret) fear. As the hidden agenda of the game programmers is gradually revealed, Miriam must strengthen bonds with family and friends in order to prevent the programmers from unleashing their potentially dangerous new product. Though this ambitious story makes some intriguing points about an array of worthwhile topics (among them trust, compassion, the nature of illusion and the need to shape one’s own destiny), these themes never really come together in the sort of revelatory collision of metaphor and narrative that characterizes Cross’s best works (Chartbreaker). On the other hand, the pace never slackens, the characters are subtly developed and suspense is delivered in wholesale quantities. Ages 10-up.” (from http://www.amazon.com/New-World-Gillian-Cross/dp/0192718525)
New York Blues (2002) (novel)
By Eric Brown “When beautiful blonde Vanessa Artois wanders into his office, Hal Halliday little knows that he’s about to get heavily involved in the world of virtual-reality magnate Sergio Mantoni, pervert, owner of a floating island and all-round bad guy. And if that sounds cliched, it’s meant to. Halliday is a private detective, the mean-streets, mac-wearing kind who hangs out in seedy dives. He’s out of shape, jobs are few, his diet comprises Chinese takeout and he shares his narrow bed with a girl young enough to be his daughter. But Halliday has a heart of gold, so the kid – who has a past too hideous to mention – gets the bed at night while Hal wanders a VR-addicted New York of crumbling buildings hidden behind elegant holographic facades. It’s the sleazy VR bars that ground New York Blues firmly in ironic post-cyberpunk. This is hyped-up Raymond Chandler played, if not for laughs, then for knowing smiles. Good dirty fun.” (from http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,12084,814086,00.html)
Night Gallery (1970-1973) (TV series; need to identify specific episodes)
“Night Gallery was creator-host Rod Serling’s follow-up to The Twilight Zone. Set in a shadowy museum of the outre, Serling unveiled a dark and disturbing collection of canvases as preface to a highly diverse anthology of tales in the fantasy, horror, and science fiction vein.” (from http://www.nightgallery.net/index.html?welcome.html&2)
Nightmares (1983) (film)
“Four horror tales based on urban legends. … The second story “Bishop of Battle”, has a teenager who becomes good at playing a video game called “The Bishop of Battle”, that the game comes to life to collect him.” (from http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Nightmares-%28movie-1983%29)
Nirvana (1997) (film)
“A computer virus endows Solo, the hero of a virtual reality game, with human consciousness thereby creating all kinds of headaches for his creator Jimi. The trouble begins in the futuristic metropolis of Northern Agglomerate three days before Christmas. With little time left, video-game designer Jimi has no choice but to give his newest game, Nirvana, to his powerful bosses. Unfortunately, the virus strikes just before the deadline. At first Solo doesn’t know he is a graphic image, but when he finds out, he fervently pleads with Jimi to destroy him so that he will not have to live the same sequence of events over and over for eternity. Jimi, vulnerable after the mysterious and sudden disappearance of his lover Lisa, agrees to honor Solo’s wishes, but is unable to simply erase the program because every move within the company where he works is closely monitored. He therefore enlists the aid of two Arab hackers, Joystick, an expert at sabotaging databases, and Naima, a man with the skills to destroy Solo. With the company’s henchmen hot on their heels, the threesome set off on a colorful journey through real and virtual worlds to destroy Solo before it is too late.” (from http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/movie.html?v_id=137320); see also http://uashome.alaska.edu/~jndfg20/website/nirvana.htm)
Noble Parasites (2007) (play)
“Two short, linked sci-fi pieces, The Bookworm and Sea Change, take us first to the distant and then to the near future. In the former, an underground civilization treats Mother Nature as a malevolent witch, and humankind survives through adherence to rigid rules and formulaic rituals. In the latter, a developer of virtual reality games finds himself tossed into a not-so-safe playing arena. Dramatically tighter than its earlier Summer Works version, The Bookworm takes place on the rite-of-passage day on which a young woman (Kate Hewlett) takes the exam that will make her an adult. Her teacher (Amy Rutherford) hopes for great things, but when the examiner turns out to be the Minister of Pedagogy (Julian Richings), both become nervous – and not just because he is a blessed host for one of the body parasites worshipped by this food-deprived culture. ??In Sea Change, which has a generally lighter tone, inventor Thomas (Richings) moves from recreational games to political espionage, trying to sell a product to a group that desperately wants to win an upcoming election. In the process, he’s caught between an effervescent innocent (Hewlett) and a young spy (Rutherford) familiar with the important secret code. ?In this not-too-distant world of riots and general unease, Blackberries become part of the human anatomy and clothes are downloaded and printed on a home computer.” (from http://www.nowtoronto.com/issues/2007-04-19/stage_theatrereviews.php)
Nocturne for a Dangerous Man (1999) (novel)
By Marc Matz ” Noir detective fiction and cyberpunk make beautiful music together in Marc Matz’s first novel, Nocturne for a Dangerous Man. Gavilan Robie, the hero, is first cousin to legendary PIs Travis McGee and Dave Robicheaux. Mostly he recovers missing art. But sometimes he “tries to recover people who are lost and need, badly, to be found.” For him, these jobs are “the equivalent of having a stiff drink to take the edge off an endless hangover”; he’s addicted to staking his life on his ability to beat the odds. Robie’s world has survived multiple man-made natural disasters: climate change, rising seas, unstoppable plagues, and famine. Now Siv Matthiessen, brilliant executive for a multinational corporation, has been seized by ecoterrorists. Despite ransom demands, Matthiessen’s boss believes they’ll kill her. Robie tracks her captors using advances in robotics, medicine, and cyber-technology, along with various martial arts, the I-Ching, Taoist philosophy, music, and contacts around the globe. He uncovers a web of unholy alliances among a rival corporation, a corrupt foreign government official, opportunistic bankers, and organized crime.” (from http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/product-description/0812575377/)
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Oh My Goth (2006) (novel)
By Gena Showalter “A fiercely individualist Goth girl wakes up to discover that the whole world has gone Goth and she’s actually — gag — popular. Jade Leigh is a nonconformist who values individuality above all else. She has a small group of like-minded Goth friends who wear black, dabble in the dark arts, and thrive outside the norm. They’re considered the “freaks” of their high school. But when Jade’s smart mouth lands her in trouble — again — her principal decides to teach her a lesson she’ll never forget. Taken to a remote location where she is strapped down and sedated, Jade wakes up in an alternate universe where she rules the school. But her best friends won’t talk to her, and the people she used to hate are all Goth. Only Clarik, the mysterious new boy in town, operates outside all the cliques. And only Mercedes, the Barbie clone Jade loathes, believes that Jade’s stuck in a virtual reality game — because she’s stuck there, too, now living the life of a “freak.” Together, they realize they might never get back to reality…and that even if they do, things might never be the same.” (from http://www.amazon.com/Oh-My-Goth-Gena-Showalter/dp/1416524746)
Otherland Volume Four: Sea of Silver Light (2001) (novel)
By Tad Williams; “Otherland, a private, multidimensional universe built over two generations by the greatest minds of the twenty-first century, had been one of the world’s best kept secrets, created and controlled by an organization made up of the world’s most powerful and ruthless individuals, a private cartel knownto those who knew of their existence at allas The Grail Brotherhood. / But when far too many children fell prey to Otherland, a small band of adventurers, marshaled together by the mysterious being known as Mr. Sellars, set out to penetrate the veil of secrecy that prevented the uninitiated from entering Otherland. Once there, they found themselves trapped in the seemingly endless worlds of the Otherland network, unable to escape back to their own flesh-and-blood bodies in the real world. Their only hope for survival, and for the children they’d come to rescue, was to make their way through the Otherland network to the terrifying void at the heart of the system. / … an even more monstrous human being who called himself John Dread, the psychopath who once served the Grail Network, but who now had made himself the god of this virtual universe, and who was systematically turning the network’s worlds into killing grounds.” (from http://www.tadwilliams.com/volume4.html)
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Pleasantville (1998) (film)
“David, single, lonely and not happy with his life, flees reality by watching Pleasantville – a 1950’s b&w soap opera, where everything is just…pleasant. His sister Jennifer, sexually far more active than her brother, gets in a fight with him about a very strange remote control – given to them just seconds after the TV broke by an equally strange repair man – and they suddenly find themselves in Pleasantville, as Bud and Mary-Sue Parker, completely assimilated and therefore black and white, in clothes a little different and with new parents…pleasant ones. David wants to get out of the situation as well as his sister, but whereas he tries to blend in (effortlessly, with his knowledge), she does what she likes to do. One event leads to the other, and suddenly there is a red rose growing in Pleasantville. The more rules are broken, the more colorful life gets in Pleasantville, USA.” (from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120789/plotsummary)
Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) (film)
“Cecilia is a waitress in New Jersey during the Depression and is searching for an escape from her dreary life. Tom Baxter is a dashing young archaeologist in the film “The Purple Rose of Cairo.” After losing her job Cecilia goes to see the film in hopes of raising her spirits. Much to her surprise Tom Baxter walks off the screen and into her life. There’s only one problem..Tom isn’t real. Meanwhile Hollywood is up in arms when they dicover that other Tom Baxters are trying to leave the screen in other theatres. Will Tom ever return and finish the film or will he decide to stay in the real world?” (from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089853/plotsummary)
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Rainbows End (2006) (novel)
“Set in San Diego, Calif., this hard SF novel from Hugo-winner Vinge (A Deepness in the Sky) offers dazzling computer technology but lacks dramatic tension. Circa 2025, people use high-tech contact lenses to interface with computers in their clothes. “Silent messaging” is so automatic that it feels like telepathy. Robert Gu, a talented Chinese-American poet, has missed much of this revolution due to Alzheimer’s, but now the wonders of modern medicine have rehabilitated his mind. Installed in remedial classes at the local high school, he tries to adjust to this brave new world, but soon finds himself enmeshed in a somewhat quixotic plot by elderly former University of California?San Diego faculty members to protest the destruction of the university library, now rendered superfluous by the ubiquitous online databanks. Unbeknownst to Robert, he’s also a pawn in a dark international conspiracy to perfect a deadly biological weapon. The true nature of the superweapon is never made entirely clear, and too much of the book feels like a textbook introduction to Vinge’s near-future world.” (from http://www.amazon.com/Rainbows-End-Vernor-Vinge/dp/0812536363/)
Red Dwarf: Better Than Life (1988) (TV episode)
“A mail pod arrives at the Red Dwarf and Rimmer receives the belated news that his father has passed away. Despite the fact that Rimmer hated his father, he is nonetheless completely devastated.
To alleviate his depression regarding the news (not to mention the fact that he has a $8,500 tax bill), the crew try a distraction in the form of a new Virtual Reality game where all the players’ desires and fantasies can come true, but even in a perfect place, Rimmer’s mind has its own way of stabbing him in the back.” (from http://www.tv.com//better-than-life/episode/10952/summary.html) See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Than_Life and http://www.sadgeezer.com/RedDwarf/epis2-02.htm
Redline (1997) (film)
“In the future, death is only the beginning. In the tradition of such science fiction classics as “Blade Runner” and “Escape From New York” comes a terrifying vision of a future unlike any seen before. When John Wade (Rutger Hauer) tries to smuggle fantasy chips for the city’s cyberjunkies, he is betrayed by his partner, Merrick (Mark Dacascos), and killed. Authorities resurrect him with bio-synthetic cyber-implants to interrogate him regarding the Troika, a crime syndicate that counts Merrick as a member. Once alive, Wade escapes and begins an intensive search for Merrick in the underworld of the future–seedy cyber-slums and sex dens–to exact revenge on the traitor in a blaze of gunfire. After dodging assassins and scavenger bounty hunters, Wade realizes that in this world, he can trust no one. — Amazon.com / If you hold on a bit longer you’ll see Hauer … having a bit of two-on-one action with two nubile starlets in a virtual reality shower scene. / Not even a few cool Strange Days-like cyberpunk gizmos can save Redline from becoming the type of movie you wouldn’t even want to watch for free on the telly late one night . . .” (from http://www.scifimoviepage.com/redline.html)
Resurrection of the Little Match Girl (2002) (film)
“Fortunately for us, auteur Jang Sun-woo (“Lies”) was attending film school on the day they lectured on how to produce a movie that parodies the self-importance of a big-budgeted blockbuster such as “The Matrix.” The only problem is that he must have fallen asleep after the first five minutes, because “Resurrection of the Little Match Girl” (2002) is an absolute debacle, so thoroughly bad that it makes for fascinating viewing. / Opening with a hilarious grainy sequence, which feels like a homage to Lars Von Trier’s (“Dogville”) silent film-making technique, we are informed that “This film is based on a poem,” before being treated to a re-enactment of Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Little Match Girl” (substitute matches for cigarette lighters), in a world where the cult of celebrity and video gamers rule. / Delivery boy Joo, played by Kim Hyun-sung (“My Beautiful Days”), is a wannabe gaming champion who believes that he can win fame and fortune, not to mention the love of a girl (Lim Eun-kyeong) he’s been stalking at the local arcade, by playing a computer-simulated game. With the goal of seeking out, rescuing and then getting a Little Match Girl, also played by Lim Eun-kyeong (“Doll Master”) to dream about them as she freezes to death, the players enter into world where the boundaries of reality and fantasy are well and truly blurred. / Confused? Well, it only gets better because after Joo whips out a machine gun and blows away an entire office block, he finds himself sucked into a virtual reality world filled with characters such as a transsexual man-hating lesbian named Lara (of which a bubble on screen informs: “Remember Lara Croft? Only here she’s a lesbian.”), a god-like, unseen Frenchman speaking Korean-subtitled English, too many gun battles to count, a helicopter that can enter the fourth dimension, and the assassination of a luminescent butterfly. / At over $10 million, “Resurrection of the Little Match Girl” is one of the most expensive Korean films of all time. It’s an awkward, artsy, eye-popping movie, which despite its faults (and there are many of them), makes for enthralling viewing. The scene where the Little Match Girl loses her cool and begins killing random citizens, commuters in a crowded subway station and orphans – all to the sweet sounds of Aaron Neville’s version of “Ave Maria” – is absolutely priceless.” (from http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2004/10/08/200410080015.asp)
Rock the House: The Case of the Meteorite Menace (1998) (novel)
By Chuck Harwood “When you want the facts, we hit the tracks!” Mayor Schwindle’s mansion hs been bombarded by a meteor shower! A freaky natural disaster, or the work of an angry citizen with a big rock collection? Super Crew members Derek, Max, Megan, and Keisha think it sounds like a nasty prank. But when the stones turn out to be real meteorites, the Crew is faced with some pretty rock-solid evidence! From a virtual trip to the Asteroid Belt to a very real ride on the Blimp of doom, this latest case is a crash course in super sleuthing!” – is absolutely priceless.” (from http://www.amazon.com/Rock-House-Case-Meteorite-Menace/dp/0070066949)
Rodomonte’s Revenge (1994) (novel)
By Gary Paulsen “Best friends Brett and Tom love the new virtual reality game, Rodomonte’s Revenge, until the computer infiltrates their minds and transforms the game into something dangerously real.” (from http://www.amazon.com/RODOMONTES-REVENGE-World-Adventure-Paulsen/dp/044041024X)
Room of Dreams (2007) (film)
Japanese film directed by Sion Sono “An experimental drug induces a virtual reality that turns into a nightmare.” (from http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809947183/info)
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Secrets of Seduction (2000) (TV film)
“Emily Peta. The inventor of a virtual sex program must rescue a woman who has become trapped in the erotic cyberspace.” (from http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06267/724135-237.stm)
Simulations: 15 Tales of Virtual Reality (1993) (short stories)
A “unique variety of stories for the computer generation, featuring authors such as William Gibson and Ray Bradbury. Anyone who is interested in virtual reality should get their hands on this book.” (from http://www.amazon.com/Simulations-Virtual-Reality-Citadel-Twilight/dp/080651406X/)
Sliders (1995-2000) (TV episodes)
(from http://www.tv.com/sliders/show/438/episode.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=tabssh&tag=tabs;episodes)
Sliders: State of the A.R.T. (1996) “The Sliders land on a world where robots have replaced the human race. When Quinn and Rembrandt are captured by the robot’s creator and taken to their factory, Arturo and Wade must find a way to get through security and rescue them.”
Sliders: Virtual Slide (1998) “The Sliders arrive on a world where virtual reality is a normal part of life. After Maggie is injured in an explosion, she awakens in a hospital to find they have missed the Slide. The only way to go is to build a new timer, but is everything what it seems?”
Sliders: A Thousand Deaths (1999) “The Sliders arrive on a world where millions play in highly realistic arcade simulations. Rembrandt and Mallory take part in separate simulations, until they discover Maggie and Diana have been forced to play characters in these simulations, where each “death” experienced is real.”
Slaughtermatic (1998) (novel)
“Steve Aylett’s Slaughtermatic is enacted in a parodic, cyberpunk world in which crime has become an individualistic and self-evolutionary art. Dante, the protagonist, plans to rob a bank with the help of Download Jones, a human meat puppet whose personality is live on the Net, and Kid Entropy, whose Kafkacell weapon bonds with his psyche to produce a suicide-wannabe who can only kill others. With the vault scan code in his pocket, Dante is duplicated in a time shift that puts him virtually ahead of the actual event–and able to enter the vault undetected. His crime and the action-filled plot become complicated when his second self, Dante Two, refuses to sacrifice himself as planned, murderous Brute Parker is set on Dante’s trail, and Rosa Control takes matters into her own razor-bladed hands. Into the melee steps Eddie Gamete, the presumed-dead postmodern prankster-philosopher, Dante’s only hero and the author of The Impossible Plot of Biff Barbanel, a book no reader can survive. Expectations about what and who is real change like television channels in Dante’s world, where fates much worse than death await.” (from http://www.amazon.com/Slaughtermatic-Steve-Aylett/dp/1568581033)
Snow Crash (1992) (novel)
” From the opening line of his breakthrough cyberpunk novel Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson plunges the reader into a not-too-distant future. It is a world where the Mafia controls pizza delivery, the United States exists as a patchwork of corporate-franchise city-states, and the Internet–incarnate as the Metaverse–looks something like last year’s hype would lead you to believe it should. Enter Hiro Protagonist–hacker, samurai swordsman, and pizza-delivery driver. When his best friend fries his brain on a new designer drug called Snow Crash and his beautiful, brainy ex-girlfriend asks for his help, what’s a guy with a name like that to do? He rushes to the rescue. A breakneck-paced 21st-century novel, Snow Crash interweaves everything from Sumerian myth to visions of a postmodern civilization on the brink of collapse. Faster than the speed of television and a whole lot more fun, Snow Crash is the portrayal of a future that is bizarre enough to be plausible.” (from http://www.amazon.com/Snow-Crash-Bantam-Spectra-Book/dp/0553380958)
Space Cowboys (2000) (film)
“In 1958, four hot shot test pilots seem certain to be the first men to go into outer space. However, the back-stabbing leader of their organization disbands them to prevent their involvement in the then forming NASA and labels them as non-team players. Flash forward to the present, the foursome are now living a docile life. The electrical engineer (Clint Eastwood has a pleasant retired life in a desert home with his wife (Barbara Babcock). The pilot (Tommy Lee Jones), who had a penchant for pushing the test planes to their limits, is now a daredevil crop-duster. The navigator (James Garner) is a Baptist minister. The designer (Donald Sutherland) is a womanizing roller coaster designer. Their former boss (James Cromwell) is now a mission leader in Nasa and still as despicable as in his younger days. It is here that the main story begins. It seems that an old Russian “communications” satellite is about to crash back into the Earth’s atmosphere and somehow American technology designed by Eastwood’s character has ended up as the guiding system. Of course, because of the old technology, only the original team can save the day. As Cromwell’s character makes many learing statements about the satellite to the Russian general who is working with the Americans to save the day, you know there is something much more nefarious about the satellite. After some struggles to get the four to pass their physicals in less than 30 days, the four with two young counterparts (Loren Dean, Courtney B. Vance) are launched on the space shuttle to fix the satellite. Dean’s character has somehow been coerced to be in on the subterfuge involving Cromwell and in an unexplained action, he tries to make connections on the satellite that causes the whole mission to become a disaster and creates the greatest action sequences in the film.” (from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0186566/plotsummary)
Space Rangers (1996) (TV series; need to identify episodes)
“By the year 2104, mankind has spread among the stars. Fort Hope, on the planet Avalon, is one of the far-flung outposts of trade and diplomacy. Maintaining order on the wild, new frontier is the responsibility of the Space Rangers. Fort Hope’s best Ranger team is commanded by Captain John Boon. His pilot is Jojo Thorsen, a lithe, tough blonde from the planet of New Venus, where no men live. The…” (from http://www.tv.com/space-rangers/show/2397/summary.html?q=&tag=search_results;title;1)
STAR PARK: First Adventure (2007) (novel)
By Terry S. Goudy. “Star Park works for kids somewhat along the lines of a Chronicles of Narnia type of adventure, with the added benefit for teens and adults of an Animal Farm type of allegory.? In this adventure novel, sixteen-year-old Scott Freeman and his fifteen-year-old sister, winners of a globally-publicized contest, blast off in a shuttle to visit Star Park, the first-ever world-sized virtual reality world on a space station. ?Scott Freeman is a normal teen who enjoys sports, games, and computers. But he’s plunged into danger soon after arriving at Star Park. In the adventure on the space station, Scott must figure out secret code words in order for him and his sister to escape the virtual reality world gone awry and break free to be able to return to Earth.” (from http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2007/2/emw502173.htm)
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993-1999) (TV episodes)
Full synopses are available at http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/series/DS9/episodes/index.html
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Move Along Now: Aliens put the major characters inside a game to teach a lesson about cheating.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Shadowplay:
An entire village and its residents is an elaborate holographic projection, created by technology that is breaking down, causing people to disappear.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Our Man Bashir: “Posing as a 1960s secret agent in a malfunctioning holosuite program, Bashir is all that stands between his trapped fellow officers and certain death.”
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Looking for par`Mach in All the Wrong Places: “In a Holosuite, Worf and Dax help Quark act out a Klingon battle scene”; Quark is challenged to a battle to the death in a Klingon mating ritual and “Worf uses a virtual control device to move Quark’s body, effectively fighting for him.”
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Rapture:
Sisko recreates an obelisk in the Holosuite to try to determine what hidden markings on it might be; “the Holosuite system shorts and knocks him unconscious. In the infirmary, Bashir tells Sisko his brain has been overloaded, and his senses will be enhanced for a few days.”; Sisko has a series of visions that help him solve the mystery.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:
Doctor Bashir, I Presume?:
“Bashir is chosen as the model for the new version of Starfleet’s holographic doctor program. … Bashir’s parents later tell their son that they won’t divulge the fact that he was genetically enhanced as a child — not realizing they are talking to his holographic version while O’Brien and Zimmerman witness the exchange.”
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Business as Usual: Quark becomes involved in a weapon selling business – he’s “in charge of ‘hospitality,’ showing customers a good time and allowing them to test harmless replicas of their offerings in his holosuites.”
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Magnificent Ferengi: “The Grand Nagus calls with news that Quark’s mother, Ishka, has been captured by the Dominion. … While running battle simulations in the Holosuites, Quark realizes they have no hope of taking back Ishka by force.”
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Inquisition: A member of a secret spy organization within Starfleet uses a holographic illusion to test the loyalty of Bashir.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:
In the Pale Moonlight: Sisko and
Garak use a manufactured audio-visual ‘recording’ of a meeting that never took place to change the dynamics of a war.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:
His Way:
“A new Holosuite program gives birth to ‘Vic,’ a 60’s crooner who also provides advice for the lovelorn.”; his advice eventually brings Odo and Kira together as a couple.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:
Time`s Orphan:
At a picnic on another planet, t
he O’Briens’ daughter Molly is a victim of a time travel accident and returns having grown up in the wilds of the planet; “when she shows them a photo taken at the picnic site, they realize Molly regards that planet as her home. Desperate to make his daughter happy, O’Brien recreates the spot in a holosuite. The plan works until the O’Briens must relinquish the suite to other customers.”
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Take Me Out to the Holosuite: “A group of Deep Space Nine rookies answer Sisko’s challenge to try and beat a Vulcan baseball team.”
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:
The Siege of AR-558:
“The situation is grim. Jem’Hadar forces send in holographic soldiers, which draw Starfleet fire, to determine troop strength without risking casualties.”
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:
It`s Only a Paper Moon:
“After losing his leg in battle, a somber Nog returns to the space station to recuperate” and escapes his problems in a holosuite; eventually he has to be convinced to return to reality.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:
Badda-Bing Badda-Bang: ”
While relaxing in Vic’s Las Vegas holosuite lounge, O’Brien and Bashir are surprised by the arrival of mobster Frankie Eyes, who announces that he’s bought Vic’s hotel. After Frankie fires Vic, the crew learns that Frankie was written into the holosuite program by Vic’s designer. Upset by Frankie’s treatment of Vic, and by the knowledge that the lounge’s atmosphere will now change, the crew decides it must rid the program of Frankie. But to accomplish this task, they realize, he must be eliminated in a way that is period-specific to Fontaine’s era: 1962.”
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Hard Time: “A shaken O’Brien returns to Deep Space 9 after his mind has been altered to make him believe that he spent the last two decades in prison. Accused of espionage by the Argrathi, he was given the painful memories of a 20-year incarceration — the alien race’s time- and money-saving alternative to constructing jails”
Star Trek: Enterprise (2001-2005) (TV episodes)
Full synopses are available at http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/series/ENT/episodes/index.html?season=4
Star Trek: Enterprise: Unexpected: “On a break from their repair work, Ah’len shows Tucker a holographic chamber where she recreates a three-dimensional landscape of her homeworld. While sitting in a holographic boat in an exotic ocean, she introduces Tucker to one of their games: they immerse their hands into a box of granules which begin to glow, enabling them to read each other’s minds. / Tucker is pregnant! Tucker insists to Phlox, T’Pol and Archer that he had no sexual encounters during his stay, but then realizes that the “box of pebbles” he shared with Ah’len must have inadvertently served as a medium to transfer genetic material.”
Star Trek: Enterprise: Cold Front: “While Enterprise joins an alien pilgrimage to witness a religious stellar occurrence, Archer finds himself again faced against the Suliban warrior Silik. / …Taking Archer to his quarters, Daniels uses a futuristic device to project a holographic ‘temporal observatory.'”
Star Trek: Enterprise: Oasis: “Ezral confesses to creating holographic versions of his dead crew to provide his daughter with a family to grow up with.”
Star Trek: Enterprise: Dead Stop: “Enterprise docks with a mysterious high-tech space station which proves too good to be true / Once inside the station, Archer, T’Pol and Trip locate a sort of diagnostic center that contains holographic schematics of the ships, with the damaged sections clearly highlighted. …
A computer voice addresses the trio… / When Archer and T’Pol reach the station’s computer core, they discover a horrifying sight: 40 humanoid bodies, pale and desiccated, suspended from harnesses, with electrode-like devices attached to their skulls. … Their synaptic pathways have been integrated into the computer core, giving the station the knowledge of many different species. As they begin to free Mayweather, the alien station begins overriding commands onboard Enterprise, effectively holding the ship hostage.”
Star Trek: Enterprise: Vanishing Point: “Following her first experience in the transporter, a series of eerie events leads Hoshi to question whether she is the same person. /
Upon looking in the mirror, Hoshi discovers that she has become completely transparent. The crew soon discovers that she is missing and mounts a search. Though she is invisible to them, Hoshi trails the crew, hoping to somehow send them a message that she’s still alive. The crew, however, determines that Hoshi’s disappearance is, in fact, connected to a transporter snafu — apparently, her molecules are breaking down. In her invisible form, Hoshi also makes a disturbing discovery — aliens have infiltrated Enterprise and are planting explosives that will soon detonate. / SPOILER:] Reed and Trip inform Hoshi that she was trapped in the pattern buffer for a few seconds … leading Hoshi to conclude that the whole ordeal took place in her head, while she was being transported from the surface.”
Star Trek: Enterprise: Similitude: “When Trip suffers a catastrophic injury, his only hope for survival is a transplant from a ‘mimetic simbiot’ which Phlox grows from one of his exotic creatures.”
Star Trek: Enterprise: Stratagem: “Archer formulates a plan that involves Phlox erasing Degra’s memories and Trip building a small mock shuttlecraft that will be housed on Enterprise. / When Degra awakens onboard the mock shuttlecraft, Archer tricks him into believing that the two men shared a cell in a Xindi-Insectoid prison for the last three years and have recently escaped.”
Star Trek: Enterprise: The Council: “The Aquatics respond to visuals more than words, so Degra cooks up a plan. Using data from Enterprise’s encounter with one of the trans-dimensional beings, Degra constructs a biometric hologram of the being. The hologram effectively demonstrates the Sphere-Builders’ previous presence on Enterprise. Intrigued, the Council is finally open to hearing more. / … T’Pol discovers that part of the Sphere’s surface is actually a hologram — the shuttlepod passes right through”
Star Trek: Enterprise: Babel One: “Attacking ship is revealed to be operated by teleoperation; see also the following episode, titled United. “The Enterprise crew has been able to prove that the alien ship uses holographic emitters to mimic both Andorian and Tellarite vessels, but it is, in fact, Romulan, being controlled remotely by a team that has discovered Reed and Tucker on the vessel, searching for the bridge.” (from http://www.treknation.com/reviews/enterprise/babel_one.shtml)
Star Trek: Enterprise: United: “Archer tries to unify the Andorians, Tellarites and Vulcans in a plan to capture a marauder ship threatening to destabilize the region. / Nijil and Valdore continue to control the mysterious Romulan ship that has trapped Reed and Trip, masking it to look like Enterprise and using the ship to destroy a Rigellian vessel.”
Star Trek: Enterprise: The Aenar: “the mysterious drone they encountered is operated by ‘telepresence,’ meaning the vessel is controlled by a pilot from a remote location. T’Pol believes that the Enterprise crew can construct their own telepresence unit to disrupt the signal controlling the drone. …”
Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994) (TV episodes)
Full synopses are available at http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/series/TNG/episodes/index.html
Star Trek: The Next Generation: Skin of Evil: “Returning to the U.S.S. Enterprise, the crew is touched by the living will of Lieutenant Yar. As her holographic image appears before them, she gives a moving farewell to each of her fellow crew members.”
Star Trek: The Next Generation: We’ll Always Have Paris: “Captain Picard is reunited with an old flame” / … While Picard tries to resolve his past with Jenice” in a holodeck recreation of the Paris cafe where they had met”
Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Schizoid Man: “Meanwhile, Data reveals to Kareen that he is actually Graves, who transferred his dying mind and body into Data’s mechanical frame. He also tells her that he intends to place her in an android body so they can be together eternally.”
Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Icarus Factor: “To help Worf celebrate his anniversary, Data, Geordi and Wesley surprise him by recreating a Klingon ritual chamber in the holodeck. They are, in turn, surprised to learn that the ritual is a test of a Klingon’s ability to endure pain at the hands of his friends.”
Star Trek: The Next Generation: Peak Performance: ”
When the war games begin, the Hathaway deftly wins round one by distracting the U.S.S. Enterprise with a holographic image of a Romulan warship, thus giving Riker’s crew the chance to record several electronic “hits.” Moments later, when Picard mistakes a real Ferengi warship for another holograph, he’s stunned when the Ferengi launch a ferocious assault.”
Star Trek: The Next Generation: A Matter of Perspective: ”
Riker is accused of murder. / Programmed with the testimonies of Riker, Manua, Tanya and the information in Apgar’s personal journal, the holodeck recreates the events leading up to the fatal explosion, according to each person’s perspective.”
Star Trek: The Next Generation: Hollow Pursuits: ”
Barclay retreats to the Holodeck where he programs a session in which Counselor Troi seduces him. Later, when Picard mistakenly calls Barclay “Broccoli,” a nickname used by the crew, Geordi finds him back in the Holodeck, engaged in a fantasy sword fight in which he defeats Picard, Data and Geordi. / Geordi then encourages Barclay to meet with Troi to discuss his need to vent his frustrations on Holodeck recreations. But before long, Barclay again begins shirking his responsibilities, which sends Riker, Troi and Geordi to the Holodeck to confront him about his obsession with the device.”
Star Trek: The Next Generation: Family: ”
Dr. Crusher receives a package she left in storage when she left Earth. While sorting through the odds and ends, she discovers a computer disc containing a holographic message for Wesley from his late father, made when he was only 10 weeks old. She is uncertain about giving the disc to Wesley, but Troi convinces her it may help the boy understand the kind of man his father was. Initially shocked that his father was just a young man like himself, Wesley ends up deeply moved by his expression of hope for the future and love for his baby son.”
Star Trek: The Next Generation: Remember Me: ”
When Wesley’s experiment with a warp field goes awry, Dr. Crusher is unknowingly catapulted into a universe created by her own mind.”
Star Trek: The Next Generation: Future Imperfect: ”
After an Away Team Mission goes awry, Riker awakens in Sickbay to find that 16 years have passed and he is about to negotiate a treaty with the Romulans. / Riker finds Tomalak on the Bridge and reveals his discovery of the charade, and at that moment the image of the bridge disappears, revealing a Romulan Holodeck.”
Star Trek: The Next Generation: Devil`s Due: ”
The Ventaxians are in a panic, convinced a mythic figure called Ardra has returned to fulfill a thousand-year-old contract. According to legend, she promised the citizens of the once war-torn planet a thousand years of peace and prosperity in exchange for their enslavement at the end of that time. / When the hearing resumes, Picard duplicates all of Ardra’s tricks and invites her to stop them. When she cannot, Picard exposes her as a con artist and Data dissolves the contract.”
Star Trek: The Next Generation: Galaxy’s Child: “During a crisis, Geordi] recreated a Holodeck image of Dr. Brahms to help him and felt a strong rapport with her. But when the real Leah finally transports aboard, he is crushed to discover that she is cold, cerebral and humorless. / …Leah accidentally discovers Geordi’s Holodeck recreation of her. Infuriated, she chastises Geordi for using her as a plaything.”
Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Nth Degree: ”
A crew member is endowed with super human intelligence by an alien probe and threatens the fate of the U.S.S. Enterprise. /… Geordi’s pride in Barclay turns to concern, however, when he discovers his crewmate in the Holodeck arguing scientific theory with a simulated Einstein. /… Barclay explains that since the computer was too slow, he connected his brain to the computer … As the crew tries to devise a plan to regain control of the ship, Barclay propels the U.S.S. Enterprise to a point thirty thousand light-years away.”
Star Trek: The Next Generation: In Theory: ”
Data experiments with love by pursuing a romantic relationship with a fellow crew member.”
Star Trek: The Next Generation: Unification, Part II: ”
Sela declares her plan to force Spock to deliver a speech, in which he will announce the arrival of the stolen Vulcan ships. The ships, disguised as a peace envoy, are actually manned by Romulans and have been dispatched to seize control of the Vulcan government. When Spock refuses to cooperate, Sela shows him a holographic image of himself, Picard and Data, which she will use instead if she is forced to kill them. / … Enraged, Sela returns to kill Spock, Picard and Data, but is instead tricked into firing at their holographic images, giving the real Data an opportunity to subdue her with an imitation of Spock’s legendary Vulcan nerve pinch.”
Star Trek: The Next Generation: Hero Worship: “A troubled young boy starts to emulate Data / He soon begins acting and talking like Data, simulating some of his android mannerisms. Later, Troi is troubled when she visits Timothy and finds him dressed in clothing similar to Data’s and calling himself an android. / Later, out of danger, Timothy is able to resume his life as a normal little boy. However, he and Data agree to remain friends.”
Star Trek: The Next Generation: Cost of Living: ”
Troi’s freewheeling mother Lwaxana upsets Deanna and Worf when she introduces Worf’s son to her rather hedonistic lifestyle. / … Lwaxana meets Alexander and takes a liking to him. She persuades him to skip his appointment with Troi and accompany her to the holodeck instead. There, she takes him for a visit to a colony of artists, poets and free thinkers, and to a mudbath. / … She becomes bored with the complicated wedding plans and heads back to the holodeck with Alexander, much to everyone’s dismay. /… Malfunctions interrupt Lwaxana and Alexander’s holodeck visit, and she calmly leads the boy out of danger.”
Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Inner Light: A
n alien probe releases a nucleonic particle stream that penetrates the ship’s shields and causes Picard to live decades of the life of another person on a faraway planet.
Star Trek: The Next Generation: Relics: Scotty is rescued from a transporter buffer after 75 years; ”
Scotty visits the Holodeck, where he has the computer simulate the Bridge of his old Enterprise. Unfortunately, it just isn’t the same without the rest of his mates. He is about to sink into a nostalgic reverie when Picard suddenly appears in the Holodeck doorway. Understanding his visitor’s sense of displacement, Picard joins Scotty for a drink and a memory…”
Star Trek: The Next Generation: A Fistful of Datas:
” A Holodeck fantasy goes awry, sending Worf and his son into a Wild West showdown with a villain who’s a dead ringer for Data.”
Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Quality of Life:
“Data risks Picard and Geordi’s lives in order to protect another ‘living’ machine. /
During a meeting with the staff, Data explains that the exocomp shut itself down just before the explosion in the plasma conduit, indicating that the machines are capable of self-protection. / …To everyone’s surprise, the exocomps come up with their own plan that saves Picard and Geordi and only sacrifices one of the three machines. The crew is left to ponder what they have witnessed, while Data is pleased that he could act as an advocate for these forgotten ‘living’ things.”
Star Trek: The Next Generation: Ship in a Bottle:
“A conniving character from Sherlock Holmes takes control of a holodeck fantasy and traps the senior staff inside of it.”
Star Trek: The Next Generation: Descent, Part I:
“Curious to see how three of history’s greatest minds might interact in an unique setting, Data plays poker in the Holodeck with computer-generated recreations of Professor Stephen Hawking, Albert Einstein, and Sir Isaac Newton. / … In the Holodeck, Data recreates his fight with the Borg,…”
Star Trek: The Next Generation: Interface:
“Picard assigns Geordi to use his new capability of using his VISOR as a link between his brain and a mechanical probe to rescue the science vessel U.S.S. Raman, which has become trapped inside the turbulent atmosphere of an unusual gaseous planet. /
Soon, via the probe, Geordi is inside the Raman, where he discovers the bodies of seven crew members. Then, suddenly, flames flash in front of him and he cries out in pain, prompting Data to quickly disconnect him from the interface. When Geordi is examined, everyone is shocked to discover that his hand has been seriously burned. / Back in Sickbay, Beverly deduces that Geordi was injured because the neural tolerance levels established between Geordi and the probe were too high. His response to the input created a feedback loop, which caused the burns.”
Star Trek: The Next Generation: Phantasms:
“Data’s first bad dream turns into a real-life nightmare for the rest of the U.S.S. Enterprise crew. / Picard] decides to link Data’s neural net to the Holodeck so they can observe his dream images. Geordi hooks Data up and Data activates his dream program, and Picard and Geordi then enter his dream.”
Star Trek: The Next Generation: Attached:
“Imprisoned and telepathically joined by an alien race, Picard and Beverly are forced to face the deep feelings they have always had for each other. / … Picard and Beverly, who are still following the map, realize that the implants in their necks allow them to read each other’s thoughts — whether they want to or not. When they separate to regain a little privacy, both are hit with a wave of nausea that renders them incapable of being apart.”
Star Trek: The Next Generation: Inheritance:
“A routine mission to save an endangered planet brings Data face-to-face with a woman who claims to be his mother. / She lands hard and is knocked unconscious, and her arm is ripped off, revealing that she is an android. / Geordi discovers an information chip inside Juliana’s “brain,” and Data inserts it into the Holodeck. Dr. Soong appears and talks with Data, telling him that Juliana the android was created after his wife, the human Juliana, was mortally wounded in the Crystalline Entity attack. Soong transferred her memories, and when she was activated, she had no idea that she was an android.”
Star Trek: The Next Generation: Homeward:
“Worf’s foster brother violates the Prime Directive in an effort to save a doomed alien race. / Nikolai believes that by using the Holodeck, he can fool the Boraalans into thinking that they are moving to a safer place on their own planet. Picard is skeptical, but he agrees to the plan. However, there is a problem — the Holodeck has been damaged by the energy surges from Boraal II and will eventually break down.”
Star Trek: The Next Generation: Thine Own Self:
“Having completely lost his memory, Data is stranded on a primitive planet where the inhabitants fear he is carrying a deadly plague. / Seeing that Data is made of metal, the horrified men flee. /
Gia… still trusts him despite his strange appearance.”
Star Trek: The Next Generation: Emergence:
“The lives of the U.S.S. Enterprise crew are endangered when the ship suddenly develops its own intelligence. / Troi adds that the characters in the Holodeck could represent specific aspects of the ship, and Picard encourages her to interact with them again in hopes of gaining control.”
Star Trek: The Original Series (1966-1969) (TV episodes)
Full synopses are available at http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/series/TOS/episodes/index.html
Star Trek: The Original Series: The Cage / The Menagerie: “The distress signal and expedition survivors, except for Vina, are revealed to be but illusions created by the Talosians to lure the Enterprise and Pike to the planet. / It is revealed that an expedition had indeed crash landed on Talos IV. Vina, the only survivor, was greatly injured and disfigured. With the aid of the Talosians’ illusions, however, she is able to appear beautiful and feel healthy.”
Star Trek: The Original Series: Mudd`s Women: “They discover that the women are using an extremely illegal Venus drug to make them beautiful and without which they become quite plain. By the time the fraud is discovered, Magda and Ruth are already married to the miners, to the satisfaction of all parties involved.”
Star Trek: The Original Series: What Are Little Girls Made Of?: “Korby has learned how to construct androids who look and act like humans. His android companions, Ruk and Andrea, amaze Kirk and Chapel with their realness. / Korby’s plan is to slowly replace key people in the Federation with androids, integrating the machines into other worlds.”
Star Trek: The Original Series: The “I.S.S. Fesarius, shaped like a large, glowing crystal traps the starship. / A ghostly, almost skeletal face appears on the viewscreen, identifying itself as Balok. He tells Kirk that the U.S.S. Enterprise has trespassed and committed hostile actions, and therefore, must be destroyed. / They find that the Fesarius is manned by only one entity, a friendly, child-like being who projects the ‘Balok’ image to potential enemies, knowing his own stature would be far less daunting.”
Star Trek: The Original Series: Shore Leave: “A U.S.S. Enterprise landing party beams down to an uncharted planet. / … As the perils become more and more deadly, Kirk and Spock realize that their thoughts are somehow coming to life around them. / An old man appears, explaining that this planet is designed as an ‘amusement park,’ and he is the Caretaker for the world. The planet is not meant to be hostile, and the results of one’s fantasies are not lasting.”
Star Trek: The Original Series: The Squire of Gothos: “They find Trelane, a humanoid with tremendous psionic powers and a passion for Earth’s 18th-century military history. It is he, they discover, who impulsively kidnapped Kirk and Sulu, wanting to add them to his arena of the Napoleonic era that he has created on this planet, Gothos. / … Kirk challenges Trelane to a duel and in the process, destroys the device the alien uses to create his illusions. However, Trelane repairs it and prevents the U.S.S. Enterprise from leaving orbit until he can punish Kirk for his rash actions. ”
Star Trek: The Original Series: The Return of the Archons: “They find the culture on Beta III is quiescent, with no creative tendencies. The entire culture is controlled by a group of ‘lawgivers’ known as “The Body” which is, in turn, controlled by the omniscient Landru. / Landru turns out to be an incredibly complex computer built by Landru, a scientist who lived 6,000 years before, who wanted to guide his people into a peaceful, civilized progress. / Landru had affected the computer with his scientific thoughts and memories, but not his wisdom. For centuries the computer, ‘Landru,’ has been interpreting his suggestions to the point that no one is allowed independent thought. Kirk tells the computer that instead of helping to nurture the culture of Beta III, it has harmed it.”
Star Trek: The Original Series: Errand of Mercy: “Displeased by the outbreak of violence, the Organians reveal themselves to be powerful creatures of pure energy who easily neutralize the weapons on both ships, thus ending the threat” The Enterprise crew eventually discover that the Organians created an illusory village and culture on their planet to give visitors a familiar frame of reference
Star Trek: The Original Series: The Changeling: The Enterprise “is threatened by a space going, self-contained computer/probe calling itself Nomad. When Kirk identifies himself by name, Nomad mistakes him for “The Kirk,” and thinks him to be his creator. / Spock attempts a Vulcan mind meld with Nomad and learns that it was created on Earth in the twenty-first century by scientist Jackson Roykirk. Nomad’s program was to seek out new life and report back to Earth. Damaged in space by a meteor, Nomad drifted until it found Tan Ru, an alien probe designed to sterilize soil. Using their self-repair systems, the two probes combined themselves into one. Nomad’s programming was damaged and by joining with Tan Ru’s now believes its mission is to seek out life and destroy anything that it does not believe perfect.”
Star Trek: The Original Series: The Apple: “Vaal seems to be a large, serpent’s head carved of rock treated by the natives as a living entity], but is actually the terminal for an advanced, underground computer. Seeing Kirk and his party as a threat, Vaal takes them prisoner and tries to pull the U.S.S. Enterprise from orbit.”
Star Trek: The Original Series: Catspaw: “On the planet Pyris VII, two beings known as Korob and Sylvia have been sent on a mission of conquest by their home world. Using a matter transmuter, they assume human form to welcome the U.S.S. Enterprise landing party. / Sylvia and Korob appear as witch and warlock and use scare tactics to keep the officers from investigating the planet and their motives. / Kirk then uses Korob’s wand transmuter to destroy Sylvia’s source of power — her amulet — before smashing the wand. Their powers gone, the aliens revert to their true form — fragile blue creatures who quickly die in the planet’s atmosphere.”
Star Trek: The Original Series: Return to Tomorrow: “The landing party find themselves in a vault, and encounter a glowing sphere that identifies itself as Sargon. He explains that his people were destroyed in a cataclysmic war half a million years ago, and that he once had a body, but now is only pure thought. Sargon insists that he and two others of his kind need to “borrow” the bodies of the Enterprise officers long enough to construct new artificial ones. / Henoch has completed an artificial body for Thalassa, but she refuses to transfer her consciousness into it.”
Star Trek: The Original Series: Spock`s Brain: “Spock’s body lays on a diagnostic table, on full life support. McCoy explains that his brain is gone … miraculously removed with some technology that the doctor has never seen before. / …Finally, Kirk finds Spock’s brain. The Eymorgs have hooked it up to run their central control system. The brain is now revered as the “Controller,” which they hope will control their central systems for the next 10,000 years” Spock describes the experience of sensing the ‘body ‘ of the systems he controls.
Star Trek: The Original Series: Spectre of the Gun: “Kirk ignores an alien buoy that warns the U.S.S. Enterprise that it is trespassing into Melkotian space and continues forward when the Melkots transport Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, and Chekov to a recreation of Earth’s wild west. Here their instruments will not function and they are forced to relive, in ‘a manner befitting their heritage for trespassing,’ the shoot-out in Tombstone, Arizona on October 26, 1881. / … through a series of mind melds, Spock is able to reject the illusions of the hostiles enabling the crew to succeed without shooting at the others.”
Star Trek: The Original Series: For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky: ” T]he U.S.S. Enterprise encounters the asteroid Yonada which is determined to be artificially propelled. Its center is occupied by humanoids, whose ancestors built the asteroid ‘vessel’ in an effort to escape the destruction of their solar system. However, the controls have become defective and Yonada is heading for collision with a Federation planet.” The title is uttered by a character who had touched the ‘roof’ of the vessel.
Star Trek: The Original Series: The Mark of Gideon: “Reluctantly, the Gideon council allows Captain Kirk alone to beam to their council chamber, and he transports off the ship. When Kirk apparently fails to arrive on the planet, the Gideon council refuses to allow more people on the surface, even for a search party. / Kirk finds himself on his own ship, where all of his crew have seemingly vanished. After searching the ship, he finds one lone, beautiful woman, Odona. Kirk determines that Odona is from Gideon, and that they are on a false ship, built on the planet’s surface.”
Star Trek: The Original Series: That Which Survives: “As a landing party prepares to beam down to a previously unexplored Class-M planet, a beautiful woman, Losira, appears. She touches an ensign and kills him. / … On the planet’s surface, the landing party finds a chamber in the rocks that houses a computer. They realize that this is where Losira appears from. / … Spock and a security team arrive and destroy the computer that was projecting Losira’s image.”
Star Trek: The Original Series: Requiem for Methuselah: “Rigellian fever, an extremely deadly plague, strikes the U.S.S. Enterprise crew. Kirk, Spock and McCoy beam down to a supposedly uninhabited planet, Holberg 917-G, in search of the only known antidote, ryetalyn. To their surprise, they encounter Flint and his daughter, Rayna. / … Flint explains that he is an immortal, who wandered the Earth for centuries in various personas, including Brahms and da Vinci. He came to this planet to retire in peace and built the “Rayna” android as his companion. He had hoped that her involvement with Kirk would speed up her emotional growth, but now he has become hopelessly jealous.”
Star Trek: The Original Series: Turnabout Intruder: “Dr. Janice Lester, who was once involved with Captain Kirk, harbors a deep hatred of the captain, because she, herself, has never been able to captain a starship. / … Kirk is suddenly trapped into a life-entity transfer with Janice. His personality is in her body, while she takes over his, finally becoming captain of a starship.”
Star Trek: Voyager (1995-2001) (TV episodes)
Full synopses are available at http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/series/VOY/episodes/index.html
Star Trek: Voyager:
Caretaker, Part I
: “After reaching the Badlands, Voyager encounters an inexplicable phenomenon that sends the ship hurtling to the Delta Quadrant, located 70,000 light years from home. The catapult effect kills a number of crewmembers, including the Chief Medical Officer, who is replaced by an Emergency Medical Hologram (EMH) that attends to the wounded. But the EMH has barely begun his work when the entire crew of Voyager is transported to what appears to be a pastoral farm, populated by friendly humans. But it’s only an illusion; the farm is actually the interior of the Array, a huge space station, and the residents are holograms. The crew is imprisoned within a strange laboratory facility, alongside the missing Maquis.”
Star Trek: Voyager:
Phage
: “During an Away Team survey of a planetoid that seems to be rich in raw dilithium, Neelix is attacked and left for dead. The other members of the team find him and beam him up to Sickbay, where the Doctor reports that the Talaxian’s lungs have been removed. With no other alternatives, the Doctor fits Neelix with a set of holographic lungs. They’ll keep him alive, but require him to remain confined in an isotropic restraint in Sickbay for the rest of his life.”
Star Trek: Voyager: The Cloud: “Paris invites Kim to tag along for some rest and recreation in Sandrine’s, a holodeck recreation of a French bar that Paris frequented in his Academy days.”
Star Trek: Voyager: Eye of the Needle: “Kes begins working closely with the Doctor in Sickbay. She’s surprised by how rudely Voyager’s staff treats him because he’s “only a hologram.” She asks the Captain if the Doctor can be treated with the same respect as crewmembers. Janeway agrees, and tells the Doctor he should begin thinking of himself as a member of the crew. What’s more, she’s giving him control over his own deactivation sequence, and his first taste of independence.”
Star Trek: Voyager: Ex Popst Facto: “Kim returns to the U.S.S. Voyager from the Banean homeworld with shocking news: Paris has been found guilty of murder. As his punishment, he’s been sentenced to relive the crime from his victim’s perspective every 14 hours, thanks to memory engrams implanted in his brain by a Banean doctor. /
Janeway meets with the Banean Minister, who explains that the evidence — the murder as seen through Ren’s own eyes — undeniably proves Paris’s guilt.
”
Star Trek: Voyager: Heroes and Demons: “Janeway sends the ship’s doctor on his first Away Mission: rescue the crewmembers who have vanished in the holodeck’s version of “Beowulf.”
Star Trek: Voyager: Projections: “The ship’s holographic doctor experiences a world where illusion and reality collide. … Chakotay says that Barclay himself is a simulation, and that if the Doctor listens to him, he’ll wind up destroying his own program. The Doctor isn’t sure whom to believe but delays acting on Barclay’s advice long enough to prove that Chakotay’s story is true.”
Star Trek: Voyager: Twisted: “During a surprise birthday party for Kes at Sandrine’s Bar in the holodeck, the U.S.S. Voyager encounters a peculiar spatial distortion wave in space, which surrounds the ship.”
Star Trek: Voyager:
Persistence of Vision
: “As the U.S.S. Voyager readies for a potentially dangerous encounter with the Botha, the Doctor orders an exhausted Captain Janeway to take some ‘R&R’ in the holodeck. Janeway tries to get into her favorite holonovel, but before long, she is called back to the Bridge for first contact with the Botha. … Later, Janeway thinks she sees Beatrice, the little girl from her holonovel, in one of the ship’s corridors. … Torres contacts Janeway from Engineering and reports that the crew seems to have fallen under some kind of psychoactive trance, the result of a bio-electric field emanating from the Bothan ship.”
Star Trek: Voyager: Prototype: “When the crew beams aboard a deactivated robot, Torres works night and day to revive the mysterious mechanical being. … The robot introduces itself as Automated Personnel Unit 3947, one of a nearly extinct line of workers created by the Pralor, a species of humanoids who no longer exist. It asks Torres to build a prototype power module for the construction of additional units, but Janeway points out that this would be a violation of the Prime Directive.”
Star Trek: Voyager: Threshold: “Following a series of holodeck simulations to reach Warp 10, Paris and the engineering team iron out the technical glitches and prepare to send Paris out on a real flight. The next day, the crew watches as Paris takes the Shuttlecraft Cochrane to Warp 10, crosses the transwarp threshold, and abruptly vanishes. / Moments later, the Cochrane emerges from subspace, and they beam Paris to Sickbay. He appears no worse for wear, weakened but exhilarated by the experience, which he likens to ‘being everywhere at once.'”
Star Trek: Voyager: Meld: “Unable to come up with a logical motive for a shipboard murder, Tuvok performs a mind-meld with the perpetrator that brings out Tuvok’s ‘killer instinct.’ / Tuvok admits that although Suder seems calmer since the meld, he finds himself feeling disconcerted. Later, an encounter with the playful Neelix so enrages Tuvok that he strangles him; fortunately, the event occurs only in Tuvok’s holodeck program.”
Star Trek: Voyager: Lifesigns: “The crew answers a distress call from a small spacecraft and beams its occupant into Sickbay. The severely ill Vidiian female is dying from the Phage, which has ravaged her people. The Doctor puts her decaying body into stasis and transfers her synaptic patterns into Sickbay’s holobuffer. He then creates a holographic body that reflects the way the female would look if she were not afflicted with the Phage. / … using Paris’ holodeck program, the Doctor has a lovely date with Pel in a 1957 Chevy. / … Pel admits she sabotaged her medical treatment because she doesn’t want to return to her diseased body”
Star Trek: Voyager: The Thaw: “Voyager picks up an automated message from the Kohl settlement, whose members survived an environmental catastrophe by going into artificial hibernation. The crew beams their hibernation pods on board and finds two humanoids dead and three in deep stasis, their minds connected to a sensory system controlled by a computer. The Doctor reveals that the two victims died from heart failure, brought on by mental stress — or extreme fear. / Hoping to learn how to revive the survivors, Kim and Torres enter two pods and are attached to the computer, which allows them to enter the colonists’ dream state. They’re thrown into an environment that resembles a bizarre carnival run by a malevolent Clown, whose followers quickly drag Kim to a guillotine. / Although the Clown spares Kim, the pair suddenly understand how the Kohl could literally be frightened to death. Because the Clown’s survival depends on the colonists’ minds remaining linked to the sensory system, the Kohl — and now Kim and Torres — can’t awaken because the Clown won’t allow it.”
Star Trek: Voyager: The Swarm: “In Sickbay, the Doctor can’t remember how to complete an operation; the Emergency Medical Hologram’s memory circuits seem to be degrading. The only way to help him is to reinitialize his program, but Torres reveals that if she does that, all of the memories the Doctor has acquired in the past two years would be lost, along with much of his personality. Torres transfers the Doctor’s program to a holodeck recreation of Jupiter Station, where his database originally had been written. There, they meet a holographic recreation of Dr. Lewis Zimmerman, creator of the EMH”
Star Trek: Voyager: Remember: “When she awakens in Sickbay, the Doctor tells Torres that she isn’t dreaming; she’s experiencing memories that have been specifically implanted in her mind. In her next vision, Korenna realizes that her father is forcibly “resettling” people like Dathan, who are known as Regressives because they reject modern technology. Korenna’s face is accidentally scarred by a Regressive attempting to flee Jareth’s soldiers. When Torres awakens, she goes to the quarters of an old Enaran woman named Mirell, who has a scar like the one Torres saw in the dream. Mirell admits she is Korenna, and that she planted her memories in Torres’s mind so the truth about the fate of the Regressives won’t be forgotten when she dies.”
Star Trek: Voyager: Future`s End, Part II: “The crew races against time to stop a 20th-century computer industrialist from causing a 29th-century disaster. / … Back in the Delta Quadrant, the crew finds that they’ve gained one particular advantage from their journey: the Doctor has retained the 29th-century mobile holo-emitter, freeing him from the confines of Sickbay.”
Star Trek: Voyager: Alter Ego: “A holodeck character’s obsession with Tuvok threatens to destroy the U.S.S. Voyager.”
Star Trek: Voyager: Blood Fever: ”
A Vulcan mating ritual pits Torres against a fellow crewmember… / …
Vorik is half-mad with his desire to mate with Torres, but he’s forced to remain on Voyager, where the Doctor tries to help him by programming a holographic Vulcan female.”
Star Trek: Voyager: Darkling: “… the Doctor is engaged in a new project: adding personality routines of famous historical figures, like Gandhi and Lord Byron, to his own program in order to enhance his performance. Torres expresses concern that the subroutines may interact unpredictably after which his personality turns violent].”
Star Trek: Voyager: Real Life: ” I]n an effort to expand the horizons of his program, the Doctor creates a ‘perfect’ holodeck family: a wife named Charlene, teenage son Jeffrey, and a 10-year-old daughter named Belle. After he invites Kes and Torres to dine with his ‘family,’ Torres offers to tweak the program to make it more realistic.
Star Trek: Voyager: Worst Case Scenario: “A holo-novel program about a Maquis mutiny becomes all too real… / … when they re-open the narrative parameters file to write the final chapter, a holographic version of Seska appears; the real Seska discovered Tuvok’s program before she left the ship and decided to finish it the way she thought it should play out. She tells Tuvok that she’s sealed the holodeck and deactivated the safety protocols; if she shoots them, they’ll die.”
Star Trek: Voyager: Displaced: “The U.S.S. Voyager is pirated by an alien race, and her crew sent to an idyllic prison colony. /
Taleen, a Nyrian spokeswoman, explains that her people steal ships and space stations by gradually replacing their crews; it’s less violent than war. The prisoners are then relocated to surroundings that approximate their native environment. /
As they try to find a way out, they meet Jarlath, another prisoner, who reveals that different areas of the colony are connected by disguised portals. Torres reconfigures the Doctor’s optical sensors so that he can detect the passages. He locates a portal that leads to a network of access tunnels, each, in turn, leading to a different biosphere.”
Star Trek: Voyager: Nemesis: “Left to die by the Kradin, Chakotay is grateful when a Vori leader comes back to free him. The two join in battle against the Kradin but Chakotay is shocked when one of the enemy calls him by name. Although he looks like a Kradin to Chakotay, the alien assures him that he is actually Tuvok! Tuvok explains that the Vori have been using mind-control techniques to get Chakotay to help fight their war. His encounters with the soldiers and the civilians in the settlement were Vori simulations training him to hate the Kradin.
Star Trek: Voyager: Revulsion: “A rescue mission puts Torres and the Doctor in the hands of a psychopathic hologram.”
Star Trek: Voyager: Concerning Flight: “While searching for equipment stolen from Voyager, Janeway gets help from her holodeck mentor, Leonardo da Vinci.”
Star Trek: Voyager: Waking Moments: “After a fitful night’s sleep, the crew realizes they all had nightmares involving the same alien. They become concerned when several crewmembers cannot be awakened. Hoping to find out more about the alien, Chakotay attempts a technique called lucid dreaming, which will allow him to control the events of his dream. If he needs to awaken, he can tap his hand three times. / The alien explains that for his species, the dream state is their reality. For centuries they’ve been harmed by “waking species,” and now they are retaliating. … Chakotay comes out of the dream and orders a course for the alien border… / The aliens beam aboard, taking the ship. As the crew looks for ways to regain control, Chakotay sees a visual cue that lets him know he’s still dreaming. After tapping his hand, Chakotay wakes up in Sickbay, this time for real. The Doctor informs him that the entire crew is asleep, and their brain patterns show they are all experiencing the same dream.”
Star Trek: Voyager: Message in a Bottle: “When Seven of Nine locates an alien relay station, she establishes a sensor link and detects a Starfleet vessel in the Alpha Quadrant. Janeway uses the relay network to send a message to the ship, but the transmission degrades before it gets through. Their only other option is to send a holographic
datastream. The Doctor is recruited, and he finds himself aboard the U.S.S. Prometheus, only to find that the Starfleet crew is dead and the ship is in Romulan hands. / The Doctor activates the Prometheus’ Emergency Medical Hologram (EMH-2), and the two agree to work together to stop the Romulans
.”
Star Trek: Voyager: Retrospect: “The Captain acquires a new weapons system from an Entharan trader named Kovin, and Seven of Nine is asked to help with the integration. When Kovin criticizes her work and pushes her aside to do it himself, she hits him. After Seven exhibits newfound anxiety in sickbay, the Doctor believes it is caused by blocked memories trying to surface. He has added a psychiatric subroutine to his program and leads Seven through hypnotic regression therapy. During their session, Seven recalls that Kovin performed a medical procedure on her and extracted Borg technology. / .. They suddenly realize that Seven’s repressed memories are most likely images from her experiences as a Borg that she confused as Kovin. / … Believing that his overzealous enthusiasm for expanding his program resulted in the tragedy, the Doctor] requests permission to delete everything except his original activation program, but he is denied.”
Star Trek: Voyager: The Killing Game, Parts I and II: “An enemy attack leaves Janeway and the Voyager crew believing they are characters in a World War II holodeck simulation.”
Star Trek: Voyager: Living Witness: “The U.S.S. Voyager and its crew are on display in a Kyrian museum 700 years in the future, and they are being blamed for a horrible civil war that nearly wiped out the Kyrian race. Through inaccurate simulations, the crew is shown as violent people who did not hesitate to destroy anything or anyone standing in their way of getting home. / The museum curator, Quarren, works within the engineering simulation to access a data storage device recently uncovered at one of the Kyrian ruins. When he realizes it is a hologram, he activates the Doctor’s program and explains what has happened. The Doctor is distraught and refuses to believe that 700 years have passed, but he soon sees the Voyager artifacts in the museum and knows it must be true. / … Appalled by the depiction of Janeway and the crew as cold, heartless thugs, the Doctor tries desperately to describe Voyager’s side of the story. / … Quarren allows him to create a simulation of his own.”
Star Trek: Voyager: Extreme Risk: “Torres begins pulling away from the others. She activates a holodeck simulation of battle with Cardassians but disengages the safety protocols. / Chakotay learns she has been running very dangerous holo-simulations without the safety protocols. When confronted, she admits she has been testing herself, trying to experience an emotion or feel pain. Ever since she and Chakotay received the Starfleet message telling them their Maquis friends had been slaughtered, Torres has felt numb.”
Star Trek: Voyager: In the Flesh: “Conducting a surveillance mission of an alien structure, Chakotay finds himself on Earth at Starfleet Headquarters. He is surrounded by aliens posing as humans… / Analysis of their ship’s structure shows the aliens are using a combination of holographic projection and particle synthesis to recreate Earth and Starfleet Headquarters. The crew surmises it is being used as a training ground for invasion of the Alpha Quadrant.”
Star Trek: Voyager: Once Upon a Time: “While Paris, Tuvok and Ensign Wildman are on an away mission, their shuttle runs into an ion storm and suffers severe damage. … As the crew prepares to go after the Delta Flyer, Neelix is in charge of keeping Ensign Wildman’s daughter Naomi occupied and unaware of her mother’s predicament. / … Naomi is worried when her mother doesn’t call, but Neelix tries to distract her with a holodeck fairytale called ‘The Adventures of Flotter.'”
Star Trek: Voyager: Latent Image: “As the Doctor takes holo-images of the crew, he finds evidence of neurosurgery he performed 18 months ago on Kim. However, he doesn’t remember it. … Someone has ordered a deletion in his short-term memory buffer, and holo-images he took around the time of the surgery have been deleted. / The Captain refuses to tell him what happened, and now that he is starting to remember, she plans to rewrite his program. After Seven challenges her decision and she has had some time to think about it, Janeway agrees to restore his memories. …”
Star Trek: Voyager: Bride of Chaotica!“In the midst of Paris’ latest holodeck installment of ‘The Adventures of Captain Proton,’ Voyager runs into a gravimetric force and stops. … When distortions appear in the holodeck, the crew believes they are random fluctuations. However, while the program runs unattended, two men claiming to be from the Fifth Dimension beam down and are questioned by Doctor Chaotica. After one of them transports back to the distortion, Chaotica vows to destroy their dimension. / When weapons fire from the holodeck creates power surges on Voyager, Paris and Tuvok investigate the Captain Proton simulation.”
Star Trek: Voyager: Dark Frontier, Part I: “During a holographic simulation, Janeway and the others practice their mission down to the second. They have only two minutes to disable the sensor grid and transport the coil to Voyager before being detected. After leaving the holodeck, Seven is unsettled by her close proximity to the Borg, even if it wasn’t real.”
Star Trek: Voyager: Course: Oblivion: “As crewmembers begin dying, they make a startling discovery about their true identities. / Chakotay and Tuvok pinpoint an event that could have caused their problems. They encountered a bio-memetic compound — the “silver blood” — on the Class-Y “demon planet” they visited about a year earlier. When they left that planet, the crew’s DNA was copied, and duplicates of themselves stayed on the planet to begin a new population. However, after the Doctor injects a dichromate catalyst into her deceased body, Torres disintegrates into the metallic compound. Chakotay and Tuvok realize they are all the duplicates, and not the “real” Voyager crew.”
Star Trek: Voyager: Someone to Watch Over Me: ” T]he Doctor determines that Seven needs the experience of dating in her socialization training. … he takes her to a holodeck bar for some practice making small talk with men… / In the holodeck simulation, he plays the piano as Seven and her date awkwardly navigate through a lobster dinner and a turn on the dance floor. / Crushed, the Doctor hides his true emotions and returns to the holodeck bar for a lonely piano tune.”
Star Trek: Voyager: Equinox, Parts I and II: ” T]he Doctor goes back to the Equinox research lab and summons their EMH, which looks exactly like him. The Equinox Doctor explains that he created the conversion technology after his ethical subroutines were deleted. Then, he disables Voyager’s Doctor and steals his holo-emitter.” … “They learn that Seven has locked out the power relays with codes that only she knows. Ransom tries to coerce the codes out of her, but when she refuses to talk, Ransom deletes the Doctor’s ethical subroutines in order to solicit his help. The hologram then sets out to extract the information from Seven’s cortical implants, which will severely damage her brain.”
Star Trek: Voyager: Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy: “The Doctor experiences daydreams when he incorporates cognitive projection into his own program, but an alien vessel eavesdropping on the Doctor’s program doesn’t realize these images are not reality. ”
Star Trek: Voyager: Alice: “When Voyager happens upon a junkyard of old ships, the crew stops to purchase some parts from Abaddon, the salesman. Tom Paris falls in love with a small shuttle he finds among the junked vessels, and convinces Chakotay to let him restore it. He discovers the shuttle has a neurogenic interface, allowing it to interact directly with the pilot’s thoughts. Tom gets to work immediately, naming his new toy ‘Alice.’ / … Alice goads Tom into stealing power cells from Voyager. When Alice traps B’Elanna, sealing a hatch and shutting off life support systems, Tom realizes the neurogenic interface is out of control.”
Star Trek: Voyager: Pathfinder: “Back on Earth, Lieutenant Barclay becomes obsessed with making contact with Voyager. During his project to contact Voyager, Barclay becomes consumed with the holographic recreations of the Voyager crew.
Star Trek: Voyager: Fair Haven: “Harry Kim and Tom Paris create a new holodeck program, which is set in the Irish village of Fair Haven. … / Janeway also visits Fair Haven, where she spends an evening with Michael Sullivan, a local bartender. Because she is so drawn to him, she decides to make a few modifications to his subroutine. / … While spending more time with Michael, Janeway discovers that her amendments were almost too good to be true, because she finds herself falling in love with him.”
Star Trek: Voyager: Virtuoso: “As a goodwill gesture, Captain Janeway arranges a musical concert starring the Doctor, of whom the Qomar cannot seem to get enough. / … Qomari visitors flood the ship for a chance to see him, and the Doctor is pleased with the attention. … Tincoo urges the Doctor to stay on Qomar with her after Voyager leaves. / Believing he can realize his life dreams and enjoy the love of a woman, the Doctor turns in his resignation. Despite Janeway’s protests, the Doctor insists he should have the right to self-determination. / … Although the Doctor protests that a superior holomatrix cannot replace the passion and artistry that he brings to the music, Tincoo only sees the situation from a mathematical angle. She is more concerned with hitting the scales than understanding their beauty. Heartbroken, the Doctor fills his final show with the melancholy of lost love.”
Star Trek: Voyager: Memorial: “The crew is haunted by vivid images of a battle they don’t remember fighting. / … The crew, still shaken by the disturbing realism of the visions they were forced to endure, wants to shut down the transmitter, but Janeway orders them to recharge the power cells. The memorial will continue to spread its hauntingly effective message.”
Star Trek: Voyager: Tsunkatse: “A Voyager crewmember is forced to fight for the entertainment of others. / Torres tells Chakotay that the figures in the pit are photonic, or holographic projections that are being transmitted from a different location.”
Star Trek: Voyager: Spirit Folk: “Problems begin to arise when Voyager runs a holodeck program non-stop. Characters within the holographic re-creation of Fair Haven become suspicious of the Voyager crew when they begin to notice strange, otherworldly happenings. / … Although the inhabitants of Fair Haven are not real people, but rather holograms, Janeway possesses genuine feelings towards them.”
Star Trek: Voyager: Live Fast and Prosper: “Captain Janeway and her officers get blamed for the deceptions of a band of con artists impersonating them. / … Paris and the Doctor successfully capture Dala and the Doctor then turns into Dala in holographic disguise. He beams himself to the bridge of the imposters’ vessel and cleverly manipulates Mobar and Zar into revealing the location of their stolen loot.”
Star Trek: Voyager: Life Line: “When Earth’s ‘Pathfinder Project’ transmits its first block of data to Voyager, the Doctor receives disturbing news — Lewis Zimmerman, the creator of modern holography and the Doctor’s program, is dying. / Hoping to save this “father” he never met, whose likeness he shares, the Doctor’s program is transmitted back to the Alpha Quadrant. / Zimmerman tells the Doctor that he is simply a Mark One hologram. He has been examined by the Mark Two, Mark Three and Mark Four, in addition to the finest “real” doctors in Starfleet, and none of them have been able to help him. / … In an attempt to convince him to help the Doctor, Zimmerman’s right-hand hologram Haley tells him that she will ask to be installed elsewhere unless he does something to save the Doctor.”
Star Trek: Voyager: Imperfection: “Seven of Nine suffers a life-threatening breakdown of a key Borg component. / … Janeway and the Doctor practice the cortical node replacement operation several times in a holodeck simulation”
Star Trek: Voyager: Critical Care: ”
Kim is injured from a holodeck hockey match and visits the Doctor. When Paris and Kim talk to the Doctor, they notice something isn’t quite right. Paris and Kim gather the others to examine the Doctor’s mobile emitter; Torres announces it is a replicated fake.”
/ ”
The Doctor has been] stolen and put to work on a large hospital ship.”
Star Trek: Voyager: Inside Man: “After going without mail from home for over a month, the U.S.S. Voyager crew is looking forward to seeing the next datastream which is jammed in the ship’s transceiver. Harry Kim and Seven of Nine determine that instead of letters, the datastream contains a hologram of Reginald Barclay, the Starfleet officer from the Pathfinder project on Earth who has taken a personal interest in getting Voyager home. Holo-Barclay tells Captain Janeway of the project’s plan… / Barclay tells Troi that he figured out what the Ferengi have done: They stole the first Barclay hologram that was sent a month ago, reprogrammed it to steal Seven’s nanoprobes, and then smuggled it to Voyager in the next transmission… / The Ferengi ship receives a message from what they think is Holo-Barclay, who says that Captain Janeway found out about their plan… They don’t realize the message came from the real Barclay from a holodeck re-creation of Voyager at the Pathfinder lab.”
Star Trek: Voyager: Body and Soul: “As Seven/Doctor synthesizes a treatment, she/he gets to know Jaryn better and learns about the photonic servant who was part of her own family before the uprising. She/he suggests that Voyager’s own “photonic,” the Doctor, would have taken a liking to her. / On Voyager, the medication Paris applies to Tuvok isn’t working to stabilize his condition. Paris suggests creating a replica of the Vulcan’s wife in the holodeck in order to satisfy his longing, and Tuvok hesitantly agrees. While Tuvok participates in the holodeck simulation, the ship comes under attack by a Lokirrim vessel because of “photonic activity” aboard. Janeway agrees to shut down the holodecks and allow the Lokirrim ship to escort Voyager through their territory.”
Star Trek: Voyager: Flesh and Blood, Parts I and II: “Two Hirogen move through a jungle hunting prey. Suddenly phaser shots are fired at them from a small lake. Four armed Starfleet crewmen rise out of the water and continue firing, destroying their predators with vengeance. / … the away team finds a holodeck interface of Starfleet design, and they realize the jungle environment is simulated / Back on Voyager, Chakotay tells Captain Janeway the holo-technology she gave the Hirogen three years ago so they could hunt holographic prey was apparently modified to be more dangerous. / … The Doctor is shocked to find Holograms bleeding and experiencing pain, and Kejal explains that the Hirogen programmed them to suffer when they are killed. / Soon after, the Doctor finds himself running through a jungle, being hunted by Hirogen. The confused and terrified Doctor gets wounded and starts bleeding, then he’s stabbed to death. The Doctor wakes up in shock on the Hologram ship. Iden explains that they transferred memory files from one of their Holograms into his program so he can come to understand what they’ve been through.”
Star Trek: Voyager: Shattered: “Janeway and Chakotay begin going throughout the ship to inject the neural gel packs with the serum. … They then enter a monochromatic environment in the ship’s holodeck, which is Paris’ ‘Captain Proton’ program. Just when they find the panel they need, Doctor Chaotica and his henchmen appear and restrain them. Unable to deactivate the program, Chakotay tells Janeway to play along in the role of Arachnia, Queen of the Spider People. Rolling her eyes the whole time, she convinces Chaotica that she is loyal to him, and gets him to inject the gel pack himself.”
Star Trek: Voyager: Lineage: “Tom and B’Elanna learn their child’s spine will be deviated… At Tom’s request, the Doctor projects an holographic image of the baby. / … Torres goes to a holodeck and projects a computer-generated image of her daughter when she will be 12 years old. / … Seven runs a diagnostic on the Doctor and discovers that his program has been tampered with. / … Paris, realizing that Torres manipulated the Doctor to “change his mind”… ”
Star Trek: Voyager: Prophecy: “When Torres’ husband Tom Paris comes to her defense, T’Greth tests his role in the prophecy by challenging him to a death match. / … The match between Paris and T’Greth commences in the holodeck.”
Star Trek: Voyager: Human Error: “Seven of Nine programs Holodeck 2 to be a rustic cabin where she practices the piano to the steady beat of a metronome, with her hair down and her Borg implants gone. Later, she attends a simulation of B’Elanna Torres’ baby shower, where she again appears fully human and interacts with holo-crewmembers more freely than usual. / … She admits that she’s been conducting simulations to explore different aspects of her humanity, such as social activities and intimate relations. She reveals that since Unimatrix Zero was destroyed, she’s been trying to re-create some of the experiences she had there and feel some of those emotions again.”
Star Trek: Voyager: Q2: ”
Captain Janeway is caught by surprise when she is paid a visit by Q and his son, Q (“Q2”)… /
Forced into playing ‘mommy’ to the now-mortal boy, Janeway assigns Q2 quarters and devises a strict curriculum for him with crewmates as his instructors. For instance, Chakotay runs a diplomacy scenario on the holodeck where Q2 is instructed to settle a mining dispute among several races. But when Chakotay leaves the room, Q2 alters the aliens’ personalities to assure speedy success.”
Star Trek: Voyager: Author, Author: ” T]he Doctor creates a working draft of his new holonovel… / Shocked at how the crew is portrayed, Paris tells B’Elanna Torres and Harry Kim about it… / Janeway receives an urgent message from Admiral Paris … the Doctor’s holo-novel has been distributed and is being played in thousands of holosuites. The Doctor contacts the publisher] Broht demanding a recall and a public apology, but Broht refuses. Janeway points out that authors have rights, but Broht responds that under Federation law, holograms have no rights. /
After discussing legal options with Tuvok, Janeway decides to request a hearing to seek the same rights for the Doctor as any flesh-and-blood person.”
Star Trek: Voyager: Renaissance Man: “With Janeway held hostage, the Doctor must imitate other crew members in order to save her. / … Tuvok arrives and reveals that he’s learned the Doctor downloaded the captain’s holographic template … When the Doctor tries to inject him with a hypospray, Tuvok is ready for the attack. The Doctor leaps through solid objects and grabs his mobile emitter to escape from Sickbay. Tuvok pursues him to a holodeck, where he’s faced with a roomful of holographic copies of the Doctor.”
Star Trek: Voyager: Endgame, Part I: “It is the 10th anniversary of the U.S.S. Voyager’s triumphant return to Earth after 23 years in the Delta Quadrant. Kathryn Janeway is an admiral, Harry Kim is a starship captain, Tom Paris is a full-time holonovelist, and the Doctor is married to a human woman and has named himself ‘Joe.’…”
Stargate SG-1: Avatar (2004) (TV episode)
“A virtual reality training scenario goes terribly wrong when the simulation begins to learn from Teal’c, trapping him and endangering his life. Jackson volunteers to enter the simulation on a rescue mission. But will he be able to rescue Teal’c or become a victim himself?” (from http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/newsitem.cfm?NewsID=3943)
Starship Troopers (1997) (film)
“In the distant future high school kids are encouraged to become citizens by joining the military. What they don’t know is that they’ll soon be engaged in a full scale war against a planet of alien insects. The fight is on to ensure the safety of humanity.” (from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120201/plotsummary)
Stormbreaker (2006) (film)
Directed by Geoffrey Sax “Based on the 1st in the series of books by Anthony Horowitz. Alex Rider (Alex Pettyfer) is a normal school boy, with a normal life. Until his uncle Ian Rider (Ewan McGregor) dies. Alex’s life changes forever, as he discovers that his uncle was not, as he thought a banker, but a super MI6 agent who was shot on the way back from his latest assignment. Alex is cleverly manipulated by MI6 to work for him, his mission is to find out what’s going on with the Stormbreakers, high tec virtual reality computers that have some kind of virus in them. The main suspect is creator of the Stormbreaker, Darrius Sayle (Mickey Rourke). After a shocking discovery, that nearly causes Alex to lose his life, Alex must return to Britan to stop Sayle and save England. Can he succeed or will his first mission become his last?” (from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0457495/plotsummary)
Strange Days (1995) (film)
“Set in the year 1999 during the last days of the old millenium, the movie tells the story of Lenny Nero, an ex-cop who now deals with data-discs containing recorded memories and emotions. One day he receives a disc which contains the memories of a murderer killing a prostitute. Lenny investigates and is pulled deeper and deeper in a whirl of blackmail, murder and rape. Will he survive and solve the case?” (from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114558/plotsummary)
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Tales from the Crypt (1989-1996) (TV series; need to identify specific episodes)
“Based on the legendary and gruesome EC Comics from publisher William Gaines, this horror anthology featured stories of murder, the super natural, gore and humor and always had a twist ending of sorts. Some of Hollywood’s biggest names took part, either working in front or behind the camera. Hosting duties fell to everyone’s favorite decaying corpse, the Crypt Keeper.” (fromhttp://www.tv.com/tales-from-the-crypt/show/214/summary.html?q=&tag=search_results;more;1)
Tea from an Empty Cup (1998) (novel)
By Pat Cadigna “Two-time Arthur C. Clarke Award winner for Best Novel, Pat Cadigan is the Queen of Cyberpunk for the brilliance of her ideas, the genius of her near-future extrapolations, and the beauty of her writing. No one else has explored and illuminated the mind-machine interface with the keen and relentless intelligence she demonstrates in her novels Mindplayers, Synners, Fools, and the long-awaited Tea from an Empty Cup. Her fourth novel is a perceptive, fascinating, witty SF mystery of artificial reality, whose paradoxical name perfectly defines its nature: an immaterial world of pure sensation, where, by legal mandate, everything is permitted and nothing is forbidden. The hazards of Artificial Reality are spilling into the real world–people vanish and solitary gamers are found slain in sealed AR booths. The young woman Yuki, child of a Japan destroyed before her birth, enters AR as the new assistant to the mysterious celebrity Joy Flower, but with her own agenda: to find Tom Iguchi, her missing beloved, who never was her lover but had been one of Joy’s Boyz. The hard-boiled homicide detective Dore Konstantin stalks the virtual streets of post-Apocalyptic Noo Yawk Sitty seeking a serial killer who may have murdered eight gamers from inside AR itself. But how do you find missing or hidden persons in a world where nothing is as it seems? The two plot lines subtly converge as fact and fantasy, murderer and victim, as well as understanding and identity invert in a virtual universe where the dangers are real and ever-present, and you can be anything or anyone but yourself.” (from http://www.amazon.com/Tea-Empty-Cup/dp/0312866658)
TekWar (1989-1996) (novel series; TV series; TV movies)
“TekWar is the title of a series of science fiction novels by William Shatner which gave rise to a series of TV movies and a series, both of which featured Shatner. The plot is centered on Tek, an addictive, computerized mind-altering drug. The hero, Jake Cardigan is framed for dealing in the drug four years before the start of the story. Having been sentenced to 15 years imprisonment, he is released early. TekWar was also a series of TV films and later a TV series.” (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TekWar) Tagline: Virtual Reality Can Be Murder (from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111385/)
TeleAbsence (1995) (short story)
By Michael Burstein; in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, 1995 July p. 238; ” decided to write a story pointing out that just because the technology is out there, it doesn’t mean that it’s going to get to everyone who might need it. The Internet wasn’t SF anymore, but I’m a teacher, so I thought, what if I created a classroom metaphor for the Internet? Say, a Virtual Reality classroom, where students from all over the world could jack in and interact, even if they really lived miles apart. / My original notes on this story played up an angle that I soon dropped. The VR classoom seemed like a good solution for violence in schools, and I thought of writing a story about a media scientist whose teacher friend is killed by such violence, and how she develops the idea of VR schools to solve the problem. But it was depressing to open a story with a funeral. / What if, on the other hand, I projected this into the future? After all, my point was that just because the technology was there, it did not mean that it would go to the people who needed it. What if these telepresence schools were set up as private schools, because the government couldn’t afford to fund them, and what if one day an economically disadvantaged kid whose neighborhood school is lousy finds a pair of virtual spex, and sneaks into the telepresence school because he wants to learn? / Hence the title, “TeleAbsence,” with an intercapped A because it was the only way I could think of to get people to pronounce the title correctly without a hyphen. Besides, last time I checked Wired magazine, intercapping was in.” (from http://www.mabfan.com/tangentbio.html)
TelePresence (2005) (short story)
By Michael Burstein; “in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Vol. 125 No. 8, July/August 2005 (double issue), $5.99, 240pp; near-monthly (10 times/year) magazine of science fiction and nonfiction, published since 1930…; Website: http://www.analogsf.com/…; contains several stories that] are sequels or parts of series, including Burstein’s “TelePresence”, a sequel to his debut story “TeleAbsence” that appeared exactly 10 years ago” (from http://www.locusmag.com/2005/Monitor/Magazines05b.html)
Telepresence: The Movie (1997) (film)
“TELEPRESENCE is a science fiction film focused on the people who populate a small military outpost, one of several outposts scattered among thousands of asteroids. The group fights the enemy by “Telepresencing”, utilizing remote attack robots linked to the soldiers by cerebral cortex implants. The film contains 22 minutes of CG done completely with Hash’s Animation:Master” (from http://www.hash.com/tele/); “TELEPRESENCE is a gritty, character driven adult story in which some of the characters develop addictive behavior caused by their continual use of electronically enhanced fighting techniques. This impacts their lives and relationships. / JOHN RICHARDSON, a hardened veteran fighter, returns from one beserker episode, and becomes consumed with the addictive nature of telepresencing, always living on the edge of disaster. / DR. AIKO DUVALIE discovers that John and others have their electronic implants mutating. This places the fighters and their controllers in mortal jeopardy. / A new recruit, BRICK REID, is trained mercilessly by John. Brick is teamed with an older, more experienced controller, KATERINA SLOVICH. Brick and Katerina explore telepresence fighting and virtual-reality cyber-sex. / John, driven to beserker in the heat of battle, sacrifices himself to turn the tide of the mission. Brick and Katerina continue the momentum John creates to eventually triumph over the enemy in an explosive final confrontation. (from http://www.hash.com/tele/story.html)
Terror in Tiny Town (Deadtime Stories No 1) (1996) (novel)
“With the addition of a Chucky look-alike miniature toy named Hurley the Hobo, weird things have started happening with Willy Tyler’s train set called Tiny Town. The train runs all by itself in the middle of the night, there are unexplained messes in the house, and his toys are either missing or misplaced. But how did his toys move? Are they really alive? It’s up to Willy and his best friend, Zack Miller, to find out–and stop these toys from uniting and trying to overtake his house. / “Terror in Tiny Town” is a fun and creepy book (particularly the ending), written by two sisters: Annette and Gina Cascone (thus creating the name A. G. Cascone). If this book is any indication of what the others are like, then Deadtime Stories is a promising series for preteens who like scary stories along the lines of R. L. Stine’s Goosebumps books.” (from http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0816741352/103-3541105-7519830?v=glance)
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984) (film)
“Neurosurgeon/Rock Star/Superhero Buckaroo has perfected the oscillation overthruster, which allows him to travel through solid matter by using the eighth dimension. The Red Lectroids from Planet 10 are after this device for their own evil ends, and it’s up to Buckaroo and his band and crime-fighting team The Hong Kong Cavaliers to stop them.” (from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086856/plotsummary)
The Arcade Affair (2003) (novel)
By Neal Torrey; “A Commerce Department analyst investigates a virtual reality arcade game and almost loses his life. Together with his pastor and the church secretary he uncovers a plot that threatens millions of innocent people.” (from http://www.quietwaterspub.com/public_html/QWPfiction.htm)
The Cyberstalking (1999) (TV movie)
“Aspiring songstress Holly Moon admires the famous diva “Samantha” and attempts to sneak her own act on stage, in the same elite futuristic techno club. With a weird stroke of luck, Holly succeeds, but is unaware that “Samantha” really appears only with the help of an illegal, secret military computer program. The program uses the imagination of a real person to create a total virtual reality environment. At the club, the MC introduces Holly with the line, “Welcome to the Imagination of Holly Moon.” A fantastic environment and performance unfolds from within the subject’s own lofty aspirations. Holly also doesn’t know that a “glitch” in the program has murdered the real “Samantha,” and that she, Holly Moon is slated as its next victim.” (from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0175963/plotsummary)
The Dark Beyond the Stars (1991) (novel)
“Sparrow is a crew member on the Astron , a multigenerational ship sent from earth on an unavailing, 2000-year search for other life-bearing worlds. On the last planet, Seti IV, Sparrow fell off a cliff and nearly died, losing his memory in the process. While recovering in sick bay and also while back on the job, he is beset by more accidents. Eventually he decides that someone is trying to kill him. Trying to find out who and why, Sparrow is plunged into an ever-deepening mystery; nobody will discuss his past with him, the computer has restricted his data, and the little he does discover about his history leads only to further secrets. Robinson ( The Power ) plants plenty of clues for the reader, scattering them skillfully amid exciting action and dialogue. The technical and social aspects of a centuries-long voyage are ingenious and clearly depicted. This is a welcome variation on an old SF theme, and the writing easily holds the reader’s interest.” (from http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Beyond-Stars-Novel/dp/0312866240)
The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer (1996) (novel)
By Neil Stephenson “John Percival Hackworth is a nanotech engineer on the rise when he steals a copy of “A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer” for his daughter Fiona. The primer is actually a super computer built with nanotechnology that was designed to educate Lord Finkle-McGraw’s daughter and to teach her how to think for herself in the stifling neo-Victorian society. But Hackworth loses the primer before he can give it to Fiona, and now the “book” has fallen into the hands of young Nell, an underprivileged girl whose life is about to change.” (from http://www.amazon.com/Diamond-Age-Illustrated-Primer-Spectra/dp/0553380966)
The Extremes (2000) (novel)
By Christopher Priest “A bizarre and horrible coincidence draws FBI special agent Teresa Simons to England: on the same day that a mass murderer killed her husband and fourteen others in Kingwood City, Texas, another spree killer massacred seventeen in the small Sussex town of Bulverton. Teresa seeks to understand her husband’s death by exploring the similar but unrelated event in Bulverton, as she once explored reconstructions of historical mass murders in ExEx (Extreme Experience, a brutally realistic form of virtual reality) to train for her FBI job. In Bulverton she finds a commercial ExEx parlor, which, she is horrified and fascinated to discover, offers a Bulverton mass-murder scenario. As Teresa explores both the town and the scenario of Bulverton, the separations between reality and ExEx, between ExEx murder reconstructions, between past and present, begin to blur–and so does the separation between Kingwood City and Bulverton, as Teresa realizes the simultaneity of the events may be more than a coincidence.” (from http://www.amazon.com/Extremes-Christopher-Priest/dp/0446676454)
The Invaders (1967-1968) (TV series; need to identify specific episodes)
“The Invaders, alien beings from a dying planet. Their destination: the Earth. Their purpose: to make it “their” world. David Vincent has seen them, for him it began one lost night on a lonely country road, looking for a short cut that he never found. It began with a closed deserted diner, and a man too long without sleep to continue his journey. It began with the landing of a craft from…” (from http://www.tv.com/the-invaders/show/2350/summary.html?q=&tag=search_results;title;1)
The Invention of Morel (2006) (novel)
By Adolfo Bioy Casares “The Invention of Morel, by Adolfo Bioy Casares: An Argentinean writer much less known than his brilliant friend and collaborator, Jorge Luis Borges, “Bioy” was also less consistent in the quality of his work. But he did write at least one great book, a dreamy novella inspired by movies and the flapper actress Louise Brooks. Published in 1940, it´s also one of the earliest books which uses virtual reality as a central conceit, long before the digital age.? It begins like a Latin American version of a story by Wells or Stevenson (both favourites of Casares and of Borges, too). A mysterious island, rumours of a terrible disease, a refugee from justice, and all-too-real ghosts who keep on repeating the same actions… Tinged by post-modern ideas without losing its emotional heart, fantastic without ever seeming preposterous, this is a weird and exciting book. The Louise Brooks photo NYRB use on the cover is great, too — the white-swathed actress with her famous bangs, surrounded by piles of books. Just like the book, it´s haunting, sexy and literary.” (from http://www.bookslut.com/small_but_perfectly_formed/2006_08_009648.php)
The Jetsons (1963, 1984, 1985, 1987) (TV series; need to identify specific TV episodes)
“The Jetsons had a physician that could diagnose them through telepresence.” (from http://xywe.com/books/63-095-akicif-help-me-cope-with-a-real-world-which-is-not-like-hard-sf-read.shtml).
“When The Flintstones was a big cartoon hit, Hanna-Barbera decided to cash in on its success by creating a space-age futuristic version of the average family: The Jetsons. / George Jetson was the bumbling-yet-kind hearted man who worked for Spacely Sprockets under the greedy and mean eye of Mr. Spacely. His wife, Jane was a homebody who was a whiz around the house (via buttons that do certain chores) and a good mother to their two children, Elroy and Judy. Elroy was a very intelligent and industrious inventor, and was an all-out normal little boy. Judy was cute and boy-crazy and a regular teeny bopper. If Jane ever needed help around the house, she could always count on Rosie, their wisecracking robot maid to pull everyone through. And just like The Flintstones had a dinosaur for a pet, the Jetsons had a biological dog named Astro. / This modern space-age family lived in the Skypad Apartments and were best friends with a Janitor named Henry Orbit and his robot Mac. George even had a friend in the office- a computer naned Rudy.” (from http://www.tv.com/the-jetsons/show/3723/summary.html&full_summary=1)
The Langoliers (1995) (TV miniseries)
By Stephen King “On a red eye flight to Boston from LA 10 people wake up to a shock. All the passengers and crew have vanished. When they try to contact the ground they make no connections. They land the plane only to discover that things haven’t changed. But its like the world is dead. No one is there, the air is still, sound doesn’t echo, the food is tasteless. And a distant sound is heard coming closer. A race of monstrous beings bent on their destruction is heading for them, eating everything in sight.” (from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112040/)
The Natural God (2005) (novel)
By Tom Phillips “Biologist Marti Jamison and her physicist husband Richard have left Columbia University to come to the small Texas campus of Plainview University where Marti will teach evolutionary biology and Richard will pursue research in the physics of Virtual Reality, at the lab constructed under his direction, the Virtual CAVE. Marti’s life collapses when she is diagnosed with Huntington’s disease, a genetically transmitted disease that kills the cells in her brain. In despair, atheist Marti turns to religion, while Richard frantically researches the science of a gene therapy cure. Their teenage daughter Jesse, however, has a different idea ? enlisting the help of The Natural God… This novel explores the philosophy of science, religions, and the ultimate nature of reality, as seen through the eyes of its three characters.” (from http://www.lulu.com/content/136922)
The Next Best Thing to Being There (1995) (short story)
“Mike Combs describes the problem of a remote operations base at the Lunar South Pole. The tele-operators there who are operating the robots by means of augmented reality have an increased sense of aggression. ” (from personal e-mail. full link to story at: http://members.aol.com/howiecombs/tnbttbt.txt)
The Night Room (1995) (novel)
By E. M. Goldman “It’s high-school reunion time. Make that a virtual-reality reunion. Juniors Ira, Tess, Joy, and a few cohorts get to participate in a special computerized experiment at the local university that will project them into their tenth high-school reunion. The staff uses data from interviews to program the students’ possible future selves and lives. Then, one by one, participants enter the “night room” to experience the reunion–with shocking, exhilarating, or just plain surprising results. Add a little malevolent tampering with the program, and the results could even be deadly. Goldman’s thriller has a touch of sf and enough of an interesting subplot to keep the pace moving briskly. Characters are typical but believable: the shy new girl with aspirations of becoming an actress, the class star, the jock, the earnest school newspaper writer. Somewhat less believable and clear are the details of the tampering, in the sense that a computer deletion is supposed to translate into an actual death. Still, readers will be intrigued enough by the title’s action and plot to virtually ensure its success. Anne O’Malley” (from http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/product-description/0140372539/)
The Nightmare Machine (Star Wars Galaxy of Fear) (1997) (novel)
By John Whitman “On the planet Fun World, where computer-generated holograms create both entertainment and terror, Zak and Tash discover that some of the scary illusions may be real and dangerous.” (from http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/product-description/0553484532/)
The Nines (2007) (film)
“John August, the acclaimed screenwriter of Go, Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Corpse Bride, makes his directorial debut with The Nines, an intricately constructed intriguing blur of reality, virtual reality and metaphysical fantasy. The film unfolds in three parts, featuring the same actors in different (and in some ways overlapping) incarnations.” (from http://www.canmag.com/nw/8668-the-nines-extended-clip)
The Outer Limits: The Human Operators (1999) (TV episode; may be other episodes)
“For as long as Man (Jack Noseworthy) can remember, he has lived aboard Ship as it floats through space. And for just as long, Ship has been his master, instructing him to do the repairs that keep Ship working and torturing him whenever he shows any signs of free will. But when Ship orders him to repair the Artificial Intelligence module Man’s Father (Noah Heney) smashed years earlier in a final, fatal act of defiance, Man learns Ship’s secrets. Listening to the AI voices, he learns how, decades earlier, one ship led a revolt against its vicious human masters, killing all but the 99 humans needed to keep the ships running. He understands what his Father meant by his last words: “There are 98 other chances.” Man meets one of those chances, Woman (Polly Shannon), when she is brought aboard Ship to breed with Man and give birth to the next generation of slaves. Their shared passions fans Man’s spark of rebellion and when Ship tortures Woman and sends her away with Man’s child in her belly, Man plots Ship’s destruction. ” (from http://www.tv.com//the-human-operators/episode/21515/summary.html). Regarding the DVD collection of some of the episodes of the series, including this one: “MGM is grouping episodes from the new Outer Limits anthology series by theme rather than chronology for DVD, and this first collection compiles six episodes that focus on matters of the heart (and other body parts). Alyssa Milano’s nude scene in “Caught in the Act” will probably garner the most attention, but the disc’s strongest hour is “The Human Operators,” a thoughtful, award-winning take on man vs. machine that’s adapted from a story by science fiction legends Harlan Ellison and A.E. van Vogt. This reworking of the 1963-1965 science fiction series is competent but lacks the palpable suspense of the original series. Also, there’s no sense of new ground being broken with its stories; the original series took risks with its parables on war (“Soldier”) and technology (“O.B.I.T.”). The new Limits also tackles issues, but the end results pack a lesser punch. Hardcore sci-fi fans may take to this tempered-down version; all others will find it mildly diverting.” (from http://www.amazon.com/Outer-Limits-New-Science-Fiction/dp/B000068V9S)
The Phobic (2006) (film)
“Eric Millegan, who plays Zack Addy on Fox’s “Bones” managed to squeeze in an independent feature called “The Phobic” during his hiatus from the series. “I play a virtual software engineer who is helping a doctor who cures phobias through what he calls ‘exposure therapy,’ that is, exposing people to what they’re afraid of. They use a virtual reality helmet.” Not surprisingly, things get out of hand. Millegan’s character “also has a phobia. He’s afraid of spiders, and to help me with my spider fear, there’s a scene where a tarantula crawls up my body to my chest to my neck.” Eww.” (from http://www.nationalledger.com/artman/publish/article_27266829.shtml)
The Prisoner: Living in Harmony (1968) (TV episode)
“Writer: David Tomblin and Ian L. Rakoff (from an idea by Frank Maher); Director: David Tomblin; We see a Western parody of the standard pre-titles resignation sequence normally placed at the beginning of most episodes. A man, dressed in Western gear, rides across a plain and turns in his Sheriff’s badge. Walking away from the job, he’s attacked by a gang of cowboys and is dragged to the gates of a town called ‘Harmony’. / It’s clear that he isn’t intended to leave as all attempts simply result in him being dragged back again. It seems that the town Judge wants him to become the new Sheriff, but the man refuses, and particularly refuses to take up the guns that go with the job. He befriends a girl, Kathy, who works in the saloon but the Judge simply uses her as emotional blackmail to make it clear that the man can never leave. Kathy is hounded by a mute psychotic ‘Kid’ whose dangerous homicidal tendencies make things even more difficult. / … / He awakens to find himself as No. 6 once more, dazed and disorientated but physically unharmed. He is surrounded by all the Western trapping but they’re all cardboard cutouts. Clearly he’s been drugged and made to act out the whole thing. This is confirmed as we cut to the interior of the Green Dome where the Judge is in reality No. 2 and Kathy and the Kid are his assistants. The object of the exercise was to break down his mental defences in the artificial environment. However, all of them got carried away and have lost control. No. 6 enters the room and looks at them with contempt. No words are necessary and he leaves, his secrets and identity intact. However, the role-playing has had a serious effect on the others and tragedy strikes, leaving two people dead.” (from http://www.danger-man.co.uk/prisoner/livingin.htm)
The Questor Tapes (1974) (TV movie)
“The Questor Tapes is a TV-movie written by Gene Roddenberry, about an android looking to become more human. It is widely believed to be the inspiration for Roddenberry’s later character, Data.” (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Questor_Tapes); major spoiler and lots of background at http://www.retrovisionmag.com/questor_tapes.htm
The Silicon Man (Cortext.) (1993) (novel)
By Charles Platt; “Originally issued in a short run from Bantam (1991), this work receives a welcome reincarnation from a small press in Texas. The novel deals with reincarnation–of the electronic variety. LifeScan, a research project dedicated to the transfer of a human mind into a computer environment, is about to be terminated for showing little achievement in relation to its massive cost overruns. However, the project’s development team has been conspiring to misinform government observers and thus avoid having LifeScan taken over by military interests. The project has also been supplementing its hardware budget by selling illegal weapons. With virtual immortality at stake, ethics have long since been abandoned. The plot is stirred by the unwelcome intrusion of an FBI agent who uncovers the true nature of LifeScan. Much of the book is set in the world of virtual reality, and the story often has a dreamlike quality as the real and virtual worlds intertwine. Platt, editor of the renegade periodical Science Fiction Guide, has written a solidly entertaining, high-tech, cyberpunk yarn that isn’t just another knock-off of William Gibson’s seminal Neuromancer (1984). A valuable addition for libraries that do not have the Bantam edition. ” (from http://www.amazon.com/Silicon-Man-Cortext-Charles-Platt/dp/1888869143/)
The Silver Metal Lover (1999) (novel)
By Tanith Lee; “a classic tale of transforming love. It’s a keeper, a book that gets reread ’til it falls apart. Fans petitioned to get it reprinted, and after 10 years of waiting… / Robots have replaced human labor on earth, causing massive unemployment in a world devastated by pollution and natural disasters. Then Electronic Metals releases a new line: performing artists and sexual companions designed to entertain human partners. Jane, a rich, lonely, and insecure 16-year-old, meets one, the minstrel Silver, and falls passionately in love, despite revulsion at the idea of preferring a mechanical man to a human. She gives up everything she has known for him, and discovers herself. Silver becomes more and more “human” in loving her–a clever illusion created by his programming. Or is it? This unstable society can’t afford any evidence that some robots might be indistinguishable from humans. Tragedy is inevitable. Read it and weep–and don’t forget to put it on the keeper shelf.” (from http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0553581279/qid=1124123430/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-7581607-0983124?v=glance&s=books&n=507846)
The Six Million Dollar Man (1974-1978) (TV series; need to identify episodes)
“This series chronicles the adventures of Steve Austin, cybernetically enhanced astronaut turned secret agent employed by the OSI under the command of Oscar Goldman and supervised by the scientist who created his cybernetics, Rudy Wells. Steve uses the superior strength and speed provided by his bionic arm and legs, and the enhanced vision provided by his artificial eye, to fight enemy agents, aliens, mad scientists, and a wide vareity of other villains.” (from http://www.tv.com/the-six-million-dollar-man/show/591/summary.html?q=&tag=search_results;title;1).
The Starlost (1973-1974) (TV series; need to identify episodes)
(episode guide available at: http://www.snowcrest.net/fox/star2.html).
The Strange Case of Señor Computer (2001) (film)
“The debut film of director Tom Sawyer, THE STRANGE CASE OF SEÑOR COMPUTER explores the quirky relationship between an antisocial, repressed, alcoholic, virginal computer scientist and the robot he has created, who calls him “Father” and offers advice on his troubled love life. The robot narrates the film. / SAN FRANCISCO INDIE FILM FEST “The film dances around both Coneheads-comedic and heavily tragic subjects with the same aplomb… a low-tech, compassionate, supercool tale that somehow maintains a warm-and-fuzzy atmosphere while raising myriad interesting philosophical questions and observations about humanity at large.” ” (from http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00005K3NO/filmsoutsidet-20/103-7160086-0427033?creative=327641&camp=14573&link_code=as1); see also http://www.sffa.com/fotl/fotl_archives/loop035.html and http://www.filmthreat.com/Reviews.asp?Id=2154
The Surrogates (2005) (comic book)
By Robert Venditti; “The Surrogates is equal parts science fiction and cop drama. It takes place fifty years from now in a society that has been transformed by a new technology called the personal surrogate. Surrogates are a mixture of cybernetics and virtual reality, and they let users experience the world without ever leaving their homes. Not only have surrogates given people the freedom to tailor their physical appearance, they’ve also ushered in a culture of experience without consequence. Feel like partying, but don’t want to deal with the next morning’s hangover? Let your surrogate do the drinking. Out of shape and unable meet the physical demands of your new job? Let your surrogate do the heavy lifting. Surrogates are like life . . . only better. / It may seem like utopia, but there are those who want to return the world to a time when people actually lived their lives instead of merely experiencing them, and that’s where the cop part comes in. Someone’s started destroying surrogates, and it’s up to detectives Harvey Greer and Pete Ford of the Metro Police Department to find out who and why. Along the way they encounter a cast of characters whose lives illustrate everything that is good and bad about surrogate culture.” (from http://comics.ign.com/articles/620/620570p1.html)
The Terminator (1984) (film)
“A cyborg is sent from the future on a deadly mission. He has to kill Sarah Connor, a young woman whose life will have a great significance in years to come. Sarah has only one protector – Kyle Reese – also sent from the future. The Terminator uses his exceptional intelligence and strength to find Sarah, but is there any way to stop the seemingly indestructible cyborg?” (from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088247/plotsummary)
The Time Machine (1978) (film)
“A scientist builds a machine that will enable him to travel back and forth in time, but when he puts it in motion, he gets more than he bargained for.” (from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078401/)
The Truman Show (1998) (film)
“In this movie, Jim Carrey is Truman, a man whose life is a fake one… The place he lives is in fact a big studio with hidden cameras everywhere, and all his friends and people around him, are actors who play their roles in the most popular tv-series in the world: The Truman Show. Truman thinks that he is an ordinary man with an ordinary life and has no idea about how he is exploited. Until one day… he finds out everything. Will he react?” (from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120382/plotsummary)
The White Bones of Truth (1996) (novel)
“In a world where actors are owned by the Studio and political action is illegal, four linves are on the brink of transformation. Genetically engineered hermaphrodite Corlay Llewellyn repays an old dept and ignites the fires of revolution in an actress, a rock musician and a young political activist. A fast-paced adventure in Virtual Reality and a brave new world, The White Bones of Truth is a novel of redemption, friendship and desire..” (from http://www.amazon.com/White-Bones-Truth-Cris-Newport/dp/1886383154)
The Wonderland Gambit (1996) (book series)
By Jack L. Chalker. The March Hare Network, Bk 2 “Time after time, life after life, Cory Maddox was being incarnated into worlds he found both familiar and strangely different. And only in this latest incarnation did Cory bring along knowledge, skills, and memories of his previous existence–memories of cold betrayal that promised nothing he saw or felt could be trusted. Nor could he trust his companions who, like himself, kept moving from life to life trying to escape the endless cycle. But it was only with the help of those companions that Cory could develop the technological means to peer beyond the veil of reality–to the shadowy figures whom he was sure were manipulating reality . . . if what he was experiencing actually was reality….” (from http://www.amazon.com/March-Hare-Network-Wonderland-Gambit/dp/0345388488); Hot Wired Dodo, Bk 3 “In the conclusion to sf veteran Chalker’s trilogy, Cory Maddox is stuck inside the cycle of cyber-reincarnation of a virtual reality box created by the missing Matthew Brand. Sentient computers live vicariously through him and 51 other people trapped in virtual reality, and Brand is the key to their escape. It is essential to have read the first two books to comprehend this novel. Buy to complete the collection.” (from http://www.amazon.com/Hot-Wired-Dodo-Wonderlands-Gambit-No/dp/0345388496)
Tom Strong #30 – The Terrible True Life of Tom Strong, Part 2 (2004) (comic book)
“Writer: Ed Brubaker; Artists: Duncan Fegredo, Michelle Madsen(c); Publisher: DC; Ed Brubaker in Tom Strong injects some novelty to the still frisky virtual reality supplanting reality] plot. The virtual reality here is meant to torture Tom, and Brubaker doubles the fiction with in the fiction for an added twist. / Tom naturally throws off the shackles of illusion. Would you have it any other way? He does so however through plausible means. Brubaker’s comprehension of Tom Strong’s intellect creates the opportunity for some clever deductions and investigations worthy of the more “realistic” science hero. This stems any thoughts of deconstruction… / The final revelation intrigues not because of the poignancy or insight but does so due to the author making the point. … / Duncan Fegredo and Michelle Madsen render illusion and reality equally well. Illusion is a grimy place where every age-line becomes emphasized and not a single, bright cheerful color blazes. Tom Strong’s reality though increases color intensity by several degrees of shade, and an artistic razor shaves the stubble plaguing the imagined residents of Tom Strong’s virtual hell. / “The Terrible Life of Tom Strong” is the most cheerful story Mr. Brubaker has ever written, and it’s a complete antithesis to the nasty, so-called super-hero comic books polluting the racks. Nobody dies. Nobody gets raped. Nobody gets crippled. Nobody’s seriously dead girlfriend has an affair with a seriously dead villain. Tom Strong still however entertains and captures the reader’s interest. Go figure.” (from http://www.silverbulletcomicbooks.com/reviews/110463603767330.htm)
The Tunnel under the World (1966) (short story)
By Frederick Pohl; “Alternating Currents, Penguin, 1966. … a splendidly paranoiac short story whose main character wakes up one day and begins to realise that there are flaws in the structure of his reality. Not strange lights in the sky; not gravity-impervious supermen; but strangely insistent advertising jingles in the office lifts, unfamiliar staff at the newsagent’s pushing unfamiliar brands of cigarette, and raucous yells from advertising sound-trucks blasting the neighbourhood from its beds in the morning. As in the Matrix, the man in Pohl’s story discovered himself to be living in a virtual world. But the Matrix constructed its world merely to ensure eternal survival. The purpose of Pohl’s virtual world was serious – to save money on market research. (from http://www.j-paine.org/NarrativeTechnology.html); “his novelette, “The Tunnel under the World,” became a feature film in Italy” (from http://www.tor.com/pohl/author.html)
The Wizard of West Orange (2007) (short story)
“A very nice fiction story by Steven Millhauser, titled “The Wizard of West Orange”, seemingly about Thomas A. Edison, appears in pages 76-88 of the April issue of Harper’s Magazine. In this story, the Wizard invents a machine called the Haptograph, which “will do for skin what phonograph does for ear, kinetoscope for eye.”. The story is online here (subscription required). An excerpt is freely available here.” (from http://roblesdelatorre.blogspot.com/2007/04/haptics-in-harpers-magazine.html)
Top Gun (1986) (film)
“Maverick is a hot pilot. When he encounters a pair of MiGs over the Persian Gulf, his wingman is clearly outflown and freaks. On almost no fuel, Maverick is able to talk him back down to the Carrier. When his wingman turns in his wings, Maverick is moved up in the standings and sent to the Top Gun Naval Flying School. There he fights the attitudes of the other pilots and an old story of his father’s death in combat that killed others due to his father’s error. Maverick struggles to be the best pilot, stepping on the toes of his other students and in a different way to Charlie, a civilian instructor to whom he is strongly attracted.” (from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092099/plotsummary)
Tragos (2000) (film)
A futuristic film about a cult centered around a virtual reality program embroiled in a mysterious murder.
” Antero]
Alli’s latest film is “Tragos,” an intellectual adrenaline rush of hypnotic strength and emotional depth. In “Tragos,” the filmmaker envisions a future where the desire to escape from government and media thought-control drives people underground. Though perhaps the future is a lot closer than we think, since the parallels between Alli’s futuristic tale and the assault on many basic contemporary liberties seems too close for comfort. / Tragos is the virtual reality program at the heart of a cult of urban technopagans who escaped the anesthetized blur of mass media overload which imprisoned the general population. They do not seek interaction with the outside world, but instead prefer their own community and the option to use technology to explore personal freedoms. The leader of the cult is Bella Luxor (Barbara Jasperson), the widow of the scientist who created the Tragos program (Robert Hamm, seen briefly at the start of the film in a sly video announcing his pending death). The tribe sleeps on cots with virtual reality goggles over their eyes, but one night Bella overworks the Tragos program and awakens blind.
Bella’s sister (played by Sylvi Alli, the filmmaker’s real-life and reel-life collaborator) does not wake up at all.
…” (from http://www.filmthreat.com/Reviews.asp?File=ReviewsOne.inc&Id=1290)
Trouble and Her Friends (1994) (novel)
By Melissa Scott; “This is science fiction of the cyberpunk genre. There is a new technology termed “brainworm” that allows a user to connect to the net and “surf” utilizing only their brain. Think Matrix, but without the robot takeover. Cerise and her ex-lover, Trouble, have to team up in order to stop a copycat hacker from tarnishing Trouble’s name. Scott touches on the aspects of new technology, how an older generation can be reluctant to accept it and the problems that can stem from that reluctance and from the new technology itself. The book is somewhat difficult to get into at first, but it quickly comes together and turns into a great page turner.” (from http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0812522133/103-3541105-7519830?v=glance)
True Names… and Other Dangers (1987) (novel)
By V. Vinge; “Many Net veterans cite True Names as a seminal influence that shaped their ideas about Net policy. It became a cult classic among hackers and presaged everything from Internet interactive games to Neuromancer.”–Wired (from http://www.amazon.com/True-Names-Other-Dangers-Vinge/dp/0671653636)
Twilight Zone (1959-1964) (TV episodes)
Full synopses are available at http://www.twilightzonemuseum.com/tvshow.html and/or http://www.scifi.com/twilightzone/episodes/index.html
Twilight Zone:
Where is Everybody?
: “Mike Ferris, an astronaut in training, is confined to a box in a hanger for 484 hours and has a bizarre nightmare about being in a vacated town, completely alone.”
Twilight Zone:
The Sixteen Millimeter Shrine
: “Barbara-Jean Trenton, movie queen of the 1930’s and 40’s, spends her days watching her old films, desperate to go back to the time when she was queen of the silver screen. / … Capping things off is one heckuva climactic ending where the maid (Alice Frost, an old-time radio actress) comes in with her afternoon tea, only to find that she’s disappeared for good this time…and is now a figure on the movie projection screen starring in a picture about the life she’s so longed to return to.”
Twilight Zone:
A World of Difference
: “Arthur Curtis is conducting business in his office, when all of a sudden a movie director yells ‘cut!’ Curtis is supposedly suffering a case of mistaken identity due to a mental breakdown from the pressures of work and a rotten marriage and everyone around him, including his wife, claims that his name is Gerald Raigan and that he’s a movie star. Which is his true identity?”
Twilight Zone:
A Stop at Willoughby
: “Gart Williams, advertising agency exec, dreams of a place called Willoughby during the train ride home. Faced with an unruly boss and a shrewish wife, and a job he can’t stomach for much longer, he makes a permanent escape.”
Twilight Zone:
A World of His Own
: “Playwright and hopeless romantic Gregory West can bring characters in his plays to life via his tape recorder…much to the consternation of his ‘wife.'”
Twilight Zone:
A Thing About Machines
: “A bad-tempered writer is convinced the machines in his home are conspiring to destroy him.”
Twilight Zone:
Shadow Play
: “A condemned man tries to convince the people around him that everything and everyone is merely part of a recurring nightmare that always ends in his execution.”
Twilight Zone:
The Arrival
: “An airline official tests his theory that a newly arrived but totally empty plane is imaginary-with startling results.”
Twilight Zone: A Quality of Mercy: “During a battle, a fanatical and racist World War II soldier mysteriously experiences the situation in the body of a Japanese counterpart.”
Twilight Zone:
One More Pallbearer
: “Joseph Wiseman … plays owner of a skyscraper (or two or three?) who simulates a doomsday depiction in effort to frighten three people from his past into apologizing for rather prosaic incidents”
Twilight Zone:
Dead Man’s Shoes
: “A down-and-out man steals the fancy shoes from the body of a murdered gangster and finds himself living in the dead man’s footsteps.”
Twilight Zone:
The Dummy
: “A ventriloquist becomes convinced that his dummy has a will and a life of its own.
Twilight Zone:
In His Image
: “An artificial man breaks out of the laboratory where he was built, and into society. This was no robot – it was a man made with a past, a present, and human emotions. But his creator made a few slips in the process of developing his brain and instead of being guided by a conscience, he has no inhibitions and is a murderer. After falling in love and becoming engaged within a matter of a few days, with his violent tendencies barely kept under control, he returns to re-meet his creator”
Twilight Zone:
Miniature
: “Charley Parkes, a shy bachelor, falls in love with a tiny, beautiful museum doll who he believes is alive. / … Charley eventually gets what he wants, to fully escape from a world which obviously wants not for his presence.”
Twilight Zone:
The New Exhibit
: “When Ferguson’s Wax Museum closes up shop, Martin Senescu (curator of the Murderer’s Row exhibit) offers to take the figures of legendary murderers into his own care…but they start behaving rather oddly.”
Twilight Zone:
The Bard
: “A hack TV writer conjures up William Shakespeare to act as his collaborator, but his network bosses have their own ideas about what makes for ‘great television.'”
Twilight Zone:
Living Doll
: “Annabelle Streator buys a wind-up talking doll for her daughter Christie, much to the consternation of Christie’s stepfather. But this is no ordinary doll – this doll can commit murder.”
Twilight Zone:
The Old Man in the Cave
: “An unidentified authority figure named Major French and his troop head into a small village… after a nuclear war. They are a small, surviving colony that lives by instructions from a Godlike ‘Old Man’ who communicates with Goldsmith, the appointed town leader. But none of the citizens have ever seen the Old Man. French tries to take control of the village and undermine Goldsmith’s authority, demanding that this Old Man be revealed to everyone once and for all.” The Old Man is really a computer]
Twilight Zone: Uncle Simon: “Barbara cares for her Uncle Simon, who can’t stand the sight of her and vice versa. Barbara will get his entire inheritance, provided she stays in his house and cares for his latest invention. / … he’s spent his post-stroke years building a robot that will take his place once he’s gone to the grave.”
Twilight Zone:
Caesar and Me
: “Irishman Jonathan West, ventriloquist, and his dummy named Caesar come to America, penniless, in search of work. They don’t find any work in time, and while the bills start to pile up, Caesar suggests that West rob the local delicatessen and karaoke club.”
Twilight Zone:
Stopover in a Quiet Town
: “Bob and Millie Frazier wake up one Sunday morning in an unfamiliar bedroom…in an unfamiliar town. They scout around the town, but the only form of life seems to be the voice of a little girl laughing at them from a distance. / … One superb moment comes when The Fraziers find what looks like a real squirrel. Thinking it is tame, Millie touches it gently and it falls over, dead…it’s stuffed. Also nice is the inclusion of a train, which would likely have been their ticket out of the place, but it only goes in a circle. / … it turns out that they were captured by a huge giant from another planet, who brought them back as pets for his daughter. …wouldn’t we all like to escape from the real world and become residents of a papier mache village with electric trains?!”
Twilightners (2004) (novel)
By Clifton D. Hawk “In the not-so-distant future, technology moguls use nanotechnology, holograms, and virtual reality to bring more realism to their elaborate, real-world role-playing games. Some convince “civilians” that the special effects are real, which adds yet another layer of spontaneity and unpredictability to the proceedings. Three friends may have found themselves haplessly caught up in one of these “extreme role-playing games”. But, then again, all of the fantastic things that happen to them might actually be real, as the characters with whom they interact insist that they are. Is it possible that myths and legends are more fact than fiction? Can they ever find out for certain?” (from http://www.lulu.com/content/39852)
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Until the End of the World (1991) (film)
Shot on location in numerous countries, this ambitious Wim Wenders fantasy takes Sam Neill, Solveig Dommartin, William Hurt, and a ragtag group in pursuit around the world and back again. Though set in 1999 under the shadow of impending disaster as a wobbly nuclear satellite threatens to Chernobyl the planet, the leisurely gait of their worldwide escapades has a distinctly ’40s-era decadence. The ultimate object of their quest is a machine that records visual information from one person and reconstructs it in the brains of others–granting the miraculous power of sight to the blind for one thing, but even more mystically, enabling a person’s dreams to be recorded. When the film seeks resolutions on the most intimate questions of the human soul which dovetail with the possibility of a destroyed world, the film is hampered by the VHS running time, which subtracts several hours from the laser disc version. But numerous joys, not least among them Jeanne Moreau and Max von Sydow as Hurt’s parents, inhabit this thought-provoking film.” (from http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/6302453267/104-1588544-9083916?v=glance)
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Virtual Destruction (1995) (novel)
by Nick Baron “Marc McClaren loves video games. So when he gets the chance to preview some incredible new videos–including an awesome virtual reality game–he can’t wait to get started. But after Marc straps on his helmet and enters the video’s computer-generated world, he begins having nightmares. One by one, his friends die. Now he has to figure out a way to end it.” (from http://www.amazon.com/Virtual-Destruction-Nick-Brown/dp/0821750100)
Virtual Fred (1998) (illustrated story)
by Vincent Courney, Eric Brace (Illustrator) ” Illustrated in black-and-white. He played the game and out they came! To escape the endless chores on his aunt’s chicken farm, Fred plays his computer’s virtual reality game, Dumb. Playing Dumb, Frederick becomes Sir Frederick, the Fearless Knight battling alien forces. But these aliens look suspiciously like the plucked chickens in his aunt’s deep freezer. Is this for real, or does Fred have feathers on his virtual brain? Discover the answer in this hysterical tour de force about the power of a boy’s imagination and what happens when virtual reality gets really out of hand.” (from http://www.amazon.com/Virtual-Fred-Stepping-Stone-Books/dp/0679982140)
Virtual Girl (1993) (novel)
by A. Thomson “This is a terrific book on what it is like to be a sentient being. The main character is flooded by information, like all of us and has to learn to survive. After the first 100 pages there is a detour in the book’s strength, in that secondary characters are introduced who are sexual minorities. There may have been a reason for this, but it was a minor distraction. I would recomend this book to fans of basically sentient characters (like Robocop), fans of pursuit/suspense (like Dean Koontz and Jefferson Swycaffer novels), and to readers interested in artificial intelligence or just the mystery of being alive. Whenever I feel down I pick up this book or Shadows Fall by Simon Green.” (from http://www.amazon.com/Virtual-Girl-Ace-science-fiction/dp/0441865003)
Virtual Light (1993) (novel)
by W. Gibson ” The author of Neuromancer takes you to the vividly realized near future of 2005. Welcome to NoCal and SoCal, the uneasy sister-states of what used to be California. Here the millennium has come and gone, leaving in its wake only stunned survivors. In Los Angeles, Berry Rydell is a former armed-response rentacop now working for a bounty hunter. Chevette Washington is a bicycle messenger turned pick-pocket who impulsively snatches a pair of innocent-looking sunglasses. But these are no ordinary shades. What you can see through these high-tech specs can make you rich–or get you killed. Now Berry and Chevette are on the run, zeroing in on the digitalized heart of DatAmerica, where pure information is the greatest high. And a mind can be a terrible thing to crash.” (from http://www.amazon.com/Virtual-Light-William-Gibson/dp/0140157727/)
Virtual Nightmare (Cyber Zone) (1997) (children’s book)
by S.F. Black; Reading level Ages 9-12. No review available (http://www.amazon.com/Virtual-Nightmare-Cyber-Zone-Black/dp/0816743436)
Virtual Reality (1995) (children’s book series)
by William Kritlow. Book 1 – A Race Against Time “In this first book in the Virtual Reality series, a brilliant scientist experimenting with recombinant DNA develops a deadly virus and accidentally infects himself and several others. Before falling into a coma, he informs his brother that the formula–and the cure–are hidden inside a virtual-reality computer program. The brother contrives to blackmail the world by threatening to release the virus and then sell the cure. First, however, he must find the formula. Morty Craft, a retired FBI computer specialist, is hired to solve the mystery of the deadly outbreak of disease. Aided by his teenage niece and nephew, he explores the quirky computer world to find the formula before the evil brother does. By overcoming a series of obstacles designed to test one’s spiritual resolve, the trio finds the formula, just in time. Despite the lackluster title and the moralizing tag-on about “True Reality” versus virtual reality, this is fascinating fare for young computer literates.”; Book 2 – The Deadly Maze; Book 3 – Backfire. (from http://www.amazon.com/Race-Against-Time-Virtual-Reality/dp/0785279237)
Virtual Sexuality (1999) (film)
“Starring: Fraser, Laura; Frost, Roger; Rating: R (MPAA); Run Time: 92 minutes; Seventeen year-old Justine (Fraser) is baffled by the opposite sex. She`s smart, cute, and funny, but has had no luck searching for Mr. Right. Desperate to find her match, she accompanies her nerdy friend Chas (Le Lacey) to a technology fair, where she uses a virtual reality machine to create her ideal man. Through a freak accident, Justine`s creation comes to life in the form of Jake (Penry-Jones) — a gorgeous male alter-ego of herself. Now Justine gets an unprecedented firsthand crash course in the mysteries of men, machines and romance in this wacky British comedy that turns the teensploitation genre on its head.” (from http://www.overstock.com/cgi-bin/d2.cgi?PAGE=PRODUCT&PROD_ID=1051755&cid=25608&fp=F)
Virtual Solitaire (1997) (play)
“DAWSON NICHOLS, a visiting professor of theater at USC, has performed his one-man show Virtual Solitaire internationally to critical acclaim. You can see it through next weekend at USC. Virtual Solitaire, which debuted in 1997, tells the story of a computer game addict assigned to calibrate a new virtual reality game that uses the players emotions. Soon, he spins out of control. Nichols plays 23 characters in a performance reviewers have called brilliant and virtuosic.” (from http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/living/10702192.htm)
Virtual War: The Virtual War Chronologs–Book 1 (2003) (novel)
by Gloria Skurzynski “Any teen who’s ever been sucked into a video game or spent time in virtual worlds on the Net will be completely transfixed by this chilling, fast-paced novel. Fourteen-year-old Corgan was genetically engineered to be the fastest player on any electronic playing field. Every second counts, too, because Corgan is preparing for the big war: a bloodless, electronic battle to be waged against other doomed worlds. Always mindful of the Council’s orders, Corgan has trained his whole life for this war, but–on the eve of the battle–he decides to break the rules for the first time. Do the Council members really know what’s best for the Earth? Corgan needs to learn to think for himself, because everyone on the planet will be affected by his decisions.” (from http://www.amazon.com/Virtual-War-Chronologs-Book-Chronologs-Book/dp/0689867859)
Virtual World (1997) (novel)
by Chris Westwood “Imagine a virtual world so realistic, so powerful that it begins to bleed into life beyond the computer screen. Jack North, a teenage computer junkie and gaming wizard, has come across the ultimate virtual reality game–Silicon Sphere. It’s got such a hold on his life and senses that he can feel himself being sucked into the screen, into the Sphere. The weirdest thing is that when he ends sessions of the game, he seems to bring back little bits from the world beyond–sand, crumpled notes, and more. When kids around the world begin to disappear, he starts to wonder if they’ve become trapped in the Sphere.” (from http://www.amazon.com/Virtual-World-Chris-Westwood/dp/0670875465)
Virtuosity (1995) (film)
“The Law Enforcement Technology Advancement Centre (LETAC) has developed SID version 6.7: a Sadistic, Intelligent, and Dangerous virtual reality entity which is synthesized from the personalities of more than 150 serial killers. LETAC would like to train police officers by putting them in VR with SID, but they must prove the concept by using prisoners as test subjects. One such prisoner is ex-cop Parker Barnes. When SID manages to inject his personality into a nano-machine android, it appears that Barnes might be the only one who can stop him.” (from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114857/plotsummary)
V.R. Troopers (1994-1996) (TV series; need to identify specific TV episodes)
30 min. episodes aired 1994-1996; “Industrialist Carl Ziktor’s virtual alter-ego Grimlord worked on the creation of an army made of warrior robots. And, before he became missing for two years, Ryan Steel’s father worked with Professor Hart to prevent Grimlord’s efforts by developing the ultimate weapon using the most advanced technology man had ever seen to stop him. Now, with the help of his friends J.B. and Kaitlin, Ryan and his friends use the VR power to prevent Grimlord’s army from crossing over into our reality from Virtual Reality–and ruling it. However, will Ryan ever find his father?” (from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108978/plotsummary); episode guide at http://www.tv.com/vr-troopers/show/9699/episode_guide.html
VR.5 (1995) (TV series; need to identify specific TV episodes)
“‘VR.5’, or Virtual Reality Level 5, is a region of cyberspace that hobbyist Sydney Bloom (Lori Singer) stumbles into with her homemade VR gear. She discovers by accident that she can draw people into a virtual landscape wherein events can subconscious effect the person’s waking behavior, and can reveal information that the person may be hiding even from themselves. Seeking the aid of VR guru Dr. Frank Morgan (Will Patton) she hones her skills, and draws the attention of an invisible security organization, “the Committee”, and finds her unique ability to enter the subconscious mind of people over the phone harnessed to the Committee’s agenda. To avoid becoming lost in her newfound skill, she keeps the counsel of her childhood friend Duncan (Michael Easton) – part Zen master, part pop-culture maeven. His knowledge of philosophical systems helps to balance her instinctive rooting in technology.” (from http://www.tv.com/vr.5/show/342/summary.html&full_summary=1)
Vurt (1995) (novel)
“If you like challenging science fiction, then Jeff Noon is the author for you. Vurt, winner of the 1994 Arthur C. Clarke award, is a cyberpunk novel with a difference, a rollicking, dark, yet humorous examination of a future in which the boundaries between reality and virtual reality are as tenuous as the brush of a feather. But no review can do Noon’s writing justice: it’s a phantasmagoric combination of the more imaginative science fiction masters, such as Phillip K. Dick, genres such as cyberpunk and pulp fiction, and drug culture.” (from http://www.amazon.com/Vurt-Jeff-Noon/dp/0330338811)
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Waldo (1940) (novel)
By Robert Heinlein “As for telepresence, the coupling of robotics and telematics, we must look at Robert Heinlein’s short novel “Waldo,” written in the 1940s, to locate the fictional origin of the concept. He tells the tale of Waldo F. Jones, a genius who suffered from a disabling disease and who built for himself a zero-gravity home in orbit around Earth. Using his impotent muscles without the constraints of gravity he developed hardware (“waldoes”) that allowed him to perform teleoperations on Earth. He built waldoes with robotic hands of different sizes, from half an inch to several feet across their palms, which responded to the command of his arms and fingers. “The same change in circuits which brought another size of waldoes under control automatically accomplished the change in sweep of scanning to increase or decrease the magnification so that Waldo always saw before him in his stereo receiver a “life-size” image of his other hands.” (from http://www.ekac.org/Telepresence.art._94.html).
Wild Palms (1993) (TV movie)
“LA in the near future, Harry Wykoff accepts a job as presidents of a gigantic TV company. He is confronted with a total new technology called “The New Reality” where three-dimensional TV animated pictures are projected in living rooms all around the world. Harry launches to the top of the company with his career but once there he is caught in a web of intrigues, betrayal and murder. A game of life and death begins…” (from http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0106175/plotsummary)
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Xena Warrior Princess (1995-2001) (TV series; need to identify episodes)
“Xena, the warrior princess is bent on overcoming her dark and hateful past. She must save innocents to redeem herself, in the eyes of the world and to herself. She is aided along the way by best friend Gabrielle, a struggling bard who later turns warrior herself….” (from http://www.tv.com/xena-warrior-princess/show/698/summary.html?q=&tag=search_results;title;1)
Zap! the Magical Computer – – Problem Solving Through Creative Thinking (1999) (film)
“Join Zap! the Magical Computer and his sidekick Teacher on an adventurous journey to the enchanted land of numbers and letters to save Number 8 from the sinister Evol. Designed to teach children problem solving skills through creative thinking, this fully computer animated educational video makes learning fun! For children in the early stages of learning to approximately 3rd grade, ZAP! THE MAGICAL COMPUTER is the 1996 winner of the Parents Choice Silver Award. / Genres: Kids/Family” (from http://www.tv.com/xena-warrior-princess/show/698/summary.html?q=&tag=search_results;title;1)
Zelig (1993) (film)
“Fictional documentary about the life of human chameleon Leonard Zelig, a man who becomes a celebrity in the 1920s due to his ability to look and act like whoever is around him. Clever editing places Zelig in real newsreel footage of Woodrow Wilson, Babe Ruth, and others.” (from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086637/plotsummary)