Dave Lister and the Cat enter the Hologram Suite ("Thanks for the Memory", Series II)
The Hologram Simulation Suite, also called the Holographic Projection Suite or simply the Holo Suite, was a chamber aboard Red Dwarf from which the ship's hologram was generated, and could be controlled.
The Holo Suite appeared in two episodes of Series II. The hologram Arnold Rimmer's later use of the Light Bee would make use of the Hologram Suite redundant. The Hologram Suite is however mentioned in later episodes.
Design
The Holo Suite was located on floor 592 of Red Dwarf and was a large, well-lit room filled with computer equipment and walls of sophisticated memory servers. Signs warned against unauthorised entry, and also warned of power in the room exceeding 20,000 gigawatts.
There was a bank of monitors along one wall; on these the thoughts, memories and dreams of the ship's current holographic crewmember were displayed visually. When Dave Lister and the Cat entered this room, they saw important events of Rimmer's life (and death) playing out on the monitors, along with a dream of Rimmer's.
A console with a headset attached allowed an operator to upload a human crewmember's consciousness to be copied, put on file and then used in a hologram of that crewmember. Lister would use the same console copy memories from his own mind and paste them into that of Rimmer's hologram. He would also later also use it to erase everybody's memories of the past few days.
History
Appearances
After celebrating Rimmer's deathday, Rimmer had drunkenly told Lister about how he regretted putting his career over his life, and how he had never experienced love. Lister felt sorry for Rimmer and, late at night, took the Cat down to the Hologram Simulation Suite with an idea for an unusual present for Rimmer. Lister pasted eight months of his own memory into Rimmer's, during the time that he was dating Lise Yates, so that Rimmer would think that he had dated her and feel what Lister had felt. However, when Rimmer later discovered that the love affair had been a deception and had never really happened, he was heartbroken. Lister then used the Holo Suite to remove not only Rimmer's memory of Lise Yates, but everybody's memories of the deception. ("Thanks for the Memory", Series II)
Later, a meteor struck Red Dwarf, throwing the crew around the sleeping quarters who were annoyed at Holly's lack of warning. Holly told them that his damage report machine had blown up, but the meteor had struck somewhere around the Hologram Simulation Suite. As the gang made their way down to Floor 592, Rimmer's hologram started to malfunction, with his legs wandering off without his body. His personality also began to alternate between that of other crew who were on file, such as Brannigan, who had been the ship psychiatrist. He also began to mimic Holly, Lister, and the Cat uncontrollably.
When they got to the Holo Suite, Holly talked Lister through the process of repairing the damage by overriding the charred relays. However, when Holly told him to put the wrong cables together, it resulted in an electric shock, and then the connection blew apart in an explosion, throwing Lister across the room. Lister got back up, smoke pouring from him, alive but in shock. The gang were angry at Holly's ineptitude and began to complain about how it has put them in danger, causing Queeg 500 to appear on the monitor and remove Holly from duty. ("Queeg", Series II)
Mentions
When Rimmer was driven insane and given psi-powers by a Holo Virus, the others were able to disable Rimmer and restore him through a remote link to the Holographic Projection Suite. They only found this link because Lister was under the influence of the luck virus at the time. ("Quarantine")
Rimmer was able to link up the Holo Suite to a bio-printer in helping him create dozens of clones of himself, along with some old DNA he had found. ("Officer Rimmer")
Behind the scenes
- The Hologram Simulation Suite was used in only two episodes of Series II, with any holographic work in later series being undertaken in other science rooms and consoles. Rimmer would of course later begin using the personal Light Bee, allowing him to become more mobile, and no longer require the HP Suite for his projection.
- A deleted scene from "Queeg", during which the Holo Suite had been damaged, showed Rimmer taking on the personality of many more crewmembers. These included Captain Hollister, an Italian man and a woman with a London accent.
- Lister being blown up in the Holo Suite (and almost being killed by it) in "Queeg" is is presumably the same explosion Rimmer previously saw a future echo of in "Future Echoes", although that vision took place in the Drive Room it appears identical and hasn't occurred again (yet).