Star Trek: Voyager Season 5 inadvertently revealed something important about the holodeck’s history in one particular episode. Although an early version of a holodeck has been seen as early as Star Trek: The Animated Series in the 1970s, the first official holodeck was not introduced until Star Trek: The Next Generationpilot episode, “Encounter at Farpoint”. However, once the holodeck was created, it quickly became a staple piece of technology in the world. Star Trek timeline, with similar holographic technology being retconned into shows set before Star Trek: The Original Series in the modern era of the franchise.
Holodeck-centric episodes were common during Star Trekseries from the 1990s, including Star Trek: Voyager. One of these episodes in Traveler season 5 was the episode “Once Upon a Time”, which featured a children’s holodeck show called “The Adventures of Flotter”. TravelerResident child character Naomi Wildman (Scarlett Pomers) was shown acting out the show throughout the episode, but the show also established that the show was popular even when the rest of the crew were kids. This accidentally created a huge reveal about the history of the holodeck in the Star Trek franchise.
Star Trek: Voyager Established Holodecks Were More Widely Available Before TNG
Voyager inadvertently revealed something very important about the history of the holodeck
The popularity of the Flotter in “Once Upon a Time” showed that holodeck technology was widely available in the Star Trek universe before being officially installed on starships. During “Encounter at Farpoint,” the holodeck was established as a new piece of technology that was supposedly just being rolled out. However, TNG the first season was set during the 2360s, while many members of the Travelerthe cast of characters would have been born in the 2330s or possibly earlier.
For characters like Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) or Harry Kim (Garrett Wang) to have played “The Adventures of Flotter” when they were children, holodeck technology should have been available to the general public long before it was officially installed on starships. Of course, it’s possible that Flotter’s stories were present in some other form of media when Travelerthe crew was made up of children. However, a line from Janeway at the end of the episode made it seem like she had played the holodeck version of Flotter, suggesting that the technology was present when she was young.
Voyager was the first Star Trek series to explore Holodeck children’s programs
“Once Upon a Time” had the first true holodeck children’s program
In addition to “Once Upon a Time” revealing the broader history of the holodeck, the episode was also the first time a kid-specific holodeck program was introduced into the franchise. Previous Star Trek TV shows focused on much more adult shows, or at least shows that weren’t specifically designed for children. While programs like TNG and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine featured child characters, those who interacted with the holodeck were older than Naomi Wildmanand generally gravitate towards shows that fit more into their age group.
Introducing “The Adventures of Flotter” provided a whimsy to the plot that would otherwise have been missing
However, have a younger child Traveler opened up the possibility of showing what children’s entertainment was like in Star Trek24th centurysomething Traveler made the most of it. Introducing “The Adventures of Flotter” provided a whimsy to the plot that would otherwise have been missing. Unfortunately, Star Trek: Voyager chose not to heavily feature the show after Season 5, and the rest of the franchise never expanded on the idea of children’s holodeck programs. Although not particularly grand, the idea deserves to be revisited at some point in the future as a way of fleshing out the universe.