History Main / HolodeckMalfunction

* Weird Pete's "Virtual Dungeon" in ''ComicStrip/KnightsOfTheDinnerTable'' turns into this, when a malfunction of the VR headsets reults in the players attacking each other and one player jumping out of the window in an attempt to get away from giant spiders.

* ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekTheAnimatedSeries'' gives the ''original'' NCC-1701 Enterprise's rec room a hologram feature, a full decade and then some before TNG's (in)famous holodeck. YYou get ''no'' points for guessing what happens.

** In ''Bride of Chaotica'', the problem is actually the result of the holodeck operating exactly as it should when interdimensional explorers stumble into one of Tom Paris' "Captain Proton" stories. Doctor Chaotica reacts to the newcomers just like a campy, over-the-top {{expy}} of [[ComicStrip/FlashGordon Ming the Merciless]] should: trying to conquer their civilization with his army of robots and giant DeathRay. The aliens don't realize that Chaotica is a fictional character, and its the ensuing war that puts ''Voyager'' in danger; not the holodeck, itself. Although, as usual, simply turning off the holodeck or altering the program to provide a resolution scenario itself are not available options.

* ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekTheAnimatedSeries'' gives the ''original'' NCC-1701 Enterprise's rec room a hologram feature, a full decade and then some before TNG's (in)famous holodeck. You get ''no'' points for guessing what happens.

* In ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'', Rose Quartz's room in the temple can create things and simulations of people using clouds. In the two episodes it has appeared so far, a poorly-worded or accidental request caused problems. Also, asking it to do a lot (such as simulating an entire town) can overload it and cause glitches. In its first episode "Rose's Room" it inverts the classic form of this trope: [[spoiler: something from the simulator doesn't become real but the simulator instead attempts to replicate the entire town surrounding it in itself such that it's almost inescapable.]]
** In a later episode, Steven [[spoiler: takes his friend Connie into the room, and the room takes a request directed at her as a command, and creates a duplicate of her in order to fulfill it. Steven doesn't notice the switch, but does notice Connie is being unusually servile and passive. He promptly hits the room with a LogicBomb by telling her "I don't want you to do what I want". Initially, the room plays this trope straight, as the fake Connie stops obeying his orders and starts attacking him. In an unusually benign spin on the trope, it only did so to force him into a conversation with the real Connie that he wanted to have, [[CannotSpitItOut but was too afraid to ever ask for.]]]]

** The most common "simple" breakdown is to lock the senior officers inside and turn off the safety protocols. More extravagant scenarios can occur, such as poorly-worded instructions resulting in a fully sentient simulation of [[Literature/SherlockHolmes Professor Moriarty]] gaining complete control of the ''Enterprises'''s computer. The tendency for the holodeck to malfunction like this has become rather infamous.

* ''Series/TheOrville'', as a SpiritualSuccessor to ''Franchise/StarTrek'', naturally features a holodeck malfunction episode. However, it also deconstructs the concept by showing how utterly ''horrifying'' such a situation can be; [[spoiler:the holodeck creates a bunch of disturbing monsters and events in a CosmicHorrorStory scenario to test Alara's ability to overcome fear; what ensues plays out more like a horror movie than the wacky misadventures holodecks lead to on ''Trek'']]. Furthering the deconstruction, [[spoiler:it later turns out there ''wasn't'' a malfunction. Alara was doubting herself, so she forced Isaac to make a horror scenario and gave herself a temporary memory wipe so she wouldn't know what was going on.]] The rest of the crew is '''not''' amused by any of this and Ed tells [[spoiler:Alara]] straight up that the only reason she's not getting a court martial for causing this is because nobody got hurt.

* Strongly hinted to be the entire premise of ''LightNovel/GrimgarofFantasyandAsh (Hai to Gensou no Grimgar)''.

* The Creator/RayBradbury story "The Veldt" featured an educational holodeck program about the animals of the African plains. When the kids begin bypassing the safety protocols, their parents get worried about how real the simulation seems and try to shut the simulator down. When they try to retrieve the kids, the kids send the lions to eat their parents, so they can stay with the animals forever.

* In ''The Star Kings'' by Creator/EdmondHamilton the League's secret weapon used similar principle. [[spoiler:During a battle Cloudmen would tap "telestereo" beams and insert recordings of shooting weapons. The energy output would be enough to destroy everything on the bridge within sight of a receiver, putting the ship out of battle or making it a sitting duck. Looks like telestereo receivers were built unreasonably powerful.]] Fortunately, all ships already had countermeasures — [[spoiler:portable dampers that can suppress the shots leaving the receiver pad]] — and started using them when the hero figured out how the weapon worked. Probably the League was not the first to invent those.

* In one story in the WhateleyUniverse, two hackers went after Team Kimba by trapping them in a sim without their armour or weapons, facing a group of pissed-off simulated attackers. The Kimbas manage to use their smarts to get out, but it's a PyrrhicVictory.

* [[Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000 Doctor Forrester's]] [[FunWithAcronyms CFVDEWTOD]] from ''TheWayOfTheMetagamer'' is specifically designed to fail and trap the user within a lethal "simulation", so that he can use it to take over the world.

* ''Magazine/{{Ares}}'' magazine issue Special Edition 2, short story "Tales of the Sky Tales of the Land". The colony GenerationShip ''Argo'' suffers a problem during the 327th year of its voyage between the stars. A meteor impact disables the computer controlling the planet simulation deck (where colonists learn how to live on a planet) and a worm causes the backup computer to malfunction. As a result, several people training on the deck are killed.

* ''Magazine/{{Ares}}'' magazine issue "Special Edition 2" short story "Tales of the Sky Tales of the Land". The colony GenerationShip ''Argo'' suffers a problem during the 327th year of its voyage between the stars. A meteor impact disables the computer controlling the planet simulation deck (where colonists learn how to live on a planet) and a worm causes the backup computer to malfunction. As a result, several people training on the deck are killed.

** Downplayed in the ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episode "Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang". The holographic Vic Fontaine is threatened by mobsters, and if the crew doesn't save him, he'll be [[KilledOffForReal permanently deleted]]. Deleting the bad guys or reprogramming the holodeck simply won't work (this would involve resetting the program, which would wipe all of Vic's memories of them and effectively reset him, Vic views this scenario as "death" for him): they have to solve the problem in-game and in-character. What's notable is that it's ''not'' a malfunction: it was programmed into the story as an "expansion pack" of sorts. The crew is never in any danger at all, only the holographic Vic is ever in any danger. This is likely the only time in Star Trek that a crisis is caused by the holodeck operating ''exactly as intended''. (Except perhaps for "Our Man Bashir" above.)

** Downplayed in the ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episode "Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang". The holographic Vic Fontaine is threatened by mobsters, and if the crew doesn't save him, he'll be [[KilledOffForReal permanently deleted]]. Deleting the bad guys or reprogramming the holodeck simply won't work (this would involve resetting the program, which would wipe all of Vic's memories of them and effectively reset him, Vic views this scenario as "death" for him): they have to solve the problem in-game and in-character. What's notable is that it's ''not'' a malfunction: it was programmed into the story as an "expansion pack" of sorts. This is likely the only time in Star Trek that a crisis is caused by the holodeck operating ''exactly as intended''. (Except perhaps for "Our Man Bashir" above.)

** Downplayed in the ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episode "Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang". The holographic Vic Fontaine is threatened by mobsters, and if the crew doesn't save him, he'll be [[KilledOffForReal permanently deleted]]. Deleting the bad guys or reprogramming the holodeck simply won't work (this would involve resetting the program, which would wipe all of Vic's memories of them and effectively reset him): they have to solve the problem in-game and in-character. What's notable is that it's ''not'' a malfunction: it was programmed into the story as an "expansion pack" of sorts. (And resetting isn't an option, as the crew would consider overwriting Vic's memories as the death of a good friend.) This is likely the only time in Star Trek that a crisis is caused by the holodeck operating ''exactly as intended''. (Except perhaps for "Our Man Bashir" above.)

** Downplayed in the ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episode "Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang". The holographic Vic Fontaine is threatened by mobsters, and if the crew doesn't save him, he'll be [[KilledOffForReal permanently deleted]]. Deleting the bad guys or reprogramming the holodeck simply won't work (they technically COULD but it would wipe Vic's memories of them and he would effectively be reset to before he met them, the crew decides they don't want to do this): they have to solve the problem in-game and in-character. What's notable is that it's ''not'' a malfunction: it was programmed into the story as an "expansion pack" of sorts. (And resetting isn't an option, as the crew would consider overwriting Vic's memories as the death of a good friend.) This is likely the only time in Star Trek that a crisis is caused by the holodeck operating ''exactly as intended''. (Except perhaps for "Our Man Bashir" above.)

** Downplayed in the ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episode "Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang". The holographic Vic Fontaine is threatened by mobsters, and if the crew doesn't save him, he'll be [[KilledOffForReal permanently deleted]]. Deleting the bad guys or reprogramming the holodeck simply won't work: they have to solve the problem in-game and in-character. What's notable is that it's ''not'' a malfunction: it was programmed into the story as an "expansion pack" of sorts. (And resetting isn't an option, as the crew would consider overwriting Vic's memories as the death of a good friend.) This is likely the only time in Star Trek that a crisis is caused by the holodeck operating ''exactly as intended''. (Except perhaps for "Our Man Bashir" above.)

* In the ''[[WesternAnimation/TMNT2003 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'' (2003) "Secret Origins" arc, the turtles and Splinter are taken to the Utroms' Oracle Pod Chamber, which allows them to experience the aliens' collective memory in a virtual reality environment. Unfortunately, after some sabotage by Baxter Stockman, the environment becomes deadly, and the turtles are forced to look for the failsafe embedded inside the simulation before their minds can return to their bodies.

* A virtual reality adventure gone out of control provides the basis of the plot of Dennis L. [=McKiernan=]'s novel ''Caverns of Socrates''.

* A large part of the premise of ''Virtuality'' (the failed 2009 pilot, not the film).

* The premise of 1987 interactive fiction Knight Orc. The protagonist seems like a typical fantasy {{Orc}}, but later finds out that he's actually a non-player character in a futuristic MMORPG. He teams up with several other bots, and together they avoid the players and staff, and escape the simulation.

[[folder: Anime ]]

** Downplayed in the Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine episode ''Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang''. The holographic Vic Fontaine is threatened by mobsters, and if the crew doesn't save him, he'll be [[KilledOffForReal permanently deleted]]. Deleting the bad guys or reprogramming the holodeck simply won't work: they have to solve the problem in-game and in-character. What's notable is that it's ''not'' a malfunction: it was programmed into the story as an "expansion pack" of sorts. (And resetting isn't an option, as the crew would consider overwriting Vic's memories as the death of a good friend.) This is likely the only time in Star Trek that a crisis is caused by the holodeck operating ''exactly as intended''. (Except perhaps for "Our Man Bashir" above.)