Star Trek has so many cool gadgets and pieces of technology throughout its universe. One of the greatest fascinations that a lot of plots center around are holodecks, which include some awesome hologram characters. Sometimes this gets a little more complicated than just a Sherlock Holmes mystery or a favorite story.
There are times when people fall in love with the hologram next to them. And not just a fun romantic date, but a seriously emotional attachment.
Holograms are a lot more complex than most people give them credit, and same with their relationships. Just like normal humanoids, they can have tragic, broken, or adorable experiences.
Geordi and Leah Brahms
One time, when Geordi was trying to save the Enterprise from certain doom, he constructed a hologram program version of the brilliant Leah Brahms to help him out. As one of the lead engineers working on the Enterprise, she was the best person to help him sort out how to upgrade the ship. Even if she wasn't really real.
During their time working together, though, Geordi found himself falling in love with this hologram based on Leah's life, papers, and known personality. It was kinda cute.
If only he never met the real Leah, who did not find it very cute.
Tuvok and Marayna
During Voyager, the crew found themselves using the holodeck a lot more than the average vessel. It made sense, considering they were so far away from home. However, in one of their tropical programs, Harry Kim found there was a woman there who was different than the others: Marayna.
No one understood how different until she started interacting with Tuvok. Secretly a brilliant scientist projecting her image onto the Enterprise, Marayna fell in love with the intelligent, logical Vulcan. And while his feelings were limited, he did feel something for her, too.
Her story, locked on a one-man station, was tragic and she deserved to feel some love, however fleeting, in her life.
James Moriarty and Regina Barthalomew
In a rare hologram on hologram romance, TNG was the first Star Trek series to do fans honor of making a hologram sentient. In trying to create a Holmes-ian mystery puzzling enough to stump Data, the computer accidentally made a James Moriarty hologram so complex that he became a sentient, self-aware being.
The Enterprise locked him away, but eventually he got out, intending to gain sentience for him beloved Regina and their freedom to explore the galaxy.
He even held the ship hostage to try to give her their best future. Though it didn't (exactly) work out as planned, they are sweet together.
The Doctor and Mareeza
One of the most complicated time situations Voyager ever dealt with was a planet that was careening forward years, even centuries, even though on Voyager, only a few minutes passed.
To explore the situation, they sent down The Doctor (looking like the locals). During that time, the Doctor met a woman named Mareeza who he called him "roommate" and her son, who he treated like his own. They thought they only sent him down a few minutes, but he spent years with them.
While fans never met Mareeza, it sounds like he had a very normal, loving relationship with her.
Odo and Lola Chrystal
Throughout DS9, Odo struggles with his feelings for Major Kira, despite how different they are and her ongoing other relationships. However, as his conflict with the other changelings came to a head, so did his attraction to her. Odo couldn't cope with loving her so much and keeping it to himself.
In his desperation, he got the help of Vic Fontaine to prepare him for dating her. Vic modified the Anastasia Komananov program that looked like Kira to help him out, naming her Lola. Lola sang a beautiful song to him and helped speak his true feelings to Kira. While Lola and Odo weren't meant for each other, their one date together led to a beautiful romance: Kira and Odo.
Harry Kim and Maggie O'Halloran
On the Voyager, romantic choices were few and hard to manage. After all, everyone on ship is your coworker. A few worked out really well (like Tom and B'Elanna) but otherwise the crew treated the subject very carefully.
Because of this, some crew members found themselves very lonely at times. For example, Paris, The Doctor, and Janeway found some romance in the holodecks. But the person who found the most romance was Harry Kim, the poor, romantically starved man. And in particular, Harry's favorite holographic girlfriend was Maggie O'Halloran, a beautiful Irish woman from "Fair Haven".
Harry even disobeyed her father, snuck her out, and pissed off a previous boyfriend. It was dramatic.
Julian Bashir and His Bond Girls
One of the most famous holodeck adventure series in all of Star Trek are Julian Bashir's Bond-style stories. In those holo-novels, just like Bond, Julian had a host of attractive women running in and out of his life. They were all brilliant in their own ways, from secret spies to world-renowned scientists.
And they all fell in love with Bashir at first sight, of course. They had some great names too, like Honey Bare and Anastasia Komananov. If only they all had any more depth than just being madly in love with our man Bashir.
Janeway and Michael Sullivan
Even though Janeway was terribly lonely and romantically starved on Voyager, she didn't feel it right to fall in love with her crew. After all, not only was she their captain, but also they were trapped on the ship. There was no "transferring and dating anyway". Everyone was trapped there.
Ergo, when Tom Paris made Fair Haven, Janeway found other solutions. She found a man she was very much attracted to, the barkeep Michael Sullivan, and then made him more educated and thoughtful. Then, they started a romance that swept her off her feet.
At least, as much as a pre-made hologram can sweep you off your feet.
Riker and Minuet
Before Moriarty, TNG had Minuet, a basic, beautiful woman in a Jazz bar who was a basic hologram one minute, a complex, enchanting woman the next. Over the course of an evening trapped in the holodeck, Riker fell madly in love with her. So much so that when someone created a fake life for him, she was his first choice to be his wife.
And she liked Jazz, which everyone else on the ship hated, so no wonder he loved her so much.
However, unlike The Doctor or any other holograms, she didn't gain sentience. She was an alien lifeform put in a hologram to distract him while her allies took over the ship to take her home.
Minuet and Riker could never be.
The Doctor and Danara Pel
Danara Pel wasn't a hologram herself, not really. However, when The Doctor was trying to help this scientist with the Phage, they projected her consciousness outside of her body and gave her a hologram form so they could work together. A nifty way to be able to heal herself without the limits of her plagued body, right?
Well, that is, until, while doing the science, Danara and The Doctor fell in love. They didn't come up with a cure for the plague, but they did find some solutions to help save lives from the worst effects. Denara wanted to stay with him, but she couldn't abandon her people when she had such valuable knowledge.
It was a tragic, but beautiful, short-lived romance.