Just started Scarlet Nexus on Austin Walkers recommendation over at Waypoint. Got to the first “open world” section and noticed that a lot of the street elements are holograms, including safety rails and electrical boxes. This seems….very odd and counter to the point of them existing, I mean, a safety rail is supposed to stop a fall, so if you fall right through it, what is the point? Of an electric transfer box, those are ugly necessities in our world, why would a city put holograms of urban clutter like that on the street?

I don’t have a point to starting this thread, and I’ve barely started the game so I dunno if it’s explained somehow (I could believe with the themes of this like it being a “matrix” idea of trying to mimic a past era, though that didn’t even make all that much sense in the matrix either.)

Why would these exist in this world? Second question: what pointless hologram would you like in our inevitable urban hellscape? Holo-trees don’t count as they are at least universally considered aesthetically pleasing.

The title for this thread is supposed to be rails, not rains. I have got to stop posting on my phone. Sorry about that.

That's... really odd.

I'd want escalator holograms. You can't actually use them, but it makes it seem like there's more to an environment than meets the eye. And it's just fun to sit down and stare at something colorful that moves a bunch, like an escalator does. Thinking about how to escape to the digital realm and be able to use this escalator hologram and find out that there's a whole world behind the bricks that it seems to be going towards.

Have only interacted with the game via streams but they seem to stop the player. Most likely that is people obeying the law and blah blah blah but the magitech level seems high enough that one could imagine it is solid light?

At which point, that seems like a good idea to me? Being able to erect a barrier at crosswalks at the speed of c to prevent jaywalking (although, you would need some logic to not trap people in the street). Dynamically adjust barriers as needed for maintenance, traffic modification (cop directing traffic to avoid folk mowing down first responders), etc. And doubly so for factories and the like where you can fully seal/unseal areas for the purpose of maintenance or whatever is being done with that equipment. And plenty of people have bumped into rails when they were only half paying attention while using their phone or dealing with a kid or whatever so having something that can dynamically brighten if folk get too close has a lot of safety benefits.

If we assume that the spirit of a baby anime elf is a decent amount of power per dollar then setting up some backups/UPSes in the event Trinity flips a motorcycle into a power plant or whatever wouldn't be too expensive and would be comparable to how there is generally backup power for traffic signals to operate for short periods of time but once that runs out you're more or less fucked and the streets are probably full of people and cars regardless. Same with the industrial role where the expectation would be that people have evacuated prior to the baby elves being fully drained.

In reality (... a reality with hard light) it would be incredibly power inefficient and stupid from a safe failure perspective. But if we assume we are in a world where the power issue was resolved, it is a pretty good idea.

They don't super go into it but I do think it is supposed to be solid light. The in-universe term for them are Visions and they use them to also describe like.. after images of other party members that briefly pop in to absorb an attack for you so that you don't take damage.