We know they do actually take animals from planets to study them, so it honestly wouldn’t be surprising if they just stored patterns of alien creatures. O’Brien is playing intergalactic Pokemon
The Bynars upgraded the holodeck in 2364 and Moriarty was created in 2365, so that checks out. I mean, sure, at the end of 11001001 they showed that the capability went away, but there’s no particular reason the holodeck couldn’t have been re-upgraded again sometime off-screen later that year.
Besides, given that they went from Riker looking at the holodeck like he’d never seen one before in Encounter at Farpoint (also 2364), to The Doctor being activated in 2371, it was clearly a time of rapid advancement for holodeck technology.
We know they do actually take animals from planets to study them, so it honestly wouldn’t be surprising if they just stored patterns of alien creatures. O’Brien is playing intergalactic Pokemon
The transporter doesn’t have the storage space for that except in special circumstances when the plot depends on it.
And let’s not forget that the Holodeck on the Enterprise D cannot create highly realistic characters which display sentience without super cybernetic alien enhancements except when it can.
(I love Moriarty, but the idea that the ship’s computer could create a sentient life form on the Holodeck because Geordi misspoke is ludicrous.)
The Bynars upgraded the holodeck in 2364 and Moriarty was created in 2365, so that checks out. I mean, sure, at the end of 11001001 they showed that the capability went away, but there’s no particular reason the holodeck couldn’t have been re-upgraded again sometime off-screen later that year.
Besides, given that they went from Riker looking at the holodeck like he’d never seen one before in Encounter at Farpoint (also 2364), to The Doctor being activated in 2371, it was clearly a time of rapid advancement for holodeck technology.
They de-upgraded it at the end of the episode.
They wouldn’t have to store them in as detailed a way though. Maybe they could keep the genome on file and tie in the replicators