MEDICAL LOGS

NOTHING HUMAN
Season 5 : Episode 102

 

MEDICAL REPORT:

When Voyager encounters a massive energy wave, the ship receives a download of indecipherable information. They track the wave's ion trail and find a stranded vessel with a wounded alien onboard. After the creature is beamed to sickbay, it attacks Torres, puncturing her neck and secreting paralysing fluids into her bloodstream. The creature latches onto Torres, compromising her heart and lungs and causing her kidneys to fail. When she goes into cytotoxic shock, the Doctor administers 2 c.c.'s of inaprovaline to stabilise her. Unaware of how to extract the creature without harming Torres, the Doctor and Kim merge the ship's extensive database on exobiology with an interactive holographic matrix to create a holographic version of Cardassian exobiology specialist Dr Crell Moset. The Doctor and holo-Moset take a liking to each other. They determine the alien is using Torres as a life preserver by co-opting her vital systems. They re-create Moset's laboratory on the Holodeck so that holo-Moset can use his advanced tools to help Torres, but, now conscious, she objects to putting her life in the hands of a Cardassian. Unable to decipher the alien creature's distress call that Voyager received, Janeway retransmits the signal on all subspace bands, hoping more of the species will answer the call. In the holo-lab, holo-Moset and the Doctor operate on a holographic re-creation of the alien and find nodes suggesting the creature is a highly intelligent being. Holo-Moset decides that on inducing a neurostatic shock in one of the alien's many nodes clustered along the primary nerve it will travel to the other nodes causing it to lose motor function, possibly killing the alien in the process. Later, the Doctor is shocked when a Bajoran crewman named Tabor reacts violently to even a holographic Moset's presence on Voyager, calling the Cardassian a mass murderer. Tabor reveals that during the Bajoran Occupation, the real Moset killed Tabor's brother and grandfather and thousands of others during the occupation of Bajor by performing experiments on living people; Moset exposed Tabor's grandfather's internal organs to nadion radiation, causing his protracted death; Moset blinded people so that he could see how they adapted and exposed them to polytrinic acid to see how long it would take for their skin to heal; Moset's triumph, that of curing the fostossa virus, was achieved by infecting hundreds of Bajorans with it and observing the results. Although barely hanging on to life, Torres refuses to let holo-Moset treat her, believing if she benefits from Moset's research she will be validating his atrocious methods. As if to highlight her closeness to death, when she tells the Doctor this she goes into cytotoxic shock and he administers 2 c.c.'s of inaprovaline. However, the Doctor cannot remove the alien without holo-Moset's help, and Torres will die otherwise. Against many moral objections, Janeway authorises the separation procedure. During surgery, the Doctor overrides holo-Moset's decision to kill the alien. Holo-Moset uses a cortical probe to stimulate the primary neural pathways by applying it to the primary neocortex. Even though the synapses are degenerating, holo-Moset tells the Doctor to increase pulse frequency. Instead, the Doctor applies the pulse, which generates a neural shock, to a secondary neocortex, lowering the frequency and thus stimulating the creature into withdrawing from Torres without causing the creature permanent damage. They try to substitute the metabolic energy it was taking from Torres with 60 milligrams of stenophyl. As its tendrils withdraw from Torres, the creature's metabolism is restored and it is beamed to the waiting ship which has just arrived to rescue it. After hearing holo-Moset's appeals, the Doctor decides on ethical grounds to delete holo-Moset's program, and thus his specialist exobiological data, from Voyager's database.

the alien creature attacks and latches onto Torres. The knowledge and personality of the Cardassian named
Dr Crell Moset (lower right) are re-created in holographic form, to the horror of Tabor (lower left).

DOCTOR'S LOG:

On a previous mission to Lav'oti V with the Doctor, Paris fell into the fetid mud pits of Palomar. A picture of Paris completely covered with fetid mud, to Torres' great amusement, appears in one of the several slideshows the Doctor has been presenting. Paris, to his amusement in return, learns that the Doctor has a holo-image of Torres with her foot stuck in a plasma injector. The slideshows consist of showings of the slides taken from the Doctor's hobby, holoimaging. The crew are less than pleased to have to attend. Janeway has instructed Chakotay to go to yellow alert during the presentation that she and several other senior officers attend, in order to help them escape the slideshow early. But Chakotay, who has already had to endure it, mischievously fails to call the yellow alert so that they have to sit through it all. This forms part of the theme of the Doctor's holoimaging hobby. For instance, the Doctor will prepare at least one more slideshow, or holographic essay, entitled 'A Day In The Life Of The Warp Core' as noted in  [#115 Juggernaut]. He prepares holo-images to illustrate an educational talk on dating and procreation for Seven in  [#116 Someone To Watch Over Me]. He will give at least one talk, to similar lack of crew enthusiasm, on insects indigenous to the Delta Quadrant, as noted in  [#134 Memorial]. In at least the early shows of Neelix's daily shipwide broadcasts 'A Briefing With Neelix' (later called, in  [#54 Macrocosm], 'Good Morning, Voyager'), as seen in  [#36 Investigations], the Doctor prepares (but is not allowed to air as Neelix is too busy) educational medical talks for the crew, though his choice of subjects comprises medical trivia which fascinates him but which would bore the crew. It is likely that those talks would include some illustrations.

EMH SPECIFICATION:

The Doctor's matrix is not large enough to hold all of the ship's medical database, hence the need for a consultant.

STAR TREK CONTEXTUAL MEDICAL GLOSSARY:

Inaprovaline.

DOCTOR'S QUOTE:

To holo-Moset: "But you are the holographic representation of Crell Moset. Your program, despite all its brilliance, is based on his work. He infected patients, exposed them to polytrinic acid, mutilated their living bodies, and now we're reaping the benefits of those experiments."