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SUMMARY: Voyager's holographic doctor experiences a world where illusion and reality collide.
The program for the Emergency Medical Hologram is automatically activated due to what the computer describes as a ship-wide red alert emergency. When the Doctor asks the computer to scan for the crew, he learns that they were all forced to abandon ship.
Torres arrives in Sickbay. She explains to the Doctor that she and the Captain stayed behind to stop a warp core breach caused by a Kazon attack, while the remaining crew escaped in escape pods, and that as the turbolifts are down she has had to crawl through thirty-one Jefferies tubes on five decks to reach him. She tells him that the injured Janeway needs his medical assistance, and sends him to the Bridge for the first time, courtesy of a new system of holo-emitters installed throughout the ship.
Torres arrives in Sickbay and is nearly attacked by the Doctor wielding a hypospray loaded with sedative |
the Doctor finds Janeway on the Bridge |
After reviving Janeway, the Doctor is summoned to the Messhall to assist Neelix, who is engaged in battle with a Kazon-Nistrim soldier.
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| in the Messhall the Doctor sneaks up on the Kazon-Nistrim soldier who is attacking Neelix |
After the scuffle, the Doctor, who is a hologram, is astonished to learn that he himself is bleeding. He transfers back to Sickbay and finds the tricorder reads him as human. When queried, the computer insists that the Doctor is Dr Lewis Zimmerman, the human who created Voyager's EMH. Stranger still, when the Captain tells the computer to shut down all of the ship's holographic systems, those who have just arrived in Sickbay - Janeway, Neelix, Torres and the Kazon-Nistrim soldier - all vanish but the Doctor remains intact. It seems they were holograms, while the Doctor is not!
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| the Doctor is horrified when an order to the computer to shut down all holographic systems results in the disappearance of Janeway, Neelix, Torres and the Kazon-Nistrim soldier but not himself |
Just then, Lieutenant Reg Barclay appears and introduces himself as Zimmerman's assistant. Barclay tells the Doctor that he (Barclay) is at Jupiter Station running a holodeck program, but something has gone wrong due to a radiation surge. He claims there is no U.S.S. Voyager lost in the Delta Quadrant, and that it is simply a holoprogram that Zimmerman created to study the psychological impact of long-term isolation on a crew made up of Starfleet and Maquis crewmembers, meaning that all the Voyager crew except the Doctor are holograms. He tries various ways to persuade the Doctor he is telling him the truth, such as taking him back to when Kim first activated him upon Voyager first arriving in the Delta Quadrant, and Barclay tells him they can reset the holoprogram at this start-point, though not turn it off, and happens to mention that he Barclay programmed the Tom Paris holoprogram based on Barclay's cousin Frank. This confuses the Doctor even further since he believes the ship, the crewmembers and his memories of the voyage to be real.
Barclay tries to persuade the Doctor that he (the Doctor) is a real human being not a hologram |
the Tom Paris hologram is deactivated |
Barclay tells the Doctor that he must end the simulation before kinoplasmic radiation from the accident kills him, and the only way to do so is by destroying Voyager. At first, the Doctor flatly refuses. However, Barclay's arguments are persuasive, as he points out that the Doctor is free to move about the ship without being confined to holo-emitters. The Doctor feels this is proved when he is able to leave Sickbay without vanishing, and further confirmed when Barclay takes him to Engineering and has the Doctor phaser the central memory nexus for all the ship's holographic systems.
the Doctor survives his destruction of all of Voyager's holographic systems |
the Doctor is confused |
Swayed by the logic, the Doctor considers destroying Voyager's warp core in order to destroy the ship, when suddenly Chakotay turns up and orders the Doctor to lower his weapon. Chakotay explains that there has been an accident on Voyager that affected the imaging system while the Doctor was in the holodeck. Chakotay says that Barclay himself is a simulation part of a holographic delusion drawn from people and experiences in the Doctor's codes, subroutines and memory circuits. Chakotay tells him that if the Doctor listens to Barclay he will destroy his own program. The Doctor is further confused when Kes suddenly appears and claims she is Kes Zimmerman, the Doctor's wife!
Chakotay's explanation conflicts with that of Barclay and Kes Zimmerman
The Doctor is not sure who to believe but while he delays acting on Barclay's advice he discovers that Chakotay's story is true as events become more and more surreal - suddenly the Kazon-Nistrim soldier from before appears just outside Sickbay, Tom Paris suddenly appears and demands the Doctor give medical assistance to a man on the biobed who bizarrely turns out to be the Doctor himself!
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| the Doctor finds it is himself on the biobed |
in the empty holodeck, Janeway reassures the Doctor |
As he peers down at himself, the Doctor feels he is going mad, when suddenly Janeway touches him on the shoulder and he finds himself in an empty holodeck. Chakotay was correct, and the problem is finally solved with the Doctor's malfunction now having been corrected. It has been quite an adventure - in the simulation the Doctor saw the Bridge, Messhall, Engineering and other parts of the ship for the first time. |
The Doctor is returned to Sickbay where, for the first time, he questions the meaning of his own existence. To confirm to himself that he is indeed a hologram, he goes to the exit and tentatively reaches out an arm. From the exit outwards, it vanishes, proving that he is generated by Sickbay's holo-emitters.
 | | BARCLAY: Doctor, I know this is a little confusing, but try to remember that you just destroyed the holographic imaging system on a holographic ship, a hologram in a hologram. If you want to bring this to an end you've got to destroy the entire simulation - the ship itself.
DOCTOR: Then it's true. I am a real person.
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