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THE STAR TREX ENCYCLOPEDIA: A REFERENCE GUIDE TO THE FUTURE EMERGENT LIFEFORM 133

After the entire medical staff of the U.S.S. which he briefly believed he was a real person named Lewis Voyager were killed in 2371 during the ship's - Zimmerman. In this fantasy, the Doctor imagined he was marrough passage to the Delta Quadrant, the ried to a human woman named Kes Zimmerman. (“Projections” ship's Emergency Medical Hologram became h [VGR]). In 2372, he fell in love with Vidiian Danara Pel. the only source of medical treatment for the (“Lifesigns” [VGRY) crew. (“Caretaker” [VGR]) The holographic doctor was designed as a short-term supThe Doctor was programmed with over plement for medical personnel, not to be used for more than five million possible treatments, with contin- \ 1,500 hours. By stardate 50252.3, this limit had been greatly gency options and adaptive programs (“Ex | |f \ exceeded, and the EMH suffered level-4 memory fragmentation, Post Facto" [VGR]) utilizing sophisticated L 3 resulting in rapid deterioration of program function. Rather than multitronic pathway programming. (“The rd. L re-initialize the EMH, which would caused him to forget everySwarm” [VGRY). He was programmed with information from 2,000 thing he had learned, including growth of personality, the Voyager medical references and the experience of 47 physicians. crew instead decided to merge the EMH's program matrix with (“Parallax” [VGRY]). The EMH program, which was first activated that of the Jupiter Station EMH diagnostic program. The matrix on stardate 48308, consisted of more than fifty million gigaquads overlay process worked to maintain the integrity of the EMH, but of computer data and was equipped with the medical knowledge his memory was not fully restored. (“The Swarm” [VGR]). When of more than three thousand cultures. (“Lifesigns” [VGR]). His the Voyager visited Earth's past of 1996. Henry Starling fitted the knowledge of medical treatments included those based on psy- EMH with an autonomous holo-emitter. When the Voyager's chospiritual beliefs such as those employed by some of Earth's crew returned to their own time period, the doctor retained the Native Americans. ("Cathexis” [VGR]). The EMH's programming ~~ holo-emitter, which gave him the ability to operate outside of was extremely sophisticated, permitting him to learn from new sickbay, even in areas without holographic emitters (“Future's data and experiences, and even to be creative. Shortly after star- End, Part II" [VGR]). date 48532, when crew member Neelix's lungs were removed, In 2373, the Emergency Medical Hologram created a perthe doctor saved Neelix's life by devising a means of creating a sonality-improvement holographic program that Incorporated pair of holographic lungs, using the holographic emitters in sick- several historic characters’ personalities into his subroutines. bay. (“Phage” [VGRY]). The EMH was definitely capable of inde- Unfortunately, the unsavory side of these characters turned the pendent thought. In 2372, he refused a direct order to separate EMH to evil until B'Elanna Torres purged the personalities from Tuvix into Tuvok and Neelix. He did so because obeying the order his memory. (“Darkling” [VGRY). would have required him to take a life, violating his doctor's oath The holographic doctor's first appearance was in to do no harm. (“Tuvix" [VGR]). “Caretaker” (VGR). During the early days of Star Trek: Voyager, So sophisticated was the holographic doctor's program that the show's producers had planned for the Doctor to choose the he was a sentient life-form. He therefore found it frustrating when name Zimmerman for himself, and scripts for the show's first some members of the Voyager crew treated him as an inanimate season referred to the character as Dr. Zimmerman. By the end computer program. Captain Janeway ordered that the EMH be of the first season, this plan was changed, and later scripts given control over his own deactivation sequence, in order to referred to the character simply as the Doctor, although the sciavoid the indignity of his being deactivated by others. (“Eye of the entist who developed the program became known as Lewis Needle” [VGRY]). The Doctor's role as sole medical professional on Zimmerman, who was also played by Robert Picardo. The holothe ship caused him to undergo significant growth as a sentient graphic doctor's eventual name, if any, remains a mystery at this life-form. One of his early steps in this growth process was his writing. search for a name for himself. Among the names he considered were Benjamin Spock and Jonas Salk. (“Ex Post Facto” [VGR]).. emergency saucer separation. SEE: saucer separation. He also thought about Albert Schweitzer. (“Heroes and Demons” [VGR]). Vidiian physician Danara Pel (pictured) sug- emergency transponder. SEE: transponder, emergency. gested Shmullus, after her beloved uncle. (“Lifesigns” [VGR]). (In one possible future visited by Kes, the holographic doctor aboard ~~ emergency transporter armbands. Devices used by Starfleet the Voyager decided on the name Dr. van Gogh, after being personnel for remote activation of the transporter in situations known as Dr. Mozart for a time.) (“Before and After” [VGR].) The where there might not be sufficient time to contact the ship for doctor was not programmed to bleed or to feel pain. transport orders. Emergency transport armbands were also used (“Projections” [VGR]). When activated, the Emergency Medical by members of the Enterprise-D crew to establish individual subHologram established communication links with all key areas of space force fields, to protect the wearers from the effects of a the Starship Voyager. He sometimes used this ability to surrepti- temporal disturbance. (“The Best of Both Worlds, Part II [TNG], tiously listen to conversations throughout the “Timescape” [TNG]) ship, until Captain Janeway ordered him to refrain from eavesdropping. (“Parturition” \ emergent life-form holodeck [VGR]). The Doctor was sensitive to criticisms sequence. The emergent life-form that, as a synthetic life-form, he would have created when the Enterprise-D com- or difficulties empathizing with the suffering of an Ka puters in 2370 produced characters organic patient. In order to address this | from several holodeck programs, Lh potential weakness, he once programmed - symbolically re-creating the entity's himself with a holographic simulation of the struggle to survive. This holodeck sequence was based on 29-hour Levodian flu so that he could experi- Beverly Crusher's program, Orient Express, but incorporated ence the disease process. (“Tattoo" [VGR]). characters from many other programs who were all journeying to His programming did not include the ability to Vertiform City. The Enterprise-D crew interfaced with the emercry. (“Threshold™ [VGRY). gent life-form by dealing with the characters present in this The EMH undertook his first away mission on stardate holodeck program. In reality, “Vertiform City” was a white dwarf 48603. He was dispatched to the ship's holodeck to investigate star that would provide the vertion particles the emergent lifethe disappearance of three Voyager crew members. He was suc- form needed to survive and grow. (“Emergence” [TNG]). cessful in interacting with a photonic being that had taken up residence on the holodeck and in gaining the return of the miss- emergent life-form. Self-determinant intelligence that served as ing crew. His actions during this first contact mission gained a mechanism of procreation for a semiorganic spaceborne lifehim a special commendation from Voyager Captain Janeway. form. The main computer systems of the Enterprise-D became (“Heroes and Demons” [VGRJ). On stardate 48892, a surge of an emergent life-form in 2370 after the ship passed through a kinoplastic radiation caused a malfunction in Voyager's magnascopic storm in the Mekorda sector. The storm evidently holodeck circuits, trapping the Doctor in a delusional reality in caused the ship's computer systems to link together through