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The Doctor is a character on the ''. The Doctor was played by Robert Picardo . OVERVIEW The Doctor started his service on the USS ''Voyager'' as an Emergency Medical Hologram built into the starship's sickbays as a stop-gap measure for use if the ship's doctor should be temporarily unable to perform his duties. In the first episode, ''Voyager'''s entire medical department was destroyed and all medical personnel killed, and the EMH was called into duty. Given that the EMH was originally intended primarily as a medical expert system and not as an artificial life form as such, the Doctor essentially had to develop his own psychology almost from scratch, and this placed considerable strain on the character during the early parts of the series. In order to try and develop a realistic personality, the Doctor not only manufactured learning experiences for himself, (the episode ''Real Life'') but also had an increasing number of spontaneous experiences. (''Heroes and Demons,'' ''Projections'', ''Lifesigns'', ''Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy'' among others) Because of these, over the course of ''Voyager'''s seven seasons, the Doctor's program evolved to become more lifelike, with emotions and ambitions, and developed meaningful and complex relationships with many members of the ship's crew. These developments are at first dismissed by the characters as impossible, then marveled at, and finally accepted as a side effect of ''the Doctor'' remaining active for much longer than he had been programmed for. The Doctor also developed talents as a playwright and artist, and became a connoisseur of the opera. He was also given a program upgrade that, in emergiences, allowed him to become the Emergency ''Command'' Hologram, where the greatest tactics in Starfleet were programmed into him so he could take charge of the ship when all other senior staff were immobilised, although this aspect of his program requires practice before it can be truly effective. A recurring theme in the series was the set of ethical questions surrounding an artificial, but apparently sentient being. One of the most interesting moments in this development was when the Doctor suffered an ethical breakdown when faced with two patients, each one with an equal chance of survival, and chose to rescue Harry Kim simply because he knew Kim better, letting the other patient die. Initially, the crew simply deleted the Doctor's memories of the experience, but when he discovered clues as to what had happened, they were eventually convinced that the Doctor had a right to learn to cope on his own rather be treated as though he were just another defective piece of equipment. The ''Voyager'' crew overcame their initial attitudes towards his artificial form of life, eventually treating the Doctor as a full equal; when Tom Paris and B'Elanna Torres learned that they were going to have a baby, they even made the Doctor the child's godfather, despite both Neelix and Chakotay requesting the position. However, both Starfleet and beings encountered by the ''Voyager'' crew did not always accept the Doctor as a sentient being with all the rights afforded to a living person. This sparked particular interest when he sent a holonovel to a publisher on Earth, detailing the manner in which holograms could be treated by Starfleet. Originally, his characters were closely based on actual members of ''Voyager'''s crew, but twisted to appear more vicious than they were really were, leading to fears among the crew that people may assume that ''Voyager'' was really like that. Neelix managed to convince the Doctor to make adjustments without sacrificing his theme, but the Doctor was then forbidden to make any subsequent changes as he lacked legal rights. Although the crew's subsequent legal efforts didn't result in the Doctor being ruled a 'person', he was accorded the status of 'artist', and was able to rewrite the novel; four months later, it was known throughout the Alpha Quadrant as a very thought-provoking piece of work. In the earlier episodes the Doctor always said "Please state the nature of the medical emergency" when he was activated, because it was hard-wired into his program. His program was later modified so that he was no longer forced to say this phrase when he was activated, though for a time he kept using it anyway because he could not think of anything better to say, and he did not like the awkward silence while he waited for people to tell him why he had been activated. The Doctor also acquired a Mobile Emitter (see " Future's End , Part 2") from the 29th century, which allowed him to move freely, unbound by fixed holographic projectors; previous to this development, he had first been confined to Sickbay and the Holodeck. Later, the holographic projector coverage was extended to also the bridge, engineering section and other strategic parts of the ship to allow him to treat patients on-site, although there were initial problems with these (The first time he projected to Engineering, he was only a few inches high). The mobile emitter made him ideal for missions where lack of oxygen or toxic materials would have killed the rest of the crew instantly, but even before this he managed to prove his worth, such as confronting an alien force on the holodeck in "Heroes and Demons" and contacting an artificial life form that fed on fear in an illusion created by a cryogenic suspension unit. The Doctor has been decorated for valor in combat, and has saved the ship many times from disaster, leading to the aforementioned addition to his programming of the Emergency Command Hologram, or ECH. His development even extended to him actually contemplating leaving the crew on a few occasions, although he always returned without anyone bearing him a grudge. One recurring theme in the Doctor's life was his lack of a name. Starfleet did not give him a name, and for a long time the Doctor maintained that he did not want to have a name. Later, over the years, he adopted such names as ''Schmullus'', ''Schweitzer'' (after Albert Schweitzer ; " Heroes And Demons "), ''Van Gogh'' (" Before And After "), and others, before finally, in one potential future, settling on ''Joe'' (" Endgame "). For the holographic family he created for himself in the episode "Real Life", he went by the name ''Kenneth''. The captioned dialog of very early episodes, and early promotional material for the series' premiere, referred to him by the last name ''Zimmerman'', after his creator. In the episode " Blink Of An Eye ", the ''Voyager'' became trapped in the orbit of a planet where time passed much faster than the rest of the galaxy. The Doctor went down to the planet, where he lived for three "years," had a relationship with a woman, and gained a son whom he named Jason Tabreez. The Doctor's programming evolved to the point where he fell in love with Seven Of Nine , though she did not reciprocate those feelings (there are hints that he had feelings for Kes in the early days, but they were subtle and never acted upon). In an alternate future shown in the episode, "Endgame", the future in which he adopts the name Joe, The Doctor eventually marries a human female, Lana (played by Amy Lindsay ), who at first glance resembles Seven of Nine. Robert Picardo also had a cameo in the movie '' became an unwitting organ donor to the Vidiian s in the first-season episode "The Phage", he was placed in sickbay while the crew pursued the organ thieves. Neelix made a disparaging remark about the infirmary's decor, to which the Doctor responded, "I'm a doctor, not a decorator." In "Gravity", he said, "I'm a Doctor, not a Battery ", while in "Bliss", he said, "I'm a Doctor, not a Dragon Slayer ".) Later on in the series, the Doctor took on a hobby that many doctors today play: Golf . His character's growth and gradual humanization throughout ''Star Trek: Voyager'' provided one of the more compelling arcs in the series. ''The Doctor'' often fills the role of the token "outside observer" in Star Trek: Voyager. His initial lack of understanding of human nature makes him in many ways a kindred spirit to characters like Mr. Spock , Data , Odo , and T'Pol , though in later seasons as ''the Doctor'' became more human-like this role was mostly passed on to Seven of Nine. ANOTHER DOCTOR In " Living Witness ", we get a peek into the future of a backup copy of the Doctor. Captain Janeway had agreed to provide the Vaskans with medical supplies in exchange for Dilithium crystals. The Kyrians, who were at war with the Vaskans, boarded ''Voyager'' to stop the deal, which they thought was a weapons deal of some sort. During their time on the ship, they stole a data module carrying a backup copy of the Doctor. 700 years later, this module was part of a Kyrian museum exhibit which showed their version of the encounter. This biased encounter showed ''Voyager'' as a warship, crewed by a savage and sadistic crew that was willing to commit genocide. Even the Vaskan in the simulation became horrified over the atrocities committed, but the simulated Janeway told him it was too late to stop now. A curator at the museum, always fascinated by Voyager's story even though they were 'the bad guys', finally figured out how to revive the holographic doctor, and, despite some initial problems, the Doctor was able to finally set the 700 year old record straight, although he always regretted that he would never see any of his friends again. Following that, the Doctor served as the surgical chancellor for the Kyrians and Vaskans for many years, but eventually he took a ship and departed for Earth; he said that 'He had a longing for home'. EXTERNAL LINKS
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