Latent Image ( episode ) When The Doctor discovers evidence that his memory files may have been tampered with , it sets in motion a chain of events that lead to the recollection of the death of a crew member , one The Doctor believes he was responsible for . Summary . Teaser . The Doctor is doing annual check - ups on ' s crew and is using his holo - imager to take images of everyone " all the way down to the subatomic level " . After taking Harry Kim ' s image , he notices some scarring along the base of his skull which could only have come from a neurosurgical procedure that he developed himself . However , The Doctor has no memory of performing such a procedure , and Kim says he doesn ' t remember having an operation . Act One . The Doctor visits Captain Janeway in her ready room to perform her physical examination , since , as usual , she didn ' t show up . The Doctor asks Janeway to come to sickbay at her earliest convenience so that he can take a deep body scan of her , and tells her about the surgical procedure he doesn ' t remember performing on Kim . He has deduced from the isotope decay around the scars that it must have been eighteen months ago , but Janeway says that she doesn ' t remember it either . The Doctor asks for a complete diagnostic of his program and Janeway tells him that Torres and Kim are both busy , but he is next on the list . The Doctor comes to the astrometrics lab to ask Seven of Nine for a favor , but she is busy recalibrating the deflector dish and tells him to come back tomorrow . The Doctor complains that Janeway is " acting like she ' s allergic " to him , and now Seven , his " prized pupil " , won ' t talk to him either . Seven tells him to state his request , and The Doctor tells her about the surgery ( which supposedly occurred before she joined the crew ) and asks her to help him run a self - diagnostic . Seven agrees to help him in one hour . An hour later , Seven comes to sickbay and finds The Doctor inactive . She activates him and tells him that she has run a preliminary diagnostic and his suspicions were correct , but he doesn ' t remember speaking to her and doesn ' t know what she ' s talking about . He tries to view Kim ' s holo - scans , but the computer says that the file has been deleted . The Doctor decides to look at his photo album from eighteen months ago and asks Seven to meet him in holodeck two . On the holodeck , The Doctor finds that all of his images from the date of the surgery have been deleted . Seven reconstructs five of the images from residual photon s in the holobuffer . The images are from a birthday celebration for an ensign The Doctor doesn ' t recognize , and a shuttle mission with her and Kim . Act Two . Seven discovers that The Doctor ' s memory files from Stardate 50979 are still available , but that The Doctor ' s program has been rewritten to deny him access to them . She restores them , but The Doctor experiences them out of order . He remembers going to the ensign ' s birthday party , going on the shuttle mission with her and Kim and being attacked by an unknown species , and performing surgery on them with Tom Paris in sickbay . The Doctor meets with Janeway and Tuvok in the briefing room . Janeway doesn ' t recognize the species that attacked the shuttle crew , and Seven says that they are unknown to the Borg . Tuvok suggests that the images have been manipulated , but The Doctor thinks that there was an attack on " Voyager " by the unknown species , all of the crew ' s memories of it were erased , and Ahni Jetal , the ensign from the shuttle mission , may be an alien intruder posing as a member of the crew . He believes the crew may be in immediate danger , since his memories were tampered with a few hours ago . Janeway orders Tuvok to do a security sweep and Seven to recalibrate the sensors in astrometrics to try to detect cloak ed ship s in the area . The Doctor offers to review his medical records for other injuries , but Janeway tells him to deactivate himself for his own safety , and promises to keep him informed . The Doctor returns to sickbay and prepares to deactivate himself , but then decides to take precautions . First , he has his memory files from the previous 48 hours copied and tells the computer that if his program is tampered with to reactivate him and restore the duplicate files . He then programs his holo - imager to take images in five second intervals if anyone enters the room . With the trap set , The Doctor then deactivates himself . Soon after deactivating , someone indeed enters Sickbay and deletes all of The Doctor ' s recent memory files , not realizing the holo - imager is catching them in the act . Once their work is done , the person leaves the room . The computer reactivates The Doctor and immediately restores the recently deleted memory files . The Doctor , knowing he can find out who ' s been tampering with his program , sets the holo - imager to display the culprit . Slowly , the image appears and the identity of the tamperer is discovered . . . it ' s Captain Janeway . Act Three . On the bridge , Chakotay and Tuvok are arguing with Janeway about a Sumo match when The Doctor interrupts and accuses them of conspiring against him . In the ready room , Janeway tells The Doctor that she had to deny him access to his memories of the events surrounding the attack because they caused a conflict in his programming that couldn ' t be resolved . The Doctor demands to know what happened , but Janeway tells him that that might cause the conflict to happen again . The Doctor feels violated because he has essentially been operated on without his consent , but Janeway believes that the ends justify the means and that rewriting his program again is the only option . She orders him to return to sickbay . In sickbay , Chakotay asks for copies of The Doctor ' s memory files so that Torres and Seven can rewrite his program , and tells him to brief Paris about any experiments or tests he ' s performing , since Paris will replace him while he is off - line . The Doctor asks Paris why Janeway won ' t tell him what happened , and Paris says that she has her reasons and he agrees with her . Seven of Nine comes to Janeway ' s quarters late at night for a discussion on the nature of individuality . Janeway tells her that this isn ' t the time or the place , and to meet her in the mess hall tomorrow , but Seven says that tomorrow will be too late , since The Doctor ' s program will have been rewritten by then , and his rights as an individual violated . Janeway tells Seven that The Doctor is more like a replicator than like a person , and that she won ' t take the risk of his program self - destructing again . Seven counters that the doctor would disagree and muses that as a borg , she is also part machine , much like a replicator , and wonders if she might someday be treated in a similar fashion . Seven goes onto to discribe how Janeway has been her " guide to Humanity " , and then suggests she may have chosen the wrong person . Seven leaves Janeway ' s quarters , leaving Janeway with the realisation what she has done to the doctor . Janeway goes to sickbay and offers to show The Doctor what happened eighteen months ago . The Doctor agrees . Act Four . The Doctor remembers participating in a surprise birthday party for Ensign Jetal , and later , going on a shuttlecraft mission with her and Kim . He takes a few holo - pictures of them before Jetal protests that she is supposed to be flying the shuttle . The alien appears and attacks the three of them with an unknown weapon . The Doctor beams the alien off the shuttle and sets auto - navigation back to " Voyager " , and both Kim and Jetal go into synaptic shock . In sickbay , The Doctor and Paris try to stabilize Kim and Jetal , whose spinal cords are both deteriorating . The Doctor decides to use a spinal shunt to isolate the patients ' spinal cords from the brain stem until he can repair the cellular damage , but he doesn ' t have enough time to operate on both Kim and Jetal , and the procedure is too complicated to talk Paris through it . Both are equally critical , with equal chance of surviving with treatment , and dying without it . Paris tells him that he must choose one of them while remaining neutral himself , not indicating any personal preference of either officer to not affect The Doctor ' s decision . The Doctor chooses to operate on Kim . The procedure saves Kim , but as expected while they are working on him , Jetal dies . Unable to look away while operating , a look of grief crosses The Doctor ' s face when he hears Jetal flatline . Act Five . Later , after Jetal ' s funeral , The Doctor comes to the mess hall to get some medicinal herbs and synthetic antigen s from Neelix . Neelix asks him which he wants first , and The Doctor begins ruminating obsessively about his decision to treat Kim before treating Jetal . Neelix calls a security team to the mess hall . Janeway explains that after that , The Doctor developed a feedback loop between his ethical and cognitive subroutine s and was having the same thoughts over and over ; his program unable to reconcile with his decision to treat Kim first . The only way to stop it was to erase his memories of Jetal and the events surrounding her death . The Doctor begins ruminating again , and admits that he chose to operate on Harry because he was his friend . As he becomes more frantic , Janeway deactivates him . Janeway wonders if her original solution to reprogram The Doctor was wrong . She tells B ' Elanna that The Doctor ' s original programming is in a struggle with the personality that has evolved in their time on Voyager . Do they have the right to override that struggle ? Janeway visits Seven in cargo bay two and asks her whether the transformation she has gone through since being disconnected from the Collective was worth it . Seven says that if she could , despite the pain and difficulties she went through to regain her individuality , she would not change what happened . Janeway ' s log entry says that The Doctor has become their patient . They have reactivated him , and for two weeks crew members have kept a round the clock vigil , trying to help him cope with the decision he made . They are uncertain of the chances of recovery . On the holodeck , Janeway is sitting vigil with The Doctor , reading a book as he stares blankly ahead . The Doctor begins talking . He tells Janeway that the more he thinks about it , the more he realizes that he couldn ' t have done anything differently because everything in the universe is pre - determined . Tuvok arrives and offers to relieve Janeway , who has been on the holodeck for sixteen hours , but she sends him back to the bridge . The Doctor asks Janeway about the book of poetry she is reading : " La Vita Nuova " . Janeway says that it is relevant to his situation . The Doctor scoffs at the title and ruminates on infinite possibilities before he notices that Janeway has fallen asleep . He wakes her up , and then realizes that she has a headache and a fever . They argue about how sick she is . She says she can ' t go to sickbay , she ' s busy helping a friend . He tells her that he ' ll be fine , that she should go get some rest , and they can talk in the morning . She leaves and he starts reading from " La Vita Nuova " : " " In that book which is my memory , on the first page of the chapter that is the day when I first met you , appear the words : Here begins a new life . " " Memorable quotes . " " The primordial atom . . . burst . Sending out its radiation , setting everything in motion . One particle collides with another , gases expand , planets contract , and before you know it we ' ve got starships and holodecks and chicken soup . In fact , you can ' t help but have starships and holodecks and chicken soup because it was all determined twenty billion years ago ! " " " " There is a certain logic to your logic . " " " " It is unsettling . You say that I am a Human being and yet I am also Borg . Part of me not unlike your replicator . Not unlike The Doctor . Will you one day choose to abandon me as well ? " " " " Perhaps you should accompany me to sickbay , doctor . " " " Et tu " , Tuvok ? You ' re conspiring against me , all of you . Why ? " " " " Why should I ? What if I don ' t want to return to Sickbay ? What if I decide not to return to Sickbay ? No , I don ' t choose this . Leave me alone ! Let me go ! Why did she have to die ? ! Why did I kill her ? ! Why did I decide to kill her ? ! Why ? ! Somebody tell me why ! " " Links and references . References . 77th Emperor ' s Cup ; acetylcholine ; annual physical ; antigen ; Big Bang ; bio - electric field generator ; birthday cake ; birthday party ; canapé ; cellular regenerator ; chicken soup ; choline compound ; Class 2 shuttle ; coffee ; cognitive subroutine ; cranial meninges ; cyto - metabolism ; Dante ; deep body scan ; deflector dish ; dura mater ; Earth ; endocrine system ; ethical subroutine ; fever ; funeral ; headache ; herb ; holobuffer ; holodeck ; holo - imager ; " hors d ' œuvre " ; house call ; hydrogen ; Kar - pek ; knee ; " La Vita Nuova " ; logic ; medical database ; microlinear incision ; mutiny ; neocortex ; nervous system ; neural membrane ; neurosurgery ; occipital plexus ; paranoia ; personality subroutine ; photon torpedo ; photonic energy ; physical ; plasma conduit ; plasma relay ; plasmic energy ; probability ; pupil ; referee ; replicator ; retrovirus ; sand ; saki ; shutterbug ; sickbay ; spinal cord ; spinal shunt ; subdermal scalpel ; Sumo ; synaptic failure ; synaptic shock ; Takashi ; third person ; toast ; triage ; ;