The Doctor(EMH)(Joe Zimmerman)

**The Doctor"** was the name used to refer to the USS *Voyager*'s Emergency Medical Hologram.

The EMH Mark I was a computer program with a holographic interface, designed by Doctor Lewis Zimmerman and with his own form, whose role was to act as an emergency doctor should the medical personnel of a starship or facility become disabled. In normal circumstances, the EMH would be used in the short-term until the real doctors could be treated, or replacement medical personnel arrived. However in the Doctor's case, *Voyager* was sent over 70,000 light years into the Delta Quadrant, and there were no replacement medical personnel.

## Life Aboard *Voyager*

### Activation and Early Years

The Doctor was first activated aboard *Voyager* on stardate 48308.2, shortly after *Voyager* had been flung into the Delta Quadrant by the Caretaker. Upon his activation he learned that the entire medical staff had been killed during the journey to the Delta Quadrant and that he was the only medical officer aboard.

The Doctor's early days aboard *Voyager* were difficult for him. With the Doctor only being a hologram in the eyes of the crew, they often treated him as a piece of technology, and because of the Doctor's programming his bedside manner was seen as rude by the majority of the crew. The general attitude shown to him made the Doctor believe he was unimportant to the crew and that he was often left out when it came to important information, such as the arrival of Kes and Neelix aboard *Voyager*, and the repair of his holographic imaging matrix after *Voyager* encountered a quantum singularity.

However, the Doctor soon made a friend in Kes, who as well as having an interest in studying medicine, served as a champion for the Doctor's rights to Captain Janeway, which meant that he was treated with respect by the crew, and had control over his own activation sub-routines. Kes also began to tutor the Doctor in the social graces to improve his bedside manner and overall attitude. She also suggested that the Doctor find a real name so that he could feel more like a member of the crew. Around the time Tutopan pirates robbed *Voyager* of its main computer, the Doctor had taken the name, Dr. Zimmerman, after his creator, but must have decided against it soon thereafter, returning to simply "the Doctor".

A few months into *Voyager*'s journey home, the Doctor participated in his first away mission to the holodeck after several officers had been taken from the *Beowulf* holoprogram. He discovered that they were being held by a being of photonic energy after *Voyager* took aboard some photonic energy. The crewmembers were released, when the Doctor returned the other being.

A few weeks later, an accident aboard *Voyager* while the Doctor was in the holodeck, led him to confuse illusion and reality. He was visited by Lieutenant Reginald Barclay, one of the engineers that worked on his programming, who told him that he was in fact Dr. Zimmerman and was trapped in a holodeck simulation of *Voyager* at the Jupiter Station. He was convinced by Barclay that the only way to escape was to destroy the holographic *Voyager* by firing a phaser at the warp core. Thankfully, Chakotay managed to convince the Doctor that he was about to destroy his own matrix, and the Doctor was freed from the holodeck.

In mid-2372, *Voyager* received a Vidiian scientist named Dr. Denara Pel, who was near death due to the phage. The Doctor was determined to find a cure for her and placed her body in stasis while he worked on it. Before doing so, he transmitted Dr. Pel's synaptic pathways into a hologram that depicted her as she would look without the phage.

Based on experiments conducted on Lieutenant B'Elanna Torres the previous year, the Doctor took samples of her Klingon DNA as a starting point for his research. As the two worked together on the project, the Doctor became enamored with Dr. Pel and made several additions to his program in order to gain her romantic interest. Unfortunately, the Doctor was unable to develop a cure for the phage, but was able to prolong Dr. Pel's life so that she could return home.

The Doctor and Dr. Pel contacted each other a few months later, after Captain Janeway and Commander Chakotay were infected by a parasite on an uninhabited Class M planet. Lieutenant Tuvok, while temporarily in command of *Voyager*, gave in to the crew's demands to contact the Vidiians and discover if they had a cure that would allow Janeway and Chakotay to leave the planet. The Vidiians used the incident as an excuse to attack *Voyager*, but Dr. Pel contacted the Doctor and beamed the cure aboard.

In early 2373, the Doctor played an part in the defeat of the Kazon-Nistrim. After *Voyager* was captured by the Kazon and the crew marooned on Hanon IV, the Doctor along with Lon Suder helped sabotage the backup phaser couplings. This allowed Tom Paris and a small Talaxian fleet to retake the ship and save the crew, after Paris disabled the main phaser couplings and *Voyager* was damaged when the Kazon attempted to use the backups. The Doctor was briefly disabled when Seska locked out Starfleet voice commands after turning him off, preventing Suder from reactivating him, but the Doctor left a message for Suder, assuring the former killer that the Doctor had confidence in his abilities to retake the ship. Suder was successful in doing so, but was killed by a Kazon soldier.

A few weeks later, the Doctor had reached the limits of his storage capacity due to all the modifications he had been making to his program. He began experiencing amnesia, and during a medical procedure on Tom Paris, he forgot all of his medical skills, and diagnostics revealed that his program was in danger of disintegrating completely. After consulting the holographic Diagnostic Program Alpha-11, it was decided that the only option was to overlay the Doctor's program with the diagnostic program. While this was successful, the Doctor returned to a state similar to that when he was first activated. However, over time memories began to resurface.

### Gaining Freedom

Around stardate 50312, *Voyager* was pulled in orbit around Earth in the year 1996 by the Federation timeship *UTS Aeon*. Shortly after arrival the crew of *Voyager* learned that a local businessman named Henry Starling had stolen the *Aeon* and had used its technology to create the computer age on Earth, and that he intended to use the *Aeon* to travel to the 29th century.

While trying to stop Starling, the businessman was able to download the Doctor's program from *Voyager*'s database. Starling was able to alter the Doctor's program using advanced 29th century techniques, so that he could torture him for information. He also gave the Doctor a mobile emitter which would enable him to travel anywhere. When the Doctor was later recovered by *Voyager* he retained the emitter and a whole new lease of life opened up for him.

With his new found abilities to feel pain and move freely around the ship, the Doctor worked on other ways to improve his program and quality of life. He experimented with downloading personality subroutines from many historical figures including Lord Byron, Mahatma Gandhi, Socrates, Marie Curie and T'Pau. Unfortunately, this experiment proved a failure when he experienced personality disorder which resulted in a darkly emotional doctor. On an away mission, the dark doctor became jealous when Kes befriended a local named Zahir, and nearly led to the deaths of both Kes and Zahir.

In late 2373, the Doctor decided to create a "perfect" holographic family, Doctor's Family Program Beta-Rho and chose the name Kenneth for himself. For several weeks the Doctor lived a seemingly blissful life, until Lt. Torres visited for dinner and suggested adding randomness and "realism" to the program. As a result, his teenage son Jeffrey became rebellious, he had arguments with his wife Charlene, and lost the formerly close bond he had possessed with his daughter Belle. The family bonded together better shortly after, as a result of Belle's death from a mortal Parrises squares injury. Despite wanting to delete the program, The Doctor was persuaded to continue to run the program by Tom Paris.

The Doctor was then sent to find warehouse on a "medieval europe" type planet to keep the inhabitants from destroying themeselves with the weapons. As he first arrived he came across a knight named sir Koros and his squire Weylyn fighting a dragon-like creature. The doctor was able to stun it. The doctor said that he was a wizard of the order of Starfleet. Unfortunately, the creature destroyed his phaser and his equipment but was saved from it by Weylyn. Weylyn then led the doctor to his liege.

### Renaissance Man

The Doctor activated his command subroutines again in 2377 in an attempt to rescue Captain Kathryn Janeway from the aliens who had kidnapped her. His holographic matrix altered to allow him to pose as various members of the crew, such as Janeway, B'Elanna Torres, and Chakotay, The Doctor was eventually able to evacuate engineering and subsequently activate the ECH program. As the Emergency Command Hologram, The Doctor had the authorization to eject *Voyager's* warp core; he then tried to free the captain by exchanging the core as ransom. He was able to rescue Janeway and recover the core but when the excess subroutines inserted by the aliens nearly caused his program to collapse, he made several embarrassing "deathbed" confessions including his love for Seven. Having recovered, he subsequently spent a whole week in sickbay out of sheer embarrassment but was eventually convinced by Janeway to rejoin life on the ship.

### Life in the Alpha Quadrant

When *Voyager* finally returned to the Alpha Quadrant, the Doctor's rights as a sentient were placed in jeopardy by the "holo-strike" orchestrated by Oliver Baines. After being arrested by Starfleet, he was released, and allowed to join a "think tank" with Seven of Nine.

Having previously been declared a 'person', he testified at a hearing to determine the rights of the Soong-type android prototype B-4. The Doctor's experience as an early version of the Emergency Medical Hologram utility who had grown past his original design parameters was deemed relevant to the case.

He had been working at the Federation Research Institute along with Seven of Nine and a variety of other very intelligent individuals on various projects for the Federation. The Doctor then took up a project with Lewis Zimmerman and Reginald Barclay at Jupiter Station to program and develop the EMH Program even further.

In 2378 The Doctor was reassigned to the USS Belle Reve as it's Chief CMO.