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Stardate 54735.4 Personal Log Entry, Cadet Icheb
I expected the crew's good mood from having direct contact with the Alpha Quadrant would last a while. I quickly discovered I was mistaken. The source of this discontent has nothing to do with the interactions of the crew with their families per se. Rather, one individual's contact with the Alpha Quadrant has caused much controversy.
The Doctor has written a holonovel. This fact is not particularly surprising. Given the amount of off-duty time the Doctor likes to spend pursuing various hobbies on the holodeck, one could even say it was inevitable. However, the Doctor submitted this holonovel to a publisher, a Mr. Aldon Broht, of Broht and Forrester, a company reputed to produce "high quality" programs which are distributed for exhibition in holosuites throughout the Federation, and, possibly, even beyond.
According to Seven, who monitors the Project Watson technology during visits between crew and family members or friends, this Broht stroked the Doctor's ego beyond reason. "The publisher told him his characters were 'completely believable.'" she told me. "He compared the Doctor's work to Tolstoy's. Even I know enough about Tolstoy's work to realize the Doctor is unlikely to have produced anything of similar quality." Since I'd read the very impressive War and Peace for my Academy literature course, I strongly suspected Seven's opinion was accurate.
I didn't think more of it at the time, but the next day, I was sitting nearby in the mess hall when Tom Paris told B'Elanna, Harry, and Neelix about the holonovel. He'd received access to "Photons Be Free" from the Doctor, and Tom had experienced it. He was very upset about the manner in which the Doctor portrayed the crew. When B'Elanna and Harry suggested to Tom that he was merely jealous of the Doctor's success, he suggested they visit the program themselves. They did. So did the captain, Neelix, and Chakotay. And I got a chance to experience it, too. When it was over, I was as upset about it as Tom was.
"Captain Jenkins" murdered a seriously injured crewman so that her pet helmsman - "Lieutenant Marseilles" - could be treated for a minor injury. Lieutenant Marseilles was also "a horndog," to use Tom's term, who used his status as a field medic to give female crew members "physicals" that were actually sexual interludes, while the poor EMH was sent on wild goose chases all over the ship, burdened by a mobile emitter that weighed at least 50 kilos. Except for a rather interesting mustache and dark hair, Lieutenant Marseilles was Tom Paris's double.
"Ensign Kymble" was a Trill who was a hypochondriac. The Bajoran first officer had Chakotay's facial features, but he also had a tattoo covering the entire left side of his face. He was violently prejudiced against holograms. In fact, the entire crew treated the poor EMH on the "Vortex"- at best - like an inconvenient piece of malfunctioning technology. The chief engineer, "Torrey," may have resembled a totally human B'Elanna Torres, but Tom said she was a "nasty piece of work." Torrey considered the EMH to be a mere tool, just like the hyperspanner she shook in his face. She didn't ever want the EMH in Engineering, even to treat an injured crew member!
Captain Jenkins' crimes included decompiling the hapless EMH's program for daring to expand his program beyond the strictly medical. In fact, the Holo EMH's only ally was the lovely "Three of Eight" who tried to help him escape his fate, but failed. In the end, the misunderstood EMH's personality subroutines were scrubbed of any human characteristics, and he became a program suitable for emergency use only.
I had trouble finding a character who looked like me until I noticed "Bechi," the Bolian assisting the ship's Klingon cook "K'Nellis." The EMH had to cure an epidemic created by the two because they'd served the Vortex's crew contaminated food. My character was extremely rude and, I have to say, extremely filthy in his personal habits. The only part of the scene I enjoyed was seeing Neelix in Klingon garb. He was a sight to behold.
The senior staff is meeting in the Conference Room as I dictate this log entry. I expect to add an addendum later, after I learn the outcome.
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Personal Log Addendum
The Doctor insisted that he hadn't actually portrayed any of the crew. The resemblance of his holocharacters to the their counterparts on Voyager is "totally coincidental," even though the Vortex had been "thrown into deep space by a powerful entity," just like Voyager. When the captain and other members of the senior staff expressed concern that people in the Alpha Quadrant might think they actually did act like that towards the Doctor, he dismissed the idea as absurd. He wasn't writing about himself. The story was meant to illustrate how "organics" treat "photonics" in the real world. He simply wrote the story this way because his life on Voyager was all he actually knew. He refused to change his masterpiece in any way.
I don't think this is the last we're going to hear about this program. When Tom told me about the meeting, he let slip that he has a "plan" to make the Doctor see the error of his ways. He was very mysterious and didn't tell me anything more. I hope Tom is successful in whatever action he takes. I don't mind being Bolian in the program, or a cook's assistant, but I hated being portrayed as having terrible hygiene.
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Stardate 54738.4 Personal Log Entry, Cadet Icheb
Tom "revised" the Doctor's holonovel, and the Doctor discovered it today. Instead of the story of a poor, mistreated EMH on a ship lost in space, the revised program changes the protagonist to a poor, badly treated medical assistant forced to serve under an egotistical, petty, and lascivious EMH on a ship lost in space. This EMH takes advantage of his position by giving a new version of the Doctor's Three of Eight (Two of Three, because there are three of them, and they're triplets!) an aphrodisiac and taking advantage of her sexually.
Naturally, the Doctor was enraged. Tom calmed him down by assuring him a backup copy of his original program was available in the holodeck databank, but he pointed out that the reaction the Doctor had to Tom's version of the EMH was the way his crewmates felt when they saw characters who were modeled much too closely on them. He left it up to the Doctor whether or not to make changes in his program, so people experiencing it wouldn't confuse his characters with Voyager's actual crew.
After talking it over with Neelix, the Doctor decided that altering the names and the setting to relieve his crewmates anxieties would be a good idea. He contacted Broht and asked him to give him a few more weeks to complete his revision, to "fine tune" the characters. The publisher refused to accept any revisions at all, even though he'd promised the Doctor he could do so in an earlier communication. To his horror, the Doctor found out the program, advertised as "written by Voyager's EMH," has already been distributed and seen by thousands.
When the captain and the Doctor demanded Broht withdraw the holonovel, he told them he would not. He didn't need to, he said. Since the Doctor is a hologram, he is not a "person" under Federation Law and has no right to control his own creation. Only a "person" qualifies for protected status as an artist. I don't think this Broht realizes that by his action, he's illustrating the very point the Doctor was trying to make. Holograms, like Voyager's EMH, have NO rights. Or maybe he does realize it, but simply doesn't care.
The captain and the EMH asked for a hearing from a Federation arbitrator. He's asking for Broht to be ordered to recall the unrevised version of the Doctor's work and to be prevented from distributing it before the Doctor has a chance to make the revisions he now realizes are necessary. It's unfortunate this happened, but he should have anticipated people in the Alpha Quadrant might think we're all like the characters in his program - or this Broht of Broht and Forrester.
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