There's commentary floating around on youtube about this episode where Picardo himself actually shows off he knows a bit more than the average joe about computers. He question Tim Russ (who was directing this episode) why Voyager magically had a backup module for this episode and there was no hints of it before or after. The writers, along with Tim and the rest of the staff apparently just groaned at Picardo for being too logical about the whole situation and essentially told him to "just shut up and read the damned lines". The sad fact is, we really can't read too much into what Voyager was talking about in regards to the computer science of thing because this little story actually outright proved the writers themselves didn't have a clue what they were talking about. I suppose we could start trying to theorycraft reasons to shove this really misshapen puzzle piece in the wrong puzzle, but after the fact, its probably better we accept that this was used as a ploy for an episode or take a slightly safer route and make a leap that the module is in fact from another universe; preferably one where the sci-fi writers have at least read up on computer science theory 101 >.< There's actually some interesting points along the way in history that I think do give some serious precedents to grudges lasting 700 years in Earth World History. There's a lot of examples where tribes and nation states had long, long, long standing feuds between or nations who had long standing enemies. Some great examples to pull from: - Rome lasted approximately 500 years. It had LOTS of enemies. - The Crusades (as mentioned earlier in the thread) lasted approximately 300 years between all three Crusades and that figure may or may not even include a lot of the skirmishes that existed for decades after the last set of Crusades (I'd need to do some research to double check myself on this one!) The actions of the Crusades still highly resonate today. - The Iroquois Indians and Algonquian Indians to this day still consider themselves mortal enemies in many sects. That's a gruge lasting - The Aztec empire was built, died and rebuilt again lasting conservatively around 350 years and they had enemies out the wazzu (I say conservatively because I think its a bit longer, but thats the best dates I get out of wiki skimming it). - The Mongol Empire started by Gangis Khan lasted nearly 250 years and one could say between orderly transitions a lot longer. My point is 700 years, while long, isn't really THAT long in the anals of history.
One fact I found interesting about this episode is that it "proves" something Christopher said in another thread about shared enemies or "The Watchmen plan." If you get two enemies together and give them someone else to hate, they're not going to be suddenly bossom buddies. I suspect Voyager was initially made the scapegoat for all of the horrific crimes done to the local population because it nicely let off the other race from the hook while still giving the locals someone to hate. They were conveinantly gone so everyone SHOULD have been able to put it in the past. Except, as Chris says, the fundamental social issues (implied to include economic bias) still remained. As a result, Voyager being Space NazisTM did nothing to alleviate the situation's true causes. That's good writing.
Scapegoating something that it's highly probable you won't come in contact again is easily a convenient social plan and I *DO* have to applaud the premise therein. After a fact, its highly conceivable Brannon Braga (Episode writer) thought up an a scenario where a few months (say 3, 6 or 9) after Voyager moved "out of hailing range" that they essentially became scapegoats for all the problems between the two civilizations. After a fashion, history is riddled with scenarios where Gods were blamed for the troubles between two neighboring waring nations and cutting them out the picture or "scapegoating them" ended up easing tensions heavily. Heck, all the way back in Season 1, we already had heard Voyager had a "bad rap" in similar capacities so this episode must have been sort of a climax for this theme.
Yes, it would be difficult to create a backup, but not necessarily impossible. Also, "Message in a Bottle" was the 14th episode of the 4th season as well as having a lower production number and "Living Witness" was the 23rd episode so "Message in a Bottle" probably happened before "Living Witness". Therefore, one could theorize after The Doctor returned, Tom and Harry were able to create a backup, perhaps with B'Elanna's and/or Seven of Nine's help thus explaining away the seeming discrepancy. Also, considering the events of "The Swarm", it's unlikely Voyager originally had an EMH backup. Hence, unless a backup was created sometime between the events of "The Swarm" and "Living Witness" (which seems unlikely to me), there would have been no backup to steal if we are to believe the Kyrians stole the backup program at some point before "Message in a Bottle" and little onscreen reason or at least little onscreen worry about the consequences of The Doctor's program being stolen, damaged, being away for an extended length of time, et cetera before the scenes with Tom and Harry in MiaB.
In the edit funtion there is a delete button, failing that just delete the text and say "Post Deleted"
They sure must have missed a lot. I've just come back from reading it. A little confusing in places, but one hell of a story! That's something worth making into an episode, instead of some of the cardboard stories we got. People start riots every day over the Crusades, but they call it something else. And given that the animosities in that region of the world have been continuous for several thousands of years, the Crusades are pretty recent. Rome lasted how long? Considering that historians have accepted 753/752 BCE (BC) as the year of its founding and the Western Empire fell in 476 CE (AD) and the Eastern Empire (aka Byzantine Empire) fell in 1453 CE (AD), that's a hell of a lot longer than 700 years! And consider the Sunni/Shia problems in the Middle East. That dates to the death of Mohammed, back in the 600s AD. That also is a lot longer than 700 years. Some people hold grudges for a very long time!
Just watched this one. Would have been interesting if we didn't actually see the doctor's "more true" version played out in this episode, but instead show the events as they happened "for real" in a later episode of Voyager, along with the "inverted hyper compression" technobabble explanation for the successful creation of the doctor's back-up. I imagine the idea for a backup comes up in a staff meeting, and everyone agrees it's impossible. Then Torres jumps in and says "unless... blah blah blah..." Then Paris finishes her thought. Then Janeway says "do it."
And the Doctor, because no one likes to be left out, clones back up of the rest of the crew so that they can quid pro quo, feel just as unspecial as they are making him feel.
It's just easier to assume that the copy of the Doctor was like a zip file of compressed data, not the entire Doctor, that required another computer unzip and to run.
Voyager had so much useless data in their computers. Background information about Janeways ancestors and Captain Proton parts 25 - 99 would have simply been deleted to make a backup. And you only need to back up the medical part, not any of the additions like singing or whatever. I really dislike the way they wrote the doctor. It's silly from a computer science pov. The hologram/program confusion, the idea that he sees, feels, smells etc. like a human, the idea that they can't make a backup, etc... It shows the writers really had no understanding of the subject matter.
Living Witness features no Stardates, so the creation and loss of The Doctor's back-up module could have occurred at any point between Scorpion P2/The Gift (when Seven joined the crew) and the end of the series, so the 'problem' of Message in a Bottle, Blink of an Eye, and Life Line apparently contradicting this episode isn't really that much of a problem.
Maybe there is no Federation in the 32nd century? Plus, there are estimated to be something like 10 billion Earth-type planets in the galaxy. They'll never visit them all. Unless the original EMH perished with the Federation