Is Living Vitness canon or miror universe?

[Guy Gardener]

The mobile emitter had new software that the 24th century had not invented as yet.

Codecs even.

What was impossible in season one, was very possible in season 3.

We do not know where his penis came from.

but I imagine it was "for" his wife, or the Vidiian he took on a date more so than when he ate the Diagnostic program. every two years he has to eat a diagnostic program as complex and alive as he is, Voyager doesn't have any more diagnostic programs. He has to make new ones. By definition his children. He's not just a cannibal and a vampire but positively neposcarcophagorical.

 

[od0_ital]

^

We do to know where his penis came from! The Doctor admitted to the Andy Dick EMH that he added it to his own programmin'!

 

[doubleohfive]

This episode wasn't about a mirror universe story. It was a commentary on history, the inaccurate, partial recounting of history, and possibly even revisionist history. That's what it was about.

And it is canon.

 

[Guy Gardener]

^

We do to know where his penis came from! The Doctor admitted to the Andy Dick EMH that he added it to his own programmin'!

I saw Picardo at a convention, and he said that he was surprised to find out that he had a penis, and he didn't know when he got a penis, and more importantly that in the early days he had never acted as if he didn't have a penis.

It's like when we ask a woman if they're possibly done something to their hair and they reply that they died it green three weeks ago.

We don't know why he made himself a penis, or when he made himself a penis, only that after a certain point that he did have a penis, even if Message in a Bottle was perhaps two years after he first sprouted his meat and two vege.

Though it had to be after the swarm, because that Diagnostic hologram would have... Oh? You don't think B'Elanna castrated him when she was paring off trivial information before sending him back home in Life Line?

 

[Guy Gardener]

This episode wasn't about a mirror universe story. It was a commentary on history, the inaccurate, partial recounting of history, and possibly even revisionist history. That's what it was about.

And it is canon.

but it could be an alternate future?

It has to be an alternate future.

Time (sometimes) works like a layer cake.

The universe unfolds completely and exists as all time alpha to omega simultaneously (The Profits of Bajor, Duh.). when time is altered in the present, it's not that the future doesn't happen, it's that all destined and certain Future history that already will have happened is replaced.

The Doctor from Living Witness is living upstream from Admiral Janeway's Future that she diddled over, even if Voyager lost the backup before they might have met Admiral Janeway.

Admiral Janeway overwrote Living witness, in-so that his waking up in the future lost and accused of being an asshole might have been quite different, or that the meeting with this species was supposed to happen some time after Captain Janeway ran away from the scary Borg transwarp hub and the back up matrix was never lost because that adventure never happened.

It's a fricking mirror universe story, but just in a less than familiar mirror universe.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Time isn't linear. It happens all at once. Just ask the wormhole aliens. Thus there's no guarantee anything was "overwritten" just because we saw one episode before the other.

For example, fans wept every time the timeline was changed in the prequel series Enterprise, but as we saw in the Defiant's logs in "In a Mirror, Darkly" and the Enterprise-D's holodeck in "These Are The Voyages", all that time tampering created the Trek timeline we knew, not diverged from it.

 

[Guy Gardener]

We have enough details.

No need to be bollocks vague.

Was the back up hologram's adventure in the far future from the timeline that it took Voyager seven years to get home is the back up hologram's adventure in the far future from the timeline that it took Voyager 21 years to get home?

It's one or the other (there are others, but lets keep this simple.)

Was he lost before or after Janeway ran awry of that Hub?

What are the consequences of these paradoxes playing out?

How do these nip/tucks change the face of the universe?

 

[F. King Daniel]

We have enough details.

No need to be bollocks vague.

Was the back up hologram's adventure in the far future from the timeline that it took Voyager seven years to get home is the back up hologram's adventure in the far future from the timeline that it took Voyager 21 years to get home?

It's one or the other (there are others, but lets keep this simple.)

Was he lost before or after Janeway ran awry of that Hub?

What are the consequences of these paradoxes playing out?

How do these nip/tucks change the face of the universe?

I assumed he was lost after the previous weeks' episode and before the next. Long before the timelines diverged. Therefore, events would probably play out the same for the Doc, tucked away in the Delta Quadrant, until he took his shuttle and headed for earth.

Of course, if you take the novels into account, the lack of Borg in the post-"Endgame" timeline probably makes a huge difference to the DQ planet the EMH back-up was left with.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Why do you think that the Borg went somewhere after Endgame?

 

[Finn]

^

We do to know where his penis came from! The Doctor admitted to the Andy Dick EMH that he added it to his own programmin'!

*groan*

 

[od0_ital]

^

Hey! Don't blame me! When ya have Andy Dick as a guest star, the penis is gonna get referenced!

 

[Gary7]

I think the EMH mentioned that he added "techniques" to his programming. When a holographic representation of a humanoid is generated, it is generated in whole. Why purposefully omit a body part, even if a useless sexual organ? The doctor doesn't breathe, yet he has a nose with nostrils. Perhaps the organ is there, but there's no program behind it to simulate the increasing of blood flow and change form... unless it's a hologram designed for sexual pleasure, which I'm sure were present (knowing humanity and the needs of the solids).


Anyway, the whole argument about backing up the doctor is based on the very obvious fact that in our relatively primitive point in technological advancement, ANY program can be backed up. It makes no sense to me that in the 24th century, they wouldn't have the technology to back up valuable programs! It's just stupid. Like making a warp core a one use piece of technology--you have to eject it when depleted and get another, instead of refueling it.

About the EMH degrading after 1600 hours of continuous usage, I can appreciate that and it makes sense. It's the elaborate accumulation of data across that time that needs to be defragmented and reorganized for optimal indexing. It can't be done while the doctor is still running, so he needs to shut down for some time. If you look at the EMH program as having achieved true artificial intelligence, it makes sense. Data needs to be managed and organized to keep it coherent.

 

[Guy Gardener]

They could back him up if they had a storage device large enough to hold him.

It's not like you can back up your entire hard drive on a thumb drive.

Though in Eye of the needle he says that he's integrated into the ships systems, but later it's made clear that he's software that can move to any holodeck.

 

[Finn]

What if the wormhole opened in the holodeck. Could he have escaped that way?

 

[Guy Gardener]

A magic door to somewhere without holoemitters is still a door to somewhere without holoemitters.

You might as well ask Kim to try breathing in a hard vacuum.

Actually.

You should ask Kim to try breathing in a hard vacuum.

 

[od0_ital]

I think the EMH mentioned that he added "techniques" to his programming. When a holographic representation of a humanoid is generated, it is generated in whole. Why purposefully omit a body part, even if a useless sexual organ? The doctor doesn't breathe, yet he has a nose with nostrils.

As seen in DS9 'Doctor Bashir, I Presume?' Doctor Zimmerman scanned Julian while he was wearin' his uniform. There are no layers to the EMH holograms, its all surface.

Even when the Doctor went to the holodeck, the clothes were full body coverings for his characters. Ya never saw him in shorts or tank tops - he's got no arms or legs under his clothes!

Everything the Doctor is, physically, is visible when ya turn him on in sickbay.

And then he added his own penis.

 

[Guy Gardener]

The way that you frame this, it sounds like in the first draft, that it was lucky that the Doctor didn't slap his penis on on top of his clothes by mistake.

He dressed up to sing opera in swarm, he disguised himself as the president from the 1940s once, and he lived with a woman raising a child in wink of an eye passing for a native... Though that one was after thee penis was added.

He must have taken a layer off when he gave himself that cold early on?

Wait!!!???

Does that mean that when they made the Denora Pel Hologram that she didn't have any genitals either?

The Kira Hologram with Quarks face had someone's genitals, and maybe before Kira screwed with the program they were an accurate copy of her own even though Quark was scanning her with a hand unit?

Although look how deeply a medical tricorder can scan.

Besides, considering Pon far, to stop the Vulcans from rampaging, the doctor should come equipped with boy parts and girl parts as a wholesome solution to the murder/rape they're planing by day 3.

So, no nipples either is what you really mean?

 

[od0_ital]

The way that you frame this, it sounds like in the first draft, that it was lucky that the Doctor didn't slap his penis on on top of his clothes by mistake.

No, he just made sure there was a reason for the bulge in his holographic crotch. Dude was a DOCTOR! He knows where the penis is supposed to go!

He dressed up to sing opera in swarm, he disguised himself as the president from the 1940s once

His opera outfits were full body costumes, just like his Starfleet uniform, which wasn't really a uniform. We know he could modify his appearance, but it was still his appearance, there still wouldn't have been layers. In essence, I'm sayin' dude couldn't wear swim trunks or roll his sleeves up!

And his "disguise" as the president was a hat & glasses. Big whoop!

and he lived with a woman raising a child in wink of an eye passing for a native... Though that one was after thee penis was added.

Probably a step son or adopted one, too, since he wouldn't have had sperm. Even with a penis, the Doctor would be firin' blanks.

He must have taken a layer off when he gave himself that cold early on?

From what I remember, he stayed in uniform the whole time. Pretty sure that was even before he knew he could change his appearance.

Wait!!!???

What?

Does that mean that when they made the Denora Pel Hologram that she didn't have any genitals either?

No, because they showed Denora Pel was made layer by layer, bones, organs, muscles, skin. She had everything she should have had as an organic being.

The Kira Hologram with Quarks face had someone's genitals, and maybe before Kira screwed with the program they were an accurate copy of her own even though Quark was scanning her with a hand unit?

So? What does Quark have to do with how we were shown Zimmerman works?

So, no nipples either is what you really mean?

Yep, that's what I really mean.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Quark spent an episode running, ducking and hiding around the station surreptitiously trying to record Kira's physical features and dimensions with a device not too dissimilar in appearance to a 21st century camcorder.

The technology Quark was using must have been analogous to what Zimmerman was working with.

 

[Michael]

It's sad that despite this being a truly great episode of Trek with a strong message, folks get SO hung up over the EMH backup thing.

For once, I'm in complete agreement with you. Folks, this episode is in no way about the backup thing, but has an important message at its heart.