VOY: "Living Witness"

[PerrySimm]

https://sfdebris.com/videos/startrek/v891.php

Let us say a few words for the old lost thread on "Living Witness". In fact, let's say that it was really the best thread ever, and most certainly didn't devolve into polarized nonsense, and maybe even if it had, it turns out the side that was wrong back then was actually right.

[PerrySimm]

Unfortunately Living Witness took place at some indeterminate future date, meaning that we have no way of knowing when that capability was acquired -- the implication was "later". Additionally, given Janeway's meddling in Endgame, it's possible that it will now never happen - a sort of retcon the showrunners almost certainly didn't intend or consider.

I'm not sure that's enough headcannon applied to the situation. Granted, this is a well-written episode, that prefers to show, not tell... it would have taken away from the episode to spell out just how exactly The Doctor arrived.

Still - as there seems to be a fanon need to explain the disappearing, reappearing backups - this is one proposal: Perhaps the backup module was blasted off of, or stolen from Voyager shortly after Tedran's death. Looters make more sense - it's the only way they'd have that exact tricorder in hand, right?

Since it's apparently so difficult, perhaps the entire backup project was abandoned right then?

[Fianna]

I suppose the simplest explanation would be that the Doctor program just takes up way too much memory. At first it was manageable, but since he's supposed to be learning and evolving over the course of the series, he'd need increasingly more computer bytes to hold all the complexities of his program. Eventually, it could get to the point where keeping a second copy onboard would be taking up file space needed for other things.

[CharlesPhipps]

Completely made up but in my tabletop games, I said that Doctor Zimmerman was such an ass that he made sure that copying his EMT hardware was encrypted so it couldn't be copied by outsiders. Starfleet went along with it because it prevented valuable and dangerous information from falling into Non-Federation hands.

The encryption key and the spare Doctor information was lost during the events of the episode's flashback early on in their adventures.

[Deledrius]

https://sfdebris.com/videos/startrek/v891.php

Let us say a few words for the old lost thread on "Living Witness". In fact, let's say that it was really the best thread ever, and most certainly didn't devolve into polarized nonsense, and maybe even if it had, it turns out the side that was wrong back then was actually right.

Wait, what happened? Why am I being quoted in a new thread I haven't posted in?

[Madner Kami]

https://sfdebris.com/videos/startrek/v891.php

Let us say a few words for the old lost thread on "Living Witness". In fact, let's say that it was really the best thread ever, and most certainly didn't devolve into polarized nonsense, and maybe even if it had, it turns out the side that was wrong back then was actually right.

Wait, what happened? Why am I being quoted in a new thread I haven't posted in?

You happened to step into a spatial class 3 anomaly, that displaced you in space, for the most part. It's still prime timeline though.

[Deledrius]

https://sfdebris.com/videos/startrek/v891.php

Let us say a few words for the old lost thread on "Living Witness". In fact, let's say that it was really the best thread ever, and most certainly didn't devolve into polarized nonsense, and maybe even if it had, it turns out the side that was wrong back then was actually right.

Wait, what happened? Why am I being quoted in a new thread I haven't posted in?

You happened to step into a spatial class 3 anomaly, that displaced you in space, for the most part. It's still prime timeline though.

That's a shame. I've always hoped that if I fell through a spatial or temporal anomaly it would do so in a way that erases or corrects the last twenty or so years. But no, still here, just a few steps to one side.

[Riedquat]

Completely made up but in my tabletop games, I said that Doctor Zimmerman was such an ass that he made sure that copying his EMT hardware was encrypted so it couldn't be copied by outsiders. Starfleet went along with it because it prevented valuable and dangerous information from falling into Non-Federation hands.

The encryption key and the spare Doctor information was lost during the events of the episode's flashback early on in their adventures.

Certainly looks like he could've put far more effort into DRM than bedside manner.

[Madner Kami]

https://sfdebris.com/videos/startrek/v891.php

Let us say a few words for the old lost thread on "Living Witness". In fact, let's say that it was really the best thread ever, and most certainly didn't devolve into polarized nonsense, and maybe even if it had, it turns out the side that was wrong back then was actually right.

Wait, what happened? Why am I being quoted in a new thread I haven't posted in?

You happened to step into a spatial class 3 anomaly, that displaced you in space, for the most part. It's still prime timeline though.

That's a shame. I've always hoped that if I fell through a spatial or temporal anomaly it would do so in a way that erases or corrects the last twenty or so years. But no, still here, just a few steps to one side.

Well. For all you know, it could be 25% or more different and you wouldn't know, because whatever may have changed, doesn't appear changed to you, because you were technically always part of this timeline from within the perspective of this timeline and this timeline's version of you superceeds your memories. That is why I call it "Prime" and not "Original" Timeline, in order to distance me from happenings that might not have happened or may have happened but them happening clashes with the new timeline. We don't want to confuse newcomers to this timeline with old canon after all. But we'd also don't want to disenfranchise the people who liked the old timeline. I like to have my cake and eat it, too.

[PerrySimm]

I suppose the simplest explanation would be that the Doctor program just takes up way too much memory. At first it was manageable, but since he's supposed to be learning and evolving over the course of the series, he'd need increasingly more computer bytes to hold all the complexities of his program. Eventually, it could get to the point where keeping a second copy onboard would be taking up file space needed for other things.

This is an interesting take on it. Maybe they've been sending The Doctor on away missions not just to be the blueshirt, but also to free up space in the main computer for some upcoming sensor sweep?

Then again, Barclay managed to stuff all the holodata for Moriarty, Countess Regina, and a whole galaxy in the same kind of box Voyager could spare for the Hirogen. Does The Doctor need like, three of those?