Headscratchers / Star Trek Voyager S 5 E 11 Latent Image

• Instead of erasing all evidence of a crewmember's entire existence from the last four years, why not simply modify the Doctor's memories of her death (making him think he had a "good" reason for choosing Harry over Jetal, and erasing the memories of his breakdown)?
  • Considering that the Doctor's program has always been described as very complex, presumably outright modifying his memories of that specific event was considered too risky and time-consuming when he was already on the verge of a breakdown. Compare it to trying to rebuild a collapsing house as it's falling apart; ultimately it was easier to just remove the troublesome memory outright rather than try and make it more palatable.
• The episode's events are set into motion by the doctor's inability to make a triage decision between two patients with identical injuries. Even though A.I. Is a Crapshoot, surgical priority should have logically been given to Ensign Kim who, as a department head, would have been considered more crucial to the operation of the ship than Ensign Jetal, a standard engineer. Though it sounds cold, the point of triage is to dispassionately assign surgical priority.
  • But triage refers to making the decision based on the patient's injury vs available medical resources, not their "value to the community". When asked to make such a decision in Season 7, the Doctor is not impressed. It's the kind of decision that Captain Janeway would be expected to make, but not the Doctor.
    • It would be up to the Doctor in a severe time crunch, which is what this was. He had just enough minutes to do barely do one procedure and no time to consult the captain.
  • The Doctor's Heroic BSoD is also because he didn't make the decision based on a Cold Equation.
  EMH: A doctor retains his objectivity. I didn't do that, did I? Two patients, equal chances of survival and I chose the one I was closer to? I chose my friend? That's not in my programming! That's not what I was designed to do!
  • Exactly. It's not that logic couldn't have led him to the same conclusion, it's the fact that in this circumstance, he made a triage decision for a purely emotional reason, and it's the knowledge of that fact that's tearing him apart.
  • Triage on a military type ship would involve considering who is more valuable to the ship. As a bridge officer, Harry would most likely win. Since the Doctor was an early model, he may not have been programmed for that. But whether he was or not, it doesn't really matter because he began to doubt his objectivity. I don't think it's clear if he actually allowed his closeness to Harry to influence his decision, but he worries that it did. From a technical point of view, it seems his personality subroutines are some sort of fuzzy logic, so he truly cannot figure out the truth.
• Where are Kes, and Janeway's ponytail, in the flashback scenes?
  • In real world terms, Kes's actress was no longer on the show and Mulgrew had cut her hair. Within the show, perhaps it's an indication that the Doctor's memories aren't super precise, either because they mimic a real human's memories or because they were damaged or not fully backed up before restoring. The latter seems likely. It's doubtful they intended to ever give them back to the Doctor.
• So do all 150 crewmen onboard get surprise birthday parties throughout the year, or is Jetal just special?
  • Why not? There's precious little to lift the crew's spirits stranded in the Delta Quadrant. Weekly birthday parties are probably helping the crew retain their sanity.
  • 1. It was a "round" birthday for Jetal. 2. Jetal's friends knew that she liked surprise parties.
  • Jetal's playful "I'm gonna kill you" comment to Neelix might suggest that she dislikes surprise parties, but once word of this got out, Neelix arranged one to troll her in the same way he's always trolling Tuvok. There's another episode where Janeway privately surprises Tuvok with a birthday cake. Most other people probably don't get surprise parties every single year.