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A fan of Star Trek since the mid-seventies, G. L. Dartt currently writes J/7 fan fiction, which can be found at her website: Captain's Quarters.  Any comments regarding this column can be sent to greenoaks@ns.sympatico.ca.  The opinions expressed here are solely those of G. L. Dartt and do not necessarily reflect those of the Alternative Quadrant.

Spirit Folk is an episode that tries very hard not to acknowledge any kind of a larger picture. It is not the first episode to do so in Trek, and unfortunately, it will probably not be the last, but it is indicative of where Voyager, as a series, consistently fails. The main problem is, this is Star Trek and the one thing that a great many fans of this show/series/franchise have come to expect ... even demand ... is that it makes them think beyond the individual events of a particular episode. In fact, after almost thirty-five years, most fans can't help, but react to each episode by thinking, by trying to fit it into the larger scheme of things, even when the show's creators don't seem to be considering this aspect at all. One does not choose to watch Star Trek for the sake of 'turning off one's brain' as so many other television series are designed to do. One watches it in the hopes that it inspires or is insightful. 

Attempting to fit Spirit Folk into the larger picture, however, leaves one with the impression that the characters of this show ... who supposedly come from a society of peace, prosperity, hope, optimism, intelligence, where no one is demeaned or vilified for the color of their skin, their gender, their sexual orientation, their religious beliefs or any of the other superficial reasons people use as justification to hate each other ... are nothing more than a group of insensitive, oppressive bores who do not look beyond their own selfish needs. But as characters who wear the Starfleet uniform, they are supposed to be better than that. At least, the fans have been conditioned to expect better than that. 

The trouble with this particular episode comes down to a question of sentience, a word that has been thrown around a lot in Star Trek in recent years about holograms, without actually considering what it means exactly. Because the viewer has been asked to consider the 'sentience' of holograms, of what exactly makes one 'alive', they are then required to look at all the consequences of such a concept. Unfortunately, the show doesn't always do the same, particularly in this latest offering of a holodeck story. 

Holo images/programs/novels/beings have been established by Star Trek as being a viable and everyday tools used by the people in the 24^th century, for everything from children's 'books' to experimental medical procedures. Elements of light imaging, photons, gravimetric forces, computer generated matrixes and transporter based replication of matter are combined to create simulated reality. That's basically technobabble to describe three-dimensional programs which can be used for a sentient being's own purpose. Utilizing a ship's holodeck or a smaller holosuite, a person can reproduce or create places, things, and characters, allowing them to interact with them, much as we do, in a far more limited fashion in the 21st century with television, computer software, and the Internet. And all of it is an illusion, not existing outside the parameters of the artificial virtual reality. 

Except of course, as Trek has also established, for some reason, this technology is apparently very unstable, malfunctioning at the drop of a hat, expanding exponentially when one least expects it, and finally, according to episodes in all three series, creating individual holograms capable of achieving sentience. 

From Moriarty (TNG) to Vic Fontaine (DS9) to the EMH (Voyager), holograms are shown to expand beyond their virtual world and enter the true reality of the people who created them. They have certain things in common in that they are self aware, knowing that they are holograms, that there is a larger universe beyond what they originally knew, that what they are is not necessarily Human (assuming that's what their matrix is based on), but still something that exists in reality. Their motto might be; 'I think, therefore I am' or in more precise terms, 'I am more than the sum of my programming.' 

However, in all instances, it required a great deal of extraneous programming with an expanded access to a large database to have such characters exist, while the average hologram is apparently denied this. Moriarty was created by accident to challenge the android, Data, Vic Fontaine was a specially designed program for Dr. Julian Bashir of Deep Space Nine, while the EMH was developed by Starfleet technicians and utilized improperly by a lost Voyager which was desperate for medical personnel. It's possible that those circumstances merely grant the illusion of sentience rather than actually bestowing it. It's that fine line that the writers of Trek walk when they deal with this, because in truth, it is the way the Trek characters deal with these special beings that define not only what the holograms might be, but what kind of people the 'real' characters are. And as time goes by, the way the 'real' people treat these holographic beings, becomes progressively more disturbing in its implications. 

For example, the final fate of Moriarty, who actually became a threat to the ship in The Next Generation, was for Picard and his crew to 'trick' the hologram into a program running in a little black box. Within it was a virtual reality in which Moriarty believed that he was free, along with the woman he loved, traveling the galaxy.  Ship In A Bottle truly left the viewer thinking about the nature of what being sentient is all about. And raised more questions than it tried to answer. 

If a being is taken from their reality and placed into a simulated one, no matter how pleasant, even if one doesn't know they're in a false world, is that morally or ethically 'right'? Was it correct for Picard and crew to utilize such a solution on a supposedly 'sentient' being, regardless of the possible threat he posed? 

There have been many series and movies that have dealt with a situation where an individual was 'trapped' in an illusionary world and denied their freedom. One of the more recent examples was the movie The Truman Show, starring Jim Carrey. The viewer cheered when Truman finally discovered his 'reality' was false, when he finally fought his way to freedom, when he finally escaped his 'oppressor', whom we despised and vilified, even though the world Truman lived in was as kind and safe and pleasant as his 'owner' could make it. 

Ah, but that's the rub, isn't it? The implied ownership. Slavery is slavery and no matter how kind or compassionate the owner, it's still a violation of an individual's free will, still a denial of one's right to self determination, and when it comes to the oppressor, one does not ... one cannot ... have respect for that being. In the case of Moriarty, the viewer is left with disturbing thoughts about Picard and his crew, the uncomfortable sense that perhaps these people so admired have acted in a way that is 'wrong'. A justification is offered; Moriarty brought this on himself by being a threat, and actually his 'punishment' for becoming self aware was quite as humane and compassionate as anyone could hope to achieve. Perhaps that's valid. Moriarty is better off where he is, and how he now exists. He was not deleted or destroyed. He is perfectly content in his own virtual world. 

But if, indeed, he was a sentient being who came to life through no fault of his own, at what point was his freedom and right to existence compromised by this solution? There are no easy answers to such a question, but it is one that Trek asked by virtue of doing the episode in the first place. Indeed, it's what makes Trek great; the sense that none of the answers are easy, not for the viewer, not for the characters on the show. Particularly not for the characters of the show. 

Vic Fontaine, in contrast, has always known that he's a hologram and seems perfectly happy in his own little Las Vegas world. He's programmed to be. Is he really sentient? He's self aware, but he does not seem to aspire to be anything beyond what he is. He has no desire to do anything, but sing in his club. His 'owner', Dr. Bashir, with the assistance of the rest of the crew of DS9, have set him up as well as they can, with Quark allowing that particular holosuite to run without restrictions. The crew continues to interact with Vic, they 'help' him when the program presents him with a problem, they develop feelings of affection and liking for him, they even call him their 'friend'. 

But what happens when Bashir gets a new program to play with? What happens when life goes on with the crew no longer visiting Vic's club so often? What happens to Vic when they eventually forget about him? At what point, does the decision come to turn him and the program off? And what are the moral implications of such a thing happening if he is sentient? 

People discard books or role-playing software when they no longer use them. Such items might gather dust on a shelf, they might be sold or given to someone else, but these items and the characters within them are not usually thought about after they've provided their measure of entertainment. No one thinks twice about such behavior. Are holograms merely fictional characters without true existence beyond the immediate moment of usage? 

People also put down animals when they've outlived their usefulness to them or give them away, hopefully to a good home, when they are no longer interested in caring for them. But now, such behavior becomes a little disturbing to the intellect. Moral and ethical issues are raised. Are holograms more or less than pets? 

How Vic is treated in this case, is now not so much a matter of what he might be, but what it is starting to say about the crew of DS9, as sentient beings. And the viewers, as the mind starts to consider a larger picture. Of course, with DS9 finished, the ultimate fate of Vic shall probably never be known. 

The Emergency Medical Hologram is a program designed by a technician, Dr. Lewis Zimmerman of the Holoprogramming Center out of Starfleet's Jupiter station. Zimmerman provided the model for the appearance and partial personality for the physical manifestation of the program. An EMH is intended as a short term supplement for medical personnel in an emergency situation on certain starships that have this feature. In the Federation, it has since been upgraded to a second version, an LMH (Long-term Medical Hologram) which was going to be based on Dr. Bashir until it was discovered he was genetically enhanced (apparently a 'no-no' in the 24^th century) and instead was based on someone who apparently looks like Andy Dick from News Radio. Now known as the EMH-2, a prototype was installed on the Prometheus but it is unknown if that version is now in common usage on board other Starfleet vessels. 

On Voyager, of course, the EMH has become their Chief Medical Officer and has been running consistently since the vessel was first lost in the Delta Quadrant six years ago. This program was never expected to run longer than 1500 hours, so in the course of six years, certain malfunctions have occurred, and the program has been forced to evolve and grow. But has it achieved the level of sentience? (That actually would require an entirely separate column which may be written in the future.) In the meantime, let's assume it has and that the Doctor is a sentient being, entitled to all the rights and privileges of any other crewmember of Voyager. But do the rest of the crewmembers treat him as a sentient being? Do they believe he is alive, deserving of the simple respect that any one of them would demand for themselves? 

To a certain extent, episodes indicate they have, yet at the same time, a distance is maintained which display the Starfleet characters in a less than admirable light. In Latent Image, the EMH malfunctioned because of an incident where he had to make a decision regarding the lives of his patients. Forced to chose between two severely injured crewmembers, the Doctor chose to treat Harry Kim while a young woman, Ensign Jetal, died. It was an powerful moral dilemma that certainly could cause any Human doctor a few sleepless nights and possibly even a mental breakdown, depending on how strongly he or she took responsibility for having to make such a choice. The Doctor apparently went insane, and the captain decided to erase the memory algorithms and all database records of the incident. The entire crew was involved in this deception and it was not shown if anyone objected to such action. A few years later, the Doctor uncovered the truth and, as any sentient being would, he became outraged that his sense of self had been tampered with in such a fashion. 

It's debatable if Janeway was correct in her original decision, but aided by Seven of Nine, she determines the second time that it is the right of the Doctor to try to work this out on his own, and that the crew, including herself, had a moral obligation to help him. To be fair, there's no doubt that Janeway would have treated a fully sentient crewmember in a like fashion. The events in Nothing Human where the captain decided for B'Elanna whether the Klingon should have medical treatment or not, regardless of the engineer's stated wishes would seem to bear this out. If the only way to save Chakotay or Paris's sanity would be to remove a few harmful memories, for example, then Janeway would undoubtedly authorize that in a minute as well. It may not be an ethically correct decision, but it would consistent with her character to do so. Though one suspects that there would be far more objection from various others to such a decision.

However, there have be many episodes which indicate a lesser respect for the Doctor from Janeway and the rest of the crew. Recently, in Virtuoso, it was particularly striking how she refused to let him call her by her first name. Granted, the circumstances in which he did indicated a certain lack of courtesy on his part, yet at the same time, he's never called her by her first name in any other situation, even when he is advising her in his capacity as her doctor. He simply does not seem to have that same level of familiarity with her that has been the prerogative of every starship CMO with their captain in the history of Trek. His opinions are also dismissed by her and others at times that leaves the impression that the rest of the characters consider him somewhat 'below' themselves. The exception to this is Seven of Nine, who tends to treat him as a unique being, not as a Human, which he emulates, but simply different from herself. It is a notable contrast, particularly when compared to Tom Paris or B'Elanna Torres or even Captain Janeway's almost contemptuous attitude toward him in various episodes over the past six seasons.

Does this mean that even the most advanced hologram in Trek history is not really considered sentient by the crew of Voyager either? 

This leads directly to the show's current storyline which began in Fair Haven, and was recently picked up in Spirit Folk. What is most disturbing about this is the contradictory nature in which the show approaches the concept. It's not that they have the crew indulging in a holoprogram. It's entirely plausible that Tom Paris and Harry Kim would become so enthused with it, it would end up taking over both holodecks and run for twenty-four hours a day for weeks on end. It's even possible to believe, that after six years of the same holoprograms, no one else on the ship would object to having no access in their own holodeck time for anything other than this stereotypical, Earth-oriented, primitive Irish village. Janeway dabbling in it herself is quite understandable since her use of such 'period' holoprograms, from the gothic holonovel in the first year to da Vinci in fourth year, has been established in previous seasons. 

Yet, the subsequent reactions of the captain and certain members of her crew regarding this holoprogram have become illogical. Harry looks vaguely demented in Fair Haven when he hesitates before shutting down the program, while the ship is threatened and desperately needs that power the holoprogram is using. It is disturbing to watch Janeway demanding that the crew stop at nothing to salvage the program when the chief engineer, who, with her qualifications, should know better than anyone, believes that the most logical and efficient way to solve the problem of a holoprogram run amuck, would simply be to 'pull the plug' and start over. Particularly when there was a possible threat to the safety of crewmembers trapped inside. 

Now, if these beings in Fair Haven are indeed, developing or indicating true sentience, then one could understand this almost fanatical desire to preserve them on the part of the Starfleet officers. That is the nature of the beast, after all, but at some point, these characters must then show some ethical or moral debate with themselves and each other, about just what the consequences about that is ... which unfortunately, no one ever does, leaving the viewer confused about the true motivations of the characters. 

A science fiction book (Callahan's Legacy © Spider Robinson, 1996) offered the theory that Humans break down everything around them into three categories; less than Human, Human, more than Human ... or in other terms, insentient, sentient, supersentient. The first, one uses. The second, one respects. The third, one worships or holds in awe. Depending on how one applies those definitions to the people and things around them probably determines how emotionally mature and intellectually stable one is. Putting an actor or pro-athelete in the third category is common, but ultimately foolish. Putting a pet in the second category can be confusing to both pet and owner. Putting another person in the first category is what serial killers do. 

In Star Trek, holograms are determined to be less than Human or insentient by the show's characters. They are things to be used for whatever purpose they need to be used for. Indeed, at the end of Spirit Folk, the crew is shown in the final scene as having gone back to using this program for their own entertainment and amusement. If the people of Fair Haven did achieve a form of sentience, what does that say about the crew of Voyager, and in particular, its captain? How does one justify keeping an entire village of sentient beings around for the sole purpose of 'playing with them'? Isn't this why Picard, Sisko and Janeway get so upset with Q? How is what he does any different than what they are doing? 

The conclusion must be, in order to retain respect for these characters, is that the beings in Fair Haven have not achieved sentience. 

Of course, it also means that Janeway is not nor will she ever be, in love with Michael Sullivan. She can't. He is not Human to her. He is insentient, less than Human. She uses him for her own purpose; in the simplest form as a reliever of sexual tension, in a more complicated fashion, as a device to help her roleplay a different existence where she is not a Starfleet captain, but rather a 'simple Irish lass'. Even when Michael 'escapes' the holodeck and enters her reality, she treats him as a particularly clever monkey who's managed to do something unexpected and never offers him any information about what he truly is. She simply doesn't respect him enough to do such a thing. He is not sentient, therefore, it is not required that he understand that his true nature is actually a creation of advanced technology, instigated by these 'friends of Fair Haven'. He notes that she's a starship captain and he's a barkeep and she offers platitudes about caring for others even though they're from different worlds. But at no time is she honest about what those different worlds really spring from; the difference between sentience and insentience, of living being verses plaything. She can never offer him anything of what she truly is, only what she pretends to be while she's with him. And he is merely a projection of photons that can offer her nothing beyond a temporary escape from reality. 

In this, she is simply continuing to 'play the game' with him. It makes her look vaguely callow, and one would hope that a Starfleet captain would have grown out of that by now, but apparently for her, sadly, this appears to be 'fun'. Most people have utilized various devices over history to escape from 'real life', from drugs to the internet to madness. Holoprograms are merely extensions of the computer software we use today. The characters in a holoprogram are like the characters seen on television, we are entertained by them, occasionally get personally involved with their existence, even care about them enough to be outraged when they're treated badly, but ultimately, they are illusions and to forget that for too long, is imprudent. 

To genuinely feel for a fictional character, to attach an emotional connection to the extent that one cannot function properly in the society around them, would say something so disturbing about that individual's emotional stability that it would undoubtedly ... and rightfully so ... require immediate psychiatric treatment of some sort. Such a person would be considered by most to be mentally unstable. So when this episode and the one before it, implies that certain crewmembers feel for these holograms so strongly that the ship or members of the crew might be endangered in order to maintain the holoprogram's existence, it damages their characters in a profound and fundamental way. It speaks badly about their rationality. 

Of course, if Michael or the others have indeed achieved sentience in any fashion, then how Janeway and her crew continues to treat them says far more about them, than the Fair Haven inhabitants. For Janeway to treat another sentient being as a thing to be used at her convenience, to be lied to constantly about what he  truly is, to in fact, be in a relationship with him in the first place because he was coerced to do so by the programming she instituted, up to and including, deleting his marriage, speaks badly of her integrity. There is absolutely no free will on his part involved in this relationship, at all. Tom created him, and she changed him to be what she wanted, refining his matrix as she spent time with him, altering him to be the perfect companion. She essentially forced him into being what he is without any choice made by him. Even if he could 'forgive' those actions taken in the beginning, how could he forgive such actions taken with himself and his peers, the other holograms in the future? How could the viewers? By what right is the crew even continuing to visit this holoprogram and interfering with its development if sentience is indeed possible? It would be considered to go against everything the Federation believes in for the crew to conduct themselves this way in a similar society on a planet. 

It should be noted that there is no sense in either episode that Kate Mulgrew is portraying Janeway as being really in love with this 'man', nor that she truly believes Sullivan is a sentient being. She is shown as being fond of Sullivan, as one can grow fond of pet or a toy, but overall, it is just 'pretend'. In contrast, any 'holodeck show' in season four reveals a Janeway who displayed far more honest affection for the holographic da Vinci and treated him with far more respect, both in manner, body language and voice inflection than is ever seen here. Janeway actually confided in da Vinci when she had a hard command decision. Indeed, it would not be difficult at all to believe that she allowed that relationship to become intimate as a release from the bruden of command and conducted herself with far more dignity about it. When it comes to Sullivan, however, she jokes disparagingly with Chakotay about having a boyfriend that 'malfunctions', turns him off when he becomes annoying and complains to the programmer that it is not functioning properly, always has that half-shamed smirk on her face as she discusses it with others in the crew. Michael Sullivan is obviously not a viable person with real emotions or feelings to her at all. He is merely a hologram. Worse, this is a relationship which is a source of embarassment to her, which is not healthy at all.

Unfortunately for the viewers, it is hard to have much respect for a authority figure who would jeopardize the integrity of her command or the the well being of those around her for the sake of maintaining such a relationship. Such a character is, to put it quite simply, a fool. 

To believe Ensign Harry Kim or Lt. Reginald Barclay are 'fools' when it comes to holograms, can be accepted. To make the starship captain, the lead in the show, look consistently like a fool, is a recipe for disaster. If there were three things that the character of Kathryn Janeway once embodied, it was intellect, class and dignity. With this latest offering of a holodeck story, the writers of this show continue to do their level best to strip the character of all those and in doing so, have stripped the show of them, as well.