- s1e1/2 "Caretaker"
- s3e26 "Scorpion, pt I"
- s6e1 "Equinox, pt II"
- s7e4 "Repression"
this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2026
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Either interpretation could be correct, but it needs to be consistent.
To me, the holograms aren't people. People can't be reset, copied, or restored from backup. Holograms have no body to damage and no nerves to register that damage. The computer is recognizing that a humanoid would be damaged by whatever action and making its avatar express that in a way intended to be understood by other humanoids. That's all.
This is different from say, Data, because even though he can be manipulated and is inhuman in some of the same ways he is independent from any other computers and, importantly, his processing of pain is a real condition. He can be harmed, and even though he may say "Ouch!" to mimic humans, the real pain is his physical response to that damage, the reality that he may be less capable than before, and the need he has for repair.
I like the Doctor, I would treat him with respect, but if it was between him and a biological in a life or death situation, I'd choose the biological every time. I can always spin up another EMH mk. I from disk.
Pattern Buffer intensifies
Don't even get me started on how transporters don't make sense, haha.
Wasnt the entire point of the doctor that he became a person because he program became more than just a program? Similar goes to the other holograms that end up becoming treated as sentient people. They aren't simply programs/holograms that can be reproduced.
Yes, Voyager's writers take this position, but I think it's nonsense.
Holograms are programs that run on a computer. They have no physical form, they are force fields and light being projected from a piece of hardware bolted to the wall to convince you they have form, but their true "self" is just data in a computer like any other program. Their experiences are database entries. They can be deleted, copied, transmitted, paused and restarted like any other program. They are incapable of doing anything that the computer they're running on can't do.
Like the EMH miners that pass along Photons Be Free - total bullshit. Why simulate that much intelligence when you've already installed devices all over that are capable of scanning and mining ore without physical form or the capacity for misery? Just let the computer do the work.
Or the Hirogen holograms. They're simulating pain, and it's fucked up the Hirogen want it that way, but does that make it unethical to hunt them? After all, when you hurt them, you're just updating a data structure in a computer that calculated the trajectory of your phaser fire, determined it was a hit and decided to relay that information back to you as simulated damage and pain. It could just as easily make the holograms impervious to all damage.
The Doctor can be special to the crew and they can want to keep him intact and running without pretending he's more than a simulation - he's designed to create rapport and they've bonded with him. But holograms in general? You might as well be concerned about being nice to a replicator or a navigation array, or an NPC in a videogame.
Isn’t this true of humans in the world as well?
They run on a meat computer, and are limited in their capabilities to what that meat computer and meat suit can do.
Humans can be paused, deleted, and restarted. The many different transporter fuck ups kinda prove that. The only thing stopping it from being a norm is safeties, which have been circumvented before and will be again.
Human memories are also manipulatable. They’ve proven to be deletable, injectable, editable.
It really feels like your argument is “they are digital so can’t be alive.” Which seems very anti Trek.
It's less that digital things can't be alive and more that to be alive you need to exist independent of technology that's simulating your life for you. All biological organisms pass this test. Data passes this test. The Doctor and every other hologram does not.
If you want to call the human body and perception an equivalent, I'll point out that when you cut yourself something has actually occurred to your physical body, it isn't just your brain seeing a knife and deciding it hurt you.
But hey, you are welcome to disagree at which point holodecks become extremely unethical. This is, after all, just philosophy.