Another Headache?

Posted on 26 Apr 2012 @ 5:54am by Lieutenant Commander Pola Ni Dhuinn M.D. & Lieutenant Commander Chauncey Remington III (KIA) & EMH Mark X-C "Shirley"
Edited on on 02 May 2012 @ 6:15pm

2,502 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Episode 01 - Project Sienna
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: MD3 1300hours

[On]

Pola knew she was a few hours early for her 1600hours start but after the incident yesterday with the EMH, she wanted to see if the issue had been sorted yet. Doctor Hilyer seemed to be very pre-occupied recently which worried her slightly, she got the feeling that maybe something was wrong at home or there was something on his mind. The young Doctor made a note that next time she saw him to try encourage him to see Counsellor McCarthy.

Walking over to the primary medical console looking down at it and wondering if she should risk turning back on the EMH. Looking around her she saw that there was currently no patients, only a handful of staff repairing some of the minor damage caused yesterday. To be on the safe side, Pola turned to them, "Guys....I'm going to give this EMH a try again, can you all stand back incase this goes wrong again?" Watching as everyone took cover, Pola took a breath and activated the EMH.

It took a moment for the photons and force fields to form into their usual shape, as the familiar image of an EMH took shape in the centre of the room.

"Please state the nature of the medical emergency." Came the familiar phrase, used for every model of medical hologram since the inventor of the original by the now legendary Lewis Zimmerman, as so far the program seemed to behave as expected.

Looking at the EMH everything seemed to be working...so far. Pola walked up to him, looking him in the eye, "Do you know who I am? Can you tell me what your purpose is?"

Looking towards the person who had grabbed his attention, the hologram's memory subroutines and Starfleet database confirmed her as one of the doctors who he had encountered earlier. He did not remember the exact details of their meeting, but the fact remained that she was indeed an authorized member of this crew.

"Of course Lieutenant - I am the Emergency Medical Hologram assigned to the Federation Starship Galileo - designed at Jupiter Station to provide short term medical care in the event of the incapacitation of the assigned medical staff of this vessel."

Pola nodded her head and smiled softly. So far so good. Now to create the conditions under which the EMH had decided to go haywire over last time. "Ok...we have a patient here which I need you to have a look at. In this instance the patient is myself. " Faking a limp, Pola made her way over to a biobed. "I has in a accident in the holodeck and the safeties malfunctioned." Pola gave no further information, allowing the EMH to do the diagnoses and repair.

"Well then...if you'd like to take a seat I'll take some scans."

Following the officer to the biobed, the hologram looked down to see the small tray of standard equipment that was found in any sickbay and located the medical tricorder. Accessing his technical database and activating his tactile subroutines, the blonde hologram reached down and picked up the small device, flipping it open and removing the small probe to pass over the leg that the Lieutenant was reporting difficulty with. As the images began to form on the tricorder, the hologram seemed to frown and tapped a few controls on the tricorder before looking up at the doctor.

"Either this tricorder is malfunctioning, or there is no damage to your leg....if you would just bear with me I shall fetch a replacement to rule out equipment failure...."

Pola watched as the EMH fetched another tricorder and let out the breath she'd been holding. It looked like whatever the problem was, was now sorted. Swinging her legs to the edge of the biobed, the young Doctor moved to get up. "Maybe it was just my imagination. I thought I felt a twinge but it must be nothing. Computer, please deactivate the EMH." Smiling as she got to her feet, Pola was delighted that this was one last issue she had on her mind.

As she computer began to process the command, the hologram seemed to fizzle and shudder as the system tried to shutdown the EMH as ordered, but nothing happened, instead the tricorder that the holographic doctor held fell through his hand, as his ability to remain solid appeared to fade. Looking towards the female doctor, the hologram gave a look of terror as he realized his program was damaged, and fizzled again.

As Pola watched she swore under her breath before taking a quick moment to chastise herself, she really needed to clean up her language. "Don't worry, we will get you fixed, I promise." Even though the EMH was only a bunch of partials, the look of terror on his face hit Pola in the gut. Reaching up, she hit her commbadge.

=^=Doctor Ni Dhuinn to Lieutenant Commander Remmington; The EMH seems to be having problems again, this time when we went to shut him off he seems to have....half switched off?=^=

Groaning again, Pola tried to figure out why she couldn't explain things very well.

=/\=Understood, I'm shutting it down manually, do not reactivate him. I'm on my way.=/\=

A few minutes later Will arrived. "Everything all right, doctor?" he asked, looking a bit distracted.

Leaning against the biobed, Pola was still looking at the area in which the EMH had previously stood. She wondered what it would be like to be continuously switched on and off at the whim of other people but then one day to suddenly be shut off, but instead hang in limbo. Once this whole issue was sorted, she must take more time to learn about the EMH and how he worked so she could help in the future if something more happened. Shaken out of her thoughts, the young Doctor turned as a familiar voice spoke to her.

"Commander, thanks for coming down, this EMH seems to be having nothing but problems since installed, the poor guy. I started him up to test him after our issues yesterday where he started throwing things around. Everything was going fine, he was operating as he should be but when I went to shut him down...well..." Pola tried to figure out how to explain this next part."It's like he became translucent. The tricorder he'd been holding fell through his hand but he was still standing there, the shut down never properly finished."

"Holograms can do that," he said, "it's the not shutting down part we should be concerned with. Let me have a look." He went over to the primary sickbay controls and pulled up the EMH program. "I am going to reboot the program again and run it through an program diagnostic. There must be something wrong with it. I may be able to repair it, depending on how extensive the program's corruption is."

Standing back to give Will space, Pa hoisted herself into a biobed to watch him at work. Sickbay was quiet at the moment and technically she wasn't on duty right now, she was here on her own time."Can I ask you a very silly question....Does the EMH experience emotions?" Pola still had that image, of the EMH's look of fear on his face, embedded in her mind.

Will paused in his work and glanced at her from the corner of his eye. He'd been in Starfleet long enough to be familiar with such questions. "No," he said, "holograms are created to simulate certain behaviors, they have personality subroutines, but it's just a programmed response, albeit a very advanced and complex response, to its environment. There's debate about whether or not holograms like the Voyager EMH is sentient, but most agree that at best such holograms gain sentience. Our programming doesn't make them like that." As if that settled the matter, he turned back to the LCARS to continue his work. "Don't think he's any different than a very good holodeck character just because he walks around the ship and does useful things. Besides, his program will be fully reinitialized by the time I am finished, unless the program is so corrupt it has to be deleted."

Pola looked at Will in slight shock. She knew about technical mombo jumbo, she figured that after engineering, medicinal came second at being the King, or Queen for the females of course, of it. She was lucky to have been able to follow even half of what Will said, it helped that some of what he said seemed to be basic psych 101. Pausing for a few moments to try decrypt it, the young Doctor looked at where her feet barely touched the floor as she perched on the biobed."So...an EMH is programmed to show emotion but not to feel it? But that doesn't explain why our EMH seemed so...aware. Like how was he able to realize he'd become transparent and to know to react with fear and to be scared? Surely an EMH isn't programmed to realize when something goes wrong with him or her as there would be so many variables?"

Will looked at her seriously. "I assure you, doctor, none of that is real. That's a dangerous view to have. You don't program something to feel, doctor. I suppose within the context of its program it 'feels,' but it isn't really emotion. No matter how realistic it seems, a betazoid wouldn't sense the slightest thing from a hologram. It's just a picture of a person."

Jumping down off of the bio bed, Pola walked over to stand at Will's side, watching what he was doing, "So what exactly needs to be done? Can he be fixed? Have you figured out the problem yet?" Pola knew she was throwing a lot of questions at the operations officer but she really did want to understand what was going on. She'd never given much thought to EMHs before, they had just been there. Maybe this was becoming a little too deep but at least she'd finally understand the..person? who was essentially one of her working colleagues.

"Well there is some corruption in the program," Will said, gesturing to a long series of LCARS coding that he had pulled up on the screen, "but I think re-initializing the program will fix it. When the program was first activated something must have happened to disrupt the initial download. Could be anything, a power surge or a bad bioneural pack. I'll reset it to its original state and we can run another diagnostic. If that doesn't work then something's wrong with the program and w'll have to wait until we have access to a starbase."

"Do you think the corruption is related back to the issue installing which Willis was telling us about yesterday?" Watching Will's fingers glide across the screens, she looked up at the coding he indicated and did a double take."How on earth do you manage to understand that?!?"

Will chuckled. "Why, doctor, it isn't that bad. Every operations officer has a basic knowledge of LCARS. I've been in Starfleet for years, I know enough to handle most programming issues."

Still looking at the code on the screen, Pola shook her head. "I guess if I said to you post-parandial, upper abdominal distention you would understand that as much as I understand your coding." Looking over at Will, Pola grinned.

"A burp?" Will guessed with a wink.

Laughing, Pola shook her head, "Not even close, mind you, the end result in some cases can be that."

"Well, I'll leave the medical things to you, doctor. Now then." He turned back to the computer display. "It's reinitializing now, that should do it."

For a moment the holoemitters seemed to do nothing, before eventually the typical noise of a hologrid initializing whirred through the room, as the projection that had caused them so much trouble finally formed in front of them, the crisp medical uniform as perfect as always, and the standard greeting that had been associated with the EMH for years.

"Please state the nature of the medical emergency"

Pola looked closely at the EMH, following the conversation with Will she felt more...aware of the projection. "Well I guess maybe we should recreate the conditions under which this happened previously? Doctor, can you take a look at our patient Commander Remington? I believe he is suffering from a post-parandial situated in the upper abdominal distention." Biting her lip to hold back a grin, Pola stood to the side to allow the EMH access.

"Hmm...I feel that would warrant further examination. If you'll excuse me"

Brushing past the doctor, the EMH moved towards the equipment tray and quickly picked up a medical tricorder, removing the small probe and passing it over the abdomen of his "patient". Looking over the readings, the hologram tapped a few buttons on the tricorder before frowning and returning the probe to its position within the body of the tricorder, and closing the flap.

"I do not agree with your diagnosis doctor, I can see no evidence of bloating within this patient....if he feels the situation warrants it, he should replicate some antacid himself and not bother sickbay staff with such a minor medical concern."

Biting down harder on her lip, Pola suppressed a urge to burst out laughing. "Thank you for your help Doctor, I'm sure our patient is appreciative of the advice." Moving away from the bio bed that the EMH had pushed her against, Pola turned to Will. "Computer, please disengage the EMH."

"Of course Doctor. Should you need further assistance, I'll be waiting in the holobuffers."

Putting down the tricorder, the EMH disappeared from the room as the order to end his program was acknowledged.

Will gave Pola an amused look. "I think he's working now," he said, "though maybe I'll have a look at those personality subroutines... bother sickbay indeed. I thought the new EMHs were supposed to have better bedside manners."

Pola coughed a few times to hide her laugh. "Well I've seen worse in people I've worked with before in all honesty. I didn't like the being pushed around though... I might give his box he is stored in a good kick for that. So do you think we are all good to go? All the kinks worked out?"

"I think so," Will assured her with a nod. "If that's all?"

Pola nodded her head and moved out into sickbay."Can't think of anything else right now. You'll be my first call if there's anything more." The young Doctor watched at Will left and prepared herself to head back to her quarters for a nap before her shift started.

[Off]
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Lt. Cmdr. Chauncey William Remington III
Chief Operations Officer
USS Galileo

EMH Mark-X (played by Lt Cdr Jonathan Holliday)
Emergency Medical Hologram
USS Galileo

Lt. JG Pola Ni Dhuinn
Assistant Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo

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