“Author, Author” is episode twenty of season seven of Star Trek: Voyager.
The Doctor is on the holodeck, working on a holonovel. That seems as if it will feature him as the primary character.
Three weeks ago, according to Captain Janeway, Voyager received instructions from Starfleet in the data stream. They are now ready to begin Operation Watson. Harry and Seven are already in astrometrics when the captain, Chakotay and Tuvok enter. They’ve managed, thanks to an idea from Barclay, to get live video from Earth and Barclay and Admiral Paris appear. Barclay also has a small gift for them; a live view of Earth from McKinley Station.
In the mess hall, Neelix has a hat full of isolinear chips, one for each member of the crew. Each entitles the bearer three minutes of comm time to the Alpha Quadrant, and are numbered. They’re talking about who they will call; the Doctor is calling someone and not Reg or Dr Zimmerman. The Doctor has the first trip; Harry asks if he can trade because he wants to call his mother before her birthday. The Doctor says his call is too important but Tom swaps.
The Doctor is talking to an Arden Broht about distribution of his holonovel; the Doctor wants time to make revisions. Broht apparently loves the story and finds the characters very real and compelling. The Doctor runs out of time; Seven believes his ego has had enough stroking for today.
The Doctor returns to sickbay, where Tom is, and says he was speaking to Arden Broht of Broht & Forrester, the publishers of the Dixon Hill novels, who are going to publish his holonovel. Tom congratulates him and wonders about getting his Captain Proton works published. The Doctor starts being dismissive, then backpedals. Tom wonders when they will see the novel. The Doctor doesn’t think it’s ready, bit Tom says it was ready enough for Broht & Forrester. The Doctor says Tom can try it; he’ll cover the rest of Tom’s shift.
On the holodeck, the hologram of the Doctor says the novel involves taking the part of the EMH of the starship Vortex, hurled thousands of lightyears across the galaxy by an anomaly, struggling to uphold medical standards against the crew’s bigotry and intolerance. Tom skips the remaining 9 minutes of the introduction.
Tom is now the EMH and is activated in sickbay. Someone who is clearly a version of Chakotay, called Katany, enters with a version of Tom, Lt. Marseilles, who has a mild concussion. Tom is going to treat the most injured first. The captain, Jenkins, enters and demands her helmsman back. Tom says he needs to operate on the man who will be dead in five minutes if he doesn’t. Jenkins shoots the patient.
Tom tells Harry, B’Elanna and Neelix in the mess hall. He didn’t know what to tell the Doctor, as the Doctor thinks he’s written a masterpiece. Harry is concerned people will believe it’s about them; B’Elanna doesn’t think people will believe it. Tom may not feel it will be taken literally, but people may wonder if there’s some truth behind it. He’s wondering about talking to the captain. B’Elanna suggests that perhaps he’s jealous. Tom says they should decide for herself.
B’Elanna goes first; Marseilles arrives as she’s treating a patient and tells her that a plasma conduit exploded in sickbay. She needs her mobile emitter. B’Elanna can’t see it; odd, because it’s the size of a backpack and too big to miss. Torrey is the engineer and is insulting and calls the EMH a tool. There also wasn’t an accident; Marseilles said there was to make out with the patient.
Neelix is next; he’s in Jenkins’ ready room. The captain has a wall of primitive firearms. She’s also not impressed with the inventory of the EMH’s holomatrix. He isn’t a person; he may be programmed to look and act human. She calls for Tulak to take the EMH to the hololab for reprogramming. Harry is next – his alternate is a hypochondriac – and Three of Eight tries to free him. She fails.
The final player is the captain, who gets to see the EMH’s program decompiled. The narrator Doctor says this is what it’s like for a hologram in a world controlled by organics. Captain Janeway wants to talk to the Doctor. She does not sound happy.
The Doctor claims that the story isn’t about Voyager‘s crew. No-one believes him; he used their physical parameters and it’s about a starship lost in the Delta Quadrant. They’re all rather hurt. It turns out the Doctor is thinking of the fate of the other Mark I’s as revealed in “Life Line”. Then matters turn to whether or not the Doctor is a real person; not from the crew’s standpoint, but back home. Oddly, the events of “The Measure of a Man” do not come up. And they’d certainly be relevant. Meanwhile, Seven gets to see the crew’s conversations with people back home.