Examining The EMH, Photonic Beings, & The Best Artificial Lifeforms

Hello and welcome to Future Imperfect. I'm your

host Admiral Phillips and joining me is Captain

Dodd. That's right. It is I, your captain, though

I'm not in charge of this boat as I'm just, well,

I'm the second in command here. And that's, you

know what? I'm kind of okay with that. So last

time on Future Imperfect, we had a chance to

talk about the ships of Starfleet talking about

their designs and also kind of touching on some

of the designs that may be coming up in the future.

of actual space travel, who's to say we won't

get our own NX series at some point. But we kind

of venture away from the technology of Starfleet.

Well, not directly. We're actually talking about

a piece of technology who also happens to be

one of my favorite characters on the show. We're

going to be talking about the EMH Mark 1, aka

Bob, or no, Joe, I think it was. Joe, the doctor.

Joe. The Doctor from Star Trek Voyager but also

has made appearances in DS9 and also First Contact

First Contact and also cameo appearance in Star

Trek Renegades as Dr. Louis Zimmerman So Robert

Picardo is one of the character actors who has

a rather prolific career in Hollywood. He's been

on China Beach. He's been on the Wonder Years.

He's done stuff on CSI. I think he was on Smallville.

He also did bits. He was Commander Woolsey on

Stargate and Stargate Atlantis, which I haven't

gotten to his character to check because I'm

going through Stargate sequentially right now.

Well, now he's actually a board member on the

Planetary Society. Mm -hmm. So what does that

entail exactly? It's it's basically It has to

do with And I'm not like a hundred percent sure

but it has to do with like space exploration

and and kind of the great beyond and Various

things going on with NASA and with with new scientists

and it's all stuff surrounding space Bill Nye

is like the chairman of it Which is kind of interesting

and so, you know, they've they've got a lot of

interviews with people with their doctorates

and Basically talking about like, you know possibilities

in spacecraft and and you know new satellites

and and just a lot of things surrounding space

mm -hmm, and he's he's kind of the one of the

the voices and one of the the guys that's doing

like the newsletter and he's doing some of the

video interviews and so a lot of it is him kind

of diving in there using his experience and stuff

with Star Trek and beyond kind of in the process.

Which I gotta say Robert Picardo certainly is

a guy who wears many hats he's Obviously been

an actor for quite some time. He's quite the

accomplished musician Especially when it comes

to his singing that actually is him from what

I can tell on the episodes of Star Trek He's

sung opera before he's done the Star Trek the

music tour with John Delancey Where he would

narrate parts of Star Trek's history stuff like

that was I think is rather interesting Always

been a big fan of Robert Picardo's voice. I've

actually interviewed him before on a future imperfect

actually During that interview if you go back

and listen to you can actually hear Bill Nye

come into the house during the interview and

you hear Robert go, oh hey Bill and I'm so hesitant

to call him Bob Picardo, because I feel like

that's what his friends call him. But Bob's like,

oh, Mike, hold on, Bill and I just walked in.

And I was like, holy shit, really? That's so

cool. So I kind of fanboyed out there for like

30 seconds. But so the EMH character is yet another

artificial life form in the proud tradition of

Lieutenant Commander Data. But you also see other

characters in Star Trek like Professor Moriarty

multiple holodeck characters like Vic Fontaine

and just other People that typically become character

of the week or monster of the week if you will

there have been entire races of photonic beings

I know there was an episode of Star Trek Voyager

called Bride of Chaotica or there was an entire

photonic realm and they assumed the doctor was

another photonic being like them as He was the

president of Earth so to speak stuff like that

and the EMH began life as a new piece of Star

of Starfleet technology that was being installed

upon most new Federation ships such as the new

Intrepid class and Voyager and the Sovereign

class and the Mark 1 was notable for its not

very nice bedside manner which is based upon

Lewis Zimmerman's personality and eventually

they were relegated to mining dilithium because

it was deemed too dangerous and they were considered

inferior, like their programs that freak out

and everything like that. But over the course

of Voyager seven years towards home, you eventually

saw the EMH to develop a personality, to develop

friendships, complex relationships, and even

Start to develop romantic and emotional feelings

or certain members of the Voyager crew most notably

people like seven of nine You saw the mentorship

he had with Kes stuff like that Difficult to

quantify his relationship with Tom Paris But

you can say he was friends with everybody on

the command staff in some capacity But you'd

see him spend a lot of his social time with 7

of 9, stuff like that. One of the interesting

things is that the EMH Mark 1, there have been

multiple versions of the EMH according to Zimmerman,

and the Mark 2 actually gets to work with Joe

here. In a particular episode of voyage or where

they're trying to to release a Starfleet vessel

from Romulan control Which that mark two is played

by Andy dick in a fantastically coherent Performance

which I kind of thought how they thought Andy

dick is what Starfleet's future looks like um,

but it took the doctor to Kind of be like snap

out of this. I've kind of done stuff like this

before Yeah, which which is kind of neat. That's

also the first time we see the Prometheus class

In in Star Trek. That's also one of the ships

we talked about last week here on the show I

think that episode was called message in a bottle.

I think I think so But yeah, you would see The

EMH sort of grow because as the Star Trek writers

Tried to figure out Okay, so we have this character

What can we do with them and eventually and I

think the third season it gets his mobile emitter

He gets it from the 29th century, though. He

gets it in 1999 So of course time travel because

why not it's Star Trek Yeah, it was it was awesome

when when he got that in Future Zen part 2 the

the guy from from was it 96 Henry Starling? Installing

the emitter that he got from the Aion time ship.

I'm trying to remember the name of the actor

Ed Bigley jr. That's it I always remember him

because there's this great bit on the Simpsons

where he had a motorcycle powered by his own

sense of self -satisfaction Which I always thought

that was a really clever gag um but the EMH would

Become a person over the course of these seven

years and you really start to see him start to

take an interest in his personal development

there's an episode where he Creates his own holographic

family and then Balaana starts to twerk with

the program Not twerk tweak grab not twerk. I

knew I had the right program and the doctor was

astounded Yeah, she just shook her ass. It was

amazing and the program started to behave rather

than this idea like leave it the beaver 1950s

style family it was like oh yes dear in the very

new nuclear family problem started to show up

the son would be disobedient the daughter would

be kind of a brat the wife would be I am my own

woman. I'm going to go do my own thing." And

he was kind of left there thinking, well, guys,

this is supposed to be my fantasy. And they're

like, no, families are not fantasy. Families

are work. And if you want them to work, good

things and bad things will happen. And a great

part of that episode is where it sucks to say,

but his little girl dies. She gets a head injury

playing Parisi Square. And the doctor has to

calm her down as she can not be saved. The medical

science is not advanced enough. He can't save

her. And she's scared to die. And he has to guide

her into that process. There's another episode

called Latent Image, where the doctor's memory

has been changed, where he has to choose between

saving two different crew members, Ensign Jatal

and Ensign Harry Kim. And he chooses to save

his friend. And it literally drives him nuts

with guilt. to the point where his program starts

ending up in this feedback loop and he starts

just going nuts. And you start to see him wrestle

with real emotions like remorse, guilt, survivor's

guilt is one of the great things you see. And

Robert Picardo. doesn't get enough credit as

an actor, though he was nominated for an Emmy

for his work on The Wonder Years, I think he

should have been nominated for some of the stuff

he did in Voyager. Oh yeah. Like there's some

great moments in Someone to Watch Over Me, where

he's teaching Seven of Nine to be human, which

is I think a great kind of parallel. like the

machine teaching the other machine how to act

like a person or how to be a person and you can

tell he's falling in love with her and she says

something along the lines I find no suitable

mates on this ship and he very respectfully respects

those wishes and says oh well okay and backs

away doesn't try to change her mind doesn't keep

trying to pressure her or anything just politely

accepts it And that's a great teachable moment.

I actually watched this video today that was

talking about romantic tropes. And you'd be surprised

how many times the, you know, that's a different

discussion for a different day. We can talk about

sexuality and masculinity and toxic masculinity

in Star Trek an entire episode. But I'm not the

guy to talk about that. I don't write those essays.

I'm not that smart. But anyway, no, there's just

that's a really great moment in just how human

the doctor has become Where he respects her boundaries

like that, but the fact that you can see he's

pained for it He's like I really love her but

I can't do a thing about it Well, and it's like

it's just like when he has has word that Zimmerman

is dying Yeah, he wants to go save his quote

-unquote dad Yeah, he wants to go save him. And

he's like, I just want you to be proud of me.

I'm your hologram. And I've been running concurrently

for seven years. And it was never meant to run

for more than $1 ,500. And Zimmerman's like,

you're just an old antique. You're a piece of

junk. I'm going to send you to the mining colony.

And then comes to figure out that this Mark I

was not only able to save Zimmerman, but Zimmerman

was able to save the Mark 1 with some enhancements.

Yeah, like there's some really cool moments with

the Mark 1 where you really, once again, you

get to see these moments where he develops these

fantastic new surgeries where he basically cures

the phage from the Vidians in like the first

two seasons of Voyager. They're supposed to be

the big baddies. You only ever see them show

up a few times. But still, you get to see them

do that. You see them perform a surgery with

seven of nine's nano probes, which brings Neelix

back from the dead. And another episode, he develops

holographic lungs. Well, and then there's another

episode entirely where where Paris goes. Warp

10 into Transwarp and turns into some kind of

a lizard thing and Janeway turns into one too

and he somehow reverse engineers them back into

humans. You know what, the less we talk about

that that episode the better. I was so confused.

I remember that as a kid like or as a young adult

and then and then watching it again recently

just because I wanted to see. you know and there

was no explanation the doctor just fixed them

and so that just says that the emh is awesome

i know there was there was a meme going around

where somebody submitted a paper to a scientific

journal based upon that episode and it actually

got accepted I can't remember the details, but

look that up if you know what I'm talking about.

And there was a poll recently on StarTrek .com

saying which doctor would you trust the most

with your well -being. At the low end of the

totem pole was Dr. Culver from Star Trek Discovery.

We really didn't get to see him much. Yeah, he

really didn't do a lot. And so nobody really

knew much about him other than the fact that

he died and he was the most intelligent one on

the ship. Got he had really good bedside manner.

I guess if you had to give him anything. Yeah

He was a bone on par with like dr. Crusher I

think dr. Crusher came in third Dr. Flocks was

down near the bottom as well the sheer below

I don't think he was actually on that I I know

it was the emh be sheer or the emh crusher McCoy

full boy flocks and Kober. Yeah, I don't think

Bashir was on that list at all. Which is travesty.

Yeah, because the EMH came in at 36%. I thought

the EMH won and then McCoy was second. I think

so, yeah, but I know the EMH definitely won that

poll for sure, which is a testament to how powerful

a piece of technology he really is. I was watching

another episode tonight where The episode was

called living witness where he has to basically

prove he's not a war criminal and this entire

species war Has not been caused by Voyager and

it's him basically fighting for his life But

he also makes a moment of self -sacrifice where

he says look if you delete me Then your person

still stays a martyr. I don't have to undo 700

years of history it's the right thing to do then

the person who was with him was like, no, no,

no, you can't do that. You need to set the record

straight. I'm like, yeah, but not at the expense

of your planet's history. And then it's revealed

just a few moments later that this is indeed

a flashback even further that this EMH actually

did help set the record straight with his testimony,

setting the table. for these two species to start

getting along, and eventually this EMH left this

planet looking for Voyager's way home, almost

a thousand years later, but he did it. Which

is, I think, kind of cool. So there's another

EMH heading towards the Alpha Quadrant. Very,

very slowly, but still. Which is a bit insane.

Which is a bit nuts because you have to wonder,

is Starfleet even still around? at that point,

which I guess the board didn't overrun the Delta

quadrant if this planet survived. Well, if you're

going by Star Trek Online timetable, they're

all still around. Yeah. But no, one of the interesting

things is that he was, yes, we had the holodeck,

yes, we had holographic people, but we didn't

have actually useful... fully cognitive sentient

versions of holographic technology. And with

this doctor, this particular version, he evolved

beyond his original programming, just like data

in that sense, although he was more, I would

argue more human than data was even towards the

end. Yeah, I would totally argue because data

was limited by hardware. The doctor software

was in theory only limited by memory capacity.

So His program could be rewritten and expanded

almost infinitely, I guess. Depending on how

much stuff he could shove into his memory buffers

or whatever the hell they called it. Especially

with the mobile emitter. Yeah, exactly. He had

more chances to be upgraded as opposed to data

he's built. That's it. Sure, he could probably

modify himself, but there's probably an upper

limit to that. Well, the interesting thing is,

and this is from the Star Trek Online information,

is that in the timeline of that, the Doctor filed

a lawsuit against Starfleet to retain control

of his mobile emitter, leading to a movement

lobbying to establish civil rights for sentient

artificial light forms, including holographic

photonic projections and androids. So like the

Soong Foundation develops a mobile emitter for

civilian use and photonic life forms equipped

with mobile emitters serve on away teams alongside

biological beings. The players can obtain these

in the game, which is kind of cool. I myself

have a photonic engineer. That's cool. On my

crew. And you cannot make him look like the EMH.

You can actually pick him up and is one of your

duty officers in the game by playing a mission

in the Delta Quadrant. So like if somebody uses

hypospray, you have the chance that the doctor

will beam down and start healing your crew. That's

cool. That's really cool. And the nice thing

is, is when you're when you're on an away team

and your photonic engineer or I mean, you can

get a science officer too, which is ungodly expensive

in the game. And then the tactical you have to

The only way you can get it is by Lobby Crystal,

which is stupid, ridiculously expensive. The

Engineer is the only one I can get in -game for

the most part, but it has a mobile emitter, so

when he's out of HP, the mobile emitter is on

the ground wherever he fell, and it's sending

off a shockwave signal so that it flags you to

go resurrect him. But he's immune to... Anything

the Borg really dish out which is kind of cool

That's really neat actually so it's it's it's

definitely something really cool with Continuing

through Star Trek online and getting some of

this Some of those type of characters, but I

love how the EMH Due to his story that he kind

of crafted of the ECH, you know, designing a

backup captain protocol. I love how he was able

to possess the information from all the major

Starfleet strategic and tactical databases to

where he could plan for controlling the ship

and have basic engineering skills to assess damage

and to interact with the computer and any console

and just kind of take command should the captain

be incapacitated. Yeah, it's well once again

showing Starfleet's Technological forward thinking

but also the doctor evolving as a person as a

program Yeah, I mean, I think it's neat just

having access to all that information although

He could use a little work on his personality

when he's using the ECH protocols because he's

like, yeah, I'll kick your ass stuff like that

he's a little shaky but that's his personality

i'm sure that could be ironed out over time um

with i guess a bravery sub routine or all he

needs to do is download himself some some picard

some cisco some kirk and some janeway and then

he's good Exactly, once again, once he gets the

bugs ironed out out of his ECH protocol, he'd

be all ready to rock and roll. But yeah, I mean,

there's so many things the Doctor accomplished,

and he wasn't the only holographic, once again,

character on the show. Like I said, we did see

the Mark II. You saw Vic Fontaine on DS9, who

was like this Vegas lounge singer, and I'd argue

he was bordering on sentience. Yeah, because

he answered a lot of stuff for Quark and everybody

else that went in there with a problem. Yeah,

I mean, he was probably a proto -doctor, so to

speak, like his program. I would almost say he

was like their psychiatrist. Yeah, kind of like

their counselor, Troy, but mixed with Dr. McCoy,

in a sense. Yeah, I mean, there's so many questions

there. Like, was Vic truly self -aware? the Doctor?

Did he have that sense of self -determination?

Would he improve his program if given the chance?

And I guess DS9 didn't really delve into these

questions too much because they were focused

on the other characters and the Dominion War.

But you have to kind of wonder, with Starfleet's

holodeck technology, what were the upper limits

of it? Because we saw with the Enterprise -D

and the Galaxy Class Starship, Professor Moriarty

became sentient. and they said you can live in

the holo computers for as long as you want. However,

that being said, the longer a hologram runs,

it degrades over time. So that's why the EMH

was only designed to run 1500 hours. So is Professor

Moriarty trapped in a holodeck program that's

slowly corroding around him or what? I think

he went down with the ship in generations. So

yeah, I mean, that's another crew member lost

or not crew member, but another person lost on

the enterprise, which I think that's kind of

fascinating to think about with enough technological

know how you can literally create life. I mean,

you saw the doctor become a holographic author.

He's literally creating life in there when you

really think about it. So it poses ethical questions

as well. It makes you wonder if if some of the

characters couldn't be replicated at some point

like they were to have like a brain dump into

a hologram and and essentially live forever because

remember Barkley from TNG who came over to Voyager

made himself a copy onto like just a partial

copy of what he needed to essentially help Voyager

and made sent his program. to Voyager to be a

holographic version of himself. Although it was

corrupted by the Ferengi, it was still a Barclay.

Yeah, it was based upon his kind of... his brainwaves,

his thought patterns, stuff like that. So I'd

like to know more about how holographic programming

works, how you create these things, if you can

base them off of real people by using real biological

data, because that brings in another question,

which kind of going off topic here, but we've

talked about this before on This Week in Geek,

we've talked about virtual. immortality and brain

taping, how much memory does the human brain

actually take up? Can you copy data like that?

If you could, could your consciousness quote

unquote live on as a hologram? Does that hologram

have rights? And as you just mentioned a few

minutes ago, the doctor and other artificial

life forms petitioned or sued Starfleet into

basically giving them rights. which is, once

again, you look at the episode of TNG measure

of a man, is data alive or not? Stuff like that.

And - See, I would almost argue that they're

all alive to some capacity because he outlived

his programming and even the Mark II, I would

argue. Once, I mean, to me, I've always viewed

- artificial life, when it can realize and be

fearful of its own demise, or once it says the

phrase, I think therefore I am, when it says

the phrase I, it is no longer just simply a tool,

it has become something else entirely. And the

doctor has definitely proven that by adding daydreaming

routines, by adding singing. artistic expression,

the fact that he has fallen in love and felt

loss. It's not just emotion where data was literally

emotion contained on a piece of hardware. This

is a piece of every evolving software. And I

think that's where the doctor is in essence.

I really do believe and I will fight me on this

one. I think the doctor is a better character

than data. Yeah, I I would argue that as well.

I I enjoy his character and while I do enjoy

data I find the doctor even though his bedside

manner sucks. He's he's still He's still just

a member of the crew but he's also a lot more

than that and willing to put himself into into

predicaments and and That he doesn't necessarily

need to do and the fact that when he got the

mobile emitter he was a lot more involved with

away missions. He was a lot more involved with

just random things around the ship. I mean, he

was a lot more mobile and it was just a lot better

storytelling with his character. Well, to even

expand upon that, to kind of bring in actors

into this, I think Robert Picardo is a better

actor than Brent Spiner because I think you saw

a lot more range of emotion. and I know to say

Data has emotion, I mean, there's certain things

as an actor, and I know Data's soon to type Android

is programmed to feign emotion or to act as human

as it can, but you know, he is a man portraying

a robot at the end of the day. Whereas Robert

Picardo, portraying this being learning how to

be human has a little bit more leeway. And there

were genuine moments during the original watch

of the series, especially where where he loses

his, his, his daughter, or where seven breaks

his heart. Those were moments that tugs at the

heartstrings genuinely. The only moment I can

think of with data is where he lost his daughter

lol. and maybe one or two other moments, especially

where Lore tells Data that he loves him. Maybe

that, but I'd argue there were more Picardo moments

than Brent Spiner moments. And they both had

seven seasons. So you can't tell me one had more

time over the other. In fact, I'm pretty sure

Voyager only had 15 episodes in its first season.

So I'm pretty sure TNG ran the full 24, but I'm

not a hundred percent sure of that. So don't

quote me on that so I think Just the strength

of personality the strength of personal charisma

from Robert Picardo Let's a lot more to the role

of the the doctor. In fact, I will even go on

record I think he's in the top three characters

of Star Trek of all time. I Really believe that

I think Avery Brooks as Benjamin Sisko, Patrick

Stewart, Robert Picardo. Trying to think who

else really had a powerful role. I think Jerry

Ryan, despite her supposedly acting emotionless

as Borg, has some genuine moments too. There's

one episode where the doctor takes over Seven's

body. And Jerry Ryan has to take on Robert Picardo's

mannerisms and everything else. And you see her

having some wonderful fun with it. It's hilarious

watching her get drunk. Yeah. I was going to

mention that one when they had the Delta Flyer

and they were trying out the quantum slipstream

drive. Yeah. I mean, there's moments like that

where you really see the character. Shine and

through other people it shines as well There's

even another episode where the doctor's body

is taken over by the sentient warhead like this

missile that thinks it's on a mission to go destroy

this planet but it turns out these people are

long dead the missions been cancelled and Robert

Picardo has to play this Completely different

character, but inhabiting the same skin and that's

something you saw Brent Spiner play lore and

data. You might see him have a little bit of

fun with data here and there, but not to the

same range as you see with Picardo. Picardo was

a lot funnier, I think. Data played it a lot

more straight at times. Well, and I don't fault

Spiner or Data for that just because that's how

their characters were written. However, I will

say that Picardo had the ability to show his

range with his character, whereas Spiner did

not. And Picardo I kind of saw as like this generation's

Dr. McCoy. Yeah, kind of rough sarcastic and

and able to get the job done no matter what and

figure out a Whatever the problem is but you

know, he's gonna give you some lip for it at

the same time I think the thing I like about

the doctor is He may not be the easiest person

to be your friend But he'll be the person that

will never hold back the truth from you because

he is that Doctor he's in a position of authority

But he also understands people. Which I almost

wonder if that's the same thing as what happened

if he got that mannerism from McCoy. Because

McCoy was still alive that we knew of in the

24th century. Yeah. Yeah, and that's maybe something

that they wrote into the character. Because not

only did the doctor have to fulfill medical rules,

he would have to fulfill counseling as well.

Cuz that's something that only was ever addressed

on Star Trek TNG was a full -time ships counselor

You didn't hear that about DS 9 you didn't outside

of Vic Fontaine. You didn't hear that on Voyager

the doctor may prescribe you like hey, you're

having a hard time Here's some Zoloft. I believe

Esri Dax was the replacement for Jedzia was a

counselor Okay, so I'm not super familiar with

a lot of DS 9 people. So forgive me there It's

she shows up late the last season or two like

literally like just as the replacement so But

yeah, it's It's not really in in a Voyager The

funny thing is is for the counselor I for for

Barclay Troy made multiple appearances Yeah,

which I'm really glad they got Marina sear it's

back to actually do that so And they also had

Jonathan Franks in an episode earlier on when

Q was in the episode yep, so like what's what's

funny is Jonathan Franks and John Delancey were

the only well not even John Delancey John Delancey

was in three Trek series Jonathan Franks was

in four and and Marina service was in three as

well if you count the crappy ending to enterprise,

but But yeah, it's it's in Picardo he's he's

only in this and in technically TNG if you count

first contact so I mean there's I love it when

there's like a lot of crossover between Trek

characters But I I thought it was kind of funny

when they hit his character show up on first

contact when the Borg were coming in sickbay

Yeah, see it's little moments like that and even

still had Bob's trademark wit and sarcasm and

just it worked and you could tell that was an

earlier version of the EMH to Yeah, just one

with the the current uniforms Yeah, it's it's

little things like that that I think are nice

little touches to the universe So what more can

be said about the doctor that we haven't said

over the course of the last half hour or so?

fantastically written character a unique character

And according to Star Trek, online has started

a civil rights movement in the Star Trek universe.

And I'm glad a character like Joe can literally

be blazing a trail through the new Star Trek

universe to establish new rights and new civil

responsibilities for an entirely new race of

people, be it artificial beings like Data and

other robots, androids, or cyborgs, etc. to photonic

beings like the Doctor Mark 1, Mark 2, and Joe

himself as a unique individual. One of the interesting

things too, another thing with Star Trek Online

is they had, and I'm not sure where this is in

the game, I can't remember right now, but it

says that New versions of the EMH, the Mark VI,

serving aboard the USS Kitimer, resembled a Vulcan

with silver hair. The EMH in dialogue released

on YouTube, but not included in the game, claims

to have a personality matrix that combines qualities

of more than 20 physicians, scientists, and counselors,

including Beverly Crusher, Admiral Spock, or

Ambassador Spock, somebody from Andoria, and

was voiced by Zachary Quinto. And so Star Trek

Online has a lot of the photonic characters between

medical holograms, engineering holograms, security

holograms, duty officers. They load you up with

duty officers. You can get tactical and science.

It's crazy. And you get almost free range to

design them, so I like turning them into the

original series characters. Just out of fun.

I've tried to make the Robert Picardo version.

It doesn't play out very well because they purposely

don't give you the keys to the kingdom there.

Because I would love nothing more than to design

them like that. But yeah, I think that the EMH

or the fraternic characters are probably the

most fun and the most interesting characters

in track in the sense that they're a program,

but they've gone so far beyond it and they aren't

out to kill you. Exactly. So, I guess that's

pretty much going to do it for this episode of

Future Imperfect. What do we want to talk about

next week, Steve? Not really sure. Maybe we'll

just kind of see what pops up over the next week

and maybe we'll have some listener suggestions

which they can send to feedback at USSfutureimperfect

.com. And we definitely look forward to hearing

from you, so I guess with your future and permit

we have been... Steve... Migratron Phillips?

I've been Mike the Birdman Dodd saying live long

and prosper. And please state the nature of the

medical emergency.