Star Trek: 10 Things You Didn't Know About The Doctor

2. Book Of Rights

"It's quite provocative," said one reprogrammed EMH to another on the Federation Dilithium Processing Facility at the end of Author, Author. As the Federation arbitrator had noted, "the issue of holographic rights isn't going to go away". For the time being in canon, however, it mostly has.

When the Doctor stepped out of the shuttle in Star Trek: Prodigy's Into The Breach, Part I, about six years had passed since Voyager's return to Earth. Now Chief Medical Officer aboard the Voyager-A, the Doctor was outwardly treated as equal to those made of flesh and blood. To a large extent, so was Holo-Janeway.

Beta canon has provided more detail about holographic rights over the years, starting with the 'Voyager relaunch' novels, set directly after Endgame. In the first two of the series — Christie Golden's Homecoming and The Farther Shore — the Doctor inspires, somewhat in spite of himself, a "HoloRevolution," led by the non-holographic Oliver Baines.

In the standalone novel Articles of the Federation, the Doctor was made a citizen of the Federation upon Voyager's return in 2378. The Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway, as edited by Dr Una McCormack, goes one step further, noting that, once the Doctor was home, he was granted personhood and "promptly resigned from Starfleet" to champion the cause of photonic rights.