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

3. The Holo Of (Holo-)Novelists

As Voyager edged its way closer to Earth, the Doctor decided to put holographic quill to paper. The result in Author, Author wasn't the literary opus of the century, but then neither was the decidedly "low brow" of a certain Thomas E. Paris. Author, Author was, in essence, Measure of a Man for holographic rights. That wasn't the episode's only inspiration.

Around the time of Star Trek: Voyager's seventh season, Robert Picardo had been approached to write his own Star Trek book, which became 'A Hologram's Handbook'.

"When Brannon Braga […] found out the Doctor was writing a book, he wrote an episode of the Doctor writing a book," Picardo told StarTrek.com in 2024. Author, Author was a writer's in-joke! Braga also provided the introduction for A Hologram's Handbook — a "fascinating insight into a beloved character" or "a hundred-page cry for help," as Braga called it, jokingly.

A Hologram's Handbook does tell us everything we could possibly want to know about the Doctor — from "Initial Activation" to "Anatomical Correctness" and "The Dreaded D's (Deactivation, Decompilation, Deletion)".