The hologram of Gwyndala was created as a holo-duplicate by Jankom Pog, Zero, and Rok-Tahk in order to trick the crew of the USS Voyager-A. A glitch caused her to take on the personality and voice of Murf and vice versa.
History[]
In order to escape from the Voyager-A undetected, Jankom Pog, Zero, and Rok-Tahk created sentient holo-duplicates of the USS Protostar crew, giving them the ability to interact with physical matter and the personality of their real selves. This was inspired by the plot of The Doctor's holonovel. However, while the programs were fully integrating, a great deal of confusion occurred as the holo-duplicates came to believe that they were the real crew and the others were the duplicates. As a result, the holograms attempted to undertake the mission themselves, which would have failed as they were limited to Voyager. After the two sets of crew battled each other across the ship, the two Roks came up with a solution in which they would overload the ship's holomatrix, resetting the holo-duplicates to the holodeck with no memories of the mission. However, while this was successful, the holo-duplicates ended up glitching, with Dal taking on the voice and personality of Zero, Rok-Takh the personality of Jankom Pog, Jankom the personality of Rok, Gwyndala the personality of Murf, and Zero the voice and personality of Dal R'El. (PRO: "Imposter Syndrome")
The holo-duplicates continued their imperfect impersonation of the originals, which was eventually noticed by Maj'el, particularly after Hologram Gwyn vanished. (PRO: "The Fast and the Curious")
Maj'el brought the matter up to Vice Admiral Kathryn Janeway, Commander Tysess, and The Doctor, demonstrating using a game of Parrises squares. After Hologram Dal mentioned being a fan of The Doctor's holonovel, the three finally pieced together what had happened and Janeway deactivated the duplicates, aside from Gwyn, who had vanished two days before. By this time, a week had passed since the departure of the originals on the Infinity.
The Doctor was later able to find and reconstructed Hologram Gwyn with her correct personality restored. The Doctor also found a gap of roughly eight minutes missing in the ship's logs right before Gwyn's program went off-line. Janeway and Tysess told Hologram Gwyn that they knew that she was a hologram and that the originals had taken the Infinity and she explained that the originals had received a secret message that they believed to have come from Captain Chakotay. The Doctor asked about her disappearance and Hologram Gwyn, becoming increasingly agitated, remembered hearing awful noises and being unable to move like time had stopped and that they were there to take her. Hologram Gwyn desperately begged Janeway to make it stop as she was consumed in the traumatic memory of what had happened to her. The Doctor deactivated Hologram Gwyn and Maj'el surmised that she had been lost in a terrible memory. Janeway became concerned that if they didn't find the originals first, they might lose more than just eight minutes. (PRO: "Is There in Beauty No Truth?")
The Doctor and Councilor Noum's investigation found the sound of an unknown entity in the background right before Hologram Gwyn went off-line and the crew lost eight minutes. The Doctor and Noum concluded that the entity had manipulated time in order to enter Voyager undetected specifically targeting Gwyn. However, the entity was as fooled by the holo-duplicate as the rest of the crew. (PRO: "The Devourer of All Things, Part I")