Star Trek: Starfleet Academy: Sam's New Memories Explained
In the "Star Trek: Starfleet Academy" episode "The Life of the Stars," the holographic cadet Sam (Kerrice Brooks) had to return to her home planet of Kasq for a mental reprogramming. She had recently witnessed a horrible attack that involved the death of a friend, and her holographic brain, created only a few months earlier, couldn't handle the stress. Sam's Kasqian programmers and the Doctor (Robert Picardo) agree that the best way to overhaul Sam's brain is to give her the tools she needs to process trauma; that is: a 17-year childhood. They "reboot" Sam as a baby, and the Doctor (also a hologram) agrees to raise her from infancy through her teen years. Luckily, Sam and the Doctor are both holograms, so this process only takes a few weeks.
In the following episode, "300th Night," Sam returns to Starfleet Academy with two sets of memories. She still remembers her first few months of life at the Academy, where she developed her childlike and ultra-positive personality, but now she also remembers 17 years of simulated childhood that she experienced on Kasq.
In "300th Night," Sam has definitely changed. She suddenly found herself completely embarrassed by her first months of life, the way a human might feel embarrassed by the silly or foolish things they did and said as a small child. She doesn't like her old self, and her friend Caleb (Sandro Rosta) has to reassure her that she was cool, funny, and helpful, and that she has nothing to be embarrassed about. Still, Sam is suddenly infused with a healthy dose of adolescent ennui. When someone later points out that she's doing something that is out of character, Sam bitterly responds with a "you don't know me" accusation. Finally, Sam is a teenager.
Sam was recently given a whole new childhood
Early in "300th Night," Sam talks about how she now has experiences being six years old, and that life at that age is all about playing games. This insight allows Sam to help Caleb decipher a message from his long-lost mother (Tatiana Maslany). Sam has little to do for the rest of the episode, as the story involves the fate of Caleb and the rescue of his mom, but she does reveal small pieces of her updated character. When Caleb finally meets his Federation-hating mother, he angrily tells off his Academy classmates, falling back into the lessons his mom taught him. Sam still gives him a hug, knowing he doesn't really mean it, even if he is being cruel. That's the original Sam coming through.
When she and her fellow cadets find themselves back on the U.S.S. Athena (voiced by Brit Marling), she rushes into the arms of the Doctor, giving him a big hug. Because the Doctor raised her back on Kasq, he is now essentially her father. Sadly, there is too much action and mayhem in "300th Night" for either Sam or the Doctor to further explore the true nature of their new parent/child relationship. Does Sam appreciate her new upbringing? Or was the Doctor a bad parent from time to time? Sam hugged the Doctor in a crisis, but what if that was a rare moment between a father and a child who had grown apart in the last few (artificial) years?
These questions will linger over the remainder of "Starfleet Academy," of course, and one might hope that a future episode will address them more directly. Needless to say, a lot of drama can now be mined from the fact that Sam is now a new person.