At the time I voted just now (“No”), the score was 33-29, yes. Contentious issue!
Janeway forcing Tuvix into that transporter was unconscionable, murderous, and entirely in keeping with Janeway’s personality.
Also… WON’T SOMEONE THINK ABOUT THE ORCHID?!
You milksops would fit right in with the hand-wringing Federation!!! It’s people like me in Section 31, or the Klingons… that let you sleep well, and eat well and spend hours on these pinheaded moral arguments. If it wern’t for me and the others who make the REAL tough decisions…the Borg or the Romulans would have overrun you all a long time ago.
So you sleep well with your holodecks and your replicated food and your precious Prime Directive (which BY THE WAY…you could have solved poverty in a heartbeat if you’d given the Kazon transporter technology. But nooooooo) Sleep. Hide behind your Prime Directive cause it keeps you from having to think deep thoughts and make tough decisions.
Meanwhile I’ll be out there getting my hands dirty and doing what I have to, to make sure soft-hearted people like you get to sleep in your own soft bed. And get to drink your replicated, bubbly root beer.
#Orchidlivesmatter
I didn’t see the episode but based on what I just read on Memory Alpha I’d say Janeway was wrong.
Tuvix was invited to join the crew, given a commissioned officers rank of Lieutenant and served with the Voyager for a month in that capacity. Under those circumstances Janeway also had a strong legal and ethical obligation to him.
The writers probably should have gone for a three-way split - copy Tuvix and separate out Nelix and Tuvok.
After all the turmoil and Janeway wanting to ‘kill’ him off they could easily have had him leave the crew and disembark on one of their never-ending supply of shuttlecraft at a friendly port.
They could always then bring the character back if they needed to at a later date. Either have him ride to the rescue with a critical piece of tech to save his friends in the crew (maybe sacrifice himself to save the Voyager) or come hunting for vengeance on Janeway after some mental instability from the transporter merge surfaces, makes him crazy and seek her out for trying to murder him.
I am honestly shocked the opinion is so split. I thought it was obvious she was committing genocide and there was no ethical excuse for it.
I agree with you exactly.
Did a damn good job of it too! Wiped out every single Vulaxian in the galaxy!
Ya gotta give her points for efficiency.
Query for those who see this as a killing: If you saw Fight Club:
Did the Narrator commit murder in eliminating Tyler Durden?
It’s an old movie, but I’ll put spoilers on, just in case. Anyone who hasn’t seen the movie should consider that there might be unspoilered information below.
I concede I either forgot or didn’t know he was granted a commission and served a month. That complicates things and was a stupid move. What is Starfleets deal with commissioning beings without granting full rights??? (See Data)
So it becomes for me more of a legal problem than so much a moral one.
And as Picard says…the real issue were dancing around is does Tuvix have a soul? If Tuvok is dead is his …whatever Vulcans called it…still in there??
Katra
I’m not convinced Tuvix is a meaningful entity.
What if the transporter accident caused Tuvok and Nelix to be joined Siamese-twin style, but with the same impact on their personalities. Would anyone still object to separating the two?
To me, Tuvok and Nelix suffered non-consentual trauma and because of the their condition after the trauma, still could not consent to their condition.
The disorder was harmful to Tuvok and Nelix.
Was the dis-assimilation of Locutus also a crime?
It was morally wrong. Tuvix was a living being who was the result of a terrible accident and she was asking him to die so others would live when he didn’t want to. But in her place I probably would have made the same choice she did. Tuvok was her friend; Neelix was her friend. They also, on a practical level, had skills the ship needed. I would hate myself but I would do it. I would make Tuvix sacrifice himself to bring them back.
Tuvix was no more a distinct living being than Bennifer or Brangelina. Separating Tuvok and Neelix was no more killing someone than Ben and Jennifer splitting up.
As least Tuvix didn’t inflict Gigli on the Delta Quadrant.
I voted yes. And in the thread I will say i HELL YES, she was wrong. It was murder, no less than it would have been murder if she’d shot Tom Paris in the face because she needed his liver to transplant into a dying Seven of Nine and his kidneys for Chakotay.
Janeway wanted her best friend back. She wanted her pseudodaughter Kes to have her boyfriend back. But Tuvix did not consent to this. She murdered him.
By that logic, the Viddians were justified in stealing organs. They would take the lungs, kidneys, and liver from a victim and distribute them to five or six of their people, saving half a dozen lives at the cost of one.
The needs of the many outweigh those of the one applies when the one consents. Otherwise it becomes the needs of the strong outweigh thoe of the weak, and that quickly degnerates to the DESIRES of the strong outweigh those of th weak.
Maybe you should the read the poll question a little more carefully…
Yes, she was right to do it. I don’t even care about the whole “Ship needs you” argument. Tuvix is not a normal person birthed through typical circumstances. He’s almost like a clone, and not even then not a separate person, but a fusing of 2 people together. Anyone who says its wrong to murder Tuvix should be equally confounded by the ethical dilemma of the deaths of Tuvok and Neelix, only their “deaths” are reversible. Allowing Tuvix to live means keeping Tuvok and Neelix dead, he might as well be piling rocks on their coffeins to prevent them from getting out.
Its silly to claim that due to no fault of the crew or acts of god, we must accept the current condition of Tuvix as unchageable. That simply because “its not our fault Tuvix was created!” absolves everyone else of the moral mistake of keeping Tuvix. No, fuck that. Tuvix’s creation doesn’t matter, what matters is there is a reversible solution. That an accident created Tuvix doesn’t mean morally anyone has to accept that circumstance. The more moral thing would be to fix that mistake, then if so inclined, try to recreate Tuvix without killing Tuvok and Neelix. The creation of Tuvix was a fixable mistake. Morally, we should be obligated to return the universe to its original status before moving towards any restoration of Tuvix.
The Prime Directive, I think, supports this. Inhabited planets are routinely ignored when their natural state, whether that be a sun going nova, a comet, or a self-created war, destroys them. However, if the Federation harms a planet through their action, they are obligated to fix it. Picard did this when the Enterprises’ research station was exposed to a primitive culture and they thought he was a god. Even Janeway did something similar when she destroyed the Caretaker array so that it cannot be used by the Kazon to destroy the Ocampa and take over the Delta Quadrant. She recognized the Caretaker Array represented the disturbance of the status quo. Even though she had to violate current status quo to do it, destroying it meant that the races could go back to developing as normal without the technology not native to them.
Though now that we’re on the subject, I don’t remember if Star Trek ever dealt with a situation where the conflict was the Federation preventing a race from getting advanced technology from elsewhere for the sole purpose of the Federation thinking they need to develop on their own.