Riker, a murderer?

[Ithekro]

It is probably the difference in how things were seen when it was written verses later when the DS9 episode was written. Clones were a touchy subject in the 1980s, but the opinion on them changed in the 1990s. In the 80s I seem to recall that clones and cloning were a bad thing. In the 90s is was more accepted.

 

[T'Girl]

IIt's really similar to the abortion debate. Is somebody a person just because they have a living body with human DNA, or do they need the complex processes of the human brain that define identity and consciousness?

So someone in a coma after a automobile accident is at the same level as a Human Being in a "growth chamber," not fully conscious and therefor not fully Human?

>

 

[Mojochi]

For all we know it was just a Riker shaped sack of meat. If Riker was a hell bent murderer of clones, then I'd be worried as shit if I were Tom Riker, now wouldn't I?

It looks like a heap of sculpted jello.

 

[Lance]

For all we know it was just a Riker shaped sack of meat.

In other words: Commander Riker.

I guess you're right though, ultimately it's debatable how far the clones have progressed. At this stage they might not exactly be living beings yet. How do we tell, though? Cognitive function? It seems like a reasonable barometer.

 

[Kobayshi Maru]

Thinking about this some, I wonder how different killing these clones is from abortion?

If the clones were not developed enough to live on their own outside of the growth chambers would killing them be any different than performing an abortion on a fetus not able to survive outside the womb? And we can infer abortion is still considered an option in the 24c from season 2's first episode, "The Child" where abortion is considered for the child in Deanna with unknown origins.

So, really, Riker performed abortions on two developing beings that were unethically generated.

I think you're wrong. It's not equivalent to abortion; it's more like a sperm donor who would kill his child inside a woman's womb because he didn't like the idea of THAT woman carrying his child. That sperm donor would be charged with murder and so should Riker.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ But Riker was not a willing donor. That's the difference.

 

[Kobayshi Maru]

For all we know it was just a Riker shaped sack of meat.

In other words: Commander Riker.

I guess you're right though, ultimately it's debatable how far the clones have progressed. At this stage they might not exactly be living beings yet. How do we tell, though? Cognitive function? It seems like a reasonable barometer.

The thing is though that Riker didn't think one sec. about how far advanced these clones were, for all he knew. They could have been minutes away from sentience. After all, in the ST universe, stranger things have happened. He just murdered them, like the thoughtless brute he is.

I never understood, time squared, nor what Picard based his murdering of his duplicate on. Given how rough his knowledge of alternate time lines seemed to be, he could as well have killed himself in the process and disappeared from existence. That seemed like a really dumb and should I say, savage thing to do. You simply don't tamper with a process you know nothing about, especially by murdering instances of yourself unless there is something wrong with you. Pulaski thought that he was crazy at the time, remember?

 

[Kobayshi Maru]

^ But Riker was not a willing donor. That's the difference.

That makes no difference vis a vis the murder charges.
His willignness has nothing to do with the clones right to live.

This scene is just disgusting.

Besides, many people especially male, have children without their consent or sometimes even knowledge for that matter.

The law doesn't give them the right to kill these children.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Actually, they do, a lot. Sometimes they phaser down people they think shouldn't exist - in disgust in "Up the Long Ladder", out of mercy in "The Vengeance Factor". More often, they condemn people, communities or cultures to death simply because they find them too alien.

In the Vengeance Factor she is killed because she was about to murder somebody and Riker tried to stun her first. It had nothing to do with mercy.

Name one time they doomed a culture to death just by finding them 'Too alien', besides the times they cite the prime directive as a reason not to intervene?

Supposedly, that is their mandate: to make the universe conform to the human ways (and this means the 22nd, 23rd and 24th century human ways, respectively, these only occasionally touching upon ours), at least when fellow humans or suitably similar people or peoples are involved.

Surrender now, Eddington!

There is an element of expecting the universe to conform to human values. Those values being respect for life, freedom, and cultural pluralism. Not some weird existential imperative of 'Clones must be destroyed'. A clone is not a copy of you, a clone is a new person with the same DNA.

And of course at the same time consistent with what humans have always been doing, redefining their rights and wrongs chiefly for the purpose of exerting power over others.

That's what politicians do, I somehow doubt John Locke and J.S. Mill ever had the intention of exerting power over others.

I'll never understand why the people on this board feel the need to apply modern cynicism to a show with a utopian premise. That's just completely missing the point of the show.

 

[Ghrakh]

So someone in a coma after a automobile accident is at the same level as a Human Being in a "growth chamber," not fully conscious and therefor not fully Human?

The person in a coma was a conscious individual before and is in a coma because of an accident. The same cannot be said for a mass of tissue in a growth chamber.

Besides, many people especially male, have children without their consent or sometimes even knowledge for that matter.

Many people, especially female, become impregnated without their consent due to rape.

 

[T'Girl]

Which was hardly the fault of the two people in the "growth chambers."

They weren't people. Yet.

Well let's look at that.

The people in the growth chambers had been just a few cells taken from Riker and Pulaski only a short time before, and in the "murder" scene they seemed to be nearly full sized adults in terms of their physical forms.

The argument could be made (given the speed of their development) that their births would have been very soon. Less than a hour or two?

Likely the people in question could not have survived outside of the growth chambers at that point, but we've seen others on Star Trek who couldn't have survived without life support at points in their lives.

 

[borgboy]

The clones looked viable to me, like fully grown adults.
I don't think the story would be told the same way today.

 

[Kobayshi Maru]

I still think that Riker as written, was little more than a senseless brute. Otherwise he would have at least stopped to think if what he was about to do was ethically acceptable. He didn't. He killed those two beings af if they were nothing. Whatever else he was in the series, there was that aspect of him. I don't know whose idea was to make him yell so often. Riker yellls about as often as all the other characters put together, and then some, with maybe the exception of Deanna, and that says a lot.

 

[Timewalker]

Seriously, who's ever heard of a first officer, disobeying a direct order and getting away with it?

Spock did it a few times...

As for Odo, he doesn't care about the law: he is the law. But on DS9, he is at least theoretically supposed to be the Bajoran law, which is highly unlikely to be anything like UFP law, what with one of the political entities in question being a perverse theocracy full of alien ideas and the other being, well, Bajor.

Timo Saloniemi

Are you suggesting the Federation is a "perverse theocracy"?

 

[urbandefault]

In real life, in a real murder trial, I'd hate to have to seat an impartial jury from a pool of members of this BBS. It might not be possible. Sidebar, Your Honor?

 

[Tiberius]

The clones Riker killed were not self aware and they were not viable. Can't kill a person if it isn't a person yet.

 

[T'Girl]

In real life, in a real murder trial, I'd hate to have to seat an impartial jury from a pool of members of this BBS.

After you exclude both the pro-life and the pro-death factions, who's left?

The clones Riker killed were not self aware and they were not viable. Can't kill a person if it isn't a person yet.

A (hypothetical) 37 year old person in a unconscious state, and on life support, isn't a person?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

An unconscious person is still a fully formed human being. The clones were not that far along. They were lifeless masses of flesh.

 

[borgboy]

Abortion is a really complicated issue. I strongly support sex education, good access to birth control, and I vote pro-choice. I still think killing the clones may have been wrong. They weren't growing in someone's body. It's an interesting attempt at an abortion metaphor, but it fails because there's not the same balance of the mother's body. Riker and Pulaski were offended at their uniqueness being diminished. That's just not the same thing.

 

[Mojochi]

The thing is though that Riker didn't think one sec. about how far advanced these clones were, for all he knew. They could have been minutes away from sentience. After all, in the ST universe, stranger things have happened. He just murdered them, like the thoughtless brute he is.

We don't know what he knew. He got the nod from Pulaski too, & she seemed to know plenty about their process in previous scenes. I can't imagine she'd just nod away a fully sentient life form. For all we know, there were full blown conversations about their process that we never saw

What Riker did, he did in full view of two fellow officers bearing witness without the least glint of objection, one of which is a medical expert. I'd say that since we know these officers to be of moral conduct in the majority of their lives, and representative of the whole of Starfleet, we can assume that either ALL of Starfleet is wholly wrong about their understanding of clone development, or we can assume that their actions were not beyond the bounds of morality for the circumstances which we have limited information on.

I'm pretty much the last person to come to Riker's defense on anything. I've buried that guy on many occasions, but people who want to rail on him in this matter aren't really going on a whole heck of a lot. He phasers into a Riker shaped sack of meat that still looks gelatinous, & then he gets permission to do the same from Pulaski. He is exonerated of wrong doing by the presence of others in the room & the lack of any mention of it thereafter. Riker even demands an inspection in the next scene to prevent them doing any further cloning of their crew, to which Pulaski agrees again. So it's even possible they sent down an investigation party to destroy any other clones