So I just watched the episode "The Gift" (Season 4, Episode 2) for the first time and I must say I'm really intrigued. I think it was one of the most "human" episodes of the show so far. The moment between Kes and Janeway is very touching, it really hit me when Janeway started to cry And we experience more about Seven Of Nine and damn, Jeri Ryan portrays the character so well. This specific storyline brought up the question above. The discrepance between Seven Of Nine's wish to go back to the Borg collective and Janeway's desire to help her to find back to her true human identity is actually quite deep and interesting. And it made me thinking about who is right actually? I think it's difficult to tell. Putting aside the fact that Janeway, as she explained, had no possibility of bringing her back to the Borg, how do you guys evaluate her decision from a moral point of view? I mean, I know she wants nothing but the best for Seven Of Nine and I wouldn't blame her at all for deciding the way she did. But I can't deny that when Seven Of Nine said she should have the right to decide for her own, I was thinking like "hmm, you can't really disagree on that either". Sometimes we know, or maybe we think we know what is the best thing for another person and that our ideas for them are better than what they have in mind. And that was the case with Janeway I think, of course living in the Borg collective isn't really something to wish for. No individuality, no own thoughts etc., well, no own live actually. But what if an individual decides that it's the best thing for her or him, because it's what she/he is used to, like it's Seven Of Nine's position? Is it right that she gets prevented from deciding to do what she personally feels is the best thing for her? Although we know that her mind is in fact corrupted by the collective? It's a question where I personally don't see a clear "yes" or "no" and if I were in Janeway's place and had the possibility to choose, I wouldn't really know what to do. On one hand I'd be also eager to provide Seven Of Nine with the chance to get a personal live and individualism, on the other hand she is really suffering from being separated from the collective. What do you guys think or how would you decide?
Janeway in the Killing Game. Same deal. Annika was playing Kathryn's French Resistance fighter lesbian lover. 1. You are not a lesbian, you are a virgin, who hasn't gotten around to sorting out her sexuality yet. Also Janeway is your surrogate mother, not your thrilling lover... Exactly why can't she be both? 2. You are not French. European/Borg? You've been tricked into eating 5 times more onions per meal than any normal human being should know what to do with. You're also not a drunk (20th century + French = Drinks A-LOT without being an Alcoholic.) and you are not addicted to cigarettes, even if you are smoking non-poisonous/unenjoyable holographic cigarettes, so you can't be addicted to them and you are only brainwashed into pretending to be an addicted chain smoker, so maybe you do not have irrevocably yellow fingers? 3. Adolf Hitler is dead and France is not a country any more to resist for. France is a region or an area, or maybe even a "state" but it is not an economically and ethnologically separate entity from the rest of the United Earth, that France surrendered to so well that Paris is the capitol of the Federation. Is it possible that that means that France won World War 3? Or that they were so Neutral in the conflict, that no one nuked them, so of course the least irradiated city on the planet became the seat of the Federation... We do not know which city is the seat of the United Earth, which may be more of an indicator about who won WWIII. 4. You sleep standing up, not entangled in Kathryn Janeway's limbs in a queen sized bed, but that was covered in "1". ... So what right did Janeway have to undo the Hirogen programming that created a seeming complete and real person, lo be it that the real Seven of Nine had been in a time-out for a month while this lady got to live up large in Seven's body?
Janeway made the only decision she could. Annika Hansen became a Borg drone against her will when she was a child. She hadn't known individuality for 18 years. That wasn't her choice. It was her dumbass parents fault. Leaving a fellow human being to the wolves was never an option. Janeway did what was best for her. And Seven would later be thankful. That said, Janeway did say she would let Seven return to the Collective if it didn't work out for her.
Should Child Services make the decisions for an abuse victim with Stockholm Syndrome, who was raised in a violent cult brainwashing her to commit crimes against humanity? Are the Nazis and Isis and MS13 really "evil," or are they just a different point of view? Yes, Janeway was right to make the decision for Seven. In "Think Tank" Janeway made it clear she now believed Seven's mind was clear enough to make her own decisions, and was willing to let her leave Voyager if she so chose. She just wasn't going to let a confused, recently liberated Borg go back to the monsters who'd assimilated her as a child and took her parents from her.
The borg aren't just any old fellows; they engage in massacre & enslavement as routine. Letting her go would be like releasing someone kidnapped by the Nazi party whilst young back to the clutches of the Nazi party.
Well, it seems to me that the question is like questionning the correctness of all parents to decide for their children until they reach the age of majority... When Seven joined Voyager, she was maybe 18 or 20 yo in age and physical appearance but mentally, she was as inexperienced as a young child. She was Borg and she came fully into a world populated mostly by humans. Because it was Janeway's decision - what the latter easily recognized to severe Seven from her Unimatrix, she thought rightly it was her responsability to guide her step by step in this new universe, what means, sometimes and mainly at the beginning, taking decisions for the young Borg until she is ready to knowingly take hers. So yes, Janeway was right to decide for Seven, like the Doctor did so many times too. Once back on Earth, Seven will have ample opportunity to decide for herself and assume her positions for better and for worse. -> it's just a shame that she does not have done the same with the Doctor, because as a hologram, he was as new as Seven to move in a closed universe populated by living beings.
That's pretty much my take. Annika was denied her humanity by both her parents negligence and Borg abuse. Janeway returned it.
I agree with Terek Nor and WTLizard... Basically, since Seven was assimilated as a child and had no frame of reference for being an adult human, Janeway was sort of obligated to step in and assist. Add to that the fact that her "de-assimilation" was sort of an accident (as opposed to a pre-meditative decision) it left Janeway with no other reasonable choice. I also agree that there is no clear right wrong with this...
I agree! Her departure was beautiful. The teaeful goodbye, the explosions, tuvok trying to help, and in the end the jump she gave them past borg space was great!
If I remember well, Tuvix would have never existed without the accidental fusion of Tuvok and Neelix, right?! So, under the pretext of preserving the life of one "individual" (for me, you cannot exist via memories & personality of someone else -> for me, Tuvix is very similar to the Doctor in a way that both are the result of artifice technlogiques and can disappear in a snap: by turning off the terminal for the Doctor, regardless he was sentient or not and, by chemically separating the bodies which formed a set called Tuvix to revive the two original forms that were Tuvok and Neelix), we sacrificed two people, who are necessary to the life of the ship and not necessary in the material plane, but also in the spiritual?! -> you talk about Tuvik's opinion but what about Tuvok/Neelix's opinion? I guess that they surely want to live too under their own identity and bodies. And same for those around them. (whatever I respecting all form of life, I exclude de facto robots, androïds & holograms which are not, as sophisticated they can be - but not at the expense of an other independent living being . However, I opposed to create a life for reproducing vital organs necessary to save another life).
All Ghislaine H. B. BRAEME said was that 2 lives are more important than one life, and AI is not a real life, so AI life is hugely less important than fleshie life. In Nothing Human, they took a scalpel to the Doctor and carved out unpopular memories, without asking if that would change him as a person, even if it would most certainly change him as a doctor ...But in Latent Image, Janeway was so guilty about hacking into the Doctor's memories, that she nursed him back health for weeks(?) as he was an ill baby bird.
Well, what didn't you understand, Tenacity? The meaning of my comments or the comment itself? No, Guy Gardener, I never said that 2 lives were more important than 1. All existences are important for me (human, animal and even potentantially alien if it really exists) as they are living beings, who are sufficient unto themselves! But again, neither Tuvix (the result of a transporter malfunction. In short, a technological accident), the Doctor (a hologram) or TNG's Data (an android), both being AI, fall into these categories. That's all but of course, no one is obliged to share my opinion.
You said that Tuvix "never would have existed" and that Neelix and Tuvok were "necessary" which is even worse, since maybe Tuvix does not qualify as real life, like the Doctor does not qualify as real life. "Necessary" is more important than "never would have existed".
Absolutely it was right. If somebody is kidnapped at 7, locked in a room for 20 years, then rescued, they may be in a psychological state that they wish to go back to their kidnapper. That doesn’t mean you send them back. They are not in a state where they are capable of making well reasoned decisions. They need help, not more abuse.
Except, whatever was Annika vanished in a maturation chamber and what walked out a couple years later was Seven of Nine. There really is no more Annika.
Yeah, Seven gave no consent for her initial joining the Borg, that and wanting her to learn about another way of living can't justify not letting her choose to rejoin them indefinitely but it can for a few months. I think Janeway and the rest of the crew were pretty tolerant about letting her admire and retain aspects of the Borg that she thought were positive.