Spoilers Captain Archer's Response in Cogenitor

In this particular matter, it was. Whether Charles found asylum on Enterprise or sought it in the hereafter, the engineer and his wife didn't get their cogenitor either way.

 

I'm sure nobody involved in the situation expected Charles to take their own life.

 

If the continuation of Vissian society depends on their never losing a single cogenitor, I suggest that they're in deep trouble anyway.

 

The ratio is actually about three percent, or 16 females to 16 males to one cogenitor. That's why a cogenitor has to move from place to place, couple to couple. But there's no reason why they can't be named and educated.

 

^I agree in principle...and that's the part where the "why" becomes relevant to me, and where I don't feel we get enough insight into the Vissian civilization to draw any bad-faith conclusions.

 

You can milk congenitors for their enzymes.

You can put them in battery cages and attach a suction pump to something.

Or they can live in an apartment living a wholesome life, but they fill up a couple milk bottles with their enzyme every week for collection.

If either of those are possible, then there is no socioeconomic reason to actually have sex with a congenitor because it's too expensive or too dehumanizing.

Charles not legal.

Rich people paid for an authentic experience.

 

You're advocating Archer should step into a alien society and impose his own viewpoint on this one occasion. just this once, right?

That would break what law/rule? Kidnapping - abduction, or maybe thief of property. Denial of reproductive rights.

Whose morals ethics, Human or Vissian? Not all Humans have the same morals ethics.

 

Nope. I'm asking Archer to grant asylum to an individual who is already on his ship, and has asked for it, when he knows what will happen to that individual if they are returned to that society.

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Can't be kidnapping or abduction, when the individual being removed from the society has explicitly asked to be removed.

Charles is a sentient being, not a piece of furniture or even a domestic animal. The Vissians are claiming ownership of a person, much as an antebellum plantation owner did with those he held as slaves.

They have a right to Charles's services, whether or not Charles consents? Wow.

Well, by the 22nd century I'd like to hope most humans don't think sentient beings should be held as property.

 

The congenitor is not a person.

It is not not a she.

Look at the lengths this society have striven to justify and prove that, that the non-congenitor, actual he/she people have also been brainwashed to believe utterly in congenitor non-personhood.

It's systemic.

 

It is indeed.

 

This whole debate does beg an interesting and overlooked question. Why can’t the Vissians create more cogenitors via genetic engineering and cloning? They are clearly more advance than Starfleet at this time, yet Starfleet is capable of creating clones like Sim, and are aware of how to create Augments. Even other powers in the Denobulans, Klingons, and Suliban have meddled with genetic engineering with various results. Did the Vissians have their own version of the Eugenics Wars and they are afraid of even creating clones like Sim because they had their own Khan Noonien Singh and similar Augments in their history? Which is why they have such a low population of cogenitors and they are sensitive about the subject?

 

It may simply be that their genetics knowledge is less advanced than their other stuff simply because it is.

One type of science does not advance at the same pace as other types.

Can't assume a race that's advanced in 5 things means they are advanced in everything.

 

A species that is technologically superior to United Earth Starfleet. Basically, equivalent to late 24th century Federation. Meaning they are able to travel great distances at high warp and meet different species. Including those that have experimented with genetic engineering.

Just because the Vissians never mentioned that they’ve met Suliban, or Denobulans, or Klingons, or Vulcans or any other species Archer has met doesn’t mean they haven’t already. The way Phlox was speaking in the episode to Trip when asking why he would want to get involved seems to suggest like Phlox has seen it first hand or aware of a similar situation in Denobulan history.

Maybe the Vulcans and Denobulans have intentionally blanked out the Vissians after previous first contacts. Leaving Starfleet flying blind into the situation.

 

It may be that they've tried genetic engineering and cloning of the Cogenitors and simply haven't (yet?) been successful.

 

"We make an identical clone of the congenitor, and then we remove it's brain."

"Why do you remove it's brain?"

"Because it would object to being institutionally raped."

"So if you can just remove it's brain, why make a clone?"

"You're right, no point in cloning it."

"Taking the brain out is messy, and all the machines keeping it alive going beep beep beep is not sexy."

"What if we leave the brain in but condition it with torture and psychology to believe that it doesn't have a brain?"

"Perfect."

 

Charles died because they were not planning on chemically dissolving his memories until the following day.

In the new Foundation show the Emperor's prostitutes have their minds wiped every 7 days. They always think that they just arrived,and they are never going to be aware that they are there long enough to feel contempt for the system.

It's reasonable to think that removing a month worth of memory once or twice a year is preferable to destroying a valuable sex slave or putting the sex slave into a position where they have to take their own life, or begin a murder spree against actual people with souls.

 

They don't need to create more of them. They simply need to treat the ones they have with the respect that they deserve. That means giving them a name when they are born. It means educating them the same as a boy or girl. And it means letting them have the pleasures and experiences available to other Vissians. If their hosts are eating ice cream sundaes, they get one too. If they want to take a few days break from cogeni-whatever-ing so they can climb a mountain, let them.

Yes, they still have to go from couple to couple to facilitate conception, and whatever work they do must be accommodated to this, just as a mother rates maternity leave. But they are regarded as people and treated as equals.

Charles died because the chief engineer and his wife got her back, effectively shoved her back in her cage and expected her to spend the rest of her life meekly living the miserable life of a non-person. The fact that Charles preferred death to this pathetic existence makes perfect sense.

 

^Let's say the Cogenitors are given all of the things you feel they deserve, and consequently no longer wish to continue to serve as Cogenitors? What's your solution to that conundrum?

 

What do we do if women decide to stop having kids? No more stretch marks, labor pains, maternity clothes, or dirty diapers.

Well, we go extinct. It's that simple.