Clone armies in Trek...

[Arpy]

I'm an Obama-loving Democrat from Philadelphia. There's no pain.

Regarding clone armies, the problem there is the same one with hologram slavery - there's no way the Federation would enslave a race of sentient beings, regardless what form they come in. It's not only ethically wrong but cruel and unusual in that you don't need medical uber-geniuses to mine rocks.

Similarly, you dont need contemporary ground troops to fight 16th century phaser battles. You dont even need androids, looking at the flying drones Timo mentioned from INS - just replace the tags they shot with phasers and those things'll overwhelm any Trek ground force we've ever seen.

 

[Timo]

there's no way the Federation would enslave a race of sentient beings, regardless what form they come in.

So you're essentially saying that having an army is wrong?

What difference is there in whether the soldiers were born for the task or just because their parents wanted to have some fun? It's unlikely that the Federation would either pay for a standing army of a zillion clones forever, or euthanize every clone after the war is over - essentially, we'd just be seeing a baby boom here, with lots of identical-looking people flooding the society and the labor market. Which, if we choose to think the UFP is driven by volunteer labor, is only a good thing.

It's not only ethically wrong but cruel and unusual in that you don't need medical uber-geniuses to mine rocks.

What if said holograms were given an IQ of 92 and programmed with a total ignorance of all things medical, and a simple, honest craving for beer and soccer? Ethically less wrong?

you dont need contemporary ground troops to fight 16th century phaser battles.

...But if you deploy just a hundred phaser-armed infantrymen to dominate a whole planet, you still need a million of them to dominate a thousand planets. (And that's not a calculation error: they need to eat, sleep, rotate off duty, and be trained and bandaged.)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Deks]

As far as we know from TNG, cloning is forbidden in the Federation.
And since Riker and Pulaski were cloned without their consent, they apparently have the right to kill their own clones.
In case of DS9, various things were dumbed down, heck Bashir didn't know the cluster of cells was in fact a clone, despite all of the advanced technology at his disposal (and however less advanced than the Federation it might have been, it was probably well advanced to make that determination immediately).
Anyway... the case in DS9 was different because the Bajoran man wanted to fake his own death (and in a very practical manner).
The clone was a unique personality after all, and we have no idea whether the killing was willing or not (but that would hardly change the outcome).
The murdered clone was a fully self-aware individual, so I think that makes most of the difference.

As for clone armies... as far as the 24th century goes, the Dominion was the only major power that used the cloning process to grow their Jem'Hadaar.
Yes, they were able to grow them in effectively vast amounts over night alone.

As for Kahless... as it was explained, he was cloned by a separate Klingon religious sect.
In regards to 'cost'... we only know the Federation doesn't use money... the Klingons (at least per DS9 episode where Quark was invited to handle the finances of Grelka's house) still use a monetary based economy it would seem.

But given the technology available at the time, the Klingon sect could have probably grown Kahless in a lab without any monetary cost whatsoever because they probably already had all of the tools needed to do so from basic aspects alone (replicators and transporters).
Plus we don't know how their currency based system works exactly...

 

[Arpy]

there's no way the Federation would enslave a race of sentient beings, regardless what form they come in.

So you're essentially saying that having an army is wrong?

So you're essentially calling having a national army the same as slavery?

What difference is there in whether the soldiers were born for the task or just because their parents wanted to have some fun? It's unlikely that the Federation would either pay for a standing army of a zillion clones forever, or euthanize every clone after the war is over - essentially, we'd just be seeing a baby boom here, with lots of identical-looking people flooding the society and the labor market. Which, if we choose to think the UFP is driven by volunteer labor, is only a good thing.

How about this: everyone who wants to fight gets to clone their bodies and make a copy of their minds. If they die in battle, the minds are imprinted in the bodies and they get to reassess their new options. But if Timo Prime gets to stand back and send countless copies to do all his fighting and laboring and hurting for him, well...

I really like this idea. They should do this for everyone anyway so that just as they die, their clone is born.

It's not only ethically wrong but cruel and unusual in that you don't need medical uber-geniuses to mine rocks.

What if said holograms were given an IQ of 92 and programmed with a total ignorance of all things medical, and a simple, honest craving for beer and soccer? Ethically less wrong?

I'll answer that important question when ask it without insulting me.

you dont need contemporary ground troops to fight 16th century phaser battles.

...But if you deploy just a hundred phaser-armed infantrymen to dominate a whole planet, you still need a million of them to dominate a thousand planets. (And that's not a calculation error: they need to eat, sleep, rotate off duty, and be trained and bandaged.)

That's where Starfleet comes in.

EDIT: Deks, the Federation may not use money but remember that their economy is still based in the real world - it takes time and effort to make clones. (I.e. They can't replicate a quadrillion of them overnight.)

 

[Timo]

So you're essentially calling having a national army the same as slavery?

For the duration of the compulsory military service, absolutely, yes.

It's not as if "slavery" wre particularly tightly defined to start with. A key element is that a higher-up gives orders the lower-down cannot refuse, but that's true of most employer-employee relationships anyway. If the employee can terminate the relationship without penalty, then it's generally not considered slavery, but that's virtually never true of employer-employee relationships - there's always a penalty, no matter how indirect.

In compulsory military service, the penalty is usually very concrete. If you refuse, you spend several years in jail, or in some situations get executed. Things like largely symbolic pay and the prospect of the contract ending some day do not separate this from classic plantation slavery in any way.

everyone who wants to fight gets to clone their bodies and make a copy of their minds

Immortality of that sort would certainly change our attitudes towards sending young men to die for old men, yes. Unfortunately, there's quite a big technological and conceptual jump from the ability to clone bodies to the ability to copy minds, at least in this reality and the Star Trek one.

I'll answer that important question when ask it without insulting me.

What? That's not really an insult unless you decide an IQ of 92 or a preference for beer and soccer is somehow objectionable. In which case you are the party guilty of an insult!

Anyway, it would be the height of hyporcricy if the Star Trek Federation objected to the existence of a subspecies that has characteristics optimized for physical labor. After all, the UFP already features a menagerie of species with abilities off the "human norm" (or more exactly the Hollywood hero norm). Saying that the existence of a species with an IQ of 92 is a violation of human rights is just begging for the corollary that a species with an IQ of 100 (that is, average Western humans) is so sub-moronic it and its creators should be put to death immediately, and the species replaced by the happy natural standard represented by Vulcans.

It simply isn't our place to condemn physical or mental characteristics on moral grounds. From which it follows that any attempt to morally judge the efforts to affect those characteristics is on extremely dubious footing.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Arpy]

So you're essentially calling having a national army the same as slavery?

For the duration of the compulsory military service, absolutely, yes.

It's not as if "slavery" wre particularly tightly defined to start with. A key element is that a higher-up gives orders the lower-down cannot refuse, but that's true of most employer-employee relationships anyway. If the employee can terminate the relationship without penalty, then it's generally not considered slavery, but that's virtually never true of employer-employee relationships - there's always a penalty, no matter how indirect.

In compulsory military service, the penalty is usually very concrete. If you refuse, you spend several years in jail, or in some situations get executed. Things like largely symbolic pay and the prospect of the contract ending some day do not separate this from classic plantation slavery in any way.

Actual slave masters could torment and murder their slaves without repercussions, and their working conditions were nothing like those of contemporary workers or soldiers, or in many cases, indentured servants. Stretch the definition of "slavery" at your own peril.

Regarding compulsory military service, I think it's utterly necessary for the long-term survival of democracy. The war in Iraq may not have happened if more middle and upper class Americans thought that their children would be drafted to fight it, rather than volunteers and mercenaries. I don't think 70% of Americans would have thought Iraq was responsible for 9/11 if they were paying closer attention. At least, not unless the administration in power hadn't been even more negligent and misleading at the time.

I'll answer that important question when ask it without insulting me.

What? That's not really an insult unless you decide an IQ of 92 or a preference for beer and soccer is somehow objectionable. In which case you are the party guilty of an insult!

Nonsense. You were suggesting I held doctors of greater worth than regular Joes and now are shocked, shocked(!) that I made the connection.

Anyway, it would be the height of hyporcricy if the Star Trek Federation objected to the existence of a subspecies that has characteristics optimized for physical labor. After all, the UFP already features a menagerie of species with abilities off the "human norm" (or more exactly the Hollywood hero norm). Saying that the existence of a species with an IQ of 92 is a violation of human rights is just begging for the corollary that a species with an IQ of 100 (that is, average Western humans) is so sub-moronic it and its creators should be put to death immediately, and the species replaced by the happy natural standard represented by Vulcans.

It simply isn't our place to condemn physical or mental characteristics on moral grounds. From which it follows that any attempt to morally judge the efforts to affect those characteristics is on extremely dubious footing.

So it's alright to engineer slaves because they won't be immoral for existing? No, they won't.

But any sentient being, regardless how high or low its IQ, should have the rights of life and liberty and to pursue their own happiness - not be hatched, chained, and forced to fight and possibly die because its creators couldn't settle their own problems.

Regarding the Arcturians, we don't know much about them. But for them to remain consistent with the Trek universe we know, I think they either clone themselves naturally or their cloning technology is very particular, or there would be a lot more clones all over the Trek universe. I think also the clones they make must be full neural copies as well, or as new individuals, would have a choice whether to fight or not, and would also require years of life experience just to mature into adulthood let alone learn to fight.

 

[Pauln6]

Yes, I was never comfortable with the notion that they could manufacture an army but I do like the idea of an asexual species that clones for reproduction and a militaristic race that enjoys being in an army. Showing more arcturian security guards would have been cool. I'm going to include one in my Youtube story at some point.

 

[Timo]

Stretch the definition of "slavery" at your own peril.

There is no peril in stretching the definition this way. On the other hand, there is immense peril in failing to condemn "lesser" forms of slavery, up to and including a return to the bad old ways.

Regarding compulsory military service, I think it's utterly necessary for the long-term survival of democracy.

Sure. Which just raises the point of whether the long-term survival of democracy carries any merit.

Nonsense. You were suggesting I held doctors of greater worth than regular Joes and now are shocked, shocked(!) that I made the connection.

...So, did you?

And do you? So far, you haven't done much to dissuade me from thinking that you hold highly educated population groups in higher esteem than others when it comes to assigning the labor force for vital tasks. Which is a reasonable position to hold, of course, to a certain limit. A diverse population is applied the most efficiently when the diversity is taken into account - hence young men dying for old ones on the fronts, and burly and brawny types triumphing over scrawny nerds with bottle-bottom glasses in the coal mines.

But only if efficiency really is considered absolutely vital, of course. A society like ours (generic Western democracy), or like the Federation, should not be that pressed to optimize, and could allow a Betazoid to become an engineer and a Klingon to become a counselor.

So it's alright to engineer slaves because they won't be immoral for existing?

I can so see the Argelian headlines when the UFP declares it cannot manufacture people of specs X because those are barely up to the Argelian levels of IQ...

Sure, we generally try today to prevent subhumans from breeding - it's hellishly difficult for anybody with Down to have kids even with a healthy mate, for example. But that's hardly out of necessity, and hardly a unanimously praised moral stand. If we fight for the rights of the disadvantaged, what possible right could we have to condemn those who decide to "manufacture" similarly disadvantaged people?

But any sentient being, regardless how high or low its IQ, should have the rights of life and liberty and to pursue their own happiness - not be hatched, chained, and forced to fight and possibly die because its creators couldn't settle their own problems.

Which is a great argument against universal draft, yes. But hardly against cloning to specs.

Regarding the Arcturians, we don't know much about them. But for them to remain consistent with the Trek universe we know, I think they either clone themselves naturally or their cloning technology is very particular, or there would be a lot more clones all over the Trek universe.

Or then their tech is simple enough, but the practice is abhorred everywhere and the Arcturans in general are viewed with disdain. That doesn't mean they couldn't be UFP members - we've seen our share of "asshole cultures" waving their membership cards at Kirk already. It's even less of an obstacle for individual Arcturans to contribute.

I think also the clones they make must be full neural copies as well, or as new individuals, would have a choice whether to fight or not, and would also require years of life experience just to mature into adulthood let alone learn to fight.

I'm not sure any arrangement could ever guarantee an individual (cloned or not) truly informed and free choice on "whether to fight or not" - and if the UFP Council did order a clone army from the Arcturians, the circumstances would probably be even more dire than in the SW prequels, with the alternative being the forced draft of random other individuals in equal numbers. Or in greater numbers, if they weren't as optimally built for their task.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Nightdiamond]

I don't know if it makes any difference or not, but they always refer to 'breeding' the Jem Hadar, and cloning to the Vorta.

I always thought it suggested the Jem Hadar were bred off some template but each comes out differently.

They tried to do a similar thing with Data-figure out how he works, mass manufacture him and put them on starships-until it was decided it wasn't legal.

 

[Timo]

Good point! The Jem'Hadar may be engineered creatures, and their birth process may be very different from the usual sex-womb-emergence routine, but that doesn't necessarily mean there would be any stage where actual, literal cloning took place.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Yevetha]

Sure. Which just raises the point of whether the long-term survival of democracy carries any merit.

What would you replace it with?

 

[Paradon]

In a democratic society, where the government and no one actually tell you what to do and how you should run your businesses, the economy is always a lot stronger. In modern era the economy of a country determine how powerful a country is. It probably makes sense that the Federation is the strongest power in the AQ.