Did Janeway Kill Tuvix?

[Guy Gardener]

Naomi doesn't necessarily talk about Tuvix in Homestead, she just says that something awful happened to Neelix, which is not the same as remembering that Tuvix was a wonderful person for the first 29 days, it's accounting that his existence was a mistake.

So yes the episode was referenced, but Naomi shat on Tuvix's grave.

By the way, wouldn't that have been an ideal point to tell Naomi that she is also a halfling mistake that can also be fixed with a transporter?

It's the sort of moral conundrum that works really well in a show like The Outer Limits, not so much in a series where ongoing characters have to be clear cut heroes by the next week.

I'm not saying that approach to a series can't be pulled off (see: M*A*S*H,) but I think VOY writers were lacking the inclination and ambition to even try it by that point. So the whole situation ends up... unsatisfying.

Sad is happy for deep people.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Since Tuvix was the combination between Tuvok and Neelix, did she really kill another creature? Or merely restore what should have been there in the first place?

The episode certainly poses a lot of ethical questions, but it's not clear if what Janeway was doing was killing one life form or restoring 2 others.

Thoughts?

Your phrasing notwithstanding, your questions aren't actually mutually exclusive. The answers are yes, she really killed another creature, and yes, she restored, though not merely restored, what should have been there in the first place.

These threads (and this thread is the umpteenth of them) are more interesting when it's asked whether what Janeway did is murder. The answer to that is no, it was not unjustifiable.

Tuvix was created by an accident that had to be reversed, or otherwise two crew members, for whom Janeway was responsible, would have been destroyed. Furthermore, the fact that Tuvix didn't realize himself where Janeway's responsibilities lay, and instead became consumed with his own self interest, only reinforces that Tuvix did not represent a betterment of the crew, but in fact rather a degradation of it.

Janeway had no choice.

 

[DonIago]

Or Tuvix really did know Tuvok and Neelix better than anyone else and both of them also didn't feel it was appropriate to end Tuvix's life simply to restore them.

I find the tendency to degrade Tuvix as "creepy" and assume the worst of him in this thread, especially when used as a rationalization for Janeway's actions, not particularly in keeping with the ideals that Trek tries to espouse.

 

[at Quark's]

Comparing Janeway to the Vidiians is nonsense. Depending on which episode/series you get the explanation from, Everytime the transporter is used, an individual dies, and is recreated. Janeway simply reversed a transporter accident, setting these two people back to their natural order.

.. and in the process killed another being, one with a single consciousness, as the episode points out explicitly. Tuvix was more than a simple 'mingling' of Tuvok and Neelix, he was (in my eyes at least) in essence a new personality.

Regardless of whether her actions are justified or not, there's much more to it than 'simply reversing a transporter accident'.

To the person who said that the Tuvix incident was "never, ever mentioned again by anyone" It was mentioned at least one more time in season 7, but I could imagine other times.

You're right. Didn't remember that one. Then again, see the comment by Guy on it.

I do agree with the rest of your post, that Neelix essentially became better in the later seasons.

Furthermore, the fact that Tuvix didn't realize himself where Janeway's responsibilities lay, and instead became consumed with his own self interest, only reinforces that Tuvix did not represent a betterment of the crew, but in fact rather a degradation of it.

I can see Tuvok sacrificing himself for the good of the crew. Neelix, at this point in the series, definitely not. I'm not sure if you can distill from that that Tuvix represented a 'degradation', unless you consider that Neelix technically wasn't part of the crew.

 

[Prax]

Naomi doesn't necessarily talk about Tuvix in Homestead, she just says that something awful happened to Neelix, which is not the same as remembering that Tuvix was a wonderful person for the first 29 days, it's accounting that his existence was a mistake.

So yes the episode was referenced, but Naomi shat on Tuvix's grave.

By the way, wouldn't that have been an ideal point to tell Naomi that she is also a halfling mistake that can also be fixed with a transporter?



Sad is happy for deep people.

Naomi is the perfect person to mention it. She's an innocent child and from an adult's perspective, has a trivialized view on it.

Anyways, that's more than we got about the many awful things that happened to say...O'Brien, who literally watched himself die on a half dozen occasions, spent a lifetime in prison, lost his daughter in time portal, went through the experience in Tribunal, and so on, and so forth, and never mentioned again.

And we could say this about many freak incidents in the many shows.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I can see Tuvok sacrificing himself for the good of the crew. Neelix, at this point in the series, definitely not. I'm not sure if you can distill from that that Tuvix represented a 'degradation', unless you consider that Neelix technically wasn't part of the crew.

That has nothing to do with what I wrote, so there's nothing else to be said in reply.

 

[at Quark's]

^In that case, I don't think I understand what you mean by 'degradation of the crew'?

 

[marlboro]

CorporalCaptain: was referring to the "crew" as the entire Voyager crew. Since Tuvix wasn't willing to sacrifice himself it showed that he wasn't up to the Voyager crew's standards of duty. Thus he is "degrading" the overall quality.

at Quark's: Assumed (as did I initially) that "crew" was a reference to Tuvok and Neelix only. Which lead he and I both to assume that you meant that since Tuvix wouldn't sacrifice himself it showed that he didn't truly embody the best traits of both men.


Now that this is (probably) cleared up - how big of a hypocrite was the EMH in this episode? He spent all that time designing a process to split Tuvix in two, gets on his high horse with Janeway at the end, but does nothing to stop her. "I'm shocked that you are going to use this atomic bomb I've been constructing for non peaceful means! But since I'm not the one pushing the button, I'm not gonna raise too much of a fuss about it."

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Degradation being the opposite of betterment. If you were to take on a new crewman, but as a condition of that you'd have to kick off two of your old mates, consign them to death, and the new crewman wouldn't be more able than the two you lost, then that would not represent an improvement of your crew or even a keeping of the status quo. It would be a net loss, and would send a signal to everyone that they are expendable. Degradation.

CorporalCaptain: was referring to the "crew" as the entire Voyager crew. Since Tuvix wasn't willing to sacrifice himself it showed that he wasn't up to the Voyager crew's standards of duty. Thus he is "degrading" the overall quality.

Perfect. I couldn't have said it better myself (and I didn't).

 

[Guy Gardener]

Tuvix coulds have killed them all.

Knocked them out and sold them all into slavery.

Tuvix had he so felt inclined could've eaten Voyager's crew.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Did Janeway murder Tuvix? Yes.

 

[at Quark's]

CorporalCaptain: was referring to the "crew" as the entire Voyager crew. Since Tuvix wasn't willing to sacrifice himself it showed that he wasn't up to the Voyager crew's standards of duty. Thus he is "degrading" the overall quality.

OK, well that is how I interpreted it in the first place. Glad that at least, I'm not missing something obvious here. Could still try to argue my point but I guess it's not really that relevant. At the end of the day, what we all agree on is that Tuvix, in this respect at least, does not meet the standards of the Starfleet crew, whereas Tuvok of course does.

I think the script tries to establish that Tuxic embodied the best of both of them in most areas, but not all. Or perhaps, the best of both in relatively superficial qualities you would come to know in the first days (talents, interaction with people), but not necessarily so in deeper qualities (what drives Tuvix?) that only would come to the surface in situations such as at the end of the episode.

 

[Trekkin]

What is unsatisfying? Tuvix?! That's your opinion.

Is it? I never would have worked that out when I chose to use the word 'unsatisfying.'

Do you have a comparable example from Trek that is satisfactory, and examples of why?

From Trek alone? Not really. Biting off a heftier quandary than it's willing to chew, has been an ongoing problem with Trek from Day 1.

Edith Keeler? Tuvix'd and forgotten.

Kurn brainwashed into being somone else? Forgotten.

Picard's brainwashed into feeling as if he's lost everyone he ever loved? He's fine, now with some nifty flute playing skills.

I'd say Thomas Riker returning and pointing out all the flaws in TNG's supposed 'good' ending for him was probably the closest. But that episode ended up unsatisfying for different reasons.

 

[Prax]

OK, well that is how I interpreted it in the first place. Glad that at least, I'm not missing something obvious here. Could still try to argue my point but I guess it's not really that relevant. At the end of the day, what we all agree on is that Tuvix, in this respect at least, does not meet the standards of the Starfleet crew, whereas Tuvok of course does.

I think the script tries to establish that Tuxic embodied the best of both of them in most areas, but not all. Or perhaps, the best of both in relatively superficial qualities you would come to know in the first days (talents, interaction with people), but not necessarily so in deeper qualities (what drives Tuvix?) that only would come to the surface in situations such as at the end of the episode.

I think that Janeway was really on the fence about what to do until Tuvix put Kes in the middle of the situation and she(Kes) got all upset, but I could be wrong.

Is it? I never would have worked that out when I chose to use the word 'unsatisfying.'



From Trek alone? Not really. Biting off a heftier quandary than it's willing to chew, has been an ongoing problem with Trek from Day 1.

Edith Keeler? Tuvix'd and forgotten.

Kurn brainwashed into being somone else? Forgotten.

Picard's brainwashed into feeling as if he's lost everyone he ever loved? He's fine, now with some nifty flute playing skills.

I'd say Thomas Riker returning and pointing out all the flaws in TNG's supposed 'good' ending for him was probably the closest. But that episode ended up unsatisfying for different reasons.

Fair enough. I felt bad for Thomas in both episodes.

 

[Refuge]

Surely to murder you need to establish the wilful and unlawful taking of life. I suppose Tuvix was life, like Frankenstein's monster, life. Janeway was on a rescue mission to retrieve two of her crew. She was confronted with a pile of DNA and a tweaked transporter. Tuvix wasn't executed let alone murdered, he devolved the same way he came into being. A regular crew member transported with the same DNA differentiating technology developed by The Doctor would not have died. Their DNA would remain constant and whole, so you could hardly argue Janeway was using a killing machine. In fact if one were to argue Neelix and Tuvok had never gone away while they were held captive in Tuvix's body, one could apply that to Tuvix as well. He's not actually dead as such, he's still the same living DNA he always was, but that same DNA lives on in two people.

That was iron clad. I should have been a lawyer.

 

[MacLeod]

So if you admit Tuvix was life (a living sentient being) and as such he had the right under Federation Law to choose how he lived that life.

 

[at Quark's]

We don't know what that DNA differentiation technology would to anyone else do since we don't see it applied to anyone else (only a flower). For all we know it could split B'elanna up in a human and a klingon form.

 

[Trekkin]

Surely to murder you need to establish the wilful and unlawful taking of life. I suppose Tuvix was life, like Frankenstein's monster, life.

The protagonist of Frankenstein opts against murdering The Creature at the end of the novel, in spite of having promised Frankenstein that he would. He pities it, and lets him take Frankensteins body to burn.

Because, you know...once the protagonist met him, Walton realised he was a fully living and feeling person.

And The Creature did a lot more to test people's patience than Tuvix. The entire point of the novel is that The Creature only truly becomes inhuman and monstrous, because of little things like...being driven mad by mistreatment and strangling people in a rage.

Did I mention that mistreatment included people trying to pull him to pieces? Frankenstein is basically a novel-length counter argument against the ending of Tuvix.

 

[Refuge]

I'm not sure he was an entity of his own at all. He was made up of two legitimate lives. They were protected under Federation law, especially Tuvok. Tuvix had no rights.

 

[Trekkin]

Frankenstein's Monster was your example. I can't help that it was self sabotaging.