Spoilers How/Why are Eugenics Experiments Legally/Ethically Justified?
- Thread starter marsh8472
- Start date
That's the same excuse Lorca would make - desperate times call for desperate measures.
So does, and is, Lorca. He seems to have the fairly unwaivering support of Starfleet Command.
I wouldn't describe Lorca as cold. His description of his decision on his former ship, for example, is not a calculated move to prevent secrets falling into enemy hands, but an emotional reaction to the idea of his crew being captured, tortured and executed. Plus, of course, we know very little about what actually happened there. It is hard to ascribe motive without more detail.
As for the Admiral, we're stuck in a difficult scenario there - he had just been told by his superior officer that he acted recklessly by putting the spore drive at risk without proper consultation with Command, and he needed to think bigger picture. Then that same officer is in a situation where his instinct is to rush in exactly as she told him not to do, potentially risking the drive falling into Klingon hands. Plus the added ambiguity of her wanting to remove him from the captain's chair - so again, his motive is deliberately unclear. We don't know what his motivations are at this stage, possibly find out more this week.
Not originally. In "Space Seed," the Eugenics Wars were said to be about improving the human race through selective breeding. That's a correct application of the concept, I believe.
For some reason in TWOK, the supermen were retconned into being a product of genetic engineering, and all use of the word "eugenics" was dropped for that film.
I wonder if they'll do an episode centred around that at some point.
I'm expecting one - it's been mentioned twice now so I'd be surprised if there isn't a flashback in our future
Lorca is flying more solo though. He didn't like the idea of holding back while letting starfleet work on incorporating the spore drive technology into their ships. Admiral Leyton seems more rational and an overall nicer guy. Admiral Leyton wanted to strengthen Earth. They did not know this at the time but the changelings did have control over the Klingon Empire so that threat was pretty real. All you have to do is re-watch those episodes again but this time watch it through Star Trek Discovery eyes and Admiral Leyton doesn't seem so bad now.
The taboo is not with Starfleet but with The Federation influenced strongly by human hangups.
lorca stretches rules and may seem not a nice chap - leyton outrightly plans a military coup - get your sensors fixed asap, sir
The Denobulans practised genetic engineering to fix medical problems as far back as the 2150s, I wonder if they were to forced to give it up when they joined the Federation.
I wonder if our society today would disallow something like genetic manipulation to fix down syndrome in fetuses.
yours or mine? stemcells, anyone?
Stemcells was very general and presented some more existential debates, using one of the pieces that start life, to farm cells and to be discarded.
I'm positing something a bit more specific just for ease of discussion,
if someone came out today and said "If a baby has down syndrome and we catch it early in human development, we can cure it and your baby would be born without down syndrome"
I just doubt that bring the same crapstorm and, depending on your perspective of history could be considered eugenics.
there IS (not: will be) a lot of flak from 'disabled groups' who compare it to aktion t4. this is from a totally different ankle of course. they claim down-kids can grow up to live a happy live albeit not a 'normal' one; and 'normal' people who want to force them to be 'normal', too are the bad guys.
personally i think that's nuts but it's a minefield especially in germany.
Last edited:
Any group comparing the above notion to an act of mass murder would be dismissed easily and quickly.
I'm not saying the notion would coast through but if there was a cure for down syndrome I find it hard to believe that after 2 or so years of politibickering that it wouldn't be tested and then put into practice.
It's like the concept of "human experimentation" the words we mostly all agree is a horrible and wrong thing, when in reality human drug trials that are heavily regulated and regimented in a safe and humane manner, is human experimentation, just widely accepted as something different.
I believe in the future it will be the same for eugenics and gene manipulation. It may be called something else eventually but if genetic manipulation leads to a cure for something like downs syndrome or autism it would eventually be accepted.
In hindsight if Sisko either hadn't done what he did "In a Pale Moonlight", made contact with the prophets in "Sacrifice of Angels", among other things the dominion probably would have taken over Earth in a few years from that episode. Do civil rights matter if they're all about to be conquered anyway?
With that part in mind a military controlled Earth is better than Earth being occupied by the Dominion.
I don't thiink so - the issue here is: Stamets is a Human, and Humans outlawed genetic manipulation (and such experiments). It's not the Federation that's outlawed it for all races; Earth outlawed it for Humans. (And remember they did try to find other races that would work - and Humans were it other than Tradigrades of course.)
Not only that, but he falsified reports, ordered units under his command to fire upon a Starfleet vessel, plunged Earth into chaos with that power grid failure, and undermined the integrity of the entire Starfleet Command structure. He was a certainly a sympathetic villain, but a villain none the less. Lorca, on the other hand, is stretching some rules, but he's not a charming guy. Some confuse his unsympathetic nature with villainy and exaggerate his faults.
Last edited:
Could be why we havent seen donubulans on the show so far. They were very much for genetic improvements, and if that was a deal breaker, they may never have joined the Federation.
So who would you rather rule your nation Stalin, Pol Pot, Papa Doc or Hitler?A military dictatorship is still a dictatorship even when the dictators share your species. How many well intentioned military coups gave up power peacefully, without some major civil war once the reason for said coup no longer existed? Admiral Leyton did not seem the type to give up the reins if he ever came to power.
Funny how the same actor played a bad guy leader in ENT lol