How Would You Have Handled Contact With The Vidiians?
- Thread starter M.A.C.O.
- Start date
I would have struck a deal with them, to our mutual advantage.
They get some organs every once in a while, I get an additional method of enforcing discipline upon my crew (for those that aren't deterred enough by the prospect of 70 years in the brig).
Seriously though, I'd just avoid them wherever possible.
They get some organs every once in a while, I get an additional method of enforcing discipline upon my crew (for those that aren't deterred enough by the prospect of 70 years in the brig).
Seriously though, I'd just avoid them wherever possible.
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They would attack individuals and groups, but not to my memory entire species to the point of extinction.
No genocide.
They were at war with anyone and everyone all the time. Whether it was an organized campaign or not is beside the point. There was nothing in their creed that would stop them at the point of wiping out an entire species to prolong themselves. They merely hadn't had that success yet. I would call a systematic attack on the entire population of a neighboring planet genocidal, even in an age of spacefaring diaspora. We may not have seen such a specific attack - but does anyone believe the Vidiians were not capable of that action? And if so, what specific inhibiting factor could be cited? The only one I can think of is the hospital queue. And for that, we have seen them go ahead and keep prisoners for harvesting later. So the argument becomes - if you hold an entire species prisoner for systematic harvesting - is that "live and let live"? Or is that a brutal total systematic campaign of mass murder on a genetic basis?
So - genocidal, yes, IMO. Just not completely successful at it yet.
Should the Federation have pursued a peace treaty with them?
Could it be called "Peace"? More like "Pieces", lol.
So - genocidal, yes, IMO. Just not completely successful at it yet.
Should the Federation have pursued a peace treaty with them?
Could it be called "Peace"? More like "Pieces", lol.
Aside from seeing the Vidiians essentially act as raiders, I don't think we have any evidence to support the allegation that they would systematically attack an entire planet.
And using that behavior as evidence, Captain Archer was willing to commit genocide if it meant stopping the Xindi.
And using that behavior as evidence, Captain Archer was willing to commit genocide if it meant stopping the Xindi.
Yes, they acted as raiders - like Hirogen, or wolves, attacking together when needed. And we do know their entire planet was in dire need.
The allegation is they no longer possessed any inhibiting factor that would prevent them from attacking on planetary scale. Can one be specifically cited? I have no problem presuming a full capacity for genocide based on the extension of their own "reasoning" - vampirism, kill to live. Others are of course free to settle on neighboring worlds shielded by their optimistic humanoid dignification of the Vidiian organ thieves. Want my help? DON'T LIVE THERE. Now you are on your own, kimosabe. Say hi to Darwin.
In Archer's case, he was protecting Earth from attack - not expanding, nor occupying the Xindi homeworld like Cardassia/Bajor. It was the Xindi who started the fight. If the fight they started resulted in their own mass destruction, blaming their targets does not account for what set that ricocheting missile into motion. You make no distinction between attack and defense here, putting it all under the same broad umbrella of violence. Is it the same? Violence to be avoided at all costs? Throw the baby to the wolves?
Our very cells commit violence to invading organisms every waking moment. Our teeth are evolved from tearing meat. So let's not kid ourselves about being above it. Or somehow hold ourselves as more guilty than the Frankensteinian monsters savaging the innocent. That seems just so...disingenuine.
Pacifism can be just as cruel and vicious as violence; just as oppressive as totalitarian street tyrrany; and it does not relieve one from accountability for their choice to act or refuse to act. Inaction is also a choice - with consequences legal and moral.
The moment the Vidiians denied others humanoid right to life - they forfeited their own humanoid rights. They did not, however, nullify the a priori rights of others. They only succeed in nullifying their own - in defining their own measures of justice.
Anyway it's just a bit of sophistry to drum up an issue of terminology where no one here seems to be making it an issue. If someone were to argue for dropping a planet buster on the Vidiian homeworld, citing genocide as a justification, maybe - but I don't think anyone suggested that here, or...? I do think they will have earned enemy status: shoot on sight, shoot to kill. Just like the contractors building the Death Star. Choose your friends wisely.
The allegation is they no longer possessed any inhibiting factor that would prevent them from attacking on planetary scale. Can one be specifically cited? I have no problem presuming a full capacity for genocide based on the extension of their own "reasoning" - vampirism, kill to live. Others are of course free to settle on neighboring worlds shielded by their optimistic humanoid dignification of the Vidiian organ thieves. Want my help? DON'T LIVE THERE. Now you are on your own, kimosabe. Say hi to Darwin.
In Archer's case, he was protecting Earth from attack - not expanding, nor occupying the Xindi homeworld like Cardassia/Bajor. It was the Xindi who started the fight. If the fight they started resulted in their own mass destruction, blaming their targets does not account for what set that ricocheting missile into motion. You make no distinction between attack and defense here, putting it all under the same broad umbrella of violence. Is it the same? Violence to be avoided at all costs? Throw the baby to the wolves?
Our very cells commit violence to invading organisms every waking moment. Our teeth are evolved from tearing meat. So let's not kid ourselves about being above it. Or somehow hold ourselves as more guilty than the Frankensteinian monsters savaging the innocent. That seems just so...disingenuine.
Pacifism can be just as cruel and vicious as violence; just as oppressive as totalitarian street tyrrany; and it does not relieve one from accountability for their choice to act or refuse to act. Inaction is also a choice - with consequences legal and moral.
The moment the Vidiians denied others humanoid right to life - they forfeited their own humanoid rights. They did not, however, nullify the a priori rights of others. They only succeed in nullifying their own - in defining their own measures of justice.
Anyway it's just a bit of sophistry to drum up an issue of terminology where no one here seems to be making it an issue. If someone were to argue for dropping a planet buster on the Vidiian homeworld, citing genocide as a justification, maybe - but I don't think anyone suggested that here, or...? I do think they will have earned enemy status: shoot on sight, shoot to kill. Just like the contractors building the Death Star. Choose your friends wisely.
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I believe the question was whether the Vidiians committed, or would have been willing to commit, genocide? Nothing in the series makes it clear that they have done so in the past, and at least some of us would like to believe that while they've clearly become morally compromised as a result of fighting to save their own race from eradication, there are still some lines they wouldn't cross.
In ENT we see that Archer is desperate enough to keep the Xindi from destroying the Earth that he's willing to doom a shipful of people to sublight travel and possibly death in the process.
In INS, we see that the Federation is willing to involuntarily relocate 600 non-indigenous people who possibly have a legitimate claim on a planet in order to harvest (the word choice is deliberate) an alleged medical miracle that might ameliorate the suffering of thousands if not millions. At the time the Federation is engaged in the most devastating war in its history.
In any case, the underlying argument is the same: in times of desperation, even ethical people may commit dubiously ethical acts. Can they be justified? Sure. But justifiable doesn't equal moral.
In ENT we see that Archer is desperate enough to keep the Xindi from destroying the Earth that he's willing to doom a shipful of people to sublight travel and possibly death in the process.
In INS, we see that the Federation is willing to involuntarily relocate 600 non-indigenous people who possibly have a legitimate claim on a planet in order to harvest (the word choice is deliberate) an alleged medical miracle that might ameliorate the suffering of thousands if not millions. At the time the Federation is engaged in the most devastating war in its history.
In any case, the underlying argument is the same: in times of desperation, even ethical people may commit dubiously ethical acts. Can they be justified? Sure. But justifiable doesn't equal moral.
^Well, wouldn't there be several pre-warp civilizations whose members number in the tens or hundreds of millions in that region they could have harvested (and keep harvesting) for organs much easier (even if only by beaming any number of individuals required up from orbit)? Yet we never hear of such a practice, all their victims seem to be from starships.
So perhaps, they have a (perverted) 'prime directive' of their own in that regard. ('if we absolutely do need to prey on others, at least let's do it only with those that can potentially defend themselves as a species')
So perhaps, they have a (perverted) 'prime directive' of their own in that regard. ('if we absolutely do need to prey on others, at least let's do it only with those that can potentially defend themselves as a species')
They probably do. Maybe those worlds have abductions, cattle mutilations, etc. The Vidiians don't have transporters though. I don't anyone in the first two seasons did except Vger.
^they should have. There were capable of transporting Neelix' lungs directly out of his body, and their medical technology is significantly more advanced than the Federation's . It would be strange if they had organ-transporting devices but couldn't transport persons wholesale.
Good post. I offer 900 quatloos.
I think we were only shown Danara as example of a Vidiian who had the capacity to consider the 'source' when she wanted B'Ellana to choose willingly to donate her Klingon tissue. Beyond that the Vidiians were indiscriminate. 'Deadlock' they boarded Voyager and went on a killing and harvesting spree. If it moved they killed 'it'. They were even interested in finding the Wildman baby. I actually believe that if they did dominate a a race or culture they would be capable of genocide. That's not to say they didn't have their odd moment where they went beyond just pillaging organs. They helped Neelix by adapting a lung from Kes (even though they took his lungs in the first place).
Their medical advancements were impressive the way B'Ellana was split and you would have to wonder if they were able to further their fight against the Phage with any Klingon cells Sulan kept.
Yet mostly they didn't seem to be compassionate even when they could've been. If it weren't for Danara, Chakotay and Janeway wouldn't have had the anti-virus that kept them stuck on that planet. The whole Vidiian culture became about keeping one step ahead of the Phage.
(Thanks Gary Mitchell!)
Possible but undemonstrated. Purely speculative (though I do applaud your humanity here). We have seen that they came from an advanced civilization of "artists" (and maybe even poets! WOW!) LOL Trek and how fallen alien races boast about how they were once a society of artists and glass blowers. Anyway, I do understand this dignification and would hope that the Vidiians - who have shown no reason whatsoever to suggest this would be the case as long as the Phage were present - would merit this benefit of the doubt. There is also a fairly good chance they would immediately hack into the baby ward. And more than a 50/50 chance, since that behavior is something we have actually observed from ALL of them save an unconscious one who woke up playing nice nice with the guy holding her off switch.
Well to be fair, doing a panty raid and forcing a ship to limp home in 2 years isn't exactly getting waylaid to the Delta Quadrant for medical experimentation; let alone support for any tendency toward genocide. The fact that they didn't even catch up to that ship later to return the property only goes further to demonstrate that morality wasn't Archer's problem; it was water on the brain from too much marco polo.
As for Insurrection, you are of course right here. This example is problematic for several reasons - the gratuitous limiting of a whole species to 600 individuals. They would die out in a few generations of their own limited gene pool anyway. And the Baku were being completely unrealistic if they thought a single commune could give them exclusive mining rights to an entire planet and all its orbital resources, without being prepared to defend that claim they had staked. In the end, your empire can extend only as far as your ability to defend it. It's one thing to run your Mongol horde across the continent and claim it as your own. It's quite another to station one guy to stand guard over 328,333 square miles of planet.
But your point that even ethical people sometimes are compelled to do unethical things is certainly true of the Trek universe. Here's the thing though - you might be offering the Vidiians forgiveness - with other people's children. I'm not saying they are guilty before they act. I am saying they are guilty after they have acted. The horse has left the barn on their benefit of the doubt, as far as I'm concerned.
I have seen no evidence of any inhibition whatsoever toward the collective murder of other species. We can only speculate the extent to which they would take it. But they passed the "good guy doing the wrong thing for the right reason" marker the minute they took - not an engine part, a BODY PART, from their first victim in the name of "survival of their species." They are not acting as individual criminals. They are acting as a collective army of organ harvesters against any and all living beings who have an organ their bodies wouldn't reject. You may wish to eventually forgive them - but there is no reason whatsoever to do so. They are no longer higher beings. You don't forgive a charging rhino. You blast it to hell or die trying. They are controlled by the Phage. They have ceased to be rational beings. And the Phage dictates that you could no more befriend a Vidiian than a frog could befriend a scorpion.
They WERE higher beings. Now, they are simply predators. They can't deny this chapter in their evolution; so why should any of us? Why should any of us believe the Phage took away their power to make a choice? Why should any of us believe they wouldn't make that same choice again tomorrow? We know what they have done. What indication do we have they would ever do anything else? They have made raw survival at any cost their creedo. Well that philosophy comes with a cost. They have denied themselves ethical legal channels, they have removed all possibility of interfacing with their culture except through only a single means: force. They have chosen their only language - and others can speak it too. When countries' words no longer factor, that only leaves raw leverage. Now they want to blame other people for using the only language they have ever acknowledged? As if it was always the other guy's idea?
Who are they really trying to convince?
Possible but undemonstrated. Purely speculative (though I do applaud your humanity here). We have seen that they came from an advanced civilization of "artists" (and maybe even poets! WOW!) LOL Trek and how fallen alien races boast about how they were once a society of artists and glass blowers. Anyway, I do understand this dignification and would hope that the Vidiians - who have shown no reason whatsoever to suggest this would be the case as long as the Phage were present - would merit this benefit of the doubt. There is also a fairly good chance they would immediately hack into the baby ward. And more than a 50/50 chance, since that behavior is something we have actually observed from ALL of them save an unconscious one who woke up playing nice nice with the guy holding her off switch.
Well to be fair, doing a panty raid and forcing a ship to limp home in 2 years isn't exactly getting waylaid to the Delta Quadrant for medical experimentation; let alone support for any tendency toward genocide. The fact that they didn't even catch up to that ship later to return the property only goes further to demonstrate that morality wasn't Archer's problem; it was water on the brain from too much marco polo.
As for Insurrection, you are of course right here. This example is problematic for several reasons - the gratuitous limiting of a whole species to 600 individuals. They would die out in a few generations of their own limited gene pool anyway. And the Baku were being completely unrealistic if they thought a single commune could give them exclusive mining rights to an entire planet and all its orbital resources, without being prepared to defend that claim they had staked. In the end, your empire can extend only as far as your ability to defend it. It's one thing to run your Mongol horde across the continent and claim it as your own. It's quite another to station one guy to stand guard over 328,333 square miles of planet.
But your point that even ethical people sometimes are compelled to do unethical things is certainly true of the Trek universe. Here's the thing though - you might be offering the Vidiians forgiveness - with other people's children. I'm not saying they are guilty before they act. I am saying they are guilty after they have acted. The horse has left the barn on their benefit of the doubt, as far as I'm concerned.
I have seen no evidence of any inhibition whatsoever toward the collective murder of other species. We can only speculate the extent to which they would take it. But they passed the "good guy doing the wrong thing for the right reason" marker the minute they took - not an engine part, a BODY PART, from their first victim in the name of "survival of their species." They are not acting as individual criminals. They are acting as a collective army of organ harvesters against any and all living beings who have an organ their bodies wouldn't reject. You may wish to eventually forgive them - but there is no reason whatsoever to do so. They are no longer higher beings. You don't forgive a charging rhino. You blast it to hell or die trying. They are controlled by the Phage. They have ceased to be rational beings. And the Phage dictates that you could no more befriend a Vidiian than a frog could befriend a scorpion.
They WERE higher beings. Now, they are simply predators. They can't deny this chapter in their evolution; so why should any of us? Why should any of us believe the Phage took away their power to make a choice? Why should any of us believe they wouldn't make that same choice again tomorrow? We know what they have done. What indication do we have they would ever do anything else? They have made raw survival at any cost their creedo. Well that philosophy comes with a cost. They have denied themselves ethical legal channels, they have removed all possibility of interfacing with their culture except through only a single means: force. They have chosen their only language - and others can speak it too. When countries' words no longer factor, that only leaves raw leverage. Now they want to blame other people for using the only language they have ever acknowledged? As if it was always the other guy's idea?
Who are they really trying to convince?
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Except that we have at least one example of a Vidiian who was an exception. Do we assume Danara was the sole exception (which seems improbable to me), or do we assume, much like the Kazon sects had various degrees to which Our Heroes could reason with them, that there were others?
If I have sympathy for the Vidiians (and I think any race looking extinction in the eye on a regular basis deserves some degree of sympathy), it's because I don't see Humanity necessarily faring any better given the same circumstances.
If I have sympathy for the Vidiians (and I think any race looking extinction in the eye on a regular basis deserves some degree of sympathy), it's because I don't see Humanity necessarily faring any better given the same circumstances.
I would think it is a bit difficult reasoning with any species, whose official goal was to kidnapped and kill other beings to harvest their organs in order to survive. And to be honest, the Voyager crew never really found itself in a situation in which they could "reason" with the Viidians, unless the Doctor had managed to come up with an actual cure to their disease. Were there other Viidians like Danara? Probably. But . . . again, the Voyager crew never came across them. Should the producers have put Janeway and her crew in a position to find a cure for the Viidians? It is possible. But it was obvious not the story that they had wanted to tell. And don't forget . . . even when the Voyager crew have managed to produce some tech solution for some species, not all of them have been willing to accept it. Individuals, regardless of species, can be a chaotic bunch. Including Humans.
Here's a moral quandary:
Did Captain Janeway make the right decision in "The Phage" by letting the two Vidiians go? What else could she have done?
It seems after their initial encounter, the Vidiians began hunting Voyager. They became particularly interested in B'elanna. In Fury, we see them making a similar effort to the Kazon in trapping them. The Kazon(Well, Seska) wanted their ship and technology. The Vidiians wanted their people....fresh blood.
I guess hindsight it was, since Voyager was never harvested, but they did cause the ship to be destroyed. Luckily the ship was duplicated and the duplicates lived on.
Did Captain Janeway make the right decision in "The Phage" by letting the two Vidiians go? What else could she have done?
It seems after their initial encounter, the Vidiians began hunting Voyager. They became particularly interested in B'elanna. In Fury, we see them making a similar effort to the Kazon in trapping them. The Kazon(Well, Seska) wanted their ship and technology. The Vidiians wanted their people....fresh blood.
I guess hindsight it was, since Voyager was never harvested, but they did cause the ship to be destroyed. Luckily the ship was duplicated and the duplicates lived on.
