It's the Year of Hell and you're the Doctor...

[Luminus]

I just re-watched this, yesterday, and something happened that made me wonder. Here's the scenario: You're the Doctor and you're at the mouth of the Jeffries Tube. The corridor is about to explode into space, but 2 ensigns are trying to get to the tube. In the episode, the Doctor closes the door when he realizes that he can't save them. However, this time it's you and instead of 2 ensigns it's your best friend and YOUR child. What do you do?

EDITED for clarity.

 

[Tosk]

If it's a choice between them dying and everyone dying, a pretty easy choice to make in my opinion. Easy to make, not easy to live with.

 

[Luminus]

Easy? Oh, come on. Do you have children? You'd close the door on them in a heartbeat? lol

 

[Tosk]

You didn't ask about my child. You said best friend and child.

Anyway, if I knew for sure they couldn't be saved (sure in a way that rarely happens in real life) then I stand by my answer. What good does it do them if everyone including you dies?

 

[Luminus]

What? I changed it to clarify. I have a hard time believing you. Your answer is way too matter-of-fact.

 

[Tosk]

You don't have to believe me, that's up to you.

...But why ask in the first place if you only want one answer?

 

[Luminus]

These are thought experiments. I just want to see what kind of answers I'm going to get. I have another one going on in misc.

 

[T'Girl]

As I recall the scene, if the Doctor hadn't closed the door the two people in the tube still would have died.

Door open or door closed, both dead.

So it wouldn't be a case of you saving their lives by holding the door, but you could have died with them, and maybe a number of other people in the ship as well.



")

 

[Richard Baker]

Couldn't the Doctor do a Fantastic Four number and extend his holographic arms, dragging them to safety? He has no body, he can adjust anything he wants and since he also thinks at the speed of the computer he doesn't have to ponder a choice of action wasting minutes...

 

[DonIago]

Logically if you don't close the door then not only do those people die anyway (their relationship to you is irrelevant), but a number of others die as well. This doesn't seem like a complicated question.

A more complicated question would involve saving those people -instead of- the others.

 

[Lance]

Of course, there's always the possibility that, as has happened to people in real-life situations of this nature, a sense of involuntary catatonia could envelope the individual concerned and they find themselves wanting to take one course of action or the other, but unable to do either thing. Resulting in everybody, including themselves maybe, becoming toast.

I think truthfully, many people if faced with the OP's above stated situation, would in the heat of the moment make a decision that is illogical and harmful to the greater good... simply because the personal stake for them would be too high. It's very easy to say you'd just let them burn when all we're talking about is a hypothetical on the internet. But in real-life? I think it'd be hard to say what any one of us would actually do.

 

[T'Girl]

Couldn't the Doctor do a Fantastic Four number and extend his holographic arms

How far from the mobile emitter can the Doctor extend himself? His isn't just a hologram composed of light, he is also a forcefield, this is why he can touch and hold things.

A more complicated question would involve saving those people -instead of- the others.

If you had one adult child in the tube and another immediately behind you, do you uselessly hold the door open for your doomed child, condemning the other to a fiery death?

Or do you slam the door shut, thereby saving the only child you have the power too?

 

[Luminus]

Couldn't the Doctor do a Fantastic Four number and extend his holographic arms, dragging them to safety? He has no body, he can adjust anything he wants and since he also thinks at the speed of the computer he doesn't have to ponder a choice of action wasting minutes...

Nice one. I never thought of that. Is that possible? It's not clear how far he can reach past the mobile emitter.

Of course, there's always the possibility that, as has happened to people in real-life situations of this nature, a sense of involuntary catatonia could envelope the individual concerned and they find themselves wanting to take one course of action or the other, but unable to do either thing. Resulting in everybody, including themselves maybe, becoming toast.

I think truthfully, many people if faced with the OP's above stated situation, would in the heat of the moment make a decision that is illogical and harmful to the greater good... simply because the personal stake for them would be too high. It's very easy to say you'd just let them burn when all we're talking about is a hypothetical on the internet. But in real-life? I think it'd be hard to say what any one of us would actually do.

Yeah. My answer would be to jump into that hallway and close the door, thereby dying with the 2 ensigns. But that's easy to say without the incredible stress caused by that situation.

If you had one adult child in the tube and another immediately behind you, do you uselessly hold the door open for your doomed child, condemning the other to a fiery death?

Or do you slam the door shut, thereby saving the only child you have the power too?

I think I would still jump into the tube and close the door. I couldn't live with my actions, if I saved myself, my other child and the rest of the crew. Unless my other child was very young and needed me. Then I'd be stumped, which would probably get everyone killed.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Often there has to be a moment where a Star Ship crew accepts "Fuck this, someone is going back in time any second now, and this #### is never going to happen."

The crew of the Equinox must have been thinking that every day for the last 3 years of their cock up of a mission home.

Warp 8 around a sun, until the star's magnetic field propels you into time warp.

Kill both your children, kill as many people as you have to commandeer the bridge, go back in time a week, space your temporal doppleganger, steer the ship left when last time it went right, and then live in a perfect world with both your kids.

 

[DonIago]

Heh. It sounds a bit trite to me now, but I was going to write a fic at one point where years after the fact a character I'd invented for an RPG learned about the Guardian of Forever and tried to save the brother whose death he felt responsible for.

If this brief outline sounds like it has several holes in it, a) I was young, and b) I never seriously developed it.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I did a fanfic where Joe Carey's wife, had to kidnap Icheb, so that the Gaurdian of Forever would take her to his homeworld in the Delta Quadrant years earlier whereafter she could save her husband from Janeway being a... She wasn't kindly towards janewys command style.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Joe Carey's wife had a few too many negronis in a bar one year after Joe disappeared and ran off with the first guy who was nice to her. AND never looked back.

Of course she was sad when she found out he was dead. She sent a gift card to his grave for Flower Display No. 3 signed "Best Wishes, Mrs. Carey".

 

[Luminus]

Often there has to be a moment where a Star Ship crew accepts "Fuck this, someone is going back in time any second now, and this #### is never going to happen."

The crew of the Equinox must have been thinking that every day for the last 3 years of their cock up of a mission home.

Warp 8 around a sun, until the star's magnetic field propels you into time warp.

Kill both your children, kill as many people as you have to commandeer the bridge, go back in time a week, space your temporal doppleganger, steer the ship left when last time it went right, and then live in a perfect world with both your kids.

That would have been a nice line to hear in an episode. It's something Josh Whedon would write into the script. Equinox was corrupt enough to try the warp around the sun bit, which is strange why they didn't try it. No vulcans on board? Either way, your scenario would cause a paradox the moment you "spaced" your temporal doppelganger. You could only convince him to go through with your plan, at which point you would disappear if he agrees to go through with it. Or not, since Star Trek uses several time travel theories. I guess a random temporal incident will happen.

a) The past you succeeds and the future you ceases to exist.
b) The past you succeeds, but the future you remains.
c) The past you succeeds, the future you remains, but this is an alternate universe.
d) The universe prevents the plan from working.
e) A paradox happens and the universe winks out of existence in .0000006 seconds.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Their laws are inconstant, but as long as Selar Yar remains fit and healthy, even if the future her mother came form vanished before she was born, as long as you stay in someone elses past, you're fine.

As far as the Guardian Goes, Kirk and his command crew seemed to stay on the planet despite the fact that they were never born, although the Enterprise in orbit vanished.

The ship had a great deal of trouble navigating through the temporal storms around the planet at the beginning of the City of the Edge of Forever, which probably serviced the same purposes as Janeway's temporal shields in Year of Hell.

 

[DonIago]

I like to think it's not that the E vanished but that Our Heroes were shunted into an alternate timeline.