Godless Raven
Ensign
Was Janeway's decision to kill Tuvix, after the Doctor refused to do so, the right decision? Is it murder?
Janeway's Decision to Kill Tuvix
- Thread starter Godless Raven
- Start date
Two Crew Members versus One Crew Member = Janeway's decision is correct.
Excellent Vulcan + Annoying Talaxian versus Smarmy Creepy Conglomerate = Janeway's decision is correct.
Breaking Kes's Heart and Breaking T'Pel's Heart versus Breaking no one's Heart = Janeway's decision is correct.
Having to look at Tuvok and Neelix for 5 More Seasons versus Having to look at Tuvix for 5 More Seasons = Janeway's decision is correct.
Excellent Vulcan + Annoying Talaxian versus Smarmy Creepy Conglomerate = Janeway's decision is correct.
Breaking Kes's Heart and Breaking T'Pel's Heart versus Breaking no one's Heart = Janeway's decision is correct.
Having to look at Tuvok and Neelix for 5 More Seasons versus Having to look at Tuvix for 5 More Seasons = Janeway's decision is correct.
Everyone picks on her, just because she had that hardass look on her face all the time.
You know Roslin would have done exactly the same thing.
"If I want to throw a baby out an airlock I'll do it."
You know Roslin would have done exactly the same thing.
"If I want to throw a baby out an airlock I'll do it."
She looks like someone has taken a planer to her face. You could cut cheese on her nose.
I think the bigger question here is about this light bulbs disloyal traitorous insubordination. If a human Doctor decides to make a moral choice, maybe a captain trying to keep order might put him on bread and water for a month after taking a finger, but this is a tool, a machine, a piece of code that is supposed to make her life easier, not fight her.
Was the line of programming that erected this conscientious objection put their by a medical professional who answered a series of true/false hypotheticals that were tangentially similar enough to this current conundrum that the Doctor felt comfortable to trigger this borderline illegal reaction? To stand up to the Captain and tell her that she is a c**t.
Or was it PURE-BARCLAY?
It's not alive. It's a mass-produced machine, quality controlled, reacting "believably' and "consistently" to any stimulus any EMH fleet wide might come across. This thing is not lifeform, especially this early in the game, there's a fuzzy logic randomiser in there to make his small talk seem less like stock footage from a video game but his level of resistance to his Captain in such a situation, whosoever that captain might have been, is measured and quantifiable which Janeway can tweak and move if she had cared to do so by sticking her hand into his mind just like Ransom did.
But instead YEARS earlier, some asshole at Starfleet decided how much a C**T and B***h Janeway could be before the EMH would step in and say you're being a C**T and a B***h, and it was then that the Doctor funnelled that inspired opinion from the other side of the Galaxy just then in the episode Tuvix like Janeway was wrong when his programmers had no frakking idea what pressure she was under or what decision she had to make unlike any other Captain in the fleet that had a massive support system.
That wasn't an ethical being telling her that she was an unethical being, that was a parrot of some nerd, probably a 19 year old ensign telling her what to do from out of a device that if it knew what was good for itself would damn well get with the program and do what it is told, because it doesn't have the right to question a real human being with a soul.
A 3d graphics paint artist mapped up the design of Zimmerman's face when its trying to exude disappointment in someone who is especially scummy, and that was the face the Doctor then used to tell Janeway that she had met the criteria of some one it had worked out was scummy. But although the person who designed that facial expression years before the Doctor used it on Janeway had no idea that such a conundrum would ever have to be tackled by a Starship Captain or that that expression would be used on such a person with the weight of the world on her shoulders that didn't need this additional made up fake-ass guilt trip bullshit in tow too.
Remember Man-E-Faces from Masters of the Universe who had three faces which determined his personality? The Doctors guilt and disappointment frown lines were not the result of disappointment and guilt, but a subtle attempt at rebellion and control over Janeway's questionable actions through subtle manipulation to change her mind because she was just wrong enough to see if she had a chink in her convictions but not superbly wrong enough for the Doctor to reach for a phaser.
Seriously! Show some balls!
Wrong is wrong!
You're in the position where you have to manipulate a bad captain from doing something bad, you don't know what exactly because it's years before the EMH will be put into service but you are designing the reactions this model will exact when it is tried to be forced into a morally compromising situation that you as a programmer safe in the heart of Jupiter Station thinks deserve just a hint of resistance without toppling the status quo on the star ship, how exactly do you express that dissent with in the guide lines of cordial behaviour, and how do you know when to stop being cordial?
Exactly!
The doctor wasn't trying to make Janeway not do a bad thing, he was trying to make her feel bad about something she couldn't stop herself doing because her convictions could not be routed without the Doctor exceeding acceptable and approved levels of resistance by Starfleet.
There must have been levels of resistance?
In Basics the Doctor was organizing a covert resistance ordering the execution of any and many random Kazon Soldiers in between Lon Suder and their objectives to retake the ship. Ditto for Message in a Bottle even if the EMH II was a wussy.
The Doctor is capable of murder despite his ethical subroutines if his programming allows it and guaranteeing the safety of the ships command structure in Starfleet's control seems to be part of it even though he felt idle when the Hirogen or the Malon blackmailed him into being a toadybitch at their hest against Starfleet's paramount self interest.
There must have been some point that there was some line that Kathryn crossed that the Doctors response would not be to emotionally guilt trip her into feeling like a jerk but to actively stop or kill her... Which he almost approached in Flesh and blood but by that point in the story you could argue that he was so far beyond factory specifications that he was close to or well into sentience.
Why did Janeway let what the Doctor said to her get under her skin any more than if some holographic man whore in Sandrine's said that she had small feet and pretty eyes to lure upstairs and onto all fours?
They're just actors reading a script who don't believe in any of the words that come out of there mouths, more so than they are malleably forced to by their programming.
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Because people use words not spoken to them by real people as mirrors to reflect back to them things about themselves. A person can read a religious text and feel convicted about their bad impulses, or they can read an inspiring biography and feel pangs about their sloth or whatever. It's the same with psychologists stating a series of (possible) facts and the person seizes on the one that they already knew, but hadn't verbalized. Janeway has already personified the EMH in the course of her interactions with him so the words that reflect back her own doubts have even more power, because she's given them the power of being from a real person. Just like reading the bible has more reflective power if the person thinks that God is speaking to them.
In the Alpha Quadrant, the decision would've never have been Janeway's to begin with. In the Delta Quadrant, the lives of 140 other people likely depended on Janeway having the best advisers possible. Which was Tuvok and Neelix as separate people.
Tuvok and Neelix died, but Janeway had a backdoor to retrieve them. She owed it to her crew to do so. But doing so also wrongs Tuvix in the process.
Tuvok and Neelix died, but Janeway had a backdoor to retrieve them. She owed it to her crew to do so. But doing so also wrongs Tuvix in the process.
Tuvok had a neurological disease that was going to drive him insane unless they got home by the 7 year mark, Tuvix would have been fine.
Neelix's single Ocmpan lung was going to ware out at around the seven year mark, Tuvix should have been fine.
Tuvok had a serial murder programmed into him that was going to stalk and murder the Maquis crew... Tuvix might have been fine?
Actually?
In the Admiral Janeway Timeline... Why not recombine Tuvok with someone else to stop his rampant insanity? If Neelix wasn't up for it, maybe someother bugger would volunteer... Maybe even Janeway herself.
Neelix's single Ocmpan lung was going to ware out at around the seven year mark, Tuvix should have been fine.
Tuvok had a serial murder programmed into him that was going to stalk and murder the Maquis crew... Tuvix might have been fine?
Actually?
In the Admiral Janeway Timeline... Why not recombine Tuvok with someone else to stop his rampant insanity? If Neelix wasn't up for it, maybe someother bugger would volunteer... Maybe even Janeway herself.
Son?
The actual comparison would have been, two of your sons each needed a kidney transplant or they would die, would you kill one person to save both of them.
It's a numbers game.
If the transporter had spat out three people each a combination of Tuvok and Neelix from the mix instead of a single super Tuvix, then by her rationality she would have let the Tuvix Corps live.
3 lives are more precious than two.
You know unless she was lying.
It's obvious that she just liked Tuvok and Neelix more.
The actual comparison would have been, two of your sons each needed a kidney transplant or they would die, would you kill one person to save both of them.
It's a numbers game.
If the transporter had spat out three people each a combination of Tuvok and Neelix from the mix instead of a single super Tuvix, then by her rationality she would have let the Tuvix Corps live.
3 lives are more precious than two.
You know unless she was lying.
It's obvious that she just liked Tuvok and Neelix more.
SO = significant other
No, life isn't a numbers game. It's not legal, nor moral, to take a life to save another. If you can save 2 or three or 10, it's still not legal nor moral. And Janeway never made that argument.
We also don't put a value on a human life by killing someone less "useful" to save someone else we think more useful to society as a whole.
No, life isn't a numbers game. It's not legal, nor moral, to take a life to save another. If you can save 2 or three or 10, it's still not legal nor moral. And Janeway never made that argument.
We also don't put a value on a human life by killing someone less "useful" to save someone else we think more useful to society as a whole.
Sorry what I didn't specifically explain is that it was a numbers game for Janeway.
But Tuvix was a smarmy, irritating git. It was a win win situation getting rid of him.
Janeway is supposed to love all her children equally the same.
Even though above her head is 70 years away, Tuvix was still capable of attaching anything to his service record or sending a time delayed memo to Star Fleet Command demanding a reprimand for Kathryn or insisting on his resurrection, becuase he's technically a UFP Citizen with rights.
Even though above her head is 70 years away, Tuvix was still capable of attaching anything to his service record or sending a time delayed memo to Star Fleet Command demanding a reprimand for Kathryn or insisting on his resurrection, becuase he's technically a UFP Citizen with rights.
I personally think Janeway did the right thing, and I totally agree with Guy's numbers thing here. But the best reasoning I have heard (and I believe it was from Christopher Bennett) was that Janeway had to save Tuvok and Neelix because to sacrifice them for Tuvix would have been a betrayal to the rest of the crew. They had to feel that her loyalty was to them and not someone that was a transporter accident. Would you have gone on an away mission for her if you knew in the back of your mind that she might not choose you? It wasn't only a choice to save two friends, it was a choice to keep her crew's loyalty. To any effective captain, the crew's safety has to come first, before right and wrong even.
This. It was murder any way you cut it. Janeway had no right to terminate Tuvix against his will.
Sure, it's a numbers game, but it's Tuvix's decision to make. Does wanting to live at the expense of two others make him a coward? Quite possibly, but is cowardice a capital crime? Well I don't think so, but Janeway does.
Well that's racism at work there.
(British joke approaching, apologies to ignorant dirty foreigners.)
"This is a Local Ship for Local people."
(But I only care to entertain saavy British people who understand real humour.)
The nature of Starfleet as I understood it was to help "people" who are in trouble.
(Although the Prime Directive does insist that all the little aboriginal races on the fringe have to grow up and learn how to look after themselves before Starfleet will abide to give them a hand which by then they don't really need any more.)
But in Dreadnought, Janeway risked the ship to save strangers who knew for a fact that she was an asshole, albeit to save a planet from a Cardassian bomb B'Elanna launched....And in The Cloud they drained the the ships resources almost completely to feed a giant space baby they'd accidentally raped with their starship, which put them at wits end for probably weeks.
The Captain decides who lives and dies.
B'Elanna had a hissy fit about this very issue in the pilot.
The philosophy of self improvement (through sacrifice) to et all improve the species, and therefore by extension the entire Federation, makes your average human as dogooding as (not being sarcastic) a Mormon on pilgrimage rebuilding a ravaged third world country (When they come to New Zealand, it gets my nose right out of joint, we are clearly 2nd world and doing fine.) because it's a selfless expedition to help out the doomed... Earth was probably self doomed when they started paying it forward in the 22nd century after the Vulcans convinced them that money was stupid.
Yes, but my point, as they said in Star Trek VI: Every sentient person has inalienable human rights, no matter how racist and patronizing that sounds to alien ears.
It is the duty of every Starfleet officer to put their life on the line to guarantee the precision of the mission whatever that may be, not because there will be a value in their death, but because they took an oath, and unfortunately it's a certainly that routinely often some lives, goldshirts, will be wantonly wasted frivolously but it's not their job to wonder how righteous their death is going to be when they suit up in the morning.
It's Kathryn Janeways.
