Janeway's Decision to Kill Tuvix

[Guy Gardener]

Typical... if you're against the Janeway's decision that episode you're anti-feminist. There's a completely rational argument. As if Janeway's gender had anything to do with it.

If Janeway was a man, which means network TV would be able to tell this love story, and "he" wanted to take a run at Kes, leaving Neelix mostly dead would increase "his" chances of having naked sexy sausage time with the little Ocampa.

I'm obviously describing Captain Tom Paris, and not Captain Keneth Janeway... But Tom was Voayger's first officer in Resolutions and that episode last several months, a hairs breadth away form the big chair.

But in all seriously what Ken Janeway would have said to Kes if confronted with exactly the same midnight plea would have most probably been "Hey sweetheart, why don't you grow a pair." and then he'd kick that pixie out of his quarters as that musky auburn brute tried to make up his mind rationally about who to murder tomorrow.

 

[marksound]

Tuvix = Brundlefly.

Janeway had to reverse the accident before Tuvix started puking on the donuts.

 

[Guy Gardener]

That could only improve Neelix's cooking.

Do you think Tuvok kept a copy of Tuvix's Katra in a partition of his mind after the dust settled?

After the insanity in the Admiral Janeway timeline finally broke down the bricks in that partition, Tuvix would have been free to take over the relatively healthy body it's diseased mind could barely control.

 

[Melakon]

I see it as equivalent to any other Trek episode where a crewman is taken over and controlled by a noncorporeal being. Any captain would have tried to get his crewman back. For Janeway, two of the crew were being controlled by a single entity.

 

[teya]

I see it as equivalent to any other Trek episode where a crewman is taken over and controlled by a noncorporeal being. Any captain would have tried to get his crewman back. For Janeway, two of the crew were being controlled by a single entity.

Tuvix wasn't an entity that possessed them. Tuvix was a sentient being created from them.

He did nothing to cause it; he was the result.

 

[Melakon]

. . .blah. . .bla-blah blah. . .

Tuvix wasn't an entity that possessed them. Tuvix was a sentient being created from them.

He did nothing to cause it; he was the result.

If I were a captain in that situation (and thank the gods I'm not, having no military experience), Tuvix's guilt or innocence would be irrelevant. He's preventing me from getting my crewmen back, and I will do anything necessary to have them returned. It's a hostage situation.

 

[DonIago]

There's no "right" decision to be made here. That said, I don't approve of her decision, I do consider it murder, and I wouldn't have made the same decision she did. Either way though, the decision-maker will have to carry quite a burden. Regrettably we never saw any acknowledgement of that. Thank God they included the Doctor refusing to perform the procedure.

I would have given the Voyager folks massive kudos if they'd had the restoration attempt fail though, and Janeway had lost all three of them. I'd have also liked any sort of follow-up to this on the part of Neelix and Tuvok and how they felt about Janeway's actions.

I've asked this before and nobody's ever given an answer that I'm aware of: if Tuvix is allowed to be killed because he's not considered a being with the right to life yet, how long must he be allowed to exist before he is granted that right? Weeks? Months? Years? Never? When does he get to stop living his life knowing it might be taken away from him at any moment?

Question - was there some sort of rush to restore Tuvok/Neelix? If not, it seems prudent to ask why nobody apparently pursued the option of recreating Tuvok/Neelix -without- destroying Tuvix, especially if there wasn't a ticking clock.

 

[R. Star]

Hostage situation? That's thin. My parents may have said I'm an accident, but that doesn't give some person with nominal authority over me the right to decide I die so they can harvest my organs to save two people they like more.

However he was created, Tuvix is a living sentient lifeform with all the rights anyone else would have.

 

[Melakon]

One of the wonderful things about Star Trek is how many layers of interpretation an episode can sometimes hold when one digs into it.

 

[R. Star]

Question - was there some sort of rush to restore Tuvok/Neelix? If not, it seems prudent to ask why nobody apparently pursued the option of recreating Tuvok/Neelix -without- destroying Tuvix, especially if there wasn't a ticking clock.

First thing I wondered is why they didn't explore the transporter accident that cloned Riker as a possibility for it. Of course that would require a small amount of continuity.

 

[Melakon]

Shoot, TNG turned Old Lady Pulaski into Middle Aged Pulaski with the transporter.

 

[sonak]

Hostage situation? That's thin. My parents may have said I'm an accident, but that doesn't give some person with nominal authority over me the right to decide I die so they can harvest my organs to save two people they like more.

However he was created, Tuvix is a living sentient lifeform with all the rights anyone else would have.

giving your organs to some unrelated people is a different scenario. Tuvix' birth was the RESULT of the destruction of Tuvok and Neelix as individuals.


The most moral outcome here would have been if Tuvix had been persuaded to voluntarily undergo the procedure.

 

[Melakon]

Tuvix was unwilling to make the sacrifice Tuvok or Neelix would have willingly made to save his own life, had they been able to choose.

 

[Brit]

I see it as equivalent to any other Trek episode where a crewman is taken over and controlled by a noncorporeal being. Any captain would have tried to get his crewman back. For Janeway, two of the crew were being controlled by a single entity.

Tuvix wasn't an entity that possessed them. Tuvix was a sentient being created from them.

He did nothing to cause it; he was the result.

You are splitting hairs here because neither did they. The law would force someone to prove ownership, how do you prove that when you have those on one side saying no matter what when on before, no matter who was deprived of their rights, I am now in possession of this body and I am going to keep it.

And this is what I mean about prejudice. We can find all kinds of explanations. Taya, explains that her opinion comes from years of being in the medical field and I totally believe her, but another individual with that same experience can have a totally different opinion of this scenario.

It's gut deep, it comes from prejudice as Guy pointed out, and it comes from experience, just the same way as Taya's opinion comes from experience. But that opinion is filtered by each individual's deeply held prejudice and is fueled by his experience.

I've asked this before and nobody's ever given an answer that I'm aware of: if Tuvix is allowed to be killed because he's not considered a being with the right to life yet, how long must he be allowed to exist before he is granted that right? Weeks? Months? Years? Never? When does he get to stop living his life knowing it might be taken away from him at any moment?

DonIago, my opinion is that the moment a viable solution to restore Tuvok and Neelix was found, Tuvix's rights ended. If it took them a hundred years to actually separate the two men, it would still be their lives to restore, not Tuvix's right to continue. Tuvix did not have Tuvok nor Neelix's permission to use their bodies to sustain his.

 

[DonIago]

Tuvix was unwilling to make the sacrifice Tuvok or Neelix would have willingly made to save his own life, had they been able to choose.

Interesting.

If he was really a composite of them then it stands to reason that he should have made the choice that they would have made, though I suppose we can't anticipate what he'd do if they'd disagree on how to approach a situation.

If his making a decision that they wouldn't make is evidence that he's not, strictly speaking, a composite of them, then the case for him being a unique being is strengthened.

Granted this wouldn't be the first time a Trek captain killed a possibly unique being.

 

[Relayer1]

I'd have separated them, then killed Tuvok

 

[sonak]

I see it as equivalent to any other Trek episode where a crewman is taken over and controlled by a noncorporeal being. Any captain would have tried to get his crewman back. For Janeway, two of the crew were being controlled by a single entity.

Tuvix wasn't an entity that possessed them. Tuvix was a sentient being created from them.

He did nothing to cause it; he was the result.

You are splitting hairs here because neither did they. The law would force someone to prove ownership, how do you prove that when you have those on one side saying no matter what when on before, no matter who was deprived of their rights, I am now in possession of this body and I am going to keep it.

And this is what I mean about prejudice. We can find all kinds of explanations. Taya, explains that her opinion comes from years of being in the medical field and I totally believe her, but another individual with that same experience can have a totally different opinion of this scenario.

It's gut deep, it comes from prejudice as Guy pointed out, and it comes from experience, just the same way as Taya's opinion comes from experience. But that opinion is filtered by each individual's deeply held prejudice and is fueled by his experience.

I've asked this before and nobody's ever given an answer that I'm aware of: if Tuvix is allowed to be killed because he's not considered a being with the right to life yet, how long must he be allowed to exist before he is granted that right? Weeks? Months? Years? Never? When does he get to stop living his life knowing it might be taken away from him at any moment?

DonIago, my opinion is that the moment a viable solution to restore Tuvok and Neelix was found, Tuvix's rights ended. If it took them a hundred years to actually separate the two men, it would still be their lives to restore, not Tuvix's right to continue. Tuvix did not have Tuvok nor Neelix's permission to use their bodies to sustain his.

I like your reasoning in that last part. If it is looked at as Tuvix using Neelix' and Tuvok's bodies against their wills, it makes the case for separating the two to restore them a lot clearer.

 

[Guy Gardener]

DonIago, it took the Doctor shortly over a month to figure out how to separate the two of these individuals, by which time he was already completely assimilated into and accepted by the crew except for Kes who didn't want to be sexually pressured by this man who was both already her lover and thementor who spent hours every week psychically penetrating her.

Notice how Janeway cites all of Tuvok and Neeix's family connections even if Tuvoks family already thinks that he's dead and the wife is already interviewing new suitors so that she doesn't die form pon far, unless the custom is that she dies from pon far because her life mate is dead... In which case Tuvok should have tried to get home faster, and when his wife started dying on the other side of the Galaxy, in concert he should have allowed himself to die with her, other wise he's a just being a punk ass bitch to a good woman.

If Tuvix had moved on and took a real girlfriend from some other crewman who championed his cause in direct opposition of Kes, cupping his sack and announcing loudly to the world This is mine! This is where my babies come from! Janeway would have caved. It was only his fixation of getting back into Kes' bedroom suite that fixed his little red wagon by leaving him disconnected emotionally from a lover/life partner who could have claimed him... If Tuvix had slipped a quickie wedding under the wire at the 28 day mark if he had been following the doctors moth long progression into killing him, Janeway would not have had the balls to follow though to break up a real family.

"Ensign Jenkins is pregnant with my Child Kathryn, do you really want to face that pointy eared, whiskered little minx every day for the rest of your life knowing that you murdered his father because some little girl is having a temper tantrum?"

So Kes is still the problem.

Tuvix didn't fully integrate and completely creating a life for himself on Voyager because he was waiting for Kes to get over her homicidal feelings for his sick lust for her and open her heart up to his proposal that they should be together forever as she was orchestrating his death.

 

[Lynx]

Janeway didn't kill anyone. She restored Tuvok and Neelix back to normal after a transporter accident.

It was basically the same as when The Doctor restored B'Elanna back to normal after the division of her in "Faces".

 

[teya]

I see it as equivalent to any other Trek episode where a crewman is taken over and controlled by a noncorporeal being. Any captain would have tried to get his crewman back. For Janeway, two of the crew were being controlled by a single entity.

Tuvix wasn't an entity that possessed them. Tuvix was a sentient being created from them.

He did nothing to cause it; he was the result.

You are splitting hairs here because neither did they. The law would force someone to prove ownership, how do you prove that when you have those on one side saying no matter what when on before, no matter who was deprived of their rights, I am now in possession of this body and I am going to keep it.

No, the law does not force us to prove ownership of our own bodies.

Tuvix was created by a form of procreation: symbiogenesis. This was made clear in the episode. No one caused it, no one is at fault, no one's rights were deprived by another in the accident. It was an accident that created a new form of life.

And it's made quite clear in the episode that he is considered alive and sentient--which means that under Federation law, he has the basic right to life that *everyone* has.

And this is what I mean about prejudice. We can find all kinds of explanations. Taya, explains that her opinion comes from years of being in the medical field and I totally believe her, but another individual with that same experience can have a totally different opinion of this scenario.

Oddly enough, my views match the Doctor's. I doubt you'd find many in medicine who would disagree with the doctor's position. So, if I am prejudiced, that's my prejudice: forcing Tuvix to give up his life goes against the oaths we swear when we enter the medical professions.

That we as individuals have the right to make our own decisions about how our body is used is seen most clearly today in transplant medicine. You cannot be forced to donate a kidney or a portion of your liver to anyone, not even to an identical twin.

Now, we might consider someone selfish for not doing so, but I hope no one would ever argue that someone should be *forced* to risk his or her life to save another.

ETA: If you'd like to point out what other prejudices I hold, please, by all means feel free. But before you start throwing around "anti-choice" and "anti-feminist," you might ask yourself if you know that to be true.