Lazarus Effect
- Thread starter gakelly
- Start date
It's not so easy to "just kill" someone by choice, unless you're a on a battlefield or defending your life, or a psychopath.
Also, if I myself haven't figured out which Lazarus is the madman after 100 viewings of the episode, you can't expect Kirk to know all while he's in the middle of it for the first time.
Also, if I myself haven't figured out which Lazarus is the madman after 100 viewings of the episode, you can't expect Kirk to know all while he's in the middle of it for the first time.
I hear that often with antagonistic characters. "Why didn't they just push Dr. Smith out of an airlock?" As @ZapBrannigan mentioned, killing someone in cold blood isn't something an average normal person could do.
As for Lazarus, neither of them was "evil." One was driven mad by the idea of having a duplicate, the other was painted as a monster by said person but turned out to be noble and quite reasonable.
Insane Lazarus didn't deserve cold blooded murder. He simply needed to be stopped.
As for Lazarus, neither of them was "evil." One was driven mad by the idea of having a duplicate, the other was painted as a monster by said person but turned out to be noble and quite reasonable.
Insane Lazarus didn't deserve cold blooded murder. He simply needed to be stopped.
Which was an example of really great writing, to obscure and keep "evil universe Lazarus" suitably constrained, rather than the lampoon "Mirror, Mirror" did for the crew's counterparts...
...or Lazarus was the result of someone sleepscripting.
I reckon it was the former; @ssosmcin raises rather a good point the the microcosm in which the episode is played out in, with just one person, and leaving the other side completely open-ended... it begs some fun questions...
Which one was evil?
Indeed. But I also think that Sulu and Chekhov did have evil streaks in the mirror universe. They enjoyed killing. Spock, however, appeared more to be the way he was, simply because of the particular universe he found himself in. He didn't desire the captaincy, and I think he obediently obeyed the system because he couldn't see any other logical path. That is, until our Kirk's benevolent emotions, and newfound logic, came his way. I never considered him to be evil.
Good point, and there was glib explanation on my part as I was thinking solely of the Kirk and crew who were put in the brig scenes and not the rest of it (oops); we only see Kirk and his three counterparts in the brig being arguably lampoony. Sulu and Chekov were definitely handled better and it's a joy to watch as Takei and Koenig are probably having fun doing something a bit different and that's one thing all iterations of Trek have - like or dislike parallel dimensions or Living Witness' cobbled up misperceptions and lorebuilding, the actors seem to enjoy getting to be darker or evil. And the context of the brig alone and reaction by our universe's crew is passable. What would they in the brig end up doing instead? (The episode still had time constraints, so ultimately there had to be give...)
Then again, with the stakes that high, it shouldn't matter whether the Lazarus at hand were evil or deserving of death: he'd simply have to die, in order to allow the multiverse to continue existing.
Indeed, it's morally intolerable to even slightly hesitate with the killing there, given the circumstances. To preserve everything from becoming nothing, the killing of trillions should not be unduly delayed by idle prevarication.
It's just that "the circumstances" here are hearsay: Kirk doesn't really know whether he can trust the person who establishes the stakes. Killing of trillions on hearsay might not be all that advisable.
Yet killing of one should still be perfectly fine! So this Lazarus guy comes along and says with conviction "If the two of me coexist, everything ends". Making him stop existing at that very moment should only be prudent, then: he just signed his own death warrant in his own blood.
Timo Saloniemi
Been watching Trek all my life. This is the best I've ever understood this ep!
Naturally, it's possible that both of them were quite mad, that is, crazy, that is, fanatically convinced about something that simply wasn't true. We got no real evidence* that anything bad would happen if the two shook hands outside the corridor. Believing so would be consistent with the madness of Lazarus One, though (a fantasy created as an extreme manifestation of his fear of having a duplicate); why would Lazarus Two be any different?
Timo Saloniemi
* Yes, Spock speculates, and makes analogies about matter and antimatter. But he offers nothing concrete. And yes, the universe hiccups in the teaser, but it survives the hiccup just fine, and it may be the harmless byproduct of slamming the corridor door rather than having anything to do with the speculative "if they ever meet" issue.
Timo Saloniemi
* Yes, Spock speculates, and makes analogies about matter and antimatter. But he offers nothing concrete. And yes, the universe hiccups in the teaser, but it survives the hiccup just fine, and it may be the harmless byproduct of slamming the corridor door rather than having anything to do with the speculative "if they ever meet" issue.
They didn't guess what was happening exactly until late in the episode and Kirk only finds out for sure when he meets Lazarus B in the anti matter universe! Obviously there was no Enterprise there on that side, so this wasn't the mirror universe I used to keep telling myself!
JB
JB
Maybe Lazarus was grief stricken by the death of his son, and made the tunnel to another Universe to kidnap his alternate's child, but ultimately failed, creating a monster through monsterous actions, and putting both of their Universes at risk.....
Regarding which Lazarus is which:
Basically, Kirk & co stumble into someone else's problem. Who's problem? Alt-Lazarus. It is his people who discovered how to bridge universes, which in turn drove his counterpart mad.
Since then Alt-Laz has been trying to trap Lazarus in the magnetic corridor, in order to prevent the two of them ending up in the same universe as this would be bad for some reason (probably quantum). However, Lazarus keeps escaping and each time he does so it is accompanied by a "winking out" effect.
Eventually Alt-Laz works out a way to exchange himself with Lazarus without the colossal side effects, but only for short periods of time.
It happens twice:
Heck, we've seen how the Transporter can split a man into 2 beings that cannot survive without each other; maybe this is a similar set of circumstances?
Basically, Kirk & co stumble into someone else's problem. Who's problem? Alt-Lazarus. It is his people who discovered how to bridge universes, which in turn drove his counterpart mad.
Since then Alt-Laz has been trying to trap Lazarus in the magnetic corridor, in order to prevent the two of them ending up in the same universe as this would be bad for some reason (probably quantum). However, Lazarus keeps escaping and each time he does so it is accompanied by a "winking out" effect.
Eventually Alt-Laz works out a way to exchange himself with Lazarus without the colossal side effects, but only for short periods of time.
It happens twice:
- In Sickbay. McCoy notices the difference but then Alt-Laz escapes and learns about the presence of dilithium crystals on board this strange ship he finds himself in, but slips back to the magnetic corridor before he can take action.
- Near Engineering. Alt-Laz sneaks in and steals 2 crystals, with the help of his pocket sleep-needle. It is not known when he slips back, but it seems he took the time to hack into the ship's computer and familiarise himself with the ship's captain at least
- In Sickbay, a third attempt is made but Lazarus is able to fight it off (just after his second fall off the mountain)
Quite so - we only have Alt-Lazarus' word for much of this; he may well be a lying sociopath for all we know.
Heck, we've seen how the Transporter can split a man into 2 beings that cannot survive without each other; maybe this is a similar set of circumstances?
This is a great explanation on how and when the Laz exchanges occur. Lazarus never had any control of initiating the exchange process, not until he acquires the dilithium crystals. Up until then, poor Lazarus was repetitively assaulted by Alt-Laz, driving him insane by the process. It was Alt-Laz all along.
At what point in the story would this have been feasible? Summary executions aren't Kirk and Co.'s modus operandi.
Kor
Dunno about that. McCoy shot the salt vampire as soon as he got both the threat assessment and a clear line of sight. Kirk gunned down Vaal, Landru and Apollo the first real chance he got. Sometimes self-defense might have been an extra motivator; generally, defense of the UFP and its ideals was enough to justify the killing.
Kirk never got a good threat assessment on Lazarus, though. Although he did get a shot lined up towards the end, when the stakes were more or less clear and KIrk had chosen his side. It's just that he chose to execute his victim not with a phaser, but by throwing him through the portal - basically allowing him to execute two Lazari at the same time, to make doubly sure!
Timo Saloniemi
Kirk never got a good threat assessment on Lazarus, though. Although he did get a shot lined up towards the end, when the stakes were more or less clear and KIrk had chosen his side. It's just that he chose to execute his victim not with a phaser, but by throwing him through the portal - basically allowing him to execute two Lazari at the same time, to make doubly sure!
Timo Saloniemi
And he even killed the (unicorn space) dog!It was Alt-Laz all along.
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