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My first voyage with Voyager

Brevity? :(

It's like you don't know me.

in infinite regress they discovered that Seven of Nine was dominating hundreds, possibly thousands of complete and intact consciousnesses, some human many familiar, but Janeway was willing to sacrifice all of those poor bastards to bring back the near blank slate Borg personality that had been conjured by the Queen to act as a facilitator and not a scared 8 year old little girl. cut and paste vs. copy and paste, if Janeway had built all those live holographic lifeboats would Seven still have had a working personality with all that multiplicity of character stripped from her soul?
 
In Tuvix, Janeway again makes the call. Clearly they thought it out as Tuvix uses this argument in defending his own life, that it's not Janeway's call to make. But Janeway's the captain, she's making the tough choice, even though it's not hers to make and she's playing god with people's lives and taking one against his will. It's definitely a moral dilemma, but it's not Janeway's to resolve.

Picard certainly would have given a stirring lecture about how the greater good should compel Tuvix to make the proper choice. Kirk probably would have insulted him into doing it by shaming him with his cowardice. Sure, Janeway isn't Kirk or Picard but I don't think either of them would take a man's life against their will in this circumstance. As for it making Janeway "more human" somehow? I don't see it. She's not the "hero" in this episode and is acting downright villainous.

It's not the last time Janeway will play god with people's lives & make tough calls that aren't really hers to make. I think that in trying to make their woman captain appear strong & decisive, they turned her into someone who makes a decision, then wallows in guilt over it later. Can't really go into any more detail at this point in the series.

I'm not sure the "greater good" means that Tuvix has to sacrifice himself. Chakotay (wuss who says nothing when Tuvix is pleading for his life) said that Tuvix was an example of the whole being greater than the sum of his parts, and Janeway's log praised him as more than competent as both a chief of security and a chef.

As for making her more human, it's the flaws that make us human. And heroes don't always act heroically. Sometimes they're driven by the same emotions the rest of us are.

You're absolutely right about it not being the only ethically questionable call she makes. I get it that we make bad choices, but it makes it dang hard to sympathize with the main protagonist of a series when she's rather consistently pulling a stunt like this once a season or so.

This really would have made a good two parter if the worked in a plot with the Kazon or another bad guy where Tuvix is dying and with his dying act consents to the procedure to save his "parents." Janeway wouldn't be a murderer and you'd have an uplifting, if sad sacrifice that added some meaning to the two characters.

If Tuvix consents, then this is a shit story.

You get something like Similitude on Enterprise.

Remember the first time Riker saw that there was a clone of himself?

He disintegrates it and then says "The universe is only big enough for one Will Riker."

This I believe was not Deanna Troi's point of view.
 
You're absolutely right about it not being the only ethically questionable call she makes. I get it that we make bad choices, but it makes it dang hard to sympathize with the main protagonist of a series when she's rather consistently pulling a stunt like this once a season or so.

Having an occasionally (or more often) unsympathetic protagonist *is* tricky. And it may be a matter of taste. I like to be challenged that way. Sometimes. Other times, I enjoy throwing whatever knitting work-in-progress is at hand at my TV. :p
 
What if Tuvix had been an aggressive, angry emulsion of the two? If his unrepressed Vulcan emotion had been the dominant personality rather than being the slightly smarter version of Neelix we got?

And he raged and demanded that he be allowed to live?

Would there be the same level of sympathy?
 
Yep. Just because someone is unlikeable, doesn't mean they don't deserve to live.
 
Here we go again, it's the so called "pro-lifer" against the pro-abortionists arguments. There will never be a common ground. It's the episode that those who are inclined to hate Janeway give for their justification. But the honest truth is the ending could have been no other way.

Tim Russ and Ethan Phillips had contracts, Kenneth Biller did not. The story could only go one way.

Let's hear it for pragmatism. There's not enough of that around!

Me, I like the episode (like Season 6's Memorial) simply for the ethical debate it stirs up; for the best of those there's no clear outcome. The debate itself is the thing -- questioning, probing, thinking.

Oh, and that makes for the best Trek episodes. Funny, that...
 
So if this was all because Kes was crying what would have happened if Kes had liked Tuvix better?

"Captain everything that was ever missing in my love for Neelix is now embodied in Tuvix, this is the happiest I have ever been!"
 
Tuvix made me cry when I was a kid.

I remember telling an ex-girlfriend that years later. "Cute", she said. Then she laughed at me. Pfft.

True story.
 
I'll say this for it, that was one of the few Voyager episodes capable of playing around with the emotions of its audience. I'm not even sure if I'd need all five fingers on one hand to count those.
 
So if this was all because Kes was crying what would have happened if Kes had liked Tuvix better?

"Captain everything that was ever missing in my love for Neelix is now embodied in Tuvix, this is the happiest I have ever been!"

All Kes crying over wanting Neelix back did was just demonstrate Janeway had a preset disposition against Tuvix. She was critical of him because he was so desperate for his life, begging already having failed he sent Kes to beg on his behalf.

It's a non-factor. Janeway had already decided it was within her right to play god with his life. That's the root of her wrong. If Kes had spoken on Tuvix's behalf, it's debatable whether Janeway would have gone through with it or not. This is really a situation where one person standing up for him may have made a difference. One person saying it was wrong. Well the Doctor did, but Janeway is on record saying he isn't a person.
 
I'll say this for it, that was one of the few Voyager episodes capable of playing around with the emotions of its audience. I'm not even sure if I'd need all five fingers on one hand to count those.

The first time I watched Tuvix I thought it was utterly retarded. I couldn't get past the blending of two people in the transporter, it was just waaaaaay too eye rolling for me.

Hey you know what would have been a good move.. remove all the Tuvok parts to get Tuvok back but leave a copy of those parts in Tuvix. This way we get to keep Tuvix, get rid of Neelix and still have a Vulcan as a main character.
 
I'll say this for it, that was one of the few Voyager episodes capable of playing around with the emotions of its audience. I'm not even sure if I'd need all five fingers on one hand to count those.

The first time I watched Tuvix I thought it was utterly retarded. I couldn't get past the blending of two people in the transporter, it was just waaaaaay too eye rolling for me.

Hey you know what would have been a good move.. remove all the Tuvok parts to get Tuvok back but leave a copy of those parts in Tuvix. This way we get to keep Tuvix, get rid of Neelix and still have a Vulcan as a main character.

It's Star Trek, silly implausible things are part of it. I was actually disappointed there was no flower popping out of his neck since the Doctor said there were PLANTS in his DNA. :p

Really between transporter and replicator technology you think you'd be able to duplicate him(which transporters can do see Second Chance) and separate the other two. As much as I don't like Neelix, just because he's a jerk doesn't mean he deserves death. :p
 
Oh I don't hate him, though my tolerance has recently taken a steep dive.

And yes, I was waiting for Tuvix to blossom as well. Those flowers have incredible application potential in genetic modification. Tuvix didn't even have health glitches. It's like the whole universe is just a bunch of Mr. Potato Head parts. Add flowers, transport and Yay, new cool stuff!
 
Boo to you Neelix haters! He makes me laugh!

I tend to dislike the word hate. I just generally find Neelix annoying and well... a jerk. There are upcoming episodes where I'll rant further on that. ;)

If you like him, more power to you and I wouldn't take that away from you. Just please... distract him while I order something from the replicator? :p
 
If there was sympathy, they wouldn't have let Kathy Kill him.

Even if the entire crew said "let him live" it was till supposedly the Captain's call... For as long as as they were all on Federation soil. If Tuvix got off the ship, Kathryn lost all her legal powers as a Starfleet Captain.

What if Neelix said a magic word like "Asylum"?

Would Janeway protect Tuvix from Janeway?

Would Janeway be of two minds about how to treat a man of two minds?

There's no way Neelix did exit that entanglement without a healthy dose of Tuvok's cosmic Clap, and
Neelix now probably has exactly the same psychological triggers to be a serial killer that that Bajoran nutjob beat into Tuvok which seemed so troublesome in Repression.

You can't keep a compelling story without hard choices.

One choice is no choice.
 
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