"Nothing Human" & Crell Moset

[Damian]

I am currently in the midst of rewatching Voyager and "Nothing Human" presents some good bioethical arguments about using medical procedures developed in unethical ways and is it ever ok. Things that we love Star Trek for when they bring them up.

However, as I was watching it last night I couldn't help thinking are there no other exobiologist the Doctor could have turned to for help. Even if we grant that Crell Moset was the 'leading' exobiologist of his time, even if, as the episode suggests he is the best exobiologist for this emergency, were there no others that at least were in the top 5 the Doctor could have used?

Of course I understand from a narrative standpoint and the debate they wanted to have in the episode required Moset to be featured. If the Doctor did turn to other, non controversial, experts then a major plot point in the episode would have been moot.

But I wonder did anyone else thing about that? Like why not pick the 2nd or 3rd best exobiologist. That'd still be an excellent resource. They acted like without Moset the Doctor would be left all alone to treat Torres.

I did look at some old posts about this episode but most of the arguments settled around whether it was ethical to save Torres using Moset's knowledge (they were more than 2 years old so under the rules I couldn't really resurrect them, and since they didn't really address what I'm asking it probably was pointless to resurrect them anyway).

Otherwise I thought it was one of the better episodes of Voyager. And it was great to see a truly alien, non-humanoid alien. The alien was actually a bit unnerving TBH.

 

[Oddish]

Also interesting was the ethical issue. If a patient prefers death to benefitting from knowledge developed through evil means, do you honor their wishes? It's interesting that Janeway rejected both Tuvix's pleas and B'Elanna's wishes in the name of the greater good, but was willing to risk the welfare of the entire crew fir the sake of the one in "Latent Image".

 

[Tosk]

Imagine your captain going against your very strongly stated wishes "for the good of the ship" and then ordering you to just get over it. If I was B'Elanna I'd have been furious.

And to top it all off, on the subject of whether they should delete Crell, Janeway says "You're the Chief Medical Officer on this ship. As far as I'm concerned, there's no one more qualified than you to make that decision."

Eminently qualified to decide to delete a program, but not to decide how to treat a patient.

 

[DGCatAniSiri]

Honestly, I've always been bothered by the way that the Moset hologram is treated like he's the ACTUAL Moset.

First of all, if Voyager can create a hologram based on Moset, to a degree that the Doctor treats him like a peer above all else, then that means it HAS the information he created, so... why bother with the Moset program at all? Why can't the Doctor just access the information himself? (Granted, I can chalk some of that up to the Voyager writers misunderstanding how technology works, given that this WAS roughly turn-of-the-millennium, but it's still a fundamental problem with the story.) Even if he requires an assistant familiar with the technique for the procedure, why does it have to be Moset himself and not, say, a holo-assistant (which also goes back to the general issue of Voyager's failure to build up a medical staff after arriving the in the Delta Quadrant, but that's a problem deeper than any one episode)?

Secondly, though... The hologram of Moset is, after his activation, treated entirely like the real Moset. The episode's handling seems to forget that this Moset is just a recreation of the man, not the man himself. A decent chunk is wrapped up in the man who isn't actually there. It's like the Voyager writers picked up a script that DS9 couldn't fit in anymore, what with the Dominion War in progress, where the ACTUAL Moset appeared on the station to help save the life of someone, but, with Voyager being across the galaxy, they had to connive a way to involve Moset in the plot.

The questions the episode is trying to ask are good - what is the value of medical knowledge, of ANY knowledge, obtained through unethical means? Is it a betrayal of those who suffered to use it, or a greater betrayal in not making their suffering carry meaning in giving that knowledge use in practice? Even the question of Janeway demanding that B'Elanna's wish of not having this knowledge used at the expense of her life, when Voyager's circumstances mean that they need B'Elanna more than they can respect her right to autonomy and choice for herself. But the mechanics of getting Moset involved in things just make things too messy to actually dig in to them, while the last of those questions is failed by how Voyager shied away from ongoing storylines and followup between the episodes - how B'Elanna feels having her autonomy disregarded "for the greater good" is a question that could easily have been revisited.

Good ideas, but hurt by some of the overarching flaws of Voyager itself.

 

[NCC-73515]

I also don't like the decision to trash all the knowledge instead of putting it to positive use so that the victims' sacrifice was not in vain

 

[DonIago]

I also don't like the decision to trash all the knowledge instead of putting it to positive use so that the victims' sacrifice was not in vain

This has been my view on it for a long time.