Questionable Ethics, Voyager's Threshold

[T'Girl]

Threshold is the Voyager episode where the crew builds a shuttlecraft engine capable of reaching warp ten, reaching the "threshold" results in a Human mutation. At the end of the episode, Reptile Paris and Reptile Janeway produce three reptile offspring, three children together.

Chakotay (log entry): "We've transported the Captain and Mister Paris back to Sickbay. As for their offspring, I've decided to leave them in their new habitat.

The part of the episode I personally had the most trouble with, was the abandonment of the offspring. You don't just "leave your children in the woods." On Earth, baby reptiles are often protected, feed and cared for weeks by their mothers until they reach a certain age and size. Janeway's and Paris's offspring (the salamanders) should have been taken back to Voyager with them. Turn a unused cabin or cargo bay into a terrarium like environment for them.

Given the forces that transformed Janeway and Paris, who knows what kind of beings would have resulted when the children matured. What level of intelligence, and sentience, they would have obtained. Provided they weren't simply eaten.

Geordi LaForge was born blind, Bashir was born mentally challenged. So they haven't solved all possibilities, what happens to mentally disabled newborns in the Federation? Casually drop them off at a swamp on your way back to the house?

The actual decision was Chakotay's. However Janeway could have turn the ship around once she "came to her senses." Paris could have insisted too.

Were the ethical decisions all the way around questionable?

 

[sonak]

Threshold is the Voyager episode where the crew builds a shuttlecraft engine capable of reaching warp ten, reaching the "threshold" results in a Human mutation. At the end of the episode, Reptile Paris and Reptile Janeway produce three reptile offspring, three children together.

Chakotay (log entry): "We've transported the Captain and Mister Paris back to Sickbay. As for their offspring, I've decided to leave them in their new habitat.

The part of the episode I personally had the most trouble with, was the abandonment of the offspring. You don't just "leave your children in the woods." On Earth, baby reptiles are often protected, feed and cared for weeks by their mothers until they reach a certain age and size. Janeway's and Paris's offspring (the salamanders) should have been taken back to Voyager with them. Turn a unused cabin or cargo bay into a terrarium like environment for them.

Given the forces that transformed Janeway and Paris, who knows what kind of beings would have resulted when the children matured. What level of intelligence, and sentience, they would have obtained. Provided they weren't simply eaten.

Geordi LaForge was born blind, so they haven't solved all possibilities, what happens to mentally disabled newborns in the Federation? Casually drop them off at a swamp on your way back to the house?

The actual decision was Chakotay's. However Janeway could have turn the ship around once she "came to her senses." Paris could have insisted too.

Were the ethical decisions all the way around questionable?

probably yes, but Star Trek fetishizes "non-interference," so maybe they thought it was a PD issue.


Hardly the biggest problem with this episode.

 

[T'Girl]

Difficult to see how the prime direct would come into play here. The children were the babies of two Federation citizens. You would think that would confer upon them certain rights from birth.

I was hoping to avoid any other problems with the episode during this discussion please.

 

[sojourner]

Even the writer/producer thinks this is the worst episode of voyager ever made. The less it's brought up in any context the better.

 

[Sandoval]

Some things should be swept under the carpet and left for subsequent generations to deal with in the future. Like nuclear waste.

Threshold is one of those things.

 

[sonak]

Difficult to see how the prime direct would come into play here. The children were the babies of two Federation citizens. You would think that would confer upon them certain rights from birth.

I was hoping to avoid any other problems with the episode during this discussion please.

not difficult to see. The creatures were born on that particular planet, not onboard Voyager, so their "natural environment" would be the planet.


Also, are the creatures supposed to be self-aware enough to have Federation rights? I don't think so.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

If Janeway had given birth to human-looking children who had the same level of mental development as the salamander kiddies, would it be okay for her to abandon them?

If they required a certain type of environment, bubble-boy style, would it be okay to put them there and never visit or care for them ever again?

This episode is just indefensible due to extreme stupidity and not-thinking-it-through-itis.

But if you really want to get people riled up, bring up Tuvix.

 

[Anwar]

Tuvix is an example of the audience just not liking the cast of the show in the first place:

If it had been a TOS episode, and Spock/McCoy got fused into one being with the threat of never getting either character back, the audience would've been okay with killing the guy to get them back.

Tuvix was a case of the audience not liking Tuvok or Neelix, and jumping at the first chance to be rid of both of them.

 

[The Wormhole]

The choice to leave the Warp 10 Salamander Kids behind on that planet bothered by a lot.

-For starters, you're introducing a new life form into a new ecosystem. There's no telling how much damage this could cause.

-It's a new life form, and all the Voyager crew do is turn their back on it. What about "seek out new life forms?"

Still, in spite of everything I actually love watching Threshold a lot.

 

[ngc7293]

I don't think it is so much about leaving the kids behind at the park, but what if they brought them back to the ship. They turned Janeway and Paris back to Human form, what if they turned the babies back too? Janeway and Paris parents?!? ....definitely not a good thing!

 

[The_Baroness]

Difficult to see how the prime direct would come into play here. The children were the babies of two Federation citizens. You would think that would confer upon them certain rights from birth.

I was hoping to avoid any other problems with the episode during this discussion please.

not difficult to see. The creatures were born on that particular planet, not onboard Voyager, so their "natural environment" would be the planet.

Not exactly. They may have been born there, but they were directly brought into being by the meddling of starfleet.

A lion, born in the zoo, is not in it's natural environment.

 

[sonak]

Difficult to see how the prime direct would come into play here. The children were the babies of two Federation citizens. You would think that would confer upon them certain rights from birth.

I was hoping to avoid any other problems with the episode during this discussion please.

not difficult to see. The creatures were born on that particular planet, not onboard Voyager, so their "natural environment" would be the planet.

Not exactly. They may have been born there, but they were directly brought into being by the meddling of starfleet.

A lion, born in the zoo, is not in it's natural environment.

considering the convoluted and contradictory ways the PD has been interpreted, I find it more than plausible that the planet would be interpreted as their natural environment, and that removing them from there would constitute "interference."


your analogy with the zoo doesn't work, since a zoo, by definition is an artificially created environment, whereas this planet was not.

 

[MacLeod]

To Paraphrase Tasha with regard to Threshold , "I'm only going to say this once, It never happened" :P

 

[T'Girl]

The creatures were born on that particular planet, not onboard Voyager, so their "natural environment" would be the planet.

So if say Naomi Wildman, or Molly O'Brien, were born on that planet, then that planet would be their "natural environment," and either of those new borns could be safely left there as a Starfleet crew happily warps away?

 

[sonak]

The creatures were born on that particular planet, not onboard Voyager, so their "natural environment" would be the planet.

So if say Naomi Wildman, or Molly O'Brien, were born on that planet, then that planet would be their "natural environment," and either of those new borns could be safely left there as a Starfleet crew happily warps away?

(sigh) again, I don't think the creatures were supposed to be self-aware, which would obviously change the equation. It's not an episode I've seen repeatedly, so I may be wrong on that.

Also, newborn human babies can't make it on their own. The salamander creatures would probably do fine.

 

[T'Girl]

The salamander creatures would probably do fine.

While salamanders are not protected by a parent, other types of reptiles are watched over by a parent for over a year.