Well, personal bias (don't like the Star Trek movies) so stick with the TV series in answering the question, if you will, of all the Captains and Cdr turned Cpt. Sisko, what was the worst decision he/she made and why? I'd personally cast my vote for Janeway's decision to ally with the Borg; I'd cast my second vote for her decision to murder Tuvix, an act which I consider utterly morally abhorrent, but I'd like other opinions on this matter.
The Worst Decision by a Starfleet Cpt/Cdr.
- Thread starter Azure-Dynamo
- Start date
TOS, The Paradise Syndrome. Commander Spock holding the Enterprise in orbit while a search for Kirk was conducted. He should have left behind security teams with appropriate supplies to conduct the search, taken the ship to deal with the asteroid, and then returned to the planet.
TNG, I Borg. Captain Picard's decision not to use the invasive computer virus against the Borg. This isn't about whether it would have worked or not, Picard's reasoning not to use it was flawed, Picard of all people knew the danger the Borg were and should have proceeded.
ENT, outside of the OP, but. Starfleet Command's decision to only send the NX-01 into the expanse, I feel was a serious miscalculation. Regardless of their slower speeds, some of Earth's other starships should have separately been sent as well.
Janeway's decision to save Tuvok and Neelix's lives (in Tuvix) was the correct and ethical thing to do.
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TNG, I Borg. Captain Picard's decision not to use the invasive computer virus against the Borg. This isn't about whether it would have worked or not, Picard's reasoning not to use it was flawed, Picard of all people knew the danger the Borg were and should have proceeded.
ENT, outside of the OP, but. Starfleet Command's decision to only send the NX-01 into the expanse, I feel was a serious miscalculation. Regardless of their slower speeds, some of Earth's other starships should have separately been sent as well.
Janeway's decision to save Tuvok and Neelix's lives (in Tuvix) was the correct and ethical thing to do.
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So it is okay to murder one person to save two? I'm sure several people could be saved by harvesting your organs...
As for other bad decisions, I think Archer is generally terrible captain and makes loads of horrible choices. Enterprise is the only Trek series where I started to hope that the crew would mutiny. I think some of the worst choices come from his 'hard man making hard decisions'* period. It is bad when in 'Anomalies' he threatens to murder an Osaarian (and seems like he was really going to do it) unless he divulges information he wants, but it may be even worse when in 'Damage' he steals a warp coil from random aliens leaving them stranded in the middle of nowhere (they probably died.)
(* God I hate that trope. Fuck you, Jack Bauer!)
It was absolutely horrible episode and a great example of why Enterprise was so bad. They wanted to create an episode that explored the ideas behind the formation of Prime Directive. So they make an episode where the crew just comes up with primedirectivish idea out of thin air at the worst possible situation, and come across as total dicks. Proper way to create such an episode would have been a story where the crew try to help some primitive civilization, but despite their good intentions things go wrong and the situation gets much worse.
Flawed analogy.
To make it accurate, the organs that were saving people's lives would originally have come from those people in the first place and they would have been taken without permission and needed for continued existence... In which case yeah, ethical to take them back.
No, but Longfoxinushot would probably want to be Longfoxinushot.
In this analogy, the decision for the organs to be taken back also had nothing to do with the original owners. It was a third party. If a third party made the decision to get your organs back so you could live... would you describe that third party as a murderer?
And if Longfoxinushot is nothing more than two unique minds battling to make sense of the world through one voice (creating the illusion of a third unique mind when in fact there is no such unique third mind present) should the two genuine and established unique minds be sacrificed?
Me either. She saved Tuvok and Neelix, not murdered Tuvix. Or rather, it was a lose lose for her.
But Tuvok and Neelix both had years of life behind them and Tuvix was, in effect, newborn. Doesn't make infanticide right, but we do tend to value adult life more. But most imprtantly, Tuvok and Neelix weren't dead and past recovery--they were recoverable at the cost of someone else's life.
What if some mad Vidian, or madder Vidian, captured Neelix and Tuvok and did some horrible experiment on them where there torsos and torso organs were linked to another person's? Let's make it an unknown Vidian just to take any sentimentality out of it--it's still a life though. And a clock is ticking and they will both die in a number of hours, but because of the way the mad Vidian did the surgery, the unknown Vidian would live. And the only way for the Doctor or any surgeon to save Neelix and Tuvok is to perform an operation that will absolutely cost the unknown Vidian's life.
This is not in question to me, although no doubt people would be unhappy about it.
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Yes. If my life ends up being saved, I'd probably still accept it (people are selfish that way), but the person ending up being killed would probably feel differently!
I think ultimately Janeway acted selfishly. She wanted her buddy Tuvok back so she ignored the unfortunate side effects of having to murder Tuvix and having to bring Neelix back.
Yes, I think 2 people are more important than one. Just watch Star Trek 2.
To quote Ambassador Spock, "The Needs of the Many [Tuvok and Neelix, the two] outweigh the needs of the few, or the one [Tuvix]"
It is logical. Morals/ethics are unimportant compared to logic/reason/rational thought.
@PhaserLightShow
I thought it was because Kes cried and wanted Neelix back.
How?
Janeway's bad decision regarding Tuvix happened long before that episode. It was way back in the first episode, where she chose to keep Neelix around after is repeated schemes and antics nearly got everybody killed repeatedly. The follow up to that bad call was a few episodes later, in not using him for Torpedo Practice after his cooking crippled and nearly destroyed the ship.
Allying with the Borg was a forgivable error and desperate move. Allying with Neelix was signs of instability and mental illness.
Allying with the Borg was a forgivable error and desperate move. Allying with Neelix was signs of instability and mental illness.
In Scorpion, Janeway had every reason to believe that Species 8472 would proceed to destroy all life in the galaxy after finishing with the Borg. She had no reason to believe until later that peaceful contact could have been made to explain to them that they are not aggressors just because other organic beings are.
The decision in Tuvix is very debatable. I don't buy the argument that 'Two people are more important than one'. As others have pointed out, this argument makes it ethically permissible to kidnap people off the street and distribute their organs, or intentionally infect people with diseases in order to test your cure. The argument that Tuvix was not a genuine individual due to the way he was created, and they never really stopped being two people carries a little more weight, but that's a huge philosophical debate. And I respected it more in Similitude when Archer came out and admitted his preference for Trip over Sim was selfish. If you have to choose between one life and several, you choose several, but that does not apply here because if Tuvix was a new separate individual, Tom and Neelix were already dead.
To the 'organ' hypotheticals. If somebody stole my organ and gave it to somebody else. If that somebody else was complicit and aware I would steal it back even if it meant killing them, if that somebody else was not I would not, or if I did I would admit I was being completely unmorally selfish instead of making an ethical stand.
I would agree Picard's most ethically questionable action was not using the program against the Borg. A moral stand would have been to defend Hugh's individuality, not send him right back to the Borg.
Sisko had a lot of interesting ethical choices. In The Pale Moonlight was not two people versus one, it was a billion people versus one. The line is somewhere, and it's well short of a billion. I might go for the Eddington thing and poisoning the Maquis planet.
For Janeway it's hard to pick one. Her logic tended to swing arbitrarily between principled and selfish but they never talked about it that way.
The decision in Tuvix is very debatable. I don't buy the argument that 'Two people are more important than one'. As others have pointed out, this argument makes it ethically permissible to kidnap people off the street and distribute their organs, or intentionally infect people with diseases in order to test your cure. The argument that Tuvix was not a genuine individual due to the way he was created, and they never really stopped being two people carries a little more weight, but that's a huge philosophical debate. And I respected it more in Similitude when Archer came out and admitted his preference for Trip over Sim was selfish. If you have to choose between one life and several, you choose several, but that does not apply here because if Tuvix was a new separate individual, Tom and Neelix were already dead.
To the 'organ' hypotheticals. If somebody stole my organ and gave it to somebody else. If that somebody else was complicit and aware I would steal it back even if it meant killing them, if that somebody else was not I would not, or if I did I would admit I was being completely unmorally selfish instead of making an ethical stand.
I would agree Picard's most ethically questionable action was not using the program against the Borg. A moral stand would have been to defend Hugh's individuality, not send him right back to the Borg.
Sisko had a lot of interesting ethical choices. In The Pale Moonlight was not two people versus one, it was a billion people versus one. The line is somewhere, and it's well short of a billion. I might go for the Eddington thing and poisoning the Maquis planet.
For Janeway it's hard to pick one. Her logic tended to swing arbitrarily between principled and selfish but they never talked about it that way.
She had no such reason to believe that species 8472 would destroy every species in the galaxy. Believing that would be moronic. Hell, they already developed a means of killing them so that alone proves that their threat was pretty empty. Additionally, this supposed threat was interpreted by a one year old with magic thinky powers that were far from conclusive. But hey, if this one kid says it then yeah... genocide totally justified.
Janeway chose to agree to genocide because it suited her.
This was further exposed when Chakotay pointed out that the Borg were in fact, the initial aggressors and yet she didn't care. She still thought her... give the Borg the means to wipe out an entire race... idea was a good one.
I think it would be a better idea to use the invasive program instead of keeping Hugh. That would have saved millions of lives from the Borg. Which is more important and ethical and logical to you: killing one to save many, or saving one and killing many?
@PhaserLightShow
