Re: Tuvix and its disturbing implications for how transports really wo
This whole argument boils down to this dialogue – yes I have been to the transcript site.
TUVIX: Begging your pardon, Captain, it’s my life. Isn’t it my decision?
JANEWAY: Aren’t there two other lives to consider here? What about Tuvok and Neelix? Two voices that we can’t hear right now. As Captain, I must be their voice, and I believe they would want to live.
TUVIX: But they are living in a way, inside me.
JANEWAY: It’s not the same and I think you’d agree with me. They have families, friends, people who love them and miss them and want them back, just as I do.
TUVIX: But restoring their lives means sacrificing mine. Captain, what you’re considering is an execution. An execution, like they used to do to murderers centuries ago. And I’ve committed no crime at all.
JANEWAY: Aren’t you arguing for an execution too? Of Tuvok and Neelix.
TUVIX: I’m here, alive. Unfortunate as it may be, they’re gone.
JANEWAY: And I have an opportunity to bring them back.
TUVIX: Don’t you think that I care about Tuvok and Neelix? Of course I do. Without them, I wouldn’t exist. In a way, I think of them as my parents. I feel like I know them intimately.
JANEWAY: Then you know Tuvok was a man who would gladly give his life to save another. And I believe the same was true of Neelix.
TUVIX: You’re right, Captain. That is the Starfleet way. And I know there will be some people who, who’ll call me a coward because I didn’t sacrifice myself willingly. Believe me, I’ve thought of that. But I have the will to live of two men. Look at me, Captain. When I’m happy, I laugh. When I’m sad, I cry. When I stub my toe, I yell out in pain. I’m flesh and blood, and I have the right to live.
My whole point in engaging in this debate was to show that the debate of Tuvix versus Tuvok and Neelix isn’t going to solve anything. I believe that Captain Janeway made the best decision she could in these circumstances. She knew it wouldn’t please everyone, it didn’t even please herself, but it was a captain’s place to make that decision and she was courageous to do so, and she would have been no matter which decision she made.
There are people here that believe she was right and people that believe she was wrong and nothing either one of us says is going to change the other’s mind, it is in fact a dilemma. For themselves neither Kestral nor DonIago are wrong in their conviction, but I am not wrong either. The biggest error being made in this argument is to try to place blame on Kathryn Janeway for not choosing what these individuals believe would have been the right choice. This incident doesn’t prove that she was a bad person or a bad captain on the contrary it actually proves that she was a very good captain and leader that would make the hard decisions when it was time for them.
That being said I am going to now continue my argument, and I will continue until others agree that we disagree and will always disagree and will concede that this argument will never change minds nor will there ever be a consensus as to which path was right. This is because neither path was right in the first place. In other words if you continue the argument, I will continue to stand toe to toe with you.
I can tell you that I’d much rather be on the “RomanceDivas” Message board today taking part in their “Not Going to the Conference Conference Forum.” Linnea Sinclair is holding an on-line workshop “Head Games: Writing Deep Third POV for Maximum Impact’” This is the third and last day and the thread is fourteen pages.
Ok here goes.
No. Nonononono. There is no such thing as "precedence" when it comes to right to life. Everyone has a right to life. Full stop. Tuvok and Neelix have no more right to live than Tuvix does. Every person - every person - is equal in the eyes of God, if you're going to bring faith into this. To say that one person has more a right to live than another, just because of an accident of creation and through no fault of her or his own, is disgusting.
Neelix and Tuvok are covered by this equality too, your argument only works if you can prove that the two are really dead, I don’t think that they are, Tuvix himself says that they live within him, and now Deks quoting Trek canon shows that even in canon Trek, Tuvok and Neelix are still alive, which actually makes your hypothetical example invalid.
Tuvix didn't kill anybody. He didn't "steal" anybody's body. And he certainly had the right not to die for dubious purposes. That's ridiculous.
He will have killed two people if he keeps his live as it is, he will have stolen Tuvok’s and Neelix’s bodies if he keeps his life as it is. Even by you standard they has as much right to live as does Tuvix. The point that none of you are getting is that the only thing “killed” was Tuvix’s amalgamated personality. He lived on within the original structures of Tuvok and Neelix.
We are talking about one Being that was born out of the death of two others, no specilation, no abstract what if. Just the fact that two people that had value would have been sacrificed for him alone.
Exactly. Tuvok and Neelix died. Tuvix was born. Tuvix is not to blame for his birth, because how could he possibly be premeditatively responsible for the circumstances of his birth?
That argument only works if Tuvok and Neelix were dead, which they were not. They were there within Tuvix, and you don’t see either one of those men berating Kathryn Janeway for setting things straight.
As for the subject of transporters.
Let's see ...
In Enterprise (whether you consider it canon or not ... it IS canon), there was the episode with the person who invented the transporter.
He clearly stated that the transporter does not kill an individual in any capacity, because all it does is convert matter into energy and transfers it to a new location.
The resulting accidents that happened on some occasions were not intended for regular Transporter functions and were a result of an outside factor interfering.
When the creator on-screen stated that the transporter does not create clones, then the guy obviously knows what he's talking about because there is a possibility he would cringe at the thought of copies going around and wouldn't want others to have any qualms about using the technology in question.
Thank you Deks, The subject of the transporters “killing” someone was the subject of one of the early Trek novels, I don’t remember much about it except that Dr. McCoy had a fear that he had actually been dead since the first time he set foot in one. I don’t remember the outcome even (it’s been thirty years guys). Just the subject.
One final thought, if transporters kill, then everyone on any starship in the federation were already dead and if that was true, Tuvix was just a dead as anyone else. You can’t have it both ways.
Brit *who now is off to catch up on the on-line writing workshop.
Best writing rule so far “
Follow no rule off a cliff.”
