Tuvix Episode Revisited
- Thread starter Robert Leva
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DOCTOR: I'm sorry, Captain, but I cannot perform the surgical separation. I am a physician, and a physician must do no harm. I will not take Mister Tuvix's life against his will.
JANEWAY: Very well. Computer, delete the Emergency Medical Hologram. Slowly...
(The Doctor screams and dies a slow and agonizing death. Then without flinching, Janeway murders Tuvix to restore her best friend Tuvok and her favorite weird alien cook Neelix.)
The EMH program resets itself.
DOCTOR: Please state the nature of the medical emergen-- wait...hold on a second... According to my systems, we are in the Delta Quadrant? And we have been for 2 years? Captain, did I....miss anything?
JANEWAY: Not really.
Later that night... the camera pans over Tuvok in his quarters -- he is wide awake, thinking intensely about what just occurred, remembering being Tuvix. Then the scene switches to Neelix's room; he too is wide awake, unable to sleep, haunted by Tuvix's memories. And finally, the scene ends on Captain Janeway in her own bed, sleeping as soundly as a baby, without a care in the world.
JANEWAY: Very well. Computer, delete the Emergency Medical Hologram. Slowly...
(The Doctor screams and dies a slow and agonizing death. Then without flinching, Janeway murders Tuvix to restore her best friend Tuvok and her favorite weird alien cook Neelix.)
The EMH program resets itself.
DOCTOR: Please state the nature of the medical emergen-- wait...hold on a second... According to my systems, we are in the Delta Quadrant? And we have been for 2 years? Captain, did I....miss anything?
JANEWAY: Not really.
Later that night... the camera pans over Tuvok in his quarters -- he is wide awake, thinking intensely about what just occurred, remembering being Tuvix. Then the scene switches to Neelix's room; he too is wide awake, unable to sleep, haunted by Tuvix's memories. And finally, the scene ends on Captain Janeway in her own bed, sleeping as soundly as a baby, without a care in the world.
Of course he was written that way. Suppose we had gotten 'Neevok' instead, a character that combined the worst qualities of them both. A lousy cook, overly logical in situations that don't call for it, yet effusive in an annoying way, relatively incompetent in his work, etc. Then probably no-one would have been sorry to see him go, both in-universe and in the audience. Which, in itself, might have been an interesting introspective mirror in how we really construe our 'ethics', and to what extent personal likes and dislikes play a role in that.
Until she wakes in the night and finds herself staring up at Tuvok, as we see him in "Meld": full psycho "let's strangle Neelix" mode. Only it's not the holodeck this time...
Then the episode's end would be far less controversial.
JANEWAY (gasping for air): Tuvok! I can't tell if you're.....trying to....KILL me, or.....if.....you're....trying to.....MAKE LOVE to me!! Either way.....I'M TOTALLY INTO IT!!!Until she wakes in the night and finds herself staring up at Tuvok, as we see him in "Meld": full psycho "let's strangle Neelix" mode. Only it's not the holodeck this time...
TUVOK: Why won't you just DIE???!!!!
JANEWAY: I'm too good looking to die!!
Someone would have been sorry to see him go.
I find the idea that one's appearance or personality should be a factor in whether they're permitted to exist offensive.
I understand. But, this was a conflict between three people's right to exist. No matter what choice was made, someone wasn't going to survive.
Yes, but the basis for that determination shouldn't be based on their personality or appearance.
Why not?
Tuvix died because Kes doesn't like it when people look at her and think about having sex with her.
A grown man can hide that thirst.
Tuvix was less than a month old.
Give the kid a chance to figure out how to be cool around a woman he's in love with.
It's like when you forget your ex is you ex for a second and sniff her, which is something that I have never done, but that's what Tuvix was doing with his eyes, all the damn time he was near Kes.
Sure he's creepy, but he's like a child trying to figure out why no one is breast feeding him, and I do mean anyone. You seen those hippies who will breast feed other people's children? F#cking crazy.
If Neelix was "dead" then Tom should have made a play for Kes, since he only stood down from taking her into his bosom, because of his valuable friendship with Neelix.
Every time he punched Tuvix in the nose, Kes should have kissed him?
Seems fair.
Offensive, perhaps. I was simply describing how I think it would play out in that case, both in-universe and with the audience in general, without delivering any ethical judgement on it. I can amend my statement to 'probably very few people would have been sorry to see him ('Neevok' ) go, but that's about it.
I personally don't think the episode allows for an unambigious ethical judgement to begin with. As scripted (e.g. a solution that saves all three is out of the question) any course of action -or inaction- would have been cause for severe ethical objections. So given that one has to choose (playing by the rules of the episode), and not choosing is also choosing, what criteria does one use?
The only 'escape' I see is that Janeway could have waited longer ('perhaps the EMH will find a solution to save all three of them further down the road'), and for this moral conundrum to function properly, I think that option should also have been closed off explicitly too ('we have to restore Tuvok and Neelix within 72 hours from now or it will become irreversible for technobabble reasons!')
That would have entirely been in the spirit of the episode after all, to show that there are situations where all possible course of action are objectionable.
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Regarding The Doctor at the end...
He was a physician, but a Starfleet one. As a doctor, he was going with his oath, but he could not destroy the isotope because he was a Starfleet physician. Destroying it would have been a court martial, for lack of a better term, type of situation because he would have been actively performing a mutinous action.
The Doctor overrides her in medical matters, like a plague or stating an officer is unfit for duty, but not in command decisions. This was a command decision.
Side note: this was Janeway's Kobayashi Maru. No outcome is clean.
Having said that, I agreed with her decision, simply on the basis of numbers. Save two people or the one who was a total fluke of the transporter? It's gut wrenching, but it's a call I back.
He was a physician, but a Starfleet one. As a doctor, he was going with his oath, but he could not destroy the isotope because he was a Starfleet physician. Destroying it would have been a court martial, for lack of a better term, type of situation because he would have been actively performing a mutinous action.
The Doctor overrides her in medical matters, like a plague or stating an officer is unfit for duty, but not in command decisions. This was a command decision.
Side note: this was Janeway's Kobayashi Maru. No outcome is clean.
Having said that, I agreed with her decision, simply on the basis of numbers. Save two people or the one who was a total fluke of the transporter? It's gut wrenching, but it's a call I back.
On a side note, I doubt the EMH ever actually took an oath before he entered service (as in: he had free choice not to). It's much more likable it was simply part of his programming to behave as if he took one.
It may be a minor point, but isn't the one of the essential points of an oath that in principle you could refuse to take (if that literally is not possible, why take it at all)? In that context I find any EMH references to it a bit weird.
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Oath, program... in his case, they mean the same. I used 'oath' because he was obviously paraphrasing the Hippocratic Oath.
^I would also take it as such. In fact, he doesn't make any reference to the oath in this particular episode. He simply says ' I am a physician, and a physician must do no harm. '
However, he does explicitly say he's taken an oath to do no harm in a much earlier episode (Heroes and Demons), rather than something like 'I'm programmed to do no harm'.
However, he does explicitly say he's taken an oath to do no harm in a much earlier episode (Heroes and Demons), rather than something like 'I'm programmed to do no harm'.
I think in "Darkling" too.
He actually seems to recite/take the hippocratic oath there, by which point in time it's possible he might have truly gained the personal freedom to choose to do so for himself. That's much later than Heroes and Demons, though (which was only 12 episodes in).
It's possible that EMHs actually are required to recite/agree to the oath at some point before they enter active service. I'm not entirely sure as to how that would be a meaningful gesture...but then, it's arguable whether it's meaningful for a flesh-and-blood individual to recite it as well.
Especially since so many doctors don't actually give a damn about that oath.
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