Tuvix Episode Revisited
- Thread starter Robert Leva
- Start date
Careful; you're starting to sound like me.
I've gone so far as to say that if they intended to separate Tuvix then it would have been more humane to keep him in stasis the whole time, rather than allowing him to think that his rights as a unique lifeform might be respected.
As Picard would have said: "Starfleet was founded to seek out new life: well, there it sits! Waiting."
Lol they really are like a cult aren't they... No outside force policing them being so far away and cut off from home, making up the rules as they go along...following their "prime directive" like a religion at times, while at other times relying on their charismatic leader Janeway to make life and death decisions for them as the final authority on all matters...
True, but at what point would they do that as they were surprised by the event, unless they made the decision on the spot when he materialized and stunned him with a phaser and then put him into stasis. But as soon as any amount of time passed with him being conscious and aware of his existence as a sentient being, then by then it is already too late and it would still be tantamount to murder. It would be funny if no solution was found anytime soon, and 50 years later an old lady Janeway visits an old man Tuvix on Vulcan or something, as he sits smoking a pipe on his rocking chair....
GRANDMA JANEWAY: There you are. It took me fifty years but I finally figured it out, you old bastard... Your ass is finally mine.
GRANDPA TUVIX: What took you so long.
(Similar to how Jake could never let go of what happened to his father on DS9 until one day he finally reversed the accident that had Sisko trapped in subspace.)
Totally true, many of us have given the Doctor some praise for being the sole voice of dissent in the Janeway insanity cult, but when it comes down to it, the end scene pretty much played out like this:
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.
(Tuvix's eyes shine with a gleam of hope.)
JANEWAY: Very well, Doctor. Then you wouldn't mind if I have someone ELSE take his life against his will, would you?
DOCTOR: Sure, why not, what do I care.
(He took no real action other than voicing his personal disagreement or disdain for killing him. Not someone I'd want in my corner when the chips were down.)
In Riddles, Neelix talked Tuvok 2 into brain surgery that would turn him back into Tuvok 1.
In Meld Tuvok briefly became a Romulan and LOVED IT... Given the opportunity, He would have killed every person on that ship to keep feeling like that, like any other drug addict. Logic neuters Vulcans. Neutering is bad.
Neelix has a Religion that says that he goes to a forest when he dies. When Seven bought him back from the dead, he was sad that he could not remember the forest. Shouldn't Tuvix be waiting in the forest to sucker punch Neelix?
Kes' lung inside Neelix actually meant that they were a little but Ocampan and female and spacegod. The Tuvok half should have been able to at the very least have been able to marshal Gary Mitchel level super powers by combining his control/focus and Kes' raw power. Spock felt V'Ger enter the Galaxy. T'Pel should have been able to hear Tuvok when his mind was multiplied by Kes, but divided by Neelix. Pon far works, a psychic link between lovers across light years, but does it work if one of them is dead? Surely the moment T'Pel got into heat, and felt that Tuvok was alive... They were already in contact via the Midas Array. Neelix on the other side of this should have caught Pon Far, and been on the same rage death sex cycle as Tuvok.
In Meld Tuvok briefly became a Romulan and LOVED IT... Given the opportunity, He would have killed every person on that ship to keep feeling like that, like any other drug addict. Logic neuters Vulcans. Neutering is bad.
Neelix has a Religion that says that he goes to a forest when he dies. When Seven bought him back from the dead, he was sad that he could not remember the forest. Shouldn't Tuvix be waiting in the forest to sucker punch Neelix?
Kes' lung inside Neelix actually meant that they were a little but Ocampan and female and spacegod. The Tuvok half should have been able to at the very least have been able to marshal Gary Mitchel level super powers by combining his control/focus and Kes' raw power. Spock felt V'Ger enter the Galaxy. T'Pel should have been able to hear Tuvok when his mind was multiplied by Kes, but divided by Neelix. Pon far works, a psychic link between lovers across light years, but does it work if one of them is dead? Surely the moment T'Pel got into heat, and felt that Tuvok was alive... They were already in contact via the Midas Array. Neelix on the other side of this should have caught Pon Far, and been on the same rage death sex cycle as Tuvok.
So this is what he should have said?
DOCTOR: "I'm sorry, Captain, but I cannot perform the surgical separation. I am a physician, and a physician must do no harm. To that end, I have destroyed the radioisotope and deleted all knowledge of how to produce it from both my memory and the ship's computer."
I found them.
JANEWAY: Computer, deactivate and quarantine the EMH program. B' Elanna, determine what went wrong with it and reverse it, and if possible, retrieve the information it deleted as well.
(I wouldn't put it beyond Janeway to immediately respond in that way.)
1. That would have fixed him in Latent Image.
2. No one recovered Equinox's EMH after it was deleted.
Not saying these things wouldn't have happened. Just saying that destroying the radioisotope would have given some real teeth to the EMH's opposition to the procedure.
They could have also simply rewritten his ethical subroutines to allow for subjective decisions, but only when his triage program truly could not decide.
The whole thing is only debated among fans because Tuvix was written to be likeable enough, naive and vulnerable. But what if he'd been a total jerk? What if he'd experienced medical complications?
ST: Insurrection was one of the more obvious examples of where the writers spoon-fed the audience who they're supposed to root for, and who they're supposed to root against - the Ba'ku looked identical to humans, seemed very at-harmony with their surroundings, but the Son'a were supposed to be viewed as grotesque and greedy - thus completely glossing over the actual arguments about the metaphasic rings. But what if the roles had been reversed, and the Ba'ku had been the unlikeable ones?
Likewise in this episode of VOY, the character Tuvix is nice enough and innocent enough that the audience is expected to sympathize with him in a way in which it's an actual dilemma whether to bring back Tuvok & Neelix. But if Tuvix had been a total jerk, for example, any fan would've been outraged at there being any dilemma on Janeway's part about whether to bring back Tuvok & Neelix. Our perspectives are heavily influenced by such things, which is both respectable and annoying when it comes to the writers.
My opinion on Tuvix's right to exist has nothing to do with whether or not he's a jerk, TYVM. In fact, some of the audience felt he was a jerk, or creepy, or ugly, or whatever, and I find it horrifying that they'd judge his right to exist based on his physical appearance.
Medical issues are entirely a separate matter, and it's hard for me to assume you weren't aware of that when you asked the question.
INS has many plot holes in its very concept (Why didn't Our Heroes do what they were oh-so-good at in the series and call everyone into a conference room to try to reach an agreement? Oh, because then there wouldn't be a movie...). That the "bad guys" are ugly and the "good guys" are pretty is one of many issues.
Totally agree. I can't remember how old I was when I saw Tuvix, but I was pretty young. Something about the way Tuvix and Kes interacted really frightened me. So the first time I saw this episode I just wanted Tuvok and Neelix back.
The episode is the ethical dilemma: do you save one person's life by doing nothing and because you did nothing two people will die or save two people's lives by doing something that will kill one person. It's an impossible question and there's no good answer.
I think it would work slightly better if instead of Tuvok and Neelix they had used recurring characters which had been in a few episodes. You kind of know that the main characters will be fine.
Yeah I didn't really mean that towards you. Yours was just the last post that I was glancing at. My apologies.
Part of my latest project features Janeway having a heart to heart with an un-separated Tuvix in an alternate timeline. He reveals that sometimes he wonders if he had the right to assert his right to live, at the cost of two others. He also knows that the alternate Janeway, who reluctantly chose to spare him, undoubtedly wonders as well.
Soooo... a DS9 episode?
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