Tuvix -- Moralilty vs Life

[Brit]

What if this had happened 10 years later? Tuvix would have gained friends and built strong relationships with people. Then I doubt they'd easily put him away. They essentially killed him to bring back the other two guys. Which doesn't make it right because Tuvix didn't choose to become who he was, nor was it his intention to purposely do away with the other two guys so I don't think he is wrong.

I seriously doubt that if it had taken the doctor ten years to come up with a solution, they would have been able to use it. That's because Tuvix would by that time have left Voyager. I don't think that there would have been any way he could have stayed on Voyager for any length of time. He was disruptive, and I'm not saying that he was good or bad, simply that he would have found it hard to live on that ship while those around him knew that he existed by the destruction of two people that were friends or lovers. He would have struck out on his own somewhere.

Brit

 

[Jbarney]

Since we're dealing with the creation and subsequent destruction of inconvienient people, I think the episode has an interesting context in light of the actual world phenomenon of abortion.

There has been and will be in the foreseeable future, inconvenient people. Trek has either addressed that subject (NG – “The Measure of a Man”) or gave us a glimpse of what could constitute such a person (Voyager – “Author, Author”). The one thing that has stuck out for me is that no one can actually prove sentience, or if you rather the worth of any being. You have to take someone’s word.

Abortion is not a phenomenon, but rather something that has existed for thousands of years. Women have the need to control their own bodies; it’s just that now they have a safe way to do so. The real phenomenon is that for the first time in the history of the world, upper body strength isn’t the first requirement to hold power, and those that do not have great upper body strength can choose for themselves. And yes in some areas the story of Tuvix could be construed as addressing the subject of abortion, I don’t think it is so much a question of destroying sentience because no one can prove where sentience begins or ends. The analogy comes from the willingness of others to override what the individual chooses to do with his or her own body.

Tuvix, had no body. He was an amalgamation of two other beings, beings who did have the right to choose. Because they were not in the position to vocalize that choice, Janeway had to decide for them. I don’t think this is as much about abortion as it is about someone with a multiple personality disorder. It is however, as good story tellers are apt to do, reversed. Instead of trying to incorporate the shattered pieces of one person’s personality, here we have the effort, to try to separate two individual and separate personalities. What sticks out to me is that the different personalities within someone with such a disorder also think that incorporating is a kind of death for them, just as Tuvix felt that separating him back into his original components would “kill” him.

In both cases nobody really dies, what is lost is the destructive part of either a shattered or an amalgamated personality. Tuvix said himself that they both lived on in him, if that is true then the opposite is true also, Tuvix lives on within both Tuvok and Neelix.

I think that a lot of people mess up when they think “Tuvix” is about bodies, I think it’s about personalities.

Brit

I agree with almost everything you have said here. You exploration of the history of women being able to control their own bodies is right on. It is not just about women, its about people needing to control their bodies. When the topic of abortion gets thrown into the mix it is a very difficult situation.

I would have to disagree with the comment that Tuvix was merely a personality, although that is an interesting way of looking at it. I thought the show was pretty clear about saying that Tuvix could have lived on.

What you have said is right on, the episode was about choice....and in this case Star Trek did something that it rarely does...it produced an episode where individual choice was trumped by authority.

I thought the way they explored the issue and how they came up with a good story as a vehicle for the discussion was great.

I'd say that regardless of how people are on the abortion debate the individual rights/authority issues explored here were well worth watching.

 

[Shazam!]

They essentially killed him to bring back the other two guys. Which doesn't make it right...

I dunno, 2 for the prince of 1 sounds like a good deal to me.

 

[stj]

Every part of Tuvix is left living at the end. Therefore, Tuvix therefore is not literally murdered.

All of Tuvok and Neelix are living throughout the episode, so it is literally impossible for them to be dead. Therefore they still have a right to live normal lives. If Tuvok and Neelix had come out physically conjoined, instead of mentally, no one would even dream of insisting that they shouldn't be separated.

But Tuvix is like all real personalities, a product of his biography (biographies in this SF story.) When Tuvok's and Neelix's biographies are merged a new personality emerges because personalities are grown from personal history, from the cradle on. "Tuvix" is the combined life story of Tuvok and Neelix. Despite having no body of his own, he has a unique personality and could be viewed as having therefore, rights.

This conundrum is insoluble. It is also so far fetched as to make me wonder how it could possibly relate to any real life situation. The question in abortion is whether the fetus is a person, which no one knows the answer to, despite bigoted arrogance. Tuvix takes Tuvok's and Neelix's life, which is a parallel to capital punishment for murder, except that capital punishment does not restore any life, ever.

There really doesn't seem to be much going on besides a determination to show Janeway "murdering" some one.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Then I read another short story by harlen Ellison were kids upon turning 21 got to decide if they wanted to sue their parents for giving them a shitty child hood.

Guy do you remember the name of the story? I don't remember reading that one. I must have nearly everything Ellison ever wrote and I'd like to read that one.

Brit

Oh.

Some googling later... i still don't know the name of the story, since it another short in the book which i do remember which tracked down the general vicinity of the target fiction, but The anthology "Again, Dangerous Visions" was "edited" by Harlan Ellison, not Written.

My bad.

His name on the front cover was HUGE!

 

[Brit]

Then I read another short story by harlen Ellison were kids upon turning 21 got to decide if they wanted to sue their parents for giving them a shitty child hood.

Guy do you remember the name of the story? I don't remember reading that one. I must have nearly everything Ellison ever wrote and I'd like to read that one.

Brit

Oh.

Some googling later... i still don't know the name of the story, since it another short in the book which i do remember which tracked down the general vicinity of the target fiction, but The anthology "Again, Dangerous Visions" was "edited" by Harlan Ellison, not Written.

My bad.

His name on the front cover was HUGE!

Thanks Guy, I have that one too, I can find it. By the way considering Ellison's ego would you think his name would be anything other than HUGE on any book, weither he was the author or the editor.

Brit

 

[Guy Gardener]

Who wants to talk about the three Janeways, all distinct and lovely ladies originating from subtly different timelines who were mashed together into a single soul?

Why didn't she struggle to over come her composite disability? Surely each of the kathryn Janeways in her deserved a life of her/their own and the murder of the captain we came to know after Relativity was a small price to pay?

The greater good is a fickle thing.

What if the problem dooming everyone is overpopulation? (shades of Kodos again, sorry.) Then obviously finding a humane way to reduce the crew/population would be in the interest of the greater good?

What about going through Devour space?

Hiding telepaths in transporter suspension was shit.

They could have been hiding telepaths foreign and domestic inside crew to avoid those bastard teepsniffers.

There should be no issue with the forced murder of these nulings after the danger had resolved since Tuvix created precedence, and if there was no issue, then there was no reason not to use this clever hiding place to avoid criminal charges of telepath trafficking as well as aiding and abetting which would have finished with the forfeiture of the ship and lengthy prison sentences.

And what about the thousands of personalities yearning to be free trapped in Seven of Nine's sub-conciousness who she did murder we discovered in Infinite Regress? Couldn't/shouldn't they have demanded requested their own bodies, holographic or clone meat, or even begged for a more spacious cell to live out their immortal lives inside like that server Picard tricked Moriarty into thinking was th real world, unless Seven of Nine needs these personalities in some fashion? She might be drawing on their for strength or processing power somehow? But if they're not going to save the doomed trapped souls in her head, then surely they should have considered euthenizing them?

I mean it's not like seven got off an being turfed into the back seat when the Doctor commandeered her body.

What about Workforce? How voluntary was that change back? more kicking screaming and murder? it's amazing that none of the crew walked out of that adventure pregnant.

Y'know like in threshold. Lizard Tom REALLY wanted to be lizard Tom and really did not want to be Monkey Tom, and we can only assume that his "mate" felt exactly the same way which means that changing them back to human was both violation and rape.

Meanwhile the Quicksilver life forms held on to their stolen lives and barely had any interest in relearning what it was to be seminonscentient goo ever again and bollocks to anyone who tried because the lies they were living were far more interesting and no one was going to stop them except god. Who did. God stopped them. Too many damned Harry Kim's in the universe he said and smote the the lot of them.

Lindsay tried to come back, but it didn't stick.

And the Doctor? When his programming fluffed up in Alter ego, the swarm or latent image: they just cut out the new bits of his life they didn't like as if it were cancer. K, in latent image they finally figured that that what they were doing was condescending and humiliating, but frack it, he's a toaster and it's existencial purpose was to be patronized in the service of the fleshies.

 

[cyph]

The writers, in spite of turning out an interesting episode, wrote themselves into a corner. There was only one ethical choice, and the crew could not make it because it would eliminate two cast members.

Good point. I always saw the issue more as "the greater good" of the crew, and at the time, Tuvok was needed. But, who's to say that Tuvix couldn't have done better? Then again, I kinda thought of Tuvix as a diluted Tuvok, as I never saw Neelix as a necessity...

 

[Guy Gardener]

Kes still needed him to make babies some day down the line. You don't mess with where a ladies babies come from and not expect a hissy fit that'll send every ones lives down the toilet.

 

[Brit]

Kes still needed him to make babies some day down the line. You don't mess with where a ladies babies come from and not expect a hissy fit that'll send every ones lives down the toilet.

You'd better believe it. It's pretty obvious that Kes didn't like Tuvix's technique. Considering how she felt about Tuvok it probably seemed somewhat incestuous anyway.

I still think if you allowed the Tuvix personality to remain, you would have sent the wrong message to the crew because all of them would be thinking that if it had of been them, they wouldn’t have been brought back either. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, in the long run Tuvix would have disrupted the whole crew and he would have had to leave the ship.

He would have been like the person with the horrible terminal disease, no one would have wanted to be around him.

Brit

 

[Guy Gardener]

I'm still confounded that after 30 days he still didn't have his own girlfriend to stick up for him after it became clear that kes was the enemy trying to murder him.

These women dated Harry Kim.

Repetitively.

If he'd knocked up some chippie?

Every-fool knows that you need contingincies..

Terminal disease? Interesting thought.

I watched faces last night because it's the exact opposite of this episode. B'Elanna got to be splitin half and was happy. I wanted to see what the political/ethical situation was for this episode? But unless the doctor was lying because janeway wanted a Klingon on board, everything tied up into too neat a bow at the end that she had to return to first principles if she wasted to be able to digest food, but surely she could have asked for a half measure to help out her stomach, or just prepare her a special diet without changing her personality back to how it was? because we know that B'Elanna had some serious problems with self loathing that resolved far too neatly.

 

[teya]

Well here we go beating the dead horse again, No one is going to agree on anything here. The Janeway haters will continue to hate using this episode to "prove" how retched an individual she was. The Janeway lovers will counteract and again we will hash through another thread with a lot of expressed venom.
Brit

Thank you for once again starting out your argument with a generalization tantamount to an attack on those who disagree with you.


I am not a "Janeway hater." My disagreement with her actions is based on 30-plus years in healthcare.


Robert Maxwell stated my position quite clearly and succinctly. There's no need to repeat it.


If what Janeway did was so absolutely right, as you maintain, then why her obvious discomfort after she performed the procedure? It's more than apparent she had regrets of her own.

He would have been like the person with the horrible terminal disease, no one would have wanted to be around him.

And of course, it's perfectly moral to shun someone because he has a "horrible terminal disease."


Perhaps that would have been a good thing--to show that people who some folks would shun (and think that action perfectly acceptable) are just as deserving of respect and friendship as any other.

 

[Brit]

Well here we go beating the dead horse again, No one is going to agree on anything here. The Janeway haters will continue to hate using this episode to "prove" how retched an individual she was. The Janeway lovers will counteract and again we will hash through another thread with a lot of expressed venom.
Brit

Thank you for once again starting out your argument with a generalization tantamount to an attack on those who disagree with you.

That works absolutely both ways, I have endured direct attacks on the character I like, I have in more than one thread ask for direct attacks to cease, I'm not asking any more but I will point them out every time I see them. Your posting here proves my point.

Brit

 

[teya]

Well here we go beating the dead horse again, No one is going to agree on anything here. The Janeway haters will continue to hate using this episode to "prove" how retched an individual she was. The Janeway lovers will counteract and again we will hash through another thread with a lot of expressed venom.
Brit

Thank you for once again starting out your argument with a generalization tantamount to an attack on those who disagree with you.

That works absolutely both ways, I have endured direct attacks on the character I like, I have in more than one thread ask for direct attacks to cease, I'm not asking any more but I will point them out every time I see them. Your posting here proves my point.

Brit

Actually, it doesn't, Brit.


I have given--on more than one occasion in threads on this subject--arguments in favor of my position based on a degree in epidemiology and post-graduate work in the same field. I have over 30 years in healthcare to base that opinion on. Tuvix was a sentient being who had the right to determine his own fate. Janeway's action in this instance contradicts her own decision in "Death Wish."


It has nothing to do with my like or dislike for the character (about whom I'm ambivalent--sometimes I love her, sometimes I hate her, sometimes I'm "meh"). To dismiss any argument different than yours as simply anti-Janeway ranting is unfair to those who hold those opinions. And it is inaccurate.

 

[kimc]

^ If you two could continue discussing your personal differences via pm so we can go back to topic that would be much appreciated.

Back to topic: I view Tuvok and Neelix as remaining alive and sentient but trapped in the body of a third emerging personality. It just occurred to me that after Tuvix said they were alive in him no one asked him (and he didn't volunteer) "What do Tuvok and Neelix want?"

It's one thing to sacrifice your life for another's but it's another thing to end up spending the rest of your life trapped inside another body where you have absolutely no control and no voice. How horrifying.

 

[DonIago]

I still think it would have been a bit of karmic retribution if all three characters had died during the procedure...or if Tuvok and Neelix hadn't been able to look Janeway in the eye for awhile afterwards knowing that she killed Tuvix to save them.

For the record, I'm also not a Janeway-hater, though I do feel she made questionable decisions at times. But then, so did the other Star Trek captains.

I also feel the question of how long Tuvix needed to exist before he had more of a right to than Tuvok and Neelix was quite successfully evaded rather than addressed.

Agree with the people who feel there's no "right" answer, but it's a shame the episode couldn't allow for a ruling from an impartial party.

 

[Triskelion]

^ Well that was part of the story, wasn't it. That as captain, Janeway would shoulder that moral burden herself and spare her crew of it. But Janeway took her cue from Kes, trusting I suppose in Kes's youth and innocence to guide her as to Tuvix's individuality. And Kes didn't feel right about it, and that wasn't a judgment, it was a feeling.

Tuvix wasn't an individual; he was a blend of two humanoids and a flower - he was part plant. A transporter accident. I fail to see how anyone could argue for his individual rights without acknowledging the individual rights of those who stepped on that tranporter pad. Granted his cries were haunting; I'd find it hard to believe that either Neelix or Tuvok would individually put others through such a display of self-preservation when other lives were at stake. If Tuvix was an individual, this demonstrates it - he was cowardly by comparison to his constituent personalities.

I get the feeling that some people want to accuse Janeway not because of ideology but with other issues of authority. If Janeway had ordered Tuvix spared, as mentioned before in the thread, those who now accuse her would be able to make the very same argument - this time in favor of Tuvok and Neelix. It just makes me think that the issue some have with her is more about authority than morality.

That Janeway would make that decision one way or the other. I mean, who is she to decide? Well, she's the top authority on the ship and she would decide either to act or not to act, but not acting is also a decision and one with consequences.

If it weren't a transporter accident, but say a head injury - and Neelix lost fifty IQ points; and later they found a technique to restore his mind, but by then he was afraid of doctors and screamed at the prospect of going back for a procedure - what of that individual he had become? Would allowing him to stay that way be humane? Or would that actually be the inhumane thing to do?

I think that if people have a problem with Janeway taking ultimate responsibility for the decision, they shouldn't sign up for ship duty.

Now, I may be wrongly interpreting people's intentions here and if so I apologize. I don't mean to put words in anyone's mouth. I just get a feeling that it's not so much what Janeway decided, but that she decided.

PS. If it were me? Hell yes reverse the procedure. F*** new guy. I'm just telling y'all now so there's no confusion later. Even if it's twenty years later - I want out!

 

[DonIago]

To spin your argument on its head-

Tuvok was a Starfleet officer, and specifically in Security. He knew that he might be called upon at any time to give his life, and -everyone- knows that a safe transport is never 100% guaranteed. Given that Starfleet's mission is to seek out new life, I can't imagine that he could be entirely sanguine about knowing that his life was preserved at the cost of the life of a unique lifeform, even if the needs of the many outweighed the needs of the few.

I'll assume you didn't mean to imply that Tuvix was less worthy of existence simply because he wanted to live instead of committing suicide in a procedure that -might- restore his constituent parts. To me, it's pretty cold-blooded to not have -some- sympathy for a creature wanting to preserve its own existence.
Do the people who feel killing Tuvix was the right move also believe that the Baku should have been relocated? That Qunn should have been destroyed because his continuing existence represented a danger to the Q continuum? If you could go back in time and kill Khan, Hitler, etc. at birth, would you?

That Janeway took her cue from Kes just makes it worse for me. "I'm going to rule impartially on th...oh wait, you miss your boyfriend? Sorry Tuvix!!!"

There's ultimately no more evidence to establish that Tuvix wasn't an individual than there is to establish that he was. I'd rather err on the side of assuming he was and that he deserved the rights of an individual. The argument has been made that he would have become a social pariah if he'd stayed on Voyager? Well, that's his choice too, and he certainly would have had other options in the course of Voyager's travels. Or, perhaps, his crewmates would have shown some understanding. God forbid someone show any trait that's less than completely selfless.

And it does bother me that, because the procedure did work, people seem to overlook the fact that it could have failed.

I freely acknowledge Janeway was in a tough situation, and that as Captain it was her choice to make, and I appreciate that she did, in the end, make a decision. But that doesn't mean I have to like or agree with it, and nobody's said anything in this thread to make me think that my opinion is less valid than theirs. Conversely, I have seen some people suggesting that my opinion -is- less valid than theirs, which is really kind of disappointing.

 

[kimc]

Tuvok was a Starfleet officer, and specifically in Security. He knew that he might be called upon at any time to give his life, and -everyone- knows that a safe transport is never 100% guaranteed. Given that Starfleet's mission is to seek out new life, I can't imagine that he could be entirely sanguine about knowing that his life was preserved at the cost of the life of a unique lifeform, even if the needs of the many outweighed the needs of the few.

That's an interesting turn but it also works for Tuvix. He was technically functioning as a Starfleet officer since he was using Tuvok's skills, intellect and credentials to be on the bridge. As a Starfleet officer, how could he be sanguine about allowing two men to remain trapped within him with no voice of their own while he took over both their lives?

 

[JanewayRulz!]

I think this give and take explains why this ep is such a good one. There is NO easy answer and its okay to think Janeway did wrong by Tuvix, or that Janeway did right by Tuvok and Neelix because she did. Simultaneously. If she thought she did right, she wouldn't have looked so soulcrushed when she walked out of sickbay. She KNOWS what she did was wrong, and right. It almost harkens back to her backstory in "Mosaic", when she couldn't decide who to save, her Father or her Lover, and they both ended up dying. I don't think she swung to the side of 2 vs 1 because of Kes' plea. I think she swung to that side for her own reasons. What were they? Like the Doctor in "Latent Image", did she decide based on her friendship with the other two men? Did she decide in favor of the civilian who never swore an oath to Starfleet? Did she decide based on the # of people they left behind? It wasn't just Kes, it was also T'Pel and Tuvok's kids and grandkids. Or was it that old battlefield credo, never leave a man behind. Out gunned and outnumbered, B'Elanna convinced Janeway to go after Chakotay in "Maneuvers", because the CREW could not withstand the loss of their first officer. If the Captain didn't rescue those two crewmen trapped in Tuvix' body, then what happens if I, you, we are trapped in the next transporter accident? Will she leave US behind as well? I suspect it was that line of logic which pushed her over the edge. It was why she went after Chakotay in season 2, and Seven in Season 5. Unlike "Maneuvers" and "Dark Frontier"... someone died in the retrieval process. A risk every Captain takes. Death is never easy, and its never right, but it happens. Look at her face when she leaves sickbay. "Soulcrushing" sums it up.