Tuvix
- Thread starter RoseDuneKat
- Start date
How so?
It wasn't a personal mission, he was sent there by his superiors.
As we saw from the ep., they weren't even given full reason of why they were being sent into Cardassian territory.
Picard was sent to stop the construction of "illegal" theta band weapons the Cardassians agreed not to build by treaty.
It's not much different than US Navy Seals stopping Kim Jong Il's continuing nuclear experiments, if a President decided that that was a keen idea.
Meanwhile spitefully blaming the Federation for Section 31 decimating the Founders with plague is akin to the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq because the public mind was conned into thinking that it was they who were responsible for 911.
I found this interesting...
Pretty basic stuff I already knew, but it's quaint to see how absolute power treats everyone else.
It's not much different than US Navy Seals stopping Kim Jong Il's continuing nuclear experiments, if a President decided that that was a keen idea.
Meanwhile spitefully blaming the Federation for Section 31 decimating the Founders with plague is akin to the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq because the public mind was conned into thinking that it was they who were responsible for 911.
I found this interesting...
Pretty basic stuff I already knew, but it's quaint to see how absolute power treats everyone else.
Last edited:
I was on this board years ago and we were debating this episode back then. I wish Voyager could have had more episodes like this and Equinox.
Haven't read the last six pages closely, but has anyone considered that this episode is so hotly debated because the actor who played Tuvix did such a great job? If only he could have replaced Wang.
I think Janeway did the right thing. Yes, she did murder Tuvix, but choosing not to bring back Tuvok and Neelix would also have been murder. In the end, the choice she made was the one that would best serve the crew.
Haven't read the last six pages closely, but has anyone considered that this episode is so hotly debated because the actor who played Tuvix did such a great job? If only he could have replaced Wang.
I think Janeway did the right thing. Yes, she did murder Tuvix, but choosing not to bring back Tuvok and Neelix would also have been murder. In the end, the choice she made was the one that would best serve the crew.
No.
Kathy decided to let sleeping dogs lay.
He was going to live.
Tuvix was away home and free.
End of story.
Janeway is smugly secure with her sainthood.
Then in the middle of the night.
Like Jacob Marley rattling his chains for Scrooge
Kes stomps into Janeways quarters in this tiny slip of a nightdress bawling her eyes out yelping "I want my hedgehog back, kill the bastard who keeps looking at me like I'm his pudding! Kill him, kill him! I nee-e-ed, I need my Neelix. I'm Neelix's pudding, not Tuvixes."
...
Janeway flipflopped.
Made a decision that shouldn't be questioned.
Buckled at the first question.
Then concluded a new decision that shouldn't be questioned.
Not that Tuvix saying "please don't kill me" phased her icy heart an inch, because wrong or right, Kathryn couldn't change her mind again without being a total loser, even if "please don't kill me" is a damn conducive argument from a humanitarian point of view.
Prison rules. (brain some one smaller than you with a chair on your first day or some tattooed thug is going to make you their bitch.)
More weakness at this point would lead to her overthrow.
Janeway had to kill him.
To change her mind AGAIN at that point would destroy her eflectivity as a commander and the mission would be lost.
...
Although.
Doesn't this Tuvix situation see a bit familiar?
The last two months of their adventures had been a revolving door of "the same".
Lets see what was weighing on her mind?
Threshold.
Janeway and Tom would have murdered anyone who stopped them turning into a lizards, and as they were transitioning back to human they would have killed anyone to stop the process running it's course so that they could return to a lizard state. the buggers in charge over rode her will, making decisions for her even though she was intensely sure she knew what she wanted.
Meld.
1. A Human Vulcan hybrid was walking about on her ship who could just as easily passed on this infection subduing humanity completely. Suder becoming Vulcan was just how she became Lizard but by his word that it was all good, no one assumed he was an idiot who needed reversal surgery against his will for the benefit of the common good unlike how they didn't stop the reversal surgery that raped her infinite contentment as a lizard and a mother.
2. Tuvok was turned into a Romulan and he LOVED it. He did not want to go back to being a Vulcan and he was willing to kill anyone rather than suffer the pain and tedium of rebecoming Vulcan. Janeway and the doctor forced the reversal surgery on him against his will just like they did to her in her lizard state.
Dreadnaught.
1. B'Elanna's voice and perhaps personality was stencilled onto a bomb. They had to kill the bomb because B'Elanna is an unreasonable killer at heart. Why kill the bomb and not kill the woman behind the bomb? Why leave her in a position of authority when there's proof that she's a hybrid or a chance that she will imprint her psychotic personality onto more technology and even Voyager itself.
2. The literal ghost of B'elanna's past who fired this bullet which she was now standing in the way of to defend life. Who was the real B'Elanna Torres and who was the Lizard? The woman who tried to destroy a world or the woman who saved a world? Janeway would have written a report on this, and had to have considered removing B'eElanna from the Chief Engineer position because B'Elanna was a war criminal. Attempted genocide is probably a crime right? Janeway must have decided that her Engineer was no longer a lizard even if it was possible if she was put in the same position again she might try setting some worlds on fire again? Unless she though that it would be good to have someone in the line of succession to have some whopping great balls?
Deathwish.
A Q was petitioning to be changed into a human being or at least transubstantiating into a mortal. Janeway had to decide about the moral implications of the choice of an individual to define his existence despite whatever larger political implications this impurity might have on an empire of ALL-POWERFUL GODS. Janeway decided the needs of the few or the one outweighed the needs of the many. Janeway was deciding that if a human wants to be a lizard they should have the right to be a lizard no matter what the authority insists. Janeway must have missed being a lizard a lot. How is Immortal Q wanting to be human any different from half Human Janeway wanting to be full lizard?
Lifesigns.
The Doctor, and perhaps Janeway wouldn't let Denora Pel die with dignity as a Hologram when she could live in aching rotting pain as a Vidiian. Janeway dictated how this woman would live or die in what physical state and felt no qualms about sentencing her to live in agony. This one was just whimsy. Other than a quick suicide, there were no farther reaching consequences if this woman lived or died until Resolutions. However imagnie the "suicide camps" that victims of the phage could die in while living as holograms briefly instead of fighting tooth and nail pirating and harvesting organs and flesh from passing ships (you can't tell me that they didn't go to low tech worlds and put millions of prewarp beings (per month? per week?) from some perhaps some medieval equivalency into kennels to be shipped off to abattoirs? Janeway decided that Denora was not allowed to be lizard if Denora really wanted to be lizard no matter how completely sane she was.
Investigations.
I suppose Jonas was of two minds with his loyalty. Splitting his Loyalty between Voyager and Seska, but just because he can compartmentalize his motives it shouldn't have meant that Janeway couldn't have trusted him to follow her orders when they didn't conflict Seska's orders, just like later she trusted seven of Nine not to go running back to the Borg or Equinox Five not to do anything desperate. Neelix probably got a medal for killing Michael Jonas. Jonas wanted to be lizard and they killed him rather than let him stand with his choice.
Deadlock.
Did she really have to treat Kim and Naomi like they were real people? They were the best replacements available, and were only given to her because they'd both been incompetent enough to die in the last few hours when really what kathryn REALLY needed was another Tuvok. Given some time-travel situation (later on) where they encounter a less quantum duplicated version of Harry Kim which is far more "real" than the Harry Kim she has "at the moment" you'd have to wonder if she's always thinking about trading up her Kims and Naomis since what she's got is second class, and second class is just not good enough. If you're going to chose to be a lizard you have to deal with the stigma and speciesism attached to being a lizard.
Innocence.
Tuvok couldn't tell the difference between lizards and people. Actually he got it wrong. He got it completely wrong and underpinned his ever action on a fundamentally flawed premiss that lizards were not lizards even though they were lizards. hew was in position to make some seriously wrong and harmful decisions because he he thought that his definition of right and wrong was solid enough to dictate the locals biology against their own best interests.
(This on was totally Descartes.)
The Thaw.
Janeway created a duplicate of herself as real as she is, "wink" and abandoned her copy to a billion billion years of solitary confinement in a tiny little virtual circus tent. If that Janeway was to escape, wouldn't she think that she is as entitled to be Voyagers Captain as much as the meat sack sitting in the chair right now? Would meat sack Janeway make a compromise or put down the digital doppleganer like a dog for it's insolence? Lizards are human too!
Tuvix
Tuvix was a lizard. End of Story. Tuvixes plight was Janeway's plight from a couple weeks ago and she had been in his position, raped into a lizard, and then raped into a human being, resenting and regretting every point of transition as it took place, and here the wheel had turned till it was she who was the rapist.
Full circle.
Kathy decided to let sleeping dogs lay.
He was going to live.
Tuvix was away home and free.
End of story.
Janeway is smugly secure with her sainthood.
Then in the middle of the night.
Like Jacob Marley rattling his chains for Scrooge
Kes stomps into Janeways quarters in this tiny slip of a nightdress bawling her eyes out yelping "I want my hedgehog back, kill the bastard who keeps looking at me like I'm his pudding! Kill him, kill him! I nee-e-ed, I need my Neelix. I'm Neelix's pudding, not Tuvixes."
...
Janeway flipflopped.
Made a decision that shouldn't be questioned.
Buckled at the first question.
Then concluded a new decision that shouldn't be questioned.
Not that Tuvix saying "please don't kill me" phased her icy heart an inch, because wrong or right, Kathryn couldn't change her mind again without being a total loser, even if "please don't kill me" is a damn conducive argument from a humanitarian point of view.
Prison rules. (brain some one smaller than you with a chair on your first day or some tattooed thug is going to make you their bitch.)
More weakness at this point would lead to her overthrow.
Janeway had to kill him.
To change her mind AGAIN at that point would destroy her eflectivity as a commander and the mission would be lost.
...
Although.
Doesn't this Tuvix situation see a bit familiar?
The last two months of their adventures had been a revolving door of "the same".
Lets see what was weighing on her mind?
Threshold.
Janeway and Tom would have murdered anyone who stopped them turning into a lizards, and as they were transitioning back to human they would have killed anyone to stop the process running it's course so that they could return to a lizard state. the buggers in charge over rode her will, making decisions for her even though she was intensely sure she knew what she wanted.
Meld.
1. A Human Vulcan hybrid was walking about on her ship who could just as easily passed on this infection subduing humanity completely. Suder becoming Vulcan was just how she became Lizard but by his word that it was all good, no one assumed he was an idiot who needed reversal surgery against his will for the benefit of the common good unlike how they didn't stop the reversal surgery that raped her infinite contentment as a lizard and a mother.
2. Tuvok was turned into a Romulan and he LOVED it. He did not want to go back to being a Vulcan and he was willing to kill anyone rather than suffer the pain and tedium of rebecoming Vulcan. Janeway and the doctor forced the reversal surgery on him against his will just like they did to her in her lizard state.
Dreadnaught.
1. B'Elanna's voice and perhaps personality was stencilled onto a bomb. They had to kill the bomb because B'Elanna is an unreasonable killer at heart. Why kill the bomb and not kill the woman behind the bomb? Why leave her in a position of authority when there's proof that she's a hybrid or a chance that she will imprint her psychotic personality onto more technology and even Voyager itself.
2. The literal ghost of B'elanna's past who fired this bullet which she was now standing in the way of to defend life. Who was the real B'Elanna Torres and who was the Lizard? The woman who tried to destroy a world or the woman who saved a world? Janeway would have written a report on this, and had to have considered removing B'eElanna from the Chief Engineer position because B'Elanna was a war criminal. Attempted genocide is probably a crime right? Janeway must have decided that her Engineer was no longer a lizard even if it was possible if she was put in the same position again she might try setting some worlds on fire again? Unless she though that it would be good to have someone in the line of succession to have some whopping great balls?
Deathwish.
A Q was petitioning to be changed into a human being or at least transubstantiating into a mortal. Janeway had to decide about the moral implications of the choice of an individual to define his existence despite whatever larger political implications this impurity might have on an empire of ALL-POWERFUL GODS. Janeway decided the needs of the few or the one outweighed the needs of the many. Janeway was deciding that if a human wants to be a lizard they should have the right to be a lizard no matter what the authority insists. Janeway must have missed being a lizard a lot. How is Immortal Q wanting to be human any different from half Human Janeway wanting to be full lizard?
Lifesigns.
The Doctor, and perhaps Janeway wouldn't let Denora Pel die with dignity as a Hologram when she could live in aching rotting pain as a Vidiian. Janeway dictated how this woman would live or die in what physical state and felt no qualms about sentencing her to live in agony. This one was just whimsy. Other than a quick suicide, there were no farther reaching consequences if this woman lived or died until Resolutions. However imagnie the "suicide camps" that victims of the phage could die in while living as holograms briefly instead of fighting tooth and nail pirating and harvesting organs and flesh from passing ships (you can't tell me that they didn't go to low tech worlds and put millions of prewarp beings (per month? per week?) from some perhaps some medieval equivalency into kennels to be shipped off to abattoirs? Janeway decided that Denora was not allowed to be lizard if Denora really wanted to be lizard no matter how completely sane she was.
Investigations.
I suppose Jonas was of two minds with his loyalty. Splitting his Loyalty between Voyager and Seska, but just because he can compartmentalize his motives it shouldn't have meant that Janeway couldn't have trusted him to follow her orders when they didn't conflict Seska's orders, just like later she trusted seven of Nine not to go running back to the Borg or Equinox Five not to do anything desperate. Neelix probably got a medal for killing Michael Jonas. Jonas wanted to be lizard and they killed him rather than let him stand with his choice.
Deadlock.
Did she really have to treat Kim and Naomi like they were real people? They were the best replacements available, and were only given to her because they'd both been incompetent enough to die in the last few hours when really what kathryn REALLY needed was another Tuvok. Given some time-travel situation (later on) where they encounter a less quantum duplicated version of Harry Kim which is far more "real" than the Harry Kim she has "at the moment" you'd have to wonder if she's always thinking about trading up her Kims and Naomis since what she's got is second class, and second class is just not good enough. If you're going to chose to be a lizard you have to deal with the stigma and speciesism attached to being a lizard.
Innocence.
Tuvok couldn't tell the difference between lizards and people. Actually he got it wrong. He got it completely wrong and underpinned his ever action on a fundamentally flawed premiss that lizards were not lizards even though they were lizards. hew was in position to make some seriously wrong and harmful decisions because he he thought that his definition of right and wrong was solid enough to dictate the locals biology against their own best interests.
(This on was totally Descartes.)
The Thaw.
Janeway created a duplicate of herself as real as she is, "wink" and abandoned her copy to a billion billion years of solitary confinement in a tiny little virtual circus tent. If that Janeway was to escape, wouldn't she think that she is as entitled to be Voyagers Captain as much as the meat sack sitting in the chair right now? Would meat sack Janeway make a compromise or put down the digital doppleganer like a dog for it's insolence? Lizards are human too!
Tuvix
Tuvix was a lizard. End of Story. Tuvixes plight was Janeway's plight from a couple weeks ago and she had been in his position, raped into a lizard, and then raped into a human being, resenting and regretting every point of transition as it took place, and here the wheel had turned till it was she who was the rapist.
Full circle.
Last edited:
It's been a while since I've seen the episode, but as I remember it, Janeway automatically thought about separating Tuvok and Neelix when Kim told her they'd figured out how to do it. It was a done deal until Tuvix said, basically, "Hey, what about me?"
Her tarnished sainthood is what I love about the episode. She's damned either way. Voyager should have been filled with gritty situations like this, stranded alone in the Delta Quadrant.
http://www.chakoteya.net/Voyager/220.htm
Transcript above.
How long did it take Janeway to make this decision?
Was she actually mulling it over for hours before Kes broke into her quarters and called for his head, and then she mulled it over for hours more?
Or did Kathy make her decision in seconds and then picked up a good book and a bottle of wine before she went to sleep, so that then in another 8 hours or so more, she would get around to telling Tuvix that he was to be murdered?
Because there were hours and hours between Tuvix suggesting that his murder was a bad idea and Janeway finally killing him.
Either Janeway was a good person wrestling with a tough decision or she was a bastard who wanted to finish her book before letting everyone know how her shoe had dropped.
Further, she was obviously either deadlocked or thinking about letting im live before Kes said "bust him up" because if Janeway was already going to bust him up, they would have already killed him in the sickbay unless as I mentioned, it was a really good book.
Factually, if she had quickly decided to kill him, he would have been killed quickly.
Therefore Kes tipped the balance.
Transcript above.
How long did it take Janeway to make this decision?
Was she actually mulling it over for hours before Kes broke into her quarters and called for his head, and then she mulled it over for hours more?
Or did Kathy make her decision in seconds and then picked up a good book and a bottle of wine before she went to sleep, so that then in another 8 hours or so more, she would get around to telling Tuvix that he was to be murdered?
Because there were hours and hours between Tuvix suggesting that his murder was a bad idea and Janeway finally killing him.
Either Janeway was a good person wrestling with a tough decision or she was a bastard who wanted to finish her book before letting everyone know how her shoe had dropped.
Further, she was obviously either deadlocked or thinking about letting im live before Kes said "bust him up" because if Janeway was already going to bust him up, they would have already killed him in the sickbay unless as I mentioned, it was a really good book.
Factually, if she had quickly decided to kill him, he would have been killed quickly.
Therefore Kes tipped the balance.
Hey, Kath enjoyed literature. A captain has to keep her priorities in order.
Yeah, you're right that Kes tipped the balance.
KES: ... I don’t know how to say good bye to Neelix and Tuvok. I know this sounds horrible, and I feel so guilty for saying it, and Tuvix doesn’t deserve to die, but I want Neelix back.
It's always so bizarre to think of the two of them together - a beautiful elf with superpowers and a spotted rat/human mutant hybrid. But yeah, that weirdly impassioned speech lit a fire under Janeway's ass.
It seemed pretty clear that Janeway had thought the matter through when she gave Tuxiv the "you're gonna die" talk. Should she have agonized over the choice for a few days? Not for my tastes. This episode brought her closer to Roslin (from BSG), the captain of the Equinox, and exhausted Janeway from Year of Hell. They have their flaws, but they're more interesting characters.
HAHA. True, they were an odd couple to begin with but the main point was that they were together and I think it's true in every respect that sometimes love requires sacrifice by way of Tuvix having to die so that Neelix could be brought back to her and Tuvok who was an asset to Voyager and not to mention Janeway's counsel and close friend.
Though Janeway had to make the decision she did it for the sake of those she loved.
Neelix was more of an asset than Tuvok.
Anyone could be the tactical officer, maybe not as good as the Vulcan, but absolutely no one on Voyager could cook worth a lick of spit. Neelix was irreplaceable and indespensible as a chef, and more importantly the full time chef... Who on Voyager (yes, Chell, I know.) would give up, be allowed to give up a vital job regulating the ship, to potter about in the mess frying eggs and flipping pancakes?
Did I mention that I'm freezing my ass off in Auckland Kass?
Anyone could be the tactical officer, maybe not as good as the Vulcan, but absolutely no one on Voyager could cook worth a lick of spit. Neelix was irreplaceable and indespensible as a chef, and more importantly the full time chef... Who on Voyager (yes, Chell, I know.) would give up, be allowed to give up a vital job regulating the ship, to potter about in the mess frying eggs and flipping pancakes?
Did I mention that I'm freezing my ass off in Auckland Kass?
True, though don't know if I could survive Neelix's cooking from the way everyone described his food. leola root......*shudder
Ah snap, I'm not alone in New Zealand! Freezing? baha yeah I can beat that, try shaking in Christchurch lol
Pun intended?
Last edited:
Do you imagine it's more like Kumura or turnips?
(They made the leola root prop out of ginger root.)
(They made the leola root prop out of ginger root.)
I think I've had turnips once in my life.
Whereafter I said "NO! NO MORE! THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU!!"
Whereafter I said "NO! NO MORE! THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU!!"
They were all over Blackadder.
"The turnip shaped like a thingy"
Besides, it's not the root persay but the seasoning.
I wonder if Tuvix made more palatable dishes out of leola Root becuase half his cooking flare had been muted by a little vulcan balance and reserve?
"The turnip shaped like a thingy"
Besides, it's not the root persay but the seasoning.
I wonder if Tuvix made more palatable dishes out of leola Root becuase half his cooking flare had been muted by a little vulcan balance and reserve?
