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Vidiians and cloning

Also, just because the Vidiians are advanced in some areas doesn't mean that they must be advanced in all. Technology isn't a monolithic entity that progresses in all areas simultaneously. They can have strong abilities in some areas of medicine but be totally unable to function in others.

I mean, modern 21st-century Earth medical science is able to perform transplants quite readily, yet we can't clone humans...can we?

We are not allowed to, but this is part of all that hoo haw about stem cells.

They wouldn't bother to make laws against something that was impossible?

Are their laws against raping unicorns?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_cloning#Uses.2C_actual_and_potential

You can claim that you are making meat, but even without a brain that is a person, who has a soul, who needs to give you permission to harvest their organs, who cant because they don't have a brain. If you squint cloning can also be seen as slavery.

If you want to see something sad about clones, watch Never let me go. Clones are raised as children at bordingschools, and then free range in communes, after they turn twenty, they begin having surgeries, having bits removed. Most clones can survive 1 or 2 surgeries losing a kidney or a lung. No one survives 3. When you die on the table, that is when they finally take everything.

Oh. It's a love story.
I am sorry but if it doesn't have a brain then it's not a person.
 
But you have to do "something" precisely evil on a production line to stop the development/presence of that brain.

Might as well be scooping it out with a spoon, although I'd imagine them using a tiny hot needle. Just jabbing it into the face of a person the size of a grain of rice.

Remember Lucy and Ethel on the production line with those chocolates?



[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NPzLBSBzPI[/yt]

A couple clones are going to slip past quality control with a brain now and then maybe?

We're only human.

It's also dehumanizing, and eugenics.

If you can make someone with no brain for parts, why not make some one else with two brains to rule us all?

But blame religion.

If it wasn't for religion, human cloning would have been perfected 30 years ago, and there would be no waiting list for organ transplants.

Larry Hagman would have had that fourth heart and still be with us today.

Of course saying "no brain" is not as easy as making a person with no brain. The brain regulates a lot of bibs and bobs that are necessary for life and even after you made a baby clone for spare parts, you're still going to have to leave that baby some where for 20 years until it can be spare parts for an adult.

Maybe we could make brain dead babies. No personalities, but still have all the autonomic functions covered, but literally brainless babies has to be beyond us with out using a mass of expensive technology to keep the fucker alive until it's parts are big enough.

Honestly?

Why clone when there's all those poor people not living up to their potential?

Or why doesn't America just invade Canada or Mexico and chop them up for the organ banks?

I read a book where the criminal justice system removed parts as punishment for crime, instead of jail.

That seems fair?

If you cheat on your taxes, they take your ass.
 
But you have to do "something" precisely evil on a production line to stop the development/presence of that brain.

Might as well be scooping it out with a spoon, although I'd imagine them using a tiny hot needle. Just jabbing it into the face of a person the size of a grain of rice.

Remember Lucy and Ethel on the production line with those chocolates?

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NPzLBSBzPI[/yt]

A couple clones are going to slip past quality control with a brain now and then maybe?

We're only human.

It's also dehumanizing, and eugenics.

If you can make someone with no brain for parts, why not make some one else with two brains to rule us all?

But blame religion.

If it wasn't for religion, human cloning would have been perfected 30 years ago, and there would be no waiting list for organ transplants.

Larry Hagman would have had that fourth heart and still be with us today.

Of course saying "no brain" is not as easy as making a person with no brain. The brain regulates a lot of bibs and bobs that are necessary for life and even after you made a baby clone for spare parts, you're still going to have to leave that baby some where for 20 years until it can be spare parts for an adult.

Maybe we could make brain dead babies. No personalities, but still have all the autonomic functions covered, but literally brainless babies has to be beyond us with out using a mass of expensive technology to keep the fucker alive until it's parts are big enough.

Honestly?

Why clone when there's all those poor people not living up to their potential?

Or why doesn't America just invade Canada of Mexico and chop them up for the organ banks?

I read a book where the criminal justice system removed parts as punishment for crime, instead of jail.

That seems fair?

If you cheat on your taxes, they take your ass.

A heart, a lung or a liver or even a brain have to start with one single cell. If you take out that cell, you can't possibly be accused of any wrong doing. But then you'll dispose of an entire set of organs, brain excluded that doesn't belong to anyone. There is ethics and religious fanaticism, some countries seem unable to make the distinction between the two.
 
All countries and the UN.

Here's another possibility about clones.

Bringing back slavery.

Just like a human being but with half the IQ.

If they don't know no better, what's the big deal?

Now here's a real problem.

What happens when clones who are not for spare parts start entering the genepool?

Defects and new super weird diseases.

They are inhumanly unnatural which means their deformities are unpredictable over a long enough timeline.

All from moving a couple decimal places and suppressing stuff they don't understand and enhancing other stuff they don't understand to make a slave species that is stronger but dumber. Useful but obedient, who if worse comes to worse can be used as food and it's not cannibalism.

Anyway I look at it, human cloning is going to end with some one knocking my door down and dragging me away with a bag over my face.
 
All countries and the UN.

Here's another possibility about clones.

Bringing back slavery.

Just like a human being but with half the IQ.

If they don't know no better, what's the big deal?

Now here's a real problem.

What happens when clones who are not for spare parts start entering the genepool?

Defects and new super weird diseases.

They are inhumanly unnatural which means their deformities are unpredictable over a long enough timeline.

All from moving a couple decimal places and suppressing stuff they don't understand and enhancing other stuff they don't understand to make a slave species that is stronger but dumber. Useful but obedient, who if worse comes to worse can be used as food and it's not cannibalism.

Anyway I look at it, human cloning is going to end with some one knocking my door down and dragging me away with a bag over my face.
This is like saying that Doctors shouldn't be allowed to prescribe drugs because drugs create gang violence. Or that we shouldn't drink water because people drown in water and therefore , it's dangerous.
 
The level of medical knowledge possessed by the Vidiians would suggest that cloning is useless. One would have to think they would have attempted it at some point in their history of fighting the disease. 2000 years.

You're speaking of the Think Tank, yes, they are capable of anything, especially the worst.

Maybe the Vidians didn't pay the price and the think tank turned them into an earlier form of their own species, like our cro-magnon or neanderthal... So they were cured but unable to maintain a civilization...
I like to think the Think Tank was just selling lies to Janeway in order to get what they wanted. We know the lengths they're willing to go to in order to achieve their goal. Once they glimpsed 7, they had tunnel vision.
 
The level of medical knowledge possessed by the Vidiians would suggest that cloning is useless. One would have to think they would have attempted it at some point in their history of fighting the disease. 2000 years.
Yet they can split one individual into two fully grown and viable lifeforms, which presumably means a full compliment of bodily organs. Each.
 
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The level of medical knowledge possessed by the Vidiians would suggest that cloning is useless. One would have to think they would have attempted it at some point in their history of fighting the disease. 2000 years.

You're speaking of the Think Tank, yes, they are capable of anything, especially the worst.

Maybe the Vidians didn't pay the price and the think tank turned them into an earlier form of their own species, like our cro-magnon or neanderthal... So they were cured but unable to maintain a civilization...
I like to think the Think Tank was just selling lies to Janeway in order to get what they wanted. We know the lengths they're willing to go to in order to achieve their goal. Once they glimpsed 7, they had tunnel vision.

I don't think they were lying. Their accomplishments spoke for themselves and no one has denied their tremendous abilities not even their enemies. On the other hand he could have omitted certain details like the one I hypothesized.
 
I don't think they were lying. Their accomplishments spoke for themselves and no one has denied their tremendous abilities not even their enemies. On the other hand he could have omitted certain details like the one I hypothesized.
Fair enough. But it seems a little curious that they would have chosen 'now' to help the Vidiians. The entire quadrant must know of the Phage, what would have changed in order for the mobile Tank to 'help' them out? What payment were they holding out for?
 
I don't think they were lying. Their accomplishments spoke for themselves and no one has denied their tremendous abilities not even their enemies. On the other hand he could have omitted certain details like the one I hypothesized.
Fair enough. But it seems a little curious that they would have chosen 'now' to help the Vidiians. The entire quadrant must know of the Phage, what would have changed in order for the mobile Tank to 'help' them out? What payment were they holding out for?

For such a tremendous service, one would think that the payment must have been enormous as well. It's probably there that the rub is. Maybe the Vidians are in their debt for a century now...
 
We don't know how long Think Tank has been around, maybe it just took them that long to formulate a cure.
 
We don't know how long Think Tank has been around, maybe it just took them that long to formulate a cure.

I don't think so. They seem to have made a lot of enemies. So they must move quickly from contracts to contracts all over the quadrant. They probably move at speeds the Voyager crew can only dream of.
 
Maybe the Vidians are in their debt for a century now...
Which would work out great for the Vidiians, if the Tank survived their comeuppance, it's doubtful they would be in any shape to collect their payment.

The man seemed pretty confident that they would get out of that one. Otherwise he wouldn't have continued to argue for Seven's transfer while under attack. This seems like a minor setback to me.
 
The level of medical knowledge possessed by the Vidiians would suggest that cloning is useless. One would have to think they would have attempted it at some point in their history of fighting the disease. 2000 years.
Yet they can split one individual into two fully grown and viable lifeforms, which presumably means a full compliment of bodily organs. Each.

One Vidiian (Sulan) could do that, but there's no evidence that the entire Vidiian race was capable of it. Maybe he was just an exceptionally brilliant scientist with a lot of crackpot theories.
 
The level of medical knowledge possessed by the Vidiians would suggest that cloning is useless. One would have to think they would have attempted it at some point in their history of fighting the disease. 2000 years.
Yet they can split one individual into two fully grown and viable lifeforms, which presumably means a full compliment of bodily organs. Each.

One Vidiian (Sulan) could do that, but there's no evidence that the entire Vidiian race was capable of it. Maybe he was just an exceptionally brilliant scientist with a lot of crackpot theories.

Seems to me that he was just a typical Vidiian . Remember when they all attacked Voyager in great numbers when they were asking for help? He likely isn't seen as a crackpot by his people but as a hero.
 
Top scientist in a hierarchy?

Which would mean that he has politicians yelling at him and factories waiting on his every discovery.

I saw him more as hans Zarkov.

Maybe he's the smartest but he is also a ridiculed laughing stock separated from the hierarchy working in seclusion.

The Vidiians on Vidiia look unaffected? Someone said something that might have been construed to mean that. 50/50?

So, the only people walking around covered in the stolen flesh of alien passers by are out right criminal scum who the good law abiding people of Vidiia are supposed to be hunting down before their allies turn on them.

Sulan can't have been working for the government in an official capacity if he is coverd in illegal grafts.

That's like the US President admitting to enjoying a little Meth after dinner once or twice a week in an interview on the Today Show.
 
The level of medical knowledge possessed by the Vidiians would suggest that cloning is useless. One would have to think they would have attempted it at some point in their history of fighting the disease. 2000 years.
Yet they can split one individual into two fully grown and viable lifeforms, which presumably means a full compliment of bodily organs. Each.

One Vidiian (Sulan) could do that, but there's no evidence that the entire Vidiian race was capable of it. Maybe he was just an exceptionally brilliant scientist with a lot of crackpot theories.

We're not suggesting the ''Star Trek One Alien Defines the Entire Species'' (tm) rule. that every single Vidian that ever lived, possesses the knowledge and skill of one presented on the show. Perhaps the Vidians encountered by Voyager were the equivalent to street gangs and thugs (that the Kazon were supposed to be), while the rest were the sensible ones desperately seeking cures and or methods of easing the pain and discomfort of the Phage.
But if the Ford Motor Co in 2015 can build a car, I have to assume that those same engineers can build a go cart without difficultly... The Vidians we met possessed advanced technology that (we must assume), was built by them/their society. The deduction that there had to have been growth in tech development leading up to their present level is unavoidable.

Even if some genius made a revolutionary leap in bio-engineering that led to handheld beaming devices, skin grafting, organ assimilation, etc, the scientific community would be all over it, looking to adapt that to whatever may help them in their cause.
 
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