What are your unanswered Star Trek questions?

[Orphalesion]

The money question can only be resolved one way: "Whichever answer you prefer"
Because in 90s trek there's evidence for and against it to the point that it depends on the series and even on the episode.

 

[1001001]

“If Tuvix joined the (Starfleet) Military, how much would he get paid?”

 

[Orphalesion]

If Starfleet officers get paid, Tuvix would be paid the same as any other member, since he's one person (evidently, in my opinion, and by his own insistence) who just happened to be created from the fusion of two formerly independent persons.

The bigger question would be if he would have to go through Starfleet Academy again. Since he's a functionally new person, independent of Tuvok or Neelix, it might not automatically mean that he should be seen as graduated form the academy, only because Tuvok had.
I mean sure, he's got Tuvok's memories and experience, but he's not Tuvok, just made from him.

 

[at Quark's]

Suppose they had found a way to keep Tuvix and bring back Tuvok and Neelix.

Would that have been ethical towards Tuvok and Neelix? Someone walking around that both is and is not you, knowing all of your darkest thoughts and secrets, at least up until that point in your life.

 

[Orphalesion]

Suppose they had found a way to keep Tuvix and bring back Tuvok and Neelix.

Would that have been ethical towards Tuvok and Neelix? Someone walking around that both is and is not you, knowing all of your darkest thoughts and secrets, at least up until that point in your life.

Yes, I think it would have been ethical. In fact, that would have been the only wholly ethical solution towards all people involved. It would not be different from having Thomas Riker around. Nobody suggested killing Tom or somehow fusing him back into Will. Tuvix is innocent of his creation and so should not be penalized for it, only because it might make Tuvok and/or Neelix uncomfortable.
It's just one of the unusual things you gotta live with when exploring the Star Trek galaxy.

Of course I'm still of the opinion that splitting Tuix back up was the most unethical solution, since it consisted of murdering an innocent man (again, he had no part in the way he was created)
(of course it was a better solution for the show as a show, because Tuvix was a giant creep)

 

[fireproof78]

Suppose they had found a way to keep Tuvix and bring back Tuvok and Neelix.

Would that have been ethical towards Tuvok and Neelix? Someone walking around that both is and is not you, knowing all of your darkest thoughts and secrets, at least up until that point in your life.

Sure. Why not? Kind of like Thomas Riker in that regard.

 

[at Quark's]

I agree that the solution would have been 'better' than what we saw on the show, but it might still have caused lots of problems. At least, Tom Riker quickly left the Ent-D to pursue his own path in life, so that he presumably wouldn't keep crossing paths with Will. But that would have been a lot harder for Tuvix to do (unless he was willing to live in the DQ on some random planet).

 

[fireproof78]

I agree that the solution would have been 'better' than what we saw on the show, but it might still have caused lots of problems. At least, Tom Riker quickly left the Ent-D to pursue his own path in life, so that he presumably wouldn't keep crossing paths with Will. But that would have been a lot harder for Tuvix to do (unless he was willing to live in the DQ on some random planet).

Eh, he can just be killed off three episodes later, in a heroic last stand as he tries to negotiate.

 

[Orphalesion]

They wouldn't even need to kill him off to get him off the ship; just have Voyager stop at some planet or outpost where the people, somehow, end of relying on him as a leader or guide and have him opt to stay there.

But again, two people feeling uncomfortable with him doesn't justify killing him. Tuvok's and Neelix's feelings should have no input on whether Tuvix is allowed to live or die.
Like
Tuvol: "Oh no, he knows that me and my wife like to dress up as Archer and T'Pol in bed and that I secretly collect beanie babies, kill him!"
Seriously?

 

[JesterFace]

By the way, where did the parts that were left over from Tuvok and Neelix go to, Tuvix wasn't that huge?

Now it's time for all of us to listen to Spice Girls song '2 become 1'.

 

[at Quark's]

By the way, where did the parts that were left over from Tuvok and Neelix go to, Tuvix wasn't that huge?

Now it's time for all of us to listen to Spice Girls song '2 become 1'.

I'd guess, same place where Odo leaves all that extraneous mass when he morphs into a much smaller object, such as a glass.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

@1001001

Actually very sorry.

Your question is good though.

I think the Federation must at least have banks of other races currency for when they need it. They do sometimes need it.

Would there be some law against replicating it? You could overturn an economy with a decent replicator.

There must be money. It's explicitly stated that Picard is hiring Rios in S01 of Picard. Hire is a very specific word that to me can only mean money. "You're hired!" It means somebody is going to pay you to do a job.

 

[Farscape One]

In the case of Tom, he really is a fundamentally different person than Will, because of those 8 years on the planet. "Second Chances" illustrated that, and "DEFIANT" drove the point home.

It also shows how much a person really is a sum of their experiences and memories.

 

[at Quark's]

Tuvol: "Oh no, he knows that me and my wife like to dress up as Archer and T'Pol in bed and that I secretly collect beanie babies, kill him!"
Seriously?

Janeway: Tuvok, you know that that's no reason to kill Tuvix - not that there could ever be a valid reason for that in the first place. He knows this through no fault of his own.
Tuvok: Captain, are you aware he also knows about your more .... spicy experiments with Mark that you once felt necessary to confide to me in good confidence?
Janeway <sighs>: Yes, Tuvok, that's unfortunate, but still not his fault, we can't judge him for that.
Tuvok: Captain, may I remind you he is also Neelix?
Janeway (more to herself than to Tuvok): He must disappear. I don't care what rule it takes or how we have to bend it, he must disappear.

 

[Orphalesion]

There must be money. It's explicitly stated that Picard is hiring Rios in S01 of Picard. Hire is a very specific word that to me can only mean money. "You're hired!" It means somebody is going to pay you to do a job.

And DS9 explicitly states that humans don't use money and have no need of it. As I said, the evidence, so to speak, is contradictory.

Though, while I watched as little of PIC as possible...aren't they kinda living outside the law/polite society in season 1? So it's possible that mainstream Federation society doesn't use money, but the peripheral fringes and semi-legal elements do use some sort of currency.
We know from TNG that individuals and entire colonies even can opt out of the Federation.

 

[JesterFace]

Maybe people on planet Earth and nearby don't use money because there isn't need for it, replicators can give you whatever you need.
When you move further away and deal with other planets and societies there must be some kind of currency.
Hard to imagine the entire Alpha Quadrant just handing over their stuff with nothing to gain.
Somekind of exchange must be going on.
"OK, you give me dilithium, I give you cake."

 

[at Quark's]

Beverley 'buys' a role of cloth in Encounter at Farpoint, saying that it should be delivered at the Enterprise and 'charged at dr. Crusher'. That suggests that at least as far as interactions on alien colonies are concerned, there's a mechanism in place for purchasing stuff and being charged individually for that (even though the latter may be merely an administrative formality as far as the Federation is concerned).

 

[fireproof78]

There must be money. It's explicitly stated that Picard is hiring Rios in S01 of Picard. Hire is a very specific word that to me can only mean money. "You're hired!" It means somebody is going to pay you to do a job.

Star Trek is often at odds when it comes to money. Kirk states that Starfleet has invested many "credits" in to Spock, as well Uhura purchasing a tribble on station K-7. As @at Quark's notes early on TNG states that it should be charged. And I never understood the pushback on having a means of exchange, which is all money is. I get in our current economy this is treated as a very evil thing, but in Trek having an agreed upon means of exchange, be it latinum, credits, power units, or widgets is going to aid in trading with various planets and colonies. That replicators exist does not automatically mean there isn't a way to allocate resources, even if people don't have to work the same way.

 

[at Quark's]

^ Yep. Money in itself is only an instrument and an extremely efficient instrument at that - far more efficient than any barter system you could ever imagine. And there will always be coveted premium non-replicable things.

Imagining a world without money is plain dumb, in my opinion. It's like imagining a world where knives are outlawed because knives can be (and sometimes are) used to hurt other people. But there are many more instances where they're just useful instruments.

Instead, they should have said money still exists, but nobody is interested in it anymore, else than as an instrument to facilitate fair and honest transactions. Not as a means to gain more posessions or power.

(Not that I think such a world will ever come about, either. Humans are too selfish for that.)

 

[fireproof78]

^ Yep. Money in itself is only an instrument and an extremely efficient instrument at that - far more efficient than any barter system you could ever imagine. And there will always be coveted premium non-replicable things.

Imagining a world without money is plain dumb, in my opinion. It's like imagining a world where knives are outlawed because knives can be (and sometimes are) used to hurt other people. But there are many more instances where they're just useful instruments.

Instead, they should have said money still exists, but nobody is interested in it anymore, else than as an instrument to facilitate fair and honest transactions. Not as a means to gain more posessions or power.

Picard's speech would still work even without it. The driving force for humanity is not accumulation but growth and development and self-improvement. But, denigrating money as the root of all evil ignores the actual cause, and blames a symptom for causing the disease.