Why do Augments have to be evil?

[Rojixus]

I think the reason the Jack Pack turned out like they did was because genetic engineering had been driven underground and their parents had to go to "back-alley geneticists" much in the same way women have to go to back-alley abortion doctors in areas where abortions are illegal.

Also, for a society that claims tolerance and diversity, it seems grossly hypocritical for them to outlaw genetic engineering. Vulcans are thrice as strong as humans and live thrice as long but are Vulcans forbidden from procreating? Why can't humans be allowed to be as strong or live as long as Vulcans? Because it's natural for the Vulcans? If you had a chance to give your child the ability to compete with the Vulcans or other species who, by the genetic lottery that is evolution, ended up stronger or longer-lived or telepathic, would you not take it?

 

[USS Excelsior]

And that Pulaski episode on Darwin Station must have been retconned out of existence then.

 

[Rojixus]

That was a curious episode, the Federation appears to have broken its own laws against genetic engineering, further hypocrisy. Also, because genetic engineering had been banned in the Federation, the researchers were working completely from scratch or they even might have been the back-alley geneticists I was alluding to earlier, hired by the Federation to do what they were doing on Darwin Station. They may have cut corners and pocketed some of the money for themselves. I'll admit I haven't seen the episode in a long time.

 

[Myasishchev]

There's nothing by logical necessity illegal about Darwin Station. Many laws permit the government to do things private citizens generally cannot--owning plutonium and possessing drugs, for example. And defense and controlled substance laws do even permit some civilians to do research on plutonium and drugs. Hence the Fed might permit experimentation on genetic engineering, and scientists with the proper authorization are free to create freaks.

All that necessarily flows from "Unnatural Selection" is that the Federation has extremely fucked-up human experimentation laws, really only slightly better than those of Nazi Germany. Perhaps there's some other research station that runs similar depressurization experiments, and another where folks are shot in the extremities with phasers to see how long it takes them to die.

(Of course, "Unnatural Selection" strikes me as a bit ridiculous on its face. I'm pretty certain that to design an "immune system" that does what those kids' were doing, you'd have to be doing it very deliberately. You don't accidentally make an airborne plague weapon out of someone's immunoresponse. You could build in a provirus in that expresses itself as a harmful agent in the presence of unaugmented folks, but why would you do that?)

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Vulcans are thrice as strong as humans and live thrice as long but are Vulcans forbidden from procreating? Why can't humans be allowed to be as strong or live as long as Vulcans? Because it's natural for the Vulcans?

Yes, exactly.

 

[Myasishchev]

That reminds me, is it even really that believable that a whole interstellar society would turn their backs completely on genetic engineering, when the most anticipated application of genetic engineering is defeating age and potentially death?

I mean, half a trillion people agreed to that?

Even when Dr. Crusher says no one cares about death, the fact that she's a doctor who does more than administer painkillers and potassium chloride rather suggests otherwise.

 

[Kelso]

I would be.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

People live, what, 150 to 200 years *on their own* in Trek's time? What the hell do they need genetic engineering for? Nobody lives forever.

TOS got it right on this one: Superior engineering *does* breed superior ambition. There can never be a "nice" Augment - it just doesn't work. Bashir was not a full-blown Augment like Khan and the rest of them, was he? He didn't get the full treatment they did. If he had, he'd be running the Federation by now.

 

[Myasishchev]

People live, what, 150 to 200 years *on their own* in Trek's time? What the hell do they need genetic engineering for? Nobody lives forever.

200 years is jack. An unaltered brain can fit at least five times as much experience.

In any event, the tolls of aging are universally considered bad, even if I assume, for the sake of argument, the cold specter of death is not. Of course, if you conquer aging, you've conquered most of the death you reasonably can.

But all the old and fat people on Trek never made much sense. Even taking GE off the table, their other technologies appear more than capable of keeping someone young indefinitely, prior to their brain stopping working. I assume it's really some kind of fetish.

TOS got it right on this one: Superior engineering *does* breed superior ambition.

Shockingly, however, nuclear phycisists and Olympians have failed to stage their coup.

 

[Rojixus]

for a society that claims tolerance and diversity, it seems grossly hypocritical for them to outlaw genetic engineering. Vulcans are thrice as strong as humans and live thrice as long but are Vulcans forbidden from procreating? Why can't humans be allowed to be as strong or live as long as Vulcans? Because it's natural for the Vulcans?

Yes, exactly.

That is complete nonsense, the Federation claims to be about equality but when someone tries to improve themselves, Starfleet herds them into concentration camps! This is hypocrisy of the highest level.

That reminds me, is it even really that believable that a whole interstellar society would turn their backs completely on genetic engineering, when the most anticipated application of genetic engineering is defeating age and potentially death?

I mean, half a trillion people agreed to that?

Even when Dr. Crusher says no one cares about death, the fact that she's a doctor who does more than administer painkillers and potassium chloride rather suggests otherwise.

It's not believable at all! Some species have had genetic engineering for years without problems, do you expect us to believe they would give it up just because some hairless apes couldn't handle it?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Shockingly, however, nuclear phycisists and Olympians have failed to stage their coup.

They're not genetically engineered. They got to where they were by actually WORKING at it.

Look at it this way: Athletes shouldn't be allowed to take steroids and compete, so why should genetic engineering be allowed? The principle is the same. In both cases, it's simple cheating.

 

[Rojixus]

Shockingly, however, nuclear phycisists and Olympians have failed to stage their coup.

They're not genetically engineered. They got to where they were by actually WORKING at it.

Look at it this way: Athletes shouldn't be allowed to take steroids and compete, so why should genetic engineering be allowed? The principle is the same. In both cases, it's simple cheating.

It's not cheating if you're born that way. Genetically engineered people have to work at it too.

 

[Myasishchev]

Shockingly, however, nuclear phycisists and Olympians have failed to stage their coup.

They're not genetically engineered. They got to where they were by actually WORKING at it.

Look at it this way: Athletes shouldn't be allowed to take steroids and compete, so why should genetic engineering be allowed? The principle is the same. In both cases, it's simple cheating.

It's not cheating if you're born that way. Genetically engineered people have to work at it too.

Now, now. The bastards born with greater mathematical and athletic aptitudes than me are definitely cheating.

Also the ones with prettier smiles, larger penises, and more loving parents.

We should immediately institute a law. And get rid of all the men over 5'10".

But seriously, Laser, you're changing the argument: is your point that GE'd scientists and athletes are "cheating," depriving the un-enhanced from opportunity; or is your point that they are intrinsically dangerous.

Because we have evidence that people with high aptitudes are not especially dangerous. There is concern that GE would create a very unpleasant class or ever caste divide, and that's a serious objection.

Finally, I'm not even sure there's evidence in the fictional world of Star Trek that the Augments we see are evil. All we know Khan did was try to take over the Enterprise. From his point of view, Kirk was a privateer, that took him and his ship captive, commissioned by a government which outlawed people like him, run by the descendants of those who had killed everyone like him that did not escape into space.

Imagine you're Anne Frank with your family, but instead of a Dutch attic, you're frozen in a cryogenic sleeper tube, and when you're finally defrosted it's by a bunch of guys in Nazi uniforms. It turns out the Germans won World War II, and conquered the world. They may seem really nice. Maybe they really are nice. The Holocaust is looked on as pretty unfortunate, and these guys? They're not even anti-Semitic.

Why would they be? There hasn't been a Jew alive in two hundred years.

You don't even consider running? You don't even consider terror?

And in TWoK? Man, Khan's not even a villain in that movie. Kirk deserved vengeance.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

And in TWoK? Man, Khan's not even a villain in that movie.

Tell that to the crews of Regula 1 and the Reliant.

 

[John Vasiliou]

Another thing I found funny is that Augments are banned from serving in Star Fleet but Data's ok.

An award for bravery?...He has no emotions...at all.

 

[Hando]

Another thing I found funny is that Augments are banned from serving in Star Fleet but Data's ok.

An award for bravery?...He has no emotions...at all.

But see it from an different side, they cannot join starfleet, there is no check in place to stop them, but can a geneticaly engineered human become the President of the UFP or of United Earth?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Another thing I found funny is that Augments are banned from serving in Star Fleet but Data's ok.

There was considerable debate over whether Data was even sentient. So it's not like he just waltzed right into the Academy and signed up without a hitch.

 

[Myasishchev]

And in TWoK? Man, Khan's not even a villain in that movie.

Tell that to the crews of Regula 1 and the Reliant.

I can sort of see his perspective. He and his remaining supermen are in a state of war with the entire Federation by this point. Weapons researchers and starship crew are fair game. He needed to work on his prisoner handling techniques, however.

In any event, he couldn't possibly have trusted the Reliant to rescue him and his people. Genesis would be a tremendous prize, if it had worked--he could have gone to ground on any random planet, where he could begin the task of rebuilding his people's society again, and far from where the Federation might have ever looked for him, and on a world less likely to be devastated by local astronomical events. Certainly, Genesis was worth killing people over.

But mainly I don't really see him as a villain because spending 15 years on Ceti Alpha V had so obviously unhinged him that he's not really morally culpable anymore.

 

[DonIago]

Ehhh...I think he was well aware of the immorality of his actions, he just didn't -care- at that point.

As others have noted, Bashir seems to have turned out well enough.

There's also that one augment in "Cold Station 12" who didn't seem evil, though he also didn't seem "fully" augmented either.

In any case, aside from Bashir I don't think we have real evidence as to the root cause of the augments' evil in any case. It seems most of them were raised in circumstances that would compel them to overarching ambition (but that can be done for non-augments too, see Red Squad), but it's unclear whether even in a positive environment they would have become what they became.

 

[jedimaster]

I realise that it isn't part of televised canon, but in the novel Section 31: Abyss a Section 31 agent states to Bashir that there are, in fact, many genetically enhanced Humans (and, presumably other species) who are living normal, productive lives without giving any trouble.
It seems to me that attitude to others is far more a function of nurture rather than nature and that if a child is raised to respect others, they will not become homocidal nutjobs regardless of their genetic status. (Well, no more than anyone else.)