Janeway’s “Tuvix” Decision Divides ‘Star Trek: Voyager’ Cast: “It Kind Of Hurt Her Character”

Comments

• AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  It certainly didn’t live up to Federation ideals.

  But then again Sisko should be a war criminal for using Biogenic weapons.

  If you want to see someone do the ethically correct thing 10/10, Jean Luc is your captain.

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  • AuroraBorealis@pawb.social ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    The whole theme of the show is the battle of the ideals which work great in the alpha quadrant vs the reality of their situation

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    • AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      That actually makes Sisko sound so much worse.

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    • Odinkirk@lemmygrad.ml ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      If you abandon your principles when things get hard then they’re not principles; they’re hobbies.

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  • Irv@midwest.social ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    There are a lot of instances where the Enterprise crew wanted to do the ethical thing, and Picard stops it or tries to. For example, when Dr. Crusher wanted to help when that planet population was addicted to drugs, and Picard wouldn’t let her do that or communicate anything to them.

    Also, Data once found humans frozen in space, and when he helped them, Picard was annoyed; it wasn’t even a Prime Directive issue!

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  • MintyAnt@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    The biogenic stuff is so funny for some reason… The absolute absurdity of Sisko bio nuking a planet to get one terrorist

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  • angrystego@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Jean Luc IS my captain

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  • c0mbatbag3l@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Even Picard broke the PD multiple times. If we are basing ethics on that then he’s no better.

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    • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Every captain in starfleet seems to treat it more like the Prime Suggestion.

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    • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      In fairness, Picard is extremely upfront and honest that he has broken the Prime Directive and doesn’t regret it in the slightest. Separately, he also said that while rules are a good thing, rules cannot be universally absolute.

      Janeway straight up said to another captain that she’s never broken the Prime Directive in her life, despite clearly doing it a bunch of times. She’s in denial.

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  • GBU_28@lemm.ee ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Needs of the many (2 people live) over needs of the few/one (cya tuvix)

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    • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I mean, that logic was only ever applied by the Vulcans as a personal choice/sacrifice, not something to be enforced by the barrel of a… er… phaser.

      Spock sacrificed himself, it wasn’t done forcibly against his will. Kirk didn’t order the execution of one man so that others could live.

      I don’t think we should take a slogan as an absolute moral lesson, you can justify all kinds of evil with it.

      E.g. your organs could save dozens of lives. Would it be right to pin you down, kill you, and remove them, so that others can live? Surely one life lost is a worthy price to pay? The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, after all.

      Ethics are a lot more complex than a catchy slogan.

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• PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Tuvix is literally just a Trolley Problem scenario with a fancy costume. No more, no less.

  There is an out of control trolley. You can’t stop it. On the trolley’s current track, there are two people. If you do nothing, they will die when the trolley hits them. But you’re at a track switch, and can divert the trolley to an alternate track. On that second track, there is one person who will die if the trolley hits them. Do you pull the lever? If you pull the lever, are you murdering the one? If you don’t pull the lever, are you complicit in the deaths of the two?

  In this case, the trolley is the transporter accident; Janeway has the ability to pull the lever and reverse the accident. If she chooses not to, she is essentially refusing to pull the lever, thereby condemning the two people on the first track to die. But if she reverses the accident, she is pulling the lever and killing the one.

  Janeway decided the answer to “should you pull the lever” was “yes”. She pulled the lever, saved the two, and killed the one. Sure, you could argue that pulling the lever is murdering the one. But if you sit by and do nothing, aren’t you willfully (maybe even maliciously) negligent? After all, you have the opportunity to save the lives of two, while minimizing damage to only one person.

  Philosophers will try to change the trolley problem to fit different scenarios. What if it’s a bunch of convicted felons on the first track, and an innocent child on the second track? What if it’s a bunch of your friends and family on the first track, and your worst enemy on the second? What if, what if, what if… But the base question is always the same; Do you choose to do nothing and let many die, or actively kill the one? What is the tipping point where your decision changes?

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  • joshthewaster@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Tuvix adds another element though. Tuvok and Neelix were already dead and Tuvix was alive. I think that makes this different from the standard trolley problem - still a hard choice but not the same.

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    • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Yup. This is my problem with it.

      IMO, once Neelix and Tuvok stop existing, they are dead. They have no consciousness, they aren’t around. They’re gone. They’re ex-people. They’re not sad about the situation, because they no longer exist. Once you are dead, you don’t have a right to live, especially not if it means the death of another.

      Tuvix, on the other hand, existed. He was conscious, self aware, intelligent, alive. Then he was killed to bring two people back to life.

      Now I know people will say “but 2 is more than 1, so it’s fine to kill him”, but that’s never sat right with me.

      Tbh I’m astounded the Star Trek community is predominantly on the “murder of an innocent is ok if it saves more people” side

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    • ook_the_librarian@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I found it strange the claim started with the language “a Trolley Problem” and concluded with the language “the trolley problem”.

      It seems one could make any choice into “a” trolley problem. But Tuvix problem is certainly not “the trolley problem”. This is about emergence of consciousness. In the trolley problem, the characters cease to exist. Neither choice here would end, say, Tuvok’s consciousness.

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  • halm@sh.itjust.works ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    the whole point of the trolley problem is that there isn’t any single “correct” answer.

    Yeah, this exactly. However, the nature of fandoms and especially online fan communities means that rather considering the question bilaterally, people will argue for decades and factions will form 🤷

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  • Odinkirk@lemmygrad.ml ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    This is not a trolley problem in that there is sequence involved:

    1: Tuvok and Neelix alive before transport

    2: Tuvok and Neelix dead and a new rational being in their place. This being had a moral blank slate and are thus blameless for the circumstances of creation.

    3: Janeway decides that the speech she gave to the Vidiians was just hot air and that she will kill Tuvix to get the original two back. (Non lethal ways were explored, but quickly abandoned)

    4: The blameless being makes an articulate case for their life, and even addresses the “needs of the many” argument by stating the truth: the other two are gone and the new being is there. (Raw, unalloyed utilitarianism is problematic at best, just ask the people of Omelas Majalis)

    5: The doctor straight up says that the procedure is unethical and refuses to do it.

    6: Janet does it anyway.

    Calling it a trolley problem is reductive and inaccurate.

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    • stoy@lemmy.zip ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      5. The doctor has his ethical subroutines preventing him from doing harm.

      That is fine in a doctor/patient relationship, but the captain has a captain/crew relationship, she would cause a lot of harm and loose two good crew members if she had let it be.

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• pimento64@sopuli.xyz ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Yeah, it separated the wheat from the chaff. Janeway did nothing wrong.

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  • ValueSubtracted@startrek.website ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Pretty harsh to call Tuvok “chaff” - the man’s chief of security!

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    • half_built_pyramids@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Transporters just kill everyone all the time anyways. The original Tuvok and Neelix were already long dead. What happens to their Nth copy hardly matters.

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• Transporter_Room_3@startrek.website ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  JANEWAY DID NOTHING WRONG

  Sucks to be Tuvix, nobody should be judged on the circumstances of one’s creation.

  But Tuvok and Neelix deserved to live, too.

  If you have the ability to help them, you have the responsibility to help them.

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  • SaintWacko@midwest.social ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Exactly! The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one. Tuvok and Neelix are the many, Tuvix was the one. Simple math

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    • Odinkirk@lemmygrad.ml ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      You’d fit right in on Majalis then.

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• FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I’m in camp Janeway did nothing wrong, but some things like the doctor in SNW keeping his daughter in the buffer raise questions about just exactly what is being stored and rematerialized. Maybe there was a way to use transporter magic to solve the trolley problem, but the needs of the many and two crew members were already MIA

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  • KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    It’s been shown multiple times before that there’s no technological reason you can’t put someone in the buffer and take two out. Thomas and William are proof of this.

    The Voyager crew likely had access to the records of the Thomas case, having happened a decade earlier. Though I admit I don’t know if the information would have been classified or withheld for some reason.

    Assuming they had the information, they could have likely attempted a duplication, and unmerge one of the two resulting Tuvix’s.

    I found myself so pissed off this wasn’t even considered during the episode. It’s like they just forgot duplication was a possibility, even if it wasn’t a super sure fire solution.

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    • wahming@monyet.cc ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      That solution would require transporters to have a consistent set of abilities across series, when somehow the way they work changes even within the same series

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  • EmpathicVagrant@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    We could have saved Tuvix’ pattern, split him into the family members we all meme over, and then used energy to pop him back

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    • explodicle@local106.com ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Wait so then why don’t they duplicate people all the time? The galaxy could use another Data.

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• nokturne213@sopuli.xyz ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  This was one of those episodes i never really gave another thought until reading about it on the internet.

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  • remotelove@lemmy.ca ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I skip that episode. It’s just… eh… not my cup of tea.

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    • CaptPretentious@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I don’t believe it’s ever referenced again and it doesn’t further any plot line that I know of at the top of my head… So really is just a filler episode.

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• Ensign_Seitler@startrek.website ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I think the controversy of Janeway’s choice is largely due to the show’s failure to address the orchid of it all.

  As I see it, Tuvix is not “Tuvok + Neelix,” but also isn’t “something new.” I maintain that Tuvix is primarily the orchid, which has subsumed the essence and personalities of two Voyager crew members and is asserting itself on board the ship.

  All it would have taken is for Janeway to have maintained (or be convinced by another) that this was the case, and it would be the obvious choice to split them back up.

  Of course that would negate the tension of the episode, but it could be left as “not everyone on board agrees that this is who/what Tuvix is, but Janeway believes it so that’s why her decision isn’t immoral.” We could have the same kinds of “was Janeway wrong?” debates, but some of the rough edges would be smoothed out, I think.

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• Lucien@hexbear.net ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  She literally murdered him

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  • pupbiru@aussie.zone ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    or did she make a choice to sacrifice 1 to save 2?

    trolly problem

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    • Flyberius@hexbear.net ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I am here to explain this once again. Neelix and Tuvok were dead. They died in a transporter accident. They died painlessly and unaware. Tuvix was not dead. Begged not to be killed. And was painfully aware of the fate they were forced to suffer.

      It does not matter if you have a magic wand that can magic two people back for the cost of one other, she chose to kill someone, who was begging to her face to be spared. It is as simple as that.

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• survivalmachine@beehaw.org ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  New Trolley Problem: Would you cold-bloodedly murder a living being to save two of your buddies from certain death? Jameway say absolutely I do.

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• Blackout@kbin.social ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I would have been on Tuvix's side if they were cuter but I still see their face in my nightmares.

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  • MintyAnt@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    “he deserves death because he’s ugly”

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• SteleTrovilo@beehaw.org ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Best solution: 1: Sedate Tuvix. He must not be conscious for the next steps. 2: Make a transporter clone of him (like Riker/Boimler) 3: Separate one of the Tuvixes into Tuvok/Neelix, leave the other as Tuvix

  Everyone wins!

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  • explodicle@local106.com ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Why sedate him? He willingly walked into his execution pad.

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• Thcdenton@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Dude I wish I could be split into two people. I reeally want the Neelix part of me gone.

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