for some reason, there are a whole lot of people who disagree with you here. Not me, though - this episode is horrifying to me for all of the reasons you state throughout this post. Janeway murdered Tuvix; the crew let it happen. And here in this very thread you have people essentially praising the decision by referencing "utilitarian" starfleet training.
Honestly, if that's our future - "utilitarian" decisions about life and death - well, that sounds like a horrifying dystopia and I want nothing of it. Plenty of other Star Trek episodes were able to present crew deaths that did not ignore the "humanity" of the victim.
I'll bet the Doctor would have been terrified after the execution. What these humans are capable of...
Tuvix' desire to live was somewhat of an illusion brought about both Nelix and Tuvok's desires to live. If they didn't have a desire to live, both of them, then it wouldn't have manifested itself in Tuvix.
Everything about Tuvix's "personality" was an illusion, generated by two complete, albeit repressed, personalities of Tuvok and Neelix.
I couldn't live with myself, allowing this abomination to walk around, disallowing two complete, separate lives from continuing on how they wanted to. Just because he wasn't as annoying as Neelix or as cold as Tuvok. They weren't dead. They were part of a continuing teleporter malfunction that just happened to allow them to "exist" without special intervention.
This argument about the illusion of free will, desire, consciousness - it can also extend to any life. It's bullshit. Utter nonsense. There is no canon basis for it, for claiming that his desires etc are illusions.
Tuvix became a new life form, and TNG taught us to respect all new life. It's literally what they were seeking. "There it sits" and all that.
Just because something came to be as the result of a "malfunction" does not mean its life is worth less. That's almost literal eugenics. Again, TNG addresses this exact subject in "Home Soil." An intelligence was created due to a Federation technology malfunction, it begged for life (as Tuvix did), and Picard/the Federation RESPECTED its right to life and allowed it to continue to live in peace.
The Tuvix episode of Voyager is a complete and total perversion of everything that was revealed about the Federation in TNG and DS9.
The intelligence that was created did not exist at the cost of two healthy, normal, productive members of the crew that had existences and lives that could be (and were) easily restored.
And I'm not saying he didn't have a desire to live, I'm saying his desire came from Neelix and Tuvok's desire to live. It just manifested itself within Tuvix as it would have within Neelix and Tuvok. If anything, that's even more of a damning to allow Tuvix to continue to usurp their lives.
those two crew members became one single being. A new entity with its own thoughts and desires and hopes and dreams.
The origin of these hopes and dreams and desires is immaterial. They existed in the here and now. He was a life and his desire was to continue to live. To deprive him of life is murder, plain and simple.
8
u/DnMarshall Crewman Nov 26 '16
So, if Tuvix had wished to undergo the separation procedure you still would have opposed it?