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Speaker 6: Question asked in the second season episode of Star Trek
Speaker 6: Voyager called Tuvis and the episode and the question we're
Speaker 6: going to be discussing here on superhero ethics. I'm Matthew,
Speaker 6: your host. I'm joined by Riki, my co host, Riky.
Speaker 6: How are we doing today and how you feel about
Speaker 6: talk about Star Trek.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm always excited to talk about Star Trek, Matthew,
Speaker 4: and I'm surprised we haven't done it before this. I
Speaker 4: believe this is the first time we're dealing with a
Speaker 4: solely Star Trek issue, and I hope to do it
Speaker 4: more because there are a lot of standout episodes like
Speaker 4: this one, like two Vicks, where there's a central ethical
Speaker 4: moral dilemma that speaks to, you know, larger issues, and
Speaker 4: it's just a very well done episode in general.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think I really agree with that.
Speaker 6: I've talked before about how Star Trek is kind of
Speaker 6: my bread and butter in terms of ethical discussions in
Speaker 6: science fiction, because this is this was the show my
Speaker 6: mother loved. She loved the original series, she thought Next
Speaker 6: Generation was okay. I don't think she ever watched the
Speaker 6: newer ones and she passed away long before Discovery and
Speaker 6: things like that, but you know, she and I would
Speaker 6: watch original episodes of the She and I would watch
Speaker 6: episodes of the original series, and she'd ask me about
Speaker 6: the questions and comparing them and talking about how they
Speaker 6: applied to real life. And I've said many times that's
Speaker 6: kind of for me. The point of this episode is
Speaker 6: to really honor and talk about that kind of science
Speaker 6: fiction and fantasy and storytelling we expanded pretty wide that
Speaker 6: that raises questions that have relevance for our own world.
Speaker 6: And I think part of what I like about this
Speaker 6: episode so much, and Star Trek I think does this
Speaker 6: a lot, and especially the Oriville does this as well.
Speaker 6: It's one thing to create a science fiction or a
Speaker 6: fantasy or anything like that that is very clearly just
Speaker 6: an exact, one for one analogue of something in our
Speaker 6: current world where you're making a point about that. And
Speaker 6: I think that's fine. I think something sometimes I think
Speaker 6: that's really interesting and sometimes really needed. But I think
Speaker 6: science fiction is really at its best where instead of
Speaker 6: being an exact mirror, it says, okay, what if we
Speaker 6: take that question or that whole range of questions in
Speaker 6: humanity at the moment and put them into a different
Speaker 6: light and put them in put them with a very
Speaker 6: different spin that makes us question them in a whole
Speaker 6: new ways because to me, the point like there's extent
Speaker 6: to which the so the basis of this episode is
Speaker 6: that two of the main characters, tu Vac and Neelix.
Speaker 6: Tuvac is a Vulcan and is the second the security
Speaker 6: officer and sort of the best friend and confidant of
Speaker 6: Janeway the captain, and he's he's often played off as
Speaker 6: the very opposite of Neelix. Neelix is a Tulaxian, a
Speaker 6: character we haven't seen in Star Wars before because they
Speaker 6: come from the Delta Quadrant in Star Trek. I'm sorry,
Speaker 6: I'm gonna keep making that mistake in Star Trek, which
Speaker 6: they are now exploring. And he's he's very much the
Speaker 6: McCoy to mister Kutuvac Spock, except instead of being sort
Speaker 6: of gloomy and emotional, he's happy and emotional, and he's bouncy,
Speaker 6: and he's he always is trying to cheer up mister
Speaker 6: Tuvac in all sorts of ways where he refers to
Speaker 6: him mister Vulcan, and the two of them are put
Speaker 6: on a mission, and during the course of the mission,
Speaker 6: because of Star Trek science, there's a transporter accident and
Speaker 6: the two of them get merged into one being. And
Speaker 6: this one being has a lot of the elements of both.
Speaker 6: It has a lot of the logic and technical skill
Speaker 6: and tactical skill that Tuvac has, while still having the
Speaker 6: humor and good nature of Neelik and even and being
Speaker 6: able to do a lot of the skills of both,
Speaker 6: but in some ways better. Able to be a great
Speaker 6: like leader of the security forces, but also relate to
Speaker 6: them more with humor, able to be a cook, but
Speaker 6: actually a better cook.
Speaker 5: A better cook, also.
Speaker 6: Somehow having enough hours in the day to do both
Speaker 6: of those full time jobs, which apparently is another part
Speaker 6: of Star Trek science that we're not going to even
Speaker 6: get into. But at the as the episode comes to
Speaker 6: an end, uh they realize that there's a scientific way
Speaker 6: to undo this process and to remove to Tuvix, which
Speaker 6: is what this sort of conjoined being calls themselves, because
Speaker 6: it's a new being is it is not Tuvac, is
Speaker 6: not Tuvac or Nelix. It's a new being, and they
Speaker 6: have a way to bring back the original two, which
Speaker 6: will of course erase Tuo Vix and a RaSE is
Speaker 6: one word you could use for it. Tuvex himself says,
Speaker 6: this is murder. You are going to kill me by
Speaker 6: doing this, and he appeals to the goodwill of the
Speaker 6: crew and sort of says Janeway. Because Janeway decides that
Speaker 6: they're going to go forward with this, two Vix appeals
Speaker 6: to her and makes this kind of like and here's
Speaker 6: part of what makes the episodes too interesting, the kind
Speaker 6: of very ethical appeal that in Star Trek is supposed
Speaker 6: to convince us or convince us that the people acting
Speaker 6: against wrong, and instead Janeway goes ahead and does the thing.
Speaker 6: The doctor be a part of it because he says
Speaker 6: he cannot do no harm. That doesn't attack that buttically
Speaker 6: do all the things to press the transporter button, to
Speaker 6: do the radio. I see it it possible, and Ween
Speaker 6: and Neelix back and no one's sort of saying whether
Speaker 6: this was the right or wrong decision. So that's just
Speaker 6: kind of kind of give it more framing, And Riki,
Speaker 6: what do you think of her decision?
Speaker 4: Well, I want to start first by in terms of framing,
Speaker 4: just go over the I guess biography of this episode
Speaker 4: real yeaking for So this is season two of Voyager,
Speaker 4: episode twenty four of the season, so it's very late
Speaker 4: in season two overall of the fortieth episode of the show.
Speaker 4: The story was written by Andrew Shepherd Price and Mark Gaberman,
Speaker 4: the teleplay by Kenneth Biller, and then it was directed
Speaker 4: by Cliff Bowle. It aired in on May sixth, almost
Speaker 4: May fourth, nineteen ninety six. So for listeners who aren't aware,
Speaker 4: I want to remind people, like television was very different
Speaker 4: in the nineties, just based on the episode count right,
Speaker 4: episode twenty four, like most TV shows had twenty six
Speaker 4: episodes per season, so it was a very long season.
Speaker 4: You have to have what we often describe as filler episodes,
Speaker 4: and this is like, this is definitely a filler episode,
Speaker 4: right in terms of what Star Trek Voyager is. It
Speaker 4: doesn't advance really the main plot of getting them home sooner.
Speaker 4: There's no overarching like villain of the season. I believe
Speaker 4: season two they were still dealing with like the Kson,
Speaker 4: so there's nothing that interacts with the overall main plots
Speaker 4: of the show. So this is filler, but this is
Speaker 4: amazing filler. And going back to your question, what do
Speaker 4: I think of her decision? Well, I think I mean,
Speaker 4: just in one sentence, I'll say it's murder, it's capital punishment,
Speaker 4: and I think it's wrong.
Speaker 5: That's fair, that's fair.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I let me just start with the framing of
Speaker 6: it and then we can get into like the rights
Speaker 6: and wrongs of it and all of the stuff that
Speaker 6: prounds it. I think that I think you're right that
Speaker 6: in some way it is filler. But it is filler
Speaker 6: of the very best kind. And the thing that I
Speaker 6: think is so often lost in the Disney Plus mini
Speaker 6: series kind of era that we're living in now, because
Speaker 6: you know, I love serialized storytelling, but there's another kind
Speaker 6: of storytelling that episodic can be a part of. Where
Speaker 6: it is episodic, but it's also like the episodes are
Speaker 6: part of a longer theme. Because the whole point of
Speaker 6: Star Trek Voyager is what happens when a particular voyager
Speaker 6: is teleported, you know, all the way across the galaxy,
Speaker 6: has no communication anymore with their friends, their family, with Starfleet,
Speaker 6: with anything else. They are completely on their own and
Speaker 6: they have to figure out what to do to survive
Speaker 6: and get back. And in terms of Jane Way, her
Speaker 6: overall story is the need to frankly become harder and
Speaker 6: harder as a person because of the need to make
Speaker 6: these very unfortunate decisions that sometimes we may disagree with
Speaker 6: and sometimes but that I think that that Jane Way
Speaker 6: feels that she has to make in order to make
Speaker 6: in order to let the ship survive and her crew
Speaker 6: survive and her crew get home, and that I think
Speaker 6: the question that she's wrestling with throughout the show is
Speaker 6: when and where can I live to my principles and
Speaker 6: where and where when and where should I abandon my
Speaker 6: principles in order to do what seems more pragmatic or
Speaker 6: more more you know, efficient in the moment, rather than
Speaker 6: what is my principle would say. And I just I
Speaker 6: think that for that reason, episodes like this kind of
Speaker 6: are the heart of the show in that they are it's.
Speaker 5: Filler and that it's a one off episode.
Speaker 6: To me, this episode is an essential part of that
Speaker 6: journey of how she gets there, So it's like it's filler,
Speaker 6: but also it's it's essential to the story.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Absolutely.
Speaker 5: The thing for me.
Speaker 4: That I don't like about Voyager as a show is
Speaker 4: that it doesn't come back to things like the episodic
Speaker 4: nature is like like a fire and forget like we
Speaker 4: wrote this episode, it's excellent. The name Tuvix is never
Speaker 4: mentioned again in Voyager. Yeah right, And this is supposed
Speaker 4: to be like a very important issue, not just for
Speaker 4: us as viewers, but for the people I show. Like
Speaker 4: the episode itself takes place over I don't know, I'd
Speaker 4: probably say weeks, right, Like they have kind of montages,
Speaker 4: montage things where we are shown two Vix like doing
Speaker 4: the job of Tuvak and Neelix and interacting with crew
Speaker 4: members and giving the sense that time has passed, and
Speaker 4: that's part of the important thing, Like this isn't just
Speaker 4: a two vix existed for a day and like we're
Speaker 4: switching it back, like no two Vix was a part
Speaker 4: of the crew for Like again, I'm gonna say weeks,
Speaker 4: if not months maybe and given a chance to be
Speaker 4: a person on the ship. And that's part of the
Speaker 4: issue here. And I also want to go back and
Speaker 4: say the actor who plays tuovis his name is Tom Wright.
Speaker 4: So they got a completely different actor from Tim Russ
Speaker 4: and Ethan Phillips who played tuvakan Neelix, respectively, and he
Speaker 4: came in and kind of drew upon like his knowledge
Speaker 4: of you know, they filled him in on the characters
Speaker 4: he was portraying, and he watched some episodes and also
Speaker 4: like interacted with the actors themselves to get some of
Speaker 4: their mannerisms, and he did an excellent job. Like Tom Wright,
Speaker 4: is part of the reason this is so effective is
Speaker 4: that we feel like he is a distinct person, but
Speaker 4: we recognize the elements of the other two in so
Speaker 4: he did an excellent job.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's good, And.
Speaker 7: That's part of it.
Speaker 4: Is like we as the audience feel this weight, yeah,
Speaker 4: because we're like, oh, yeah, like two ficks, Like we
Speaker 4: are engineered by the show to like the other two
Speaker 4: because we've interacted with them for a season and a half,
Speaker 4: almost two seasons, and I think there's a there's a
Speaker 4: television show conceit that. Yeah, like the other two are
Speaker 4: coming back, like we can't get rid of them, right,
Speaker 4: but gosh darn, Like what if we had two Vicks
Speaker 4: for the rest of the show. Right, I'm not getting
Speaker 4: anything right now. I don't know if you can hear me,
Speaker 4: and I don't know how the recording goes on your end,
Speaker 4: but I've.
Speaker 5: Just got silence right now.
Speaker 6: So I would totally agree with you there. I think
Speaker 6: that the actor himself does a fantastic job. I never
Speaker 6: really feel like it's like, oh, he's Neelix now, or
Speaker 6: oh he's two VOCs now. In every moment, it feels
Speaker 6: like this is a synthesis of those two people, not
Speaker 6: the two people sort of fighting for.
Speaker 5: Control at any one moment. And I also want to.
Speaker 6: Lift up the special effects and to make up people
Speaker 6: for that exact same reason, because I never look at
Speaker 6: this character and think, oh, that doesn't really look like
Speaker 6: what I think a fusion of these two would look
Speaker 6: like like. I never for a moment doubt it, and
Speaker 6: remembering this is also like late nineties, early two thousands technology.
Speaker 6: This is not I'm sorry, no, even earlier. This is like, yeah,
Speaker 6: I think probably it's like late mid to late nineties
Speaker 6: when this is coming out. Maybe let me take it again.
Speaker 6: I remember, this is like technology that's twenty five years
Speaker 6: old probably, So it's not even like they're using all
Speaker 6: the cgi of today.
Speaker 5: They're just doing great makeup. And here's what I'll get to.
Speaker 6: What I think is one of the things that I
Speaker 6: find so challenging about this episode and thus makes me
Speaker 6: kind of like hate and love the writers because I
Speaker 6: think it's very intentional. I made a joke about this earlier,
Speaker 6: but I don't find Nelix a very enjoyable character to
Speaker 6: have on screen. He gets better after Cass is gone,
Speaker 6: because I think his treatment of Cass is one of
Speaker 6: the things I dislike most about him, But like I
Speaker 6: think he is incredibly rude to Tuvoc and sort of
Speaker 6: not accepting and understanding Tuvak's a lack of emotions. I
Speaker 6: think I just find him annoying on screen, and I
Speaker 6: find Tuvis to be often quite annoying on screen. I
Speaker 6: don't enjoy him as a character, and I found myself
Speaker 6: really missing Tuvac. And then I think to myself, is
Speaker 6: that part of why I am okay with Janeway killing
Speaker 6: him to bring those two back? Because I don't like
Speaker 6: him because I find him uncomfortable. And to me, that's
Speaker 6: one of the best like mind screws of the whole episode,
Speaker 6: because I think that's it's impossible for the characters themselves
Speaker 6: to divorce themselves of that question. You know, Cass is
Speaker 6: someone who I think has kind of made the focus
Speaker 6: of it in some ways. She has a romantic relationship
Speaker 6: with Neelick, she has this spiritual and sort of mentor
Speaker 6: relationship with Tuvac. She misses them greatly. Jane Way misses
Speaker 6: them greatly, and I feel like the show doesn't give
Speaker 6: us us way to get off the hook of that
Speaker 6: of saying, oh no, we would do this under any circumstances.
Speaker 6: It seems pretty clear that there are emotional feelings for
Speaker 6: the two people who are going to be brought back,
Speaker 6: and maybe even for some of them, they are annoyance
Speaker 6: at the person who isn't is a part of us,
Speaker 6: and certainly it's a part of how I watch it,
Speaker 6: which I think is exactly the point.
Speaker 4: Mm hmm. I completely agree with you on the makeup
Speaker 4: department because for me, I find two Vick's his look yeah, uncomfortable,
Speaker 4: ugly even, And I'm not saying ugly, like the actor
Speaker 4: is a good looking person, like they are in Hollywood,
Speaker 4: and the makeup is competently done, well done, But I
Speaker 4: think the unfamiliarity makes it uncomfortable because we see aspects
Speaker 4: of both both of the previous characters and we've gotten
Speaker 4: used to them to some degree, right, Like I'm I
Speaker 4: to him not a fan of Neelix, like either his
Speaker 4: character or his look, but we've gotten used to him
Speaker 4: at this point in the show. So when you were
Speaker 4: presented like it's Uncanny Valley almost, and you're like, I
Speaker 4: don't like this character for some reason, and like Neelix
Speaker 4: is supremely problematic in the show for multiple reasons, and
Speaker 4: they highlight the one at the beginning and you mentioned this.
Speaker 4: He keeps calling Tuvak mister Vulcan in like this funny
Speaker 4: like hey buddy, mister Vulcan kind of way, and that's awful,
Speaker 4: Like Vulcan is a race. Can you imagine having a
Speaker 4: friend like can you imagine calling me like mister Japanese
Speaker 4: or mister japan Like I'd be like, the heck are
Speaker 4: you doing?
Speaker 6: Especially while he was constantly trying to like convince you
Speaker 6: to not be some of the things that you think
Speaker 6: of as being a parent to being you know, Japanese American. Yeah,
Speaker 6: because it's not just any saying I'm recognizing your thing.
Speaker 6: It's like he's constantly saying I wish you would smile more.
Speaker 4: Yeah, stop, He's like stop being a Vulcan basically, So
Speaker 4: it would be like if I was like, hey, Matthew,
Speaker 4: like I cooked fried rice today because you know, I
Speaker 4: like fried rice, and you'd be like, oh, like, that's
Speaker 4: that's a fun mail mister Japanese.
Speaker 6: Like me, yeah, And I think that that's where I'm sorry,
Speaker 6: and I think that that is again it's it's so
Speaker 6: intentional of the writers to put us in that situation
Speaker 6: where we're asking ourselves how much of this is about
Speaker 6: our individual feelings about these characters, Because you know, I
Speaker 6: studied ethics in college and grad school. It's a part
Speaker 6: of my degree. And one of the things that ethics
Speaker 6: really likes to do in terms of the formal study
Speaker 6: of it is try to separate out the individual actors
Speaker 6: of an individual situation and come up with a more
Speaker 6: general rule, you know, like you shouldn't kill. I think
Speaker 6: it's a pretty standard basic or at least you shouldn't
Speaker 6: murder is a pretty basic ethical rule in most ethical
Speaker 6: systems and religions and people points of view. But then
Speaker 6: when you make it very much more specific, you know,
Speaker 6: it gets it gets into questions of like, okay, well,
Speaker 6: is this person a danger? Is this part like you know,
Speaker 6: all of those kind of things that can happen, And
Speaker 6: the point is say no, no, we should have a rule
Speaker 6: that isn't about the specifics, that is.
Speaker 5: It a general rule.
Speaker 6: And part of what makes this so challenging is this
Speaker 6: isn't a situation that we've faced before or that we're
Speaker 6: going to face again.
Speaker 5: And this is kind of what I was saying before.
Speaker 6: This is a very unique situation that probably no one
Speaker 6: in the galaxy is going to face again because it's
Speaker 6: all about this very rare flower and you know, the
Speaker 6: techno babble that Star Trek does, it's kind of make
Speaker 6: it all make sense. And so you know, it's not something,
Speaker 6: as I said at the beginning, it's not something that
Speaker 6: I can apply as a one for one situation.
Speaker 4: I will mention that the Star Trek show Lower Decks
Speaker 4: actually encounters the situation again, because that show is a
Speaker 4: is a meta commentary on Star Trek in general, and
Speaker 4: it's it's a very funny episode where like, for whatever reason,
Speaker 4: they're transporting this flower because that's the technobabble, as you said,
Speaker 4: and two characters get and they actually use it as
Speaker 4: a verb two mixed, and because it's a comedy show,
Speaker 4: that character actually the Captain reads Janeway's log She's like, oh,
Speaker 4: like this is exactly what happened on Voyage with Jane Way,
Speaker 4: and then she reads the log and she's like, the
Speaker 4: f like they murdered him. They killed him. I think
Speaker 4: that's the name of the episode. They killed him, and
Speaker 4: the person who is too vexed also reads the log
Speaker 4: is like, oh, heck no, like I'm not down for
Speaker 4: that and ends up like capturing other crew members and
Speaker 4: two fixing them. So it's kind of like a like
Speaker 4: invasion of the body Snatchers thing and then like the
Speaker 4: characters like end up fixing everything obviously, but it's it's
Speaker 4: a fun callback. And I liked that the writers of
Speaker 4: the show were like, yeah, like he murdered that guy,
Speaker 4: mm hmm, because that's how I feel, right, is yeah,
Speaker 4: And I think we should talk about this because Star
Speaker 4: Trek has this framework of morality that has become famous, right,
Speaker 4: the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the
Speaker 4: few or one you know, famously from when Spock sacrifices
Speaker 4: himself come on spoilers, right, like sacrifices himself as Star
Speaker 4: Trek to the wrath of Khan, and that is often
Speaker 4: presented in other Trek franchises, shows and movies as like
Speaker 4: this absolute, like if if you have the opportunity to
Speaker 4: save multiple people by sacrificing one, you should do it,
Speaker 4: and it's it's the trolley problem, right.
Speaker 6: I would actually disagree with you strongly there. I think
Speaker 6: it's presented that Vulcans feel that way. But if you
Speaker 6: remember in the very next movie, The Search for Spock,
Speaker 6: when Spock is trying to understand why so many people
Speaker 6: put their line at risk for him, Kirk looks at
Speaker 6: him and dead Eye says, the needs of the one
Speaker 6: outweigh the needs of the many. And I can't think
Speaker 6: the show has always tried to the overall franchise has
Speaker 6: always tried to hold those two intentions and recognize that like, yes,
Speaker 6: overall there's a there's an idea of the needs of
Speaker 6: the many, but also that can become like we crush
Speaker 6: the individual in favor of the group, and that that's
Speaker 6: not okay either.
Speaker 4: That's true, they reverse that, But I will note that
Speaker 4: no one died. I guess the character dies. One character dies,
Speaker 4: but he's also like, why did you, like, why did
Speaker 4: you risk your careers? Like that's how it's prevented as
Speaker 4: a as a balance, right, right, I think like Spock
Speaker 4: sacrifice is much more poignant because if he doesn't make
Speaker 4: that sacrifice, the enterprise blows up, right and whatever thing
Speaker 4: was going on the Genesis weapon. So it's interesting because
Speaker 4: like he was, he was also going to die anyway
Speaker 4: if that happens, right, So I think it does bear
Speaker 4: more logic in this case. In the TUFAC example, it's
Speaker 4: very different in my opinion, because the other two are
Speaker 4: already gone in a sense. There you can say they're dead,
Speaker 4: they're not, but they're they're gone. And now you were
Speaker 4: saying you have to sacrifice one being to bring to
Speaker 4: two other beings back from a situation like that, and
Speaker 4: that's and that's like, you know, there are always gonna
Speaker 4: be variations on the trolley problem, but that to me
Speaker 4: is like a fundamental difference and why I think this
Speaker 4: is murder. And and I've seen like Trek producers comment
Speaker 4: that this was the first instance of capital punishment in
Speaker 4: Trek and they've noted it that way and treat it
Speaker 4: as such.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and I think that that's where this is kind
Speaker 6: of I totally agree with what you're saying there, and
Speaker 6: I think this is what gets into what I was
Speaker 6: saying at the beginning about how when sci fi presents
Speaker 6: a question that is quite different than anything else, because
Speaker 6: like I was trying to think of like similar situations
Speaker 6: in our own world, and you know, one that comes
Speaker 6: to mind is, like, you know, every person with two
Speaker 6: healthy kidneys, you could kill that person and then give
Speaker 6: those two kidneys to potentially like save the life of
Speaker 6: two other people, you know, or like some other thing
Speaker 6: where like someone has you know, there have been cases
Speaker 6: of where someone has, like ah, for some reason, like
Speaker 6: their particular liver is like the only thing where they
Speaker 6: could have like a very reduced quality of life if
Speaker 6: they sacrificed part of their liver to save someone else.
Speaker 6: And there've been court cases and and generally, I think
Speaker 6: both ethics and the law and we can debate it,
Speaker 6: have been pretty firm on the idea of, like you
Speaker 6: cannot force another person to significantly alter their life just
Speaker 6: in order to save a potential other person. And that
Speaker 6: gets into a whole other stream of things. But that's
Speaker 6: the point is that's not the same as this, because
Speaker 6: you say in this those two are already gone, and
Speaker 6: I think that that's very true. I think though for me,
Speaker 6: and this is what I think for me, the question
Speaker 6: becomes even more complex, is that when if we look
Speaker 6: at the framework of the needs of the many versus
Speaker 6: the needs of the one.
Speaker 5: I don't think we're just talking about.
Speaker 6: The needs of the already dead Tuvac and Neelix, because
Speaker 6: I think part of what the show also puts forward,
Speaker 6: and I think this is what Janeway is certainly acting on,
Speaker 6: is not just the needs of those two, but the
Speaker 6: needs of the whole crew.
Speaker 5: And that does the whole crew need those two, I.
Speaker 6: Would say, especially tu Vak, but but also in some
Speaker 6: ways Neelix in order to not all of them die here.
Speaker 5: In the delta quadrant.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 6: And I think that's again where I really appreciate this,
Speaker 6: because in some ways I feel like this is kind
Speaker 6: of like I.
Speaker 5: Love a good trolley problem.
Speaker 6: But I think the reason why eventually I come down
Speaker 6: with Janeway is that I think that there's you know,
Speaker 6: the trolley problem often gets critiqued as being like, oh,
Speaker 6: that's for intellectuals, that's for people who think you can
Speaker 6: discuss this all every ethical question in some sort of
Speaker 6: like let's separate out all the emotions and let's just
Speaker 6: look at it intellectually, and let's separate out of the context,
Speaker 6: and I think the point of this episode is that
Speaker 6: you can't do that. This isn't just three people living
Speaker 6: at home and two people have lost their lives and
Speaker 6: one person has gained a life.
Speaker 5: This is members of a crew.
Speaker 6: Who are under an incredible situation, who are in an
Speaker 6: incredibly difficult situation where everything has to go right for
Speaker 6: them to survive, let alone get back home. And like,
Speaker 6: to me, that level of analysis is where I think
Speaker 6: I can come down on janeway side, but where I
Speaker 6: also agree that it is a murder that Janeway has created,
Speaker 6: that has that she has done, and not to I
Speaker 6: keep mistaking Star Trek for Star Wars and not to
Speaker 6: pull it back to that, but like to me, Star
Speaker 6: Wars gives another example of something that I think is
Speaker 6: one hundred percent a murder in cold blood and is
Speaker 6: probably necessary. And it's in Rogue one when Cassie and
Speaker 6: Andor realizes that unless he shoots his friend in the
Speaker 6: back who has helped him, his friend is going to
Speaker 6: give him away and he's not gonna be able to
Speaker 6: get away, and and the chance to destroy the Death
Speaker 6: Star is gonna be lost. And I'm just using it
Speaker 6: as another example. I think there's others where I think that, like,
Speaker 6: is this morally compromised?
Speaker 5: Absolutely?
Speaker 6: Do I think Janeway is somewhat in the wrong, Yes,
Speaker 6: Do I think that it's probably the least wrong of
Speaker 6: all of the wrong alternatives. I think so, yeah, But
Speaker 6: I'm not sure. And I think that's to me, that's
Speaker 6: what makes the episodes so good.
Speaker 4: You use the word emotional earlier, and I think that's
Speaker 4: a very important component of this, is that it's an
Speaker 4: emotional decision for Janeway because Tuvac is her best friend
Speaker 4: among this crew, like they've served together the longest, and
Speaker 4: he is he what he is was her right hand
Speaker 4: man on this crew. And then the way that they
Speaker 4: also bring in Kess, who had the relationship with Neelix,
Speaker 4: and he Tuvis tries to kind of like because he
Speaker 4: has Neelix's feelings, tries to rekindle the romance and they
Speaker 4: have like a nice dinner together, and she Kess ends
Speaker 4: up deciding and making a plea to Janeway saying, if
Speaker 4: you have this opportunity, like bring them back, bring Neelix back,
Speaker 4: like I miss him. She cries. It's a deeply emotional scene.
Speaker 4: It's one of Jennifer Leann's best performances on the show.
Speaker 4: It's unfortunately because like she wasn't really given a great chance.
Speaker 4: Like the character itself herself is not great. But I
Speaker 4: think she did a great job in this episode and
Speaker 4: it really drives home the point. And I think it
Speaker 4: helps us, says audience members, to remember that someone likes Neelix,
Speaker 4: like because we don't. And I say that jokingly, but
Speaker 4: it's I think it's important and it it helps so
Speaker 4: much because like the bring Tuvac back because you know
Speaker 4: he's better at his job or like essential for the
Speaker 4: crew or whatever, like that makes sense. But when you
Speaker 4: have this emotional tearful please like I miss Neelix, Like
Speaker 4: that's like the gut wrenching part where like, okay, I
Speaker 4: think that helps us get over this hop.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and I'll say again, here's where I think the
Speaker 6: writers were brilliant because they could have made the Tuvik's
Speaker 6: character like cross some ethical lines in terms of how
Speaker 6: hard he's pursuing Kess, But he doesn't, right he he
Speaker 6: He clearly indicates that he would like to continue the
Speaker 6: relationship that nelix In and her had in a new way.
Speaker 6: He does kind of like offer a kiss at one
Speaker 6: point and like let her know how he feels. But
Speaker 6: the moment she shows on comfort, he pulls back. And
Speaker 6: I remember kind of wanting him to go over the
Speaker 6: line so that I could hate him. I wanted to
Speaker 6: not like him, and he didn't do that. I found
Speaker 6: other things about him problematic. But I think that's the
Speaker 6: kind of like I don't want to make this about autism,
Speaker 6: because like I mean, I'm autistic myself, and like, the
Speaker 6: discussion about that thirty years ago is so different than
Speaker 6: the one today. But there is something to the fact that, like,
Speaker 6: the people we find socially uncomfortable are often the lives
Speaker 6: that we aren't quite as quick to play value on.
Speaker 6: And just to add one more part to it, I
Speaker 6: think one of the overarching parts of the story that
Speaker 6: I haven't mentioned yet but is essential, is that all
Speaker 6: of Jane Wai's idea of I have to get back
Speaker 6: the I have to get the crew back, no matter
Speaker 6: what the cost, no matter what the ethical or moral cost.
Speaker 6: That is my prime directive stems in part from the
Speaker 6: fact of guilt, because the show starts with her making
Speaker 6: a moral and practical decision, her making a moral and
Speaker 6: principal decision where according to her mortals and principles. She
Speaker 6: won't allow this technology to fall into the hands of
Speaker 6: this group called the Kason, who are kind of the
Speaker 6: clingons of this part of the galaxy, but without the
Speaker 6: honor that they get. She doesn't want them to be
Speaker 6: able to force this empire and to take over lots
Speaker 6: of people and kill lots of people. And so she
Speaker 6: does the moral thing, even though practically it means that
Speaker 6: her crew is now stranded in the Delta Quadrant, possibly forever.
Speaker 6: And I felt that the show has been pretty clear
Speaker 6: that a lot of what's causing her to say, like,
Speaker 6: I will never do that again is her guilt about
Speaker 6: that and her wondering if she made the right decision.
Speaker 6: And so I think that's it's one more part where
Speaker 6: emotions are playing into this of she feels like she
Speaker 6: already made a terrible sacrifice for her principles and she
Speaker 6: can't do it again.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And if you watch Prodigy, the Janeway character I
Speaker 4: think continues to be driven by that. She pursues rescuing
Speaker 4: Chacote to a degree that seems, you know, like not
Speaker 4: correct from a you're an admiral point of view, but
Speaker 4: it's like, oh yeah, like of course, like, after what
Speaker 4: she's got done and been through, like she's gonna do
Speaker 4: a lot to rescue Chakote. What do you think about
Speaker 4: kind of the end scene after Janeway makes the decision,
Speaker 4: Tuvac exits her ready room and is on the bridge
Speaker 4: and he forces her right to make this confrontation in
Speaker 4: front of everyone and then makes these the emotional please
Speaker 4: to the other crew members, and I don't I don't
Speaker 4: think anyone other than Tuvik's or Janeway says a word,
Speaker 4: and the uncomfortable looks as he like he walks to
Speaker 4: each of them, you know, like goes to Paris Tom.
Speaker 4: Paris is like Tom, like you're my friend, and he
Speaker 4: just like looks down, like doesn't look him in the eye.
Speaker 4: It was so uncomfortable, Yeah, you know, intentionally so.
Speaker 5: And the first time I watched, Oh sorry, finish your thought, no.
Speaker 4: No please, I want to hear your reaction to that scene.
Speaker 6: The first time I watched it, I think I felt
Speaker 6: he was being selfish and uncomfortable, and that was part
Speaker 6: of what allowed me to feel like Janeway was totally
Speaker 6: in the right, And looking back on that, I think
Speaker 6: I was trying to justify it to myself. Yeah, because
Speaker 6: I think what he does is completely legitimate. He's pleading
Speaker 6: for his life, he's pleading for his life. But it's
Speaker 6: also the I think a lot of the times, like
Speaker 6: you know, the boss pulls us into her office to
Speaker 6: very privately tell us why they're going to do something
Speaker 6: that probably the other workers would think is horribly unethical
Speaker 6: or wrong, and no, like make the boss fire you
Speaker 6: in public, make the boss tell you in public that
Speaker 6: the union isn't allowed, that you're not allowed to wear that. Like,
Speaker 6: I think there's something really a powerful moral statement about
Speaker 6: when power does something. Let the people who are like
Speaker 6: who you know, who they have power over, they have
Speaker 6: to see that. And in a similar way, I think
Speaker 6: what the doctor does is it's just a five second thing.
Speaker 6: They never talk about it, but it's so essential because
Speaker 6: and I'm rarely going to quote Ned Stark as someone
Speaker 6: I look to for moral guidance because I think he's
Speaker 6: kind of the from Game of Thrones and a Song
Speaker 6: of Ice and Fire. I think he's a character who
Speaker 6: has often looked at as the person who lets his
Speaker 6: principles go too far, and I think I largely agree
Speaker 6: with that, But one of his core principles, which I
Speaker 6: do agree with is that the man who passes the
Speaker 6: sentence should swing the sword like anytime he sentences someone
Speaker 6: to die. And I fully disagree with capital punishment, but
Speaker 6: I agree with this like I think, like if you're
Speaker 6: on a jury and you sentence set capital punishment, you
Speaker 6: and the district attorney or whoever's the prosecutor should all
Speaker 6: have to collectively press that button, Like you cannot decide
Speaker 6: a person should die without you having to be the
Speaker 6: person who does it. And what the doctor does is
Speaker 6: winds up putting Janeway in that exact And I think
Speaker 6: that's part of why I think, because Janeway agrees with
Speaker 6: that without having she didn't thought I can think about
Speaker 6: it before, is why she doesn't make the doctor do it.
Speaker 6: She doesn't make She's just like, you're totally right, you're fine,
Speaker 6: and then she goes ahead and she even tells the
Speaker 6: because what the doctor.
Speaker 5: Does is to uh.
Speaker 6: Issue the radio, the isotrope, the technical babble thing that's
Speaker 6: medically injected. And then the transporter officer is supposed to
Speaker 6: just press the button on the transporter, but she goes
Speaker 6: ahead and presses that button as well. And to me, yeah,
Speaker 6: she does both of them. And to me, that's the a.
Speaker 6: It's because I think, and this is part of it.
Speaker 6: She's protecting everyone else. No one else has to do this.
Speaker 6: It is literally just her responsibility and because I think
Speaker 6: she wants to live with that responsibility. And like we
Speaker 6: see Kess be happy that Nelix is back and Janeway
Speaker 6: kind of acknowledges that you back, but I think she's
Speaker 6: still pretty haunted by it, and I think that's very important.
Speaker 4: She walks out of the med Bay sick Bay, sorry,
Speaker 4: and just walks into the hallway and the camera tracks
Speaker 4: her camera is like on her face and it walks
Speaker 4: with her out into the hallway and we see her
Speaker 4: face like transform from resolute like I had to do
Speaker 4: this to I think sadness. I don't know, Like it's
Speaker 4: it's a very beautiful scene and Kate mulgrew does such
Speaker 4: a great job again like with no dialogue, Like it's
Speaker 4: just she's just walking and her face is like gradually
Speaker 4: changing as she leaves Sick Bay and leaves you know,
Speaker 4: the the other characters behind, so she has like her
Speaker 4: I'm the captain face and then like we see her
Speaker 4: personal face like how she actually feels, and it's a
Speaker 4: transformative facial expression. It's just a great I don't know,
Speaker 4: it's twenty seconds yeah, of just watching a person and
Speaker 4: it's beautiful. Like these kinds of moments are what make
Speaker 4: this episode affective. And it's like all silence, you know,
Speaker 4: saying how none of the other bridge crew say anything.
Speaker 4: It's just their facial expressions. But they're consenting, right, Like
Speaker 4: they are consenting to this or they're not objecting to it,
Speaker 4: but they cannot look too vix in the eye as
Speaker 4: they consent.
Speaker 6: Well, And another moral atage is silence is consent. Yeah,
Speaker 6: And I think that's very true. And I think you know,
Speaker 6: when people say, oh, but it's just my government, I
Speaker 6: couldn't change it. Like no, at the end of the day,
Speaker 6: we can rise up, you know. I mean it's very hard,
Speaker 6: but like I'm not say that flippantly, but yeah, like
Speaker 6: silence is consent to some extent. It's why I when
Speaker 6: when when I was part of when I lived in California,
Speaker 6: in the state of California killed someone, I would feel like,
Speaker 6: you know, I had been part of that, and I
Speaker 6: would say say that to folks that like every person
Speaker 6: in the state of California just murdered someone, and I
Speaker 6: voted against the death penalty any chance I got. But
Speaker 6: still it was the state doing it in my name,
Speaker 6: and it's Janeway doing it like that. I want to
Speaker 6: interject here, I want to bring in some comments from
Speaker 6: other sources on this. First of all, just to say,
Speaker 6: as kind of a tribute to the episode, this episode
Speaker 6: came out in nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 4: You're still talking about it.
Speaker 6: And not only are we still talking about it, but
Speaker 6: I had the idea to post on Facebook, and all
Speaker 6: I wrote was, hey, star trek fans, was Jane way
Speaker 6: Wright in the episode?
Speaker 5: Tuovis? That's all I said.
Speaker 6: And I think that's a great idea for us to do.
Speaker 6: Then we try to do more of posting those kind
Speaker 6: of questions, especially even more on the official page of
Speaker 6: these podcasts. I did it on my own social media page. Now,
Speaker 6: the mistake I made is I posted it fourteen minutes
Speaker 6: before we started recording. My point here, though, is that
Speaker 6: we got over twenty comments within about half an hour
Speaker 6: of me posting that, and the first ten comments came
Speaker 6: in within five minutes.
Speaker 4: People have feelings.
Speaker 5: People have feelings.
Speaker 6: Probably for a lot of them, they haven't watched this
Speaker 6: episode in ten fifteen twenty years, but they have feelings
Speaker 6: about it, so a to me, that's just an incredible
Speaker 6: testament to how good this episode is. But I want
Speaker 6: to bring in a couple of other comments because I think
Speaker 6: they were late directly the things we've said. First, we
Speaker 6: were talking about how there's an extent to which, well,
Speaker 6: I think we both think that this obviously has an
Speaker 6: effect on Jane Way that, as you pointed out, we
Speaker 6: never actually hear the word tuvox set tuvix set again
Speaker 6: and that that's I think a real failure.
Speaker 5: And Daniel Lee, who.
Speaker 6: Someone else we know from the Judge program, wrote the
Speaker 6: problem with tuvix wasn't that what she chose to do?
Speaker 5: Honestly, could they could have executed that? Lol?
Speaker 6: Either way, the problem was that it was never mentioned
Speaker 6: with it again, that it was never mentioned again. Nobody
Speaker 6: wrestled with it, No one had second thoughts or dilemmas,
Speaker 6: not that we ever saw.
Speaker 5: And I think.
Speaker 6: That is this TV show, Like we forget how much
Speaker 6: the ability to go back and watch any episode affects us.
Speaker 6: When this episode came out, like DDR was still barely
Speaker 6: a thing, and like certainly there wasn't streaming or anything
Speaker 6: like that, And I think as a result of that,
Speaker 6: the expectation was that most people wouldn't watch every single episode,
Speaker 6: and so writers often didn't want to put someone in
Speaker 6: a situation where if they hadn't watched a previous episode,
Speaker 6: they were now going to turn off the current episode.
Speaker 6: And I think that a part of that is that
Speaker 6: they sometimes when they try to have things that were
Speaker 6: not purely episodic, they were like somewhat serialized in terms
Speaker 6: of the Jane Way before this episode is different than
Speaker 6: the Janeway afterwards. They would do that, but they wouldn't
Speaker 6: go back to it. And I guess what all I'm
Speaker 6: was saying is I think that if the show was
Speaker 6: written today, they absolutely have brought it back. I think
Speaker 6: it is a failing of the show that they don't.
Speaker 6: But I also think that someone having to do with
Speaker 6: like this is some of the first times that true
Speaker 6: episodic television was trying to be more serialized, and so
Speaker 6: I give them some credit for it, although I'll say
Speaker 6: DS nine obviously did it much much better, so I'm
Speaker 6: not really letting them off the hook, but I'm saying
Speaker 6: I think that I think understanding that context helps to
Speaker 6: explain why they didn't why they never went back.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the television conceit of it all. I mentioned earlier
Speaker 4: that it would have been nice if we had had
Speaker 4: more of a chance to get to know two Vix,
Speaker 4: Like they give us the montage and make it clear
Speaker 4: that the crew got to know him. But if this
Speaker 4: were a modern television show, I think it would have
Speaker 4: been much more interesting to just like have the episode
Speaker 4: end with two Vix existing and have even like two
Speaker 4: or three more episodes where we have two Vix as
Speaker 4: a character and then have this, oh, by the way,
Speaker 4: like we can fix this now and go back, And
Speaker 4: that would have been amazing, right, like for a show
Speaker 4: to do something like that. But yeah, like I get
Speaker 4: the conceit of the episodic nature the actors. You know,
Speaker 4: you cannot have the two main actors not be on
Speaker 4: the show contractually or for whatever reasons. So yeah, like
Speaker 4: this had to happen in this way in nineteen ninety
Speaker 4: six a shame.
Speaker 5: But I.
Speaker 4: Agree with Daniel that again, like they never say his
Speaker 4: name again, and even in the next episode, if you
Speaker 4: just have a scene where a character comes into the
Speaker 4: mess hall and like accidentally calls him, two Vix calls
Speaker 4: Nelix tubs or something like that as a callback would
Speaker 4: be I don't think that would have been a distraction,
Speaker 4: and it would be a nice reminder like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 4: that happened to people who've been watching, and even like
Speaker 4: for people who didn't watch to be like what Tuo
Speaker 4: Vix Oh, like, I guess that was the name of
Speaker 4: the previous episode, I didn't watch it, and then give
Speaker 4: them like that hint.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think you're right, and I I'm conflicted about
Speaker 6: the idea of having having him around for a number
Speaker 6: of more episodes because I think that happened and I
Speaker 6: think this is why they didn't, and maybe it's the
Speaker 6: point either way. I think it would make the decision
Speaker 6: feel much worse and it would be much clearer that
Speaker 6: she shouldn't have done it, and I think that would
Speaker 6: help to make one side of the argument. But I
Speaker 6: think the point is that it's supposed to be so difficult,
Speaker 6: so in some ways they feel like the only way
Speaker 6: you could do that is if yes, you gave everyone
Speaker 6: a chance to like Tuovex a lot more. But also
Speaker 6: there was like like they get in a battle where
Speaker 6: two Vix does a really good job, but Tuvac would
Speaker 6: have been better and like the crew is put in danger,
Speaker 6: like to have something to give it both sides of like, yes,
Speaker 6: we're really getting to know Tuvix, but we're also seeing
Speaker 6: the problems of not having Tubac and DLX in some way.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I just.
Speaker 4: Think that Voyager. One of the fundamental problems with Voyager
Speaker 4: as a show was that they reset everything every episode
Speaker 4: almost yeah, like the Year of Hell right as a
Speaker 4: two parter where they use time travel to reset like
Speaker 4: a whole battle where Voyager is basically destroyed, and that
Speaker 4: cause to attention that Voyager is always clean, like the
Speaker 4: outside is clean, the inside is clean, like the battle damage,
Speaker 4: even like Minor Bantle, that damage is never persistent across episodes.
Speaker 9: Even though that they never have the opportunity to dock
Speaker 9: in a star Bass. So like this to me highlights
Speaker 9: like the What is in my opinion, the fundamental problem
Speaker 9: with Voyager unfortunately, is that, Yeah, it doesn't sell the
Speaker 9: fact that they're isolated and alone and that it should
Speaker 9: get dirty, like it should stop looking like a Starfleet
Speaker 9: vessel and look more like a Star Wars vessel.
Speaker 5: It should get worse and worse.
Speaker 6: Right, In some ways, I kind of think that it
Speaker 6: was a show before it's time, because I just I
Speaker 6: think they did. I don't think they did the best
Speaker 6: they could with the episodic format they had. I think
Speaker 6: they tried to do decently and made a lot of mistakes.
Speaker 6: But like imagine like the Paramount plus Discovery Brave New
Speaker 6: World era of television, I think if you titch this
Speaker 6: kind of a story now, and to some extent, Discovery
Speaker 6: has become that.
Speaker 5: But that's the whole other question.
Speaker 6: But I think if you had a Voyager type story today,
Speaker 6: with today's kind of storytelling, I think it would really
Speaker 6: work very well.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and another good.
Speaker 4: Well, I was gonna say, like the the thing, like
Speaker 4: part of again, like the television conceit is that they
Speaker 4: reuse footage, right, Like for the exterior shots of Voyager,
Speaker 4: like flying through space, they re use footage because that's
Speaker 4: like how you save money on the budget of a
Speaker 4: show like this. And so yeah, I think maybe a
Speaker 4: modern show, especially with like the digital technology they have now,
Speaker 4: they would have had the opportunity to have that persistent
Speaker 4: damage to be like okay, like in this battle, like
Speaker 4: this part of the ship got a little blackened, and
Speaker 4: now like going forward, we're going to keep that because
Speaker 4: it would not cost as much to like chain alter
Speaker 4: that footage.
Speaker 6: Yeah, no, I think it's a huge Yeah, you have to, like,
Speaker 6: if you want to show that piece has been broken
Speaker 6: off voyager, you have to break a piece off the model.
Speaker 6: And then when you want to make say the piece
Speaker 6: has been remade, you have to remake the model, you know.
Speaker 6: I mean, that's just so there's another comment that Casey made.
Speaker 6: There's another comment from that Facebook post that was made
Speaker 6: by Casey Lauder, who's a Scottish judge who I know
Speaker 6: pretty well, who's another fantastic person. The second so there's
Speaker 6: another comment we got from Casey Lauder, a Scottish judge
Speaker 6: who I've become friends with, and this I think really
Speaker 6: speaks to a lot of what we're talking about. And
Speaker 6: she writes, I don't think there is a right answer.
Speaker 6: There's plenty of wrong ones. Just as it's possible to
Speaker 6: commit no mistakes and still lose, I think it's possible
Speaker 6: to do everything correctly and still be wrong. And that
Speaker 6: hit me particularly hard because I saw a couple of
Speaker 6: people compare this to the next generation, where a lot
Speaker 6: of times in the next generation, you know, Jeordie or
Speaker 6: someone else will come up with some kind of technological
Speaker 6: way of squaring the circle, you know, of allowing Tuovics
Speaker 6: to exist while bringing those two back or someone else.
Speaker 6: And I do think one thing to Voyage's credit is that,
Speaker 6: in part because it doesn't have the resources within the show,
Speaker 6: they don't do that a lot that often, and they'll
Speaker 6: just say, like, no, you really have to make one
Speaker 6: of these two choices. And another friend of mine made
Speaker 6: a joking comment, but I think it's actually very accurate
Speaker 6: here on Casey's comment, and he wrote, I don't you know,
Speaker 6: I don't believe in a no win scenario, but I
Speaker 6: think that this is like Captain Kirk could not survive
Speaker 6: in The Voyager. Like they're all what Jane Way has
Speaker 6: faced with all the time are no win scenarios where
Speaker 6: there is no good answer. There's having to choose what
Speaker 6: is the least bad. And I hate that and I
Speaker 6: will always like, I think it's very easy to ethically
Speaker 6: to sit in an ethical armchair and critique her, and
Speaker 6: I'm doing that, and I think though that part of
Speaker 6: the whole point of the story is but yeah, this
Speaker 6: is the situation she's in and there is no right answer,
Speaker 6: and she's doing the best she can.
Speaker 4: Yeah, fair enough. I certainly would not have wanted to
Speaker 4: make this decision. I agree with you that Next Generation
Speaker 4: would have tried to do something a little cleaner. Maybe
Speaker 4: the next generation the show, like, I don't know what
Speaker 4: decision Captain Picard would make. And that's very different because
Speaker 4: on Next Generation, the Enterprise would have all of the
Speaker 4: resources of the Federation, right, like the best side of
Speaker 4: right minds and all that, And that plays too like
Speaker 4: Voyager's storyline of being isolated. And yeah, you mentioned earlier
Speaker 4: that like they need to voc to survive, is like
Speaker 4: an interesting argument.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, no for and I think that came out
Speaker 6: more as my kind of defense of why I'm on
Speaker 6: team Jane Way. I think the main point of that
Speaker 6: is even if you're still against Janeway, which I think
Speaker 6: is totally legitimate. That's again, it's what makes the show
Speaker 6: so good in this regard. Yeah, exactly just says it
Speaker 6: is that she like she doesn't have those other options
Speaker 6: that Picard would have because he has the full resources
Speaker 6: of Starfleet and this much bigger ship and all that
Speaker 6: kind of thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, in terms of like the impact of this episode,
Speaker 4: I just want to point out that in twenty twenty
Speaker 4: four years ago, Alexandria Cassier Cortes was on when at
Speaker 4: the time was called Twitter social media site and commented
Speaker 4: on this episode and then Kate mulgrew responded, that's amazing
Speaker 4: they had a conversation about this, so love that that's
Speaker 4: the impact of the and the legacy that this one
Speaker 4: episode had, and that there's the fact that you can
Speaker 4: just like say the word Tuo vix and Star Trek
Speaker 4: fans will have an opinion on it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and like further underlining that, another friend of mine
Speaker 6: wrote one of the best ethical dilemmas in all of
Speaker 6: Star Trek.
Speaker 5: I am still so conflicted. Sure, Yeah, that's.
Speaker 6: It's not that all of us are like, oh yeah,
Speaker 6: everyone agrees Janeway is wrong. It's that we're still conflicted.
Speaker 6: And I think many people are pretty firm on one
Speaker 6: side or the other, but also a lot of us
Speaker 6: are like, I don't know, I haven't figured it out.
Speaker 6: It's been twenty eight years and I'm still thinking about
Speaker 6: this because it's so well done, and I want.
Speaker 4: To be clear, like I'm I am firm that I
Speaker 4: believe Jane Way made the wrong decision. I cannot be
Speaker 4: firm that if I were in the same situation and
Speaker 4: I had to make the decision whether I would do
Speaker 4: what I from here think is the right thing. And
Speaker 4: that goes back to like the emotional the emotions of
Speaker 4: it is of it all, like even if you spend
Speaker 4: a month with two Vicks, she knew Tubac for years,
Speaker 4: like a decade.
Speaker 6: Even Yeah, No, I think it's very true, and I
Speaker 6: think that that's in many ways, I feel like the
Speaker 6: lasting legacy of this episode is really kind of skewing
Speaker 6: trolley problems because like it's really about like you, the
Speaker 6: whole point of the trolley problem is somewhat to divorce
Speaker 6: the situation from your emotions, and we can't do that,
Speaker 6: we shouldn't do that. There are there is an emotional
Speaker 6: component that there is an emotional component to ethical decision making,
Speaker 6: and there should be.
Speaker 5: The question is, although, like to.
Speaker 6: What extent is your personal emotions and are you making
Speaker 6: a larger decision based on that you should or shouldn't be,
Speaker 6: you know, because I feel like the emotional aspect of
Speaker 6: all of this, including hearing his emotional appeal, should matter.
Speaker 6: I don't think Janeway like if Jane was saying, though
Speaker 6: I'm going to kill someone to get my good friend back,
Speaker 6: or I'm going to kill someone to assuage my guilt
Speaker 6: about what I did two years ago. I don't think
Speaker 6: that's a good use of emotions. And where do I
Speaker 6: draw that line? I have no idea.
Speaker 5: That's why I made this podcast so we can talk
Speaker 5: about it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And the way the trolley problem is drawn, right,
Speaker 4: The classic way it's drawn is that the people on
Speaker 4: the tracks are stick figures. I think it is so
Speaker 4: telling to like the divorcing of the emotion, like if
Speaker 4: you drew actual people or like had photographs of actual people,
Speaker 4: and especially like people. You know, it's like, oh, I
Speaker 4: think I'm gonna make a different decision than I do
Speaker 4: when we're just talking about theoretical stick figures.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 6: Jacob Alichich, who's another person we know from the Judge
Speaker 6: program who was a co host of this podcast for
Speaker 6: a long time, and I hope will be guessed again,
Speaker 6: he wrote, I also think she did it for selfish reasons.
Speaker 6: I understand her decision, but I think it was unethical.
Speaker 6: I would probably do the same thing in her position. Yeah,
Speaker 6: kill one person so that two people I know can live.
Speaker 6: It's a trolley problem situation for sure.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's very similar to what I just expressed, is
Speaker 4: that I think it's wrong, but I probably I might.
Speaker 4: I might also do the wrong thing if it's.
Speaker 6: My friends, right, Any last comments on this episode, I mean,
Speaker 6: I think we could do like a whole you know,
Speaker 6: a whole podcast on this episode. Frankly, there's so much
Speaker 6: more about it, But any last things you want to
Speaker 6: bring up or question.
Speaker 4: Part of the thing that comes up with this is
Speaker 4: like sacrifice an agency, right, And when I mentioned Spock earlier,
Speaker 4: Spock makes the decision to sacrifice himself, and that's part
Speaker 4: of the conflict here that Tuviks does not want to die,
Speaker 4: He does not want to make the sacrifice. Janeway forces him,
Speaker 4: and that's why you know we refer to as murder
Speaker 4: capital punishment. And then people bring up like, well what
Speaker 4: about you know, Tuvac and Neelix, Like are they willing
Speaker 4: to sacrifice themselves to be two vix? And I think
Speaker 4: Janeway even makes this kind of argument like that she
Speaker 4: has to advocate for those two because they're not here,
Speaker 4: and and that's like another component of it. I think
Speaker 4: that that is important to ask, you know, the sci
Speaker 4: fi premise of it even with the sci fi framis,
Speaker 4: you can't ask Tuvac and Nelix how they feel. And
Speaker 4: even though Tuo Vix is a synthesis of them, he's
Speaker 4: not the like. He is his own person, and that's
Speaker 4: a very important part of all.
Speaker 6: Yeah, No, I think that's true. I just want to
Speaker 6: add one last quote. This quote comes into the friend
Speaker 6: of ours Andy. I think the argument of Januay making
Speaker 6: the right choice for the wrong reasons is a reasonable
Speaker 6: stance in this. She could use a lot of reasoning
Speaker 6: as to why she did it, but I don't think
Speaker 6: they would be the honest truth in the situation, which
Speaker 6: which I think is is Again, it's the kind of like,
Speaker 6: it's very easy to talk about separating your own emotional
Speaker 6: bias from the reasons you're doing things. But the flip
Speaker 6: side of that is, if you have an emotional bias
Speaker 6: that makes you want to make a decision, it's very
Speaker 6: easy to come up with non emotional reasons why you.
Speaker 5: Should make the decision. And I think that's a fair
Speaker 5: critique to make of a Janeway here.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Absolutely, Well, this is obviously not something that exists in
Speaker 6: a vacuum. There's a lot of great things that happen
Speaker 6: on Star Trek shows and Voyager Raise Voyager among other
Speaker 6: Star Trek shows, raises a lot of great questions and
Speaker 6: stuff like that. We're going to talk a little bit
Speaker 6: more about our feelings on Voyager at the end of
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