Daystrom Institute
Welcome to Daystrom Institute!
Serious, in-depth discussion about Star Trek from both in-universe and real world perspectives.
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Episode Guides
The /r/DaystromInstitute wiki held a number of popular Star Trek watch guides. We have rehosted them here:
- Kraetos’ guide to Star Trek (the original series)
- Algernon_Asimov’s guide to Star Trek: The Animated Series
- Algernon_Asimov’s guide to Star Trek: The Next Generation
- Algernon_Asimov’s guide to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
- Darth_Rasputin32898’s guide to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
- OpticalData’s guide to Star Trek: Voyager
- petrus4’s guide to Star Trek: Voyager
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I always got the impression that the Kirks were both destined to wither away and die if kept separate, but it's been a while so I might be wrong there.
There's also the issue that EvilKirk was a danger to everyone else on the ship. You could make the argument that if he survived, he could have learned to control his behaviour, but I'm not sure that's the case for a personality entirely made up of those negative traits.
It's definitely a moral grey area, whereas with the Tuvix situation it's more black and white. There was no danger to anyone else, he was well-liked and a credit to the ship, there was basically no reason for Janeway to split him back apart other than "I want to".
Janeway’s decision was far from arbitrary. She did it to save the lives of Tuvok and Neelix, who were unable to advocate for themselves at the time.
YES!
EXACTLY!
Everyone wants to save Tuvix because they like him. But nobody wants to save Tuvok or Neelix. They didn't consent to dying so Tuvix could live. If you agree Tuvix is a person, then you cannot disregard that so were Tuvok and Neelix. Where was their funeral? Does Tuvok's family not get it's husband and father back because the crew liked Tuvix better? The two people who's opinion mattered the most couldn't be consulted. If Tuvix is a person, his judgement on the matter is simply too biased as his sense of self preservation would interfere with objective decision-making.
To save Tuvix was to murder Tuvok and Neelix.
They could've attempted to recreate the Riker accident. Copy the datastream before it's split. Surely there's the technical knowledge to do it.
It's also interesting that at the end of the episode, they never go into Tuvok and Neelix' memories of the whole thing - they don't seem surprised to be in sickbay instead of the transporter room, so they're clearly aware of what happened. They could have at least asked them at that point whether they're happy to be back of if they would like to be merged again - they've shown that it's just a matter of having the orchid in the same transport.
In fact, that they're not confused by the - for them individually - new memories, like Tuvix was when he first came into being, could actually suggest that they were both actively present to some degree inside Tuvix' personality...
Aside from all that, the way they explain the orchid's effect means that it would never have been safe to have Tuvix in a shared transporter stream: the orchid's means of reproduction is basically to merge with another species through the use of a particular enzyme, so it stands to reason that Tuvix is the orchid's offspring and also possesses that enzyme.
But what does it even mean to be "made up of negative traits"? Would he have been completely unable to learn? To realise that, maybe, sometimes, there is benefit in not being "evil", even for entirely selfish reasons? And who says that GoodKirk couldn't also learn to be more assertive? (psychotherapy must be easily available in our socialist future, especially for high-ranking Starfleet officers, as well as plenty time off for mental health reasons)
It's not like Kirk's positive and negative traits are inherent, he wasn't born with them, but they are a result of his life's experiences. So could one make the argument that both would just need time to adjust?
See this is exactly what I mean. The Kirk example is a grey area, that in real life would lead to way too many questions than could be answered in a single TV episode. It's an interesting thing to think about though, and gets into the whole nature vs nurture debate that we saw tackled a bit in episodes like the DS9 one with the baby Jem'Hadar. If you're ripped apart into two beings like that, are you essentially "born" good or evil and would you have the capacity for change?
Could each Kirk have gone on to become psychologically stable? Maybe, maybe not. Did merging them save one combined life that would've otherwise soon expired, or did it murder two individuals who could've gone on to have long happy lives? Lots of questions, ripe for debate. A grey area.
Whereas in the Tuvix example, there's nothing really grey about it. And regardless of which side you come down on in the Kirk debate, that's why I believe Janeway gets all the flak and Spock does not.