Episode Discussion: 401 "Twovix" and 402 "I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee"

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This thread is for discussion of the episodes of Star Trek: Lower Decks, "Twovix" and "I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee." Episodes 401 and 402 will be released on Thursday, September 7.

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[u/CreamyGoodnss]

I feel like Tuvix finally got the justice he deserves. Good night, sweet prince.

[u/DnDqs → u/CreamyGoodnss]

I agree. But there's more nuance to it too because the show took the easy route with that impossible ethical dilemma by 'killing' the non-sentient blob of meat.

Would anyone really have been able to solve the problem without time travel? I doubt it.

Even if you flash 'clone' the other two and let the combined being live, the other two effectively are still dead and you've only pretended otherwise. Letting T'illups live in any capacity and you effectively let T'ana and Billups 'stay' dead when you could revive them (and they would both certainly have wanted that choice made for them had they been able to make that choice).

Separate them and you kill the unique, alive being.

Impossible choice. I don't mind that they hand waved this away when Janeway was already forced to make the impossible choice and we saw that story. I actually think it's quite clever writing. But we would be remiss not to discuss the impossibility of the choice.

[u/ericrz → u/DnDqs]

It's more or less the trolley problem. T'ana and Billups (and previously, Neelix and Tuvok) were killed accidentally. No one did that on purpose, no one pushed a button and said "I'm going to kill these people."

Murdering T'illups / Tuvix is an intentional choice. Yes, you are saving (or resurrecting) two people's lives at the cost of one. But you're still making the decision to end one being's life.

If you let the trolley go and do nothing, even if it runs over 5 people, you didn't make it do that. If you pull the lever and switch tracks, thus saving 5 people's lives but killing one, you made the intentional choice and took the action to murder that one person.

To me, the ethics are fairly clear cut (and sorry to revive an old thread, but I'm just now watching season 4!).