[Be aware… the
following rant contains spoilers for the Voyager series finale,
"Endgame." You've been warned.]
Speaking of Moral
Choices...
...you’ve all seen them, I know: The bumper
stickers, T-shirts and bookmarks that ask the question, “What Would Jesus
Do?” Leaving aside my personal opinion of them at the moment, I must
concede they seem to be everywhere. “WWJD” has become a fundamentalist
and conservative Christian catch phrase: It’s all the rage with the “Holy
Rollers” and “Bible Beaters” (note the quotation marks; I'm not saying those
are polite terms, only that they're often used).
Well, I decided that I would put a Star Trek
slant on the interrogative, and take you all along for the ride. I’ll do this
by posing a few moral and/or ethical quandaries, and asking a certain starship
captain how to handle each particular situation.
Are you all ready? Good! Because it’s
time to play...
...“What Would Janeway
Do?”
Moral/ethical quandary number one: Captain Janeway desperately requires information from a frightened
and confused young NCO, who at the moment is not inclined to talk.
In attempting to get what she needs, “What Would Janeway Do?”
1 - Face him man-to-man (to use the term in its figurative sense), belt
him in the chops (or perhaps deliver a stinging "Bette Davis" slap),
and demand that he come clean with an impassioned appeal, a la Jim Kirk
(or even Ben Sisko)?
2 - Turn a withering glare of condemnation and disappointment on him,
while delivering an eloquent renunciation of his position, as would Jean-Luc Picard or Luciano Mantovanni?
3 - Cow him with psychological torture, and the implied threat of his
imminent death, in order to break his spirit and reduce him to a gibbering
mess?
If you guessed Option #3, you’re right! She does so in “Equinox, Part Two,”
the irrefutable “Janeway should be drummed out of the
service” episode. Her justification? Essentially, it
boiled down to this: The commander of Equinox had outthought and
outfought her, and she was pissed about it. She wanted her revenge, and little
points of order like proper treatment of prisoners, due process and Starfleet
regulations weren’t about to get in her way.
Moving right along...
Moral/ethical quandary number two: Faced with a
viable gestalt being created by a transporter accident—one in which two of her
friends were de-incorporated to form this third individual—she is confronted
with an enormously difficult decision.
"What Would Janeway
Do?"
1 - Marvel at the miracle that someone had survived such an accident, and
acknowledge that she could now "seek out new life" by simply starting
a conversation with her tactical officer, the half-Tuvok,
half-Neelix Tuvix.
2 - Realize the extreme stress the newly actualized being is under, and
give him time to realize that by sacrificing his own life, he may well be restoring those of two good
people who deserve them back.
3 - Harangue him, question his morality at daring to possess a
desire for survival, lay hands on him, and throw him into the transporter to be
separated into his component individuals.
Again, Option #3 was the one Janeway
selected, in "Tuvix." No matter what slant
one puts on it, at the point in time our good captain decided to act, Tuvok and Neelix did not
exist—that is, they were already dead—while Tuvix
did; and the restoration of the two meant the murder of the one.
Judge, jury and executioner: Now that's multi-tasking.
Moral/ethical quandary number three: Admiral Janeway [the very concept still boggles my mind]
becomes aware of technology that might enable her to travel back, and assist
her younger self in piloting Voyager home 16 years before it actually
happened in her timeline.
Knowing that such tampering would put trillions
of lives at risk, “What Would Janeway Do?”
1 - Acknowledge that what’s past is past, and determinedly move on with
the life she’s forged for herself?
2 - Take her misgivings and desires to friends, family or Starfleet
Command, and seek the counsel of those who can give her some perspective?
3 - Willfully set out to change the course of events after the
fact—defying Starfleet regulations, common sense, and the judgment of
history—all to save 23 lives and spare the Voyager crew a journey they’d
evidently made successfully, with great sacrifice and courage?
If you again went with Option #3, you’re three
for three! In the last Voyager episode, “Endgame,” Admiral Jane’s
Way... er, Janeway...
brings forbidden technology 26 years into the past, provokes a confrontation
with the Borg Collective and its queen (who, coincidentally, for once, hadn’t
been doing anything wrong), trespasses into a transwarp hub belonging to
the aforementioned aliens, destroys it, and is generally more insufferable and
self-righteous than her lower-ranking counterpart ever was (and that’s saying a
lot). Talk about not learning a thing in three decades. Her justification? She lost a few more crewmen getting home,
and in the new "Janeway math," 23 is more than seven or eight trillion. Must be nice to call a
"do over" whenever things don't work out the way you want.
Well, that's the quiz. You scored 100%, you say?
“What do we have for them, Johnny?”
“Well, Joe, the correct answers grant a renewed awareness
that the phrase ‘Star Trek: Voyager sucks’ is, sometimes, a crude yet
accurate description.”
I could go on with this ad infinitum, ad
tedium (we reached ad nauseum midway
through Voyager’s run), but I think the point has been made: Janeway is no Jean-Luc, and she’s no James T.
As for Jesus... well, we'll leave him out of the
equation entirely.