I want to live!
- EvilKirk’s last words
Whatever else you want to say about EvilKirk, it’s pretty clear that he didn’t want to be merged back into the single Kirk. Despite this, there is no shortage of reasons why it was a good idea to merge the Kirks: the Enterprise needed its CO back, GoodKirk wanted to do it, and it seems possible that the strain of remaining split would have eventually killed EvilKirk anyways. However, the fact remains that EvilKirk did not consent to the procedure which ended his existence.
Clearly the circumstances here are quite different and there’s basically no argument to be made that allowing EvilKirk to continue to exist would benefit any involved party, EvilKirk included. But for the purposes of this comparison, the only fact that really matters is that EvilKirk was just as passionate about his desire to continue existing as Tuvix was.
Yet—and it’s obvious where I’m going with this—“Spock murdered EvilKirk” is not a meme.
So what gives? Did Spock murder EvilKirk or not? If yes, why does he get a pass while Janeway is condemned?
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.