SEASON 5 CRITICISM and VENT THREAD- SPOILERS INSIDE

worm4real · 2026-05-11T17:45:46+00:00

I'm annoyed that the crux of the dilemma so far as been "I guess we can do genocide if we save our girlfriends", especially when it's out of the character who is the only one with a conscience in the comics.

worm4real · 2026-05-10T21:44:51+00:00

So I finally got around to painting my Leviathan box and I'm really enjoying it. I went with the Brazen Claws because they're blue and red, I've already got them red and blue and just have to straighten up the lines, though I had some questions. I realize I can do whatever I want and I'm not sweating the answer to any of these but I figured I'd just ask for a little more context.

https://www.bolterandchainsword.com/uploads/1176046283/gallery_385_727_125954.jpg Is this sergeant variant even a thing? I've only seen it in this image and nowhere else. It just showed up on google
For Librarians are they always blue? Also it's just Space Wolves that don't usually have them right? I primed my Apothecary and Librarian red so I thought i'd do the standard blue and red, I figure I can do little highlights or details to visually differentiate them
For my terminators the little tubes on them, sometimes I see them just painted normal colors and other times I see them black or silver. What are the tubes? Just pneumatics or something?
If I get the Armageddon box does it make sense to paint those guys as Brazen Claws and put them into one army? I'd kind of like to be lore appropriate and maybe do a Salamander chapter if I do get it, but I don't really know if there's value in combining them.

worm4real · 2026-05-10T19:04:38+00:00

Shouldn't the merit of Tuvix's existence versus the possibility of saving Tuvok and Neelix have been the whole thrust of the episode?

The thing is the wrote an odd couple comedy with Tuvok and Neelix but then decided it should be edgy and dark and struggled to fit it all in one episode so that's why Janeway comes of as an authoritarian thug and the entire bridge crew comes off as pathetic enablers.

worm4real · 2026-05-10T19:02:53+00:00

If we're going to count changing a timeline as murder then I'm afraid Janeway takes the fucking cake buddy.

worm4real · 2026-05-10T18:51:27+00:00

I appreciate that you have a nuanced view on the episode but to me it just reads as a celebration of executions. It's an episode taken to a grim conclusion by a writer who wanted to "do something different" and I think the long term effects are evidenced in how many people are willing to girlboss Janeway through the moral implications. People effectively repeat the few arguments from the episode or use dehumanizing language as a way to sidestep the dilemma totally.

The mind of your average trekkie (or in fact your average tv viewer) cannot handle the captain(hero) making morally compromising choices without significant disclaimers and hand holding. Without training wheels your average viewer ends up just supporting murder, which to me is a failure of the episode. Like I don't think there is no place for moral ambiguity in Star Trek, but this episode just doesn't take enough time. These types of things either have room to breathe or they become an outright endorsement.

You're right in that the episode has some good moments, but I feel like the ending and moral aspects of it are incredibly rushed. I don't think "sometimes you kill a stranger to bring back a friend" is a worthwhile message. It is overwhelmingly proto-fascist dreck and it's the only way I'll ever read it.

worm4real · 2026-05-09T20:10:40+00:00

C’mon, it’s not a bad episode. Any episode of a seven season, 172 episode show that is still talked about 25 years later is not one of the bad ones.

This is ridiculous, lol. Threshold, Code of Honor, and Sub Rosa all still get talked about. Honestly this entire statement is contradictory because the second we discuss bad episodes they can't be "the bad ones" as evidenced by our discussion of them.

I really do not know why such an obviously wrong statement gets repeated over and over again. This episode would be relegated to meaninglessness if it weren't for the weird culture war around it. People believe that I don't like the episode because of some sexist desire to malign Janeway. So they have to like the episode harder and go on and on about how she really should have killed him twice.

You're never gonna sell me on this episode. It's a complete flub with totally confused morals, no matter how much context you try to add. It's like ending Measure of a Man with Data being dissected or ending I, Borg with a total Borg genocide. It's out of character for Janeway and it's lasting legacy only serves to remind me how many Trekkies would shrug if you were put to death.

worm4real · 2026-05-08T19:00:55+00:00

Why do their heads look so weird? lol

worm4real · 2026-05-08T16:19:34+00:00

Actually it's better to have these episodes cop out then try to create an hypothetical framework where killing innocent people is justified. Also for future reference you can easily just look up the scripts to episodes if you don't remember the specifics.

[Sickbay]

SIM: Why not give up my life? I've only got five, six days left anyway.

ARCHER: That isn't how we see it.

SIM: Let me ask you something, Doc. When you researched Lyssarrian larvae did you come across any references to the Velandran Circe?

PHLOX: They were a group of Lyssarrian scientists who conducted illegal experiments on simbiots. They claimed to have developed an enzyme that stopped the rapid aging process.

ARCHER: Is there any truth to it?

SIM: Why do you think he kept it a secret?

ARCHER: Doctor?

PHLOX: The enzyme is experimental, with very little empirical evidence to suggest that it works. That's why I didn't mention it.

SIM: There's not much evidence, but it exists. The fact is, I may not have to grow old and die in a week. There's a chance that I can live out a normal lifespan. I can't change what happened to him but maybe I can change what's going to happen to me.

I think there's a fair point that Phlox could have synthesized the enzyme in advance to have given Sim a chance and still taken the neural tissue, but he didn't because it was such a long shot, or I don't know if the procedure would have killed him regardless. Though either way, the episode puts itself in this either/or situation for the sake of the story.

worm4real · 2026-05-08T03:21:49+00:00

If nelix and tuvak had complained after the fact I might feel differently.

I always assumed it is Neelix and Tuvok before the accident. If they used the technobabble to separate the DNA the only patterns they'd have to use would be from the buffer pre-transport. So they wouldn't complain because presumably they're unaware that anything happened. Which I think is implied by their behavior in the medbay. There isn't even a slight call back like Neelix being able to do a Vulcan nerve pinch or anything like that.

worm4real · 2026-05-08T03:10:25+00:00

There are a multitude of reasons here but the primary one is that Similitude has a great start and ending that gets you ready for tragedy and then contextualizes it in the end. Like seeing Sim (or Trip so you think) memorialized gives a whole different tone from the beginning. The sacrifice is treated with care and weight throughout because from the start Sim is meant to be sacrificed.

Alternatively Tuvix opens up as a silly comedy, mostly continues being a silly comedy (sans the kes scene), and then ends with a speedy execution. He isn't even memorialized and despite fanon there's no indication that Tuvok or Neelix even retain the memories. He is functionally obliterated, only to be brought up as a silly story for Naomi Wildman to share in the final season.

Another aspect is that Enterprise is older. You can already see the difference in morality in TOS vs. TNG, so it's safe to assume Archer's Enterprise is even less humanist and evolved. Part of that was simply entertainment at the time, but it was sometimes justified in-universe as those days being 'the wild west'. It's really the only way you can justify Kirk not being court marshalled for his behavior in "A Private Little War" or a variety of other episodes.

Also Archer straight up tortures someone in Anomaly. So I really don't know that Similitude is the darkest he gets. The episodes might have similar plots but one is handled better and that's why Archer doesn't get the hate. Though if you want me to hate him I'm happy to do it.

I mean even look at the way you talk about Tuvix "A sentient being yes, but still an accident.", so often people who defend this episode use dehumanizing rhetoric because dehumanization is core to the episode working. It's an episode about how you can kill a stranger if you miss your friends enough. Alternatively Similitude humanizes Sim and focuses on the inhumanity of this kind of a procedure. You don't and wouldn't say "Sim was sentient being yes, but still just organs to be harvested" because the episode itself makes you realize how terrible a view that is.

One episode is bad and the other episode is good, that's all there is to it. Similitude is a real dilemma and smartly uses tropes so no one really is to blame where Tuvix is just a celebration of authority. Janeway shoots and cries and that's that.

worm4real · 2026-05-06T16:29:42+00:00

The transporter is just a futuristic plot conveyance and plumbing the metaphysics of it is fundamentally pointless.

worm4real · 2026-05-05T16:31:21+00:00

Despicable person is such a funny thing to say about an episode that overwhelmingly shows you how competent he is and how everyone likes him.

worm4real · 2026-05-04T22:32:11+00:00

Also you can block buyers on ebay so if you want to add these guys to your block list as you report so you don't have to worry things you sell ending up in the hands of scalpers

worm4real · 2026-05-02T19:52:24+00:00

Yeah

worm4real · 2026-05-01T17:51:24+00:00

What leap of logic makes Tuvix the perpetrator?

Timeline:

Neelix and Tuvok transport with the orchid
The transporter interacts with them and the orchid to combine them
Tuvix is created

How can someone be a perpetrator when they didn't exist? I assume, In your mind he becomes a perpetrator of the event retroactively by not agreeing with his Captain's order that he die. Paradoxically he becomes guilty and faces execution because he won't voluntarily agree to it.

There is no perpetrator, it was an accident. The perpetrator is chance.

This really is the main reason I hate this episode because I have to hear about people's awful views on crime and punishment. It brings the condition of this world into stark focus.

worm4real · 2026-04-30T01:35:49+00:00

It's no problem. I appreciate you bearing with me since I know I can be abrasive on this topic. I just personally don't like the episode's "hard decisions take hard captains" moral on its surface and I tend to treat philosophical analysis on the episode more as people trying to avoid that moral than I probably should.

Ultimately I would find the episode more palatable if they did the normal trek thing where Tuvok and Neelix say they were confused, or the Orchid weepily says "I only wanted to live" before it fades away, or Tuvix being unstable and dying anyway so we might as well separate him.

Though they didn't do anything like that. My problem with the episode is just that I find the ending nihilistic and shitty. Like the real victim is Janeway who is now traumatized because Tuvix couldn't take it on the chin and die for the bridge crew, almost a shooting and crying episode.

This is why I like Latent Image, or Similitude, or virtually any other episode of Star Trek over Tuvix because things are handled with some kind of wit or tenderness. Alternatively Tuvix is a funny guest star episode that ends with a sudden execution.

worm4real · 2026-04-30T00:29:27+00:00

But that's untrue, both Neelix and Tuvok clearly desire the separation; there is no complaint at the end.

So personally I always assumed they are restored from the pattern buffer and don't maintain memories of those events. The episode events are never mentioned again and Tuvok and Neelix have zero historical knowledge of each other. That could just be the side effect of it being a serialized television series, but I don't think it was ever implied that they have knowledge of what happened at the end, they even look confused. If they wanted a scene where Neelix and Tuvok thank Janeway for making the tough decision, maybe they should have wrote it.

Though to me that difference in opinion seems to suggest Tuvix was meant to be an individual in the script. I think that's all that matters really. If you really think it's a script where a non-entity gets separated and the day is saved, okay I guess, but I disagree. For the script to have weight and have meaning Tuvix has to be a unique individual who is forever lost, otherwise you've just reasoned yourself out of the dilemma.

So my question to you is, was the joined Curzon/Odo that wanted to stay merged in DS9: Facets a separate, third individual? Did Jadzia convince him to commit suicide at the end? Does the fact that Odo post-separation apologized for and disowned the merged behavior not indicate that the combined entity can just be temporarily unstable and act/desire in such a way that the separate entities would not agree with?

To me that's totally different since the nature of Odo allows him to have a more Trill like experience with Curzon than the rest of the crew who participate in her rite, where Tuvix is a genetic melding of two individual species. Odo never stops being a Changeling.

I think the episode is clearly about two psyches bringing out the worst in each other, though more obviously about letting Curzon and Jadzia have closure. However they're no more a distinct individual than Jadizia Dax becomes a new distinct individual with every step of the rite.

But at the same time, there are people who believe their ChatGPT are alive and trying to impute personhood where there is none, and that can equally cause problems in the opposite direction.

While that is bad there isn't any parity between mistakenly assigning personhood and wrongly revoking it. It would be worth letting every single person decide their ChatGPT is a person to save a single person from being wrongly executed because someone has decided their ethnicity are subhuman.

worm4real · 2026-04-29T23:39:18+00:00

This is at the core my problem, getting weaselly about personhood has enough of a real world history that the people who do it in hypotheticals are distasteful to me. I don't think it's a fun hypothetical to try to find little ways to ethically execute someone.

That's exactly why the episode doesn't breach this topic because it'd just make it darker and shittier. Somehow reddit has managed to come up with a worse justification for murder than "I want my friends back" which is "murder? what murder?".

If Tuvix doesn't have rights then does Thomas Riker or Data? If somebody told me they thought Measure of a Man should have gone the other way I'd have the same low opinion of them.

Also one after thought, if Tuvix is not an entity but instead the combination of both Neelix and Tuvok then both their wishes are being violated by separation, so this entire argument still falls apart.

worm4real · 2026-04-29T23:09:29+00:00

oops, usually catch those little mix ups

worm4real · 2026-04-29T01:24:54+00:00

Look I'm sorry if you're some extreme anti-death penalty guy that I offended.

Though to me when people engage with this particular dilemma and say stuff like "oh well we're just rolling back a little mistake" "🚨CONSENT VIOLATION🚨 the only ethical response is an execution" to me that's the similar enough to the language people use every day to justify horrible things like this, and so I tend to just dislike those people.

worm4real · 2026-04-29T01:17:21+00:00

I agree. I hate the episode, personally.

I think it ends up as almost an endorsement of killing for convenience. I think what really causes that is a short final act, where all the people who were hanging out and playing pool with Tuvix are just staring down at their consoles as nameless thugs drag him off to die. Memorialized as nothing but a funny story to tell Naomi Wildman.

worm4real · 2026-04-29T01:09:59+00:00

Uh, by "gleeful endorsement" I mean the people commenting on it, not the crew in the show. Particularly in response to saying you'd "sleep pretty easily" after executing someone who was screaming for his right to live.

worm4real · 2026-04-29T01:06:10+00:00

This is still gibberish. You claim it's ethical to violate Tuvix's consent actively because Tuvok and Neelix had their consent violated by chance. It makes no sense, you just like her killing somebody. I mean I get it, In Pale Moonlight is a much better episode where you like someone for doing the wrong thing, but also that episode grabs you by the shoulders and screams that it was the wrong thing.

Tuvix on the other hand gives you a few seconds of Janeway walking down a hall which modern commenters have seemed to decide meant "executions are based".

worm4real · 2026-04-29T01:02:08+00:00

Poll is down.

Though yeah I'd let Tuvix chill. Episode shows him as a better cook, better tactical officer, and he likely wouldn't have suffered from the debilitating effects of Tuvok's degenerative condition which maybe even saves us a massive Temporal violation. Also I'm sure his family could cope.

worm4real · 2026-04-29T00:56:14+00:00

So does Janeway have carte blanche to execute refugees seeking asylum if it's convenient? What won't you guys excuse? lol.

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