Trek Culture may have landed on a point about the Star Trek: Voyager episode Tuvix being the most controversial of all Trek moments.
To many, the conversation around Tuvix is one that really elicits some firm reactions. For those new to Star Trek: Voyager and unfamiliar with Tuvix, it was an episode that saw Neelix and Tuvok accidentally get merged during a transporter mishap, which created a new being called Tuvix. He was later separated back into his original forms of Neelix and Tuvox but fans still to this day debate about what was right.
There are people like yours truly who believe that Tuvix was never truly born and his existence ended the lives of Neelix and Tuvok so the logical answer is to split him back up. After all, there are two lives at stake instead of one, so the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
Then there are those who think Tuvix had a right to live, and they’re simply wrong.
Sarcasm aside, the debate on this is truly complex and that’s why Trek Culture made it their number one most divisive moment.
While I’ve taken a hard-line stance on it, it has to be made clear that whether you’re for splitting Tuvix up or (wrongly) against it, it’s moments like this that make (made) Star Trek so much more nuanced and deeper as a franchise than anything else in the medium.
Star Wars asks us, “are Space Nazi’s who blow up planets bad?” Yes. The answer is yes. There’s no debate in Star Wars. The bad guys are always evil-doers, with mustaches that they twirl while being so hardcore bad.
In Star Trek, it’s always more nuanced. Just like the debate about Tuvix. The right to life is a real one that many have, but it’s not ever going to be a conversation that ever sees any one side gaining a huge control of the debate.
With “Tuvix” came the ability to have an endless debate, one that can test the time, give fans oodles of entertainment and never truly die.
Even if half of the audience is wrong.