Not retconed per se, they just can’t make their mind up on what the series is and keep radically changing direction and dumping prior development and characters. Changes are often for the better and don’t directly contradict but there’s certainly a lack of any common thought in the story they’re trying to tell.
I guess I’ll bite the bullet and kick off the Tuvix debate.
Tuvix isn’t the first Trek episode to involve transporter hybrids, and it wasn’t the last; but it stands out amongst the Trek fandom and cemented Janeway as a ruthless executioner.
I maintain that the only reason it’s controversial is because Tuvix was more loved than the sum of his parts.
I personally like Neelix, but it’s undeniable that he’s a contender for one of the least popular main characters in the franchise, and certainly the least favorite on Voyager.
Tim Russ is an amazing actor, but Tuvok is a very subtle character. If you pay attention to him, he’s funny and insightful. But if you don’t focus on him, you can forget he exists.
So, by replacing a despised character and a forgettable character with an outstanding character, you’re left with an audience who has no attachment to the status quo.
If, instead, “Tuvix” was built with popular characters, like Janeway, the EMH, or Seven, the audience would have no qualms about a return to the status quo—or at least not nearly to the degree we’ve seen over the years.
Skip ahead to Twovix
The transporter meat blob was dismissed as non-sentient by Tendi, but it clearly had all the intact personalities of its components. Without further analysis can we be certain of that assessment? Why not send it to The Farm™️?
If we come to the ethical conclusion that the transporter meat blob’s very existence was suffering, why restore the transporter patterns to their components rather than their Tuvix’d counterparts? The simplest answer is that they’re more trouble than they’re worth.
No one cares about the meat blob.
No one cares about T’Ilups and co.
Everyone cares about Tuvix.
We let our attachments dictate our ethics then use logic and evidence to justify them.
why restore the transporter patterns to their components rather than their Tuvix’d counterparts?
Counterpoint: why would you restore the transporter merges? The Tuvix’d contingent occupies the exact same state as the original individuals: “dead”, destroyed in the process of recreating another, larger being. Reverting to those obviously unstable and dangerous merged beings instead of the individuals who had been merged to create them would be absurd.
It’s important to remember that Earth has an outsize influence on the Federation. The capital is, and always has been, there, and will continue to be until such time as it secedes entirely from the Federation after the Burn. The Academy is there. Starfleet is headquartered there, and grew out of United Earth’s space service. Most of Starfleet is human, most Federation colonies are human. Azetbur was mistaken to call itself a “Homo sapiens-only club” but the fact is that from the beginning, as the only planet with friendly relations with Vulcan, Andoria, and Tellar Prime, as the very reason the Federation exists… Earth found itself with a power dynamic that highly favored it.
As such, I don’t think it’s too surprising that a specifically Earthican problem could weigh heavily on the Federation, even as it grew larger and more cosmopolitan.
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