Voy - Renaissance Man

[Fianna]

I said my piece on the episode itself. But here you bring up personal power and the mutant issue in Marvel. What is the point of the Registration Act? So we have a list of who you are and what you can do.
So what? If the bank loses money out of the vault do they go check out the highschool student first because she can walk through walls? Or maybe check the bank manager who has the combination to the safe and keys to the security system?
Ability does not automatically equal desire. So to do anything you need to do something with this subset. Lock them up because they potentially could cause harm? Kill them, same motive?
Hey lets see them as weapons and train them for national defense while we distrust them. That has no chance of backfiring.

Do people with powers have the potential to cause great harm. Yes.
But you need a better answer than put their names on a list.

Since each mutant has a different power (for the most part) what security measures (if any) are needed would be different depending on each individual mutant. If there's a mutant who can alter people's memories, then you need to develop some procedure to detect memory alterations, and hopefully to guard against them. But you can't do that if you don't know the memory altering mutant exists in the first place.

I mean, that's why Magneto was able to build a helmet that protects him from Xavier's telepathy, while most everyone else is helpless before him: because Mags knew Charles, and so knew that some sort of countermeasure was needed.

[Nealithi]

BTW, on a general note about shape-shifting, have you noticed how casually people in these universes always take this power? There is someone out there who can commit perfect identity fraud. They can literally kill you and replace you and everyone is fine with that. They can take nude photographs of you whenever they wish. They could commit any crime whatsoever and have you go down for it.

This is the same bullshit where everyone is fine with telepaths despite the horrific shit that they could get away with effortlessly.

In real life, Bestor from Babylon 5 and the PsiCorp would absolutely exist to monitor telepaths, and there would absolutely be an organisation or movement to police or stop shape-shifters.

Kind of also reminds me of the Mutant Registration Act in the first X-Men film and how I was clearly supposed to side with the mutants over Senator Kelly despite his very reasonable point that people who can walk through bank vaults and kill people with their mind is something that cannot go unchecked. And the amusing thing is that every X-Men film after that seemed to go out of its way to try and prove Senator Kelly right given the amount of carnage mutantkind would cause in literally every single film - starting with X2 where Nightcrawler got within a foot of killing the president.

I said my piece on the episode itself. But here you bring up personal power and the mutant issue in Marvel. What is the point of the Registration Act? So we have a list of who you are and what you can do.
So what? If the bank loses money out of the vault do they go check out the highschool student first because she can walk through walls? Or maybe check the bank manager who has the combination to the safe and keys to the security system?
Ability does not automatically equal desire. So to do anything you need to do something with this subset. Lock them up because they potentially could cause harm? Kill them, same motive?
Hey lets see them as weapons and train them for national defense while we distrust them. That has no chance of backfiring.

Do people with powers have the potential to cause great harm. Yes.
But you need a better answer than put their names on a list.

That falls a bit flat when they do in fact cause great harm, which happens often, and in many cases (such as Rogue) the abilities are inherently harmful. They are as dangerous to other mutants as they are to humans- I think most people would want to know that there is a bald man out there who could easily kill everybody on Earth if he literally just put his mind to it, and the same man regularly invades the privacy of people across the planet.

Worse than that though, Xavier has his own list of mutants and what they can do drawn up without the consent of anyone. He can identify mutants who don't even know they are mutants. Senator Kelly is obviously a fearmongering, short-sighted politician, but the reality is that even Magneto and the X-Men already do what he is proposing the government does, and the already turn mutants into weapons (so does the US and Canadian governments, mind).

It's more of a problem in the third movie where the mutant cure is treated as a bad thing even though, yeah, many mutants are basically walking talking arsenals, and Magneto and Phoenix both cause MASSIVE amounts of damage and kill lots of people, human and mutant alike. Given how unpredictable mutant powers are and how much personality and moral character of most mutants is a life-or-death matter, it is not unreasonable at all.

First, Professor Xavier does not have the power to wipe out the people of the planet inherently. He has a massive machine to amplify his ability that gives that as a danger. This tool turns him into such a huge danger. And while it was another telepath that set him on this destructive path. Who set that mutant to work? A human tormenting his own son and leading armed men to assault a school.
Rogue has an uncontrollable power, yes. And one thing I wish they went deeper into was the cure to her was extremely attractive because it could and did repair her life. So as an option, all for it.
The problem is exactly what the comics have been pointing out though. Mutants are born with random abilities and strengths. Whether it is magnetic, telepathic, or just grew scales. They had no choice in that. So force them to undergo treatments because the government considers you different or a potential threat? So why not 'cure' skin colour or register your gender identification? The slippery slope. Though I am vague on the Phoenix issue for the third movie. If it follows the comics, it is an extraterrestrial entity that possesses a body. No mutant registration could catch that. So in theory any person on Earth could carry that.
Heck the Nightcrawler issue against the President was not his free will. A regular human used a drug to make him a weapon. What list would prevent that?

[Nealithi]

I said my piece on the episode itself. But here you bring up personal power and the mutant issue in Marvel. What is the point of the Registration Act? So we have a list of who you are and what you can do.
So what? If the bank loses money out of the vault do they go check out the highschool student first because she can walk through walls? Or maybe check the bank manager who has the combination to the safe and keys to the security system?
Ability does not automatically equal desire. So to do anything you need to do something with this subset. Lock them up because they potentially could cause harm? Kill them, same motive?
Hey lets see them as weapons and train them for national defense while we distrust them. That has no chance of backfiring.

Do people with powers have the potential to cause great harm. Yes.
But you need a better answer than put their names on a list.

Since each mutant has a different power (for the most part) what security measures (if any) are needed would be different depending on each individual mutant. If there's a mutant who can alter people's memories, then you need to develop some procedure to detect memory alterations, and hopefully to guard against them. But you can't do that if you don't know the memory altering mutant exists in the first place.

I mean, that's why Magneto was able to build a helmet that protects him from Xavier's telepathy, while most everyone else is helpless before him: because Mags knew Charles, and so knew that some sort of countermeasure was needed.

Fair point. What is the counter to Kitty Pryde? And you have her on a list and presumably know where she lives. So I ask again, things get stolen. Do they start with someone with potential but no criminal background. Or do they perform proper investigations?

I ask these questions because the general rule I see often enough is that there is potential for harm. Therefore we need to register and track people. And it always sounds both too far and not enough at the same time. What can such a list be used for? It would be like a sex offenders list. 'Is there a mutie near you?' And it would begin and end at mutant. How do you differentiate Xavier and Magnus from some kid that can change the colour of his hair?

[9ansean]

I said my piece on the episode itself. But here you bring up personal power and the mutant issue in Marvel. What is the point of the Registration Act? So we have a list of who you are and what you can do.
So what? If the bank loses money out of the vault do they go check out the highschool student first because she can walk through walls? Or maybe check the bank manager who has the combination to the safe and keys to the security system?
Ability does not automatically equal desire. So to do anything you need to do something with this subset. Lock them up because they potentially could cause harm? Kill them, same motive?
Hey lets see them as weapons and train them for national defense while we distrust them. That has no chance of backfiring.

Do people with powers have the potential to cause great harm. Yes.
But you need a better answer than put their names on a list.

Since each mutant has a different power (for the most part) what security measures (if any) are needed would be different depending on each individual mutant. If there's a mutant who can alter people's memories, then you need to develop some procedure to detect memory alterations, and hopefully to guard against them. But you can't do that if you don't know the memory altering mutant exists in the first place.

I mean, that's why Magneto was able to build a helmet that protects him from Xavier's telepathy, while most everyone else is helpless before him: because Mags knew Charles, and so knew that some sort of countermeasure was needed.

Fair point. What is the counter to Kitty Pryde? And you have her on a list and presumably know where she lives. So I ask again, things get stolen. Do they start with someone with potential but no criminal background. Or do they perform proper investigations?

I ask these questions because the general rule I see often enough is that there is potential for harm. Therefore we need to register and track people. And it always sounds both too far and not enough at the same time. What can such a list be used for? It would be like a sex offenders list. 'Is there a mutie near you?' And it would begin and end at mutant. How do you differentiate Xavier and Magnus from some kid that can change the colour of his hair?

This all sound very akin to the ethical question of the Human Genome Project and the potential for Genetic Discrimination. Keeping of records of who has genetic traits that could determine there abilities as they grow might actually be usual even to the persons without genetic abnormalities and their families. It could makes finding early medical care and in that case of an enhanced power special training. We've seen that come mutants like Cyclops can be as much a harm to themselves as other from a young age. And what someone can and will do with those abilities is as much a product of environment as biological changes over time. Yet there is still the great capacity for abuse of the information. Which is why I believe it should at the very least be kept confidential.

Of course, with the X-Men this because a little harder to justify all around the board when it comes to attending regular classrooms and workspace. If they can say, start fires with their mind. Then it might be best to notify someone. Which of course brings the problem right back where you started. That problem of differentiation you described.

[9ansean]

Chuck's not alone with his thoughts about this being the penultimate episode. Even I recall watching it at the time and being confused why THIS was the episode before the finale instead of Homestead or something else building up to the finale. I didn't hate it, but it was just an odd decision for THIS to be what we had before the ending.

I can see a few ways this episode could have built toward the final, but not many.

If there had been some argument about whether settling a dispute by docking on an M-Class planet was worth it when we'd only just regained communication from home through Operation Watson.

If Janeway had told the EMH to hand command over to Chackotay is you make it back without me. Even if he still didn't go through with it, this could at least be a good way to acknowledge how much she'd come to trust them both to complete the journey. Possibly even calling back to the beginning by suggestion that the former Marquis officer successful return of Voyager might assure a pardon for every rebel who lived to aid the rest of the crew back home.

If we HAD to have that shoehorned romance between Chackotay and Seven, the scene of them alone together on Astrometrics combined with the scene of Paris being confused by what he thought was Torres dodging there date might have provide candidate confessions about there own secret rendezvous. Then the partnership in might be less out of nowhere and more time could have been spent on the inevitable return home plot.

But mostly it should just aired earlier.

[9ansean]

Like he wouldn't be familiar with the concepts of lying, betrayal, and capricious behavior.

Especially since he kind of did engage in subterfuge that same year in Flesh and Blood.

[9ansean]

Speaking of unmeet potential, The Doctor confession to his every regret could have been a perfect moment for to make up for my most despised Voyager moment. But I doubt if it ended with him confession love for Seven that could have of worked

"Seven I never should have lead you to believe a traumatic memory I brought upon you in my vain attempt at amateur psychiatry was real without undergoing further testing. I also shouldn't have assured you that the investigation I initiated would only lead to conviction and make that trauma go away, only to re-traumatize you by declaring that story I insisted was true maybe wasn't true, AND suggest you carry the guilt over the suspect getting himself killed despite me trying to get a reprograming all so that I WOULDN'T have to carry said guilt. But just remember I've never stopped believing in you. Even when I said we no longer could believe you because of something I made you believe. Because I only did it out of love!"

[Jonathan101]

BTW, on a general note about shape-shifting, have you noticed how casually people in these universes always take this power? There is someone out there who can commit perfect identity fraud. They can literally kill you and replace you and everyone is fine with that. They can take nude photographs of you whenever they wish. They could commit any crime whatsoever and have you go down for it.

This is the same bullshit where everyone is fine with telepaths despite the horrific shit that they could get away with effortlessly.

In real life, Bestor from Babylon 5 and the PsiCorp would absolutely exist to monitor telepaths, and there would absolutely be an organisation or movement to police or stop shape-shifters.

Kind of also reminds me of the Mutant Registration Act in the first X-Men film and how I was clearly supposed to side with the mutants over Senator Kelly despite his very reasonable point that people who can walk through bank vaults and kill people with their mind is something that cannot go unchecked. And the amusing thing is that every X-Men film after that seemed to go out of its way to try and prove Senator Kelly right given the amount of carnage mutantkind would cause in literally every single film - starting with X2 where Nightcrawler got within a foot of killing the president.

I said my piece on the episode itself. But here you bring up personal power and the mutant issue in Marvel. What is the point of the Registration Act? So we have a list of who you are and what you can do.
So what? If the bank loses money out of the vault do they go check out the highschool student first because she can walk through walls? Or maybe check the bank manager who has the combination to the safe and keys to the security system?
Ability does not automatically equal desire. So to do anything you need to do something with this subset. Lock them up because they potentially could cause harm? Kill them, same motive?
Hey lets see them as weapons and train them for national defense while we distrust them. That has no chance of backfiring.

Do people with powers have the potential to cause great harm. Yes.
But you need a better answer than put their names on a list.

That falls a bit flat when they do in fact cause great harm, which happens often, and in many cases (such as Rogue) the abilities are inherently harmful. They are as dangerous to other mutants as they are to humans- I think most people would want to know that there is a bald man out there who could easily kill everybody on Earth if he literally just put his mind to it, and the same man regularly invades the privacy of people across the planet.

Worse than that though, Xavier has his own list of mutants and what they can do drawn up without the consent of anyone. He can identify mutants who don't even know they are mutants. Senator Kelly is obviously a fearmongering, short-sighted politician, but the reality is that even Magneto and the X-Men already do what he is proposing the government does, and the already turn mutants into weapons (so does the US and Canadian governments, mind).

It's more of a problem in the third movie where the mutant cure is treated as a bad thing even though, yeah, many mutants are basically walking talking arsenals, and Magneto and Phoenix both cause MASSIVE amounts of damage and kill lots of people, human and mutant alike. Given how unpredictable mutant powers are and how much personality and moral character of most mutants is a life-or-death matter, it is not unreasonable at all.

First, Professor Xavier does not have the power to wipe out the people of the planet inherently. He has a massive machine to amplify his ability that gives that as a danger. This tool turns him into such a huge danger. And while it was another telepath that set him on this destructive path. Who set that mutant to work? A human tormenting his own son and leading armed men to assault a school.
Rogue has an uncontrollable power, yes. And one thing I wish they went deeper into was the cure to her was extremely attractive because it could and did repair her life. So as an option, all for it.
The problem is exactly what the comics have been pointing out though. Mutants are born with random abilities and strengths. Whether it is magnetic, telepathic, or just grew scales. They had no choice in that. So force them to undergo treatments because the government considers you different or a potential threat? So why not 'cure' skin colour or register your gender identification? The slippery slope. Though I am vague on the Phoenix issue for the third movie. If it follows the comics, it is an extraterrestrial entity that possesses a body. No mutant registration could catch that. So in theory any person on Earth could carry that.
Heck the Nightcrawler issue against the President was not his free will. A regular human used a drug to make him a weapon. What list would prevent that?

It was Xavier who built the machine and he knows full well what it is capable of, especially afterwards. That's like building a nuclear bomb (actually a million times worse) and saying "well, I would never us it, unless someone else forced me to, so what is the problem?" The problem is that Xavier is worried about the government having the power to register mutants, yet he has personally built a machine that gives him WAY more power than that and isn't telling anyone- he is the most powerful man in the world, and nobody knows it.

The fact that someone else could abuse it doesn't make it okay for him to have it, especially since its primary purpose is essentially to spy on people and that is bad enough in itself. Even without Cerebro, he frequently uses his powers to look into peoples' minds without any permission (which is a break from other versions of the character mind), and even freeze hundreds of people in place at once, both of which are extremely invasive and mind-rapey.

And let's not forget that the human in question was driven to extremism because his own son was a piece of work who drove his mother to suicide with his own mutant powers, and that after his evil plan was foiled Magneto and Mystique came along and turned Xavier against every single human, with the super-flimsy justification that the actions of Stryker condemn the entire human race.

It doesn't matter if mutants didn't have a choice in it- it is unreasonable to expect them to not use their powers except in very restrictive ways, especially those powers- like telepathy- that innately involve violating the rights of other people in most cases. Skin colour and gender identity do not brainwash people, drain their life force or destroy buildings on the onset on puberty- your slippery slope argument is fallacious because mutant powers are completely different.

Phoenix in the 3rd movie does not follow the comic. It is established that this is just an alternate personality of Jean (at least regarding that movie) that was dangerous and out-of-control. Again, the issue is that she has the power to vaporise people (human and mutant alike), and nobody knew about it because Xavier covered it up- with disastrous results.

I'm not saying that mutant registration would have stopped the Nightcrawler attack (that is really a failure of military police and politics), but certainly that wouldn't have been possible if Nightcrawler wasn't capable of those things to begin with, and we are lucky that Nightcrawler wasn't like his dad who use those same powers to help try and start World War III of his own free will.

The point is that tracking and listing is pretty much essential and inevitable, whether mutants are registered or not, and the X-Men and Magneto are hypocrites for opposing anything like that because that is exactly what they do without anyone knowing about it, because the know the idea is sensible and has merit. Dangerous mutants are as much a threat to other mutants as they are to humans, as i keep reiterating, and the human / mutant conflict is a false dichotomy.

[chaos42]

so how many episodes are left in voyager that chuck hasn't done-because we have to ask ourselves what episode is going to be the last one-hes done i suspect most of the most terrible -but what episode remaining deserves the final dagger in the back

[TGLS]

so how many episodes are left in voyager that chuck hasn't done-because we have to ask ourselves what episode is going to be the last one-hes done i suspect most of the most terrible -but what episode remaining deserves the final dagger in the back

From Remaining Star Trek Episodes, there's 15 Voyager episodes left. If I had to guess which would be last, I'd say Night would be last.