Star Trek (DS9): The Quickening

[cdrood]

The idea of developing a vaccine is actually refreshing for Star Trek, and sci-fi in general. Outside of anti-biotics for bacterial infections, "cures" in medicine are pretty hard to come by. Doctors mainly treat symptoms and help patients maintain as much strength as possible, so the body's own healing takes over or provide treatments that keep the disease at bay. Surgeons repair damage, so the body can then live and heal, but it's often never as strong as before the damage again.

Star Trek tends to go with the "immediate and complete reversal of all damage" angle, which no cure probably will ever do. This is also one of those episodes where I wish SOMEONE would bring up the spores from "This Side of Paradise". How are they NOT part of standard Federation medical treatment by the 24th century. Their euphoric side effect seems a far less damaging side effect than opiates and the healing benefits are far greater than just pain management. Heck, they even provide immunity to at least one lethal form of radiation.

[TGLS]

the spores from "This Side of Paradise". How are they NOT part of standard Federation medical treatment by the 24th century.

Obviously its because the Federation banned spore research after the spore drive.

[Durandal_1707]

^ That would fit the Federation's MO, wouldn't it.

"Sorry, this one genetically-enhanced guy started a war once, so we're not allowed to fix the muscular dystrophy gene—your son's just going to have to live with being stuck in a wheelchair from his 30s onward. Sucks to be him!"

[Mickey_Rat15]

How are they NOT part of standard Federation medical treatment by the 24th century. Their euphoric side effect seems a far less damaging side effect than opiates and the healing benefits are far greater than just pain management. Heck, they even provide immunity to at least one lethal form of radiation.

Kirk despises that kind of lotus-eater nonsense and the things tried to break him and the Enterprise up. After the evacuated the colonists, he burned them, with prejudice.

[FaxModem1]

^ That would fit the Federation's MO, wouldn't it.

"Sorry, this one genetically-enhanced guy started a war once, so we're not allowed to fix the muscular dystrophy gene—your son's just going to have to live with being stuck in a wheelchair from his 30s onward. Sucks to be him!"

Ha, yeah, those Feddies really are Luddite bastards, aren't they? Too bad that's contradicted by canon. Torres and Paris get their daughter's spine fixed while in utero. Correcting it via genetic manipulation is the recommended procedure.

EMH: It's a holographic extrapolation of your child's spine, approximately ten months after birth.
TORRES: It's deviated.
EMH: Yes, there's a pronounced curvature to the left.
PARIS: Can it be corrected?
TORRES: I had surgery for it when I was a baby.
PARIS: You never told me that.
TORRES: My mother had it, too.
EMH: It tends to run in Klingon families, especially among females.
PARIS: Are you saying that this baby is a girl?
EMH: No. I didn't say that.
PARIS: But it is a girl, right?
EMH: You cannot infer that.
TORRES: It's okay. You might as well just tell us.
EMH: Yes. It's a girl. And aside from the deviated spine, she's healthy.
PARIS: Will she need surgery?
EMH: Fortunately, we've advanced beyond that. Genetic modification is the treatment of choice.

What they do take issue with is altering genetics willynilly for no medical purpose.

EMH: There's no valid medical reason to do what you're proposing.
TORRES: I disagree.
EMH: You want to delete entire DNA sequences. The genes that create redundant organs, for example.
TORRES: They're superfluous.
EMH: Those redundancies are there for a reason.
TORRES: Does my daughter need a third lung to survive?
EMH: Strictly speaking, no. But having it may be beneficial. Some geneticists believe the extra lung evolved to give Klingons greater stamina on the battlefield.
TORRES: My daughter is not going to be a Klingon warrior.
EMH: With all due respect, you have no idea what your daughter's going to be. What if she develops an interest in athletics? Greater lung capacity would be an advantage. The point is, there's no reason to arbitrarily remove genetic traits.

Bashir's altering wasn't medically needed, his parents just felt that he was too slow mentally.

BASHIR: The word you're looking for is unnatural, meaning not from nature. Freak or monster would also be acceptable. I was six. Small for my age, a bit awkward physically, not very bright. In the first grade, while the other children were learning how to read and write and use the computer, I was still trying to tell a dog from a cat, a tree from a house. I didn't really understand what was happening. I knew that I wasn't doing as well as my classmates. There were so many concepts that they took for granted that I couldn't begin to master and I didn't know why. All I knew was that I was a great disappointment to my parents. I don't remember when they made the decision, but just before my seventh birthday we left Earth for Adigeon Prime. At first, I remember being really excited at seeing all the aliens in the hospital. Then they gave me a room and began the treatments, and my entire world began to change.
O'BRIEN: What were the treatments? Some kind of DNA recoding?
BASHIR: The technical term is 'accelerated critical neural pathway formation.' Over the course of the next two months, my genetic structure was manipulated to accelerate the growth of neuronal networks in my cerebral cortex, and a whole new Julian Bashir was born.
O'BRIEN: In what way did they change you?
BASHIR: Well, my mental abilities were the top priority, of course. My IQ jumped five points a day for over two weeks. Followed by improvements in my hand-eye coordination, stamina, vision, reflexes, weight, height. In the end, everything but my name was altered in some way. When we returned to Earth, we even moved to a different city, I was enrolled in a new school using falsified records my parents obtained somewhere. Instead of being the slowest learner, I was the star pupil.

Bashir notes to his parents that they had no way of knowing if he would develop later into something better.

RICHARD: I'm still your father, Jules, and I will not have you talk to me like that.
BASHIR: No, you used to be my father. Now, you're my architect. The man who designed a better son to replace the defective one he was given. Well, your design has a built-in flaw. It's illegal.
RICHARD: You're so smart. You know so much that you can stand there and judge us. But you're still not smart enough to see that we saved you from a lifetime of remedial education and underachievement!
BASHIR: You don't know that. You didn't give me a chance.
RICHARD: You were falling behind.
BASHIR: I was six years old. You decided I was a failure in the first grade.
RICHARD: You don't understand, Jules. You never did.
BASHIR: No, you don't understand. I stopped calling myself Jules when I was fifteen and I'd found out what you'd done to me. I'm Julian.
RICHARD: What difference does that make?
BASHIR: It makes every difference, because I'm different! Can't you see that? Jules Bashir died in that hospital because you couldn't live with the shame of having a son who didn't measure up!

Bashir might have just grown up to be okay, not a genius, but okay. That was unacceptable to his parents, so they changed him to make him their definition of perfect. That is something that the UFP is against.

[Madner Kami]

Bashir might have just grown up to be okay, not a genius, but okay. That was unacceptable to his parents, so they changed him to make him their definition of perfect. That is something that the UFP is against.

A child that can't tell a dog from a cat or a tree from a house by the age of six or seven, isn't "just not bright" and "not a genius but okay". A child like that is mentally retarded and quite likely will never grow up to lead a normal life, but be dependent on other people for it's entire life. If there's a treatment to fix such an issue, it should be administered, because "just growing up", isn't going to fix it, especially if it's a genetic defect (which is implied to be the case).

Julian going at his father's throat for fixing a severe mental deficiency or handicap, always struck me as odd. Disagreeing with not just fixing his mental deficiency, but basically making him a superhuman, sure, but calling him out for enabling him to lead a normal, self-reliant life? That's the same kind of stupid as parents denying their deaf child a Cochlear implant.

[FaxModem1]

Bashir might have just grown up to be okay, not a genius, but okay. That was unacceptable to his parents, so they changed him to make him their definition of perfect. That is something that the UFP is against.

A child that can't tell a dog from a cat or a tree from a house by the age of six or seven, isn't "just not bright" and "not a genius but okay". A child like that is mentally retarded and quite likely will never grow up to lead a normal life, but be dependent on other people for it's entire life. If there's a treatment to fix such an issue, it should be administered, because "just growing up", isn't going to fix it, especially if it's a genetic defect (which is implied to be the case).

Julian going at his father's throat for fixing a severe mental deficiency or handicap, always struck me as odd. Disagreeing with not just fixing his mental deficiency, but basically making him a superhuman, sure, but calling him out for enabling him to lead a normal, self-reliant life? That's the same kind of stupid as parents denying their deaf child a Cochlear implant.

See, and there's also other examples of TNG-era genetic transformation not being a big deal. Picard's crew don't flip out in Unnatural Selection upon meeting genetically engineered humans, nor in the Masterpiece Society. So this runs us into the problem of how the canon treats how the Federation treats genetic manipulation.

We have a few choices here, either A, Bashir is exaggerating his problems as a kid, and his parents overreacted to his mental deficiency as they wanted a child to be proud of, or B, Bashir was really that bad, and there were legal reforms in the intervening years.

Or C, it's like other legal rights in the United States, and differs in different parts of the Federation.

[Madner Kami]

We have a few choices here, either A, Bashir is exaggerating his problems as a kid, and his parents overreacted to his mental deficiency as they wanted a child to be proud of, or B, Bashir was really that bad, and there were legal reforms in the intervening years.

Or C, it's like other legal rights in the United States, and differs in different parts of the Federation.

Logically, A should be the case, given the entirety of their conversations and I think that is what the writers were going for, but Julian doesn't just undermine his position by the exaggeration, he outright justifies his parent's decission with that exaggeration.

[AllanO]

See, and there's also other examples of TNG-era genetic transformation not being a big deal. Picard's crew don't flip out in Unnatural Selection upon meeting genetically engineered humans, nor in the Masterpiece Society. So this runs us into the problem of how the canon treats how the Federation treats genetic manipulation.

Note that the Masterpiece society was not part of the Federation and so not part of the rules. A matter of interpretation, but I don't think they flipped out to much about the humans on Angel One who were interfering with that society's development which they were allowed to do because they were not star fleet and so not bound by the prime directive (which is presumably more important then the regs against augmented humans). There is an argument that the Federation is a bit too live and let live, but that makes them not flipping out over genetic augmentation make sense, they may personally disagree with it but hey you got a live and let live man. Also despite not "flipping out" over the Masterpiece Society the Enterprise may have rendered it non-viable by letting its residents claim asylum and transport away etc. but hey they calmly and in and orderly manner destroyed the society so that means they have no real problem with it? Also just doing some random googling to refresh my memory, I am not clear that I would call Picard's reaction not flipping out when he says "they managed to breed out the unknown, self-discovery, things that make life worth living."

So I disagree with your point about the Masterpiece Society (not really that at odds with the idea that in the Federation there might be restrictions or a ban on that sort of genetic engineering), but Unnatural Selection is clearly a continuity snarl because the station is supposed to be a federation science outpost, which makes their creation of radically altered human children at odds with the idea that human augmentation has been outlawed/strictly limited since the Eugenics War. Apparently in at least one novel they address this by saying an exception was made for the station and many people though and think it is a mistake including Picard, but I suspect the novels are probably an even worse continuity snarl, it does suggest how obvious the continuity problem this episode has such that at least one author thought it was worth offering an explanation. Another indication that the whole "No genetic augmentation because Eugenics war" piece of background is a later confection is that in the original TOS episode Space Seed. They never make any reference to having outlawed genetic engineering or the like. Although since the humans on the Enterprise are not genetic supermen something happened, but it is not really suggested it was some blanket ban. So yeah the idea of a ban does not sit well with earlier episodes, but you could equally say that without some bans or limits why wouldn't all the star fleet people be genetically augmented etc.

An interesting thing is that it sometimes seems that it is human genetic augmentation that is illegal, not Vulcan or Andorian etc. only humans can't have their genetics augmented at will, for all we know every other species in the federation are a races of genetically perfected demigods. I think not, but the wording around it is kind of weird.

I think this discussion is taking the statements as too precise and definitive. Note that Julian only says he was "trying" to tell a cat from a dog, logically that is consistent trying and failing or trying and succeeding. A bit of a stretch and if had said "struggling" I think it would have been more ambiguous, but I think at least a little ambiguity is still there. Not clear if he was struggling but succeeding to tell a cat from a dog would be consistent with not having a severe mental disability, but I am guessing it suggests less... I think the intention is for young Jules to have been a borderline case, so that his parents decision is likewise ambiguous. If he was definitely not severe disabled that would also not work, it needs to be ambiguous. Perhaps real life would not afford such an ambiguity about a 6 year old...

[Mickey_Rat15]

Julian going at his father's throat for fixing a severe mental deficiency or handicap, always struck me as odd. Disagreeing with not just fixing his mental deficiency, but basically making him a superhuman, sure, but calling him out for enabling him to lead a normal, self-reliant life? That's the same kind of stupid as parents denying their deaf child a Cochlear implant.

By making him superhuman, Bashir has had a lifetime of hiding his true abilities for fear of being found out as being genetically augmented and having his choices legally limited. Now that may all come to naught and his frustration at that is coming out. It may not be entirely rational, but it is emotionally understandable.