Experimentation on the Wraith
Sep. 29th, 2006 07:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
muck_a_luckThis topic has been occupying my brain for a couple of weeks now.
The question is whether it is ethical to use a retrovirus to convert Wraith into humans.
One person went so far as to compare Beckett to Mengele.
First, I should say that I do not regularly watch Atlantis, so I could have missed any number of details.
But here are the thoughts that have occurred to me.
1. The Wraith and Human Existence are not Compatible.
Well, I mean, they are.
Sort of.
The Wraith eat humans. We appear to be their only food source. If we aren't, they certainly aren't making much of effort to find or exploit an alternative. However, they harvest humans in the Pegasus galaxy carefully. When their food source is becoming too depleted, they hibernate until the human population rebounds enough to be harvested again.
So, in that respect, humans and Wraith can coexist. But is it the responsibility of humans to preserve that kind of coexistence?
Yes, Wraith are a sentient species. And yes, we usually like to think of life as having certain intrinsic value, and sentience especially, but do humans bear some sort of special burden or obligation to provide ourselves to a predator species that can only survive by consuming us?
I hope it won't sound too brutal if I say "no."
Fiction has created a perfect us against them relationship, with no grey area. Wraith live, humans die. Period.
2. The Use of the Retrovirus is not Cruel.
Here is a point where I feel less certain, since I have not seen all the necessary episodes, but the application of the retrovirus in the episodes I have seen does not seem particularly cruel.
Wraith who have been "treated" with it do lose their memories.
They become human against their will.
To maintain their humanity, they must continue to receive treatments.
But otherwise, it does not seem to cause any hideous side effects. Not even headache or nausea. Not even the memory of what they once were or what was done to them against their will to torment them.
Also, one could note that Wraith came about because eratus bugs absorbed human DNA and evolved to become more like us. You have to wonder if the use of the retrovirus is not just an acceleration of something that will naturally happen in Wraith evolution eventually. This is just a footnote, though, since it does not answer the question of whether it is ethical to force this accelerated conversion onto a living already existing Wraith individual.
3. Has a Wraith Treated with the Retrovirus Been Given a Fate Better than Death?
If you agree to my premise in Paragraph 1, then it's perfectly legitimate for humans to want to kill Wraith, possibly hunting them to the point of extinction, if possible. I realize that extinction is a nasty word. We even hesitate to deliberately kill off the last samples of smallpox virus, and that is a completely non-sentient species with a special proclivity for killing humans. I suppose we could offer a few Wraith the scraps of human society - people we might typically condemn to death - murders and child molesters to feed upon. But in general, I can't see many Wraith surviving if humans can find a way to protect themselves. Even if we didn't actively hunt them down, surely we would try to prevent them from feeding on us, and therefore they would die of starvation.
That said, is it more charitable for us to offer them an alternative to death? Is it kinder to "treat" them with the retrovirus, rather than slaughter them?
At first I thought, "Of course!"
But if their memories are wiped by the process, another question arises. Are they really being "saved" as individuals? And if not, what's the difference between killing them dead and killing them with kindness?
One could argue that everything that is important about self is wrapped up in memory. You wake up with a clean slate for a brain, permanently purged of everything you were before you fell asleep, sure, the brain is still there, but is the new entity created through your new waking experiences actually "you" or someone else?
Of course, it is slightly more complex than this, because the memories aren't truly destroyed. They are still lurking, suppressed, in the minds of the humanized Wraith.
What if the Wraith could recover his memory? Or never lost it? How would the alternative between death and "treatment" be, then? The Wraith would be alive and intact, but in a form that meant it could live side by side with humans, rather than predating upon them.
4. Choice.
I used the word "offer" in Paragraph 3. But in fact, the Atlanteans are not "offering" anything. They are forcing.
This is because the retrovirus is a form of biological warfare in the series. The humans have not found any truly effective weapon against superior Wraith technology. The occassional nuke through the shield to demolish a hive ship. That seems to be it.
So they are not "offering" anything to the Wraith. They have used the retrovirus on the Wraith against their will.
Though one might point out, instead of nuking them.
I would still say this is OK, based on my thoughts in Paragraph 1. We make them human against their will (or nuke them if we can) or they eat us. No-brainer.
But what if humans developed two effective weapons and they could "offer" a hive ship, or even individual Wraith a choice? Execution (by whatever means) or retrovirus?
Where does this bring me?
Based on Paragraph 1, it is my opinion that as far as humans are concerned, the Wraith are fair game. I feel no compunction about killing them, and in fact would hope that all human populations could find a way to prevent the Wraith from eating them.
To me, if humans could prevent Wraith from eating them by means of the retrovirus, that's a lot better death than death by starvation or death by nuke. The life and sentience is preserved, and the individual is no more lost than he would have been if he'd been actually killed.
Anyway, I'm sorry. But that just happens to be the way I feel about it! What do you think?
The question is whether it is ethical to use a retrovirus to convert Wraith into humans.
One person went so far as to compare Beckett to Mengele.
First, I should say that I do not regularly watch Atlantis, so I could have missed any number of details.
But here are the thoughts that have occurred to me.
1. The Wraith and Human Existence are not Compatible.
Well, I mean, they are.
Sort of.
The Wraith eat humans. We appear to be their only food source. If we aren't, they certainly aren't making much of effort to find or exploit an alternative. However, they harvest humans in the Pegasus galaxy carefully. When their food source is becoming too depleted, they hibernate until the human population rebounds enough to be harvested again.
So, in that respect, humans and Wraith can coexist. But is it the responsibility of humans to preserve that kind of coexistence?
Yes, Wraith are a sentient species. And yes, we usually like to think of life as having certain intrinsic value, and sentience especially, but do humans bear some sort of special burden or obligation to provide ourselves to a predator species that can only survive by consuming us?
I hope it won't sound too brutal if I say "no."
Fiction has created a perfect us against them relationship, with no grey area. Wraith live, humans die. Period.
2. The Use of the Retrovirus is not Cruel.
Here is a point where I feel less certain, since I have not seen all the necessary episodes, but the application of the retrovirus in the episodes I have seen does not seem particularly cruel.
Wraith who have been "treated" with it do lose their memories.
They become human against their will.
To maintain their humanity, they must continue to receive treatments.
But otherwise, it does not seem to cause any hideous side effects. Not even headache or nausea. Not even the memory of what they once were or what was done to them against their will to torment them.
Also, one could note that Wraith came about because eratus bugs absorbed human DNA and evolved to become more like us. You have to wonder if the use of the retrovirus is not just an acceleration of something that will naturally happen in Wraith evolution eventually. This is just a footnote, though, since it does not answer the question of whether it is ethical to force this accelerated conversion onto a living already existing Wraith individual.
3. Has a Wraith Treated with the Retrovirus Been Given a Fate Better than Death?
If you agree to my premise in Paragraph 1, then it's perfectly legitimate for humans to want to kill Wraith, possibly hunting them to the point of extinction, if possible. I realize that extinction is a nasty word. We even hesitate to deliberately kill off the last samples of smallpox virus, and that is a completely non-sentient species with a special proclivity for killing humans. I suppose we could offer a few Wraith the scraps of human society - people we might typically condemn to death - murders and child molesters to feed upon. But in general, I can't see many Wraith surviving if humans can find a way to protect themselves. Even if we didn't actively hunt them down, surely we would try to prevent them from feeding on us, and therefore they would die of starvation.
That said, is it more charitable for us to offer them an alternative to death? Is it kinder to "treat" them with the retrovirus, rather than slaughter them?
At first I thought, "Of course!"
But if their memories are wiped by the process, another question arises. Are they really being "saved" as individuals? And if not, what's the difference between killing them dead and killing them with kindness?
One could argue that everything that is important about self is wrapped up in memory. You wake up with a clean slate for a brain, permanently purged of everything you were before you fell asleep, sure, the brain is still there, but is the new entity created through your new waking experiences actually "you" or someone else?
Of course, it is slightly more complex than this, because the memories aren't truly destroyed. They are still lurking, suppressed, in the minds of the humanized Wraith.
What if the Wraith could recover his memory? Or never lost it? How would the alternative between death and "treatment" be, then? The Wraith would be alive and intact, but in a form that meant it could live side by side with humans, rather than predating upon them.
4. Choice.
I used the word "offer" in Paragraph 3. But in fact, the Atlanteans are not "offering" anything. They are forcing.
This is because the retrovirus is a form of biological warfare in the series. The humans have not found any truly effective weapon against superior Wraith technology. The occassional nuke through the shield to demolish a hive ship. That seems to be it.
So they are not "offering" anything to the Wraith. They have used the retrovirus on the Wraith against their will.
Though one might point out, instead of nuking them.
I would still say this is OK, based on my thoughts in Paragraph 1. We make them human against their will (or nuke them if we can) or they eat us. No-brainer.
But what if humans developed two effective weapons and they could "offer" a hive ship, or even individual Wraith a choice? Execution (by whatever means) or retrovirus?
Where does this bring me?
Based on Paragraph 1, it is my opinion that as far as humans are concerned, the Wraith are fair game. I feel no compunction about killing them, and in fact would hope that all human populations could find a way to prevent the Wraith from eating them.
To me, if humans could prevent Wraith from eating them by means of the retrovirus, that's a lot better death than death by starvation or death by nuke. The life and sentience is preserved, and the individual is no more lost than he would have been if he'd been actually killed.
Anyway, I'm sorry. But that just happens to be the way I feel about it! What do you think?
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no subject
Date: 2006-09-29 03:10 pm (UTC)If the retrovirus allowed the converted Wraith to keep something of their memories, their culture, anything, there might be some sort of argument for the preservation of sentience -- but it doesn't. It creates confused, basically helpless people who need to rely on a permanent regimen of treatment shots. (That ep where Carson is camped out maintaining that group of converted? Unsustainable, unworkable and kinda pointless.) Frankly, it's more honest to just nuke them. (And, oddly, though killing in self defense is okay, I do feel that medical ethics applies when they are in the Wraith state. Experimenting on them against their will when they are in full possession of their faculties is wrong.)
The way the Wraith are all awake at once, culling entire human populations? Why muck around with a biological "fix" that requires upkeep? Why not just develop a killing virus that will spread? You know that if the Lanteans had a device that would shoot at a Hive ship and disable ALL the ships, they'd do it in a second. Would a biological equivalent be that much worse?
Maybe, perhaps, if they met a Wraith who preferred the idea of conversion (and complete amnesia) to death, okay. But how likely is that? For the most part, I feel like, "You're trying to kill me? I kill you."
(This all seems so very strange for me to say, as I'm a bleeding heart liberal in RL. But the way the Wraith have been drawn is as an implacable enemy -- us or them.)
no subject
Date: 2006-09-29 03:57 pm (UTC)Have you seen the episodes with Michael? They give him the retrovirus (2.18, "Michael"), and he turns human with no memories (the process itself looks painful, but that might just be him fighting it), but he has the nagging feeling that something is wrong. Then he steals the discs on which the procedure was performed, sees what's been done to him, and runs off, taking Teyla with him. He changes back without the treatments, but is not able to rejoin Wraith society.
They later wipe his brain again (3.02, "Misbegotten"), along a ship-ful of Wraith, and they eventually recover their memories, while still on the virus. Now, this could merely be seen as an obstacle to be removed, some way found to keep them from remembering, but I don't see the retrovirus as any sort of solution, unless the Powers That Be change it fundamentally.
Personally, I like the Wraith as something to shoot at. Even after "Common Ground", where they do a pretty good job making a single Wraith almost human, I still see them as the unfixable bad guys the Goa'uld where. I see the Tok'ra as false good guys, Jacob nonwithstanding; actually Tok'ra::Goa'uld like Retrovirus::Wraith. Whee, analogies.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-29 08:23 pm (UTC)Perhaps the comparison to Dr. Mengale was unfair, but only because Carson wasn't experimenting on the same species as he was. Although there's an argument to that . . . the Wraith are mutated humans.
But what he did do . . . take a sentient being, run medical experiments on him against his will, and the medical procedure is from all appearances a painful one. I'm aware that we don't currently have any ethical standards in place in this world for the treatment of other sentient species, but surely the wrongness of that is inescapable.
And the Wraith doesn't entirely lose his memory. He has flashes of his former life as a Wraith, he senses that there is something wrong, and despite his best efforts, he can't fit in with the other Lanteans. His flashbacks appear to be a side-effect of the retrovirus. So I completely disagree with the "not cruel" argument.
Until the episode "Michael" I was right along there with the Wraith being the stereotypical bad guys. A good Wraith is a dead Wraith. But the humans crossed the line in their treatment of Michael and the rest in "Misbegotten." Carson was the only one who felt any responsibility for the problem that the humans had created.
Perhaps the Wraith are meant to show us that the end doesn't justify the means. Because every hideous dictator in our history has claimed that. The Lanteans should have more care with their treatment of their enemies.