History WhatMeasureIsANonHuman / StarTrek

*** This suggests that under Federation law, a clone is granted all the rights of a sentient being when it is activated. Destroying a clone that has not yet been activated, like Riker and Pulaski did, might be seen as the moral and legal equivalent of discarding a frozen embryo (WordOfGod is that the writer of that episode was deliberately including a pro-choice [[AnAesop Aesop]]).

* And, of course, the mother of all ''Star Trek'' What Measure is a Non-Human events, "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS2E24Tuvix Tuvix]]". To wit, a TeleporterAccident causes a FusionDance between Tuvok and Neelix, turning them into the titular Tuvix. The Doctor attempts to find a way to restore the two to normal, but since the need takes so long, Tuvix comes to bond with the crew and wants to live. Janeway ultimately decides that they need Tuvok and Neelix back and tries to convince Tuvix to die to bring them back. He refuses, but Janeway ultimately decides to make the change and restore the officers to normal. This incident is such a devastating event that the fandom constantly argues if Janeway was right or not.

* In ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekLowerDecks'', the Tuvix incident comes roaring back in the Season 4 episode "Twovix" when Billups and T'Ana end up having a TransporterAccident and perform a FusionDance into T'illups. The ''Cerritos'' crew is sure that Janeway came up with an ethical solution when they look up her logs and are horrified when they find out she essentially killed him. Captain Freeman resolves to send them to Starfleet for a better way to help them, but T'illups finds out what happened and decides the best thing to do is to fuse ''everyone'' to save their life.

*** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E18UpTheLongLadder Up the Long Ladder]]", the crew encounters the Mariposans, a planet whose [[PlanetOfHats hat]] is reproduction through cloning, but the [[CloneDegeneration replicative fading]] (a real phenomenon) is starting to catch up to them. After the crew declines to willingly donate, they rip off DNA from Riker and Pulaski by force and erase their memories of it. When this is discovered, Riker and Pulaski (a ''doctor''!) find the lab and blithely massacre the developing duplicates. Riker states that the clones' existence "diminishes" him.

** In the episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E4SiliconAvatar Silicon Avatar]]", Picard attempts to contact and reason with a [[MonsterOfTheWeek giant silicon entity that has stripped planets of life and once attacked the ship]]. Sadly, the question of if a being that has caused untold destruction should have rights and should it be considered good or evil if it is just stripping planets to survive was unanswered, since a rogue scientist on the Enterprise destroyed it.

** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E9TheMeasureOfAMan The Measure of a Man]]," he is the subject of a hearing by the Judge Advocate General of Starfleet to determine his legal status: is he property or a person? The judge mentioned that they were ''"dancing around the basic issue -- does Data have a soul?"'', which she concluded could not be proven or disproven, just as it could not be proven or disproven for humans and other organic sentients. The episode was clear about the precedent being set, noting that if Data could be mass-produced, denying the sentience of androids would lead to a slave race. ''Voyager'' later showed this is exactly what happened with the EMH holograms -- opening up a PlotHole by not really exploring why the precedent of Data's hearing was ignored.
** Later episodes on the topic featured Data defending the right of other artificial sentients to live, and the question of Data's "daughter" Lal and his parental rights concerning her.

** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E9TheMeasureOfAMan The Measure Of A Man]]," he is the subject of a hearing by the Judge Advocate General of Starfleet to determine his legal status: is he property or a person? The judge mentioned that they were ''"dancing around the basic issue -does Data have a soul?"'', which she concluded could not be proven or disproven, just as it could not be proven or disproven for humans and other organic sentients. The episode was clear about the precedent being set, noting that if Data could be mass-produced, denying the sentience of androids would lead to a slave race. ''Voyager'' later showed this is exactly what happened with the EMH holograms -- opening up a PlotHole by not really exploring why the precedent of Data's hearing was ignored.

** Another iconic example from [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries The Original Series]] was the episode "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E25TheDevilInTheDark The Devil in The Dark]]", where Federation miners were being attacked by a monster and they asked the Enterprise to help them find the creature and kill it. Despite the alien's ''very'' non-human appearance, it turns out that '''A)''' [[ItCanThink it is sentient]], '''B)''' it only started attacking the miners when they carelessly [[MonsterIsAMommy destroyed several of its eggs]], and '''C)''' it is actually quite friendly, and willing to help if the miners would stop doing that. To their credit the human miners are horrified to discover they've been killing alien babies and are willing to forgive the monster for killing several of their own.

** In the episode "Silicon Avatar," Picard attempts to contact and reason with a [[MonsterofTheWeek giant silicon entity that has stripped planets of life and once attacked the ship]]. Sadly, the question of if a being that has caused untold destruction should have rights and should it be considered good or evil if it is just stripping planets to survive was unanswered, since a rogue scientist on the Enterprise destroyed it.
** In "Inheritance", Data meets his mother, Juliana Tainer (formerly Juliana Soong). It later turns out that she is an android too, created by his father to appear totally human and with the copied memories and personality of the original Juliana (who died after slipping into a coma), but she is unaware of this fact. When Data accesses the holographic message his father left in Juliana's positronic brain and confronts him about not telling her what she really is, Dr. Soong makes his feelings on the matter clear:
--> '''Data:''' Then... you do not believe she should know the truth?.
--> '''Dr Soong:''' Truth... the truth is, in every way that matters, she is Juliana Soong.
** The episode "Evolution" dealt with a colony of nanomachines that evolved greatly after they escaped Wesley Crusher's containment and began messing with the ''Enterprise''. A scientist that was on board the ''Enterprise'' continuously demanded their destruction, mostly because they were screwing around with his experiment and he was on a strict time table. Ultimately, the nanomachines and the scientist comes to an understanding and the nanites are dropped off on an uninhabited world to evolve on their own.

*** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E18UpTheLongLadder Up the Long Ladder]]", the crew encounters the Mariposans, a planet whose [[PlanetOfHats hat]] is reproduction through cloning, but the [[CloneDegeneration replicative fading]] (a real phenomenon) is starting to catch up to them. After the crew declines to willingly donate, they rip off [=DNA=] from Riker and Pulaski by force and erase their memories of it. When this is discovered, Riker and Pulaski (a ''doctor''!) find the lab and blithely massacre the developing duplicates. Riker states that the clones' existence "diminishes" him.
*** In "Second Chances", the crew discovers another Riker (who comes to use "Thomas", his middle name), created unknowingly by a transporter accident early in Will Riker's career and just before he broke up with Dianna in order to accept a promotion based on his heroism during that very mission. Due to the nature of the technology, there's no question that they really ''are'' both the "original" Riker. Despite being a pleasant and charming guy, Riker doesn't get along with himself. Will sees in Tom a preserved version of a less mature time in his life, reminding him of all his flaws and making him second guess the choices he's made in the years since that mission. Tom resents Will for getting to live the life he ''dreamed'' of while marooned and, now that he's been rescued, for crowding him out of returning to his own life (especially when it comes to pursing a relationship with the woman he's been pining for that whole time). Overall, they develop a relationship not unlike (tense) brothers and Tom leaves to build a new life.

-->''""Your intelligence is just electrons," she said, "the same as mine. You're just electrons... the same as me. You always seemed too intelligent to be a protein chauvinist, Captain."''

** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E9TheMeasureOfAMan The Measure Of A Man]]," he is the subject of a hearing by the Judge Advocate General of Starfleet to determine his legal status: is he property or a person? The judge mentioned that they were ''"dancing around the basic issue -does Data have a soul?"'', which she concluded could not be proven or disproven, just as it could not be proven or disproven for humans and other organic sentiments. The episode was clear about the precedent being set, noting that if Data could be mass-produced, denying the sentience of androids would lead to a slave race. ''Voyager'' later showed this is exactly what happened with the EMH holograms -- opening up a PlotHole by not really exploring why the precedent of Data's hearing was ignored.

** The treatment of duplicates in ''Trek'' is even more schizophrenic. Just to examine two episodes featuring Riker:

** One episode had a direct TakeThat to "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E18UpTheLongLadder Up the Long Ladder]]", where Odo points out while arresting a criminal who had faked his own death that killing your own clone is ''still murder''.

** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E9TheMeasureOfAMan The Measure Of A Man]]," he is the subject of a hearing by the Judge Advocate General of Starfleet to determine his legal status: is he property or a person? The judge mentioned that they were ''"dancing around the basic issue -does Data have a soul?"'', which she concluded could not be proven or disproven, just as it could not be proven or disproven for humans and other organic sentients.

*** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E18UpTheLongLadder Up the Long Ladder]]", the crew encounters the Mariposans, a planet whose [[PlanetOfHats hat]] is reproduction through cloning, but the [[CloneDegeneration replicative fading]] (a real phenomenon) is starting to catch up to them. They rip off [=DNA=] from Riker and Pulaski. When this is discovered, Riker and Pulaski (a ''doctor''!) find the lab and blithely massacre the duplicates. Riker states that the clones' existence "diminishes" him.
*** In "Second Chances", the crew discovers another Riker (who comes to use "Thomas", his middle name), created unknowingly by a transporter accident early in Will Riker's career. Even though they clash, Tom's personhood is never questioned (Will treats him as the twin brother he never knew and saves him!), and he eventually comes to be treated as if he were a newly awake coma patient, leaving to build a new life.

*** This suggests that under Federation law, a clone is granted all the rights of a sentient being when it is activated. Destroying a clone that has not yet been activated, like Riker and Pulaski did, might be seen as the moral and legal equivalent of discarding a frozen embryo.

** ''[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS6E11FairHaven Fair Haven]]'' and ''[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS6E17SpiritFolk Spirit Folk]]'' establish that ''all'' holographic characters are sentient people and everyone knows this, they just usually have a hard-coded WeirdnessCensor to keep them from realizing the nature of their existence. It makes everybody treating them like video game characters kind of horrifying in hindsight.

** "[[StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E23IBorg I Borg]]" asks the question "What Measure is a Borg?": the ''Enterprise'' comes across a lone Borg unit who was the sole survivor of a crash, where they learn a great deal more about the differences between Borg and individualistic organics, posing the question of whether this Borg should be treated as an individual deserving of life as anyone else, or be used as computer virus carrier to weaponize against the Borg. Picard and Guinan, both of whom have good reason to despise the Borg, find themselves faced with hard questions regarding their Borg captive's humanity. All the while, the Borg is forced to contemplate the prospect that it is not just part of a collective, but an independent individual.

** Another iconic example from [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries The Original Series]] was the episode "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E25TheDevilInTheDark The Devil in The Dark]]", where Federation miners were being attacked by a monster and they asked the Enterprise to help them find the creature and kill it. Despite the alien's ''VERY'' non-human appearance, it turns out that '''A)''' [[ItCanThink it is sentient]], '''B)''' it only started attacking the miners when they carelessly [[MonsterIsAMommy destroyed several of its eggs]], '''C)''' it is actually quite friendly and willing to help if the miners would stop doing that. To their credit the human miners are horrified to discover they've been killing alien babies and are willing to forgive the monster for killing several of their own.

** "[[StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E23IBorg I Borg]]" asks the question "What Measure is a Borg?": the ''Enterprise'' comes across a lone Borg unit who was the sole survivor of a crash, where they learn a great deal more about the differences between Borg and individualistic organics, posing the question of whether this Borg should be treated as an individual deserving of life as anyone else, or be used as computer virus carrier to weaponize against the Borg. Picard and Guinan, both of whom have good reason to despise the Borg, find themselves faced with hard questions regarding their Borg captive's humanity...

** "[[StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E23IBorg I Borg]]" asks the question "What Measure is a Borg?": the ''Enterprise'' comes across a lone Borg unit who was the sole survivor of a crash, where they learn a great deal more about the differences between Borg and individualistic organics, posing the question of whether this Borg should be treated as an individual deserving of life as anyone else, or be used as computer virus carrier to weaponize against the Borg. Picard and Guinan, both of whom have good reason to despise the Borg, find themselves faced with hard questions regarding their Borg captive...