“They deleted my ethical subroutines.”

4 min readDec 9, 2021

What am I passionate about and what would I do if money was not a concern? Difficult questions to answer until, I got excited discussing linguistics, theology, equality and justice with a friend and then; spent the morning watching and researching two episodes of Star Trek. Science fiction, by creating analogues worlds and scenarios, gives on an incredible opportunity to “To boldly go where no man (or woman) has gone before’?” or perhaps walk over ground and “truths that the great men (and women) have always known.”

This morning’s reverie led to a quote I read many years ago, but had forgotten its impact. It’s from Doris Lessing’s, The Golden Notebook, a book I did not enjoy, but the ideas behind the quote are unforgettable: “We spend our lives fighting to get people very slightly more stupid than ourselves to accept truths that the great men have always known. They have known for thousands of years that to lock a sick person into solitary confinement makes him worse. They have known for thousands of years that a poor man who is frightened of his landlord and of the police is a slave. They have known it. We know it. But do the great enlightened mass of the British people know it? No. It is our task, Ella, yours and mine, to tell them. Because the great men are too great to be bothered. They are already discovering how to colonise Venus and to irrigate the moon. That is what is important for our time. You and I are the boulder-pushers. All our lives, you and I, we’ll put all our energies, all our talents into pushing a great boulder up a mountain. The boulder is the truth that the great men know by instinct, and the mountain is the stupidity of mankind.” Doris Lessing, The Golden Notebook.

Men and women have known these truths but we all bring, to them our own, very individual perspectives so it is, to boldly go where no one has gone before. I have even, watched Equinox Star Trek: Voyager S5 to 6 before but, this morning I had to do further research.

Equinox Star Trek: Voyager S5 to 6

These episodes start with The USS Voyager being surprised to receive an emergency hail from another Federation star ship, the Equinox, in the Delta Quadrant. The Equinox became stuck in the Delta Quadrant in the same way as Voyager so, they both face a long journey home and have encountered some hostile aliens. In addition, Voyager’s Captain Janeway, admires Ransom, the captain of the Equinox and had always wanted to meet him. She is, however, destined to be disappointed in her hero, and herself because The Equinox is Voyager’s darker parallel. They discover that the Equinox crew has been slaughtering creatures just to enhance their warp drive, traversing 10,000 light years in two weeks. It is a reflection on humanity, fallen heroes/values, obsession and whether the ends justify the means.

“We travelled over ten thousand light years in less than two weeks. We’d found our salvation. How could we ignore it?”
“By adhering to the oath you took as Starfleet officers — to seek out life… not destroy it.”
“It’s easy to cling to your principles when you’re standing on a vessel with its bulkheads intact, manned by a crew that’s not starving.”
“It’s never easy, but if we turn our backs on our principles, we stop being Human.” Captain Ransom and Captain Janeway

When Janeway asks Ransom about his Prime Directive violations, he says something ambiguous about “walking that line once or twice” before drawing attention to the fallen dedication plaque on The Bridge. The episodes ends, with Captain Janeway retrieving her own ships plaque, from the floor.

Memorable lines include:

Both the Equinox and Voyager EMH’s have their ethical subroutines deleted by the Equinox crew: it makes him “more efficient”.

Seven: You destroy lifeforms to attain your goals, then claim that they left you no choice. Does that logic comfort you?

· I’m putting an end to your experiments. And you are hereby relieved of your command. You and your crew will be confined to quarters.”
“Please, show them leniency. They were only following my orders.”
“Their mistake.” — Captain Janeway and Captain Ransom

At the end of the episode Seven, promises the Doctor she will secure his ethical sub-routines from being deleted in the future. Maybe we should all secure ours from time to time.