Similitude

[Honeybee]

Since this is hands-down my favorite episode, I thought it deserved its own thread. Especially since one writer on this site (Glory) has promised us a Porthos/Sim fic (sniff) and Alelou just produced her missing scene.

I've come to think of Sim being essentially Trip, if not actually Trip. Of course, I suppose if you believe in a soul - then the two would be separate people. If not, you might believe them to be the same, as Sim does. I guess I'm somewhere in the middle.

But, since Sim believes himself to be Trip, does what he thinks carry weight?

And, anyone want to recommend good Similitude fics?

[EntAllat]

And, anyone want to recommend good Similitude
fics?

Aigh. YES. I know of a very good one. Long and really well done, but I can't for the life of me remember the title of it. It assumes that Sim survives the procedure and is around once Trip regains consciousness. I think there's a scene where Trip, Malcolm and Sim are on a planet and have to make it across a lake with some really nasty vegetation ...

I'm only vaguely remembering this fic and now I want to read it again. Anybody know which one I'm remembering? It's on Warp 5 somewhere.

[bluetiger]

EntAllat, I think this is it

A Life Worth Living by: Gabi

[EntAllat]

EntAllat, I think this is it

A Life Worth Living by: Gabi

Yes! That's the one, thanks!

[Honeybee]

Thanks for that recommendation. Really well written fic. I think it's a great episode, and I really like the whole self-sacrifice from Sim. Yet, there are other possibilities. What if they both survived? What if Sim survived and Trip didn't? Lots of unexplored stuff in both those possibilities.

Also, I like the fact that it leaves it open how Trip reacted. It works for the episode, but I do like reading accounts of Trip's reaction.

[Glory1863]

I know I'm going to have to watch Similitude again (like that's a fate worse then death!) to do my Porthos/Sim fic, but didn't the Sim clone have a very limited life span even shorter than Kes' on Voyager? If he had a normal life span and Trip's memories/skills, then why bother to save Trip at all?

[bluetiger]

Okay this one is kind of different. Jon loves Trip, but Trip dies and Sim lives. The clone ages normally and Jon raises him as their son. Very nice take on Archer and the other crewmembers raising the baby to manhood.

Substitution by: Gigi Sinclair

[Honeybee]

Right. Why bother? I suppose it boils down to whether you think they are the same or different. Ideally, Phlox would have saved them both. Again, if you think people are nothing but genetic material and memories, then Trip and Sim are the same person - with Sim simply having additional memories on top. If you believe in something more, say a soul, then they must be different.

Sim floats the possibility of Phlox researching a way to stop his rapid aging - his lifespan is two weeks - and he argues that his life should be just as valued as Trip's. Phlox says the research, some kind of enzyme that could stop Sim's aging, isn't prove and by the time he had created the enzyme the window for saving Trip would have passed. The fact that Sim argues in favor of his own life indicates he sees himself as more than spare parts, that he's the living conscious entity that T'Pol said he would be.

But in the end, Archer is unwilling to take the risk. I think he makes it pretty clear he'll order Sim's death to save Trip, and lucky for him Sim chooses death instead. But Sim does it not for Archer, but for Trip and Lizzie and the mission. That's what Trip would have done.

But, if it had been equally plausible to save Sim instead of Trip, it would have made Phlox and Archer both face up to the question of which one of these entities is Trip and moreover, which one of them has the right to live?

[bluetiger]

That is sort of addressed in the fic I recommended. As Charles Tucker IV grows, Archer comes to realize that he is not Trip.

[Honeybee]

It's interesting to note that clones of a sort do exist in nature: identical twins. Nobody seems to think that identical twins are the same person - but then again they don't have the same memories as each other, both of them starting from scratch.

I'll have to check out that fic, BT. It sounds like it brings up a slew of other ethical problems.